All I Want For Christmas...

I am loving the timing of Madison losing her front teeth and then a third one! She is so cute with that toothless little grin! So I thought it only perfect to scrapbook this momentous occasion and what better supplies to use than the Merrymint line! This is my absolute favorite this holiday season and it is what I will be scrapbooking all of this Christmas in!
Supplies: Merrymint papers: Peanut Brittle, Licorice, Caramel, Figgy Pudding.
Ribbon: American Crafts; Chipboard accents, Dimensional stickers, flair: AC merrymint line; rub-ons, American Crafts; thickers: American Crafts; Cardstock: American Crafts.

Kaley's kindergarten christmas program

Kaley's kindergarten christmas program was today and it was really sweet. I had to take the videos in little sections so that is why there are so many, but they are short. I took them with my little point and shoot camera so the quality isn't great but she is still adorable to watch! Especially when Hunter (the boys who is santa and is standing next to her) held her hand! Something must be going on there but all that she will tell me is that she hasn't kissed him! ha ha. Enjoy the videos!

You Are My Sunshine

So I was super excited when I saw that the challenge this week on the American Crafts blog was to use the Junior line. Because with twin 2 year old boys you can imagine how many adorable pictures I have of them to use with this amazing set. But then I began to panic when I realized that I had only bought 5 sheets of the paper and two spools of the dollar ribbon! So I really had to think outside the box since I didn't have a single sticker, or flair, or rub-on! Which means that I really want to win this challenge because I have to have more of this line!

This is what I came up with! I used these amazing pictures of Zachary that I got right after he had taken a bath and then I added strips of the different patterned papers that I had bought. The blue is the backside of the Shazam! paper (I love that every sheet of patterned paper has a coordinating solid on the back!). I stitched around where the photo was going to go including on top of the patterned paper strips. I added the thickers and hand cut some shapes from the Blastoff! paper to be part of my title and some cute embellishments and adhered them with 3D foam adhesive to make them pop off the page. Oh, and I used one of those dollar spools of ribbon as photo corners and accents for the smaller photos!
Supplies used:
AC white cardstock
Junior paper: Shazam!
Blastoff!
Ta-Da!
Defense!
Boom!
AC Dollar spool of Junior ribbon
AC thickers in chit chat puffy chesnut and legwarmers felt
Thread
3D foam adhesive squares

Hope you like it!

Mini Album

This is one of my favorite mini albums! I used my favorite pictures of the kids from the year and put it together with lots of American Crafts products!
The pages are made from the chipboard that sandwiches Creative Memories page protectors. I then covered them in American Crafts Backyard and Everyday collection papers.
I added the pictures and then punched and connected it with the bind it all (which I love) and then added some embellishments and ribbons! So easy!
I added some punched shapes and some that I hand cut from AC patterned paper (such a cheap and easy way to make the most of your paper scraps)
The rubons and journaling spots are also from American Crafts and are so versatile! I covered the edges with glossy accents to protect and seal them. Hope you enjoyed!

Friendship Page

supplies: AC cardstock, backyard collection patterned papers (cloud, flower, pink scallop, green) Zing! embossing powder apricot, stamp: AC sentiments set (scallop border), precision pen, Grapefruit Umbrella Thickers, AC pink arrow photo turn, AC: flair, punch: Fiskars.
I cut out some clouds from the cloud paper and put them behind my title and then added a bit of flair to finish it off. I love these umbrella puffy thickers! They might be my favorite ever! Instead of using a brad to attach the photo turn I adhered it with a glue dot and then put a period from the thickers set on top to match the title (because I love them that much!)
I used the American Crafts scallop border stamp with versamark ink on white cardstock and then used Zing! embossing powder in Apricot to emboss. Then I took a regular hole punch and punched out the open circles. Just a little lift at the edges give it nice dimension.

First Day of School

today was the first day of 1st grade for Madison, and the first day of Kindergarten for Kaley. They were both so excited that they were up at 7am dressed and ready to go. However, Neil and I were still in bed trying to fight off the continuous question of "Is it time to go yet?"
I took the girls out front and took some pictures of them before we left for the school. Kaley feels so much better knowing that Madison will be there too. They even share the lunch recess!
Kaley couldn't wait to get inside and see Mrs. Pace. This has been the reason that she has been so excited about going to Kindergarten, because she knew she would have Mrs. Pace!
We took Madison in to her classroom and boy was it a different atmosphere from Kaley's Kindergarten room! Instead of parents everywhere trying to help their child with a sheet of things to write and showing them where all of their stuff was to go, it was a quiet classroom, no parents in there at the time, and all of the kids were sitting and working on stuff! Madison found her desk right away and we got to meet her teacher Miss Gonzales.
It was a great morning! Now I can't wait to go and pick them up and find out how their day was!

