Verbally Challenged

I seem to always be a day late in posting photos! These were all taken yesterday. I was too exhausted to post last night – I blame the heat! But I’m NOT complaining since I LOVE the hot weather…humidity and all.

So we had another nice family day yesterday. We had our own picnic for lunch and I made the standard holiday picnic foods and Liam swam ALL AFTERNOON! He loved it…I loved it! I even broke out the water balloons yesterday as a special treat – Liam was in heaven!!!

And then after naptime we went to a local church carnival for rides, games and junk food. There were four rides and Liam rode (and loved) them all. Three is a great age…last year he was just a little young and unsure of things. This year he’s ALL GO!

And all three of us rode this Ferris wheel (because Liam wanted to go on it). So Nate being the trooper that he is went on it with us (I wanted Liam wedged into the center) even though he HATES heights! He was a sweaty mess – poor guy! But we survived. Doesn’t this thing look weak and unstable??? I used to watch Carnival when it was still on HBO and there was a Ferris wheel scene that kept going through my head – not good!!!

We hope to go back at the end of the week before it closes.

So that’s all with me. I’m working on some projects this morning before I have to pick Liam up from school – LAST DAY!!! Even though he only goes Monday and Tuesday morning for three hours I want him all to myself! I can’t wait!!!

Have a great day!

I have had good intentions to update since Saturday. BUT it has been a busy weekend with lots of fun photos and I’ve lost my battle to the couch every night. AND I have looming deadlines and leave for vacation on June 8 so forgive if I’m a bit crazy right now! I’m trying to prioritize everything with my family coming first so my blog has taken a backseat – yet again.

Anyway, I’ve had a fantastic weekend! On Saturday my mom had an awesome holiday picnic (early so that we’d all have two days to relax and recover) – SO FUN!!! I love family gatherings especially at my mom’s because she has a good party house. It’s a place where Liam can run around (and he did for a solid 6 1/2 hours) and not risk getting lost or hurt in the street. It’s a place where we can play games in the grass – gotta love bocce and croquet. And it’s a place where folks sit for hours and just talk – enjoying time together. THAT was our Saturday and I just loved it. No surprise that I have a few photos (I took around 400).

And then yesterday we mellowed out here at home – making sure that Liam had plenty of time to catch up on his sleep since he had a BUSY day on Saturday. We ran a few errands and then let Liam swim in the little pool the rest of the day. He was one happy little dude and guess what…more pictures (about 300)!!!

Today we’re doing our own holiday picnic. I’m cooking a few different things and Liam will probably swim some more. There is a church fair that starts tonight that maybe we’ll go to after Liam’s nap – we’ll see how it goes. I’m just loving time with my boys and reminding myself how lucky I am to have them – and loving all of the time we’re spending together. It was definitely a feel good family weekend and gosh – I love those!

So photos. It took me at least an hour to go through all of them and export the ones with potential. It took another hour (at least) to edit them so that they felt good to me. I am so picky with my photos! But I’m very happy with them. They capture everyone having fun (especially Liam) – no posing for the camera portrait style shots. It’s real life…captured…unstaged. It’s all good.

Here are some from the picnic…

Nate taught him this…he was in that pose for about two seconds before he was up and running again!

Same thing here…a one second pose for Liam!

And the Rocketballoons were back!

Liam and pappy playing the “hit game” as Liam called it because he’d try and hit papy with the balloon!

My nephew Nico. He didn’t hang outside too much and I didn’t have the right camera lens to shoot indoors without a flash!

The martini girls! My mom (second from the left) and her girlfriends after a game of croquet…enjoying themselves!

And then these photos were from yesterday!

Even though you can’t see faces in the first two I LOVE the stories they tell!

That’s more than enough for now!!! I’m going to load the rest of the photos into an album…somewhere. I just need to get everything resized and I’ll add a link!

Have a great day!!!

Has it been a week since I’ve posted yet? Ugh…bad Marla. I blame it on the sickness – lost all track of time!!! It’s funny how some colds are mild and others leaving you begging to die on the couch (well unless you have deadlines to finish and have to fight through the sickness to create a germ filled piece of art).

Speaking of art – here is one thing that I designed last week. I had to design an online challenge for the Creating Keepsakeswebsite – it was fun and I love the layout! I’ve been mixing up my pages sizes lately – doing whatever feels right instead of forcing the whole 12X12 and you know what – it feels good!!! Sometimes it just flows better – I’m going with it!

I’m loving the big acrylic accents too by Go West Studios– I used one of their flowers on that layout. You can use paint, chalk, and alcohol ink – whatever to customize it. Cool stuff. The paper is 3 Bugs in a Rug and I’m loving that right now because I’m not used to working with it. And the star paper is Cherry Arte – they have some seriously cool designs.

And while I’m mentioning cool stuff, my friend FINALLY created a website for her page designs! She has some great ideas and I love the name, pagemaps. So if you’re ever feeling stumped and want to get some design ideas, check her out! Love ya Becky!

