Sickie Learning to Walk

Just in case you didn't feel sorry for Gracie when you heard she was sick, here are a few pictures to tug at your heartstrings:







The worst is when she coughs in her sleep, it sounds so pitiful, it makes me want to run in and rock her all night.

Even though she's sick, she's still pretty happy. We really lucked out and got such a happy little girl. She loves to pull herself up on everything, couches, toys, Brad and I, anything she can.





Now, a clip (very bouncy and poor) of Gracie venturing out for a few first steps all by herself. She's basically just falling forward and taking a few steps while she does, but she's so close to walking on her own..... Any day.....

Suggestions for Summer Reading

Just thought I'd share a few good books I've read recently.



The Story of Edgar Sawtelle was a great read that will make you look at your dog with a little more appreciation and keep you thinking long after you've finished. You don't have to be a dog person to enjoy this page turner.



David Benioff wrote the 25th Hour, which was well written and his format is a little bit of a change from the norm. Refreshingly different, well written and quick and easy to read.



Dan Brown can tell a great adventure story and raises some interesting questions on the capacity of the human mind in The Lost Symbol. Very interesting.... if you liked the DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons, or any of his other novels, you'll love this.



Jodi Picoult is an author that I read often. Her books make you think, are very emotional and usually have a bit of a twist. House Rules wasn't my favourite of her books, but I still really enjoyed it.

Hope you get a chance to lay in the sun and enjoy a few hours with a good book this summer.

Sick Girl, Summer and A Recipe

Gracie Girl is a sick little puppy today. Poor girl has a super runny nose, which is making my house all slimy and disgusting and very, very germy. She's sleeping right now, so hopefully that makes her feel a little better and gives me some time to run around and bleach EVERYTHING.

I decided to stay home from strollercise because it falls during her nap time and she doesn't sleep as well in her stroller so we went for a run this morning instead. (Must get back into the routine after a week of chocolate pie and fresh baked bread and haystacks and who remembers what else at the farm.... It's all a carbohydrate haze, to tell the truth). It's so beautiful out, I actually don't even mind running. The grass is green, there was a bit of a breeze, no bugs and the sun was out. Ahhhh, summer is here at last.

Just thought I'd share a simple, summery recipe I tried last night that was delicious.

Fettucine with Charred Grape Tomato-Basil Marinara

Toss a pint (one of those small, square plastic containers) of grape tomatoes onto a cookie sheet with 3 shallots sliced thin, a tbsp. of minced garlic and a drizzling of olive oil. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cook 1/2 lb. of fettucine to al dente. Once done, divide it into three bowls, top with the tomato mixture, a sprinkling of fresh, finely chopped basil, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. It's yummy, simple, and fast, three things I love in a meal. Even better, I can get a lot of the ingredients right of my deck! Another reason to love summer: fresh, homegrown produce.

Hope you like!

Sleep Standing??

I mentioned before that Gracie was falling asleep folded in half.... There was a new development at the farm. She actually fell asleep standing up.

I kid you not.

I walked into her room and she was standing at the edge of the crib, with her hands crossed on the top railing and her head on her hands, asleep. Standing up. Don't ask me how her legs didn't give out, but they hadn't yet. I picked her up and layed her down and she sort of startled awake when she got parallel to the mattress, but then closed her eyes and went right back to sleep when I lay her down.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.

If only I'd taken a picture....

Home Again!

Seriously, we travel too much!

We're home from another fantastic week at the farm. Always so much fun and so relaxing. Sigh.

Unfortunately, Brad had to be away for his first father's day, so we celebrated a little early with him. These are some pictures of how we spent father's day with my dad, grandpa and my brother.



Gracie storing up energy for the fun about to commence.



Jada raiding the beer.... That girl! Going after Papa's gift.



A candid shot of the three fathers.



Grams and Gracie and Papa in the background.



Cutie.

A beautiful day in Drumheller by the river. Good food, good people, great wether and no mosquitos!


We came home for Gracie's paediatrician's appointment this afternoon and she did great! We have a dr.'s diagnosis... she's a genius! :)

She weighed in at 18 pounds and 15 ounces, so she has really slowed down in the last month, only gaining a half pound. She's perfectly average though, which is right where we want her. She's in the 50th percentile for weight, the 75th percentile for height and the 80th percentile for head circumference. She also checked off all of the milestones for a 12 month old, hence the genius moniker.

As if we didn't know that all ready :)

Anyhow, doing good. Just getting back into the routine. Hoping to plant some flowers since we'll finally be home for a few days to keep them alive. Hope the weather stays nice.

June Has Been Busy!

We've been ridiculously busy this month, and it's not letting up anytime soon.

We were in Lethbridge on the My long weekend, came home, spent the first week of June in Hanna, at my parents farm, then we were home for three days, and then off again to Lethbridge last week. Brad stayed there for the weekend and looked after Gracie (for the first time- all by himself and he did great) and I headed to Great Falls with some girlfriends. We got home Sunday night, had company Monday and are packing up to head out again. Yikes!

So, here's a fast catch up in photos, videos and stories (unfortunately, I seem to continually put my camera down, so these are so poor, it's a little funny):

During one of our stints at home, we brought out a car that Great Grandma and Grandpa Sackett gave her. It was her first time playing with it, because it was little big for her before, but she loves all of the lights and buttons.



Did she yell, "Attack!" at the end, or was that my imagination?

In May, we went to Lethbridge for a wedding and a visit. Here's the majority of Brad's brothers, sisters, spouses and kids. Just try to get a photo where everyone is looking at the same camera, smiling. Ha! Gracie's trying to leap out of my arms and Tara's directing the photo shoot...



Gracie and Kale got to hang out. Kale was a little more interested in her eyes and her hair on our first visit, (resulting in a bit of a swollen eye that we're still trying to heal), but she was ready for him when we returned two weeks later. The first time they saw each other, Kale came crawling over to say hi and before he could get settled, Gracie two hand shoved him. Apparently, she's toughened up these past weeks.

Here they are, getting along, going for a walk:



Gracie's been sleeping through the night again (hallelujah!) for about a month, which I'm hoping will help my baby brain. Unfortunately, she has been falling asleep sitting up. She pulls herself up to sitting after I lay her down, and then slowly falls asleep. She just lets her head drop right between her knees onto the mattress. We keep having to go in and unfold her, because this can't be comffortable:



Even more recently, she has started pulling herself up on the edge of the crib. Soon, she'll have a tin can to drag along the bars.

For our entire week in Hanna, I didn't take a single photo... My mom took some, so maybe I can steal some from her later. Gracie and Jada played a lot, we went to a waterpark, met up with my aunt and grandparents, got to visit my friend Kylee and her new baby girl, we visited with Curtis and Brandi and mom and dad, and we took Gracie to the Handhills Stampede. Very fun week!

This is one of the only photos I took of our girl's weekend:



Some may wonder why the driver is not looking at the road.... I'm a little curious myself, but Sam's square was very yummy. We had a blast and I can't wait for next year to go again.

We hit fantastic sales, spent all of our money, stayed in a hotel for the sick and dying, went out dancing, played rock paper scissors with a mermaid, got cheered for by a pirate, locked Lacey in the truck, ate supremely salty popcorn made by Jesus, and introduced a lot of people to flip cup and the wave game. Good times.

Okay, now to clean up and pack for our next adventures!

Home again!

We just got home Sunday from a trip out to the farm. It was a great week away, but I've got so much to catch up on I need to get back to housework and laundry before I can post anything other than a few updates for the Grandparents and Gracie followers out there:

Gracie is clapping, walking back and forth between people (with a hand to hold) and sleeping great. She had a good visit with her cousin Jada, her aunt Brandi, uncle Curtis, grams and papa.

Sorry, but that's all I've got for now. I have some cute videos and photos I'll try and post soon.

Storing Photos With Ease

I made a little mini album to store all of the photos that we receive of Gracie with family members. A few pockets and we can tuck in all of the auntie and uncle pictures, all of the cousin shots, all of the cute hugs we see into one little album, so she can see how much she is loved.

I love this patterned paper. The birds are so cute and the floral print is just right. The journaling block was a free printable from Kaisercraft. Pretty and free, bonus!



To make the flower on the cover, I punched out hearts in two different sizes (7 at 1 1/2" and 7 at 1"). I adhered the points of the larger hearts in a circle and then adhered the points of the smaller hearts in a circle on top. Afterwards, just gently curl the edges around a pencil to make them more dimensional, add a pearl for a centre and attach to the page.









To make this fan photo corner just accordian fold a strip of paper and pull the edges around to make a rainbow shape. Adhere to the page and add a rhinestone.







Supplies: Kaisercraft patterned paper, rhinestones and pearls, Cosmo Cricket alphas, Doodlebug Designs alphas, Making Memories Alphas, Zig pen, Bazzill cardstock, and Bind-it-all coils

Make Your Own Ruffles, Curls, and Flowers

Want to add some variety to your pages? Try adding some dimension with ruffles, curls or flowers.



To make the pleated ruffle at the bottom of this page, simply cut a strip of double sided tape the length of the finished ruffle, leaving the protective back on. I use sookwang. Next, cut a long, thin strip of paper (I needed two strips, one 12" and one 6", because I wanted my finished ruffle to stretch all the way across the 12" page) and adhere one end to the sticky side of the tape. Carefully fold the paper towards you about an inch from the end, and then fold it away from you so that about a tiny amount of the paper strip overlaps. Press another inch down to the adhesive and continue this until you reach the desired length. If you're using two strips, just pick up right where you left off with your second strip, but tuck the ends under one of the folds so they're hidden.

