if i were a bug my name would be: BEE hind

has it really been almost two weeks since i've updated the blog?! really? i don't even have a great excuse... i could definitely use the i was battling off sickness last week and pumping vitamin c and airborne like there was no tomorrow... but mostly the yuckies just made me tired. which, i might add, is far better than feeling really seriously crummy. i'm back to *mostly* normal now. all excuses aside, the real deal is that i just got behind, and it felt a little daunting to try to catch up. but it's 9:18pm and i'm feeling quite awake as i listen to the frogs croaking a springtime song outside.

i'll do my best to sum up my life in pictures from the past few weeks. on saturday the girls and i went for a bike ride with my mom, my niece and nephew. it was a nice short ride, and a fun one for our first ride of the season. we've gotta get our bums back in shape for some longer rides! after the ride, the girls and i headed for the daffodil fields. it was getting close to the end of their bloom, and we hadn't gotten up to see them yet this year. (you've gotta time it right because they mow them all down toward the end to harvest the bulbs.)

it doesn't matter how many times i've wandered through the acres and acres of flowers, it always amazes and overwhelms me. what an amazing display of creation for us to enjoy. there are a few more pictures here. we also drove through the fields filled with the white blanket of thousands of snow geese. they were taking off and it looked almost like someone was shaking out a great white blanket. it's truly an amazing sight to see.

ella publishing is running several weeks of tv scrapbook challenges... if you're in need of some inspiration, check out the ella blog for details and join in the fun (and have a chance to win a fabulous ella ebook)!

sunday after church a friend of ours came and mowed my lawn while his wife and i visited & the kids played. we have a pretty crazy big hilly yard that is no easy beast to mow. and i credit stan being an amazing man and having wonderful friends that do so much to help us when he's away. so THANK YOU gabe for supporting the troops!

thursday emma started dance lessons for the first time ever. i picked a package of ballet/tap lessons up at the school auction recently since our love of classic musicals has spurred her into wanting to tap dance like fred astaire and gene kelly. though she has not quite reached astaire level in one lesson (hee hee) she has quite enjoyed tapping her way through the house everyday since.

last year on st patrick's day i was feeling extra motivated and made quite a crazy green dinner for us. although (shockingly) i still have some green food coloring left from last year, i was not feeling 100% and couldn't muster the energy to massacre our dinner. all i managed to get done was a couple of three leaf clover hairdos for the girls in the morning. while i wasn't earning any super-fun mom awards this year... at least i kept them safe from pinching for the day. :)

no really, thank you chinese food! you fed my little sweeties when i was feeling too crummy to make dinner.

while clicking through flickr last week i stumbled across a picture that inspired me to take some shots of me & my wedding ring in honor of the amazing man who gave it to me so many years ago. i am the luckiest girl in the world to have landed such an incredible man. i know i don't tell him enough just how proud i am of him, and just what an honor it is to have him by my side... even when that means he's a million miles away. he's the man of my dreams, and quite possibly most wonderful man in the world.

emma and i stopped by a little blue schoolhouse on our way to a benefit dinner the other night. it's right on our way to church, and i've always wanted to stop to utilize the pretty blue walls. well, with a little extra time on our hands, we stopped by and took a bunch of pictures just for fun. :)

just like her mom & dad, torrey got an eye exam the other day and was told she'd need a new set of stronger glasses. so off to costco to pick out some new frames and replace the lenses in another pair. after picking up the new set of glasses we took a bunch of pictures (here and here) for daddy to see the new specs. i think they're pretty dang cute!

another fun surprise this week was my march ck. i've been dying to show this layout to my dear friend donna struggling her way through breast cancer, who inspired it. she has the most beautiful heart and contagiously inspiring spirit of anyone i've ever met. (see her adorable self here & read about her here and here) since we took these pictures, she's finished chemo and grown back about 1/2" of hair! she's kickin' cancer in the you-know-what! {love you donna!}

this week my mailbox was also graced with a beautiful new handmade necklace i ordered from the darling janna wilson. i {heart} her... besides being a super talented scrapping genius, {lucky for me} she's also a crazy crafty jewelry maker! i'm pretty sure i'm gonna need one of these babies in every color! i'm so in love with this little beauty. check out her way cute necklaces here!

and last, but not least, is this little pair. and by little i mean ginormous golden eagles. i was sitting in my living room enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee when these two bad boys landed in the tree across our yard. they are seriously amazing creatures, and the picture doesn't nearly do them justice. we see a lot of bald eagles in our area, but rarely get a good long look at golden eagles. after this little eagle chat, the meeting ended in something that would have been more suited for the likes of animal planet... if you know what i mean. yes, spring is in the air!

i hope you have a wonderful week filled and overflowing with blessings.

xo
noel

you ARE creative

you are creative... but do  you ever feel like you're not? i do. sometimes i'm just not feelin' the creative juicest, and other times i revel in the work i see from others and know i can't compare creatively to what must be going through their amazingly talented minds at any given minute. i know i've fallen (and often live) in that creative-feeling abyss before. 

