sorry for the long absence...

but the birthday went *very* well, despite strong winds at the park where we had it. Since it was a Lego-Batman party, the birthday boy dressed up in his Batman costume.

Miss Emma's birthday is 2 days before Levi's, so we do the parties together. We had it the park near Nana and Papa's house.

Diffusing the bombs that Joker hid :)

Rescuing Superman and Robin that were frozen by Mr. Freeze.

Leah with her mask:)

The cakes. I made them, Daddy decorated them. They choose what they wanted. This year it was carrot cake with cream cheese icing :)

Opened presents and ate cake at Nana's house.

Mama, can you open this?

They had tons of fun :) But that combined with our day at Disney Sea completely wore this Mama out. (pictures from Disney will be coming as soon). I'm hoping to get crafty again over the next couple of days :)

Thanks for stopping by today!! I hope you had as fun of a weekend as we did!!

okay...

I think it's time for a layout. I've actually made a few layouts lately. I even *seem* to have gotten a little bit faster at it too. Which can be good considering I usually have the same layout sitting on my desk for a week. I haven't finished all of Levi's other birthday pages yet, but since I am no longer stuck under the " I must scrap chronologically" way of thinking (which is definitely the best choice I ever made. I enjoy my scrapping *so* much more now), I didn't let that stop me from scrapping the cutie-pix :)

Last year Levi chose Batman, and this year it was Superman. It's funny. Every year, I know Tomio is going to do an incredible job drawing the pictures on their cakes with chocolate. And yet, every year, he still manages to exceed my expectations. It think it is so fun for the kids that they can ask for any picture they want, and they know Daddy will draw it.( if only I had that talent). I am really sticking with the less is more look for my layouts (well, and cards too) lately. I still experiment with other looks too, but I always seem to come back to more clean and simple.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you are having some nice fall weather. It looks like it is finally getting cooler now here. yay :)

Happy things~

Tomio likes to surprise me :) He's a black belt in karate, pretty cocky (which was one of the first things I liked about him when I first met him when I was 14), so he never likes to admit that he's smitten heehee :) or that he's actually paying attention. But he really IS. I've been SOOO happy that I've realized some of my goals this year to get my cards published (YAY!!). And I was lamenting to Tomio that I really didn't have anything good to actually send them in. They say "box it up"....but I never could find anything that was "fitting". This was weeks ago. And then today he went out to get some light bulbs, and comes back with light bulbs, and several little boxes :) Yes, just the right size for mailing in cards :) Apparently he'd been checking everytime he went to the store. I love that 1) he remembered what I was wanting and 2) that he's sure enough that I'll get published again to buy several boxes :) He tries hard to hide it, but he doesn't do a very good job :)heehee~I know I'm lucky.

So I have another winter layout I did. I'm really liking doing snow layouts when it's really hot outside. I was really disappointed with myself with these pictures because I must have had the white balance on some really funky setting, so they are all a little off. :( But I of course wanted to scrap them anyway. Isn't Levi's hat just too cute?! None of these pattern papers are actually winter ones, but I thought they worked well.

Well, the weekend is over,and I think I am *almost* ready for a new week. Thanks for stopping by today :)

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!!

layout time

Let's see if this works. I was planning on posting a layout today, but then I started having issues with blogger uploading my pictures. So let's see....Yay!  problem solved. So this is layout I made recently about Levi's stitches. Not my favorite thing, but worth document nonetheless, right?

I was pretty happy with the overall look in the end.  Mostly Fancy Pants papers.  I made the polka dot pattern with my Polka Dot Basics 2 and Worn Lipstick distress ink :) Fun. Oh and I used some glimmer mist on the blue square up in the right corner. One of the first things I ever tried it on.

If you look closely, you can see I gave the letters some texture by running them through my bigshot and also cutting them about 4 or 5 times and gluing them together. But my favorite part is probably the 3 lines of stitching I added. I just liked how it filled in the empty space and reinforced the stitching theme :) All the diecuts are from Quickutz (which I guess I should be calling Lifestyle Crafts now?! Not sure yet...)

Okay, I've got tons of stuff to do today, so that's it for me :) Thanks SO much for stopping by!! I hope you got to enjoy your weekend!!

