My boy is 6 today!

It was about this time on August 24, 2004 that I called Salar at work and said "Honey, I think today may be the day.  Don't be surprised if I give you a call later."  And sure enough it was.  I had been having contractions for awhile with my pregnancy but on this particular morning I woke up feeling way more than usual and lots of back cramps to boot.  I started timing them and they were coming pretty regularly so I called my doctor's office and they told me to come to the hospital but not to rush.  I think we made it there by noon. 

When my doctor came to check me I was only 2cm dilated but my contractions were pretty regular.  He decided to break my water and then things went from 0 to 60 in no time at all.  Thank goodness they had called for the epidural because no sooner was the needle in place I was 10 cm and ready to push.  It took all of 20 minutes and my beautiful sweet baby boy entered this world and stole my heart. 

Through the years Darian has taught me so many things.  He has taught me to be patient.  And to be kind.  And to be silly.  And to be sensitive.  And to be proud.  And to be humble.  And to be nurturing.  And to take chances.  And to have faith.  And to experience a joy I could only have imagined but never dreamed could ever be true.

To watch my heart walk around outside of my body has been the most rewarding as well as the hardest thing I've ever had to do and I thank God every day that he choose me to raise this wonderful boy. 

Happy Birthday Darian!  Love you always and forever!  xoxo, Mama

I'm still here ...

... although you might have thought that I disappeared from the looks of my blog lately.  August tends to be our busiest month of the summer.  Lots of birthdays to celebrate (Darian will be 6 on the 24th) which means lots of party planning and preparation.  Combine that with back to school shopping, summer camp, oh and a nasty stomach bug that took me out of commission for 48 hours last week and, well, you get a neglected blog.  ;)

But I'm back and I have a new layout to share with you today.  And it's a ... wait for it ... double pager.  Now if you know me you know I don't really do double page layouts that often but I just felt like giving it a try and truth be told I love the way it turned out.  I used the fabulous Oliver collection from Basic Grey.  If you have boys you NEED this collection.  It's just perfect! 

I have been wanting to scrapbook some pictures from Darian's first season playing t-ball and finally decided to just sit down and do it.  I used my Cricut Expression and the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge to cut the grass for the bottom of my layout - just a little playful element to go with the idea of a baseball field.

I'm obsessed with Basic Grey's Micro Mono Stickers and Mini Mono Stickers.  Seriously.  Obsessed.  They are perfect for longer titles or titles in smaller spaces.  I also love the Pieces embellishments and it is one of the first things I put in my cart when I'm loading up on Basic Grey goodies.

Just another detail image of one of the Basic Grey Pieces and stars.  Lots and lots of stars both punched and stickers.  I typed in some stats and Darian's team name.  We were sponsored by Dairy Queen and I came up with the team name of the Blizzards.  Cute eh?  LOL

That's about it for me today.  Speaking of playing ball my hubby and I are going to see the Jets play against the Giants tonight in the new stadium.  I can't wait as we are BIG football fans in this house and even BIGGER Jets fans.  :)

Pebbles 2010 - 2011 Design Team!

The new Pebbles 2010 - 2011 Design Team has been announced and I am thrilled to pieces that I will be heading up the team as DT Coordinator and Blog Hostess for another term.  And let me tell you this is one talented group of ladies.  Head on over to the Pebbles blog to see who else will be joining me on the team!  :)

sweetest

Hey everyone!  Doing a super quick drive by blog post this morning.  I've got a few hours of silence while the boys are at summer camp and I'm trying to get a gazillion things done at once but I did want to share this layout I made the other night of Brandon just for the heck of it.  I was organizing a few things and found this page kit from KI Memories that I had won from one of their blog posts awhile back and I just felt the need to break it open and put it to good use! 

This is one of my favorite photos of Brandon when he was a baby.  He has just the cutest chubbiest cheeks (still has those as a matter of fact) and the sweetest smile. 

 
I wanted this to be a quick and easy layout so I simply cut some strips of patterned paper and laid them down haphazardly on my cardstock, added some glitter heart stickers and my title work, and finished it off with a little pen stitching.  Super easy, super quick, but super cute if I do say so myself!  ;)  Thanks for stopping by!

More Scarlet Lime Projects to Share ...

Hey everyone!  I have a few more projects to share with you today.  These were created with the August Frugal Fab kit from Scarlet Lime.  I've said it before and I'll say it again - these Frugal Fab kits pack so much in there I'm amazed at the $19.95 price tag.  It's a wonderful mix of brand new goodies along with some older favorites.  Definitely worth checking out if you haven't done so already.

This first layout is of my sweet brand new little niece Gia.  Gia was born on July 9th and I was able to take a few pics of here when we went to visit.  I used one of my favorites on this layout.

The kit included lots of fun chipboard pieces from both Pebbles Inc and American Crafts and I had quite a bit of fun just layering them all on top of one another to create the flower embellishments on my page.  I also used my favorite flower punch from Marvy Uchida as well - love the shape of this punch!

And finally a little tag in the corner with Gia's name.  I used some Micro Mini stickers from Basic Grey (the only item on my layout not included in the kit). 

This next layout uses lots of papers from the new release "Life is Good" by Echo Park.  I love the house print in this collection and knew I just had to get them on a layout somehow.

A few Sassafras felt flowers and some chipboard letters from Crate Paper finish things up.

That's all for me today.  Thanks so much for stopping by!  :)

Scarlet Lime August Reveal

Hey everyone!  The August gallery is live over at Scarlet Lime.  If you like retro you'll love this month's kit named "Retrophide" after a set of digital papers by Jesse Edwards printed with exclusive permission by Scarlet Lime for this month's kit.

My first layout with is all about my boys and their Mimi (my mom).  My boys have such a special relationship with their Mimi and I took the opportunity to document it with this month's kit.

I decided to keep the journaling private so I created this cute little file folder using my Cricut and an svg file I found on the internet, printed my journaling on the reverse side of the patterned paper, and secured it with a tiny glue dot to the back of this sweet heart metal clip from Basic Grey.

And just a quick image of my titlework.  These chipboard letters from Cosmo Cricket are the perfect size and I loved that I could use the long arrow to ground my title.

For my next layout I decided to scrap some photos of my cutie patootie nephew Eli that I snapped while we were vacationing with my sister's family down in Ocean City, NJ a few weeks ago.  Isn't he just a doll?  And it just so happens that his bathing suit matched the colors in the plaid paper in this kit perfectly (and no that was not planned!  LOL).

I wanted this layout to have a really whimsical feel to it so I first added a little mist to my vanilla cardstock background before laying down my patterned papers.  I created a sun for my layout with a circle punch and just strips of yellow patterend paper cut to varying lengths.

One of the patterned papers had a banner border on the reverse so I cut out a few of the "flags" and used them as part of my title work.  Yes, my little nephew is quite the beach babe! 

And that's about it.  I have two more layouts to share with you that I created using the Frugal Fab kit this month.  Christy did an amazing job with the Frugal Fab kit again this month - I have no idea how she packs so. much. stuff. into a $19.95 kit but when I say it's well worth the money (and then some) take my word for it!  Plus it features patterned paper and chipboard pieces by Pebbles Inc.  And ya'll know how much I love Pebbles!  ;)