Bella+Mason, Scrapbooking, and iNSD

I’ve got an interview with Bella to share and Mason’s 5 week picture… but you got to make it through the post first.

Oh man I’m going to be busy, busy, busy at my computer this week! International Scrapbooking Day (iNSD) is coming up this weekend and the people I work with are all releasing a ton. And to make it even better… The Lilypad’s May BYOC is also releasing this weekend!!! I’ve already got three pages for this weekend’s releases and I’m nowhere near done yet.

Tomorrow night I’ll be making my come back to The Lilypad’s Speed Scraps. Here’s the info on it, you know, in case you feel like stopping by.

Now here are some of my newest pages:





(as always – click for credits)

Now…
Here’s a video interview with Bella. Don’t worry her answers and subtitled. lol I know not everyone understands her as well as we do.

And Mason’s 5 week Monster Puppy picture.

Quick, quick! It’s catch up time!

Ryan’s field trip to the zoo… we went to the Memphis Zoo on April 13th with his class. It is one of our absolute favorite places to go. I’ve yet to go to any other zoo that I like as much. Plus, now through July we have DINOSAURS! (Score.) Ryan and I had a blast going through the exhibit. The dinosaurs move, roar, and the dying one being eaten by T-Rex actually breathed. It was so freaking cool.

Bella’s birthday party… We had Bella’s 3rd birthday party on April 22nd. She only invited 5 little girls from her PDO class (plus some of their siblings) but only two girls and their family could come. But that was ok. Just with those two girls – plus their siblings and the boys and my mom’s neighbor Jared – we had 8 kids for her to celebrate with. No games because I’m lazy and hate party games, but we did bring over all of our dress up clothes (hers and the boys’) and they did that and played. She had dark purple cupcakes with light pink icing, and her big surprise present was what she’s been begging for – her own purple bike and helmet.

Zach had Cub Scouts Space Derby last weekend. Him and John thought they would be super creative and make a pencil ship. Apparently they should have checked with every one else because there were like 7 other “really creative” pencil ships. Zach’s was the fastest of them though. (They did a special pencils only race…)

And I’ll break my rules and do more than one post today. I’ll be back in a bit with a post on Mason and Bella’s check ups (1 month and 3 year) and some new pictures.

It’s a three day affair.

April 20, 2009 – My original induction date. However, two or three days before it got bumped back to the 21st to accommodate a patient needing a c-section.

April 21, 2009 – I went to the hospital and got started with the induction at 6 am… twelve hours later and I hadn’t made any progress. (fail)

April 22, 2009 – After getting cervadil put in and having contractions all night my induction was started back up. Almost 6 hours later this little girl finally decided to make an entrance.

Oh… and a quick addition with Mason’s four week Monster Puppy picture.

A scrapbooking quarterly review.

Since we are now a quarter of the way through the year (OK maybe we’re a touch past since we’re half way through April now…) I thought I’d do a scrapbooking review.

Number of pages created – 27
One page featured as a Stand Out.
Wait, no, make that two pages. Oops.

Favorite pages from…
January:

February:

March:

Not what I was going to post.

But oh screw it. I don’t feel much like thinking tonight. lol
My brain is saying “Noooooo! Don’t make me work!” So I will pity it and not use it.
Instead, please enjoy these words of wisdom coming to you via Pinterest.

Bubbles so cute they hurt.

Or is it just bubbles, cute, and hurts?
OK – it’s just bubbles, cute, and hurts. I couldn’t think up a cute post name for that though.
lol

Ryan, Ryan, Ryan.
He has got to quit attacking the school’s playground equipment with his face. One day he will learn that his face is not the instrument to use to win a war with metal stuff. Well, at least I hope that he eventually learns this… going off my brothers I doubt it though.

It’s bubble time.

I knew bubble gum in the Easter baskets wasn’t a completely bad idea.

Cute-overload.
I take no responsibility for any damage all this cuteness does to your brain.

