Star+Flower

Our Valentine's Day

I would say that this is my third favorite "Day". I love LOVE.

I thought about what I wanted to give Allan and the kiddos way in advance.Those $1 mailboxes from Target are so cute! I didn't want to mess them up by trying to cover them with paper though so I just simply decorated them with stickers. We gave Mia a package of her favorite candy, Gummi Bears ("jelly bears" as she calls them). Aidan got bubble gum, a coupon for getting to stay up an hour later after bedtime, a "Get Out of Jail" card, and a letter from me. A funny thing is that Allan and I gave each other gifts that we could share. How very practical and totally us!

I found my gifts waiting for me on the dining table this morning. Well, the B&B stuff only kinda counts because I told him I wanted them. But he got me (or should I say us) a new camera lens! When he finally got home from work I couldn't wait to have him open my gift for him which was a Holga kit...which I immediately took away to look through the contents and marvel at the images in the included picture book.

He also gave me two dozen pink roses that he arranged in a vase himself and chocolate-covered strawberries from Godiva. Kisses and hugs from the kiddos. My family makes me so happy. 

Valentine's Day is also Grandma's birthday so we celebrated with her here at home. Mia likes blowing out birthday candles and taking swipes at frosting, but she will not eat cake. I just love how tiny it is!

Hope your wish comes true, Grandma!

And, lastly, my boy who is my heart. I know he's going to grow up wise just like his Daddy. He told me something so simple today and yet it was something that I really needed to hear. To have it come from him just tears me to pieces. He gave me the best Valentine gift without even knowing.

p.s. I spoke too soon about Spring. It's been cold and windy again for the past two days. Sigh.   

Magical Bubbles

At noon it feels more like summer than spring, but the late-afternoon weather is just perfect. I want to take advantage of it now and clean up our neglected backyard. That's the project this weekend. Today we blew bubbles for Mia and her face just lit up at the mere mention of it. It's nice seeing the kids run around on the grass again.   

Lots to Say

I felt so sorry for Aidan yesterday. Wednesdays are probably the hardest day of the week for him. He gets up at 6:30 a.m. for school and comes home at about 3:15 p.m. He asks for a little break so I let him have 30 minutes before he starts on his homework. He has math, spelling, and, the hardest part, answering questions from his reading book. By the time he's done (but sometimes he doesn't finish) it's time to get ready for Taekwondo and he doesn't get back from that until 7 p.m. So when he gets home he will finish his homework if he hadn't done so already and then we eat dinner, then he takes a bath, reads for 20 minutes (which is also part of his homework) and then sleeps by 8:30 p.m.

He gets easily distracted and that accounts for some minutes wasted while doing his homework. I get upset with him sometimes because he likes to get up and walk around while thinking about his answers, but I know it's doesn't do him any good because he eventually comes to me for help. I know on some days he doesn't want to do homework. Sometimes Mia distracts him with her playing too. But I really do feel sorry for him on Wednesdays.

He's almost done reading the first book of the Narnia series, but I wonder if the books are age-appropriate for him in terms of comprehension. My brother didn't read them until high school. Maybe it's time to go to Borders and buy the rest of those Spiderwick Chronicles books.

Mia has a new obsession: Ni Hao, Kai-lan. It debuted today on Nick Jr. coinciding with the Chinese New Year (Happy Chinese New Year! It's my year...year of the Rat!), but the first episode has been on Video on Demand for the past week and she has been watching it several times a day. It's already grown on me because it's so cute, plus we get to learn a little bit of Mandarin at the same time.

I decided to play dress up with her today and put her hair in really high pigtails and she wore her prettiest dress. I let her jump all over my bed while I took pictures of her. This made me appreciate having a digital camera even more because I could just keep shooting away without worrying about running out of film. 125 pictures and I was able to get a few good ones.

Oh my goodness. I look at this picture and I feel like my heart is going to burst from happiness. Now I need to have a photo-shoot with Aidan.

Peekaboo!

Here's a layout using Prima's new Tea and Silk Collection papers. Have you seen all the sneak peeks at the Prima blog yet? This release is going to be amazing.

And I'm doubly happy because the new products KI Memories has coming out are so awesome. I'm totally giddy about it. Sneak peeks will be coming soon and it will definitely be worth the wait. 

Catching Up With Blogging!

Ah, that was a nice break. Well, actually, now I'm a little sick. I have this cough that won't go away. We've had lots of rain and it's been windy-cold. I'm sure Aidan and Mia miss being able to play outside. I can't believe I'm saying this but even I miss the warm weather! Spring can't come early enough, that's for sure.

Today, Mia and I went outside briefly so I could take pictures of a couple of layouts that I made for the Prima booth. She's wearing her PJ's, her sweater that she's been using all this winter, and her Uggs. I sure do love her in boots. And she has a lollipop in her mouth. It's early morning and the first thing she thinks about is candy. This girl has a major sweet tooth.

We went to Aidan's First Reconciliation last Saturday and this is what Mia wore. She looks like a little elf with her hat but I think it's so cute that she wants to wear it. She's such a girly-girl too that whenever we go out she has to have her bag. She will not go out the door without it and she just puts in whatever she happens to like. In this picture she had a flashlight inside. Right now she has an empty plastic goody bag and a book in it.

