We are adding to the family!!!!!

Meet Sookie, the newest member of our family. We will be welcoming her to our home at the end of March. She turned 3 weeks old this week.

Sookie is a female great dane, we could not be more thrilled!

What's happening?

Well I just can not to seem to keep up with all the things I enjoy. Blogging is defiantly something I have been putting on the back burner. So I am going to try to update you on an entire month :), So far it has been a good one, filled with family time and joy (I am choosing to leave the details of stress and such out-because lets face it-we all have it).

I made this layout to show off one of the activities we do every year in Feb. make valentine cupcakes each year. This year our special friend and neighbor Emma was able to help us. We had a lot of fun and one emotional breakdown during this event. Kennedy was able to "decorate" on her own with icing this year, she did grow tired of this task rather quickly.

We had many projects this Valentine season others included making foam bear necklaces and making a wicked cool valentine house.

We have had quite a bit of snow here this month too, much to Kennedy's excitement. The snow has given us some special days with Daddy at home, Kennedy and I both love having Jeremy home a little extra. She and her daddy got some special one on one time in the snow. Memories I am certain they both cherish, the only bad thing about the snow is it came with such artic weather that it was a bit enjoyable for longer than 15 minutes. Why can't snow come on a warm day...imagine the fun!

The cold weather is growing old even for Kennedy. She has been asking to go out for a picnic quite frequently. So we had an indoor picnic the other day. She loved it. I had a great time just sitting and really talking to her. She is so sweet and funny.

On Friday I took Kennedy to the doctor for her five year check-up. She has gained 2 lbs and grown 2.5 inches in one year!!! She is just so so tall, I find it astonishing. I prayed that she would be tall, and clearly God heard my prayer and chose to honor it. I am just so blessed that she is healthy. She is doing great in school, I can NOT believe how well she is reading. She now reads signs as we drive down the road and she makes an attempt (mostly they are successful) at reading rather large words.

I have taken on a job with a digital designer-Jessica Edwards @ Elemental Scraps. I am doing layouts for her team. I am very excited to working with such a talented designer.

Here are some of the layouts I have been doing with her designs.

Well that's all for now :)

Back to Scrappin'

Well one of my goals for this year was to get back to scrapbooking. I had totally put that, along with anything I did for my self on hold over the past year. It has been a great joy to get back to doing something I love and having a real creative outlet. I love chronicleing my familys moments, good and bad. This year I have also started a book of me. I wanted to share some of my layouts with my friends and family.
So take a look I hope you enjoy!















On a side note I have now, changed my blog back to being public. I had to make it private do to some personal issues and spamming. I have changed the addie and am not searchable. So I am going to try to blog a bit more now that I feel that situation has been resolved.
Hugs!

Build a Bear and Peirced Ears

For Kennedy's fifth birthday Aunt Shawnah took Kennedy to Build a Bear Workshop. She really didn't know what Build a Bear was, she just knew if Shawnah wanted to go she was in. When we got started Kennedy made no hesitation in picking a---FROG!. We all were equally surprised by this particular choice, but it was her birthday so we reluctantly agreed. (Turns out she still loves this little frog-much to mommy's surprise).

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After picking her frog, she moved on to the stuffing area. Kennedy filled her frog so he would be super soft.

Then Kennedy picked out her frogs heart.

She had to rub the heart on her heart, her head, her elbow and then jump up and down. So her frog would have some of her fabulous qualities.

Then Kennedy helped with it's heart transplant.

Followed by and air bath. The next step was picking out the clothes. That was an interesting experience. Kennedy first wanted to get an Ariel cosutme (because it had a wig for the frog to wear) then she wanted Tinkerbell, but ultimatley she choose Hello Kitty pajamas so her frog would be comfy. I helped her choose the perfect name for her frog. I read names too her until she liked the sound of "Flippy".

Aunt Shawnah and Kennedy made it offical by nameing Flippy and printing out her birth certificate.

