They meet....

Like I said just a few hours ago...it's been the longest day EVER!!

But at 3:30 Kat, Trent and Blake finally got to meet each other:

Kat wanted to go first....

 

 There was no containing her excitement. Gimme, gimme, gimme!!

 

 ...and all was good with the world.

But then it was Trent's turn and Kat got a little antsy...

 

Katrina gave Trent 10 seconds; she wanted to hold him again.

 

 Who could blame her? I wanted to hold him, too. I was tired of taking pictures.

He woke up and started to cry. Katrina seemed confused,

 but like a good Aunt, she soon realized that if she talked softly to him and stroked his head, she could calm him down a little.

and on top of all of this excitement, my parents got a new puppy. They're thinking of the name "Wally".

It's been quite the long day. A good day.

Blake is here!

My first grand baby was born yesterday at 2:11 PM. I took over 300 pictures, but here are just a couple for starters. I want to watermark them before I put them up on my blog. Let me introduce you to Blake Warren:

I guess I could have made that watermark a little bigger. Oh, well.


He weighs in at 6 pounds, 5 ounces and I think he is 19.5 inches long. He is a natural nurser....he took right to it. That makes Katrina one proud aunt and sister (of Ashley). Kat is a bit, ummmm....obsessed, I guess with breast feeding. Let's just say that I breast fed her for way too long. I had to forcefully wean her because there was no way on Earth that kid was going to give it up on her own.  

I was so worried about the pictures. I could not find my gray card so out of desperation, I decided to take a piece of gray cardstock from my stash (I honestly think the kids probably hid it from me because they think it's stupid). It actually worked out perfectly! Different lights in the room kept going off and on so I probably had to customize the white balance five or so times. While Ashley had her knees up and was pushing, I set the gray card right there in front of her leg. I had to make sure the shots of her pushing came out correctly! You would have done the same thing. Admit it. Lucky for me, the nurse knew what I was doing and kind of laughed.

I had spent the morning taking practice shots and playing with the ISO, etc. When the time did come for Ashley to start pushing, the batteries on my external flash died. I couldn't believe it!! I had to quickly switch lenses and try to find correct settings. It's not an easy task when you're nervous as heck and it's not like you can say, "hang on, Ashley! I have to take some test shots first."  So, the pictures of Blake in the doctor's hands are nothing but big blurs. However, the color is nice. I had no intention of taking pictures of Ashley below the waist but I really, really wanted those first three to four seconds of life.

This morning I changed the batteries in my flash. One of them was actually leaking! I had just pulled those batteries out of the fridge yesterday. I'm ready now for more pictures. You will be bombarded with pictures. Trust me.

This has got to be the longest day in history. The kids haven't met little Baby Blake and they can't wait. I can't wait for them to meet him, too. The hospital has strict rules about allowing kids under 16 to visit so all I've heard for almost 24 hours is, "When are we going to see Blake?"

In other news, my sweet friend, Carole, made this darling wall hanging for Kat for her birthday.  Kat LOVES it and was so excited when she saw it. She says she is going to hang it on her door knob.

 Thank you so very much, Carole!!

Thank you everyone for all of your sweet comments and for all the Congrats!!

If the broom fits...Part II

Good morning! This week at Bitten by the Bug 2, Susan asked us to use the witch cut from the Happy Hauntings cart.

This is what I came up with:

I just love that sentiment from My Pink Stamper's Spook-alicious set. I can't help but giggle every time I read it.

The kitty is from Happy Hauntings, too. The fence and random star are Martha Stewart's. They're both two of my most used punches.

Grandma's Bears

Almost 8 years ago, my grandmother passed away. She collected Beanie Babies and had asked that when she passed, the Beanie Babies go to Ashley (my oldest).  When my grandfather died a couple years ago, the Beanies were then given to Ashley. She was 22 at the time, and didn't really have room for hundreds of Beanie Babies. My grandmother had every. single. Beanie Baby. ever. made. Maybe there were thousands. It kind of felt like it. Ashley picked several favorites and agreed to donate the rest.

A LOT of them came to Katrina who fell in love with every single one. Trenton took a lot of the dragon, patriotic themed and dinosaur ones. Cousins in other states picked some out before they even made it back to Tucson. We gave some of the birthday bears to friends on their birthday.

I still struggled with the hundreds we had left. I knew we couldn't love them all equally but I didn't want to donate them to Goodwill where they would sit in a box for months unloved and not played with (this is where I thought I had watched Toy Story too many times). I thought about donating them to a hospital but was unsure if they would be safe to donate them there since they were in my "house of dogs and cats".

This is when it hit me. I'll donate them to the kids' school. They would be perfect as a prize for the annual school carnival. The kids and I would "know" who they were going to and knew that the child that chose the bear chose it because they loved it and wanted it.

So, the kids and I dug through the Beanies. We decided the bears were the easiest for us to give away. The puppies, kitties and bunnies and the other cute animals were too difficult for Katrina to give away. Let's just say she had a small anxiety attack. At 5 years old.

 These are the Beanies we decided to donate to the school. The kids and I spent hours choosing, holding and wishing happy new home thoughts to each one.

We donated these in April 2010. A couple school carnivals passed but there were no Beanie Babies. I was a little concerned so I asked about them a few days ago. 