Aidan was a bit nervous that day. All the way up to the time he met with Father he kept telling us that he didn't know what to say. When he finally came out, he seemed subdued and I thought he was going to cry. I would ask him what he was feeling and he would just shrug his shoulders. I'm still wondering what he confessed. I tried to get it out of him but Allan laughed at me saying that whatever Aidan said was between Aidan and Father and God, of course. But I imagine he would've said that he sometimes doesn't listen and he leaves his room a mess and leaves his clothes on the floor. He really has hardly anything to confess. He's such a good boy, my Aidan.

I'm in the midst of a busy scrapping week with new Prima goodies and the SOMO kit. The ideas are not flowing very easily, but I have to finish! I won't be attending CHA, but I'll have projects at the Prima and Xyron booths :)

Catching Up with Life

I should have wrote this earlier but I'll just be taking a short blog break, probably another week or so! See you in February!

Don't Call Her Princess

Mia was wearing a Disney shirt with all the princesses on it and she pointed to each one asking me what their names were. Then we had this conversation...

Me: How about you? You're a princess!

Her: Noooo!

Me: Yes, you are. You're my pretty princess!

Her: No, I'm not. I'm not a princess. I'm just Mia. I'm just a girl.

And it's good to be just a girl, isn't it? If you look at all the stories, princesses always have something terrible happening to them, only to be saved by the handsome prince. I'd like my girl to grow up being able to take care of herself. The handsome prince can be the bonus :)

The Dora Obsession has reached fever pitch. She's asking to watch all the time. She has Dora t-shirts, dolls, coloring books, story books, a Gameboy game, pillowsheets, blanket, a huge tent and she still can't get enough. She doesn't even think about Yo Gabba Gabba! anymore.

In scrappyland, I'm so thankful that I get another year to design for Prima. So exciting!

(Artwork on new banner courtesy of Aidan. It's super sweet and I love it so much.)

Inspired

I have loved Rebecca Sower's work ever since I started scrapbooking and, after looking at her blog for inspiration, I made these four little tags. Of course I plan on making more and filling up the corkboard which probably amounts to 26 more tags! That's cool because they're fun and fast to make. (The tags are MM Dyed Tags.)

Something New

Allan can attest to the fact that I'm obsessed with my magazines. I love going to the mailbox and finding that it's stuffed with new issues. My most favorite is Domino, but my list includes Home Companion, Martha Stewart Living, Cookie, Wondertime, Sunset, Real Simple, and Cloth, Paper, Scissors. I'm so sad that Blueprint has just put out it's last issue.

I have ever-growing piles of old magazines just sitting on my shelves and sometimes I get the urge to look through them again, but last month I gave myself the liberty to cut them up. I started on (I guess I can call it) this inspiration book of sorts. It's an extremely old Canson journal that I bought when I started scrapbooking 7 years ago. Finally put to use! I'm only two pages in. I got an idea for another page, but I changed my mind and I have other plans for the clippings. I just wanted to share what I have so far:

I drew those lines for journaling, but I'm still thinking about what to say. And it looks pretty simple right now but who knows what it'll evolve into as I progress. I'm not giving myself a time frame or schedule either. I'll just create when the mood strikes me.

P.S. I'm almost all better. My sore throat doesn't seem to want to go away though. Thank you so much to those of you who commented and wished me well! ♥ 

It's the 7th

I'm a whole week late to the party.

The holidays were tough times. Allan was sick two weeks before Christmas. During the next week the kids had a horrendous bout of what we think was the stomach flu. It was so bad that in one day I did six loads of laundry. Instead of being outside and experiencing the joys of the season, we were stuck on the couch watching cartoons all day. Poor Aidan wanted to watch Christmas shows "to get his spirit up." Luckily, we experienced a miracle and the kids were well enough to celebrate on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I had a lovely time watching them open presents. Aidan got everything he wanted and Mia loved all of her gifts.

And then it was my turn to be sick. Sore throat, coughing, and I almost went to the doctor because I thought I got pink eye, but that was New Year's Eve so I waited. After two days, my eye cleared up but I'm still a little out of it. I've been experiencing headaches in varying degrees of pain everyday since Christmas. We think it may have to do with my blood pressure and that means I need to go back to my healthful eating habits. Suppressing my love for apple fritter doughnuts is hard, but I have to get it through my thick head that I'm just not the kind of person who can eat whatever and get away with it.

Aidan goes back to school tomorrow. I'm sure Mia's going to be asking all day long where her Kuya is. They've been playing together so much lately. One minute they'll be riding their little cars all around the house. Then they'll go and push their carts around, crashing into each other. Then they'll play "kitchen" and Mia will inevitably get mad at Aidan because she doesn't entirely understand the concept of sharing yet. Then they'll sit side by side as they play video games, Aidan with his DS and Mia with her Gameboy and her Dora The Explorer game. When all that's done they watch TV and I can almost hear them saying to each other, "My turn!" Yeah...that's how it is here.

(So serious...)

My latest layouts:

I like that every year I have a Christmas photo layout of the kiddos and I love this layout alot. I didn't even plan the title so I was really proud of myself for pulling it out of the hat, so to speak. I used embellies from the SOMO's Dec 2006 kit too ;)

These are for the KI Memories gallery:

We wish you a...

and a Happy New Year!