a little bit of me.

{2009 in Photos}

I tried to pull just one photo from each month of '09, and ended up having trouble deciding between shots for some months, so I just made it what i wanted...

a photo recap of the year :)

not all the best (technically-speaking) shots, but still...  photos that i LOVE, and that represent our year.  here they are...

January!

new year's day in the park > i love the feeling of a brand-new fresh year, where anything is possible.

one of our many weekend winter walks on the beach...

February!

Evan's "colander-phase" ;)

(endlessy!) Packing up the rental house to (finally!) move into our own home...

March!

YAY!  We were so thrilled to have found the house that we did.

April!

Evan got to "practice" easter egg hunt before the real thing...

We like to take advantage of any opportunity to go back to Gainesville...  like for Evan's first gator game - the orange & blue spring game :)

May!

Poodle-Walking on the beach... Evan insisted.

June!

The beginning of an obsession.  Tee-Ball arrives at our house via Papa and Grandma...

Ev & I get to spend a week on the beach together...  (How cute are baby rash guards?!)

July!

A weekend trip for 4th of July at Kimmie's beach condo in Naples.  Evan definitely was telling me that the flag was a "baaaaat" here.

7.27.  #2.  crazy.

August!

One of my favorite pics ever.  Not sure why, I just really love it.  :)

September!

Football season starts for our little Gator-family :)

This is how I told Eric about baby #2... ;)

October!

We took a little weekend trip with just the 3 of us to Charleston, SC - super fun!

Hello Times Square.  It seriously never gets old for me.

Evan's first trick or treating experience, with friends in our neighborhood...

November!

Balloons + car rides?!!  He serioulsy LOVED the fair.

 

Our Holiday Card Pic - taken by my sister Kristi...

December!

There would probably be more for this month, but i still havent loaded my Christmas pics - oops!  hehe.

Evan kept calling the ornaments on the gold tree "prettt-tty".  and saying "oooooooo-oooo-h".  ;)

...and that, it seems, was 2009.

Can't wait to see what 2010 looks like.

Happy New Year!

:)

{Whodunit revealed...}

Currently enjoying the end of our holiday vacay with the fams in south florida...

Have taken lots & LOTS of pics to post, but before I get home and look through them wanted to go ahead and "enable" a bit with the yummy new Studio Calico January kit - Whodunit?!

;)

 
Loved creating my pages with it!  here are the layouts that i posted little sneaks of earlier in the month...  (all made with the Whodunit main kit and a few various components of add-on kits) - you can see them all larger, and in detail, as well as lots of other kit inspo in the SC DT gallery here!

love, LOVE these pics of evan at about 8 months old!  Was excited to re-find them and then even more thrilled that they were still waiting to be scrapped :)

Some favorite snowed-in pics from MN are on this page - along with journaling about just some of what i miss about life there...  not least of which was PHENOMENOL (sp?) flat hair days!!!  (& cute crazy-stripes!)

A recent favorite shot of evan - love his shaggy little look and grin! - and journaling about what he's like right now (since i had just taken the shot maybe 2 days before i scrapped it?!).

and a semi-recent (as in last month) beach photo of evan.  AND A TON OF MIST!  which, might possibly be my new favorite scrapbooking product ;)  i used the Hydrangea Blue mist on this (the background cardstock, punched waves, and even on the "cloud" that i created for my page) - matches SO well with the kit this month.

Hope everyone had a great holiday week - more soon!

:)

{around our house...}

i love, LOVE seeing holiday and home decor pics from some of my favorite bloggers...

& i've meant to share take some of ours, but just didn't get a chance to, till now.  (what with being pregnant and all and sleeping every.single.chance.i.get.  ha.

one of the best parts about moving into our house, was being reunited with our big tree and all our holiday decor this year (after having it locked away in storage last year)...

 

i originally had big plans to revamp our tree's color scheme, but then decided to just "save" that for next year ;) and stick to a basic red and silver palette... 

ps evan is not looking for gifts here - but instead looking for m&m's that i hid around the tree at the off-chance that i could possibly entice him into a christmas tree photo op.... (sadly for me, no luck.)

we had new stockings this year (the green velvet ones) that i snagged online on clearance from P.Barn over the summer...

...really they are green but look so dark in these pics?!

 

...and we even put up our gold tree from last year (that i still LOVE and am SO glad that I talked eric into!) in one of our front rooms...

...& that's all i took pics of.

Merry Christmas everyone!

:)

{little people in the kitchen}

i have been baking a TON since the weekend, & thus spending a lot of time in the kitchen...

yesterday, one certain (and adorable) little person...

...decided that all of HIS little people...

wanted to help out.  :)

(please ignore the mess in my kitchen!)

i couldn't resist pics.

