This is My Life...

April Fools Day Ideas...

Here are a few ideas from my awesome blog readers of things you can do tomorrow for April Fools Days. I'm coming down with something right now, so my brain is a total fog and I can't think of any ideas for April Fools pranks. I'm so thankful for your comments! (P.S. read to the end to see the winner of the paper pack!)

1. I found some really cute ideas on the Family Fun website. Lots of fun food pranks and printables too. It's going to be a great day! I love all the food pranks, they look so real! I am going to try the fish sticks one, now what to do for dinner... ;)
   http://familyfun.go.com/aprilfools/
   Posted by: Amy
   
   
2. The kids need to bring a healthy snack every day for school. So tomorrow for snack, I will pack him an apple. Which is completely normal. He'll think nothing of it. However, I'm going to put carve out a small hole and place a gummy worm in it! Making it look like it's crawling out of it. He'll think it's funny but also cool that he get's to have "junk" food for snack too! :O)
   Posted by: Jeanette
   
   
3. April 1st is the anniversary of when me and my husband started dating so we don't so much as pull pranks as little surprises - notes in special places, silly gifts. Tomorrow my plan is to write a message in lipstick on the bathroom mirror for my husband.
   Posted by: Danielle
   
   
4. My friend and her hubby are leaving on a trip soon. So she is going to get me to call her DH (which he won't answer a blocked call) and leave a message saying that their flight is cancelled and flying out of another city, sorry, bye.
   Posted by: TracyBzz
   
   
5. One more....it's long:Last year my daughter was learning to ride without training wheels. My neighbour just got a brand new truck a few months ago and had been parking on the street since his daughter was staying with them and parking in the driveway. There is still lots of snow here April 1, so the streets are a bit narrower.
   
   I had spent a few days running beside her and parked cars so she wouldn't scratch them and making her ride in the middle of the road.
   
   Got the April Fool's idea. My daughter was giddy with excitement. I didn't think she would pull it off.
   
   So on a bitterly cold April 1st, we went down the street and back (for show). Then knocked on the neighbours door. And I explained how my daughter fell and scratched up his truck. Then I made her apologize, which she did beautifully. Then I whispered to say April Fool's!! It was hilarious! His wife, daughter and son-in-law where all standing there to witness it.
   Posted by: TracyBzz
   
   
6. Put food coloring in the tank of the toilet...when they flush it will turn colors..I usually do green on St Patty's day!
   Posted by: Michelle Thomas

I put all of your names in a hat and had Noah draw a name and he picked "Jeanette". Congrats Jeanette you won a nice stack of paper!!

I will be closing the other drawing at 9pm Eastern, but I probably won't be posting the three winners until first thing in the morning, since I need to go to bed so I'm not sick in the morning.

April Fools Day ideas needed...

I need all of your help!! April Fools Day is Wednesday and I am so not much of a prankster! I want to post some ideas here later today but I need your help!! If you share your ideas in the comments I'll post them with my ideas...and I'll enter you into a drawing for a big stack of paper I just cleaned out of my stash!! I forgot to mention that I will give you full credit for your ideas with a link to your blog too!

Time for a giveaway...

I decided to move out of my dedicated scraproom and into my bedroom.

Why, would I do something so crazy you ask?

Well, because my scraproom was in the corner of our basement. We finished two beautiful rooms a couple of years ago and I happily turned one into the kids' play room and the other into my play room. I had great intentions that the kids could play in their play room while I scrapped in my room. I even made them adjoining rooms to make it easier, but there was one problem. The kids don't play in their room. They'd rather be upstair. And most importantly, they'd rather be upstairs with their mom! I can't really blame them since the basement is usually colder and it's only partially finished and only has three small windows, none of which are in the finished rooms. I've spent a lot of time getting both rooms just the way I wanted them and I really loved having my own space, so it breaks my heart to move out. I don't plan to do this permanently, just until the kids are a little bit more independent and don't need me right by their sides all the time. I also end up not having the time to scrapbook until late in the night or on the weekends and I really don't want to be all alone in our basement. It was taking away all the fun of scrapbooking. I just wasn't enjoying it anymore because it was so stressful to find the time to get away from the kids long enough to go to the basement and scrapbook.

This was our bedroom on Friday.

And this is our bedroom today. I'll show you the other half of the room tomorrow after I finish getting that figured out too. Still need to move up my printers and sewing machine!