{cue hero music} 

 

super stacy's new ella ebook to the rescue - stacy julian, that is! UR2Cre8ive. the truth about your creativity, and a whole slough of things to prove it... not to mention inspiring ways to spur those creative juices as well as exercises to make creativity part of your everyday living.

inspired by one of the exercises in the book i made some homemade post-it notes... granted i was lacking the super-cool sticky backed goodness, but hey, i'm creative, right? scotch tape did the trick as a cut and hung my creative living reminders. it's just like with capturing memories, it's often the little things that are the most precious. they're also the things we need reminding of most often. 

so head on over to ella and pick up a copy of UR2Cre8ive, curl up under a nice warm blanket and unleash your creativity. And if you're ready to unleash some makeshift post-its on your house, you can download a copy of my post-it creative life reminders here. (click on download original size).

long distance love & life

i've mentioned it before, but it bears mentioning again... i am married to the most amazing man on the planet. this past sunday was valentine's day. he spent it flying over who-knows-where and i spent it with my brother and my girls in colorado.  we've spent so many "big" days apart now, that these little ones just don't seem like that big of a deal anymore. rather than valentine's days we have deployment days and homecomings. these days are filled with their own special tendernesses that we would never have experienced had we not fallen head first into this life. (the picture above was taken the day before stan left on his last deployment.) 

this year for valentine's day i didn't get chocolate of flowers, which is a-ok with me. (i'm not a big flowers girl anyway, i could think of a lot of things i'd rather spend the $50 on!) instead of the traditional gifties, my amazing man wrote me (and both of the girls) a poem. one for each of us. they were sweet and thoughtful, way out of his comfort zone and practically perfect in every way. and man-o-man you can't beat that. 

anyway, i did up a few digital pages for an ella publishing and sweet shoppe designs product review. check out the other pages here along with a freebie download from sweet shoppe! 

 

like i said, we spent valentine's day with my brother in colorado. the girls had a long weekend with president's day, so it worked out perfectly. we went skiing in breckenridge for a couple days where we were hooked up with 12 inches of fresh powder during our trip. this being our third time skiing (ever) it was our first time on fresh powder. wow, is it ever nice! it sure makes falling a lot more comfortable too.

we also met a former coworker of my brother's who was kind enough to let us all stay at his cabin, and the girls found a new adopted grandpa. there are a few more skiing pictures here. we also got to meet up with my friend liz hicks and her family for lunch before we headed home on tuesday.

 

 

i am always amazed at how much traveling takes out of you. tuesday after we got home, the girls and i just lounged around the rest of the day. of course, after spending a day lounging, i was seriously lacking photo inspiration... so i did a quick scout for something to take a picture of tuesday evening. my collection of multi-colored extra fine point sharpies were a handy choice.

as for the rest of the week, we've been enjoying watching the trees start to bud and bloom. it's so much different from our super snowy year last year, to see the trees coming to life in february. there are a few more shots of our pretty little flowering cherry here.

hobbies, obessions and love

i sometimes sit and think of just how blessed we are to live in a country where we are afforded the time and luxury of having hobbies. there are places, and there have been times when people have and weren't afforded this fabulous slice of goodness. lucky us!

 

sometimes i forget just how blessed i am. sometimes i forget the million little blessings that fill my daily life. one of the things i've been trying to reflect on this year are those little things. i guess they're really not so little, but i'm often looking out over the horizon at the next big thing, that i forget to see the everyday little things. so today, i am thankful for hobbies, cameras, love notes, skype, computers, hot coffee and free time.

