"Mama...

my piggies are dusty....because, ummm, my tummy hurts. yeah, so, my feets are dusty." This is what Emma told me when I put her to bed tonight :) She speaks really well, and is always very clear. In her mind I guess there was a connection. heehee. I love all the cute things she says, they certainly brighten my day :)

Anyway, here is a card.

I stamped the text at the bottom, then the flowers. I heat embossed the white ones. I liked the fine linen and white color combo, but I thought it needed a little pop. So, I colored some gems with red copics. Then I added the sentiment last. Oh, the text stamp is from Stampabilities, and all the others are from Papertrey.

Thanks for stopping by today!! Hope you have a great day :)

Layout time :)

It seemed about time I shared a layout :) I am a *very* slow scrappy in general. It can take me forever to finish a layout. But, I am proud to say, I finished this whole layout in one day. One afternoon, actually. And it's even a 2 pager!

I was really pleased with how it turned out. I used a 6x6 pad from SEI. Lots of pretty patterns.

I even stitched around   the sections of pattern paper-some straight, some zigzag.  I used several stamps and die cuts too.

And some journalling too. I stamped the butterfly from Clear Dollar stamps on pattern. The cardstock stickers are from Crate Paper.

And that's about it :) Thanks for stopping by today!! I hope you are having a wonderful week!!

They are off.

Tomio and Leah left for Thailand. They will be there for a few days--golfing everyday :) Not particularly MY idea of a fun holiday, but they were pretty excited about it lol :) So I'm here with the boys and Miss Emma. They are having fun doing "boy" stuff. They got a new Pirates of the Caribbean lego that they just love. Their current faves for everything are Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones. You can tell Miss Emma has 2 older brothers when she recognizes anything pertaining to them, and calls them "Pirates" and "Jones", respectively. heehee :)

Here's a layout of Miss Emma. I can't believe how little hair she had here lol. And it was straight too. Basically just had fun with this layout. Some stitichin, felt flowers, cute papers. I actually heat embossed the woodgrain pattern onto the buttons--thought it kinda looked like sunflowers.

So glad you stopped by today!! I hope you are keeping cool, it seems to keep getting harder and harder to do that here. So thankful for my air :)

I think it's time...

for another layout. I made this one a few weeks ago, but I'm pretty sure I haven't shared it yet. So sorry if  I did!

These pictures are from last year when Miss Emma was first learning to eat by herself. She's eating broccoli :) which was, and still is, one of her most favorite foods. She prefers veggies over meat all the time. And she insists on calling eggs "chicken", which I suppose, isn't too far off, right?! Anyway, back to the layout-- I used some Fancy Pants Papers and some Prima flowers. I stamped, colored and trimmed out some PTI butterflies. Oh, and I die cut the letters out of coasters from PTI too, just for something different.

Short and sweet today. We've got some school to do and then we are going to the kids' first lesson at their new swimming class. Hoping things go well. They are all super excited :)

Thanks for stopping by!!

enjoying the cool...

I have really been enjoying the cooler weather the last week or so. Seriously,  I don't think I can remember a year where there have been this many cool days in July since I've lived in Japan (and I've been here about 20 years!) Not that I really go out in the heat all that much anyway lol. But since we don't have central air, it's nice not to have to get all sweaty just going to the potty heehee :) And I'm also pretty thrilled with my little Miss Emma lately. Remember, this is the girl that had to go to the corner screaming rather than eat her cookie at the  table. So yesterday she got a "preacher cookie" and promptly walked to the sofa and sat down. So like always, I said "Eat at the table Emma." She looked at me.... and I finished saying "don't want to make a mess on the sofa, right? So we eat at the table." And she did :) She said "I eat at table". I'm not sure if I'm conveying the significance of this, but trust me, it's huge :)

And now for a card.


I've been thinking of making a card with kraft and black for awhile, and I finally did :) I lov bee how they go together, so I will definitely be doing it again. This cute little butterfly is from Hero Arts. Since I cut it out and the antennae were gone, I used some twine instead.

Thanks for popping in today!! Hope you have a great weekend!!

some elegance...

I don't usually make very "elegant" cards. Or very elegant anything for that matter lol, it's just not "me". But for some reason that's how this card turned out. And when I showed it to Leah ( I usually show her most things I make since she will appropriately ooh and aah and say things like "oh, you heat embossed that flower?" or "oh, that's the new stamp you got, isn't it?")  the first thing she said was "It's pretty! So...elegant."

