Back to the Guttter

I am ignoring all things house and kids today :) Mel is at work all day and out most of this evening so I am scrapping! I decided to start out with the Gutter Girlz Challenge here's my take

12 Years Ago Today, Some Scrapping, and Christmas Funnies!!!!

I had twins!!! It's still pretty hard to believe that my little babies are on the brink of being teenagers and when I think back I really dont know how I made it this far lol. This day more than anyday in my entire life defined my selflessness. In that moment who, or what I was didn't matter what I wanted all melted away all I wanted was to meet the needs of those two little babies.

I regret the fact that I had a really crappy camera back in those days, but who knew!! I was really in a dream world about the whole thing. Aside from that I really didnt think my little babies were that cute when they first arrived chalk that up to tv magic and the fact that I really hadnt been around to many newborns; let alone newborns that were smaller than a bag of sugar. So I dont have a ton of first day and hospital pictures, I was more concerned with them getting out of the NICU than taking pictures. But here are my babies...when they were babies ROFL

I managed to find some time to sit down and scrap a bit yesterday while the kids are occupied with all their shiny new toys, it felt really good just to sit and create :) so here are the three I got done! I have trained the twins that Mommy can only take so much activity so even though it's their birthday we will take it easy today and celebrate after the new year. This year they don't want a party and that's fine with me!! They just want to go out to dinner at the restaurant of their choice :) So I will just be making them a cake today for us to sing & they have already opened their gifts this morning. Maybe I'll be able to sneak in a little work and more scrap time.


So as for the Christmas funnies, the holiday went great but the two most notable events this year that make me giggle everytime I think of them are:

The Great Present mix up, Melvin never ever wraps gifts I do it all every year and even wrap my own...this year I was pissy so he offered to help. I gave him instructions and let him have at it. He wrapped it all by himself BUT I guess I forgot to tell him to immediately label. He chose to do piles wrap it all then label....well before he could ge tto the labelling part Maiya snuck into the room and organized all of the presents by color....so we had an open and pass Christmas!!!!

The Ipod Fiasco, all the girls got Ipods this year for Christmas.... So of course it's my job to register them and get them all hooked up, synced blah blah blah. Well I didn't know that the Ipod pulls every type of media off of your computer... INCLUDING PICTURES until I hear oh Mommy I have all these pictures on my Ipod oh look it's pictures of .......... OMG I have never moved so fast to snatch and grab something LOL

They of course had no idea why, but I had taken some pictures for Mel for Christmas and yes I had loaded them onto my babies Ipods!! Nice!!! Thank god I grabbed them before they scrolled through all of the pictures the damn thing had loaded.

If this house is good for anything it's always good for a freaking laugh!!! I hope everyone had a great holiday!!!

A Handmade Kit Sneak Peek

So this month we decided to change the way we do the kit sneak peeks at Scrapbook Takeout....yet again another decision that we probably put way too much time into but instead of the usual photoshop compilations we will just be doing close up pictures of the items over the few weeks...more of a tease I suppose.

Not less work because to let you in on a little secret, being visual I have to put all the embellies together just to be able to see them together..... that's my kit making process I suppose. Anyhow we have really been trying to get a little of us something handmade that no one else has :) into each kit every single month with the Spots and buttons etc so for January we have a bunch of things going in. Last night I finished up these cuties for the preserves, I love them and cant wait to use them :) Depending on how much time I have there maybe a few extra sets for individual sale as well :)

So hopefully you like them.... they are a bit brighter than they look since I took the picture last night with no natural light. Ok I am off to finish off all my last minute stuff!! if I dont get back to blogging in time Very Merry to everybody :)

Scrapbooking now that's a novel idea!!

When all else fails, just go back to what you know! What makes me feel better when i feel like things are spinning out of control so fast that I want to toss my cookies? The details, the colors, the pictures, the paper........you get the idea!

Basically since a little before Thanksgiving I haven't even thought about scrapping except to think I dont have time and I had other things to keep me more than occupied. Then I realized that unfortunately that will always be the case and scrapping makes me feel good. So I took a few deep breaths and made the time!!!

It was a bit shaky at first, I had one false start I need to pull apart and figure out if I can make it work or if it needs to be trased but here are the two that i did manage to finish and there is another one in progress on my desk :)

The last one took me forever!!! I joked with Vernell that when she saw it she would wonder why in the hell it took me 8 hours to do it LOL but I got a little wrapped up in the details. and just kept adding little touches here and there like the dots in between the pearls i nthe circle, and the dots on top of the rub-ons. But it is an awfully long time to spend on what amounts to 9 elements!!! Oh well lesson learned...you want comfort do what makes you comfortable!!!

Just fun and excitement!

As much as I tend to bitch and moan when I am really busy, I really truly do function very well in a controlled chaotic environment. So even though I have more stuff to do than the hours in a day I feel pretty darn happy. For all the distasteful or annoying things I have to deal with I have so many things sprinkled in that just give me absolute joy and pleasure that it makes everything bearable.

Wednesday I got some incredibly bad news that I think I can finally let out of the "box" I needed to store it in in order to function and type about it. One of my co workers lost is 24 year old son in a car accident early Wednesday morning, he was with his older brother and they swerved to avoid a deer. His brother thankfully was hurt but is home from the hospital. My first thoughts were how incredibly unfair that a sweet man and a great family have to deal with such loss and pain and that I can't imagine having to deal with the loss of a child. But the reason for the "box" was that I really do know what thats like except I was lucky to have only had to experience that pain for a short period of time when I alomst lost my child and through the grace of god I was spared the eternal pain because I really don't think I could have survived it. My heart just hurts for them and if you read this just send a prayer up for them.

What good can come of a tragedy is that you remember to take nothing for granted, love a little fiercer, be a little nicer and cherish those around you. So that's what I will be doing!!!

On a happier note I love the flurry of friends and relatives that the holidays bring! I am so looking forward to seeing one of my best friends today, and hanging out with my girls this weekend. I have a full plate this weekend and i just cant wait i am bursting with excitement. I am off to shop in a few minutes, have a fabulous lunch out, tonight Liz is coming over and we are going to pack kits to get them out the door. Tomorrow night Liz, Li and I are going out to the club!! It's a full weekend and when I manage to do all of that and still keep the family fed, happy and safe I will feel like I climbed mount Everest. I'll bitch about how tired I am but it will all be worth it!!!

No scrapping or pictures today..just memory making LOL

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!!

I have never decorated my tree the weekend of Thanksgiving, as usual I always buck the trend and think why on earth would people do this to themselves, only to give it a try and see exactly why people do this. My house smells blissfully sweet, a big ol' tree will do that although the left over Thanksgiving dinner lended a bit to the smell. This was so much better than pizza and a rush job two weeks from now so close to Christmas that I would hide the ornament boxes on the other side of the living room ROFL.

Every year I start to realize how old the kids are getting not just from their Christmas wish lists but how they treat the decorating process and what my tree looks like the morning after!!!! This year was a bittersweet success!!!! Every year the tree looks like who hit it with decorations and ran, it takes 5 minutes and then I wait until the kids go to bed and take everything off and put it back on in some semblance of balance and order. This year we spent all day for the most part playing and picking with the tree together :) And the actually helped me drag that big thing into the living room and fetch the boxes SCORE! We did lights flowers and garland at which time they decided we needed to wait a few hours for Mel to get home to do the ornaments. Once he arrived they thoughtfully placed them on the tree stepping back to double check the placement every so often!!! Only Maiya lost interest after some time. sigh......they are really growing up!!!!!!!