twinkle toes

Miss S wowed us with her moves at her final dance class last week. At first I wasn't sure she was actually going to dance...

but then she joined her friends. After fussing with her tutu for a bit, she eventually just ditched it. And her ballet slippers too. Her friend Miss D wanted nothing to do with the show at all...

even when Miss S tried to convince her...

But eventually all the girls found their groove...

and then they had even more fun playing together at the McD's play area after the show, with their big brothers and all parents and grandmas & grandpas and friends that came to watch them.

the official santa photo

If you recall last year...
I could not get the kiddies anywhere near Santa.
This photo...


makes me happy.

Miss S and I were at the shopping mall, there was no line up, and she actually wanted to go visit with Santa! Happy day.

R is still just enjoying Santa from afar.

bloom mini book: done

Remember waayyy back when I attended the Donna Downey event in April? Well, I recently finished one of the projects from that weekend! {Please excuse the poor quality photos - they were taken at night, in my haste to actually call this project done}!

I was feeling the need to scrapbook, but was not in the mood to start something new, so I dug deep in my basket of unfinished projects {I really do have a basket labeled that, and it is quite full...}. This mini book was 99% complete, it just needed photos and a few finishing touches. I think that Donna meant for us to use small black & white photos, but that would require printing new photos, so I grabbed recent photos that were laying around {literally laying on the floor of my scraproom}, cropped them to random sizes, fussy-cut them and came up with this...

It was a great class. We used acrylic, cardboard and fabric as well as paper...

made stems out of cardstock...

glimmer mist and masks, stamps, india ink and a calligraphy tip...

lots of Prima flowers, vintage dictionary pages and felt alphabets...
So that's one project down.
Many, many more to go.

where women create

You must check out the Where Women Create blog right now {or click on the widget in my sidebar}! They are giving away fabulous prizes from the most talented artists, every day from December 1 through December 12. I am crossing my fingers that I win something...

snow white and the seven parties

It seems like every weekend lately the kiddies have gone to one or more birthday parties. Lots of fun, but keeps us busy. Especially with R playing hockey two times each weekend, Miss S's dancing and then all the other family stuff we try and cram into our weekends!

A couple weekends ago Miss S and I attended a Princess Party at my friend Cathy's house {Miss D, Miss S and the other Miss S all go to pre-school and dancing together, and we have play dates all the time} . It was so sweet - the girls were asked to dress as princesses, and were surprised by a special guest...

Cinderella! Or as Miss S kept telling everyone "a REAL Disney pwincess". Cinderella entertained the girls with magic tricks, balloon animals and face painting...

Here are some more photos taken when we got home...

While Miss S and I were playing princess, K and R were at Jill's place for Baby G's second birthday.

I think the kiddies have better social lives than I do...

daily december

How did December get here so quickly?

I always think I am going to be more ready than I am for the holiday season. I have finished most of my Christmas shopping {just need a few small things and teacher gifts}, have the outside of the house all decorated, and some of the inside.

I am excited to complete a December Daily album this year, a tradition started by Ali Edwards and copied by scrapbookers all over {you can read more about what it is here, and see her 2009 album here}.

I finished the cover of my album last week...

and filled it with the pages, all ready to go {most made last year and never used!}

I painted a 7gypsies chipboard album from my stash, with teal paint and then painted over it with crackle paint in the 'old paper' color. I distressed it with the distress ink in the same color and sanded away some of the paint. This was my first time using the crackle paint {in scrapbooking anyway - I have crackle painted an armoire}...

I am sure Renee is laughing at me for this, because I bought the distress products ages ago and haven't used them. I always say it is "too much technique for me" - I like to scrapbook the quick and easy way...but this was fun and didn't take long at all {other than waiting for the very thick paint to dry}!

During December I will post my daily photos and album pages. Stay tuned!

inside daily december

The inside pages of my Daily December album, ready and waiting to be filled with our memories of December 2009...

























I actually made most of these pages last year, but then did not have enough time to complete the album {last year was a crazy time - we were selling our house right before Christmas, so not a lot of extra decorating or scrapbooking got done}! So I am attempting this again.

If I had done the pages this year I think I would have used a different style of papers, etc. But because the idea of this album is to make documenting your holidays quick and easy, I am resisting the urge to re-do it!

Now all I have to do, during the busy holiday season, is snap a quick photo, print it out at home {on my handy dandy photo printer, a gift from K last Christmas}, stick the photos in the album and add a few small embellishments.

Happy December!