Random Things

I just have to brag. I got an e-mail yesterday about being on another Creative Team. I was so flattered! Unfortunately I'm a bleeding-heart loyalist and have already been spoiled by using the most crisp & perfectly printable digital scrap stuff there is, so I decided I would remain exclusive to Miss Mint's team. (Her stuff is SO GOOD!) Still, I can't tell you how much that e-mail made my day!

In other news, Aiden got a new car seat this weekend in preparation for our big holiday road trips. It looks like it was ripped straight out of the first class section of a 767 and is by far the plushest thing his bum has ever touched! Doesn't matter, he still hates car seats. I'm sadly bidding farewell to the easy days of clipping his infant carrier into shopping carts and my favorite little stroller for fast outings. Grocery shopping next week will be loads of fun, now that he's going to be able to grab items out of the cart and reach the coupons where I keep them in the little tray that the HEB carts have up near the handle bars.

I guess the biggest event this weekend is that Aiden is officially crawling! He started last night at the football party and just took off! He's 7 months (about to be 8) and he's up on all fours. It's fun to watch him, although I wasn't expecting him to crawl for another month. Oh well, lock up the cupboards! My mom and all her fancy, breakable decorations are in for a real treat this week! LOL!

Before I go, here is a LO I finished using the new "bright grunge" trend. I've been seeing just a few things in the DigiShopTalk gallery like it but basically, you scrap grunge style but instead of dirty browns, blacks, grays & greens you substitute bright colors for the dirt & smudges on things. Notice the Cardboard Grunge background paper? I just can't quit using them!!!

Productive Day

My mom was in town yesterday to see Aiden. We went to lunch and then stopped in at my favorite local boutique to do some shopping for the more difficult people on our list. They had some really cute stuff and candles 50% off that I might have to go back & get...

When we got back to the house mom surprised Aiden with a box full of wooden toy sets by Melissa & Doug. He was happy to have something new to play with but I was surprised because everything she gave him was what she had told me he was getting for Christmas. I asked her why she gave him the early gift and she admitted that she had bought him a lot for Christmas already (that she didn't tell me about) and that everyone else had fun shopping for him, too, and she was worried we wouldn't be able to fit all his new toys in the car for the ride home - let alone our gifts, too. WHAT! Apparently everyone in the family and extended family was so excited to have someone to buy toys for, since Sheena is the last one that got toys and she's now 23, that they all went toy shopping for Aiden. I immediately had visions of Brian spending hours trying to pack the car, lashing toys to the roof of the Xterra and trying to rent a U-Haul the day after Thanksgiving. Now I am feeling extra nervous about how we're going to get all our stuff home. I'm going to have to be careful when packing, we have to travel light! And that's just getting it home, where are we going to put all this stuff in our modest little house???

Any ways, Aiden went to bed early after all the excitement and I finished a layout:



This uses Miss Mint's Cardboard Grunge papers and the leaves from October Rust. I REALLY like combining these two items! I can't wait for the new holiday stuff to come out!

I have a style!!!

I found descriptions of digi scrapping styles on a website the other day and I'm proud to say I'm a BLENDY! Basically this means I use odds & ends from lots of different kits to create very unique, sometimes super-cluttered pages. I started a poll on the right so you can tell me your scrapping style, too!

The house is straight, fall cleaning is done and I'm back in the saddle and doing LO's:



This is Aiden's first lick of an ice cream cone. I know every mom has a thousand messy ice cream pictures but these were so funny to us! Especially how he kept opening his mouth SO wide to let me know he wanted more. He's so expressive!

I wish I could say I had more interesting things going on but I don't. I "helped" Kelsey today decide which of her forty thousand gorgeous new pictures should go on her website and then stayed at her house because everyone kept dropping by. (Her house is the hang out place. Totally baby-proof and the twins will entertain ANY kiddo, even Aiden!) Random get-togethers are fun for us mommies!

No Scrapping, Just Housecleaning!

How boring am I? Not a single page scrapped in three days! That's okay, my house has come back together nicely and I'm doing some serious fall cleaning that is making the place look great. (Ever scrubbed all your baseboards? I did this week!)

