Thursday Musings

There has been so much going on since my last post ...

The kids are growing up so fast, doing so many adorable things - learning to count and trying to learn their ABCs. They are just so smart that they amaze me daily! I love them so much!!!

Work is going well. I'm still loving my new job and enjoying every moment of it! We are still waiting on our relocation offers but I hope to have it in hand tomorrow. I'll keep you posted. Paul and I visited St. Louis to get a feel for the city and some of its amenities. We ultimately decided that we could live there although we both agree that we don't love it! It'll all come down to the offer and how difficult it is to say no to what they offer.

We've been doing a lot of work on the house, trying to get it under control again. Since having the twins, we've been pretty lax about keeping it up. Most of the problems are cosmetic so we have been/will be painting and decluttering like crazy! We've decided to start upstairs and work our way down. So far, the upstairs is 90% done except the problems with the shower which are just too much for us to take care of ourselves. Once its all done and looking better, I'll post pictures so you can see how great it ends up looking!

I've been trying to spend a lot of my free time getting some scrapbook pages done. I'm really lucky to be on some great creative teams so most of these layouts showcase those wonderful ladies' designs ... I am also really excited about a new opportunity that has come to me since I last posted. I am now a Bella with Bella Scraps Magazine which is a new online magazine for digital and hybrid artists. It's a wonderful publication that had its first issue debut in January! One of the layouts you'll see in a few minutes is using the fabulous kit that came with the first issue. Bella Scraps Magazine is the 'baby' of Holley VanDenBerg who I originally met when she was editor of the Digital Artisan Guild and asked me to write an article for that publication. I wrote an article about a Love Lessons album I've been working on for the kids and when I saw that she had a new publication coming, we connected and she asked me to be a part of the Creative Team. It's a wonderful publication and you can find out more about purchasing it here.

Anyway, here are a few of my recent creations ...

Using MandaBean's Owl Love you Forever Girl kit over at Sweet Shoppe Designs.

Using ChereKaye and Amanda Heimann's Winter Wish Collab kit over at The Funky Playground

Using MandaBean and Robin Carlton's Lullabee Collab kit over at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Using Bob and Willis by MandaBean and Lauren Grier, Rad Girls by MandaBean and Penny Springman, And I Quote ... Life by MandaBean - all at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Using the Scrapbook Graphics Collab kit for January, Impressions of Anticipation

Isn't Sami beautiful??? Not only is she beautiful on the outside but also on the inside.

We're so proud of her!

I did this one for the most recent Oscraps blog challenge using Audrey Neal's Blockbuster Template, Happy Holly Days kit, & Christmas Trees, Lauren Reid's Nelly kit, Ribbon from Oscraps' O'Jolly collab kit, and Vicki Stegall's Wrap Me Up Grunge Two(ALL at Oscraps)

Using MandaBean's Fizz Toady kit (Sweet Shoppe Designs)

This one is using Mirranda Reinhardt's new spring kit which is so beautiful!

(can be found at Scrapbook Graphics)

And, now I want to share some pages that are VERY special to me and part of a project that I'm determined to finish this year - a heritage album. This one will focus on the Robertson side of the family. I'm also beginning work on one for the Phillips side. My grandmother gave me all of the family photographs for safekeeping and I've been slowly scanning them in order to archive them as they are very precious. I've also been doing a lot of records searching about the family and trying to uncover more about the areas of my family ancestry that I don't know about. And, lastly, I'm using the information that I obtained through my Saturday afternoons with my grandmother prior to her death last year where she told me about her life, our family and made so much of our family's history come to life. It's been really helpful to me to work on this book because I still struggle with the fact that she is gone and I miss her so much. It's helped me to work on a project which honors her and her memories as well as all of the people she loved. I'll be sharing more of these pages as my goal is to do at least one page for this album each week (more would be even better) and then I will compile them all into a hardcover book when they are complete. I'm so excited!

This is a beautiful picture of my grandmother and I used this page to tell more of her story, particularly her childhood.

This is a photograph of my grandparents when they were newlyweds. This page tells of how they met, fell in love and spent so many years together. Their marraige and its longevity was and is amazing to me. (This is also using the kit that I mentioned earlier which came with the January issue of Bella Scraps - it is a Christine Haskell kit that is absolutely beautiful).

I love this photograph of my grandmother, her parents and her siblings. It's one of the few photographs that I've seen of all of them together as adults. It was taken in 1967 at my great grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary! (And, Dad, if you're reading this - I PROMISE to mail you the originals back.)

This is a picture of my great grandparents, my grandmother's parents. This page tells the story of their meeting, marraige and life together. It includes several bits and pieces of the stories that my grandmother shared with me to give me insight into her parents who died when I was young.

This is another rare photo - my grandfather with ALL of his siblings. It's the only photo of all of them that I've been able to find. I think its wonderful and I really wanted to showcase it!

And, last, but certainly not least, a page about my grandparents and their wedding. Or weddings, to be more accurate. We found out years after their marraige that they'd actually run off and gotten married a year before their 'real' wedding which is the wedding date we'd always been aware of. My grandmother told me that they ran off to Elizabeth City, NC with two friends who'd done that and knew where to go! I went searching online records and found their marriage certificate in NC and it does show that they did indeed run off and marry in NC in 1939! I love that they did that and am so glad to be able to document it in this heritage layout!

Okay, that's it for me tonight. I need to go get watching LOST which premiers tonight. It's been WAY too long since I've been able to have my LOST fix!