The Trip Ends

Ok, so it has taken me 3 weeks to wrap up the trip posts.

Thursday--June 5
We had a lazy day relaxing around the Bailey's house. Savannah got to play on the small playground across the street. Jonathan got to do his favorite thing, READ, all day. I took a walk down to the small town, stopping to take pictures in the cemetery. I took Savannah back later in the day hoping to get some pictures of her there. She wasn't in the mood, but I did get one good one with her by a cool door. We all went to Rosa's Italian Restaurant for dinner.

Jonathan enjoyed his day reading


Savannah enjoyed her day playing


I enjoyed my day finding photographic inspiration. Who knew dandelions could be so pretty. There was a large patch of them next to the iron fence of the cemetery. This is the photo I used for my new blog banner.

Friday-June 6
Not a lot going on this day. The Bailey's were all running this way and that trying to make last minute arrangements for the wedding. We attending the rehearsal dinner at Major's Inn, the site of the wedding, that evening. The town and Inn were so pretty. Lots of rock walls and pretty blooming bushes, etc. We all enjoyed a nice meal, and Savannah enjoyed running around exploring the property. I tried to take pictures of everyone that evening.


I thought this was a sweet picture of Savannah dragging her daddy by his hand.


Savannah had her first can drink with a straw, and she sure didn't forget it either. Thanks Grandmama.

Saturday--June 7
Jonathan dropped me off at Major's Inn at 10:30. I had plans to take pictures of Stephanie getting ready, since we didn't know if the photographer would cover that. Once I got there, I met the hired photographer and he was more than willing to let me help him shoot the wedding. I was excited to get some practice with weddings. Since he stills shoots all with film, he handed me his new Canon D40 digital camera and let me try it out. I felt like a pro jumping back and forth between my camera and his. I shot over 500 pictures between my camera and his. By the end of the day, the photographer was ready to hire me as an assistant. Too bad I live like 1000 miles away. He listened and took my ideas for composing several of the shots. =) All my pictures are perfect, since I was often shooting over his shoulder with group shots, but I was pleased with the results. The setting and arrangements for the wedding were beautiful, it was just a record hot and humid day. After the reception we headed back to the Bailey's and packed our things in the car. We left about 6:30 and planned to drive to Winchester, VA. The hotel in Winchester was a very nice historic hotel. We walked into the room, and I felt like I was walking into a Restoration Hardware catalog. I would certainly stay there again, and it wasn't any more expensive than the Comfort Inn.

Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took with my camera at the wedding.








You can see the rest of the wedding if you are interested in my Photocart.

Sunday--June 8
We woke up and didn't want to leave the comfortable beds. We drove 1 hour to Harrisonburg, VA to worship with a small congregation there. After eating lunch at Cracker Barrel, I bought my souvenir from the trip. After seeing all the barn stars on houses in Penn. I thought I would find one to buy to put in my house, but I never did. At Cracker Barrel they had a collage picture frame that had "Family is Where Your Story Begins." printed on it. I thought it appropriately summed up our vacation and thought it would be a good frame to house family pictures. After driving all day, we arrived back at home about 10:30 Central.

Piggy Tales and Father's Day

No, I don't have some cute pictures of Savannah to share this time . With some of the Piggy Tales Cinderella papers that I had to work with for Scrap4Life, I made Grandfather Father's Day gifts. I printed a 5x7 picture of Savannah that I took while on our vacation. I found a cool old cemetery down the road from the Bailey's with a very old chapel building with a rustic looking door. She was not in the mood for pictures that day, so this is the only decent shot I got. I thought the frames turned out pretty cute.




This is a card I made with Kazan's sketch and the Piggy Tales papers. It may be hard to tell, but I used a spring to make the flower pop up.

Don't forget all Piggy Tales product is 10% off at Scrap4Life through the month of June, and there is also a contest going on with their product. =)

With my kit from Jenni Bowlin's class from the ScrapEtc Event, I put this frame together for Jonathan for Father's Day.


Please remember the Fall's family as they mourn the loss of husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather--Laden Falls. We are currently in B'ham to attend the funeral of Jonathan's Granddad. He lived a fruitful, faithful life and we are confident he has gone home to be with the Lord.

I am proud that I was able to put together this layout only a few weeks ago in his honor.

This week's projects

Here is a card that I made this week for Kazan's sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You.


I also made this layout for the current Noel Mignon Challenge, a sketch drawn by the lovely Virginia. Used the current OLW word, STRONG in my title. This is a layout I've been meaning to do for a while, documenting the birth of 12 babies at church the year that Savannah was born. Good Memories.


While I was on a kick using the Basic Grey Sugared papers, I also made another card that I submitted to PaperCrafts. That is a first, so who knows?

Sad to say that I didn't make the Cosmo Cricket Design Team. Apparently over 300 talented ladies gave it a shot! So really what are the odds in that. CC did reward all the applicants with a $5 gift certificate though. =) So, it certainly doesn't hurt for trying!
I'll be back tomorrow to hopefully post the end of our vacation pictures. Then I have a few more projects for Scrap4Life I need to post. I am over half way finished with the wedding picture editing that I have been putting off. Must go finish!

Cosmo Cricket, I'm Your Girl!