Pictures from the 4th (actually the 3rd!)

These are pictures that I took during the fireworks here in Silver Lakes. It started late but ended up being a great show.
I know that the bottom of this picture is blurry but I love how the firework is crystal clear and almost seems to jump out at you!
I love this picture and the glowing red onto the bank of the lake where they were setting them off.
Overall, it turned out to be a great weekend!

Tattered Angels Rocks!

Glimmer Mist is the same great product with a Fabulous NEW Look!
If you haven't tried this stuff yet, run out and get it! It is so much fun to play with and they just made the labels on their bottles even better. Everyone scrapper should have some (or a lot!) Check it out at
www.mytatteredangels.com

Happy 9th Anniversary!

Last night we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary! We went down to Victoria Gardens and had dinner at Flemming's which was absolutely incredible. Luckily we still had a gift card from Pastor Appreciation last October which meant that we could splurge a little. Then we went and saw Transformers 2 which just opened yesterday. It was packed and we barely found seats together, but it was a very good movie and it even had an "Animal Cracker" moment which was a nice romantic break from all of the robots trying to kill each other!
And Neil took me to New York & Company and I got a couple pairs of plaid shorts and tops. He's so sweet!

Dodgers vs. Angels game

Last Saturday night we went to a Dodgers vs. Angels game at Angels stadium with about 40 people from church. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed watching the Dodgers win!
I love this picture of Neil that I got as he intently watched the game.
I had to snap a picture of us in our Dodger blue!
We took a bus down there which was pretty nice except that I was really car sick (or bus sick) by the time that we got down there. We got to watch Brian Regan and the Sandlot which is such a classic! We had a great time!

Disneyland with the Grebel's!

Last Friday we went to Disneyland with the Grebel family. It has gotten too hard for us to go with the four kids and just the two of us so it's always nice to take friends along!
We went on Toy Story Mania which is always a blast. And I finally got (by using peer pressure!) Neil to go on It's a Small World! I like the changes that they made in there and find it much more enjoyable.
I took this picture after we went on Pirates. We also went on Peter Pan (which the boys cried through) and the girls went through the treehouse and on King Triton's Carousel.
The Jungle Cruise is one of our favorites and always feel great on a hot day.
Overall we had an amazing time hanging out with them and would love to do it again! And, of course, we ended the day with a fabulous dinner at Fuddrucker's. So delicious!

CKC Pasadena

This is what I did for two days at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Pasadena. My mom and I got a job working for SEI and we loved every minute of it! I ran their cash register and helped with make n takes and restocked, and of course shopped!
This is me with Sid the owner of SEI. He is a really nice guy and I had a lot of fun talking to him during the down times.
This is my mom working in her booth which she called the "bargain basement booth". The deals here were so incredible that the first morning before we even opened her and I had two huge bags full of stuff for us! But because the deals were so great this was a very busy booth and was mostly full of very cheap women which are usually the rudest kind!
This is Lynn and I on Saturday. He is the one that runs the SEI booth and runs their trucking department that hauls up to 5 semi trucks filled with many of the booths at the show. He goes from show to show and is away a big part of the year. His wife is the one that taught the SEI classes which I wish I could have taken one or two of. Their granddaughter was with them, Jaedan, and I had a lot of fun working with her.
Overall, it was one of the best weekends ever and the best thing that my mom and I have ever done together. We are already signed up to work for them in Ontario in October. I can't wait!

Madison: the Kindergarten Graduate

Madison graduated from Kindergarten today and it was wonderful! They sang songs and performed lots of little things for a classroom full of parents and families. So here are a couple of videos from the program: the one on the left is of Madison saying what she wants to be when she grows up. She apparently thought of one thing and then had so many in her head that she couldn't choose one so she didn't say anything else! The other is of a song they sang, the three girls on the right were supposed to be performing the song while the others were supposed to sing it, well, Madison stole the whole show! She is so animated and adorable. We love her so much and Mrs. Pace loves her too! And she received the Citizenship award for the whole year! One of the boys in her class said, "Yeah, she never gets in trouble!" They all agreed. It was very special!

A Fun Evening

Tonight we went to the house of some friends of ours from out here in Silver Lakes. They needed some help from Neil with technical stuff so we all went over to visit since we haven't seen each other in so long. They have the most amazing backyard and I just happened to have my camera in my purse! Check out these awesome pictures and I think that the one above is my favorite!


