march freehand scraps sneeks....

It is already that time again....Is February really almost over? The March Freehand Scraps kit is lovely. I will admit I was intimidated at first by all the girly colors and vintage touches. I borrowed some photos of my cutie little niece and decided to just go for it! Here are a few peeks at my pages, check out the rest of the kit and gallery on the 1st!

the gateway...

Eric had the weekend off so we decided it was time to venture out to somewhere new in SLC. I wish it would have been just a little bit warmer, especially since we went to an outdoor mall but it could have been worse. We went to The Gateway. It had lots of fun stores and had a great feel. We will definitely be going back when spring arrives. It was built right before the Olympics in 2002 so it had a lot of fun graphics and tributes for that. Eric and I kept asking ourselves why we didn't go to the Olympics back then when it was so close to us. I think we were living in Denver or had just moved back to Idaho, we couldn't remember exactly. We decided it was probably because we were so young and didn't appreciate it like we do now.

Anyway, Charlie loved this ostrich at Anthropologie.
There is an old Union Pacific train station that runs right through the shopping area. Now it is just this huge empty space. Cannon LOVED it. Both boys figured out quickly that it had a great echo and they kept making funny noises to hear it echo back to them.






These ones just make my heart smile. Love, love, love him!




As you probably have noticed, Charlie was just not in the mood for pictures. The ones we did take are full of rolling eyes and cheesy smiles. I will spare you.

almost forgot...

I realized I never posted any pictures of the boys at Christmas!

When my parents were here we went to the Salt Lake Temple to see the Christmas lights. Everybody told us it was the one thing you have to do in Salt Lake at Christmas time. We took the train for the first time. It got pretty full as we went along because there was also a Utah Jazz game that night. It was VERY cold. As we were waiting outside for the train to show up, I was afraid that the boys were not dressed warm enough. I felt like a terrible mom. I did end up having to put my gloves on Cannon because I forgot his, but otherwise they both stayed warm and we had a great time.

Cookies and milk for Santa. We didn't have any carrots for the reindeer, good thing Charlie was only worried about the cookies.
The only way to get Cannon to sit still next to his brother for longer than half a second was to give him a candy cane. Worked pretty good!




Pretty much all the pictures of them opening presents turned out terrible, so I am going to skip those this year. Those really are the least important ones anyway, aren't they? I do wish I would have gotten some pictures of the boys with g-pa, gigi and uncle Jon. So bummed we didn't take the time to do that.

I went through all my pictures and blog posts from the last year and made a list of all the scrapbook pages I still want to make to get the boys' books caught up. I feel like I am always forgetting to take pictures, but I still was able to come up with a list of 44 pages that need to be completed. I also realized that I really don't like to scrapbook the holidays. I still have christmas, easter, and 4th of July from last year to scrapbook! Those may just go into pocket pages so I can focus my time on pages that I want to do. The good news is I have been scrapbooking this week. I have gotten a few of the projects done that I have been putting off and I have really been feeling inspired. Looking forward to doing some scrapping tonight as we watch Survivor and Greys Anatomy :)

back to school again....

After two and a half months, lots of paperwork and testing and many meetings with the school district, Charlie is finally starting preschool here in Utah. Before we moved we had Charlie evaluated to start attending the public preschool in Idaho due to his delay with his fine and gross motor skills. He loved that program and his teacher. It was the first time that he was begging to go. He really did not like the spanish immersion school he was attending previously so it was so great to see him so excited. He only got to attend Hunter Elementary for a week before we had to move. They said they would transfer over all his paperwork and it should be no problem getting him set up over here in Utah. Um, yeah right. Turns out we moved into a brand new school district and let's just say they are having a hard time getting things figured out. He finally got approved to start attending on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. He was tested by the school OT and she didn't think he needed any separate OT time(I have a lot to say about this OT, but I won't go on that tangent now), but they did establish some goals and they will be watching him closely to see how he does.

He was supposed to start last Tuesday but he had that nasty cold so he started on Thursday instead. Charlie was so excited that he got to go back to school and especially that he was going to get to ride the bus! He got ready that morning in record time and the anticipation of that yellow bus pulling up was just too much to handle. As the bus pulled up, he bolted for the door and didn't look back. I yelled goodbye to him and heard his sweet little voice yell goodbye back. I was so relieved that he was not scared. I was not quite as easy, just ask my parents. I am sure they still have nightmares about it.



And this guy? He was definitely wondering why we were standing outside in the cold staring out into the parking lot. He was even more confused when we had to go back inside without his big bro. He had a pretty big smile on his face when we saw that big yellow bus pull up a second time and he saw his favorite face again.

the everyday.....

Not much going on around here besides the everyday. Trying to take the time to enjoy just that.


We have been busy filling out paperwork and doing testing to get Charlie started in school here in Utah.

We finally got a washer and dryer so no more laundry facility...hooray!

Charlie has the Michael Jackson This Is It DVD on replay. He knows every part by heart and is now especially interested in the song "Earth Song" since he saw the tribute performance on the Grammy's.

