Wild West Scrap Divas HUGE giveaway!!!

Holy moly look at this giveaway the Wild West Scrap Divas are doing!! This is awesome!!! They are trying to reach 100 subscribers so check them out and join the giveaway!! These ladies are AWESOME and super talented!!
This is the candy - WOW!!
1 - TH Paper Distresser

1 - TH Tonic Scissors
1 - Inkessentials Craft Mat-large
1 - Crackle Accents
1 - Glossy Accents
1 - Matte Accents
1 - Sepia Accents
12 - Mini Misters
1 - Mini Mister Block
1 - Ranger Embossing Pens, 2 pen pack
1 - Ranger Craft Bucket
1 - Perfect Pearls Naturals Kit
1 - Tuscan Garden Alcohol Ink Set
1 - Blending Solution

Oh Christmas tree!

So to cover a few things I thought I would put it all in one post! Here you see some pictures of

1) our Christmas tree this year (I think it's the best decorating I have done yet! LOL - my hubby gave me the best compliment on it - he said "You know, I hate fake Christmas trees but somehow you make this one look real and I can't stop staring at it. It's so perfect!" How sweet hehe!!

2) our stockings and Christmas afghan (sp?) that my mom made while she was pregnant with ME and my dear old daddy insisted I be brought home from the hospital in HAHA I was a 6lb-er brought home in a full size blanket!!

3) My "mantle" aka the top of our entertainment center. I played around with using ball ornaments to decorate and really like how it turned out!

4) other house deco just to show for fun :)

5) this is the Christmas tree at Green Valley Ranch here in Las Vegas - it is so cool the lights dance to music and they have featured different performances (choirs, dancers, etc) every night!

6) and these last pics are the tree in the park at Town Center - this tree is HUGE as you can see!! Frankie was mesmerized by it aaaaand his snickerdoodle hehe

7) and lastly - one of my blogger buddies is hosting a candy giveaway for showing your favorite ornament check it out at Thoughts of a Crafty Mom

The sparkly icicle looking one has been my favorite since I was a kid, as my dad put them on his tree. When I got married he gave them to me!! And I couldn't choose just one! I love the present ornament that has Frankie's 1st Christmas picture in it :)Now I just have to find one for little Tre!!

More Candy!!!!

Hi everyone!! Just wanted to let you know about another Scrapbeach members giveaway!! She is giving away 10 white velvet flowers from 7gypsies, self adhesive word strips by Pressed Petals, Autumn Leaves Rub-ons, K & Company embossed stickers, Cloud9 Design medium alphabet and number stickers and last but not least Inkadinkado clear stamps Gem Stone Birds. To win just follow her blog (lovemyscrap.blogspot.com), leave a comment, and post about the giveaway on your blog!! Good luck to all and thanks Maggie for doing this!!

-----> After seeing all these great giveaways I am inspired to put one together soon, be on the watch for it!!!

Christmas is coming so soon... ahh!!

Oh goodness, Christmas is only a couple weeks away and I have not bought a single gift!! Granted, I got my cards out but I have two kids and a husband that have nothing under the tree! I am planning on making most of my gifts this year, but am creatively blocked!! Any gifts ideas? What can you make a 14 month old to play with? What's something creative to give to parents? I am lost and have so little time!

Ahhh!!

December Birthdays!!

I have so many friends/family that have birthdays in December.... including myself :)!!! The Stampin Sisters in Christ chllenge for this week was to make a card that incorporated a present into it, how perfect since I have so many birthday cards to send out! Here are a few of the cards I have made so far, only one uses the present :)

Gifts galore

What a week it has been... it started early Sunday morning, about 1:00am. I woke up to that feeling - pain. This pain was welcome though because it meant my son would soon be here and so soon he came, I was admitted to maternity at about 7:00am already dilated to a 7. 9:58am little Andre Trevail quite literally shot out into the world!! He is my favorite gift so far :)

My second favorite gift - that God has blessed me with being in virtually no pain after giving birth!! This is awesome so that I don't need too much help taking care of both my boys!

Of course yesterday was Thanksgiving and the meal was DELICIOUS!! Nothing fancy this year, but oh so good. Mom helped me put up the Christmas tree, and along comes my third favorite gift - when Frankie saw the tree after his nap. Oh how I wish I could have caught that face on camera, he just lit up with excitement!! My heart fills with joy just thinking about it!!!

