This Week

Alex's Soccer Shots class at his school wrapped up on Wednesday. He has a lot of fun and may be a goalie someday.

This week Alex also finished his swimming lessons for the summer. He had a good time and is getting more and more comfortable in the water. Here was our conversation from Wednesday evening after his swim lesson:
Me - "Alex you need to stay on the steps when you are not with your teacher."
Alex- "But Mommy, what if I am READY to swim?"

He picked out some yellow goggles and has been wearing them at the pool and around the house.

Digital Layout

I have been reorganizing my craft supplies and am inspired to do more scrapbooking. To start, I enjoyed making a digital page inspired by the current challenge to use brads from Pixel Maven's Retreat.

Supplies Used:
My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up!
Designer Series Paper/Flirtatious - 3     
Seam Binding Ribbon/Crumb Cake - seam binding (re-colored)     
Seam Binding Ribbon/Crumb Cake - seam binding knot (re-colored)     
Antique Brads - brad 1     
Night of Navy brad (re-colored)     
Melon Mambo brad         
1.25 Square Punch
Card Stock/Wisteria Wonder

I edited my photo and added the frame at Pic Monkey, which is a fun and easy to use website. This was my first time recoloring embellishments in My Digital Studio, which is a neat feature.

Weekend Fun

We had a fun and busy weekend! On Friday night, John and I went to see Shakespeare in the Park and this year's play was Macbeth.

On Saturday, Alex continued to practice riding his bike without training wheels. Mr.Independent wants to do it by himself. In an attempt to keep up with Alex, I bought a bike and love it.

We met friends at the Night Market on Saturday for the Sriracha Fest. Alex provided entertainment with his balloon (the pig from Angry Birds) and mustache.

Alex was good while I was with my "stamping friends" at a Meetup event on Sunday morning. He had some brunch and played on my iPad. I found these pictures afterwards:

Yes, he was wearing an Angry Birds t-shirt and his Mickey ears from Disneyland. We have another busy week ahead with swim lessons for Alex and transfer orientation for me at work.

August Homework

I am working on my August homework for my stamp club. I am getting ready to teach a class again this fall, but I do not think that my students will be as excited about their homework as I am about my stamp club homework. We have another Mojo Monday sketch for inspiration.

I also tried out a color combination from the Pals Paper Arts challenge.

Most supplies for this card are from Stampin' Up!. I ordered more of the Smoky Slate card stock since the two sheets I received in the new color kit did not last long. I really love this shade of gray. I keep making birthday cards for some reason.

The Kilt

Remember when I posted about Alex being potty trained? Well, it is still not 100% with him. Alex is a kid who does not like to stop what he is doing, and he does not mind being dirty. This has not made potty training an easy process! We are hanging in there and making progress through.

Recently, Alex did run out of extra clothes at school. It happens... The extra summer item they had available in his size was not what he usually wears. It was pink with flowers, and we will call it a "kilt."



I chuckled when I saw Alex in this at pick-up, but it just did not seem right to take his picture. He did not choose to wear it, and I appreciate how one of his teachers explained to the boys about kilts. To all the parents out there who stuggle with potty training, I understand. I have been told that I was not an easy child to potty train either...

Alex on Two Wheels

John and I started shopping for bikes last weekend. I have not rode a bicycle since I was a teenager, so it was fun to test ride a couple. (I loved my pink and purple Huffy ten speed as a kid!) By the time we got home, Alex wanted to take the training wheels off of his bike.

At first he was still shakey:


He got the hang of it with some practice:


We will probably go to the park this weekend for more practice. Our evenings are busy with swim lessons. I love summer!

Coral Cards

Until recently, I did not use the color coral in my paper crafting. After finding some inspiration online, I am liking coral more and more. First, I found this card online by Jessica Taylor and really like coral and yellow together. I used Stampin' Up!'s Calypso Coral and So Saffron to make this card:

The current 10 Minute Craft Dash color combination uses coral, so I made this card in just a little over nine minutes:

Here are the supplies I laid out to use, but I swapped the bling for my ticket corner punch to add a little extra detail:

And I made another birthday card. I am stocked up on birthday cards now!

Around Here - July 2013

Summer is flying by around here. I do enjoy summer in the South Bay. We get warmer temperature and less fog than San Francisco. We had a heat wave earlier in summer, but now we are enjoying weather in the mid 70's to mid 80's. It rarely rains here in the summer.

Alex put his sunglasses on the other day and said, "I'm a rock star."

I decided to go for a "summer haircut" and had a couple of inches cut off yesterday. I am happy with the result and to have found a good salon within walking distance.

Thank you for reading my blog. I expect to continue with one or two posts a week. We will busy throughout the fall around here.