Where Have I Been?

Oh my, this might be a long post! I haven't posted forever!!! The kids have a week left of summer break. They start back next Wednesday! I have to be a mean mom and say I am soooo glad! I have no rhyme or reason at my house during the summer. They stay up way late and then I love the quiet in the morning so I let them sleep late. It's a vicious cycle! In fact this is what I found Sunday morning when I went to wake up Hayden and Hensley for church!

In case you were wondering, yes, they do have beds. Why they choose to sleep on the wood floor, I have no idea! LOL! They are precious when they are sleeping aren't they?

So I will be glad to get the kids back on a normal sleeping schedule and take back my quiet evenings. Before school got out Hensley was in bed by 8pm. I don't know if I will ever get that back again. I would settle for 9pm.

I had Bunko last night and as usual it was a lot of fun! I have been subbing for a friend that couldn't do Tuesday nights but starting next month she will be able to make it again. But there is always someone gone so I'm sure I will just be a floating sub!

Monday night I went to dinner with a few of my hair clients. We went to Chili's and had a good time! My client Jennifer is older than Deb and I but she is so fun you wouldn't know it. She's the life of the party. I needed a few nights out. My patience is wearing very thin these days! It's being cooped up with these kids, I will be so glad when they can go outside and play more.

My mom is flying in on Saturday and will be here a little over a week. My dad will fly in next weekend for Landon's birthday and then they will leave together the day after. I can't believe Landon will be a year old in a week and a half! It doesn't seem possible. He's not quite walking without the use of furniture yet but he gets into everything just the same! I forgot what it was like to chase around a baby all day! He's got such a fun personality!

So in the scrapbooking world I have some changes going on. I am now on the personal CT of Ellie Lash who you know is my favorite designer. I will be in charge of running her CT Blog and I am sooo excited to be a part of her team! I am having so much fun! As of the end of August I will no longer be on the CT at ScrapMatters but I am excited for their re-grand opening on the 8th of August. Of course I will still be participating in their community because I just love everyone so much there and Ellie sells there but I am excited to branch out a little and have already met some great people in Ellie's CT and the ScpapOrchard community. And of course Ellie is a member of the Sunshine Girls and I love all the Sunshine Girls! So I am just really excited for this opportunity!

Did you see my new stinkin' cute blinkie on my sidebar? Feel free to snag it. It was made by fa11enan9e1 from ScrapOrchard. She has amazing talent. If you are looking for any kind of blinkie, she is definately who I would recommend!!! I have her blinkie on my sidebar also, it is linked to her store.

So this is what I have been busy doing this past week. Ellie and Shauna from Pineapple Plantation came out with a new kit called Summer Lovin' and I had so much fun working with it.

Click on the layouts for credits...

This last one was from ScrapOrchards very first Speed Scrap(Make it Snappy) Which I am excited to announce that there will be more of in the future. It was a lot of fun!!! I have missed the last 2 at ScrapMatters. I will keep you posted of upcoming Speed Scraps.

Also my niece is finally home from the hospital and is doing very well. I did a layout with her newborn pictures. Seriously, I cannot believe these newborn hospital pictures. They have a studio in the hospital now with props and stuff! My kids all have the same striped blanket in the background, laying in the bassinet with the same expression on their face! OOOOOO someone pulled the binkie out of my mouth!!! LOL!

...and here are 2 more that I worked on this week. 6 layouts in a week, that might just be a record for me!!!

Of course I wouldn't go this long without posting without giving out a freebie! I have a template from my Chasing Seagulls layout for you. Click on template for download!

We are hoping to get the CT Blog up and running by August 1st so I will keep you posted on that! Have a great rest of the week!

Speed Scrap Preview and a Freebie!

I'm back and I have a preview of the participation prize for the Speed Scrap tomorrow night and a new freebie template! Brittney made the participation prize and it is such a fun mini kit you won't want to miss it. I love the colors...

So fun! Remember I am hosting this one so I hope to see you there. For those of you that don't know what a Speed Scrap is, I will be starting at 7pm (PST) and I will give you an instruction. Then every 10 min. I will give you another instruction and you will add to your page with what I tell you to add or embellish. You might start out with one picture but when I tell you to use a certain background paper it just might now be the paper for that photo! You never know what you will end up with but some of my speed scrap layouts are my favorite layouts.

I am trying to enjoy a quiet afternoon but my baby doesn't seem to want to take a nap! I've kicked my other kids out of the family room. I made a HUGE mistake of showing Hayden(my 7 year old) how to use the DVR. He's watching and rewinding and fast forwarding the same shows all day long! And then of course he has to act them all out. Which right now it's either Ben 10 or Star Wars so he's jumping all over the place. It's enough to make a sane person crazzzzy! I'm not even a sane person!LOL! So this morning I told him that the TV was broken and his dad would fix it when he was done working today. So he's forced to watch regular cable in his room without the DVR. Poor kid. So the moral of the story is do not teach your children how to work the DVR. We have at least 15 shows scheduled to record and every time we go to change the channel it warns us that we have 2 shows recording and do we want to cancel it! He's out of control! 3 weeks from today! Arizona is too hot for summer break! We should have our break during the winter so the kids can go outside!

I am on the second book of the Twilight series and I really like it. I'm trying to take my time so I won't be waiting too long for the last book to come out. Everyone that has read the book has told me that they didn't like the 2nd book but I have really enjoyed it. I haven't quite decided which team I'm on yet! I almost favor Jacob at this point. Please don't leave me mean comments, I haven't finished the series yet so I could change my mind! LOL! So I am going to get off the computer today so that I can read more of my book. But not without giving you your freebie. I made a template of my Daddy's Hands layout and if you missed the Word Art freebie from last month I have the link for you again! My layout has a hanging clip on it. I love that look. If you don't have any hanging clips in your collection check out Brittney's store at ScrapMatters, she has some great kits with hanging clips in them. She also has a template pack called 'Hang Em High.

Download Template HERE

Download WordArt HERE

See you on Friday for the new kit previews! Have a great day!

Tuesday Template Challenge

We have a new challenge at ScrapMatters today and I have to say that this was one of the funnest templates I have used in a long time. Very simple and endless possibilities. The Challenge is hosted by Rhonda and she created the template!

Credits here

You can download the template in the Team Blog or the forum. Remember there will be a favorite and a random picked by Rhonda for a $5 GC to ScrapMatters!

So far this week I have accomplished DEEP cleaning my kids rooms, you know clothes and toys and all that stuff. I have a ridiculous amount of baby clothes that I need to pass onto someone and Landon will not stay in anything that confines him now so I also need to find a home for his jumper and saucer. He had his first Dum Dum today at Peter Piper Pizza. I was trying to appease him so the kids could play a little bit longer. There is this new Deal or No Deal game at Peter Piper Pizza and poor Hunter waited the whole time(at least 2 hours) for this middle aged guy to stop playing it. I'll have to take him back because when he politely asked the man if him and his brother could maybe have a turn the man told him, 'Yes, it's my turn' Seriously????

Anyway, it gives me a chance to get the kids out of the house. I decided my next home will have a basement so the kids can just go wild and I will keep my sanity. Is it time for school yet? LOL!

My niece is doing good. She will still be in the hospital for at least another week but I was able to hold her last night. She was in the room with Brigette and Wes. They are still there 'nesting' I guess. She looks so much like Hensley did!

I am working on a freebie, hopefully tomorrow I will post it and don't forget the Speed Scrap on Thursday night 7pm (PST) I am hosting! Woo Hoo. I will post the participation prize as soon as Brittney gives it to me!

Have a great day and head over to ScrapMatters for the new challenge!

I got an award!

I have been given an award by 2 people. Ginger from GingerScraps and Miss JillianRoze. Both girls are in my Cafe Mom group and are quickly adding to the Digital Scrapbooking community. Apparently I have an awesome playlist! LOL! So now I need to pass the award onto 7 other Brillante Weblogs! So here goes.

Pineapple Plantation- I cannot go on Shauna's blog without getting a good laugh. She is hilarious. She is also one of the very talented designers at ScrapOrchard and frequently will pass out some freebies.

DigiTreats- She used to go by Princess Pamela but you'll have to check out her blog to see why she changed. I am amazed with her generousity. She is working so hard on not one but 3 alpha kits and they are freebies until they fall off of her page. She is constantly responding to everyone's comments and has a wonderful repore with her readers.

Britt-ish Designs- I look forward to reading Britt's blog. Especially on Friday's when she releases her new kits for that week. They are always fabulous! She also is doing a 52 blessings challenge so every Sunday she has a new blessing. And then there are her show-offs where she has a slide show of everyone that sends her a layout that they had done that week with her products!

Hawt Mama Blog- This is Traci Reed's team blog. They always have a Hybrid project and a challenge going on. Also her team always has awesome layouts of her newest projects, which if you haven't seen Traci's work you really need to. She is amazing!

ScrapMatters Team Blog- OK, I know I am partial but ScrapMatters has a posting everyday. Sunday Spotlight

What Matters Monday

Tuesday Template Challenge

Words for Wednesday

Theory Thursday

Fotography Friday

and Saturday's Special Challenge

Brittney works very hard coordinating the blog and there is always something fun and there are frequently freebies!

Ginger Scraps- Right back at ya Ginger. It has to take such a long time to find and post all those freebies. Thank you for all your hard work!!!