 

of course,  two of my biggest blessings stare me right in the face every single day. they sometimes remind me of their blessing status with sweet little notes i find on the kitchen counter, a little snuggle,  a flying wwf-worthy tackle and sometimes even the sweet sound of sibling bickering. they're all little moments to treasure because they won't always be mine to have. in a few short years, they will no longer be daily realities, but fond memories. and today (and everyday) they are on my "i'm so thankful for that" list.

and a giveaway

want one more thing to be thankful for today? be thankful for ella publishing! they're offering a bundle of cha goodies to a lucky winner. leave a comment here on my blog, then hop on over to ella and comment here. want even more chances to win? visit the other fabulous ella friends' blogs! see all of the details here.

my how the years fly by + a giveaway!

i'm sitting here with that sunrise, sunset song from fiddler on the roof rolling through my mind. "wasn't it yesterday when they were small?... sunrise, sunset. quickly fly the years. one season following another, laden with happiness and tears." i know people say it all the time... but MAN! it really does fly by. when i was editing yesterday's pictures i had a little epiphany (i know i'm a little slow, but here it is anyway), i can look back at exactly what happened one year ago today. how cool is that?! heading into my second year of 365, i'm sure this will be a fun little something to do from time to time. it's like googling the date in your own life. :)

now for the fun giveaway part! ella publishing has {surprise!} another fabulous book out in collaboration with the amazing folks at write.click.scrap. with 30 idea-packed pages, a year in review gives you method to scrap an entire year's worth of memories in 24 layouts. who couldn't use a few ideas on catching up on some of our backlogged pictures?! so here goes...  
want to win a copy of a year in review?
comment on this post what types of scrappy eBook titles you're dying to see available. i'll draw a winner on monday! good luck!

Winner, winner chicken dinner!

Sorry this has taken me until today to get posted... but we have a winner in the drawing for the free copy of Ella Publishing's Vintage Hip Christmas Gifts eBook! And the winner is.... Crystal!

Crystal said...
I'd love to update now that we have a brand new hardwood floor and I think I'd find just what my house needs in this little gem! Thanks for sharing :)

December 8, 2009 7:52 PM

Congratulations Crystal! Email me and I'll get you hooked up with your free copy of this fab eBook!

But wait, there's more...
You still have until the end of today to use the 25% off coupon and get your hands on a copy of this wonderful book! Use the coupon code CRAFTY09 for 25% off Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts through 12/13.

WIN some Vintage Hip sweetness

Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts: 9 step-by-step tutorials for layouts, decor, gifts, and more by Margie Romney-Aslett and daughters Megan and Brooke.

 

So it's getting darn close to Christmas, and I'm guessing there are a million (plus or minus) things left on your list. With cash a little tighter these days, crafty projects are not only fun, they're smart. Whether you're trying to get crafty between batches of cookies or you've got a whole weekend to revel in your creativity... this is chock Christmas projects just for you! Crafting rockstar Margie Romney-Aslett and her daughters, Brooke and Megan, have pulled together nine totally glitter-tastic ideas in Ella Publishing Co.'s latest eBook, Vintage Hip Cristmas Crafts: 9 step-by-step layouts, gifts, decor and more. Crank up the Christmas tunes, brew up a mug of peppermint cocoa and pick your crafting poison!

But wait, you say, I thought I heard something about winning something. You're right! Win a copy just for you, or as a gift for that special crafty someone. Get up to 3 chances to win. 

1. Tell me why you'd love a copy of this fab book by leaving a comment on this post. 

2. Join Ella's email list with fab ideas and coupons, and leave another comment saying so on this post.

3. Twitter or Facebook linking to the Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts book on Ella and leave another comment saying so on this post. (http://www.ellapublishing.com/catalog/ebooks/vintage-hip-christmas-crafts)

 

I'll draw a winner this Friday, December 11th. Can't wait till Friday? Well you're in luck! I've got a coupon for you, too. Use the coupon code CRAFTY09 for 25% off Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts now through 12/13. (Then, if you're the winner, you'll have a great gift for that fabulous crafty minx in your life!)

teetering on the edge

Supplies: patterned paper: Paislee Press Photogenic kit (lined & brown- as overlay) & In Good Comany kit (green), Taylor Made Indefinitely Kit (pink) oscraps.com; overlay: Paislee Press; negative frame: Rhonna Farrer House of 3; word art: Taylor Made Composure kit (oscraps.com); flower: Paislee Press In Good Comapny Kit (oscraps.com); heart: Taylor Made Indefinitely Kit (oscraps.com); font: Arial

oh wow! how did i get so far behind again? i love, love, love social networking and networks. but sometimes i'm not always the best about getting all of them updated at the same time! so here i am, getting this baby up to date... at least until the morning when it falls behind again. lol. but that's the nature of the beast i guess. keeps me out of trouble anyway!

last wednesday i took some family pictures for some friends from church. i love, love, love this family! they're funny, they're generous, they're sweet, they're thoughtful, they're the best. i am so thankful to count them as friends. anyhow, this little fella is the cutest ever. the more fun he's having, the more serious he gets. it's so darn cute. couldn't you just get lost in those big brown eyes?

