A Sewing FO, Amy Butler Swing Bag

This is the Amy Butler Swing Bag. This bag was so fun to make. Okay, it was fun because I was able to understand the directions and it came out looking the way it was supposed to. I haven't used the sewing machine for much lately, but this was a great jump start for me. I enjoyed this bag so much, I picked up one more fabric to go with a third one that I didn't use. Bag number two is ready and waiting. I probably won't be able to get to it this weekend since I have a photoshoot for triplets tomorrow. I have had a few more photography jobs lately and that has been very welcome. I need to keep up on my skills and improve them as well. These triplets will be so much fun, I did photos for them when they were 18 months old and now they are almost 4. They were one of my first paying clients when I started and now 2.5 years later they come back. Can't wait to see what they all look like.

Birthday day in review

I had a busy day yesterday for a newly 32 year old. I'm pretty sure Jared crawled into bed with us sometime around 4:30 and I didn't get back to sleep. He promptly fell back to sleep, but was breathing quite loudly right in my ear. Hence this is how my day started, with a nice Grande Carmel Machiato from Starbucks.

This was basically my breakfast as I headed to the Toni&Guy Academy in Awatukee(sp). I went there for a mani/pedi. Okay for a school, but I probably will just go to the neighborhood shop from now on. Then on to some retail therapy before meeting up with the boys at Red Brick Pizza. We had a great lunch together and then I headed out to Ruffler's Roost (Ribbons and Lace) and Scrapbooks ETC without any little children attached to me screaming at the top of their lungs. We got Rae to watch the boys last night and we went to Anzio Landing for dinner. Such an awesome place, right at Falcon Field, very cool atmosphere. We had a great meal and an even greater dessert, this huge piece of chocolate cake that came to our table on fire.




In between lunch, dinner and shopping, I got the ribbons installed in the baby hat (which was already given to my good friend Debbie), I stamped on a tshirt using Autumn Leaves Flourishes and Heidi Swapp Smile stamps. Love how that turned out. Got the idea from the shirt that Amanda was wearing at the Barnes and Noble saturday knitting this past week.






TFL!!

Spring Break in review

Can't believe this week has just flown by. We didn't go anywhere, but I had a bunch of stuff for the boys to do. Just some new art supplies for them to play with, plus they had all of Jared's new birthday presents as well. Our one big outing was going to the zoo. Granted we tried to go twice, the first time I wouldn't say was a spectacular memory. On Thursday I took the kids to the zoo, it was already past 10 when I left the house (first mistake). By the time we got there, there was road construction like you wouldn't believe and then the zoo parking lot was full. I was able to find alternate parking, but it was a 15 minute trek from our car to the front entrance. Once we were inside it all went downhill from there. Nathan was too hot and hungry to be happy at all. Yes, I brought snacks, but he was already past the point of consoling with food. We needed to leave. I decided that maybe if french fries were offered, the overabundance of crying would subside. It worked like a charm. The Safari Grill makes really good food. I got a turkey sandwich and the kids had grilled cheese and fries. Since we didn't get to see any animals on Thursday, I took them back bright and early this morning. We got there at 8am and had a blast. Back in the car and headed home at 11am. Nathan just woke up from a 3 hour nap, poor thing didn't sleep well last night. I wish I could have taken a nap also, but the other monkey had me building Lego cities with him. Love spending that quality time with Jared.

Here is a few pics from the zoo.



the squirrel monkeys were so close, this one actually climbed onto his sign


Give me a boost up (Mom's love)

5 years ago today

This wonderful boy was born. We were all up bright and early this morning so I actually got to take this picture at almost the exact time he was born.



We went over to my parents house for birthday pancakes. My parents have been on a special diet (I think it is a Mediterranen one) lately so all these foods have been off limits. My dad behaved himself, but I'm glad my mom was willing to make the pancakes. The kids loved them. Jared has been eating up a storm lately and pounded three pancakes, I was completely happy that Nathan at least ate one. Then we headed to BounceU where we hosted Jared's classmates and his cousins. Everyone had such a good time including the grownups. My favorite part, other than seeing Jared's face light up, is getting to leave BounceU and do nothing more than pay the bill.







I'm getting the house for party #2 now. Everyone will be here in a few minutes. Both sides of the family will be here to again wish Jared a Happy Birthday.

From this to This!!

Painting weekend has finally approached. Nick has been prepping the house for the last month and the "day" has arrived. To preface, I have major disdain for our HOA. Okay, not so much for the HOA directly but for the Architectural committee who picked out the color schemes. Nick and I had picked out what we thought would be an acceptable selection of paint choices and got denied simply because it was not one of the approved schemes. Then they need to change their form, there was a specific spot for color choices listed on it. We ended up picking one, the best of the worst. We wanted the body color of the house to be darker brown and have a lighter brown on the popouts. What we ended up with was a slightly darker body color than the original, but a bright white for the popouts. It looks good, but not nearly as good as our choices would have looked.

Here are the before and after pictures from today

From this:


To this:


On a lighter note, since Nick had to take the day off I am going out and scrapbooking tonight. He turned down a date night and I took advantage of it. I'll post layouts tomorrow.