We moved the treadmill and ab lounge to the basement (hopefully that wasn't a mistake!!). For now I plan to scrap on the floor or the bed which is perfectly fine for me. The point is that I just want to scrapbook and hopefully by having everything on the same level I'll be able to do it more!

SO, long story short...I've moved into my bedroom which I hope will work, but now that I don't have the same amount of space I need to downsize my supplies. And, truthfully I really want to simplify the whole process and I have way to much stuff and it's stiffiling my creativity, so I need to do some purging...like TONS OF PURGING...which is good for all of you!

That brings me to the point of this whole post! I have this big pile started of stuff I want to giveaway to my awesome blog readers. I plan to divide all of this up and put in into a couple of flat rate boxes for you to enjoy. Post a comment on this post and on Tuesday at 9pm Eastern I'll have the kiddo's randomly pick a couple of winners! (Most of the stuff is new/unused, but some of the items are gently used)

Stay tuned...

Just wanted to give you heads up that I am doing a ton of cleaning, rearranging and purging of my scrap stuff today. Trying to simplify and I don't need all this stuff, so I will have a big giveaway later today! Check back later tonight for a chance to win. I'm planning on having several flat rate boxes to give away.

The Challenge of Me...

A lot of you have been asking about my upcoming class at Big Picture Scrapbooking that I posted a sneak for awhile back. The class is titled "The Challenge of Me" and it's all about telling your story and creating an album full of layouts about YOU. I had a ton of fun and learned so much about myself when I was putting all of my layouts together and I know you will too! The promo page is up at BPS, so go here for more details. After you read the promo, if you still have any questions, please let me know. Registration should be opening soon!!

Happy Friday!

Still celebrating spring...

So, how did you all creatively celebrate the beginning of spring?

This is what we woke up to on Saturday morning...ick! Can you see in the snow the little car and the Tigers baseball? The kids (all us us really) are so ready for it to stay warm out, so the snow was sad to see. It did melt by mid morning though!

Since it's still obviously a little chilly here, we've had to be a little bit more creative with how we are welcoming spring. Here are some of the things we've been doing:

Took the kids to a hotel with a little indoor water park. Ok, so technically we did this before the actual start of spring but it's something you can do while it's still too cold to go swimming outside. Had a blast!

Had a bonfire. I love bonfires, especially on cool nights when the air is refreshing and the fire is so comforting!

Had a playdoh ice cream party with just Katelyn and me! Not, that the cold weather ever stopped us from eating real ice cream. Playing with colorful playdoh is always fun!

Looked for signs of spring sprouting out. (And quickly covered them all with a nice blanket of leaves, before the frost that we are still getting gets them!)

Had a camp out inside with sleeping bags, stuffed animals, popcorn and a movie. We watched Twilight, which I have to tell you is quickly becoming a favorite of the kids'. They ask to watch it atleast once a day.. We actually do this quite often and usually even put up the tent. Actually, if you were to come by our house anytime you would probably find a tent setup somewhere!

On another creative note: If you are in Utah, and you are in the TV viewing area for KSL, my blog and The Creativity Project are going to featured in the Studio 5 segment tomorrow! I'm so excited because I really believe in this project and in doing something creative everyday.

As far as me actually creating anything creative lately, I haven't had much luck! My kids have been so frustrating lately and haven't let me spend time actually creating anything without them. So, I'm going to change things up a little bit with how our home flows and see if that helps me actually be able to scrapbook (I need the therapy that comes with actually creating!). BUT, this post is already long enough and I'm sure I've lost your attention by now, so I'll save that whole drama for tomorrow (or Saturday!).

Off to bed now!

Indulge me a little...

Indulge me just a little bit longer while I show off my adorable little princess!

I used the Faces feature in iPhoto 09 to find pictures of Katelyn to enter in the contest below. As, I was going through her pictures I couldn't believe how much she's changed and how beautiful she's always been. I can't help myself from constantly saying "I love that face" so I thought I'd pay a little tribute to her and show her off a little bit!

Shabby Baby Picture Princess...

Please excuse the blog interruption!

I read about the Shabby Baby Picture Princess Contest on Stephanie Howell's blog and I feel really guilty because I really like Stephanie, but I am entering my baby girl in the Picture Princess Contest because she is beautiful and is truly a picture princess and the dresses are totally amazing!

