2 Years Ago Today....

This adorable little guy came bursting into our lives....

and today this sweet hearted, lovable, rambunctious little guy is two....

Happy Birthday my Little J.  I love you!

ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop

Welcome to the ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop. We are so excited to share our Holiday Ideas with you on Monday and Tuesday this week. 

You should have arrived here from Laurel's blog. If you arrived here first, head back to the ScrapTiffany blog.

I am so excited to finally share this project with you. Every year around Chirstmas I do some holiday baking. I always make the same line up of treats, but every year I end up hunting around for my recipes. I needed to get them all in one place. I had this box leftover from a mini album project and it was the perfect size for a recipe box.

I used some Pink Paislee and some fabulous music note fabric from a Color Me Daisy kit (no longer available). I added American Crafts Thickers, a splash of paint, a dab of ink, a trip through the sewing machine, some punching and the outside of my box was decorated....

Close up (I told you that fabric was fabulous)...

Backside of box...

The tabbed recipe cards were cut from the Cricut From My Kitchen cartridge...

I typed up the recipes and labels and added a couple of paper strips (Lettering Delights Going Nuts font)...

And what would a recipe be without a yummy picture. On the backside of the recipe card I added a picture, a couple of paper strips and another tab.

Thanks for visiting me for the ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop. 

Leave a comment telling me what your favorite holiday treat is and I will draw a name to receive a box of some scrappy goodies that will include some things I have left from a few past Studio Calico and Mosh Posh kits, as well as some holiday scrappy goodies.

The next stop on the ScrapTiffany Blog Hop tour is Norazah.

And if you get lost here are all the ScrapTiffany ladies to help you get back on track:

Sheri

Abby

Becca

Jackie

Jennifer

Jessica

Katie

Kay

Keely

Kristi

Kristina

Laurel

Michelle (me)

Norazah

Rebecca

Summer

ScrapTiffany

Happy November!

We had a very busy and very fun weekend with all the Halloween festivities.

I baked pumpkin spice cupcakes and burned sugar cookies on Saturday morning.

We went to the pumpkin patch at Schnepf Farms

And played in the train park at the farm

We decorated the burned sugar cookies. Nicholas likes to decorate but doesn't like to eat cookies with frosting on them. So Mike will eat those, and I set aside the cookies I did not burn for Nicholas to eat, sans frosting.

I carved the pumpkin and Nicholas had a chat with him

The boys dressed up in their costumes

Jackson really didn't like his at first, but he got comfortable as the night wore on

And went trick or treating, we made it through 4 blocks in our neighborhood. One more than last year.

Then came home and checked out our haul (and maybe had a pack or two of M&M's.

This week at ScrapTiffany was a Color Challenge. The colors worked well with my October Mosh Posh kit. The title came from a song they sang on Glee while I was making this page.

Wednesday is my turn at the ScrapTiffany blog and I have something fun to share for fall.

And next week is our Blog Hop at ScrapTiffany. So check back next Monday and Tuesday for some Holiday inspiration and a chance to win some goodies.

Also, the design team at ScrapTiffany was asked to participate in the Hippity Hoppity Blog Hop as well. So check us out next week over on the ScrapTiffany blog.

Have a great Monday!

Halloween is almost upon us....

One of my favorite holidays is almost upon us. I love decorating for Halloween and seeing the kids (my own included) all dressed up in their Halloween costumes trick-or-treating is a blast. I also love to make Halloween crafts, I guess it is partly because I have a little more time to make Halloween decorations, more than Christmas decorations once the Christmas season is upon us.

This week's challenge at ScrapTiffany was Halloween.  A little while ago Jenni Bowlin offered a Limited Edition Vintage Halloween kit, that I snapped up the morning it went on sale (it sold out within a couple of hours). It paired perfectly with a 7 Gypsies Receipt Tray that I bought at Studio Calico, a bit of last years Color Me Daisy Halloween kit (vintage postcard and Pink Paislee papers) and some mini letters by My Little Shoebox. With that mix of products, I created this to hang in our house for the Halloween season.

Check out the other fun things the ladies made at ScrapTiffany today and visit again on Friday for even more Halloween inspiration.