I'm thinking it must be the color choices? I must admit I pretty much almost never use silver. I think this might be the only sheet of silver cardstock I have. But I had fun. I really like how it turned out stamping the black script and the doing the clear embossing over it. The script background , by the way, is exactly what I had been wanting. I had been searching for a pretty whole background script stamp for a long time, and knew this one was perfect when I found it :) The link is to the store where I got it too, the have excellent overseas shipping :) All the other stamps are from PTI :)

I was happy to use ribbon on this card. I was beginning to be afraid I wasn't the ribbon type anymore(!) I think it was just a phase :)

Oh, in case you were wondering, Miss Emma is doing just great without her bottle~yay :) She now just asks for her "elephant", which is what she calls her sippy cup :) You know, because it has a picture of an elephant on it. It's fun to hear her say "Mama, can we have more elephant, please?" :) (she never asks for things just herself, it's always "we")

Thanks for stopping by!! I have laundry to hang out and school to teach. I hope you have some fun planned too :)

unexpected...

Well, I had planned to post a little sooner. But Miss Emma wasn't feeling well and I had to take her in to the doctor today. Turns out she has an ear infection :( Got her some antibiotics though, and going back to the doctor tomorrow. I know kids supposedly get them all the time, but out of all 4 of mine, this is the first time. It's so pitiful too. Hoping she gets better really quickly :(

ANYWAY, haven't gotten any stamping done that I had planned, but  I do have a card I made last week that I haven't shared yet.

Just a really quick CAS card that I made. I had fun. I really this sentiment from Unity. The fonts are so fun :)

Sorry such a short and sweet post. Hopefully things will settle down here really soon. Thanks for stopping by!!

What's going on?

 So my sassy little Miss Emma is, well, the same as always :) Some days are more trying than others... But I tell ya, that sweet face she makes in the morning, when she's only half awake, looks up and sees I AM there, and says "mama" all contented-ly, totally makes it all worth while :) She says the funniest things too. Her sentences are getting more "proper" lately, too. She used to come up to me and say "Doing?" for "what are you doing?" But not anymore. She walked in to the room  I was in and said "What's going on, Mama?" heehee :) Love that little girl :)

I have a simple, one-layer card today.

I stamped the typewrite directly on the card and then one more time on white cardstock and fussy cut the paper. At first glance it doesn't look like much "fussy cutting", but the bottom part was little tricky lol. Love the look of kraft and red together. Here is what I stamped on the inside:

I really like how it turned out. The cute typewriter is from Stamping Bella. The "I love you" is from PTI's Love Birds.

Thanks for popping in today! I hope you had a happy 4th of July :)

really?!

Can you believe it is already June?! I just can't--the year is half over! aaahh! I'll be happy if the first few days of June are anything like what the rest will be, though. They said it was the coolest day in June they had in 22 years here. I would love a cooler summer :)

Have a layout to share today. Some of my favorite pictures of Miss Emma from the park near our house.

I'd been doing a lot of two page layouts with lots of pictures, so I thought it would be fun to try doing some really different ones. I like printing the pictures with a white border to help them pop. The pretty striped paper is from Fancy Pants. I went for years without even owning any flowers, and then after I got some, I went for months without even tryin to use them. But lately I've been really liking them and putting them on layouts and cards. I think I might have gotten a little carried away though heehee :) There's a little stitching, a little stamping and a little embossing too.

Thanks for stopping by! Are you reayd for the weekend?  I sure am :)

two years ago...5 years ago...

So exactly 2 years ago from yesterday, this little sassy girl came into our lives:

And exactly 5 years ago from tomorrow, this awesome little dude came into our lives:

It's funny....we actually tried for over a year and half to get our little Levi. And then when he was 2 and I thought well, if I was going to have any more, I wouldn't want them to be spaced out any more than they that, so I would need to be pregnant right then.... and well, I was :) Definitely a surprise there. And  huge blessing.  Can't imagine life without them!!  While my doctor said my body handled all 4 c-sections really well, apparently that is all it can handle. So I know we are done.

Sometimes I think I might want more. But I guess God must know my limits :)

So each year the kids all get to choose what picture they want Daddy to draw on their birthday cakes. This year Levi chose Superman.

And, yes, Tomio really did draw that Superman directly on the cake with chocolate... Levi was pretty thrilled with it :)

Miss Emma didn't actually choose this time, so we chose something that we knew she loved...Blue's Clues :)

So cute!! Emma loved it too. She would say "Emma's Clue's Clues, Cutie's(that's what she calls Levi) Superman." I extra love how she says "CLUE'S Clues" heehee  :)

I think she enjoyed her cake:

And there were of course presents.

 And more presents.

And some for Miss Emma too.

And some more.

So that's what our weekend was full of :) Fun, parties, and cakes. We'll finish off with Levi's choice of DVD, which looks like it will be X-Men :)

I'll leave you with a picture of what was inside both cakes:

They were quite yummy, if I do say so myself :)

Thanks for popping by! I hope you had a fun filled weekend!!