Friday, April 30, 2010

busy times

Chloe loves her walks, and being out side, so we have been out side a lot these days... It's great for both of us.
CC is a busy girl, she always wants to play and is learning so much, every day she is either learning a new word or she is learning a new skill!
One of our favorite things to do int he morning is to watch Sesame Street. So Thanks to Aunt K. we got an Elmo Chair and she sits in it with "Adrian" while watching Sesame Street she is so cute when she is being entertained :)
I love this picture, she has such beautiful blue eyes and this picture reminds me of how innocent she really is.. G and I are so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter.

I love being a Sahm, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the idea of keeping our house in order and cooking and making sure that we are living a bit more healthy. These pictures that I have taken recently has reminded me that the time we have to nurture CC is very important. She already growing up so super duper fast! She is extremly busy and I can't wait for her nap time some days but then I am reminded that she is a growing toddler and after all she is a good girlly.

I hope that our next post will show you more of what we have been doing to the house... it's a new hobby for me Oh OHHH! not another one you say... this time it's worth it!

Monday, April 19, 2010

my way of Scrapbooking



this weekend little miss thing got to spend the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa, what do I get to do with out our little miss thing while Daddy was at work..... (big smile)(this photo was when Chloe was at Grandma's house last weekend)

I got to go to a scrap booking get together by a friend that put this amazing thing for us gals in the area, she does it just because and it was totally an amazing thing that she calls: Camp Crop a lot (cropping as a word us scrappers use as a get together when we scrapbook together) It was at Pine Lake in Eldora and the camp site that we used was truly beautiful, if i wasn't running short on time I would have wanted to walk around the lake. The first two pictures were of Chloe when she was at the hospital the day after she was born, and then her 1 year pictures, I worked on her book when I was "cropping"

So as I finish Chloe's first year pictures I have learned a lot about my style of scrap booking. there is no thinking about it, if I like the picture and it works with the story I am trying to get across it goes in, if not then I don't include that picture.

so for my first step that I do is get all the pictures in order on how I want to scrap book them. then when I get a pile of them printed I have the pictures in a stack (group) of what I want on each page or event for examples I had a some pictures of chloe making a mess when she ate so all of those pictures go into a stack with a post it note attached to them explaining what I want to tell on the page. If it's a big event lets say Christmas day I then decide to do a two page layout.

After I have them all catogorized I go group by group. I pick out the paper for the page, then a secondary piece of paper that is usually a scrap piece that will work with the pictures and the pages. I then glue that down where I want that scrap piece at and then I put photo corners on the pictures and get it on to the page. So what you have is a lay out with just paper and pictures. the design part of knowing where you want your pictures should take less than 2 minutes, just do it and don't think about how it works... as long as your eye flows from picture to picture that is all that matters.

After I am done with my batch of group pictures for each page (usually I have about 20 groups of pictures to put on 20 pages, it saves time I then type and print my jornaling and past it on to the page

then I embellish the page with stickers, die cuts and stamps.

Then they finish pages go into the protectors and then into the album... supper easy right?

that is how I have been able to get her scrap book done from her first year, and have about 100 pages in her book! I know a little crazy but it works for me and then I don't have to use photo albums.

my rules to scrapbook are these
1. Dont spend more than 5 minutes on the lay out (sometimes that's the hardest) Lay out meaning how I want the pictures on the page with the paper.
2 Always use some sort of grid system to my lay out
3.if the pictures isn't helping tell the story then don't use it. (same goes if it's blury)
4. the pictures come first, every thing else is scondary including the paper and stickers don't fluff up the page to much and
5. make sure what you are putting in the book is photo safe and acid free and never glue pictures to anything, use photo corners!
6. If all else fails, I fall back to Keep it simple sweetie (kiss)

My next projects will be:
first one I will work on: 8.5x10 scrapbook of our family for this year, each year will be a book
Second one will be a heritage album to preserve the pictures of our ancestors.
Third project will be a series on a smaller album of the mommy, daddy, grandma grandpa book. where it's a book on just me, gar, and grandparents. what we love, what we do, who we are and so on... that one should be really fun!

My Favorite Chocolate Chip cookies

I love these cookies, it's a little more work than regular chocolate chips cookies but they were so great. they also took no time at all using my brand spankin new Kitchen Aid Mixer! Oh wait you didn't know I got one, yes and it's black and it's the professional mixer that will be able to mix anything up to 14 cups of flour! It's so amazing. Gary bought it for me like two months ago and held on to it until he wanted to give me it... He knows I have been wanting one for 5 years, so for Easter he had me go on an Easter scavenger hunt, it was so fun, at the end of it was my stand mixer! I was so ecstatic! So my post might have a bunch of baking recipes from my new Mixer.

Lindsay's Chocolate Cafe Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep: 25 minutes
Bake: 9 to 10 minutes/batch
Cool: 1 minute/batch
View Nutrition Facts

Ingredients

  • 2-1/2 cups regular rolled oats
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 12-oz. pkg. (2 cups) semisweet chocolate pieces
  • 1-1/2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans
  • 4 oz. milk chocolate bar, grated

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar and brown sugar. Beat on medium speed until mixture is combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour mixture as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour mixture with a wooden spoon until combined. Stir in chocolate pieces, nuts and grated chocolate.

3. Drop dough from a large cookie scoop (3 tablespoons) 4 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 9 to 10 minutes or until edges are light brown. Cool on cookie sheets 1 minute. Transfer to wire racks and let cool. Makes about 30 cookies.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Easter at G-ma's







I love Easter, I love what it means to me and my family, as part of our beliefs and I love the warm weather and of course the celebrations we have. This year we our first Easter egg hunt at Grandma's house, and it was so great! I filled 9 dozen eggs for the three grandchildren! yes each had 3 dozen eggs, it was the perfect amount! Chloe didn't seem to care after she found one egg that made a lot of noise,(it was silver and had a silver dollar in it) all she wanted was that egg and was done looking, so we um hid that egg again until she was all done! It was a fun time for her! I loved how she walked all over like she has been waiting to do this her whole life it was so cute!

Anyways I hope you all have a great Easter, no matter how you celebrate and what you believe it's a great time of year!

Car Seat caddy



my third real sewing project was this car seat caddy, I love it! there is room for all the stuff that I put on the floor when we go places. So now there is a spot for books, toys, juice boxes, even a spot of cd's, which will come in handy for long trips when I can sit back there with her!

I made if from a Mc Calls pattern, the hardest part about it all was encasing all the sides with bias tape, and making some, as I ran out! opps, I guess when they call for their brand name bias tape you better make sure the "other" brand name bias tape is the same length, oh well you can't tell that I ran out of blue bias tape right?

next week I am making one for the car (it going to be more girly) pink and black!