The strip of paper above the ruffle was simply cut vertically to different depths and rolled back to reveal some of the back side of the paper.

I love paper bags. They're useful for more than just packing lunches. It may seem funny, but I love the texture they can add to a page. Here I used a paper bag to make my flower and my ruffle.



Making the flower is similar to making the ruffle. Start with a square of double sided tape and again, leave the protective backing on. Now, use the same folding technique as you used to make the ruffle, simply fold the paper towards you and then back onto itself while twisting in a circle, pressing down occasionally to adhere it.

A few new layouts

I worked on both of these at a scrap day with a bunch of family and friends. So much fun. I love that scrapbooking not only captures memories, but brings people together. How nice that I come from a crafty family.

There's something about babies in coveralls that just makes me smile.



Grab your pens, folks. Doodling is a really easy way to kick your layouts up a notch. It's easy and while there are templates out there, I think the end result is more eye-catching if you just let your creativity out and do it yourself. If you're nervous, it's easy to draw a simple line around a few elements to add depth and to draw your eye to each element. If you aren't sure, try some doodles on a scrap piece of paper.

Side note: Watch the texture of the paper you're doodling on. This is a textured cardstock, which is a little trickier to doodle on. Just press a little harder with your pen and use a ruler for straight lines.



This layout is a simple smattering of die-cut butterflies. I just liked the idea of lots of butterflies fluttering around like in a butterfly garden.

Baby Album Pics

I've received some emails requesting ideas for mini albums. This is a baby album I made a little over a year ago for my niece and it always makes me happy because I had so much fun making it for her.

It's chalk full of goodies from a number of companies, but the base is a Maya Road mini album, Kaisercraft patterned paper, Moxxie rub-ons, and Core'dinations cardstock. Some of the other companies featured arePrima, Making Memories, Basic Grey, Bazzill, American Crafts, and We R Memory Keepers.




Simply run a piece of cardstock through your paper crimper for a more dimensional look.




Feel free to doodle as I did on this pocket. Just grab a pen and add a simple border like I did here or a cute flourish. Don't be intimidated, I'm sure you had notebooks full of doodles in junior high, so we know you've got experience!




Make your own photo corners so the recipient knows where to place photos. This also gives you a bit of layering above the photos, which is hard to achieve when your not adding the photos as well. Another way to do this is to glue ribbon borders behind the photo mat and leave it un-adhered in the front. This way, they can slide their photo underneath.





Leave a standard border around the outside of your pages to minimize on rough edges. The chipboard on most albums is quite nice and adds an interesting texture to projects. I like the rough chipboard paired with these feminine colours.



Pockets are a great way to add extra journaling or photos to your mini albums without adding much bulk.



Hope you enjoyed!

Chasing Cheerios

Gracie turned 8 months old yesterday.We took her in to get weighed and she checks in at 18 pounds 5 and 3/4 ounces. What a little weed! She's growing like crazy.

Thought you might like this little video of her working on picking up Cheerios. Half the time she forgets to eat them, she just likes to chase them around her high chair tray and then celebrate when she gets one. Bailey is enjoying this as well.

Sebastien's 1st Birthday

We had such a great time at Sebastien's birthday on Saturday! It was a perfect day for a party by the lake. Great food, friends, sunshine, water and playground equipment - everything you need.

Our little party-goer:



And, I have never seen a birthday boy (or girl, for that matter) enjoy their cake as much as he did. Too cute!






Gracie had the perfect dress and hat to keep her out of the sunshine and was not much of a fan of the prickly grass or the hot sand, preferring her little blankie, where she could keep an eye on the other kids. Queen Gracie, residing over her subjects.





But, we managed to get her to the playground. All of those bright colours and laughing, running kids were just too much for her to miss out on.



Love those chubby, little thighs :)



And that adorable little face!

Playdates

We had a fun-filled week full of playdates, suppers with friends and a fantastic sun-soaked birthday party. Ahhh, summer. I've missed summer.

We had a few friends over for supper and got to meet Catriona, who is just a few months older than Gracie.

They usually played by themselves, but Gracie was watching Cat crawl around (moving forward) and was quite interested.





This one's my favourite. An action shot. I may not be able to crawl forward, but I can still attack!



One of Brad's coworkers was here from Ottawa instructing and he joined us for supper, too. He loved playing with Gracie (and Grampa's pie-that may be the actual reason he comes all the way to Alberta to teach).



On a side note, it's still burning hot here and lovely! We had strollercise this morning and it was +27 C when we were heading home at 11 am! Yikes! Got a little extra workout with that heat.

Hope you're enjoying it!