SO SORRY!

I seriously did not mean to leave you all hanging for so long...


Weeks have passed me by since Rich came home and I went to CHA. I LOVED every minute of it (well except for the whole puking wagon thing...that I could have done without LOL!)!!!!


I will post a lot more info of what has been happening soon. EXTREMELY busy time for me so what I will leave you with are a few pictures from CHA....


Welcome to CHA - Chicago 2008



American Crafts (swoon)


Lance (owner of Rusty Pickle)


Stacey with Courtney Walsh (Chatterbox)


Me with Cindy Tobey (LOVE her stuff!!!!!)


Maya Road Goodies


The SS Girls. I LOVE them so MUCH!


So like I said, more from me later....new layouts, more pics, etc etc etc.

Love you!!!

-Brianne

HOORAY!

My husband is home for a little while! It has been SUCH a great weekend, even with me having to pick up after to males again. We have been so busy since I last posted, that it had completely slipped my mind to update! SORRY!



My birthday went well. My co-workers are so completely awesome to me! They all got together and threw a food-day in my honor, as well as a nice big gift certificate to Hobby Lobby (YAY for supporting the habit!). AND I got some AWESOME, BEAUTIFUL cards from my ScrapStreet sisters! (Thank you ladies!!!)




Dh got in late that night and we caught up. I missed him SOOOO much. SO glad to have him home, even if it is only for 45 days. Ahh, the life of a military wife. Well, that is a story for another day.




Friday, I left work a little early to hang out with my two boys. We had a nice dinner together and relaxed all evening. Started working on a few scrapping projects I wanted to get accomplished by the end of the weekend.




We had absolutely no plans for this weekend (YAY!). Saturday was perfectly wonderful. We went grocery shopping, did a little misc shopping at Wal-Mart and the PX, and then hit the swimming pool. By the end of the day, little man was tuckered out so he conked out early. MORE SCRAPPING TIME! Oh and time with dh .



Today, dh slept in (again) so Matthew and I hung out in my scrap room. He was busy playing with all of mommy's "toys" while I was laying out a few ideas for the layouts I was trying to finish for the contest over at Scrapdango. Week One was tough. With so many restrictions and rules, I didn't know how I would finish...



Enter Week Two. Well, for week one's bonus challenge, we had to draw a sketch. For Week Two's challenge, we were assigned another scrapper's sketch to base a layout on. And THEN the bonus round was to do our own sketch as well. Here is what I came up with:

Challenge:

My Assigned Sketch:



My Layout:







Bonus Round:



My Original Sketch:





My Layout:






I am pretty happy with the results.




Week 5 @ TheScrapbookSite




Week 4's Layout:









I have to admit, I LOVED this round. I LOVE telling stories with my layouts. I have been meaning to scrapbook the story of Matthew's tubes and just hadn't gotten around to it. FINALLY its done and in his book. If you would like a closer look at the journaling, you can find it here: 35 Minutes






You can vote for my layout by private messaging Kelly Shults with the name of the artist and the title of the layout. (i.e., Breeze7 with 35 Minutes)





Btw, Kelly is an AWESOME designer over at Dream Street Paper. If you have a chance, check out their blog here: Dream Street Paper





CHA

Guess where I head in a few days...









I can't wait!




Ok enough from me! I am off to bed ( you know, beauty sleep and all...).




Talk to you soon!

-B

Ponderings...

As I sit here the night before my 28th birthday, I am in awe of how truly blessed I am. I have a WONDERFUL husband who loves me without fail, a darling son who makes me smile like no one else, and all of my family and friends. I have my health, I have love, and I have peace.


God is good! Life is great!


Ok updates!


Matthew is growing like a weed. We recently went to the park and I took some shots of him playing on the playground equipment. He would stay ALL day at the park if I let him.




He is SUCH a doll, isn't he???





I am obsessed with his Eve toy. She is such a cutie! Thinking of making a banner with her....



Right now, Matthew is obsessed with Bob The Builder. LOVES watching ALL of his movies (and we have EVERY single one) and building whatever he can get his hands on. I had almost forgotten about this fort kit we had up in his closet. Thank goodness he didn't .





This is what I found him doing with it. He kept yelling for me to help him with the little fabric pieces. "They WONT STAY, Mommy!!" So I helped him and he played in there for over an hour while watching....what else...Bob the Builder.



Mojo

I seriously do not post enough pictures of my cat, Mojo. He keeps me company in the wee hours while I scrap. Normally by playing with my scraps all over the floor. He loves me unconditionally, as I him.




Round 3 @ TSS




Round three voting is open at http://www.thescrapbooksite.com/. This round was all about Doodlebug products. This round was tough for me because I don't really doodle LOL!

