My baby girl is FIFTEEN!

It seems like yesterday...

People always say that, don't they?  But it's true.  We were SO excited when we found out I was pregnant and the months waiting for her to arrive moseyed along.  Her due date (June 14th, by the way) came and went.  I remember being fairly certain at one point that she decided she was comfy in there and that I was going to be pregnant forever.  But our little bundle of joy burst upon the scene on June 26th with a head full of dark hair and a feisty attitude.  She still is an adorable bundle of joy with a feisty attitude (love you, sweetie but you ARE a teenager).

So far our day has started in the usual fashion - cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  I finally remembered NOT to put candles in the hot cinnamon roll tower.  I can't tell you how many times I've lit the candles and launched into my enthusiastic rendition of "Happy Birthday" to suddenly realize that my candles are drooping and keeling over as the hot rolls melt the wax.  LOL - more than once...or twice...that's all I'm sayin'.

I wouldn't have thought of the little flags to replace candles except that I saw this post and the lightbulb went off.  (Thank you, Paper Smooches.)

I'm incredibly blessed to have this amazing, funny, smart, athletic, beautiful, thoughtful, witty girl in my life.  Thank you for starting our family, Kiana.  You are loved beyond measure.

Yay! It's your Birthday!

We went to a birthday party the other night and I needed to whip up a card.  (Why don't I have a stash of these ready to go?  Good question!).  I had seen something like this on Karen Burniston's blog and thought the pop up idea would be fun.  I don't have the die she used but this was actually really simple to make.  As luck would have it this card works for the CAS-ual Fridays Pretty in Pink Challenge as well.

Fun, yes?  The "posts" fold into the middle when the card is closed and pop outward as it's opened.  The trick to the mechanism is that the pop up is cut on an angle.  I added a little pizzazz with blue, pink, green and yellow Stickles near the sentiment as well.

This came together really quickly so I'm going to make more of these for sure.  Maybe even get a stash of them. ;)

Oh, Baby!

We have a new baby in the family!  My husbands' cousin's son and his wife (what is that?  Second cousin??) just had a bouncing baby boy.

 It's hard to believe my three kiddos were once such tiny little bundles.  He is so dang cute.  :)

I made a couple of cards - one for the proud grandma and one for the new parents.

 

I love Grandma's card.  I have a thing for yellow, black and white together - just works for me. Especially with that bit of gingham ribbon.

 

This little onesie stamp is so cute too.  I stamped the background and then stamped it again on patterned paper and cut it out.  A few pop dots on the back lift it up off the base.

Only two days left until summer break starts for us - yay!

SAM I am

Yesterday I went on a field trip with my youngest and his class to the Seattle Art Museum.  Our primary focus was the Australian Aboriginal Art exhibition.

For more info on this image go here: http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/ancestralmodern/

Our docent was incredible and I loved that she didn't talk down to the kids but still spoke their language.  Talk about inspiring...the artwork was amazing and the stories behind the work really intriguing as well.  One piece in particular really caught my eye.  It is large - took up a whole wall - with a black background and white dashes of paint all over.  The kids' interpretations of the painting were really inventive and creative.  It was similar in style to this one by Gloria Petyarre but imagine a huge canvas and dashes the size of of your pinkie toe.

As soon as I got home I started googling aboriginal art like a mad woman.  I'm really fascinated by it and hope to get back to SAM before the exhibit closes in September.  I highly recommend it if you're in the Seattle area this summer.