Happy 4th of July!

Whew... what a day!! We had a wonderful 4th of July here, and I hope that all my American friends out in blogland had a great day, as well!! We started with a bike parade for the n'hood kids this morning. After getting some naps in, we ended the day with a bbq/party at one of our neighbors' houses. They live across the street from a big hill in our n'hood where we can see the fireworks from the center of town. The kids lasted through the fireworks and then bedtime came quickly! ;-) Here are some of my fav pics...

From this morning before the bike parade...



Love this shot of Chloe and Tony...

Chloe loves her friend Savanna!

Getting ready for the bike parade to start...

Me and next-door Lisa (don't you love our hair?? ;-)

From the party tonight...

And if you've made it this far after my photo overload, lol, I have a new Fancy Pants layout to share using the new Boy Kraft Kuts line - this line is sooo cute!

Journaling reads: We were lucky enough to score this Jeep at a yardsale when you were 21 months old. Now, 3 years later, you still love your 1st wheels!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!!

My last Luxe assignments...

Yes, sadly the time has come. My DT term with Luxe is over. It has been an amazing experience, and I am truly honored to have been able to design for them for the last year+. Luxe was my very first design team, and I will be forever grateful that they were willing to take a chance on little 'ole me. Not to mention that I got to know some truly awesome girls in the process.

This first layout was done with Luxe's new Ecology line. I was SO excited to be asked to guest design for Method Playground, one of my favorite challenge sites! The challenge that I came up with is to use chipboard as a guide to handstitch a design (in my case, I used chip letters as a guide). If you play along at MP, you can win a cool prize pack from Lilly Bee designs, so be sure to check out the challenge here.

This next layout was made using Luxe's Lovey line. The honeybunch paper has tons of circles printed on it, and they were just screaming out to me to cut them! So I complied :-) And the end result gave me lots of fun scallops. PP, labels, epoxy sticker and large letters are all Luxe. Mini letters are MM and pink letters are Doodlebug. The little bird stickers are Hambly, ribbon is Heidi Swapp and stickpins are MM.

Finally, I also used the Lovey line to make a card, as I couldn't resist cutting out more of those hearts. This card is super simple, but as you all know, i'm a total card novice, so I figure the simpler, the better ;-)

Thanks again to Luxe for a wonderful DT term!!

So, June is out and July is in. I hope that everyone's summer is moving along nicely! We have a busy few days ahead, and the 4th will be here before we know it. We have a bike parade for the kids around our 'hood in the morning, and we're going to a party at our neighbors' house that evening - can't wait! What do you all have on your 4th of July agendas?

CMK Blog Hop!

Yep, here we are again... CMK blog hop time! This July kit is seriously goooorgeous - it's packed full of yummy October Afternoon goodies, as well as some Lilly Bee papers as well. You can check the kit out in greater detail here. And don't forget to check out the layouts from the other girls on the DT (links on the left)!


I've been wanting to do this layout for such a long time now. I wanted to document where Tony and I met, and how our story began. However, I didn't have a photo of the place we worked together (where we met). We went to the National Zoo in D.C. last week, though, and the zoo is only a few minutes away from the place. So, I was able to swing by and get my photo. It was fun taking a walk down memory lane... :-)

Hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready to face a new week! We had a great time at an engagement party for one of my good friends, and Tony and I also got to enjoy a spa day courtesy of my parents for a belated anniversary present. It was soooo nice, and my parents are the best!! Happy Monday, everyone!

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

I realized I never shared this layout. It was in the April issue of Scrapbook Trends, and I made it almost a year ago (last July). When I reread the journaling just now, it struck me how I still feel the same way not only about my littlest growing up, but about both my kids getting older. Although I love every stage of their childhood, it's always hard for me to accept that they are growing up way quicker then I would like them to.

Journaling reads: When I first saw this photo of you, I did a double take. I searched and searched this photo looking for my baby, but she was not there. Instead, there was a little girl looking back at me. Knowing that you are most likely my last baby, I am trying to hold on tightly to your baby days, and I am trying to ignore the fact that you are turning into a toddler at an alarmingly fast rate. Instead, I focus on your cuddles, your dependence on me, and all the adorable firsts that you experience. Although I know there will soon be a time when I can no longer call you a baby, I refuse to believe that the time has come just yet.

And then I look at this photo that I took of Chloe today when we went to the pool, and it is clear that that is a little girl's face now. I found some baby pics of Noah today, and I can't even remember when he was that little. I guess that's the part that I don't like. I don't like that my memory seems to fail me, that it's hard to remember any time other then now (with clarity, anyway). And then I remind myself that this is exactly why I scrapbook. Why this hobby means so much to me. So that I can remember when they were that little and all the adorable things they said and did. Speaking of saying adorable things, yesterday the kids were home with Tony, and he called me at work to tell me something funny that had occured. The three of them were driving in the car, and Chloe was trying to tell Tony something. Noah kept interrupting her and talking over her. Apparantly, she had had enough, and she screamed out, "Noah! I am TRYING to talk!!" Heheha. Noah continued to talk, so she then screamed (even louder), "Noah!!! I am STILL talking!" Ahhh, the life of a little sister. She's a pistol, that one. She does have to follow in her brother's footsteps, after all. ;-)

I just learned that Michael Jackson died :-( Wow! He was such an icon, such a symbol of my childhood. Despite his sketchy recent past, I will always have fond memories of my crushes on him in childhood, lol, and all that he brought to the music industry. Such a shock!

