Kale is 5 months old!

My baby is growing soooo fast! I took some time today to grab a few shots! Isn't he just a doll! He learned how to roll over finally! He likes to grab anything and put it in his mouth, some of his favorites are his toy rings and regular old burp rags! Now I need to get Ava's 4 year pics taken!

Some Digi Scrapbooking!

I got to spend a "few" minutes yesterday organizing my scrapbooking pictures. I LOVE to scrapbook, but after Ethan got sick I just didn't have the energy to do it. I have done some pages here and there, but I'm literally a few years behind now and I'm trying to rethink how I am going to "catch up". It's not something I have to do, but it is definitely something I want to do. All I have left now are memories of Ethan and I want those to live on forever, so me creating his scrapbooks is very therapeutic. I found this link via another friends website called www.widdlytinks.com I tried some of their pre-made layouts and thought....maybe I should just do some digital scrapbooking to try and catch up and if I want to actually do the page myself I can. Here is what I ended up with for Ava's 1st birthday pages. I ordered them from www.scrappingsimply.com 12x12 pages are $1.99 each. I have 2 on order so I'm going to wait and see how they turn out.

Right now I scrapbook everything for all 3 kids. I have separate books for each and I don't mean one per year, I have several per year. I'm rethinking my system and am wondering what kind of advice any of you might have to add. I'm definitely not going all digital because I love to scrapbook too much. I'm thinking that I'm going to start buying some pages for my books that I can just insert pictures in like a typical photo album, but mix the book up with both pages and pictures alone. We'll see. I need a weekend with just me and my pictures so I can get them all organized....they are organized on my computer so at least that part is done.

I'm home today....finally! I went to work and dropped the kids off at my Mom's because Ava still wasn't feeling up to par. She was fine Sat, but later on Sunday she started with diarrhea again and it didn't let up this morning, so we waited for over 2 hours in the walk in. What a long morning. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Both kiddos are down for a nap right now, but should be waking up soon. I'm sure hoping that she is on the mend! So far noone else in the family has gotten this bug.

JUGS 29 - Color Challenge!

JUGS is hosting a great color challenge! Maria is the hostess this week and picked such bright springy colors for us to use. All of us gals made a birthday card for our DT memeber Lisa.....it is her birthday on Monday! Happy Birthday Lisa! Hope you have a great one!

My card had to be very quick as the last couple weeks have been crazy busy and this week was no exception. I used a new template from PTI and just love how the flowers turned out. I made this card in about 5 minutes.....really!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. We had a great start to ours with our monthly dinner club at our house and then we got a call at midnight that our Ava girl threw up! Oh how fun, she did again once she got home in our bed, so I'll be doing extra laundry today! We had to cancel out on my college friends coming for a visit because we don't want anyone getting sick! She is feeling better this morning so hopefully it was just a little bug and it is over with now!

Happy 4th Birthday Ava!

My sweet Ava turned 4 last week and we had a wonderful week celebrating her big day! We had her party on Saturday and the day was absolutely beautiful. The week was so crazy heading up to her party and we were all ready to unwind by Saturday night. One of her favorite gifts is her new cowgirl hat. There are some sweet pics of her and some really cute ones of Ava and Kale sporting their cowboy/girl hats.Grandma Klusmeyer helped make Ava Girl a horse cake, just like the one she made for Ethan last May. He wanted to take a horse cake to school so Ethan called Grandma on the way to the hospital to see if she could make that for him and she did. Ava's was the same except with pink...of course!Here we are showing off our hats....she has some pink bling on hers that she loves!

She got a new baby car seat carrier for her baby doll so now we travel with Kale in his seat and Ava carries her car seat with her baby too. We get a lot of laughs when we walk into stores. She is very excited to be 4. She told me that morning that she was 4 and now she could go to school today!

Here is Ava with me and her best buddy, Andrea. They are both 4 now so Ava is very excited about that!

Tonight we were out enjoying the weather and captured the kids having fun. Kale just laughs and laughs at his sister....I think he likes her a little!

Enjoy your week....I have another busy one here with my family, work, and stamping! I might be back mid-week so share some stamping goodies, otherwise I'll be back Sat morning with my JUGS color challenge!

JUGS 28 - Scrapbook Challenge

I'm the hostess over at JUGS this week and the challenge was a "wild card", so I chose a scrapbook challenge. Here is the layout I came up with. You would think that I would have made my page and then the layout, but here I was last night making my page. I do like how it turned out, but I was quite challenged with what I was going to create.

My week has been soooo busy with work, a friend visiting, my daughter's 4th birthday and more work. Needless to say, it is Friday night and I'm so ready for the weekend. Tomorrow is going to be another busy day....getting ready for Ava's party, dance pictures, meeting at church, cooking, and finally Ava's big party! She is super exicted. I realize that no matter how much I stress about getting everything ready that at the end of the day, the pictures will be taken, we'll get to the meeting and the party will happen whether I'm ready for any of it or not!

Here is my page. I love how it turned out. Notice the backdrop. This is part of the display that we have of Ethan's favorite things, hit boots, hat, harmonica, toy guy, lasso......I love having it up on my wall because it reminds me of him and the fun times he had. Please stop by yesterday's post as well. I'm so excited about the necklace that Lisa Leonard designed in memory of my son Ethan.

I used a boot to do my journaling in. I added some cowboy embellishments that I had in my stash of goodies!

Hope all of you have a great weekend. I'm sure looking forward to ours. This will be Ava's first birthday without her big brother. Hopefully Ethan will be having a piece of cake right along with us !

Shining Stars, In Honor of our Ethan

I'm so excited to share with you today a special necklace made in honor of our little boy, Ethan. A friend of mine from way out west in California created this special necklace. Here is a picture of me wearing mine with my Ava girl. It is just beautiful. I've worn it everyday since I received it. Go check out Lisa Leonard's site so you can see this beautiful necklace. She is so nice and generous and is going to donate 20% of the proceeds from the "shining stars necklace" to neuroblastoma research in Ethan's honor. This fundraiser is going on through April 22nd! Here is a link to the "Shining Stars necklace". You'll enjoy reading her blog too as she has the most wonderful family and captures them in the most beautiful pictures. THANK YOU LISA! Ethan would be so honored that you were doing this for him!

I am such a fan of Lisa's jewelry and I purchased my first piece while Ethan was in the hospital and it read "Believe in Miracles". I wore this everyday and finally after Ethan died I gave this away to his dear friend, Annabelle. You can read more about that here. One day she will have it and can always remember her little buddy!

JUGS Sketch Challenge #27

It's time for our JUGS (Just Us Girls) weekly challenge. Kristin is in charge this week and has a wonderful sketch to share. This card is for my little girl, Ava, who is going to turn 4 next Wednesday. She is going to have a Cowgirl birthday party so I thought this card would be perfect. She loves to wear her pink cowgirl boots and I just happen to know that she is getting a new cowgirl hat for her birthday....the real deal this time. Ethan got a "real" cowboy hat for his 4th birthday so it seems only fitting.I made a sentiment on my computer using word. I love to use text boxes and then change the font in one. I think it just adds something to the card and personalizes it. Ava likes everything with bling so I added rhinestones to her card. She'll love it!

Be sure to stop by JUGS to see all the gals creations. Their links are on my side bar too. Be sure to share your creations too and link it up on the JUGS site. Thanks for stopping by. Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!