Cannon has been crawling to Charlie's room and crying outside of his door in the morning until he wakes up. He just loves to be around his brother.

Charlie, Cannon and I have all been sick with a cold for the past week. Charlie gets a terrible cough everytime he gets sick. After talking with his pediatrician, she is concerned he may have allergies or be pre-asthmatic.

Charlie is constantly yelling at Cannon for trying to touch his Nintendo DS or his legos. Even if Cannon is 20 feet away.

Cannon stood for a few seconds by himself on Tuesday. He started waving his hands around and then fell down and cried. I think he surprised himself.

I still have not made anytime to scrapbook. It is on my mind often though.

The boys have received some really cute Valentine's gifts from their grandparents. They are so loved.

When Eric told Charlie that he couldn't watch something on TV, he showed the most serious face and then said "You are completely breaking my heart right now." On a different night when Eric told him he had to finish his dinner or go to time out he said "Bring it on!" It is so hard not to laugh out loud sometimes.

I made a goal to try to take a picture every day of the month of February and I got to February 2nd. How lame is that?

The move has been good. The boys are thriving. We are adjusted to Eric's crazy schedule. We are happy. :)

hello and thank-you!....

Just wanted to say a quick hello to all the new visitors that are stopping by from the Cora's for Calla raffle! I have recieved many sweet e-mails and comments about my quilts. I do not have an etsy shop at this time. I usually just make these blankets to give away as gifts or donate to my local NICU. When I saw that Cora's for Calla was looking for donations, I just knew I had to be involved in such a great cause. I am so happy to see such an overwhelming response to the raffles!

If you are interested in a rag quilt, feel free to e-mail me about what you are looking for and we can see if we can work something out.

Thanks again for the support, you are all too sweet!

february freehand scraps gallery....

Just wanted to quickly post my pages that I made with the February Freehand Scraps kit. Loved the colors and embellishments this month!

I thought that little sticker with the bird on it was so cute and perfect for these pictures I had from the park this summer. I just made a little banner and clouds from the patterned paper and did some stitching on them. The letters in "park" were the pink fabric American Crafts thickers. I inked them with some green ink which was an easy way to make them match my page a little better. Love that those fabric thickers are so easy to alter if you need to. I did try to spray them with some turquoise glitter mist, but it would not soak into the fabric.....not too sure why not!?

This is the first 6x12 page I have ever made. I got some of the American Crafts 6x12 page protectors at their warehouse sale last month and was excited to try them out. I am so behind the times on this one. This size didn't really interest me until I realized it would be a good way to document these monthly milestone pages that I have been doing for Cannon. They usually contain so much text that I have a hard time coming up with a page design. On this one, I am just going to make a separate 6x12 page with all the test with maybe an embellishment or two and then I will just put it in the protector on the back of this one. A very simple page just using some of the cute embellishments from the kit.

I loved all of the patterned papers in the kit and wanted to use a little bit of several of them so i came up with this design. Just did a little more stitching and colored the title thickers with some brown ink this time.

I love to make a page every year with our christmas card and a short summary of our Christmas. I put these in a special album. These papers and the snowflake embellishment were just the perfect colors! I added a hambly rub-on and a button and called it good.

I especially loved the gallery this month. The other girls did such a great job! Check it out here! Also, Heidi is having a big sale on previous kits. They are 40% off, such a great deal! The list of kits still available is here.

these two.....

I love taking note of all the ways these two boys are alike and different. Most of the time I think they are complete opposites, but then every once in a while I will notice a little something that reminds they are indeed related.

- Cannon is pretty rough and tumble while Charlie is very cautious. We were playing at the play structure at Carls Jr. the other day and Cannon would climp up higher than Charlie would. I know Cannon still has some of that "no fear" mentality that babies have, but Charlie has been cautious since day one.

- They really look nothing alike. Most people would never guess that they were brothers. The only big similarity is their bright blue eyes.

- Cannon likes to make lots of noise and get messy and Charlie likes the quiet and to be clean. Cannon loves the vacuum and gets excited when he sees it. He also thinks the very noisy paper shredder is pretty cool. Charlie hated them as a baby. If Cannon is starting to get upset or fussy, Charlie is very quick to tell Cannon "that is enough of that!"

- Charlie was very easy to get on a schedule and liked it. Cannon has not been on the same schedule for more than 3 days in a row in his whole life. Just when I think we are making some progress on one, he decides to get up at 4am just for fun.

- They both are very sensory sensitive. They love to rub their faces on soft things and smoosh their faces into pillows. They both sleep on their tummies with their arms tucked up underneath them. They are both very sensitive and particular to touch.

- They both were late talkers and walkers. Cannon is close to walking, but he is very cautious like Charlie was. I think he could do it, he just needs to get up the courage to just let go. He is also just now starting to babble and imitate a lot. Charlie was the same way and then once he did his language skills took off like a rocket.

Two boys have been too much fun. Love watching them grow and cherishing their unique characteristics.