My Blessings Project

I needed a new mini album with pictures of the kids and Neil for when we go away on youth trips and stuff. This is a kit that Neil bought me as a stocking stuffer for Christmas. I got the pictures printed and just got the album done. It only took me two days worth of nap times!!
The first page is a picture of Neil and I since that is where our family starts. This picture was taken by me on our anniversary in Santa Monica.
Cute pictures of the kids. I love the one of the boys holding hands.
I used my new favorite tool, the fiskars border punch threading water, I used it to make the decorative edge on the right hand page. That way it is pretty from both sides.
I love these pictures of the boys. The circle paper I had a lot of fun with. I used black pens to make dots and dashes around the circles to make it more interesting.
The last page before the final picture (the one of the four kids from my "our not so perfect family" post). Here I put this awesome picture from our snow day and some journaling that talks about how blessed I am no matter how frustrating my life can be!

i heart twins

It is only with having twins that you see eighteen month olds get ideas from each other (like sitting in daddy's chair), and then smile at each other because they know how awesome they are.
These two are so stinkin cute!

Here is the page that I did using Kaley's halloween picture, which even on its own is amazing. Then you add in Basic Grey's Urban Prairie paper line, some EK success Alice stickers, and my SLICE!! And you have heaven on paper! I do love how this page came out. The neat thing about the slice is that I cut the swirl at the bottom right hand corner at four inches and then cut the same swirl at two and a half inches. So it is the same and yet the proportions are different. I love it. FYI, Making Memories is coming out with 12 new design cards for the slice, only about half of those do I really have to have, lol!!

What's been going on!

The girls got their magazines in the mail (a very special occasion!). They started right in on the coloring and activities.
Neil bought me a guitar! I have started practicing but so far it is not sounding so good.
The girls and I played Princess Junior Monopoly. They really enjoyed putting their castles down on the squares, and giving each other money. But it was really helpful for them to count out the money when they didn't have a 4 dollar bill left (but they did have a 2 dollar bill and two 1 dollar bills)
We fed the boys spaghetti and meatballs and Zachary ended up with orange hair and they both had orange faces and tummies! It was straight to the bath for them!!

Sweet Moments

This was a sweet little surprise that I got when I cleaned up the dining room table on Tuesday. This is a set of cordz that the girls can make things with on a canvas that is like the scratchy side of velcro. Madison made this adorable little flower and I love it!
On Wednesday Madison made me so happy when she asked if she could scrapbook. So I set her up in my office with a book and old photos of herself and lots of stickers, plus the essentials. She stopped after a couple of hours only because she ran out of tape runner! She is doing a great job on it.
This is life for the boys and I from about 11:40 to 12:10 every day. Sitting in the car, outside the school, waiting for Madison's classroom door to open.
On another note, I ordered a bunch of pictures to be printed from snapfish (free shipping deal right now) for a few different projects. I included in there the first two weeks worth of pictures for project 365 so when I get them done I will post a picture of it for you so you can see just what this project looks like done!

Some Catching Up

This is just such a sweet picture that I had to share it with you! The boys got into their sisters' necklaces and came out wearing them (while being very proud of themselves!) It really was a cute moment.
My picture for sunday was this one, of my cordless microphone and in ear monitor pack. I sang in the praise band in service so it was fitting since I spend most of the morning with the monitor clipped onto me and the microphone in my hands!
I love watching Neil bring Kaley out to the car from the preschool. It is so cute to watch her skip along while holding daddy's hand.

A Fun Couple of Days

Yesterday Madison received two awards in her class. Given to her by her principal, she was the Student of the Month for October and had perfect attendance for the first trimester. She was really surprised and loved having us in her classroom. Then her teacher let them do their Christmas play since some of the parents were there and they never got to do it because of the snow. She was really happy!
Today I spent the day scrapbooking with my mom in her beautiful room. She got an 8x8 Disney album done and I got my Project 365 organized and dated for the whole year! I am really excited about this project (if you haven't noticed)!