First, I need to post three pictures of my princess. This was hard to narrow down because I always worry about posting the perfect pictures that will be what they are looking for, but these are 3 that I love!

Then I need to write a paragraph about why my daughter is the "picture princess".

Seriously, this girl melts the heart of everyone she meets. She has the most amazing personality and the sweetest attitude, that ladies at her daycare have asked if I could have three more just like her so they could each take one home! Ever since the moment she was born she has been in love with all things girly and getting dressed up and having me take her picture and she is always picture perfect. All of the pictures I posted above were her idea...she's such a cute little model! She is almost always happy and always trying her best to make everyone around her smile. I can't help myself from just wanting to wrap my arms around her every chance I get. She is stunningly beautiful (not that I'm partial or anything!) and has the most amazing eyes I have ever seen and the girl was lucky enough to girl her dad's olive skin coloring and height that makes me totally jealous! Being the picture princess would put that smile on my daughter's face that she's always trying to put on everyone elses and that would be amazing.

I had to pick a Shabby Baby Dress that I think my princess would look best in and I knew instantly that the Gumballs little girls and girls dresses from Shabby Baby (pictured below) was my favorite and totally Katelyn. (I should note that when I asked Katelyn which was her favorite her answer was...this one, and that one, and that one, and oh that one and that one...can you blame her? They are all so stinkin' cute and she really would look awesome in any of them.)

Why oh why...

Why is it so hard for me to keep this blog updated?

Is it because I don't think about it or have anything to say?
No, I think about this blog all the time. Everytime I'm doing something I'm thinking "hey, that would make good content for the blog. I should take a picture of this." I even plan out the entire post in my head. BUT, the days are flying by so fast I never get them out of my head and onto the computer. It doesn't help that I have dialup when I'm at home, where my pictures are, and it takes forever just to get typepad to load correctly.

Is it because I don't have the time?
Yes and No. I don't have the time because I find myself sitting on my butt watching TV when I could be updating the blog. Heck, I could even update the blog while I'm watching TV, but that would take too much energy! Or, I find myself doing absolutely nothing, like I'm frozen in time, unable to move or do anything productive. Only, time isn't really frozen. It continues to go on while I remain in a constant state of nothingness. So, I could have the time if I used my time more wisely!

I am in the process of trying to find balance in my life. I'm trying to find out what is important that I want to continue doing and what I can let go of. Unfortunately, that has meant I've let a few things I did want to do fall through the cracks while I was doing things I could care less to do or ,like I said, doing nothing at all. I am a terrible procrastinator and it makes me misearable! I am also trying to get my house in order so there is a better flow to our lives and establish a routine because we all need one.

I have also been doing something creative everyday that I want to update you on, but I want to share pictures with it to make it a little bit more fun. So, hopefully tonight (after I kill myself at softball practice and put together some scrapbooking kits for the schools silent auction) I will be able to at least get the pictures saved over so I can update you tomorrow when I'm on faster internet speed!

Celebrate Spring...

Yikes, I said I'd be posting these yesterday, but I didn't plan on dealing with a very clingy sick 3 year old. My poor girl has a fever and respiratory issues and just wants to cuddle with her mom, so I apologize for posting these late.

I am so ready for spring to be here. Winter has been really long and I've missed being outdoors so I plan to do as much as I can tomorrow to celebrate the begining of spring. Here are some ideas you can use to celebrate the day:

• Plan a picnic. If it's to cold you can setup a blanet inside and have it there.
• Purchase some fresh flowers to display in your home or office.
• Have a tea party with your family or invite some friends over.
• Plan a garden.
• Fly a kite.
• Wear pastels.
• Clean out your closets of those heavy winter clothes.
• Go for a stroll in the park.
• Make paper flowers and hang them up around the house.
• Make a layout about what you love about spring and use random pictures that represent the season.
• Check out this link for Family Fun Crafts you can do.

Some awesome ideas shared by my fabulous blog readers:

• Since we live in Florida there isn't much of a transition into Spring but we are getting our little patio garden going and we are making plans for Easter. Danielle
• If the weather allows on the first day of Spring...and living in western NY it doesn't always cooperate but...we like to take a walk around our lake and find signs of spring. I like to bring the camera with me and takes lots of photos so I can home and make a springy layout. Jennifer

Please continue to share you ideas and I'll update them here (I know I didn't update the list with St. Patty's ideas...sorry!). You are all so awesome.