Great Day~

We had a great day today. It was still cold and windy up here, so we stayed in all day. Gracie slept so well - she napped for two hours this morning and nearly three this afternoon.... and I played while she slept!

It's just so nice to play with a happy baby who's gotten lots of sleep, and also get something done with your day. Sigh. Simple pleasures.

I did a bit of scrapbooking, took a few pictures, surfed around online, organized Gracie's albums (that's right, she's 7 months old and has three scrapbook albums), and flipped through a new cookbook. Nice.

I also found two quotes, that I like:

"Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it."

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

I should put these up on a wall somewhere. Very inspirational.

Here's my little dreamer.



Thanks for those cute hand-me-down jeans, Jada. Gracie loves them. She looks like such a little grown up.

On a side note, does anyone have any good lactose-free recipes? I'd like to get copies if you do.

Gracie and I went to my parents last weekend for a scrapbooking weekend with some family and friends. It was so much fun! Even with a teething 7 month old, who was not herself, we still had good food, got lots of visiting in, and even got a few things done.

I would go back to the Benedict Bed and Breakfast Scrapbooking Retreat any day!

I'll try and take some photos of what I got done tomorrow, but for now, here's some shots of Miss Gracie enjoying her supper. She just started eating yogourt last week, and she loves it! She also tried chicken and creamed corn, but those weren't such a big hit.

New Crafts and a Bathing Beauty

My mom made this super cute blankie for Gracie for Easter. Don't you just love the colours and the cute font she used for her name? It's so soft and cuddly, too. Just perfect.


She also made a miniature version for her teddy bear, which is perfect for a game of peek-a-boo. Sweet.

This is a little ribbon holder that I made to get my ribbons out of the drawer they were shoved in and out on my table, so i use them.

Looks messy, but it takes up much less space and I can easily hold a layout or card up to the bag and see which ribbon goes with it.

Lastly, here's the Bathing Beauty:

What a sweetie-pie, with her little Buddha Belly. She loves to take a bath. It's easy to scooch around on her bum in the water and there are so many toys that can go directly into her mouth.

Happy Girl

Here's my little happy girl in her cute new pants. She really hasn't grown into them, yet, but with a washable diaper on, they at least stay up. Gotta get them worn while you can.





It's impossible to keep socks on her. As soon as you put them on, she's working on getting them back off.

Education, Eh!

Here's a quick peak at some of the projects we made last weekend at Education, eh!

The first few were all about new techniques: masking, copic markers, and stamping with glitter.



I need to add an 'a' to that one, I see....




And then just some little projects to showcase their products:




This was actually not what we were supposed to make with this kit, but I wanted to change the project... It's about being creative, right??



Kinda fun, but the colours are really bright.. not sure how I'll use it. I'm sure I will take a Gracie picture this summer that will work.

It was a very fun little getaway. Learned some new techniques, got to hear from some of my favourite companies and see new products. Plus, it was a fun time with friends. Poor Brad was surrounded by ladies, but he held his own and even got to go to the Bike Shop...

New rug

I have been looking for a rug for our living room so Gracie has something other than hardwood and folded up quilts to play on and I finally found one at Bed, Bath and Beyond (I also found sheets that I was looking for there - both on sale!)





It's quite big, as you can probably tell by how tiny Gracie looks on it, but it's perfect for her to play on. Once we get it all flattened out it will look better, too.

Of course, within an hour of setting it up, a glass of milk got spilt on it....gotta break things in fast in our household.

As a side note, in some scrapbooking catalogues I was leafing through, I found this website
http://www.bighugelabs.com/colors.php

You can upload a picture to this site and it will give you 9 + swatches of colours that they pulled out of your photo. Could be handy for picking out papers... or painting a room or decorating...

Universal Truths and some Scrappy stuff

First, a layout of Gracie chewing on her poor blankie. This was just before we started her on solids and I think she was letting us know that she was ready:





It was a good way to use up lots of flowers that I have...

I pulled these Universal Truths off the Cosmo Cricket blog the other day. Some of them are so true and so bizarre, it's funny.

UNIVERSAL TRUTHS

1. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

2. Was learning cursive really necessary?

3. Bad decisions make good stories.

4. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

5. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this - ever.

6. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

7. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

8. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

9. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

10. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

Can you relate to any of those? Did they at least make you smile? I love #6, who doesn't hate a good hair day gone to waste?

Now that you had a bit of a giggle, here are a few more layouts.



This was one we made at Education, Eh! last year and I never added a picture until now. It seems funny to use this horrible, blurry picture, but it's such a good memory, I had to use it. Both of us were laughing so hard at the time, we couldn't get a picture that wasn't blurry.



Playing with (chewing on) her favourite peacock toy.


I love this Smile Laughter Joy rub on (bottom with the green leafy vine).

So many Firsts!

Gracie had all kinds of firsts this past weekend - first stay in a hotel, first meal in a restaurant, first complete day with dad, first time meeting her cousin Paige, and her first swim!

Lucky girl.

Here are a few pictures of us getting ready to go in (note the super cute housecoat/swimsuit cover):




playing in the pool:







and getting warmed up after:




How cute are those thighs??

We also went to the paediatrician this morning and she confirmed that Gracie is perfect :) She's 17 pounds, 2 ounces (right at the 50th percentile) and 27 inches tall (in the 75th percentile), and her head is still full of brains (she's in the 97th percentile for head circumference). She was full of smiles for her doctor, too which was nice because she missed a nap to get there... We'll see how that affects her sleep tonight. Hopefully, the smiles continue...