To vote this round, you need to pm Superflymollie with the artists board name and the title of their layout.

You can check out the layout in more detail here: First Move-E

Round Four has been posted as of tonight. Again, I can link it but not show it yet. You can view it here: 35 Minutes

Round 1 - Scrapdango

I recently found another call for a DT at Scrapdango.com. These girls are SO much fun and I thought "sure, what the heck! why not?!". Round one was WICKED (in a good way of course!).



Rules for this round were:

-Must be of girl(s) having fun
-Use orange, violet, and green. Any shades
-5 papers
-7 flowers
-2 pictures
-Journaling
-Scallops
-And the quote that is in the upper left of my layout.

To see a closer look, you can click here: Snow Much Fun

This layout was a lot of fun for me to do. My mom sent me a boatload of pictures a while back and I have just began using them.
This contest is by admin votes only so please keep your fingers crossed for me!

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OK that is all from me for tonight. I will post lots of pictures of Rich's homecoming on Friday night. MY BABY COMES HOME TOMORROW NIGHT! YAY!

Love you!

-Brianne

Ok I swear I will update this tomorrow! Lots of pictures and updates on everything.

OH, Week three voting is open at www.thescrapbooksite.com. Check it out!



-Brianne

Yet another catch up post...

Ok...here we go...by day again :)

Sunday:

We spent the day at the zoo for my work’s annual picnic. And for the first time EVER I forgot my camera! I did not realize it until we got out of the truck AT the zoo! I had packed it all up and put it on the counter, but then completely missed grabbing it.

Matthew enjoyed seeing all the animals. It was a little on the warm side so he became grumpy after a short amount of time. One of my coworkers rode up with us, along with her daughter and they were ready to go as soon as we were. It was a nice day overall but exhausting to do on a Sunday.

Monday:

Matthew has been having issues at daycare. He really misses Daddy and has been acting out. He threw a major fit on Monday and his provider actually had to call me at work to calm him down. He kept saying, over and over, that he was sad and missed daddy. After that call, I took the rest of the day off and we spent it together. Mommy and Matthew time.

Tuesday:

Week Three at TheScrapbookSite is all about doodles! Majority of the layout has to be done with Doodlebug products and the layout must contain some form of doodles. Check out my layout here: First Move-E

Week Two Voting is now open.

Link to my layout: Never Met a Stranger

To vote, pm Francine. Please make sure to include the name of the layout and the person’s board name!

Wednesday:

The house really needs to be cleaned. I feel bad for neglecting some of the things that really need attention (i.e., mopping, showers, etc etc etc). Going to try to catch up on these things this weekend during my extra day.

Also, more and more people tell me I need to be watching Smallville so I went out and rented the entire first season. Off to watch some Clark Kent .

Love you (& miss you babe!)

-Brianne (& Matthew)

PHEW! Been a LONG week!

Operation: CountDown to Daddy


Catch-up Post (again):

We are almost at the three week mark! It has been tough and I know to the rest of this year, this time would have been a cake walk. Daddy will be home in 12 days!!! YAY! SO excited!

Goings-On:

Matthew and I had a busy week. Will try to break it down by day....


Tuesday:







We bought Matthew a sandbox last weekend. We have been playing with it EVERY day since. He loves putting water in it...makes me think he would have been more happy with a water play table.

This was also our first day with a new babysitter. We have a neighbor girl who is in high school and I figured it would not hurt to ask her if she wanted to babysit. I had a ladies coffee to go to for my husband's work, so it was a perfect time to see. She is AWESOME with Matthew. I am SO OVERJOYED that she worked out well (we have had NIGHTMARES with part-time babysitters...don't get me started). I like to have on-call sitters to come watch him instead of asking our daycare provider. She sees him ALL week long and I wouldn't want to overload her after hours. Having the sitter come again Saturday evening so I can go get my hair highlight and recharge the Mommy batteries.


Wednesday:

SLOW day. I have been needing to work on my second round layout over at The Scrapbook Site and Wednesday was a perfect day...or so I thought. Had the whole thing sketched out and could NOT, for the life of me, make it work in my favor. HATED it when I went to bed on Wednesday. Walked away when it was about 75% done and just called it a night. Even told dh on the phone that I may just stop the contest because it was stressing me out. He told me to "sleep on it" (as Janneke would say to me too) and look at it again in the morning. Sure enough, sleep helped. Finished the embellies Thursday morning and uploaded before I could tear it apart.

Make sure to register for their forums! The link is in my post below. Round One voting ends today! Here is my second round layout's link:


Never Met a Stranger...


Cannot post the layout on here yet due to contest rules so make sure you register and check it out!