Vacation Finale - San Diego Zoo, Old Town and Heading Home

Day 7, Friday, October 15^th, 2010

Last night I sent a text my friend Stella to get some breakfast recommendations. We didn’t have plans for Friday so we decided to go out to breakfast.  She sent me a few suggestions, and we picked the Broken Yolk in Pacific Beach.  We got there about 9:00 am and it was busy. We had a really good breakfast. We both had omelets with home fries.  Nicholas and Jackson ate the muffin that came with my breakfast with pancakes and bacon.

It had been sprinkling since we woke up and we weren’t sure what we were going to do. Mike thought we should go to the zoo to keep the kids entertained. Kids were free for the month of October so we headed over. 

We got to the zoo and even though it isn’t really that far from the water, there was no sprinkling. It was cool but not wet. 

Here are some of my favorite shots from the day. I had some animals that really liked to pose for the camera...

I think this sleeping Koala Bear is so sweet...

Look at the bears eyes...

The leopard was named Princess or something like that, she loved to pose.

The giraffe's were cool. Some of my best poses were in to the sky, and were too washed out, but I like this one. At the Phoenix Zoo all the food spots are up above so they don't have to bend down like this.

Love this kangaraoo

Kissing camels (they really were, the one in the back though had some gross stuff coming out of his mouth that turns some of the better shots of the front two into something less than pleasant)\

Llamas?

Nicholas walked a lot of the zoo on foot....

Frogs/toads near the elephant exhibits

This elephant was dancing, with her trunk bouncing back and forth....

Yes this is the kid that will not wear shoes and socks. He is just like his mama, hates shoes. I know there were people looking at us like we were crazy.

Spacing on what animal this is, but many of them were happy to pose for us.

This is probably one of my favorite shots from the day. Right after this, the lion got up on a rock and strated making all kinds of howling and roaring noises, I would have photographed it but his butt was to us, so nothing great to look at, but cool to listen to.

Nicholas was interested in the tar pits.

Another model, I mean cooperative animal.

Hills do not slow my boys down.  Jackson is peeking back at Nicholas and me, happy he isn't walking.

The gorillas came right up to the glass viewing area.

These minature alligators didn't move, they were like statues.

It looked like they were posing for us.

Nicholas checking out what is going on...

This monkey was talking to another one right below him...

Tourists.

This was really cool but everyone was trying to get the picture of this hippo with its eyes and ears above water and it's huge body below the surface. This was the best I could get without people in it.

There is something just weird about how these turtles look swimming.

This lizard is looking right at me.

Looks like the tortoise is as well.

We stayed until the zoo closed and then decided to go straight to dinner at Old Town. Old Town Mexican Café had been recommended by both my friend Stella and Scott and Lori. So even though it looked packed we decided to try it. It turned out there was only a 10 minute wait that ended up being less than 5 minutes. We had guacamole and chips with margaritas.  For dinner the boys had tacos and quesadilla and Mike and I both had combos with Mexican beers.  

Towards the end of our dinner the Mariachis came in to the area to play and Jackson loved it.  He was whipping his head around to watch them and giving them big cheesy grins.

To burn off dinner we walked around Old Town before heading back to the hotel.  

We got back early enough to let the kids just chill out watching Disney shows while I started packing us up.  We got the kids in bed around 9:00 and Mike and I talked about next year’s vacation. We decided after this trip that the boys are ready and more importantly we are ready to take them to Walt Disney World next year. So I checked out pricing so we can start saving.

Day 8, Saturday, October 16^th, 2010

We got up around 7:00 and got ready and finished packing. We were going to grab Einstein’s for breakfast but there was a huge line and it was a bit cold to sit outside. So we headed over to the Red Marlin for breakfast. We had the buffet breakfast and were in and out of there pretty quickly. We loaded up the car to get on the road and were on our way around 10:30. We stopped quickly once and made it home around 4:00.

It turned out to be easier than the boys than we expected. Taking kids is definitely a different vacation than the old days of late nights, fancy restaurants and going as fast or slow as we feel like. Everything is at their pace, but they were very flexible and good little travelers. So I look forward to many more vacations with my little family. 

Now that we are home, Nicholas asks us at least once a day if we had fun in California or Disneyland. He is still talking about the trip a lot a week later.