Did you know that today is grandparents day???

I sure didnt! LOL! Working with Smilebox-I just found out! They have some cute creations for just that occassion. You know I LOVE making cards-but finding out THIS morning that its grandparents day a card would be WAY late.

How do you make a grandparents day card anyway?? Stamp makers- here’s a challenge for you! I think its just another Hallmark Holiday, but I made this Smilebox creation anyway and sent it via email to all the grandparents. THERE! Now Im covered!

Seriously try one out-you’ll be so hooked. Its like super-cool interactive digi scrapping only EASY! I especially like that I dont have to re-size my photos either! A HUGE time saver for me as well.

I added a Smilebox Creations to my category list. Alot of people write that you love looking at them. This will make it easier. Now I need to add them all in there so it will be easier to view!

Here is my latest-hope you like it.

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

And guess what! I think my MOJO came back! I’m hoping to post later. I woke up feeling like CRAP. I have a sore throat, stuffy nose, and up and down temp -let the fun begin.  Amber and Noah are both sick already from all the lovely new germs at school. THANK GOD Alexa is the only one who seems to NOT be sick. Lets pray it stay that way.

All the “sickness” brought my mojo back so hey I can deal! LOL!

Enjoy the day!

What’s that noise? Did you hear that?

NOPE, I don’t hear anything?

The only sound I hear is my own thoughts!

Imagine that?

My house hasn’t been this quiet since September 28, 1999. How do I know the exact date of when the last time it was that quiet?

Well my first child was born September 29, 1999! LOL!

Seriously-this is nice. I feel a tiny pange of guilt saying that, but that quickly melts away as I sip my coffee in silence. No screaming, running, yelling “SHE hit ME!” ” I’m hungy”, Wipe my butt” “Can I go do this or Can I have -INSERT RANDOM WANT OF MANY KINDS? “No I dont want to”

From 6 am to 8pm this banter is non stop. Dont believe me-call my house in between those times, and you will hear it. Somedays my voice get hoarse from all the “NO! Dont do this!” “ Hey Get in Time out!” “What did I just say?” No!No!No!.

Its really awful when you type it out, but I KNOW I’m not alone. I didnt want to be my mother but somehow it just happened. Overnight really. Once my second became a toddler-I was done for. The ONE kid I could handle NO problem. No one to share with, fight with, take from-EASY!

Dont get me wrong I LOVE my children. I would give my very own life for them, but for now I’m going to enjoy my time of just ME. MAYBE I’ll actually excercise! Maybe I’ll run errands, or clean the house. Maybe I’ll stamp and eat my twizzlers instead! LOL! Ok maybe do that AFTER I exercise.

Here is scrapbook of Noah’s First day-and all 3 kids going off to school! YAHOOOOOO!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Now here is Alexa’s! I did a few photos from the other years. Keeping in mind she missed the last 1 1/2 years due to her Chemo treatments. She was so silly her first day back I couldnt get a decent photo! Oh well! We also dont have photos from her 2005 cause Jason and I were in Hawaii and had the camera! So we have Kodak photos that we still ahvent developed! YIKES! What bad parents!

Anyway-it was heart wrenching for me to view all these photos of her.

Cancer SUCKS! Im really feelin it today. She has Chemo tomorrow. This round is rough on her cause she will ahve her Spinal Chemo, and bone marrow aspiration. Keep her in prayer PLEASE! All the germs at school! Her immune system is so fragile after these treatments. We have had some scary bumpy roads, and I really can’t handle much more of that this year!

Anyway-she is loving school, and is doing so good. God has been good to us. I meet too many parent who aren’t as fortunate as we have been. I still have my baby. Some dont win that battle. I cant even imagine, nor do I want to even fathom the thought.

OK Happy note-here it is.

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Here is a clip from Amber’s first day at pre- school. She LOVES school!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Aren’t these so cute! You should try making your own. Its free-unless you upgrade or decide to send it or print it. You can even blog them-obviously! LOL! They only took a few minute each! I really love these programs cause I am SO not computer savvy, and they make it all super easy.

If you install one let me know!! I’d love to see it.

OK I promise to come back and show you some STAMPING stuff. I just wanted to share these! Now Im off to stamp land!

PEACE AND QUIET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

You may be able to tell that I drag holidays and special occassions on as long as possible! LOL!

I think celebrating happy times is important. Our Wedding/Honeymoon was one of the happiest times of my life.

My Mom always made a big deal of Birthdays and other holidays so I think thats where it comes from. They are milestones in which we mark the changes in our life. The good and the bad.

I am extatic because I really do have an amazing husband and father for my children. We have such a great relationship. One that I would be jealous of if I weren’t in it! LOL!

I hope my children find in a partner what Jason and I have together.

Jason has really supported and respected my aspirations as a wife, mother, friend and stamper.

We have been through alot together. And I think the key is we have leaned on each other through it all.

I’m just so happy to have been able to document our special day using this Smilebox. It only took maybe 20 minutes. Picking my photos was the LONG part.

So far we both look pretty much the same. I hope to say the same in 10 more years!

HISTORY-We eloped to Hawaii to get married. We decided to spend money on ourselves as oppose to a huge Wedding that feeds 100 people for 6 hours of fun. We had a videographer-so we have  video of our ceremony (my kids love to watch it), and a photographer.

It felt like we were the only 2 people on the face of the earth.

We got married on a private beach, and after our ceremony we went to a Tradional Hawaiian Luau. At the Luau we were treated like ROYATLY! Still in our Wedding Attire. We got special seating, a first wedding dance in front of everyone, traditional Hawaiian Wedding cake-not as good as our wedding cake! LOL! We also  got a private canoe ride through the Polynesian Cultural Center.  We saw traditional Hula dancers, and flame throwers. Its was an amazing expierience-far better than a reception would have been.

We then spent 2 weeks following our ceremony traveling a crusieship and island hopping around Hawaii. Its was the most magical, and amazing time.

My favorite part of our wedding ceremony was Jason being SO STRESSED about having the rings! He kept checking and checking. He was paranoid about it.

When we arrived the Priest told us “Whatever you do, don’t drop the Wedding Rings.” “This sand is like quicksand, and if you drop it you will never find it”

We began our cereomy……………

During our vows, it came to the rings. Jason quickly realized forgot to bring them down to the archway! He left them in their box up on the beach. Once the camera cut, so he could retrieve them, he came back to restart our vows.

Vows begin again……………..

Jason got the ring from his pocket, then dropped it in the sand! It was HILARIOUS!

When we got our wedding video I thought for sure there was no way of patching it up, but the guy did, seamlessly. I almost wished he left that part in, as it was so funny. Poor Jason.

I’d love to hear a wedding story from you! It can be yours or anyone else you know. Whatever you want to share.

Thanks for watching my SmileBox creation. I hope you get to try one. Its alot of fun.

Well I guess now Im in a lovey mood! LOL! I love hearts!

So decided to do a LOVE card.

This card was simple and fun.

Pomegranate was the perfect color cause its not red, and its not pink. Its like a deep LOVE shade! LOL!

The tag was punched using a Marvy Giga Tag. I stamped the hearts image from Celebrations II by Lizzie Anne. I didn’t re-ink it, I just stamped it 3x’s. I also used the alphabet set-Olivia, and Sketched Sentiments (the YOU on the tag).

I used the Cuttlebug  Embossed Hearts folder, for the heart on the left side of the tag. My color spritzer provided the slash of black, which I like for a little pop.

The heart snap is by Making Memories. Just alittle extra touch.

Dont miss the sneak peek over at Lizzie Anne!!! Keep checking back here as you will soon see some samples POP up!

And………MFT is releasing a new set the end of this month! So in 1 week you will see a little peek at that too!

Now I want to show you my Hawaii Smilebox. These are some of the photos from our Honeymoon. Keep in mind I never thought I would be posting them for the world to see LOL!

You have to watch it cause the way this “show” is presented is awesome!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

This particular style has not been released yet. I was able to test it and give my feedback!

This one was my favorite! I’m really liking the slideshow styles most.

The EXCITING news-

SmileBox has asked me to be a part of their Avaitor program! What this means is I will work with SmileBox, have input on new designs , ask what I would like to see, and I get to rate, and help with new designs before they are released to the general public!

How cool is that?

Let me know what you think

This photo was taken the other day. It was late, and Noah began flexing saying he has “big guns”! A term used by my brother, who is a professional arm wrestler! He was even on ESPN2 for a arm wrestling tournament. He is a HUGE all muscle guy. When we watched his tournament  on TV he would flex and yell “Yeah these are the big guns”-Oh boy! A term Noah quickly picked up on.

Noah say’s “Someday, Im gonna be big and strong just like daddy!” So we thought it would be cute to get them together.

I know someday he will be. I think this will be a great photo for “someday” It will be here before I know it!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

He looks so much like daddy! Noah and Jason have am amazing bond and relationship. I feel so blessed that my children are able to have such a wonderful father.

We didnt have a great dad. Never around. Alcholic. Enough said.