Also today I have been filling bracelet orders not only for my webstie but also for Alisha Ashton's website, Small but Splendid. She sells GORGEOUS blessing gowns & outfits and now, my bracelets! I have to admit that I thought we would only get one or two orders a month from her site but this week, her sales are keeping pace with my site's! Way to go Alisha! What is really funny is how different the product sales are. Of COURSE the pink chocolate is the best-seller on both our sites right now. It always is in the fall. Oddly enough, Alisha is selling tons of the cotton candy swirl on her site while I continue to sell a completely random mix of other bracelets that seems to change every week. (Although the candy sprinkles bracelet and the purple bracelets are picking up!) It's been really nice to have the "trends" from both sites!

This month is zooming by. We leave in 10 days to go to my parent's place on the lake for Thanksgiving and I don't have a single gift wrapped. (We're doing Christmas at the same time.) When I get home I have to find a place to stash all the gifts because I'm hosting a lunch for our new mom's group the very next day and then the holiday kits will be out and I'll have pages to scrap. Then my sister is getting married December 14 and thank goodness it's here in Houston but that will be a Thursday-through-Sunday kind of deal and then we leave for Christmas with Brian's family in Oklahoma. CRAZY!

Oh, and somewtime after Christmas while it's still cold I simply MUST have Kelsey take our family pictures. The stuff she has been cranking out is magazine-worthy and STUNNING!!!

Holidays!!!

I love the holidays! Thanksgiving is next week and I'm actually looking forward to the trip - maybe because we're also doing Christmas at the same time? Mostly I enjoy seeing my siblings and my dad is always hilarious at the holidays. Aiden will have a lot of fun out at the lake and since my mom has been shopping for him since August, he's sure to make out like a bandit!

Unfortunately not all my Christmas shopping is done. I have a few more people to shop for and some jewelry gifts I need to get made....and very little time to do it in!

This weekend was fun for us. We had a birthday party yesterday and then we went to Babies R Us to pick up some new goodies and items to baby-proof the house. Brian has projects to do now and he loves it! I got just a touch of scrapping done, too. Here's the birthday girl:

This is Adalyn, one of Aiden's playmates. Diana threw an adorable hot pink party for her and Addy LOVED her cake! It was the cutest thing ever! I'm so greatful for my group of friends. I am so lucky to have so many other moms close by and Aiden is lucky to have so many children his age to enjoy being with!

Friday

Yesterday was a great day! I ran errands in the morning (the weather was gorgeous!), grocery shopped around noon, came home & unloaded everything, cleaned, had the carpet re-attached, cleaned some more and made our favorite salad for dinner. A very productive day! Unfortunately Brian caught some sort of stomach bug and went to bed at 8 something last night only to wake up around 11 throwing up. No fun for him. Or me - I didn't really get an evening break but luckily Aiden wasn't too bad and Brian took him all this morning so I could get a little extra sleep.

Any ways, while Brian was snoozing, I scrapped a couple pictures of him holding Aiden when he was just a few hours old:



I like how boyish but sweet this page looks. I used a bunch of different kits and everything mixed quite well.

We're off to a birthday party this afternoon!

Peeing Picasso

Aiden's mischevious personality is starting to show through. This afternoon I was busy dusting and putting decor items back when I noticed Aiden's diaper needed to be changed. I got his diaper off but like every 7 month old, the changing table is a battle trying to keep Aiden from flipping over and off. Sometimes I let him flip over towards the window and look out, which is exactly what I let him do while I wrapped his diaper & tossed it in the pail. Five seconds, right? I flipped him back over to find a big wet spot on the terry cloth cover and an even larger pool of pee on the wood dresser top! He must have leaked a full cup! I quickly dressed Aiden then placed him on the floor in the kitchen with a Gerber wagon wheel fruit puff to eat while I went back to get the pee-soaked cloth cover & his laundry to wash. I got everything in the washer pretty quick and looked over to see that he had army-crawled over by "Brian's Chair", which is up against the half wall in our kitchen, and was painting the wall with the soggy, wet gerber puff! What a handful!

No pictures of all of this but I did have to call Brian and laugh! I'm afraid we're going to have to touch-up paint Aiden's first masterpiece...