Let's Get Sketchy! Challenge #19

Another busy week of summer activities has passed, but now that the unpacking is finally complete I actually get to spend my spare moments in my scrapbooking room. After spending the day at the beach earlier in the week I was inspired to pull out some photos from our family photo shoot at Crystal Cove Beach last August and use them for this week's sketch at Let's Get Sketchy! Please visit the blog to check out the sketch (which happens to be mine this week) that I based my layout on.

Let's Get Sketchy! Challenge #18

So here we are in the first week of July and it's time for another challenge at Let's Get Sketchy!  Below is my take on the sketch, which I encourage you to check out over at their blog.

In honor of celebrating Independence Day later this week, I couldn't resist pulling out photos from the 4th of July last year to use for the sketch. When Paolina was a baby she had the worst problem with clogged tear ducts, which ultimately lead to numerous eye infections. She had, what we thought at the time, the worst one yet on the 4th of July. Instead of spending the day at a BBQ or going to see the fireworks that night, we spent most of the day at Urgent Care and then onto the pharmacy for meds. The poor little thing went to bed early and we did sparklers with Santiago out in our driveway while she was fast asleep. What I remember most clearly is that when her "infection" was still there over a week later, we took her to her own pede as well as a pediatric eye specialist, and we discovered that she was in fact allergic to the eye drops she had been prescribed at Urgent Care. The reason her eye still looked all puffy and red was not because of the infection, which was long gone, but in reaction to the meds. Talk about feeling horrible for holding your one-year old down screaming three times a day to apply drops!  She has since grown out of her chronic eye watering & infections, but I will certainly never forget that 4th of July...hopefully this year's will be memorable in much more pleasant ways!

Twisted Blueprints #1 Challenge

It has been exciting to get back into a groove and work on some layouts for my design team work over at Let's Get Sketchy! And now I've even found time to participate in some challenges over at my favorite challenge site Colorful Creations. For the below layout we were to use the sketch provided, and to also use the following: a triangle, a star, and some numbers. You can find this challenge here. Oh and I must toot my horn a bit because it was consequently chosen as "Pick of the Week". Such an honor!!

I used a sweet photo of Santiago's tiny fingers when we was about a week old. He's four years old now so it's crazy to think that he was that tiny such a short time ago.

Let's Get Sketchy! Challenge #17

I'm really enjoying getting back to scrapping!  Of course it's still a little busy around here, as I still have a little unpacking left to do and it seems like all the activities that seem to fill our summer schedules has also commenced. This weekend we had THREE birthdays to celebrate as well as doing a much over-due photo session for Santiago's 4th birthday (which was at the end of April). So here's a bit of a late post for this week's challenge over at Let's Get Sketchy!

Let's Get Sketchy! Challenge #16

After months of searching for a new home, packing and then unpacking, we have finally become mostly settled into our new house, which we are extremely happy with and will be renting for at least two years until we are allowed to purchase again. I thought I was going to be terribly emotional about leaving our house. It was the first house that my husband and I purchased, we had done extensive upgrades including a  complete kitchen remodel, and this was the house our kids have known since birth. Surprisingly enough, I was more than relieved when we handed over the keys. And I am pleased to say that even though we are only renting our new house, I actually love almost everything about it more than the house we just sold.  This of course does no include the kitchen, because frankly I was spoiled by having a brand new custom kitchen and will probably never be satisfied until I have an equal or better one. But the kitchen aside, we adore this house and the best part for me is having my very own scrap room.  In the previous house I had a small "room" that was part of our master suite...but this is an entire bedroom.  I'm in heaven.  Unfortunately is has been the last room to really be unpacked, because although I consider my scrapbooking to be a high priority, for some strange reason the rest of my family seems to put a higher value on food, clothing & toys.  It's still a bit of a work in progress, but in enough order that I was able to scrap my first layout in almost 3 months.  So after a bit of a break from my design team duties over at Let's Get Sketchy! I'm super excited to be able to post a layout for this week's sketch. I hope you will take the time to check out the rest of our design team's work by heading over to the blog. And without further ado...my take on the Challenge #16: