At the North Pole with Santa

 We went to see Santa this year.  

And had our photos taken with him

 I really love this photo of 

them  talking with him so diligently.

I can't help but wonder what Blake 

is asking for from the look on 

both Bryson and Santa's face. 

I love the overly happy strike a pose smile that 

Bryson is giving in this shot. 

Even though Blake, has his tongue stuck out of the side,

I love the way he is holding his brothers face. 

Did you visit Santa this year?

Its beginning to look alot like a Christmas Tree

I struggled this year with our tree colors.  

I wanted to go back to the Red and Gold. 

I have tons of these decorations stored downstairs. 

But these blues and browns match

our Living Room so well.  I love

this color combination so much. 

Plus my mother made me

this lovely tree skirt last year.  

Needless to say, this scheme won out.   

starting to notice a pattern in my DS2 photos 

Just finished.  We added the

green balls to the tree this year.  It helps tie in our wall color, 

that otherwise seems out of place.   

Day light

Beautiful glow at night.  

By the way, Luigi is still hanging around the house. 

He loves to get in photos also. 

I think he is pretty cute too :)  

Captain Underpants all over again....

Remember this photo of Blake??

Well history strikes again.  

Here is Bryson with underwear on his head.  

Only difference, he went with 2 pairs. :)

Little Brother, like big brother.  

The same in so many ways, yet so different in others.  

Oh why do little boys enjoy this so much?  

Do girls do this too? 

Poof and October was gone

I'm behind.

With posting, schedules, shopping, life. 

But what's new?  

Seem to be in a real creative slump. 

No motivation or desire! 

Bryson's first time carving a pumpkin. 

He was excited and so ready.  

That didn't last very long.
He wasn't to thrilled with it.  

Josh was forced to finish the job. 

Trick or Treat 

With Luigi 

And Tree Rex 

Luigi, Tree Rex and a wedding

I've managed to let time slip away and an entire month has passed.  We kept busy with family birthday parties, weddings, (nasty stomach virus boooo), and school.  I even did some Christmas shopping this month.  This past weekend, I had the opportunity to photo a nontraditional wedding.  It was held at a lovely park.  The day was very relaxed and no pressure on the couple, guest, or myself.  Sometimes its fun to break away for the expected, and do something your way. It was a nice experience!

  I love this time of the year.  The crisp morning air and beautiful leaves turning colors makes October a fabulous month.  I'm thankful to have this huge front porch to decorate for Halloween. Are you ready for Halloween.  We are..... outside decorated, costumes bought, check, check.  Big B is going as tree rex from skylanders and Little B is going to be Luigi again.   

Note to self :  Add more spiders next year!!!!

  And of course, I adore getting a great photo of my boys playing outside together.  

This shows their personality!  

Mr. Campy

Scrapping everyday Miracles is a lovely blog.  The main challenge over there this month is to create a layout with your favorite season of the year.  It comes with a fabulous twist to use 3 or more leaves on your page.

My favorite season is fall.  I love the crisp, fresh, clean air.  I love the cool breeze in the evening and the leaves on the ground.  My most favorite part is the changing colors of the leaves.  I love the golds, yellows, and especially the reds.  I love red leaves.  I choose a photo of my dear Blake, taken in front of a tree, filled with those precious red leaves, right in our back yard, this last fall.

I used the Cosmo Cricket Mr. Campy papers. FINALLY!!!  I've had them forever. Seriously, 2008 I would guess.   Loved them in the store and got home nothing worked.  The plaid was really throwing me off and the fast that I never go camping . Back then I had to use the paper theme as it was intended.... yeah not anymore.  But the great shades of red, yellow, green and golds were perfect for fall photos.

Could this cute line from CC have started the tree/ wood phase of products?  I don't know, but I do know I love this print.

Twisted Tuesday with Captain underpants.

Hello Crafty friends!!!!!!

I can't believe August is gone. Summer has packed his bags and ran away for the year. We are on the second week in September, and school has been in for over a month now.  I love the schedule this brings to the month, yet I don't like B being away all day. I miss him.  He is doing great in school this year!!! I feel he was placed with a wonderful teacher that truly cares.  Thus far, 100% on all 4 spelling test, which I am very proud of.


Twisted Tuesday  has their new challenge up.You need to use primary colors, and some buttons on your project. Easy peasy right, as my son would say. I used red and blue with a touch of yellow, and placed 4 blue buttons in the corner to act as tacks.   Head over there and join in on the fun. You have until this Sunday to link.


Here is my creation for them.  This is one of those photos I've had for while and needed to get scrapped before I forget the little details now that b#2 is ready to potty train. I used more papers from my dwindling stash. Yay me!!!  I did have a moment of weakness and a $10 gift card that I won from Paper Secrets, so I  purchased the Into the woods collection by Lawn Fawn, my first stuff from them and the Echo Park Boys mini collection. ;) ;)

Be sure to say hello so I can come back and read your blog if I don't already do so. Im looking for some new folks for inspiration.

Back to school with Skylanders & a pair of skinny jeans.

Summer is over and B is back at school.  Our summer was spent indoors.   Why?  Rain  Rain  Rain,  rain rain rain,  Rain Rain rain oh and more Rain.  In our part, of the world it rained all summer.  Literally pretty much every day, on and off all day.  Real Bummer!!! 

We stayed busy with trips to the library and played skylanders.   They both love skylanders.  Little B mainly watches brother play but he is intrigued. 

It's hard to believe, we have been back at school for an entire week. 

B is in 1st grade this school year.  I love it, but I also hate the thought of Kindergarten being over?   

Already!  It just seems wrong.  Happened to quickly for this mamma. I enjoyed having a Kindergartner. 

Such  a Sweet little time in their lives. 

He is all smiles on the first day! 

Noted the rain of the ground at 7am.  

We had a fun time school shopping this year.  He is your typical boy and was picking things out and other times he was ready to go.   In the end, I think we did pretty good.  I wasn't to fond of these no tie converse, as I wanted the regular black ones, but these do look so adorable on him. I love them now!!! I believe You have to let kids have their own style, so they can become their own little strong minded and independent person.  It will boost their confidence levels, if they like and feel good about their outfits.  I can't stand when parents won't let their child have a "kiddie" backpack, skinny jeans, kiddie character shirt, or a pink shirt etc. See the true blue skinny jeans B picked out all by himself.  They are actually semi-skinny jeans so I was happy about that., as I HATE skinny jeans on boys/teen/men.  Yuck!!

Missing from the photo is his sneaker.  I waited too long for shoe shopping and they were out of his sizes in every shoes we liked so I had to order these and wait for shipping.  The Reebok Zig is a great shoe and it last.  (disclaimer: he wears 3-4 pairs of shoes throughout the entire school year from beginning to end)  But his zigs from last year are still great looking shoes.

And of course, He had to get a Skylanders Backpack.  

Wishing all the children who are back at school safe and happy school year .  

Bonding with paper secrets

I as able to get some relaxing, ok scrappy  time in this weekend.  With the lack of inspiration I looked to challenge sites to get some mojo.  I happened upon Paper Secrets where they were asking for "project life style cards and a lovely page maps sketch.  Now I do love those cards, yet I don't use them very often.  I guess I kinda forget about them. This sketch runs through July 31st so come play if you wanna.

Its back to unloading paver stones for me.  Have a great week ahead.  

Lets Build.

I've said it before, but I love this challenge site.  Scrap Our Stash has great prompts and will really get you using up some of those old products that you've been saving.   Their first challenge for  June was all about the guys.  Create a page about the boys and use 5 or more brads.  Easy right.  (You still have time to enter, so check it out)   

The lovely prima chipboard pieces were a lovely RAK from Marci.  They are from the Craftsman collection.  Cute huh?  

Myrtle Beach SC

We're back from a much needed vacation.  Our first family vacation actually.  We visited Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I don't particular care for the beach, or water in general, but Blake has been asking for a couple of years now to go to the beach.  In the end it wasn't as he expected.  A never ending stretch of land filled with huge sand castles and palm trees.  You know like they show on cartoons. But we had fun!!!  

On our first evening, the boys spotted this attraction, and wanted to visit.   Been there done that, and I don't recommend to anyone who wants to eat a decent meal.  

We stayed at The Landmark Resort.  It was very clean and wonderful.  I loved that our actual room looked just like the room posted online.  Dark furniture, granite counters and great house keeping service made our stay comfortable.  I, for one loved the orange, blue, light blue, yellow color scheme, instead of your usual beach flower theme rooms.  

My youngest Bryson, loved the pools and the kiddie water park.  

 He called them the clean water.  He didn't care for the ocean, and would actually run up the sand yelling "run run away" each time a wave would come in. He would say Bryson don't like the dirty water, LOL.   He did like the sand though. 

Blake wasn't fond of the ocean in the beginning, but got use to it quickly.   He enjoyed looking for shells, playing in the sand, and walking in the waves.  

Bash Recipe

Today I am sharing a Layout I made using Echo Park For the Record Collection.  The original.  I love the colors and the design on this collection and used 99% of the entire collection pack.  I have a few stickers leftover and 1 sheet on PP. I love when that happens.  I really feel like I "got my money worth" sorta thing.

Sketch and Scrap birthday bash is going on this month. Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy B-day Sketch and Scrap, Happy Birthday to you!!! They are hosting a month long bash event. So check it out.

I played along with two of the DT member so far this month. Monica and Rachelle. I'm hoping to find the time for Crystals color challenge, but we'll see. 

First off Sketch and Scrap DT member Monica is hosting a recipe challenge for birthday bash.. I do love a recipe challenge.  They are so much fun and 99.9% of the time will work on any Layout.  Love that.

Here is the recipe: 

1. Multiple pictures

2. Twine 

3. Brads

4. Gems

5. Multiple alphabet sets

Here is my page...  using 2 photo's, twine on the circle tag, an arrow brad (love these only have few left) amber colored gem on the bird sticker, and 3 different alphabet sets.  I also use washi tape, die cut, tag, stickers, and the cameo all on Kraft paper.  Love love love this page.  It's one of my favorites to date.

Also over at Sketch and Scrap, DT member Rachelle is hosting the "twine it up challenge.   And I know how much everyone loves Twine right now. Trendy and also very simple to add some twine to almost any page.  

As I said before, I really put this collection to use.  Here are the remaining just because layouts I made.