And lastly Tiffy has let all of us scrappers know about a great giveaway to celebrate 1,000 sales at Sue's (suesfabulouslife.blogspot.com) etsy shop!!! The winner gets:
jenni bowlin perpetual calendar,
tim holtz holiday stamp,
jenni bowlin large christmas bingo cards
a surprise gift from 7 gypsies
Fabulous right???

Pretty cool right?!! To win just post a comment on Tiffy's blog (stampingattiffanys.blogspot.com) and mention the giveaway on your blog!

I think this is why I love this time of year so much... I love the giving spirit!!!

The clock is ticking....

Well the countdown has begun - Baby Andre is due on the 30th of this month and I am so excited and ready for him to be here!! I keep wondering what he will look like, whether he will look just like Frankie, or just like me or his daddy or any of the family!! It's such a fun excitement and wonder to have!!

We've had some minor complications the past month with this pregnancy, my amniotic fluid was low so he was breach and couldn't flip around head down buuut God answered prayers and due to drinking about a gallon of water a day, and especially due to God's goodness my fluid is good now and he is head down ready to go!! The great thing about this though was that I had to go in for ultrasounds twice a week and got to see him!! I think it helped me connect better with him and get more excited about his birth, as I have been focused on making sure Frankie is ready to be a big brother instead of letting myself get excited about having baby boy #2!!!

Things will certainly be different around here, but I am praying that God prepares us all for it and our home is filled with peace and joy!

Shoutout to Tiffy!!!

So one of my closest and dearest friends does AMAZING work with scrapbooking and cardmaking and I wish I were as talented as her!!! She is soooo sweet to be doing a Blog candy giveaway to show appreciation to her followers! How great is that!!! Anyways, here is a video of what she's giving away, AND you should all go check out her work at her blog stampingattiffanys.blogspot.com and show her some love for all her amazing work :)

Stampin Sisters in Christ Challenge #8

I just joined this blog - http://stampinsistersinchrist.blogspot.com/ and I think it is so cool! Their latest challenge was to make a baby card after the verse Jer 1:5 - "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you"

This happens to be one of my favorite verses, as it's just another reminder of God's greatness and that He truly cares about each of us INDIVIDUALLY and wants a relationship with each and every one of us personally!!

Here is my card, tfl!!

First Steps

About 3 days before Frankie's first birthday he began to REALLY walk... thought I would share a little video of it with you all! Of course now a couple weeks later he is already running! My my how fast they grow....

A year come and gone....

It seems so unreal to me that in just a few days my baby boy will be a year old. It has been a year full of discoveries, tons of laughter, equal amounts of tears (on both our parts!!) and many many lessons learned. As my son is learning to take his first steps (yup he is almost there!!! Walking more and more every day!) I wonder if he knows how much trust he has to have to do so. Trust in himself that is, no longer relying on Mommy or Daddy to hold him up, and help him to keep his balance. A part of me wants to keep him little and totally dependent on Andre and myself, and the other wants him to just walk already so I don't have to carry him! I wonder if this is how I will feel with all of his growing independence? Will I fight between wanting to be what he needs, and just letting go?

My son is going to have his first birthday... so many firsts. First smile, first giggle, first tooth, first time rolling over, first ouchie, first fall, first time crawling, first steps... and there are so many more to come. With each "first" that he learns, I learn so many things as well. I think that is my favorite part of being a mom, watching him learn, and me getting to learn right alongside.

Laugh it away

It's been so long! Wow, I guess I got distracted from my blog updates!! A lot has been happening, Andre is a real estate agent now, and I am doing marketing for a vintage couture clothing line along with being a distributor for Ardyss International - God has blessed us both TREMENDOUSLY with these positions :)

Frankie, my sweet boy, is getting so so big! He is crawling all over the place, pulling himself up on absolutely everything and eating like a two year old! I think he is ready to be a big brother in late November, and I know he will be the best big brother EVER! His first word was "Mama", followed by "baba" then "Dada" and now he is making all kinds of baby babble.

Perhaps my favorite thing he does these days, and by far one of the cutest things ever, is he will "fake laugh" to get me to laugh, resulting in us both laughing our heads off. Who knew a 9 month old could fake laugh! He learns new things every day and is just so smart.

