When I grow up...

While I don't have a card today, I just had to share a conversation with my DH and I had over the weekend with my 3 yo DD. Right now she takes ballet and just absolutely loves it. What got her to really want to do ballet was watching the Barbie Nutcracker. This child is going around the house humming the Nutcracker Suite...what 3 yo old does that?! She must be gifted...of course from a biased mommy's opinion. LOL. Anyway I found a 2 ft. Nutcracker at Jo-ann's yesterday and my DD was ecstatic. When we got home from shopping she wanted to watch her Barbie movie. After that was over she wanted to see any videos on the DVD. Well they had a little movie about The School of American Ballet. It featured real little girls and older ones and their routines. My DD was totally engrossed. SO when that was all done the conversation went like this:

Mommy: When you grow up are you going to be a ballerina?

DD: No.

Mommy: Well how about a dancer, doctor, singer or teacher?

DD: No.

Mommy: Well then what do you want to be when you grow up?

DD: I want to be a butterfly.

Mommy: That is a wonderful thing to be.

My little catepillar is wise beyond her years. The picture is my DD showing me some of her ballet moves before going to class.

Cutie Pies

Today I have two very adorable cutie pies to show you, both of which I made myself...well the second one was with DH's help. LOL! This first cutie was made for a dear friend that is getting ready to celebrate a birthday in a few days. When The Greeting Farm came out with this adorable Peace from the Hope and Grace line I knew she had to be mine. The inspiration for this card came from Mojo90 and CCEE Stampers challenges. This week flowergal36(Dawn) is the Catchy Name Featured Stamper on CCEE and so there has to be flowers on your card for this challenge. Well I don't think you can get any more flower power than the 60's. Little Miss Peace is popped-up on dots, the Far Out is clear embossed, and the Hippie Van charm came from Hanna Stamps.

Skin: R00, E00, E93
Hair: E51, E33, E35
Clothes: Y19, YG21, YG23, YR16, RV23, R000, B95, colorless blender
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, Kaleidacolor Flannel
Paper: K&Company DP, WeR Memory Keepers DP, PTI White and Chocolate, Neenah White
Stamps: TGF HG Peace, SU Groovy

The second cutie pie I have to show you is my 3 yo DD on our little extended weekend get away to Florida. We went to the Pelican Beach area away from the more touristy beaches. It was very nice but we didn't stay long since the sun was so hot and DD didn't want to go into the ocean very much either. I hope you have a great Wednesday and don't forget to check out my blog candy in the right hand viewing pane.

Party Time

While I didn't get much stamping done, I did get a whole lot of partying done. My little girl turned three years old earlier in the week, but we had her party on Saturday. I had 21 people in my house and 10 of them were 7 and under. I was hyperventalating when my daycare provider told me that my little one was inviting all the daycare kids to her party (I don't do crowds very well which is why I prefer to go to Target over Wal-Mart). So the softie I am, I went ahead and made out invitations for all of them. They all had a really good time and now I know I can handle having that many people in my house. In fact it was actually quite fun. They kids were all well behaved and the adults helped with getting kids fed and cleaned up. Then we enjoyed opening presents and eating cake. She did have presents to open on her actual birthday too from her parents, grandparents, and some of my friends that also sent her presents. Thanks Kelly and Lana! Hopefully I will have a card for you tomorrow evening.

To Be A Kid Again

Today was a wonderful day that started at the crack of dawn for me. I got up to get the car loaded and ready for a fun day with Thomas the Train at the historical B&O Railroad. We took our little neighbor boy and his mommy too. It took us about 1.5 hours to get there, then we looked at the exhibits, road a real Thomas the Train for about 30 min., then ate lunch, got a temporary tattoo, made a spinning paint picture, and had our faces painted. Then the kiddos napped all the wya home. What a great it was. I'll have a card or two to share with you tomorrow.

TGIF and Blog Candy

Well I had originally meant to play along with the Taylored Expressions card sketch, but didn't finish my card until yesterday. Oh well, maybe I'll be more on top of things this weekend. Anyway here is the card that I made for TECC64. The stamps are from The Greeting Farm and it is going to be for my daughter's three year birthday at the beginning of May. Sniff, sniff...sorry, I just needed a moment to wipe my eye at the fact that my baby is growing up. I love being a mom and my daughter is definitely the best part of me.