And I’m also prepping for our vacation in June. We’re off for two weeks to Arizona to enjoy the weather – the hot hot peel yourself off of the pavement weather. Seriously – we love it there and selected June since it’ll be REALLY hot. It’s our little heaven. I know that I’ve posted this before but here is the layout that I did about last year’s vacation – including LOTS of photos!

So we have a 3 year old to entertain on an airplane for four hours. Part of that we will be watching videos…sleeping is out of the question because my little dude sleeps nowhere but in bed. He has ALWAYS been like that, no stroller, NO CAR, no plane…nothing. So if you have any clever kiddo airplane tricks – send them my way will you? Oh…one that I can share – pipe cleaners. Perhaps this is just my son though. He likes to create letters out of the twist ties in the grocery store (can you tell that he comes shopping with me) so we have pipe cleaners to make letters and shapes out of. They’re small and lightweight for the carry-on – love that! Now, any other ideas out there?

And finally a few photos. I was too lazy yesterday to switch out my lenses so I didn’t get too many good shots – that’ll teach me.

This is Liam and his new best friend (seriously loving “creatures” right now):

Liam faking out the dog…no I’m not going to steal your bone from you….:

Liam doing what he does best – tormenting the pup:

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m easily influenced. I click on one too many links and maybe read one too many threads on one too many boards. I have a few people to blame and have every intention on linking them since they probably have no idea of their guilt! So since it’s Mother’s Day (and a very happy one to you while on the subject) maybe you deserve a little extra something. Maybe?

So let’s start with these:

I got these from Danielle who I was lucky enough to meet on my 2005 CK honorable mention board. She takes images of your layouts and makes them into these magnets. They are just the cutest and a great way to display your work in a different way – or maybe give as gifts! I love mine!

Or check out these really cute photo tile pendants (and now bracelets) that Bethany makes. I wish that I had a photo of mine right now – they’re too cute and Bethany is just the sweetest gal to deal with! Thanks to Danielle for forwarding her information to me!

Now I don’t have anything from here yet but I’m seriously considering it! This source comes from Kate – another gal on the 2005 Honorable Mention board. In fact, this gal finds a lot of great stuff out there – seriously check out her blog for some good enabling!!! I’m loving the green glass pieces (no surprise on the color there) on that site!!!

The next enabler on my list is Angie. She’s a gal from my Hall of Fame board and mentioned these super cool diaper bags in a thread. I’ve always loved my Fleurville backpack but don’t really carry it anymore since Liam is older and it’s a bit bulky for the limited toddler stuff I need to carry. I’m really digging these Petunia Picklebottom toddler bags. And the name is too cute and helps sell the bag too in my warped mind!!!

Something else that I love (and purchased) is a big wooden letter! Go ahead, laugh for a moment. I’m blaming Donna Downey for this one and she has NO IDEA!!! If you scroll down on Donna’s blog you’ll see what I mean – and probably stop laughing. They’re made by Janna – they’re really cool and quite large. I’m redesigning our playroom and wanted a big “L” for obvious kiddo purposes.

And now let’s talk scrap stuff…and a little more enabling.

I’m currently working on an assignment where I need to use a lot of paper from one manufacturer (same line in fact). I had to order 35 sheets! I can’t go into detail but I needed something that was very inspiring to me so I selected the dulce line from A2Z Essentials. All that I can say is not enough places carry this paper! I need it locally so that’s is easily accessible! Thank goodness for mail order – I’m having a great time using it!

Another paper that I’m loving right now is the American Crafts Bookshelf line. Great color and fun design!

And finally, one more paper I’m loving (and wishing that I could find locally) is Urban Lily. I need the urban gypsy collection! And I mean NEED it!

Well I could start on embellishment, stickers etc. but I’ll save that for another day – when I haven’t bored you to tears by now! And just for the parentals who are sticking this out…here are a few photos: the “L” man, the red headed beast, and Nate (wearing Liam’s hat).

Happy Mother’s Day once again!

Since I’ve vanished for about a week now! I’ve been on an organizing/cleaning frenzy. And we’re not even talking the studio here (although I have tackled it as well). We’re talking the entire house! I’m still nowhere near completion because…well…I have a lot of stuff – ok junk. And it has taken me years to accumulate it so it’ll take me a while to sift through it and toss what I don’t need (or don’t have room for). I’m afraid to stop quite honestly because these kicks don’t happen all that often. I’m running with it.

Once everything is organized and streamlined a bit I’m painting. Usually paint colors have about a three-year limit with me. NOT the main rooms where I’m committed with furniture and accessories or the kitchen (I usually pick good solid colors that I’ll love forever). But I’m talking about the playroom that used to be an office (before me moved the office). It’s a blue color and I’m doing a light creamy green color (I think). My bedroom is a bright green color right now and needs to be a lovely aqua blue (robin’s egg blue perhaps) – something that I can pair with a chocolate brown and feel like a princess. I need new bedding! And then our newly remodeled bathroom needs repainted. It’s a lovely shade of incredible hulk green right now and needs to change. I’m not sure what to do there yet – perhaps just tone the green down a bit. Whatever we select it needs to go with slate and bamboo. Decisions decisions.

But all is well and good. Cleaning up feels good and productive! Love that!

Take care!