we spent thanksgiving with my family, at my sister's house. very low key, and perfect. we ate, of course, and simply had a nice time together. i only fell apart once missing stan. it seems like it's the little things that set me off missing him... trying to carry a heavy table up the stairs by yourself. then your wonderful children, who mean well, try to help. my wall still stands, relatively unscathed from the incident. but the experience (silly as it seems) left my heart a little heavy. just a jabbing little reminder. so when i arrived at my sister's and my dad asked how i was... well, you know how it goes when someone asks you how you are and really means it... {sigh} i got it out, and had a really nice day with my family. i have so much to be grateful for.

my sweet niece came home with us from thanksgiving to spend the night. i told her she could come as long as she helped us clean (our project for that friday) and man did she ever! she is a cleaning machine! she helped the girls with their rooms and with our laundry. i think i may have her come over every weekend! lol. after the cleaning was done they got some play time in, jumping around. there are a few more pictures here.

on saturday the girls and i stopped by schuh farms. we've gone nearly every year to pick out christmas ornaments for the girls. it's a little farmers market in town. at christmas time she has bunches of trees each with different themed ornaments. the girls roam around until they find the one that they love more than all of the others. it's fun to see what they love each year, and how it changes over the years. we've had brides, frogs, guitars, coffee mugs, ballerinas and snowflakes, but this year we came home with an ice cream cone and a santa in a dome.

then came a few days worth of pictures just because. nothing in particular noteworthy of the day... but still a picture to walk away with. something to look back at from the beginning of the year to now.

tuesday my sister and i took my grandma out for a day of antiquing and shopping in a cute little local town. we never quite get out as often as we'd like... especially the three of us together. but it worked out rather magically and at the last minute. (that's just how we roll!) to my very special grammy... happy birthday! i love you!

i swear my girls have clothes other than this red coat! it's been so chilly outside, it seems it's made an appearance in a lot of pictures lately! guess that's how it goes this time of year.

today we were feeling motivated to get some hairdo's done. emma's was a repeat, but torrey's we made up this morning. she said all of the kids at school thought it was a peace sign. maybe next time we can really try for making it into a full peace sign with the circle and all.

Supplies: patterned paper: Family Ties Kit, Fei Fei’s Stuff (white) and Berry + Charcoal Kit, Paislee Press (red); notebook paper: Photogenic Kit, Audacious Designs; acrylic frame: Family Ties Kit, Fei Fei’s Stuff; brush and staples: Paislee Press, Chasing the Sun, Photogenic Kits; grid: Family Ties Kit, Joyce Paul Designs; heart: Adobe Photoshop; fonts: Lainy Day and Courier New

and i thought i'd give a little sneak of a project i have in december's issue of scrapbook ellaments. the article and project are here. (but promise not to tell my new sister-in-law, because it's for her!) and while you're visiting ella, be sure to sign up for their email list. you'll get a monthly link to their free eZine along with coupons and info on their latest books. but wait, there's more! i'm going to have a giveaway coming up, and signing up for the email list will give you an extra chance to win! :)

in the waning light

being one who takes almost all of my pictures with natural light... the changing of the season is sure having an effect on my daily life! it's getting kind of hard to sneak in a natural light picture when the girls get home from school. by late afternoon so much of the light is already gone. guess it makes for a good reason to learn how to use my flash better... today i played around with the lensbaby and the creative aperture disks again. i gave the heart a try today with torrey. thought the irony of her grumpy face and the hearts sort of flying away worked. i did get a bunch of her smiling too here.

we have theis amazing japanese maple in our backyard that turns the most vibrant shade of red in the fall... then gets even brighter when it's wet with rain. i completely missed getting a picture of it since it dropped all of its leaves suddenly one day. well, by golly, i wasn't going to miss it this year! so the past couple of days i ran the girls out there for a few shots by the red tree. there are a few more shots of emma here.

this was one of those i-missed-the-opportunity-to-use-natural-light moments. so i grabbed my flash {nikon sb600}, used my on camera flash in commander mode... and did my best.

on a scrappy note... my very favorite scrapbook store is making bunches of cards for service members on veteran's day this year. they asked if i'd write up a blog post for them... which you can see here. if you're in the area & would like to come by the store to make cards for soldiers on veteran's day, there's a bit more info here. we hope to see you there!

i also have a new layout up on the ella blog along with my fabulous ella friends. the super cute tami morrison wrote the post up. while you're over at ella, check out stacy julian & lain ehmann's latest book "20 simple secrets of happy scrapbookers".