..................................................So here they are after we were all finished. Kennedy had the best time doing this. She asked me the next day if she could do it every year for her birthday. Of course I said yes. (So she has Aunt Shawnah booked Dec 14th every year *winks*)  I know Kennedy will have extreamly fond memories of this for a lifetime. It was a really cool morning.

So after the fun Build-a-Bear experience we were off to the ear peircing. Kennedy has wanted her ears peirced for over a year. She was always observing others and there ears. Jeremy told her las year that she could get it done when she was 5. (He regrets saying that) Needless to say Kennedy was looking to getting her "ears-a-peirced" (as she said). We went to Claire's and the would not allow me to take photos. I thought this was completey insane, so I left. I honestly can say that really turned me off to them in general and I don't know that I will frequent the store as much, but anyway we found a place that would allow me to photograph the ordeal and we were golden.

I have to say Kennedy was increadibly brave about this. Aunt Shawnah held her hand and I took pics, Kennedy never even flinched. Not a tear came to her eye. I was so amazingly proud of her for going through with it. As you can see in the pics it was not done both ears at one time, so she endured the whole thing twice, facing it with the same bravery and determination. THAT's MY GIRL!!!

After she was finished with that we took her for her favorite food. Pizza. We ate at California Pizza Kitchen. I forget how much I like that place...so good. Kennedy got a big ice cream for her birthday. She had a fantastic day!

Party in the USA..she's 5

I wanted to post some photos from Kennedy's birthday party. She wanted to have a party at her Gymnastics Gym. I wanted to make her 5th party amazing-I think we were both really happy. The kids had a fantastic time. I had fun just watching them. There was a bounce house and they got to use most of the equipment. Many of the people we love were able to come and celbrate her life. It was a fantastic party.

My mom took K to get her nails done for the big party. Hello Kitty themed of course!

K's rock star hair do. Done by me.

As you can see there was plenty of activity at the party. I think everyone had the best time ever.

Here is Kennedy and her GG.

The annual photo of  Kennedy and her cousin Grace.

Thanks to everyone who came and celbrated. We all had a blast celbrating year 5.

What Happens in Vegas....takes awhile to post about :)

So it has almost been a month since our trip to Las Vegas and I am fianlly sitting down to share our trip with you. This time of year is some what crazy to say the least, and I just haven't had the time to keep up with all my little hobbies and projects.

Las Vegas was quite the experience. Glad to have had it, and would love to go back and see more. We didn't get a chance to go to "Old Vegas" and there are still a few shows and tours I would like to see. Vegas deffantly is a party town, so we were out of our element in many ways. The time difference and the fact that nothing even thought about opening till 11:00a.m was culture shock for us.

The hotel we stayed at was beautiful. The Palazzo was Itailian in theme and very upscale.  I was just amazed at the vastness and size of each of the hotels.
Here are some pics..

We had some very memorable moments on our trip. We ate at Delmonico Steak House, I was way stoked about that being that is an Emril restaurant. It was very fancy and cool. That same night I got to see and MEET a real live showgirl. I couldn't have been more excited. They were both wearing one of my fav. colors and they were really sweet. We got our photos with them. That is on my bucket list. So I was pretty excited.

We also visted the animal sancuary at the Mirage. They had tigers and dolphins. I really ejonyed visiting it. The dolphins were very used to people and came close without being fed. They had many beautiful tigers and had just had baby tiger cubs. They were adorable but I wasn't able to get a good photo of them. We had a great time visiting that exhibit.

We spent one of our days just exploring the Strip. That is one of the only free things to do. We walked into the hotels and just explored. I found the way the city was set up so very interesting. They have many escalators and walking bridges to make the foot trafic flow better. Everything dumps you into a casino or store. We were amazed with Ceasars Palace, and The Venitian and the Belagio were very beautiful and ornately decorated.

As you can see we had so much to see and so much to do. We had a great time, but it was so so nice to return home. I wish I could sit and tell you more about it, but my family is waiting for me to snuggle up and watch Christmas movies. Watch back over the next few days. I will get more pics up of my family's visit and Kennedy's 5th, FIFTH birthday. TTYS.