Someday

Someday, I will get to craft again!

For now, these two take up every spare moment - but I am totally loving it!

~Anika

September?!

I'm not sure where the days, weeks, and months have gone. When I started my maternity leave on April 1st, September was a long way off, but it's not anymore! Next week marks the start of another school year. I will be spending my days with 40 preschoolers - no, not all at once! The boys get to stay at home with a nanny 2 days a week and go to a neighbors house on the other 2 days. (I will admit to being quite jealous of Andrew - he has Fridays off so he gets to be home with them then.) I am excited to go back to teaching, but you can bet that when I get home from work I will be a baby hog!

Enjoy each day!

~Anika

New Little Bundle

As I mentioned in my last post, my best friend has a new little bundle! Her daughter is absolutely adorable and I'm sure my boys will be fighting over her before we know it! Now that I know this card safely arrived in California, I thought I'd share it with you too.

And since I can't seem to write a post these days without adding a picture or two of my little bundles...here are a couple shots I caught this past weekend.

Ezra

Ashton

Happy Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by!

~Anika

You're too Kind

This is a Thank You card I made using...

...you guessed it, more of the Tissue Paper Technique! This was also the first card I used Delightful Doilies on.

I also have to share a family picture we had taken a couple weeks ago.

It's so hard to get the boys to smile when we are outside, they are way to interested in looking around at everything to care about smiling! We took the pictures at our photographers farm and she had her 3 kiddos jumping around and waving burp rags in an attempt to get the boys to look towards the camera!

In other news, my best friend, (the one who surprised me by flying in from California when the boys were born) had her daughter yesterday! I wish I could be there to meet Miss Alexis! Congratulations, Kari and Jeff!

Enjoy the day!

~Anika

The boys at 13 weeks

Last week, I was editing some pictures I had taken of the boys and I realized how fed up I was with my point and shoot camera. After a few days of telling Andrew how badly I wanted a new one, he broke down and we went shopping on Friday to pick one out. We settled on the Canon Rebel T3 and so far, we LOVE it! Even though we barely know how to use it, we are still getting some amazing pictures of the boys. Here are a few shots from today...

Ezra

Ashton

The weather here is brutal - hot and humid with no sign of a cool down in the near future. We have spent most of the weekend in our air conditioned house. Today, we needed something to do, so we decided it was time to bust out the pool we bought for the boys. We set it up in a shaded area of our back deck and got the boys changed into their adorable swim trunks for the first time.

They wouldn't flash us any of those adorable smiles, there was just too much to take in between being outside and in the pool, but they seemed to enjoy it! I have a feeling we will be spending more time out there in the coming days.

Hope you are finding ways to stay cool if you are in this heat wave too. Thanks for stopping by!

~Anika

Happy Together

Just a quick post today to share a card I made for my best friend and her husband for their 5 year Wedding Anniversary.

Yup, that's more of the Tissue Paper Technique on the green strip with the Modern Basics stamps. (I can't stop using that technique, it's becoming an addiction!) I also used Color Couture Volume 4, Fancy Flourishes and some Rustic Jute Button Twine.

We had so much fun celebrating with Jeff & Kari on their hot & humid wedding day!

It sure is amazing how quickly 5 years can go by!

It's hot and sticky here this weekend too, so we are enjoying a couple low key days in the air conditioning with our boys. Hope you are having a fabulous weekend as well!

~Anika

Bea

A little over a year ago, some of our good friends had a daughter and they named her Bea. Sadly, she had Trisomy 18 and her life on earth was short. She now lives on in the hearts of those who were fortunate enough to have known and loved her. A few days before her first birthday, her parents were at our house and her mom happened to look through one of my PaperCrafts magazines. A card made by Betsy Veldman featured a sentiment from the Papertrey Ink With Sympathy: Loss of Child stamp set. She wrote the sentiment on a Post-It. I had been trying to figure out what to get them in honor of Bea's birthday so as soon as they left, I got to work on this...

Sorry about the glare, I didn't have the time (or the patience) to take the frame apart and remove the glass for the pictures!

I used the tissue paper technique again, but this time I applied the tissue over some PTI & Basic Gray patterned papers. And since I don't own the PTI stamp set with the sentiment, I printed it onto cardstock instead. I used Raspberry Fizz ink and a stamp from Dot Spot to add some pink to some chipboard letters I had in my stash.

Enjoy the day!

~Anika