I also had planned to play along with the Case of the Curious Card III over at the Greeting Farm, but I couldn't get my layout to work so I just went and did my own thing. When I saw this stamp I immediately thought of this butterfly paper from Basic Grey. So that was the color inspiration. Both cards were colored with copics and use Susie Surprise and Flutter from TGF. Thanks to the skin coloring tutorial from Janna on the Club Anya blog, I think my skin colors look much better. Thanks Janna, you rock! Now I need to work on getting better effects on other areas. Oh and now I know the markers are pronounced as cope-icks instead of cop-icks. At least I was getting the ick part right.

So how would you like to have a TGF Flutter Butterfly stamp of your very own? Just leave a comment on this post and spread the word on your blog. Drawing will take place via Random.org at 10pm EDT on May 6 my daughter's birthday.

Here is a pic of the soon to be birthday girl. She is sporting her Ariel Tiara, fairy wings, chapstick that she applied herself, and you can't see in the picture but 3 tu tus. She must wear them all for extra fullness. Ahhhh...to be three again.

Please come back tomorrow and join in on the Dog Gone Stamps blog hop where I will be a stop. I have a pretty funny one for you to enjoy.

Finally, Snow!

Well this weekend I went on a little over night get away to go to a quilt show in Williamsburg with a buddy of mine. We walked for nearly 8 hours straight with a 30 minute break for lunch and 5 min potty break. It was so fun, but since we did all of our shopping on Saturday we decided to head back to Southern Maryland a little early on Sunday. Good thing because right around 2:00 pm it started snowing. We woke up on Monday to 12 inches of snow. Holy Cow! I love it and even better I love that my daughter got to experience her first real snow. So I got in another workout from shoveling snow off our driveway and walkway. Hubby and I worked on the driveway while Olivia played. It was so much fun. Of course we were the first on our block to have everything cleared. Must be the Ohio mentality in us. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Stamping Queen(to the tune of Dancing Queen)

I love having a little girl. My little one really likes to stamp and color. Especially if she gets to use mommy's ink pads, stamps, and the glorious markers are such a treat. Of course the copics are off limits, but occassionally I let her use my SU markers if we are making a special card for someone. It warms me all over when I'm working on something and she wants to sit in my lap and watch or sometimes even "help". I even will stamp images out for her so that she can take them to her special table to color them with her crayola markers. I hope I'm growing a stamping buddy.

Isn't She Lovely?

Since I don't have a card to show you, how about a lovely picture that was taken of my cutie girl late summer? This is a favorite picture of mine. Can you believe it was taken by a sophomore in college? The pictures were better than any other so called "professional" pictures that we have had taken of her.

I don't have a card to share tonight because I'm just too cold to go into an even colder basement. We turned our thermostat down to 65 degrees F so that our heat pumps won't continually run. Heat pumps are just not made for weather this cold(17 degrees F). I'm working on a few card ideas though since I signed up for many swap that are due in February not to mention it is my month to host February in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Cards on SCS. I am using my wonderful creativity notebook that I received from my Secret Sister Michelle to capture my thoughts and ideas for different cards.

So looking through the SCS gallery for some inspiration I kept seeing Mojo Monday cards, I kept trying to figure out what that was and after reading Sandra's blog with her nicely put together coloring tutorial I found my answer. I have put a link to Mojo Monday in my Cafe of Inspiration links. So now you will know what it is about too.

Halloween Fun

Halloween was so much fun. DD decided that she wanted to go as Cinderella this year. We had a blonde wig for her to wear, but she wouldn't keep that on for more than five minutes. We only went T & T'ing on our street which is about 18 houses. I think she made out pretty good. Mommy and daddy enjoyed a few pieces of course. Her favorite candies are M & Ms and sour patch kids. My little one is on the unsual side in that she likes spicy food like salsa, lemon aid, and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Here are a few pictures to enjoy.