Oh boy, this was a heavy post huh, lol? Hope everyone is having a fabulous week!!

Happy Father's Day!!

I want to wish a very happy father's day to the two most important fathers in my life... the father of my children who also happens to be my wonderful husband ;-) and my own father. I actually got to have a date with my pops yesterday, which was awesome. We went to our favorite movie theatre (it has some current stuff and a lot of indie films, too) and saw "Away we go." Great movie, and i'm now hooked on the music of Alexi Murdoch who had a lot of music in the film. Today, Tony and I took the kids to the park right near the airport, where the planes fly right over us - it's really cool. Tonight, we went to dinner with the whole family so that we could celebrate Tony, my brother and my dad. Despite some major fussies from the kids at points during the day, it was a great one :-) Some of my favorite shots from this morning:

Here is my latest layout using CMK's awesome June kit. This layout was based on Lisa's awesome Friday Formula sketch which can be found here. The coolest thing about this layout is that all these photos were taken by Noah! He's gotten very into taking photos lately, and I love seeing his 4.5 year old perspective on life ;-)

Finally, I had planned to have the kids pick a name from the comments from my last post to choose the RAK winner, but we ran out of time today. So I used the trusty random number generator at Random.org, and the computer picked number 20...

Amy Coose said...
You know how much I love this LO!!! You're stuff just inspires me so. (:
June 20, 2009 11:22 AM

Congrats Amy!! :-) Please e-mail me your addy at stacimtaylor@gmail.com and I'll mail the Stamping special issue out to you!

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend!

For you, bro... (and a RAK, too!)

I have always looked up to and admired my brother. Ok, well, maybe not *always* ;-) I mean, afterall, there were many years during our childhood when we fought and couldn't really stand each other, lol. But, my big bro is 5 1/2 years older then me, so when he moved out of the house for college, I was only 12. And at that point, once he was no longer my partner in crime against the parental units, I realized how much I missed having him around. And we continued to get closer as we got older. Finally, when I was in college, I reached true "cool enough" status when he started letting me come to his parties and crash his tailgate parties at his alma mater (which was my college, too!). My brother is a kind-hearted, funny, sports-addicted, awesome guy, and i'm so proud of the person he is and all his successes and accomplishments in life! I truly hope that my children will nurture the sibling bond like my brother and I have! And I'm also thankful that he gave me one darned cool sister-in-law and the cutest and coolest niece and nephew ever!

(Don't forget you can click on the photos to see them larger)

I made this layout using all Fancy Pants products, and I used one of the pages from the On A Whimsy notebook to frame my photos. I stitched a paper ruffle along the outside of the notebook page, and I used a page from the Delight notebook (I loooooove those FP notebooks!), cut in half, underneath my photo mat. Oh, and to make those circles on the background pp, I stamped paint on an empty toilet paper roll - it was so much fun :-)

Journaling reads: I pulled your hair when I was little, and you still stuck by me all these years! You've always been my protector, my support, and most importantly, my friend. Despite the "fighting years" when "all I did was talk on the phone" (your words, not mine!), I have the fondest memories of growing up with you. I knew then, and I still know now, that if I needed anything, you'd be there. I hope you know how much that has always meant to me, and I really hope you know that i'm always here for you, as well. Thanks for being an amazing big brother... thanks for always being there!

Finally, if you have read this far, lol, you get rewarded by a chance to win this new Stamping issue by Scrapbook Trends which is on newstands now. There is lots of great inspiration inside! Just leave me a comment on this thread, and i'll pick a name on Sunday.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

So very thankful for Zout...

Oh yes, I sure needed that stain remover today! Just look at my daughter's face - her clothes did not fare any better ;-) We went to a nearby produce farm today to pick some berries, and we came home with very yummy rasberries and strawberries. We got to see lots of cherry trees, too, but unfortunately they were not quite ready yet. We'll definitely be going back soon, though!

I am finally remembering to drop off the layouts I did for Doris Sander's class last month. The first one was showing how specialty paper can be used in unique ways. I placed cardstock behind a KI Sheer and then cut away pieces of the cardstock to reveal some sheer windows. I love that Sass frame paper! It's hard to believe my baby girl was ever that tiny...

This next layout was to show how stickers can be used in unique ways. For this one, I covered a Heidi Swapp transparent frame with small Making Memories letter stickers. I used an opposite color to spell out my title, within the rest of the black letters. This is my little man showing off a new trick he learned at preschool this year - writing his name :-)

I am loving "summer" (hard to believe that we technically have a few days left until it is official!) so far... how about you all? We hit up our splash park this weekend, have gotten lots of play time outside, and the n'hood late night backyard soirees seem to be occuring regularly now. I'm looking forward to the next couple of months :-) Hope you guys are all having a great week!