Fortunately....Unfortunately

Did you ever play this game as a kid?  Tell a story that starts with fortunately and then hand it off to another person for the unfortunately part?

That's how I feel these days - up and down, up and down!

Fortunately, on the days I have been most down I received this:

WOWSER!  A 6 pound box jammed with goodies from Susan!  She was so uber generous with this prize, I still can't quite believe it!  When I'm better I'll be scrapping like a mad woman with this stuff!  She has such talent too - definitely go check out her blog HERE!

Unfortunately, we are all terribly sick!  Poor Lucius is so stuffed up it's hard for him to eat and Serenity has the opposite problem, every time she eats she chucks it back up!  Rayna has the worst cough and Skyler has the runniest nose!  Me, I'm exhausted!

Fortunately, I got this package in the mail yesterday:

Woooo Hooo!  I entered the contest to win these goodies on several ladies blogs but I won it from Shanna!  She makes some of the coooolest cards - go check her out HERE!  Thanks soooo much Shanna and Elmers, these goodies will be put to gooood use!  AND they are pink - how awesome is that!

Unfortunately, I am not feeling up to blogging, or doing much of anything, so I won't be posting for awhile.  It's the crazy busy season for us all - see ya'll when it calms back down around here!

What are you feeling fortunate/unfortunate about?

Laterg8r

Ducky Momo

Skyler is the sweetest little toddler and soooo unique!  Not only is she loving up her new ducky (stolen from her new brother) but she is also wearing her raincoat and a purse around her neck!

She has always loved ducks.

I made these ducky buttons from an old baby hat she used to wear!  Eco-friendly, upcycled buttons!

I layered two hearts, stapled them together, pop dotted them up and lined them up to create these banners. 

Did you have a fave stuffie as a kid?  Do you still have it?  I had my first ever stuffed animal (a pooh bear) but made the mistake of letting Serenity at it and she tore that sucker to bits LOL!  Ah well, I do have a picture of it!

Laterg8r

Busy as a ....

.....beeeee!  I bought these bee hats for the kids for Serenity's third Beee-day Party!  Who knew that the adults would have just as much fun with them as the kids did?

I added these Busy Bee buttons to the page for an extra touch of whimsy!

How busy are you these days?  Anyone freaking out about Xmas yet?

Laterg8r

Nana & Skyler

My girls are lucky enough to have my mom around to play with.  Skyler ran my mom ragged at the park this day but she loved it.

It cracked me up that my mom was even willing to ride on the "horse" with her.  Skyler giggled like crazy!

Lots of stitching and liquid pearls here - this Bo Bunny paper is awesome!

Do you have fond memories of playing with your grandparents when you were a child?  I remember my Nana coming to our sports days and cheering us on and making us 'ladyfingers' for a snack.

Laterg8r

PS - Go on over to Yvonne's blog to see the CUTEST page EVER about Lucius!  Yvonne is super talented and I loooove her layouts!  Her title should be: The Queen of Misting and all things Beautiful!

Love those Boots!

I love that Skyler has such a quirky personality!  She looooves these boots and wore them everywhere.......until...........she discovered her dress shoes and now she wears them all over!

I loved making all these paper flowers - don't you love when you find a new one you can make?  Harry the Hedgehog was the perfect color and size for the center of my flower bow.

I hadn't distressed anything for awhile so this was fun!  I ran the ribbon sticker up the page but felt it needed more so I weaved a real ribbon through it.  I also stitched in pink over the red stitches on the page because they didn't go with the colors in my layout.

Do you have a pair of shoes you love to wear everywhere?

Laterg8r

Whoo loves them...

...we do!!!

I used 3 (4x6) pictures of the patch to make the big pumpkin.  How cool is that mosaic?

These pinky owl buttons totally go with the owls on their matching T-shirts. 

I used a Starbucks sleeve for the stem and I paper crimped and curled for the leaves.  Of course, I never pass up an opportunity to stitch, so the pumpkin is outlined with floss.

Do you visit the pumpkin patch?

Laterg8r

Halloween

You have got to see these adorable bugs:

I took my pics in the morning when the kids were fresh and the lighting was good! (lesson learned from last year, my camera doesn't take good shots in the dark LOL)

Skyler couldn't wait for "WEEEN" and kept looking out the window at the neighbours decorations!

Serenity raced from house to house but didn't want anything to do with taking candy from a skeleton ("You do it for me Mommy").  Rayna dashed in, grabbed and giggled, and dashed away!

Serenity also said to me today, "I want a new Princess dress for Christmas Mom."

I said, "Then we'd have to go back to Disneyland" (where we got these ones and their ones 3 years ago)

She looked at me slyly and said, "That would be allllllright!"  Smart Girl!!!!

At one house Rayna fished the item she received out of her bag, showed it to me and cried, "They didn't give me a TREAT, all I got was Playdoh!"  She was genuinely upset - poor bug! LOL

Skyler was content to run, eat candy and be carried around by Auntie Sarah when the big girls got too far ahead. Thanks Sarah, I know you got quite the workout!

My poor mom had to keep up with Rayna, no easy feat, and couldn't believe how fast the girls could go!  Kudos to her for dressing up like a dalmation because she knows how much the girls love puppies!

Super grateful to them for coming to help b/c that meant we had one "man" per kid.  Poor Snuffy had Lucius who cried the entire time (afraid of the dark and fireworks).

Do you ever struggle with finding a balance between taking the pictures (and missing the fun) or having the fun (and missing all the pictures)?

Laterg8r
Check out this super cool punch I won from Melissa's blog for the Kreaxions blog hop! (it came in the biggest box and the girls loved pulling out the newspaper to 'find' it)

I'd never heard of them before (see, blog hops do work) but I looove this punch.  The coolest thing about it is that it comes with 3 attachments so you can make it into 2 different corner punches and a border punch too - AWESOME!  Definitely want to get more of these versatile puppies!

THANK YOU MELISSA and Kreaxions!

Buzz Totem Pole

The love of Buzz Lightyear has yet to wane in our house!  Serenity is super tolerant of Rayna's Buzz love and even let her make her into a ....

Snuffy says that Buzz reminds him of a toy he had as a kid called Billy Blastoff.

What was your favourite toy as a child?  Do you still have it?

Laterg8r

I'm 5

I love the idea of getting your kids to hold up how many 'fingers' they are on their birthdays! 

I will definitely do a compilation page after their 10th birthdays to show how much they've changed over the years.

This is a very simple page for me but I love how the white paint contrasts so nicely with the purple paper.

I was going to embellish the butterflies but they looked better plain white.

So thrilled to be working my way through the birthday pages!  I find them hard to scrap.

What do you have difficulty scrapping?

Laterg8r

Ode to Sleep

Sleep deprivation is a cumulative thing.  One minute you think you are doing fine, the next, you walk into a wall!  LOL  So I thought I would share with you how I am feeling today.  This is my ode to sleep:

There is a tractor beam in my bedroom,

It's inside my beautiful, soft, pillow top, king size bed!

It becons me with a whisper and I yearn to answer.

It's even dangerous to put away the laundry because

I could be sucked in
Face down
Fully clothed
For at least 36 hours!

So I avoid my bedroom like the plague

And hope that the sandman can't find me

In the livingroom!

All I really want to hear from Snuffy are those three little words (No, not "I love you") "Have a nap!"

How are you feeling?

Laterg8r