One of my Valentines!

Kyle said, "Mommy, look! I'm a pretty "vow-in-time!". I have to agree....

Bumble bees and Legos

After a morning of playing Legos with my littlest guy...and I use the term "playing" loosely -- it was really just me building & re-building towers for him to knock over with his Incredible Hulk action figure. But we had a lot of fun and his laughter was infectious. With four children, I sometimes find it a bit hard to have quality one-on-one time with the kids (outside of homework, chores and taxi service). I love it when I'm able to just sit and completely listen to one of them. Anyway, we started talking about Valentine's Day while we were playing, and he said that he wanted to send a Valentine's card to a friend. I thought this was a fabulous idea -- an excuse to get my hands on some paper & glue! After a lengthy discussion why he couldn't mail one of the Legos to a friend, we settled on making a Lego Man out of paper. I'd recently found a Lego Man that I could cut using my SCAL software, so this was meant to be! I think it turned out pretty cute, don't you think?

Once I put the little guy to work with some scrap paper, scissors and stamps, I played around with a cute bumble bee svg, a Cricut marker and some glittery paper (I just love glittery paper!). I punched up the flower with a foam glue dot and added some silver glitter glue to the middle of the flower for a little extra sparkle.

Saturday mornings are awesome!

I'm a morning person. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've slept longer than my children (who are also morning people -- as in 6AM morning people!). While we are usually meeting each other in the kitchen bright & early for the handing out of cereal bowls, juice and milk, there are rare occasions when I beat everyone out of bed and have the house to myself. I not only look forward to these moments, I treat them like a secret my best friend has shared with me. With the lights still off, I tip-toe to the coffee pot for a cup of caffeine and then I quietly grab my laptop, settle onto the couch with the dog's head keeping my feet warm and re-acquaint myself with the world. After the customary email, Facebook and Yahoo news, I start checking to see what my favorite Bloggers have been up to. This morning I had some fun on my first Blog Hop, courtesy of one of my favorite websites, The Pink Stamper. What's a Blog Hop, you ask? Well, I visited several super cute blogs, picking up one keyword from each stop to figure out what our challenge was. At the end of the "hop", the challenge was to create a card using stamps and/or the color pink. I've been wanting to create something "girlie" for a few days now, but in a house full of Star Wars, Legos and Mario, it's sometimes hard for me to find inspiration in the color pink. I hope you like my pink birthday card as much as I do!

Wintery thank you card!

First of all this is my first post, so if you're reading this - Thank You!! I've been scrapbooking since early 2008 when my BFF, Christi, guided me through my first page layout. It didn't take long before I was hooked! Later that year, my sweet hubby gave me a Cricut for my birthday and it's been a love affair ever since. I scrapbook EVERYTHING...but I've decided that 2010 is going to be the year of card-making. I love cards - I love sending them, I love reading them, I love receiving them. But have you taken four kids to Hallmark?! Good Lord! Up to this point, I haven't been as good at the sending part, so I've made an agreement with my Grasshopper (that's what my 6 yr old calls my Cricut!): I'll do the creatin' and she'll work her magic. Here's a Thank You note I created for my boys to send to a neighbor who let them slide down the BIG hill on her property during our recent Southern Blizzard (it's, like, 3 inches of snow, but in the South that's a blizzard!).