Last night was the carnival.  I almost didn't go because my head hurt so badly. I'm glad I did go, though. When I saw this, I was so excited! The spirit of my grandmother was at that carnival and I knew it!

They were going to use the Beanie Babies this year!

As some of the kids were winning the bears, I asked if I could take their pictures.

I have to confess that there was one Beanie Baby I took back.  There was no way it was a coincidence that this Beanie Baby was right next to me:

It's an "It's a Boy" Beanie Baby. In April 2010 when I donated these, this bear would have been just like the others; just "another bear".  However, Ashley is due with a baby boy any day now. I knew we did right thing by donating the bears to the school. The kids were thrilled and my kids were happy to see that their Great Grandma's bears were going to good, loving homes and now I know because of the It's a Boy bear, that my grandmother approved also. 

Have a great day!

Chocolate Basket

Each year at the kids' school, the PTO auctions off baskets.  There are so many great themes like Baby, Family Fun Night, Christmas Decorating, etc. My favorite is the Chocolate themed basket which happens to be what was assigned to the kids.

I told Erik that I was going to purchase the limited edition Halloween chocolate Pop-Tarts for the basket. He sort of made fun of me. I thought it was a swell idea and bought a box anyway. I told everyone to stay out of the chocolate Pop-Tarts.

Well, guess who opened the box of Pop-Tarts and helped himself to one? You're right. It's was Erik. It was at that point that I knew that:

a) my suspicions of whether or not Erik ever listened to me was confirmed, and
b) the idea to buy limited edition Halloween Pop-Tars was not just a swell idea but a GREAT one.

I made the trek back to Walmart to buy another box all while chuckling to myself about the situation.

Since Pop-Tarts are kind of cheap-o (even if they are soooo goood), I wanted to contribute another thing to the basket. Both kids had the same basket so I felt like I should contribute two things. The second thing I added were some homemade chocolate themed note cards.

I used the Sweet Treats cart and My Pink Stamper's Sweetest Cupcakes stamp set. I made two of each design so there is a set of 6 cards for the basket. I put them each in a little cellophane envelope and tied it up with a ribbon.

Here they are:

Thanks for looking. :D

If the broom fits, ride it!

I got up early before the sunrise today to work on some cards. Robyn at My Pink Stamper will be hosting BBTB2 in the next couple months. She sent me some stamps to give away and gave a set to me to play with. I was so excited!!

All the cuts are from the October 31 cart.

 

All the stamps are from My Pink Stamper Spook-alicious set. 

Thanks so much for visiting!

Katrina Couture, Part II

Katrina has always had her own sense of style. Sometimes it's a little odd and surprises me, but for the most part, I've gotten used to it. I learned a long time ago that this was not a battle I was going to fight with her (unless, of course, it involved fishnet).

Whether she's using my good cardstock to make tails,  or wearing a pink fluffy skirt with angel wings it's always her idea. Sometimes fashion ideas come to her in ways I've never thought of. For example, this outfit works because "bears eat horses". Well, of course! Why didn't I think of that?

(this is an old layout)

We found, well I should say, she found this dress at Savers this week. My first instinct was to say, "no" just because it looked old and it looked like "too much" polyester.  After a "PLEASE mom," I said, "why not". It was only $2.00 anyway.

Now that it's washed and on her, I think she did a good job. I LOVE houndstooth and I think it looks a bit vintage. She loves it and she's already received a few compliments from people in the stores we ran errands in. The girl at the bagel shop even commented that Lady Gaga is all about houndstooth these days. That comment took Katrina over the moon.

She was so excited that she even let me do some "glamor shots".

Now, for those of you thinking "Why doesn't Heather have many pictures of her son?" here is your answer. Trent was given the option of having his picture taken, too. Just as I did his sister, I suggested he sit at the end of the couch with his head towards the window.

This is what I got.

Happy Halloween

Agnes asked us to use the Vulture cut from Life's a Party. Can you believe I don't have that cart!!?? If we didn't have the cart, we could use a scary bird from another cart. I found the crow on October 31 and thought it was perfect.

I also dug out the Nesties for the oval and then remembered why I don't use them frequently. I can never get them to emboss properly. Ugh! The dies slip around and I end up with crooked embossing.

Stamp is Inkadinkado
Punch and pumpkin are Martha Stewart
Paper is Recollections

Come over and check out what the other designers did at Bitten by the Bug 2!

Katrina Logic

Kat and I headed out to Michael's to use the 50% off coupon. I had no idea what I wanted as it seemed that EVERYTHING I was interested in was already marked down in the ad.

Anyway, we pull into the Michael's parking lot and Kat says, "Mom, what is Michael's? It's not a store. It has a lot of paper." Then she looks around at the other stores in the shopping center and claims,

"Hancock Fabrics...no paper, that's a store." 
"Money store (this is what she calls Dollar store")...no paper, that's a store."

I said, "What do you mean, Kat? Of course it's a store. Why wouldn't it be a store?"

and then it hit me.....

I said, "I have a lot of paper, don't I?"

Her eyes got really big and she says, "YES!! That's what I mean. You have a lot of paper but you're NOT  a store!"

So, in Katrina Logic if a person/company has and/or sells a HUGE stash of paper, they are in no way shape or a form a store. I admit I do have a lot of paper, but I never thought it would it would warp the thinking of my 7 year old.

If she starts saying the same thing about M&M's then I think we'll have a problem.