:)

{sneaky-peeky}

Because i just finished photographing them...

a few more peeks of my projects from the upcoming January Studio Calico kit, "Whodunit".

loved working with the kit.  & i forgot how much fun it is to have everything all pre-coordinated for you ;)

almost all of the sneaks were created with the main kit (Whodunit), with the exception of a bit of "more color" cardstock thrown in and the cutie bird stamp and a couple of embellies from the add-on kits!

now it's back to holiday baking for me ;)  yum.

{festivities}

so i have to say that it is SO nice to have my happy little boy back...

(after almost 2 weeks of bronchitis, a double ear infection, an xray for pnemeunia, nebulizer treatments, antibiotics, steroids, and bad moods all around ;)

we spent friday just hanging around the house...

playing things like "line the little people up around momma's bath tub":

and not worrying at all about any schedules.  :)

and then this weekend we drove out to a winter wonderland festival near the beach in st augustine on sat night - which we ALL loved...  it was adorable.  plus there was fake snow, which thrilled me ;)

 

& evan is totally excited anytime a "choo-choo" ride is involved...  (altho he can be a bit demanding about what color he wants to ride ;)

oh and there were mini donuts that were A-MAZING...  ev carried his one mini donut around the ENTIRE time and just nibbled on it...  all the way through the candy cane forest...

& into the elf village, where he thought the #5 elf house was the coolest (i did too - it was def the best photo-op elf house ;)

and when we left he just kept saying "do it again!"...

next year.  next year :)

{crafty crafty}

Not so much new today...  other than my obsession with peppermint bark cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory...  have you tried it?!  if you havent RUN OUT AND GET SOME!  :)  so yummy and only around for Christmas...

really just wanted to share a link to a recent article that I wrote for Fiskars Crafts...  CLICK HERE!

one of the projects in the article was a layout i did about my trip to Purl Soho while i was in NYC...

thought it was fitting to the theme of the page to add lots of buttons and stitching and fabric scraps ;)

and that's it.

:)

now it's back to wrapping gifts...  after a trip to the mall this morning, i think i FINALLY have all of my shopping done.  woot woot.

{12.14}

thank you SO much for the congrats.

kind of crazy to think that i'm already 15 weeks on weds.

& to answer a couple of your questions:  i feel great(!) for the most part (still napping a bit tho), nope we are not finding out the gender (yay for a surprise!), & if i find myself "in need of burritos" (or veggie fajitas like with ev) i guess i will just have to sub in some beach tacos :)

i think i've settled on a gender-neutral color scheme for the nursery > very bright and airy and makes me think "hello sunshine!".  waiting on a few fabrics to still be delivered before i commit.  ;)  totally want to try to get as much done as possible in the 2nd tri...

thinking about sewing my own bedding - has anyone done this?  if so i'd love any tips on patterns (or links to sites) that would help...

and something else scrapbook-y to mention >> i am so fortunate to have been asked to join the Studio Calico design team!  yay :)

I've always LOVED the kits that Studio Calico puts together each month, they are always so very chic & fun.  For those that aren't familiar (and probably most of you are!)...  their kits are seriously so perfect for anyone from a beginning scrapper who is overwhelmed by what to buy and where to start (everything is perfectly coordinated for you already!) to someone like me who has been at this for a while and just loves the idea of a kit of deliciousness arriving at my doorstep EVERY.SINGLE.MONTH!

So now I'll be working with the kits each month, and getting to share my projects here also... like this little sneak peek of the January kit - which will be on sale starting December 28...

(one of my favorite series of baby pics of evan is on it)...  totally going to have to get some more babylegs for variety...

:)

{one of my favorite photos of 2009...}

cracks me up every time i look at it.

which is just ONE of the reasons why i love it (& him) so much...

and another fave from last week...

:)

PS - when we ask evan if he wants a baby brother or baby sister he usually tells us, "no, just kitty cat"...  ;)

{the tree mini & a winner!}

first things first....  winner of the EK book...

duh duh nuh nuhhhh...

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 159

You are so cute with your . . . you will WANT this book. I do! I have since it came out, but I have promised myself that I don't need anything new until I go through the stuff I have. And asking for it for Christmas is out of the question, my husband thinks I have it all.

Posted by: Jan | December 03, 2009 at 09:55 PM

yay Jan!  please email me your mailing addy - my email link is in my sidebar --->

and now for what i have to share today...

finally another quilt!

just a mini - and a project that i did for the Fiskars Crafts site that was part of their project a day calendar last month (and that i neglected to share at the time)...

 

you can see the project info HERE with info/instructions...

i used the new Fiskars "Woodland Tree" template to design the applique...

and LOTS of Flea Market Fancy prints (was fun to dip into my stash of this out of print fabric line for a little project)...

 

i quilted around the tree limbs and leaves with an "echo" stitch - (at least that is what i think it's called!) - where i just followed the shape of my applique design.

now i just need to find a spot for it in my house...

:)