My sister is here. 'Nuff said.

These things make me happy lately

- my boys downstairs playing and laughing together (W is finally at an age that he can rough house a little with his big brother)

- LOST is over but it went out with a good feeling (at least for me)

- an upcoming visit with my favorite younger-sister-who-is-married! ::wink::

- getting a nap on Sunday afternoon

- my new phone coming in the mail…sooner or later!

- saving money on things from groupon

- getting to meet my new little niece next month (and wishing i had had a little girl with her name!)

- bejeweled blitz

- dad’s famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

- editing fun family photos for both work and home

What is making you happy these days?

Master Janae!

Last weekend, the hubby and I were lucky enough to get to travel to Boston for his sister’s graduation from Simmons College. She got her Master’s degree, yeah! I’m in awe of her accomplishment and can’t imagine how much work went into getting it, let alone being on the other side of the country from all of her family and friends! So congratulations, Janae, you deserve everything great that is coming your way as a result of this!

Here are some photos of the big day – I have lots more to post, but I’m waiting for this afternoon when Grandma will be taking the little kiddos so that I can actually have some dedicated time to sit and look through them all!

 

(and yes, we were way back in the crowd and I didn’t want to impeded anyone’s view, so I got some blurred heads in the shots….)

 

 

It was a lot of fun to go and support her in this milestone.

Thanks for inviting us and thanks for making it happen Dad Lakey! :)

I love my guys

Well, this Mother’s Day, the men in my life did not disappoint!

Not only was I treated to some beautiful cards and lots of love, but I got to enjoy a looooong conversation with my family, including my little brother who is away from home serving a mission for our church. He is doing exactly what the Lord wants him to be doing right now and I couldn’t be more proud of him. He has really matured into this amazing young man over the last year and a half, and I just love being able to talk to him when we can. He goes home (to Ohio) in August, and then it’s straight back to college! I can’t wait to see what he does with his life – he’s a truly special human being.

But anyways, back to me. ::wink::

After I got to take a miniscule nap we went out to eat at Red Lobster because I didn’t want to cook! And it was worth it – their shrimp scampi is the best thing ever. Yum. Here’s what we looked like (and notice I’m not in any of them because I’m always the one behind the camera and forgot to ask the hubby to take some for me! Duh!):

My loves!

Little W boy. He’s just too adorable. But I’m biased.

This is the kid who made me a mom for the first time. I sure do love him!

This little guy keeps us on our toes!

Love him! Glad we met one day at the famed Foxwood apartments many years ago…

Obviously ready to eat!

All in all, it was a great Mother’s Day. I love my boys and I can’t imagine life without them.

PS: On a side (and completely off-topic) note, if you’re going to send people to your Flickr account, please don’t call it a Flicker account. There is a difference. :) Sorry, but I’ve seen that more than one place and I just want to say a huge Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers “Really??” when I do.

Back in the saddle

We have our dryer fixed. That means no more line drying! Woohoo! I did have fun while it lasted. It was kind of cool to see my laundry blowing in the wind, feeling very accomplished with myself. But then again, with 3 males in the household, all of which constantly lose the battle between the food on their fork and the clean places on their shirts, I'll be glad to have the laundry dry in less than an hour.

Whew.

Here’s to a major laundry day!

We’re Going Old-School

Our usually awesome red dryer (which is only a year and a half old, mind you) has been on the fritz lately and we just got the estimate today. We won’t have a working dryer until Monday. Blech. But instead of hauling all our stuff to the laundromat or usurping someone else’s dryer for hours at a time, I had a plan! I figured I’d try and be all domestic about it and hang our laundry outside to dry. The only problem is that we don’t have any trees or tall structures to use for the line part. So I got creative with our play slide, the outside wall sconce, some thick twine and clothespins.

 

There’s E ‘helping’ get all the clothespins together….just to put them on the floor.

 

Here he’s helping me put clothespins on the bottoms of all the clothes, haha.

And can you see that Busath tongue action?? He looks just like my dad and my brothers. That’s when you know there is some serious concentrating going on!

Who knows, maybe this can turn into something cool? Maybe I’ll love the smell of sun-dried laundry better than our dryer and I won’t ever want to use electronic devices again?

Yeah, right.

But I am enjoying it for now at least, while I have to. :)

And yes, W does love to be the king of the castle.

I’m so glad we actually have a yard to come and hang our clothes in! It’s so heavenly to be outside and just get to enjoy this incredible weather. I mean, that’s what we pay for, isn’t it?? :)

 

And on a separate note, I just saw this video about Stephanie Nielson and it inspired me to be a better mom today. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Sneak peek

I just posted a little mini-session over on my photography blog of an adorable mom and daughter duo! Go check it out if you’d like. :)

Happy National Scrapbooking Day

In honor of today (and yes, I know it’s not Digital Scrapbooking day, but I’ll celebrate nonetheless…) I thought I’d share some of my newer layouts with you today!

This is me and E last year. We had our computer set up downstairs and took lots of fun photos together. I can’t believe this was already a year ago! He looks so little in the pictures. And he just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Part of me loves it and part of me would love for it to stop so he could stay my little guy forever. Ah, parenting. :)

 

I just LOVE this layout, don’t you? I don’t know if it’s the color scheme or the fun photos all in one place or the little touches of embellishments, but it’s one of my recent favorites. It’s all about little E, and how much we adore him and his silly little quirks.

 

This one was fun because it was completely out of my comfort zone! I love that it’s dreamy and arty, just kind of fun.

 

This last one has just one of the cutest pictures ever! And I don’t just think that because it’s of my little W. :) I was so happy to catch him in a clap, because it’s something he’s been into lately, as he just learned to do it about a month ago. He loves to get us clapping with him! E likes to get him laughing by clapping and I just love to watch that. This is a big example of why I scrapbook – to hold on to these kinds of memories for years to come.

Now the task is to get those pictures that are just sitting on my hard drive onto a layout with the accompanying stories!

Hope you enjoyed these! And I hope you’re inspired to go out and scrap something yourself in honor of today. :)

 

If you’re interested in any of the supplies use, you can click on the photo and be taken to my gallery at Scrap Girls, where the supply lists are located.