She’s singing “La la lu” (the lullaby from Lady and the Tramp) to Mason. We pretty much heart that movie and song to bitty pieces. Actually any of you who follow my scrapbooking should recognize the song since I’ve actually used it on a few pages.

Now a bit more cuteness…

Tomorrow I’m off to the zoo! Ryan’s class is going on a field trip and I’m going with. I’m so excited I’m ready to bust.

Yesterday & Today

Yesterday…

Today…

My boy is big and awesome.
At two weeks…
His doctor can not believe how big he is… nor can he believe the growth since birth on just breast milk. My fears and doubts can put that in their pipe and smoke it. Mason is now 11 pounds even and 22 inches long – up almost one pound and inch since birth.

Two Weeks Later

Mason and the Monster Puppy

Two week Mason

and…
Me at two weeks post partum –

It’s kinda like Ramona’s paper shoe

Only not quite as funny, real-life, and a tad pathetic.

I believe most people are familiar with the Ramona books, right? I mean if you aren’t you have been seriously deprived, but we won’t get into that now. In one of them ((I want to say it’s Ramona the Pest)) Ramona decides to go and play in a mud puddle on her way to school. Unfortunately for Ramona her rain boot got stuck in the mud and Henry had to come to the rescue and pull her out of the mud… but her boot got left behind. Instead of admitting to doing something she wasn’t supposed to do she went and made herself a shoe out of paper towels and a stapler for her to wear around school for the day.

It’s a very funny little bit to the book and was one of the boys favorite parts of the book.

In real life having one of your kids come home in a shoe that isn’t exactly like the shoe you sent them to school in is not quite so funny.

This morning Ryan left the house with two whole shoes. This afternoon Ryan came home with one whole shoe and one shoe in three pieces with two pieces being held together by tape and the other in his back pack. What did he do to his shoe? Well see I just don’t know, and apparently he doesn’t know either. I mean the shoe was only on his foot, he can’t be expected to keep up with the happenings of the shoes on his feet. I just know he split the bottom of the shoe into two separate layers no longer attached to the top of the shoe. Why the school didn’t just call home and have me bring him different shoes I don’t know. I don’t think his teacher even let the office know. She sent a note home saying she didn’t know what happened either, only that Ryan came up to her with the top still tied on to his foot and handed her the two bottom pieces so she taped them back together as best as possible.

Since this is the second pair of shoes that Ryan has destroyed (not outgrown) this year John and I are not quite amused. As a matter of fact, John is rather put out with his middle son at the moment…

Scrapbooking with Mason

Yup, I’m already back to my scrapbooking… and I get this a lot:

“wow that you are scrapping already!”

(real quote found here)
lol.

It doesn’t seem to impressive to me. With Bella I made my first page either the day I got home or the day after. This time it wasn’t until a few days after I got home. See, Mason spends a lot of his time either like this, or like this – but also latched on to the boob.

Meaning, he spends most of his day laying across my chest, and well, he can do it just as well while I’m in my desk chair as he can with me sitting anywhere else. To top it off, I mastered scrapbooking one handed back when I had Bella, and after a few slow moving days of starting it back up, I’ve gotten mostly in the swing of it again. If I didn’t do this I wouldn’t be doing too much else – I’m trying to get the boy used to sleeping consistently in his bassinet (*cough*that is next to my desk*cough*) but it’s still hit and miss – so I spend 90% of my time holding Mason. I might as well spend all that sitting time doing something I enjoy.

Here’s what all I’ve gotten done since having Mason:

(Mason’s birth announcement – I used To The Moon and Back by Traci Reed – all the other pages will be linked to their credits, I just wanted to make sure my last name doesn’t make it over.)

(Plus a few other pages I can’t share with you yet. lol)

It’s wonderful to be able to sit and do something I enjoy so much again. By the last trimester of my pregnancy Mason was so big and I was so uncomfortable that sitting at my desk for any sort of time was just not working, so my scrapping time took a huge hit. I must say that I’m just loving being able to sit and scrap again, even if I am doing it half my normal speed, one handed, and nursing.