Great Weekend!

The weekend started a little early around here. We made our own long weekend so I could go check out Education, Eh! a scrapbook retailer's event.

It was so great and inspiring!! We got tons of freebies, visited with great people, learned new things and got to check out a ton of product.

And.... Brad took care of Gracie, again so I could go. So nice!

Now, how could the weekend be anything but great when it's two days longer than usual and starts out like that?? We even did our taxes! Couldn't ruin the weekend, even with taxes.

I have lots of pictures to show and things to report on, but I'm also using Gracie's nap time to clean the house, bake cookies, get ready for company and a scrap weekend at the farm, so I must get moving.

For now, I'll leave you with this. It's good for a laugh:

Dad's Day

Saturday was Dad's Day here. Brad took care of Gracie all by himself for the day. She's taking the bottle so well, I'm only feeding her at night, so that's great! It gives me a little more freedom. I don't have any pictures of their day, but they both seemed to have fun and I got a little bit of a break. How nice!

I sort of got to sleep in (Gracie doesn't have a quiet voice in the morning), then I had a leisurely shower and got ready, had breakfast, did some scrapbooking and then headed out for some shopping with a friend. Ahhhh.

Brad had another hockey playoff game Saturday, so at 4 pm, we swapped and he headed to the game (which they won).

Otherwise, it was a pretty quiet weekend here. We got some spring cleaning done Sunday and most nights, we were in bed, reading by nine. Ha! How old are we?

Gracie is at a really funny stage right now. She has started moving around in her crib at night, so now when I go to check on her, I always find her somewhere other than where I laid her down, and it usually looks like a tornado blew through her crib. She's laying with her head at the other end of the crib, there's a blankie crumpled up by her head and lambie is still in her mouth, because she fell asleep chewing on him. It just cracks me up. Again, I have no pictures because I woke her up the last time I tried to get one...

Here are some pictures of one of her cute new spring outfits. If only the weather would cooperate...



Hmmm, no toys to play with....



Oh wait, here's one.



Yay!!!

And an example of Chatty Cathy's talkative ways (keep in mind, she clams up a bit when the camera comes out, so this is Gracie dialed down)!

Layouts

It's been awhile since I posted anything scrapbook related again. Here are some of my more recent layouts.

I've really been having fun. When I get a chance to play, I make it worthwhile.

These two were inspired by the stickers. I kid you not, I had some stickers that I wanted to use, in this case the title, and in the next, the flowers, that were a peachy colour. I had to hunt for some paper to match and then some photos with a bit of peach instead of pink in them....



The funny thing about this layout? I printed the pictures and then my mom came up and stole one for herself. I reprinted the one that she took and when I saw her the next time, she stole it again! It actually turns out that she didn't steal the identical one, but she obviously likes these shots of her.

These papers are from Pebbles (which is also where the flowers are from- guess I didn't have to hunt too hard). They also have started making their border strips scrappable. Such a good idea! You can see the green and beige strips in this one, from the two different pieces of paper I had.



This one is my favourite that I've done in awhile. First, the pictures are so cute. Gracie and I had a little photo shoot and she was so busy playing with her toes and blowing raspberries, that's really the only pose I got, but she's so expressive, I couldn't decide which one I liked the best. Ahh, why not use them all? I only have 7,000 photos of her, best to keep a few more!



Second, I love this blossom paper from Pink Paislee, but had troubles putting pictures over it. I didn't want to cover the paper, because it's so great. So, I cut out some branches and used them as borders. I fussy cut out some of the individual blossoms to lay over top and raise, to give the layout a 3-D look.



Then, I found a hero arts stamp that I hadn't ever used that perfectly matched the blossoms on the paper and stamped my title letters with black ink. I stacked some of them on top of each other to keep up with the dimensional look. I love how it turned out.

Gracie Updates

We've been home since Monday night and all ready Miss Gracie is sleeping so much better. She's having longer naps, sleeping better at night and is even falling asleep better than ever. Luckily, we will be home every night except for one for the next three weeks. Hopefully, we can get her back on track before we have to travel too far again.

Yesterday, she had two, two hour naps (which hasn't happened since the last time we were at home for a long stretch) and she would've slept longer, but I accidentally woke her up trying to take a picture of her sleeping :) She looked so cute! She's started moving around in her crib and this was the first time she's slept on her belly....

It's so great that we're all getting a little more sleep, but even when she's not sleeping well and she's teething or she's got an upset tummy, she is such a happy little girl. She cracks me up!

The other day I was feeding her and I looked away from her for a minute and looked back to see her staring at me, so I made a funny face.... she started laughing so hard that milk shot out her nose. How funny is this kid??

Unfortunately, it's hard to capture her laughter on camera because she starts staring at it as soon as I pull it out and stops what she's doing. Here's a quick video I caught of her laughing at a game of keep away with my sweater.



And a new flexibility feat.... Watch how she casually bends over and sees her foot: "hmmm, look at this."
Then, into her mouth it goes!



Can you see how great she is at sitting up? She has such good balance now, even with a big head and a round, little bum. She's been sitting for two or three weeks and can catch herself and hold herself steady for so long!

Cousins

We made a quick trip to Lethbridge for a hockey tournament at the end of March and Kale and Gracie got a little more cousin time.

Future hockey stars:





And matching His and Hers pjs:



It always looks like Kale is going to hurt Gracie, but he's really the sweetest little guy around her.





What a couple of sweeties.

As a side note, Brad won his hockey tournament quite handily.