Monkey Business

A friend from church is expecting a sweet baby boy very soon so several ladies from church got together last week for a baby shower. Her "theme" for the baby's bedding is green/blue/brown & monkeys. I created this paper bag album for her based on her bedding. I paper pieced this monkey from a drawing I did after looking at her crib blanket.




I also made advice/blessing "tags" for her shower attenders to write a message on. I have done these for several showers in the past - it is becoming a tradition! You may also remember these dolphin shower tags I made several months ago.

The "front" of the tag is decorated & the "back" of the tag is hand stamped with journaling lines.

And, since you all seemed so concerned about the disaster that is often Lindsay's bedroom, this is what else happens when I'm busy with 8+ orders and doing the above pictured goodies...

This is approximately five loads of laundry waiting to be folded. Not too bad in and of itself except, this was just the start of what needed to be washed/dried/folded/put away. (And, I'm still working on it...)

Finally, it was Jeremy's turn (today) to provide a birthday treat for someone he works with. Unfortunately last night, after he mixed the cake batter, he realized that the only cupcake cups we had were festive Christmas Santa ones. We decided that we should add to the festivity with a variety of holiday sprinkles. We tried to include most major seasons/holidays. You will find he was able to create cupcakes for Christmas, fall, Halloween, Easter, spring, Valentine's Day, and July 4th with sprinkles conveniently located right in my very own kitchen cabinet.

P.S. I have 67 of 72 pages done of my big order. I plan on being done by the weekend. Yeah!

Catching up: a hodgepodge of happenings

My blog entries are not nearly as frequent as I would like or plan for them to be SO... I will be using this post to catch up on several topics I have been meaning to post about but just can't seem to find the time. Speaking of time, I have still been incredibly busy - getting about an order a day. Also, I have 57 of 72 pages done on my "huge order". I hope to be completely done with this one by next week sometime and I will be SO HAPPY! I have also been busy keeping up with the housekeeping though of course not up to my neat-freak friends' standards (Kristina and you others). Why do I have so many friends that are neat-freaks and I am so not? What does this mean? What does this say about me? About them?

SOOOO, is this better?


And no, I did not just shove everything in the closet (though my clever children seem to find this method of "cleaning" quite effective).

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Next topic: When Perrys' Met Sally. Several weeks ago, Laura's first grade class made muppets. First they studied all about Jim Henson and the muppets. Then they all made their own muppet characters. This was too cute! I got to see several of the muppets when I went for Laura's parent teacher conference. Laura created a horse named Sally and wrote a story to go along with it. She was SO EXCITED for us to meet Sally. So far, she says this was her favorite thing about first grade.

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Next topic: A blessed day - January, 25, 2009. Jeremy and I were so proud of Laura's decision to be baptized. She attended classes at church to learn more about baptism and it's significance in her life. She has expressed an interest in being baptized for quite some time and it was truly a joyous occasion for our family to watch her interest turn into reality. I am so thankful that she has chosen early in her life to follow Jesus. I pray that she will always seek Him no matter what her circumstances may be. She read a statement in front of everyone about her decision to be baptized and what it meant to her. I wanted to put it on here but I can't find it at the moment. It was great though - she really thought about it and took the initiative to write it out all by herself. I was so proud of her!

Unfortunately my photos are not very good because my camera battery was dead unbeknown st to me until I got to church. These photos are just "stills" from our video camera. Hopefully you'll get the idea though...

Okay, I'm getting REALLY annoyed because the photos are apparently on our laptop. Since they are not great photos anyway, I'm just going to forget it. Picture a beautiful girl being baptized in a pink shirt!!!!!!!

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Next topic: Worms! My four year old little girly girl LOVES to dig in the dirt. Loves to find worms and keep them captive in her sand box buckets. She also LOVES to wear dresses. I just think these photos are cute. She's the perfect combination of girly girl & tomboy! : ) I don't love worms but I DO love these two girls!

Ahhhh, the smell of big, pink, wet worms in spring...

I suppose that's an adequate amount of catching up for now. More soon...

He is Risen!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! We certainly did. Here are a few photos of the busy weekend...

First, our church's annual "Egg"stravaganza:

Dyeing eggs:

My attempts at getting cute photos of the girls in their Easter dresses:

Needless to say, I got no adorable Easter dress photos. Oh well!

For anyone keeping track, I now have 44 pages of 72 done on my "big order". I also have about six or seven other orders for albums - LOTS of albums plus two shower gifts I'm working on. Business has been good but I'm certainly feeling the pressure. I can only do one job full-time - either housekeeping or working on my scrapbooking orders. I already have the other full-time job of taking care of my family. Anybody got any great suggestions for how to manage it all at once???

When I'm busy working on orders and not keeping track of what my children (Lindsay in this case) are doing, this is what happens:

I need some serious HELP around here!

Do not be alarmed if you don't hear from me. I'm either working on scrapbook pages for people (certainly not my own - everyone else will have nice scrapbooks of their children except me). Or, I have drowned in a sea of dress up clothes and dollhouse furniture.

Circus, circus

We had SUCH A FUN weekend with my parents, sister & brother-in-law, and my nieces! It was so nice to spend some time relaxing, shopping & laughing. Laura & Lindsay had a BLAST at Aunt Beth & Uncle Dave's house which will now be known as Kid Heaven. They LOVED spending time with cousins Karilyn & Heidi!

On Saturday, we all (sans Grandpa 'cause he was working) went to the Shrine Circus. The kids really had fun. Well, sort of. Laura and Karilyn enjoyed it, Lindsay got hot and irritable and went outside to hang out with Daddy for the second half. Heidi slept through most of the second half. They did enjoy going for a pony ride except Heidi who would sooner have her hair pulled out one strand at a time than sit on a pony. According to Laura, riding the pony was her favorite part of the circus and "it was well worth the money". (She paid?) Thanks Uncle Dave for taking us to the circus!

My photos didn't turn out too well - it was dark inside the Civic Center but here are a few...

One of my highlights of the weekend was going to the paper store and filling two huge boxes & a bag with cardstock I will now use and hoard for scrapbooking. (They sell paper by the pound & it's really cheap!) I LOVE going there. I LOVE paper! But now, where, oh where will I put you, you glorious paper???

Now the only bad news of the weekend. I didn't work. I actually took time off (Gasp!) and tried not to think about all I had to do. Now I am feeling behind and overwhelmed and unmotivated. I did finish one of my custom paper bag albums yesterday. Here are some photos:

Next up (I am writing this here so I don't forget!): Laura's baptism photos, Worms, & When Perrys' Met Sally. Next time you hear from me, I better have done some work.