A Great Start & A Great Finish

This is my Project 365 picture for yesterday. It is the one thing that gets me up in the morning (other than yelling kids), it is the thought of my cup of coffee. And when it is in my favorite cup, given to me by my friend Amanda Berger when she worked at Starbucks, it is my favorite because I have been to Antigua Guatemala several times. Then you add my favorite pajamas, these fleece pants from Target that are sooo soft (Thanks again mom!!!) it makes for a great start to the day. So I took a picture of it. Usually I know that if something bad happens (i.e. kids fighting, bleeding, throwing up, etc.) before I have even had my coffee then it will be a bad day. So this is a very precious time for me.
Then there is todays picture, we are officially done with pacifiers!!! It took less than a week (which surprises me) but they are doing really well. They are even going to bed and taking their naps without it. The hardest part is in the car, for some reason they love having them while sitting in their car seats. But we got tired of the constant picking them up after they throw them down for the three hundredth time. And the 30 minutes every night spent wandering around the house trying to find atleast one of them. So we ditched them. Although I will miss looking inside that hole and watching them chew on it! Oh well, I guess they are growing up.

A Little Idea

Just the other day I did the page for Neil's Ordination (a little late but oh well!). Because I had some memorabilia to go with it and didn't want it to be seen I hid it! I got to use this great striped paper which is part of the Kraft collection by Making Memories that I found on Ebay. It was perfectly manly enough combined with the copper letters and brads that I used.
I wanted the page to look very clean and so I even hid the journaling. I printed it on white cardstock and then put it inside some green cardstock that on the front has a vellum quote that Neil picked out. I also added black photo corners to make it more masculine.
What I did to create the pocket was just put adhesive on three sides with the right side being open, and then I added antique copper brads in all four corners and in the middle of the three sides. Then I just added a little tab of carstock which I stamped the word "slide" with an arrow and attached it to the program from the event. Inside the program is Neil's testimony which he read during the ceremony. So when I pull on that tab they both come out!
Sorry the picture turned sideways! This is the memorabilia pulled out. It is so nice to have those little things included but not taking up a bunch of space and making it too busy.
Hope you have a great week!

My Project 365

Okay, so I was one of the lucky ones who got one of those Project 365 kits and it is being shipped to me as I type. Yippee! Here are the pictures from today and yesterday.
Today, while the girls were in school, I sat at the computer and was watching TV. When my show was over it kicked over to live TV which happened to be Little Einsteins. It was only in the upper right hand corner but suddenly both of the boys stopped playing, stood up and looked at the TV. I thought that I would see if they were really interested and so I exited the menu and it went to full screen. BOTH of the boys walked over and sat on the floor in front of the couch and started watching it! They have never sat still for the TV before! I just happened to be right next to my camera and so I grabbed it and took this picture. They stayed there for atleast 10 minutes!
Yesterday the books that Neil and I made for the girls for Christmas (but couldn't get here in time) finally arrived and we surprised them. They loved having an actual book with pictures of them in it. They keep looking at it over and over again. It is really cute!

A Rock Band Moment

Zachary has always been very interested in musical instruments, so tonight when Neil played Rock Band, Zach brought him his sister's Barbie guitar. Neil strapped it onto him and he looked like he wanted to play it. He even watched Neil to see what his hands were doing.
Gabriel decided to play the recorder. He did start trying to blow into it and even made some noise with it. But if you look closely you can see that he has it backwards!
Zachary looked so cute walking around with that guitar. Neil didn't like that the guitar was pink so he photoshopped a version of this picture with the guitar blue, but I wanted to post it just the way it was. I love it!
BTW: after an hour online yesterday morning (and with Neil's help) I got through the ordering process for my project 365. Only to find out today that I possibly didn't get one because of all the problems their systems were having. But just a little while ago, I got a second confirmation email with all of the info in it. I feel bad for the hundreds of people who didn't get one and for those who are really upset about it. But I will sleep well tonight knowing that I am not taking a picture a day for nothing!
P.S. if you want a laugh, check out ebay and type in Project 365. Some people bought more than one (some accidentally) and are selling them on ebay. They are going for up to 150 dollars a piece! It was only 35.95! Unbelievable!
Happy New Year everyone!