Ah.. I  spent the last few days just hanging out with a dear friend. It was a completely unplanned visit, but it was just what we needed!! Paul has been in Mexico for a week and when he is away, life just get's harder..  it was pure serendipity that I got an email from C.D, saying she was going to be in town. She stayed with us for a few days and my girls just completely fell in love with her.  (and rightly so!!)

C.D. is one of those individual's that brings her own sunshine where ever she goes. It was just good being with her.  She gave us our own private art class. We brought up tables from the basement and filled them full with watercolors, arylics, pencil crayons. And just played.  It was wonderful.

And I adored the way she really empowered Brenna to just dig into her art. Yes, it was just what we all needed!!  Then of course, after the kiddies went to bed we stayed late into the night, just talking and sharing our favorite things. I've been looking for some new actions and C.D. showed me some of the most amazing photo actions! Now I just want to drop everything and play around with my photos all night.  I LOVE IT!

Here are some more shots I took of Brenna and Lorynn the other day.. Freshly filtered and spiffied up :)

 

Well, I busted it out this evening, and finished this little 'ol kit of mine. I thought it still might need something, but then I decided that if I didn't just finish it up and upload it, it may very well have to stay on my desktop forever..  So, it's DONE! :)

::A Happy Childhood:: 

It's fun. Full of bright happy colors. My little ode to a happy childhood.

I scraped another layout with it :)

::A Happy Childhood:: 

This layout is actually the second page to a two page spread, but I am not quite finished with the first page.. I loved the photos I took of the girls the other day, they really gave me good inspiration to finish this kit! 

Well, I am beat today. I spent the good part of my morning trying to weed my backyard a bit.. I am happy to say that it was been a full  5 days since our last snow storm.. And there are still parts of my backyard that have a few patches.. but for the most part it's gone.  I am trying to do some yard clean up and plant some flowers.. When we bought this house, there was not one single flower to be seen..  So I have my work cut out for me this spring/summer. Gotta have flowers..

This summer I am going to have a backyard that just begs you to live in it... Oh, so many plans.

Yesterday we spend the day celebrating Frog's birthday.  It's a tradition that we started when Brenna was about 2 years old and was in love with her stuffed frog. Cinco de Mayo is frogs birthday and we always make him cupcakes, have a birthday party, play fun games. Whatever the girls want. This year we had quite a few more frogs to celebrate with..

Yeah, it would seem that Lorynn's frog fetish has turned into quite the obsession.. We are a frog family to say the least. 

We had a blast. Played Froggie bingo, Button-Button, and American Idol. (Yeah, this is Lorynn's favorite game of all time to play) We all take turns singing, with one person as the 'judge'.  Sometimes we get to go to Hollywood, other times, we are voted off ;)

I am trying to finish up my latest kit.. I've scrapped with it a bit already.. I think the papers are mostly done, I am just working on elements.

Dancer Extraordinare

I have decided to call this collection, A Happy Childhood. Hoping to release it sometime this week! :) But we shall see if life allows me to or not..

So, how did you spend your NSD? Me? I spent it as far away from my computer as I could get ;) Seriously. I think I am still recovering from our B-Day Bash.. (Which was a HUGE success, THANK YOU!) For the past few days I have been doing every little thing I can to avoid getting on my computer.. Not like me at all ;) Who knows.. Maybe it's spring fever?

Today the girls and I just went outside to play.. We had fun, We bought some balloons just so we could release them into the air.

Of course, I got some cute shots of them first with the balloons ;) And they were really excited to release the balloons up into the heavens.. Until they were actually released...

DOH! I thought it would be COOL! Lorynn did get over the loss of her balloons, after I brought out the bubbles..

So I have decided to take the plunge into Photography..  Not that I am TERRIFIC yet, but I am taking the plunge (what does that mean exactly??) and really focusing on getting better, and learning more about LIGHTING.. Yikes.  I am REALLY excited though, because I have signed up for several photography workshops!! (YIPPIE!!) Yes, this is when it pays to have a very understanding husband that loves Photography even more than I do.. (Is that possible!)

Not sure when it will be exactally, but I would like to start taking on some portrait sessions. (yeah, in my free time ;) I need the practice and I want to start buliding up my portfolio..  SOO.. If you are in the SLC area and you would like to be my guinea pig..  I'd love to hear from you!   I am not doing family or group portraits, for now, I am just focusing on babies and children. I am going to be doing a session with my newest little nephew (hopefully this week!)

We played hooky from all responsibility  today and went outside to enjoy the SUN :) (yeah it's finally spring!!) One of our favorite hang out spots is our local botanical gardens. Since it's been so cold here,  the tulips are just starting to bloom. 

As you can see, they are about half and half :)

I got some great shots of the girls, makes me just want to sit and scrap all day.
Today though, I've got to play catch up..  Lot's of Fancy Pants work to do..
We've got some great things coming out with FP for the Summer show! Can't wait to show it all to you!