Flergs- I love Flergs style. She always has clusters of flowers and glitter. She often will have a freebie and takes a lot of time to make sure you have the instructions you need to make her kits look as fabulous as she makes them.

So there are my 7 Brillante Weblog's you can find all of them on my sidebar.

Now onto the Saturday Challenge. Sya is hosting this week and her challenge is to scrapbook your talent! So I thought through my talents and decided to do it a little different. I decided to do my layout on one of my forgotten talents. Not quite as forgotten as the violen, that one is forgotten and buried. Playing the piano...

I have not sat down and played my piano since I was pregnant with Hensley. So sad! So I've decided that I am going to start up playing the piano again. I really enjoy it.

So 2 things for this week, start playing the piano again and finish my unfinished projects(yes from like a month ago)LOL!

Hope you have a wonderful Sunday!

Speed Scrap!!!

Speed Scrap was awesome last night! Leah did such a great job with her instruction and making you stretch past your comfort zone! Here is how my turned out!


It took me an hour to figure out the title. Still not positive if I'm happy with it! I will be hosting next weeks Speed Scrap. Same day, same time!

So, at the beginning of the week I was excited to announce that my new niece had arrived. She was born on Monday at 8:02 am. She was 8 lbs. 6 oz. and 10 days early because like me, my sister-in-law has to have her babies C-Section! She is a beautiful baby girl that they named Teaghan October. She has the same mouth as my babies so it was crazy looking at her. I feel like I am looking at Hensley.

Newborn hospital pictures have come along way in just 11 months.

My baby is a year old in a month! He is sooo big! He's a tank. Not like chunky, just solid, ok a little chunky!!! LOL! He's walking around furniture now. I can't take my eye off of him for a second. He's fun though. I had to get him a new car seat. He has completely outgrown his infant seat so I got him a regular car seat. He loves his new big car seat!

We have just a little less than 4 weeks until school starts again. It starts so early here and we are not even on year round. They will go back August 6th. Hunter is going into 8th grade and Hayden into 2nd. Hensley has 1 more year of preschool. I don't even know what I'll do when I only have 1 kid during the day, or when they are all in school. Long time away, but I know it will come quick!

So I added some more kits to the preview below that came out today. Brittney has a really cool Shapes kit, you can do anything with them. Ellie came out with 2 awesome kits and an alpha!

Preview and Freebie are in the next post. Don't miss out!

Have a great weekend!

Previews and a Freebie!

Here is my preview of all the awesome new products this week. You can check them out at ScrapMatters.

Also, the new Tuesday Template Challenge is going on right now in ScrapMatters right now. The template and host is Heather Lee and it is a fun challenge about a special day. I have a ton of special days but I felt that Hayden's 6th birthday fit the template the best!

You can find the link on our team blog. Also, don't forget the Speed Scrap tonight. It is at 10 pm eastern (9 pm central, 8 pm mountain, 7 pm pacific.) The host tonight is Leah and she has a fun mini kit for everyone that participates.

I'm planning on playing this week so I will see you there.

My Scavenger Hunt ended on Sunday and my last download was a template that I decided to share with all of you. I have recently started using Box.net for my downloads so your download will be instant. If you want to leave my some love please leave a comment here on my blog. I love to hear from all of you!

Download Here

I guess just a lot of business today. I've got to take my kids to Peter Piper Pizza. If I sit in this house one more day with them I just might go nuts!!!

Have a great day!!!

Check out my flair!!!

Did you see my way cute flair on my blog! Flergs made two sets of flair from her 'Evilicious' and 'What dreams may come' kits! Absolutely love it!!! If you haven't heard the story behind her 'Evilicious' kit you really need to head over and read about it! So funny! While your at it head over to Pineapple Plantation to read how Shauna and her family were headed for Utah and ended up in Tijuana! I love Shauna, she is hilarious! Yes I have been blog hopping today, among other things! I have a Scavenger Hunt going on over in my CafeMom group as a Happy Birthday event. It's going very well, but while I've been checking my messages and sending links to a kit that I made(scary huh) I have been keeping myself busy doing a CafeMom beach Scavenger Hunt and it is very addicting. So, in a nutshell, I have not been productive at all this week! One productive thing I have done this week is host the Tuesday Challenge at ScrapMatters. The challenge is to scrapbook a summer tradition. Here is one of my favorite childhood traditions that I am trying to give to my children. It's a little harder living in Arizona but not impossible.

Credits Here

Challenge will end on Tuesday. I will pick 2 winners for a $5 GC from the ScrapMatters store. My favorite and a random winner.

Details and download is on the team blog.

All right, I am going to watch a movie with my hubby. 2 out of 3 kids are sleeping and the oldest is with his mom! Yay! Quiet time! Have a good night!