Im happy my kids will never know that life. I think especially for boys. I look at the stuff Noah is into and wonder how I would ever raise him alone.

Jason is Noah’s hero, and mine too!

This was when Noah was 8 months old. It was at one of his modeling photo shoots. Look at that baby face!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

OK I know you are probably sick of my smilebox creations but I cant help myself! I love this super easy way of documenting memories with no time taken away from my stamping! So you dont have to read or click, but Im sharing anyway

TODAY is Amber’s actual birthday! My baby is THREE! OMG! I cannot believe it!

Today we are going to visit the Pre-School she will be starting the end of the month. She is the happiest little thing to be going to school. She is excited to get her own friends, and be Big like Alexa and Noah (as she puts it)

Amber is an OLD 3. I dont know if its because she’s the third child, or if everything that has gone on with Alexa, that she is like the second Mommy in the house.

If you aks Amber how old she is she will quickly tell you 5! I keep telling her she is 3, but she doesn’t agree! Its really funny.

She is bossy, and a tattler. She will think nothing of putting one of her siblings in time out.

She grew up so fast after Alexa was diagnoised, and kows about things that most people dont even ever have to deal with in their life. She is such a sweet little girl. I am blessed.

She is also in LOVE with money! Smart girl! She got this $5 bill for her b-day. I think it was her favorite gift! She carries it in her pocketbook (yes she carries several) and even has her own make-up! YIKES!

She knew right wehn she saw it that it was $5!

The other day she went up to Jay and cocked her head to the side, and sweetly said, while holding out her hand “Daddy can I have $5 PLEEEEEEEEEEASE!” and litterally batted her eyes! And ya know what-it worked! Im going to have to start havin her ask for money I want! Or she needs to up her anty! LOL!

Time really does fly by.

Anyway another thing I thought Id share is our time blueberry picking yesterday. It was alot of fun.

Enjoy. I know people dont enjoy this as much as I do. But its fun to share. I swear it does inspire me to think about scrapping! Only I would CASE these!

Blueberry Picking

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

I did this mini book (which I can also print!) for a quick review of Amber’s Birth through 3. Its a quick book, only 4 pages, and took-get this 10 minutes! YEAH! I know its not stamping, so I apologize, but are there any other scrapbook challenged mom’s out there?

Im SO challenged that many of you may know my PSF’s (Pretend Stamping Friends) on SCS got together and made Alexa an entire Disney Scrapbook to document her wonderful Make A Wish trip of Disney so we could document the event. Especially after seeing the pages-each one was publication worthy, not only did I realize WHY I dont scrap (alot of work) I was too intimidated to even begin! LOL! Plus its hard to get Jason to print the photos. Weekends are spent doing stuff with the kids and going food shopping and house project, after house project.

I dont need him to do this for me.

I must also say that I feel like Im learning so much more in the computer world.

I am quite computer challenged. Starting a blog was a HUGE accomplishment. Now I learned to attach the photos in my sidebar, most WITHOUT the HTML code! YEAH! And a few other things like that!

Seriously Im lucky I can email

So Im proud of my simple smilebox creations. It does inspire me a tiny bit-after doing this one, to scrap an event. But not enough that Im off and runnin! Im off to stamp some CARDS!

Thanks for looking

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

I hope you take the time to click and play this-its really cool.

I swear I get sucked into more crazy things on SCS than you could imagine-unless YOU do too! I made this in a matter of a few minutes!  I loved doing this as oppose to scrapping! I decided to keep it and paid $1.99 for it, so I could print it and post it on my blog to share with you. I can then do whatever I want with it. Like send it to the family I dont really get to see.

I was on SCS and saw the Smilebox ad. Clicked and away I went. Im wicked computer challenged but it was SO easy! If “I” can do it, anyone can.

I think its a cool thing. I took some of my favorite photos from this year (except our first family photo, I liked seeing the growth) and added it to here. Now I just wanna go make a ton of them! Its a great source to document stuff for people who dont have alot of time but want to perserve memories.

Let me know what you think! Makes me all weepy.

My life has really gotten to be amazing! I made this as a reminder of how beautiful my family is. From one year to the next they change and grow so much. I feel so blessed to even have children. God has really shown me how precious time and family is.

If you make one Id LOVE to see it! This was such a cool thing for me to do since I am NOT (nor will I ever be) a scrapbooker. I just love cards-cant get into the other stuff. And ya know what? THATS OK!

Im sure I will be doing alot of these. Think of the easy Christmas books you can make! They have all sorts of stuff.

Enjoy the day! Now if only I could get this into a banner ad-that would be real cool!