Thursday:

Did BK for dinner (SO WW-friendly ). Then walked again at the track near our house. I feel like I have been working out and watching what I eat and yet the lb's just don't want to budge! VERY irritating but it is also making me work harder. Wonder if its year 28 rounding the corner that is making it so hard...

Friday:

Came home from work to find some scrap goodies waiting for me on our doorstep! YAY! Energized me so much! Loaded up Matthew into the Nitro and off we went to find the on-post pool. Felt SOOOO good to swim again. I LOVE the water. And my little guy does too! TOTAL fish AND a total flirt. Gonna have to watch him as he gets older...


Saturday!!!:

The day I have been looking forward to ALL week! Planned on taking Matthew to see his VERY FIRST movie in a theater! He did AMAZING! I am so completely proud of our little man! We went to see...

WALL-E

When we first arrived in the theater, there was no one in there. So guess what Mommy did...you got it! She took pictures!

PROUD MOMMY MOMENT!

So that wraps up the week for now. Sitter will be over around 6 pm to watch Matthew and my hair appt is at 6:30. SO looking forward to being pampered. Will post before and after photos when I get home tonight. Maybe I will go daring...


Love you all and miss you so much babe!

-Brianne (&Matthew)

Another Catch Up!

- -

&

Days 12, 13, 14 & 15

Ugh, I feel like a bad blogger and a bad wife for not posting every day, but this child does not give me enough hours in the day!

Mental note, do not have another "free" weekend until Rich gets home!!! He drove me absolutely BONKERS! I was pulling my hair out Sunday night....work today was a blessing! I know its just the age and daddy being gone, but holy cow. If I had known it was this much work before, I may have rethought the wild nights ;)

Scrapbook Contest at TheScrapbookSite.com

Round One Layout:

I really do love the way this turned out. I could not get any patterned paper to work for me, so I ended up using all cardstock! Crazy huh? Make sure to check it out! http://www.thescrapbooksite.com/

Round two is now open and this round is a little harder for me. The layout MUST be a layout about only you and contain the following:

-Three patterned papers from KI Memories

-Pictures of you (ONLY you, no others)

-Journaling about you, written by you (no quotes or poems)

I have the pic, the topic, and now I am just trying to decide on the paper line :)

New Layouts/work:

OK off to bed early tonight. Need some quality sleep. Will post more pictures tomorrow!!

-Brianne (&Matthew)

Catching Up!

&


Days 8, 9, 10, & 11

Days without Daddy seem SO long. This week has gone by a lot faster than last week. Each minute was dragging on last week. Matthew and I have pretty much had the same schedule every day.

6:30 am – Wake Up
7:30 am – Out the door to daycare/work
5:30 pm – Get home (dinner)
7:30 pm – Bath time, teeth brushing, book, and bed (for Matthew)
8:00 pm – Mommy quiet time (scrapping, reading, cleaning, etc…)
11:00 pm – Bedtime

It keeps things really easy and the time flies this way. The only thing that really stinks is the weekends. Too much free time.

Matthew got to go to the big daycare for two days this week due to our provider’s daughter having surgery. He was SOOOO excited to be going to the “big boy school”. It was so cute to see him practically dragging me down the hallway to his classroom. It really makes me realize that he is almost ready for school. Its sad in a way but at the same time, I am so excited for him.

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Contest at TheScrapbookSite.com

On Tuesday, Diana talked me into entering another 6 week long contest. I wasn’t really looking for any more obligations at this point, but I figured it would give me a reason to scrap every night and meet new scrapper friends. TheScrapbookSite.com is actually a GREAT site! I am SO happy that I found another possible site to draw in some new talent for the magazine!

The voting starts this weekend (Sunday) and will run for a week at a time. (Watch your emails for a little note from me!) The rules state that we cannot post our layouts until the week after, but we can link back to their gallery. You can check out my week one layout here:

http://www.thescrapbooksite.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=19766&limit=recent

Rich told me that you cannot view this until you register, so go ahead and register at the link below which will also save you some time in getting ready to vote on Sunday! (hint, hint)

Register here:

http://www.thescrapbooksite.com/forums/index.php?act=Reg&CODE=00

Check it out soon!!!

Matthew and his trucks

This boy LOVES his trucks. We played outside for a little over an hour with his trucks in my unused flower bed. I practically had to drag him inside. They made for the CUTEST layout (hint hint again!).

Scrap Room Fix-up Project

I am in the process of cleaning up our office/scrap room. We have moved boxes THREE times now to THREE different states and its about time we went through everything and PURGED. SO this is my major project while Rich is gone.

OK that is it for me today. Hope everyone is doing well!!! OH OH OH and family, I am really trying to return phone calls. I am not avoiding you, there are just not enough hours in the day. I will call everyone back by this weekend. I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

-Brianne (& Matthew)