Can you tell I am a proud Mama?

Next time your day is not going so hot, laugh it away :) My son taught me that at the ripe ols age of 9 months old.

Frankie's First Trip

I hope you all had a WONDERFUL Easter! I know we sure did, Frankie and I traveled to St. George UT with Nana Becky for a relaxing couple of days with Andre's side of the family. We arrived on Thursday and really just hung out at the hotel. We got to meet Andre's cousins that are like siblings to him and play with their adorable children. We spent one afternoon lounging in the park while the kids blew bubbles for hours. Later that afternoon I took Frankie swimming for the first time, he is definitely my child as he loved the water! Saturday I took Frankie to the Clark County Fair where he was enamored by all the things to look at, especially when the sun set and all the carnival lights came on. At the carnival I won him a stuffed bright green puppy that he had fun chewing on. It was a wonderful weekend, but we were so happy to come home and spend Easter Sunday with Andre. :) 

Oh How They Grow

When you become a parent everyone, and I mean EVERYONE tells you, "Enjoy this while you can, because they grow up so fast." And it is true, in the matter of 6 months you see your child change from sleeping almost 24 hours a day and really just laying there to being able to lift their head, laugh, sit up by themselves and many many other feats. I have noticed (as have my friends and family) that for the littlest things that Frankie conquers, things that we as adults take for granted every day I get overly excited. I log it on the calendar and make sure to take pictures so that every tiny little thing he learns is documented not to be forgotten. The question I ask myself today, as he gets older, say when he is an unruly teenager, will I still get excited over the little things he learns? Or will I just consider it common feat and discard it like the ads that come in the mail? Today I challenge all parents, to take a second look at all the little things your children, no matter what age they are, accomplish and get excited that they are still constantly growing and learning new things. Don't let these accomplishments fall by the wayside. I know I am going to try to remember this as my children grow. 

The pictures above are some of Frankie's accomplishments so far: Sitting up, finding his toes, holding his head up on his own and his first big smile.

The Great Toy Search

My son Frankie is 5 months old now, which is hard to believe. Even now at such a young age when I look back at pictures from when he was first born I think to myself, "How can someone change so quickly in so little time?" His newest development is that he likes to sit up. Now, he cannot do this on his own for more than about 10 seconds, and certainly cannot pull himself up yet, nonetheless he is a strong little guy and he definitely has his mama's independent defiance! So, I decided he needed a walker or play-thingy-ma-jig that he could actually sit in, without his father or I having to physically sit with him cross legged on the floor. Now, I knew that to buy a brand new one would run me anywhere from $60 to God only knows how much. 

and so the search began...

Have any of you ever been on craigslist? That site is a black hole that will suck you in to searching for hours upon hours (if only the child in the swing slept so long!) Comparing and contrasting, trying to find the best bang for your buck while sorting through hundreds of postings all the while emailing the posters of "stuff" to even know if your new found treasure is still available! They tell you it is, you tell them you're interested, then..... silence. 

I was fed up. 

My mom tells me Wal-Mart was advertising baby stuff on sale, so we decide to go look. What a joke. Not one sit-up toy for under $50. Now I know fifty bucks really isn't that much for a baby item that will be used daily for months on end, but who really has an extra fifty in these psychotic economic times! My budget was $20, a gift from my mother-in-law for Frankie. So I look at my mom and suggest trying Goodwill. We pray before going in, asking God to have what we need there, and Mom throws in for it not to cost over $10. 

I honestly don't think they will have one of these items especially at such a low cost.  After sifting through two huge bins with toy parts askew everywhere I am almost to the point of defeat. Frankie will just have to play in Mom and Dad's laps if he wants to sit up. But then, we turn the corner and see strollers and car seats and... dun dun dun.... not one, but TWO of the exact thing I am looking for! One is called an Exersaucer, with many toy attachments to occupy the little one, the other is a fire truck. I love the fire truck, but think to myself, "what if one day I have a girl, that just won't do."  I look at the price of the fire truck, $19.00. I can swing that, my budget is $20. The price of the Exersaucer, $10.99. SOLD. Not only is God good enough to bless me with finding one, baby toys happen to be 25% off this day. I got it for $8.24.

God is good. The great toy search ended. Frankie loves his Exersaucer, he was all grins as soon as we put him in it.