So I came across the call that Cosmo Cricket is currently doing for a new Design Team. I thought, I LOVE their products, I own a variety of their papers, I've created a handful of layouts and cards featuring their product, why not show them what I've got and give it a shot. I think it would be an amazing experience to be a part of a manufacturer design team! If you are unfamiliar with Cosmo Cricket, you should really go check them out. I love all the color combinations, distressed textures, and patterns that they put together. They really are all so versatile. I think I fell in love first with their Storytime collection, and then the Dutch Girl was probably one of my all time favorites! Recently the Honey Pie papers were perfect for Easter touches. Who can resist their new blackboard products...they are so bold and fun to use! I could probably make any of their papers work for a layout or project. Of course my favorite place to get Cosmo Cricket is Treasures to Scrap. Tracy keeps a great stock!










This little mini book is probably my favorite recent project using their new blackboard albums, Honey Pie and several other lines of Cosmo Cricket.









Now if I can just talk CC into letting me draw them a cute little brown cricket to stamp on the corner of their papers, that I seem to envision every time I hear their name. =)

Weekly Card Sketch

Here is my take on Laura's card sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You. I had several of these bingo cards staring at me wanting to be used, so this is what I came up with for this week. I need to find a nice spot to display it.

The Trip Continues

Monday, June 2
We drove to Sesame Place in Langhorne, NJ. We got there about the time they were opening. We headed toward the dry amusement rides. Savannah was able to ride most of the rides with an adult, so we switched up. Didn't really have to wait in lines. =) She was terrified of the Elmo free fall ride and wouldn't go down the tube slide, but really liked the Elmo flying pig and Big Bird's hot air balloon ride. After lunch we saw an Elmo's World live show, that really got Savannah's attention. The expression on her face when Elmo walked in was priceless! After the show we changed into bathing suits and did a little bit of the water attractions before leaving around 3:30. Misty made us a nice dinner that evening. =)


The Hot Air balloon ride


Standing in front of the fake Sesame Street backdrop. 123 Sesame Street/Bert and Ernie's House


Watching Live Elmo


She loved these little push train cars. We couldn't get her out of them!

Tuesday, June 3
We went to the Philadelphia Zoo with Misty, David, Tommy, and Lindsey, Lauren, Brooklyn, and Nana. We had 5 kids under 5, so that meant lots of stopping and taking care of needs. We couldn't even make it out of the driveway without potty breaks. HAHA. When we got there we realized that all the local schools must plan a field trip to the zoo the last week of school! We had to fight crowds to see animals in the morning, but by mid afternoon they all left and it gave us some time to enjoy the zoo. Savannah enjoyed the children's zoo the best...especially petting and feeding the goats. We were going to ride the giant hot air balloon that takes you up to see the city and brings you back down, but they said it was too windy. That would have been a neat experience!


I just love this picture


She loved brushing the goats!


She walked up to this cow statue and somehow knew just what to do?!


The Zoo Balloon we didn't get to ride.


Riding the frog. I loved the mosaic mural in the background!

Wednesday, June 4
We left the Delk's house and headed toward NY. On our way we stopped at the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA. The Mapquest directions that we had gotten, routed us through every windy/twisty back road we could have taken. I think in the mean time, Savannah got car sick. We were 2 blocks from arriving, and she got sick all in her carseat. We had to make a detour in a gas station parking lot and attempt to clean up the mess. So after that, we wasn't quite herself for a while. The Crayola museum has Canal Museum attached with it, so we started on those floors. There are lots of hands-on interactive stations set up for kids to explore building materials and such like. We then moved to the Crayola floor. There also lots of hands-on things to do there. Savannah loved getting to put the coins we were given into the machine and get markers and crayons! After we left we headed up to NY and arrived in Sidney around 4:30. We went to church with the Bailey's. Savannah was excited to see a stuffed Elmo marking her place in a pallet made for her in Grandmama and Granddaddy's room at the Bailey's.


One of the centers set up in the Canal Museum


Jonathan enjoying the canal water table.


Another Center


She loved getting to put her money in the machines to get markers and crayons!


I was surprised that Savannah wouldn't stand by the crayon by herself to have her picture taken.

Highlights of last week

*Within a day our clean floors and house were no longer clean! UGH!!
*I did a lot of photo editing on Monday see previous post.
*Printed my first Cd label.
*Played with Piggy Tales paper for the first time.
*Cooked mashed potatoes with Misty's secret ingredient (Cauliflower) I normally would not eat this vegetable, but it blends nicely with potatoes and takes the taste of flavoring on potatoes.
*A 10 minute walk around the neighborhood turned into an hour with Savannah pushing her baby doll and stopping to look and listen to everything!


*Had a picnic with Savannah on the sidewalk.


*Savannah tried out the new bubble blower. Gotta hand it to Gymboree, this little contraption with their bubble solution is genius. She loves bubbles, but I shy away from suggesting it, b/c she wants to hold the bottle and the wand and then can't blow any bubbles out and end up spilling half the bottle all over her. This solves both of those problems. Well worth paying a few more dollars over dollar store bubbles.



*Tried getting permanent marker out of a shirt. Faded, but is still there.
*Casually began potty training. Had some success. Moving into Pullups and more effort this week.
*We made an inpromptu trip to Huntsville Botanical Gardens to play with the Holder's.
*Made Father's Day gifts for grandfathers and Jonathan. Photos to come later. =)
*Got some bargains at CVS.
*Savannah's language skills have really taken off.