I did it :)

I'm so proud of myself. As I mentioned before, I'm  NOT computer savvy...it all confuses me lol. But I try.  And this time, I was able to do it again. I managed to install my computer's wireless internet, even though our router was so old I had to find new installation software online. AND I got my itouch's wifi set up too. Even though the code key was no where to be found, and I had to change the level of security and get another encrypted code key to get it all set up. No idea what is involved in that? I didn't either till now :) I mean, I took me awhile to do. And, yes I did get frustrated along the way. And others probably could have done it a lot quicker. But I did it. And I did myself. Yay :)

Have you checked out Papertrey's sneak peeks going on right now? Eeek!! I just spent all my "free" money on my last order. But this is the most excited I have been in ages from just the little peeks. I guess I can hope that Santa remembers what I like, right? :) I'm also really interested in some Waltzingmouse stamps. I haven't gotten any yet, but there are several I have my eye on :)

Ok these pictures of Levi have nothing to do with anything, but I just rediscovered them lately. I Some of my all time favorites of his baby pictures. Adorable :) I can't believe how big he is now....really wish he would stop growing. sigh :)
Alright, I've got dishes calling my name ( too bad they aren't calling someone else's name...). But least if I get them all done I can have guilt free play time, right? Thanks for stopping by!! Happy weekend!! :)

a card and a cut.

First for the card :) I made this awhile ago and didn't get a chance to share it. I made it when I was trying to figure out ways to use my Green Thumb stamp set that I like, but seem to have trouble actually using.

It's a pretty CAS card, but I like how it turned out. I don't use alot of black well, anything really, but I think it helped to make everything else pop :) The verse is from Verve. I added a pearl to the center of each flower.

Now for the cut. I'm sure you probably noticed from the pictures I post of my cuties that Rhys and Levi have rather different haircuts.Rhys's is quite short, with a soft mohawk in the middle. This is done by Tomio. Once upon a time it was done by me, but after a few comments I received, it will forever be done by Tomio....Levi's hair is quite a bit longer. We tried doing it shorter (we meaning me trying AND Tomio trying), but he has a huge cowlick in the back which sticks up when it is short and will only lay flat if it has alot of extra length. So after that, it has basically just been left to grow out since it was buzzed last fall. Here is what it looked like: 

We decided to take him to Tomio's "hair place" and have them cut it and go from there. But to be honest, (and this from a person who always said they didn't like longer hair on boys), I like it longer on him. I do. And Tomio knew that when he took him in. So this is what he came back looking like:

Sorry, I know thes aren't the best pictures. It was late at night, but I wanted to go ahead and get some pictures. That and Levi informed me I hadn't gotten the "after" picture to go with the "befores" :) I'll try to get more pictures of the back too if I can. Tomio said that after much discussion, he would either end up with quite short, a bowl cut(!) or what he ended up getting. So there you have it. :)

Thanks for stopping by!! Tomio has a long weekend, so hopefully we'll be doing some fun things :)

too soon!

Ok I suddenly realized just how soon everything is!! lol :) Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas...seriously, all of them are just around the corner. Aahh! But really that's a happy "aahh" :) I love all the wonderful things that we have around the end of the year. Lots and lots of fun. We actually put up our tree and decorations around the beginning of November(!), and I LOVE that. LOVE having Christmas decorations up. And as an added bonus, we are rearraning our living room this year before we put up the decorations. I suppose that might not be something fun for everyone, but I always loved rearranging furniture and changing things up. Kind of feels like you moved to a new house lol. (Tomio and I both seem to like changing around where we live, since we are now living in our 4th house since we've been married....) Anyway, I'm excited.

Sorry I don't have a card today, I was actually looking through my layouts seeing which ones I have shared, and I couldn't remember about lots of them. How sad is that?! Trying to come up with a system that helps me remember which ones I've shared and not. (any ideas? :)) But when I was looking through my files, I saw these super cute pictures of Levi from his 4th birthday, so I thought I should share those :)

Seriously, could he be any cuter?! (yes, I'm a big Friends fan. have all the dvds heehee)

 This is Tomio's garage, byt the way. You can cool "Mini car", but his motorcycle is behind it. I don't know if you can tell, but in the back on the right you can kind of see the coke fridge I may mentioned a few times :)

Alright, off for a day of  school...well, teaching, not attending. Thankfully :) Hope you are having a super fun week so far! Thanks for stopping in!