I got another picture of Gabriel making his face, I hope he never stops making it.
Zachary was very photogenic tonight and even walked over and sat next to this waterfall when I asked him to!
We sat down outside to have some pizza and this is how Zach decided to eat his since I hadn't cut it for him yet! It was really adorable and we all got a good laugh out of it.

On a whole other note I just found out about these two new lines of products from pebbles. They are absolutely adorable and would be perfect for my pages of the boys or the girls. Check them out here: http://pebblesinc.blogspot.com/2009/05/lil-miss-sneak-peek.html that is for the girls' line and here is the boys' http://pebblesinc.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-post.html

Mrs. Pace"s Class

Here is a picture of the whole class lined up on the stage with a fourth grade class behind them as their backdrop. They looked so cute! I can't believe that the year is almost over already!

Helendale Elementary School Talent Show

This morning was the Helendale Elementary School Talent Show. Mrs. Pace's class performed at the beginning of the program and they did a great job! They were supposed to dress up in costumes from around the world so Madison wore her Jasmine costume and she looked beautiful.
They sang "It's a Small World" which is one of daddy's favorite songs, ha-ha! Here is the video:



After their song they went down the line and each of them said a way that they can make the world a better place. Madison's will make Pop Pop very happy!


Hope you enjoyed watching her! She has worked very hard on this and is very proud. She has really loved Kindergarten and Mrs. Pace!

Beginner Golfers

Here is the video of the girls trying to hit the ball through the opening and closing door (with the help of Daddy). It took Daddy a little while before he realized he should just let them have fun and play their way instead of trying to help them be perfect. It was very sweet to watch.

Neil At Bat

After we were done playing golf I really wanted Neil to try the batting cage. He keeps saying how badly he wants to hit a baseball so I thought, "why not now?" He did pretty well although I think that he would have done better if he had more time to figure out the timing of the machine.
It really made me wish that I could go back to high school and watch him play again. Okay, I don't think that I ever went and watched him play! But now I wish I had, because I could watch him for hours! You can really see how much he loves it and that I love about him.
Oh yeah, go Lakers!

Little Golfers

Today we took the girls miniature golfing for the first time since they have done so well in school. They had no idea that we were going there until we pulled into the parking lot. They were really excited and had a great time.
It was a beautiful day and I got this incredible shot of Madison.
Kaley tried really hard and did pretty well for a four year old trying it for the first time. She kept kinda pushing the ball with the club and guiding it rather than hitting it, but oh well!
Madison enjoyed it a lot and wants to go back again soon. Thank you to the Grebel's for watching the boys for us! Next I will post a couple of videos that we took.

So He Thinks He Can Take Over

Here is the picture that Neil apparently did not want everyone to see! He thinks he is so talented, well, here is a couple more pictures of him for you to see.
He was having a great time watching the boys being goofy. I love his smile!
Here is my favorite shot of him! And he says he can't take a good picture! HA!

The Roses are Blooming and the Boys are Growing!

Our rose bush outside the girls' room is in full bloom and beautiful. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of it.
This one outside the boys' room is cool because there are pink roses amidst the purply red ones. It is a strange sight.
The boys are growing up so fast that I feel like I can't blink or they will be teenagers! Gabriel is such a sweet funny little boy, he cracks me up every day.
And Zachary is Mr. energy and personality! He is a wild boy with a loving heart. I don't know what I would do without them!

Kaley's Preschool Graduation

Check out this video of Kaley doing her songs with her preschool class. It is so adorable! She doesn't remind me at all of me! Ha-Ha! Please excuse the shaky camera, Neil was taking it!
She has worked all year on these songs and her time at preschool is coming to an end. I'm kinda sad that she is growing up so fast.

Hiding Out at the Park

We are trying to win the battle against ants in our house! So we fogged it on Friday and then went to the park while the house aired out. Zach (our little dare devil) loved climbing on the playground while Gabriel cried most of the time and just wanted down.
I love this smile of his, the problem is that he knows that I think it is cute and so he gives it to me whenever he thinks that he is in trouble!
Neil hates it when I take pictures of him and he says that he doesn't know how to take a good normal picture. So while at the park, I started taking pictures of him while he was watching the kids and this is what I got from him when he was fed up with me clicking away! This will teach him to give me goofy faces! (EDITED BY NEIL. 5.21.09)
This child is so gorgeous! We are going to be in trouble when she becomes a teenager. I don't think we will ever be ready for it.
Zachary had a great time running around. He even was trying to throw his little basketball up to the big basketball hoop! We got the boys some cute little sandals and I love seeing their chubby toes.