Yes, this is my family. Boom Baby!

I realize this is over 4 minutes long, but my favorite part is the AWESOME finish. Worth the wait for sure. :)



Sigh.

I'm proud to call you my fam.

I'm also STOKED to see ALL OF YOU tomorrow!!!

Woot!

Give Thanks Album: 11-15

Facelifts All Around!

It was recently brought to my attention that people actually want to know what I'm designing. It was also brought to my attention that a lot of people don't even know the extent of my designing.

So here it is, friends.

I design websites & blogs.

From scratch, from blogger templates, from wordpress, etc.

Headers, custom coding, backgrounds, buttons, navigation bars, social media buttons, etc.

Basically, I design the whole enchilada.

I design promotional materials.

This includes, but is absolutely not limited to, backdrops for retail stores, signs for retail stores, flyers, brochures, newspaper and magazine advertisements, etc.

I design parties.

Invites, announcements, dessert tables, etc.

[10 bucks says you're sick of hearing about these. :)]

I design by request.

I've designed senior ads, touched up photos, scrapbooked for others, etc.

[I would LOVE to design pass-along cards for adoptive couples.]

Like I said, I design the whole enchilada.

And now, I'm giving those design services a home.

Click here to see examples of the whole enchilada.

I figured I'd fill you in before you just started seeing random posts about new designs I've done. :)

There are currently 3 of 5 openings available in my design queue. If you would like to discuss pricing for your design project please contact me.

Give Thanks Album: 5-10

I know it's been a while since I've posted my layouts for my give thanks album. I write the journaling for each page as the days go by, but having time to actually scrap the layout is an entirely different story! I did just score a free 8x8 shutterfly book, so it looks like this album is going to get printed a lot sooner than I thought!

On My Mind Today

Lunch.

This morning, I was woken up with a hot mug of cocoa from C after he smooched me and pointed to my slippers and robe all ready for me. That's my life ladies. Be jealous.

I had a wonderfully relaxing morning full of snuggly robes and puzzles. I got ready for work and gave myself a time limit to work on the puzzle so I wouldn't be late getting out the door. Time limit came. I stood up.

And then realized how absolutely wrong my time limit was! I needed to be AT work at 9:45. Not LEAVING for work at 9:45!

In my frenzy to grab something for lunch I threw the can opener in my purse along with a tupperware bowl, spoon, and can of Spaghetti-Os.

Yep. It's one of *those* days.

And yet, I still have a grin on my face because of that wonderful man of mine and his ability to make waking up something awesome.

:)

Baby Announcement Design: Baby Hightower

Those of you who've been around a while know that I design Baby Announcements, Baby Shower Invites, Christmas Cards, Bridal & Wedding Invitations, Graduation Invites, etc. It's a total blast and I really love doing it! Now that all the proceeds are going toward Party with the Calls, it's just that much more exciting when I get asked to design!

Stacey asked me to design an announcement for her brand new little guy. [For those of you considering different birthing options, check out her blog. Kevin came through a water birth! She answers tons of questions and just gives great information. She's one of the reasons that if when we get pregnant, we'll be checking out all of our options.]

Christmas card season is coming up! Are you ready?

Halloween in AZ

We took a quick trip down to AZ last weekend to say goodbye to Max, our faithful, fun date car. C's parents had a truck for us, and with our recent obsession with carpentry, how could we resist? Plus, C's brother Jared will be home from his mission soon [crazy?!] and will need Max to woo the young ladies.

We picked a great weekend to go for a number of reasons.

1. We left on the day we found out IUI #1 didn't work. Thank you, THANK YOU, for all of your prayers, fasting, temple-ing, etc. on our behalf. We sincerely appreciate it, and felt every single prayer, and hope that you'll continue it when we decide to start up treatments again in a couple of months [after the holidays.]

2. JT had a football game on Friday night that we were able to catch. He played his mind out, left it on the field, and I was giddy watching my baby brother completely tear it up. [No pictures. I was too excited. Sorry! Although, for all you SHS-ers, I even managed a "GO PANTHERS" once or twice. It took a lot of psyching myself up and tasted like vinegar coming out of my mouth, but I support family. Even if they DO go to COCONINO. Ugh. I will, however, die before a "Go Eagles" escapes my lips. I'm still working on being mature.]

3. Rick marched in the NAU homecoming parade Saturday morning. He looked so cute studly in his uniform.

[caption id="attachment_1232" align="aligncenter" width="550" caption="He's the tall snare drummer on the end. "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1233" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="I can't believe how small he makes me look! He's 14. Sheesh. "][/caption]

4. Amberlee had a Halloween party to go to on Saturday night, but she couldn't get a hold of anyone for details. She decided she just wouldn't go. At the last minute, one of her friends called her and said she would be by to pick her up in 5 minutes! Adrienne and I went into high gear turning Amberlee into a 50s girl. She looked GREAT if I do say so myself. *Air Five Adrienne!*

5. 20 hours in the car means C and I get uninterrupted time to talk, laugh, and remind ourselves just exactly why we are best friends. It also means that we have completely focused time to discuss moving forward with our family. From talking to the doctor, we'll most likely be needing to do IVF, which comes with a $25,000 price tag. Having so much time to discuss just exactly how we're going to make that work was wonderful. I love being on the same page with him. He is such an incredible, selfless man. I am the luckiest. girl. ever.

Give Thanks Album: 2-4

Meet Ginny!

We bought a bunny.

Her name is Ginny.

We love her.

She'll stay about this size forever.

Awesome.

And she's already potty-trained.

She's much more cuddly than a turtle.

We're trying not to neglect Pato, but she's pretty cute.

C loves her too.

Suns Game!

While I realize that certain members in my extended family may refer to this game as the "Jazz" game, we'll just avoid all silly-talk and call it what it was. :) The Suns won by 16! woot.

C & I, and C's twin Kiara & her friend Sarah represented in the Orange & Purple for the Suns. We were not really among friends. I had never been to an NBA game before, & I really had a great time! Thanks Adam & Em for scoring us some tickets!

I had no idea how intense fans can be, especially AT the games. I will say, though, that we enjoyed watching the fans sitting near us as much as, if not more than the game itself. lol. cracks me up. I think someone needs to explain to them that they are NOT the ones on the court playing. Too much.

Halloween Dessert Table

We threw a Halloween party the weekend before Halloween. I've been designing party tables for Whipperberry, and decided to try my hand at a dessert table for our little get together. I was really happy with how it turned out!

If you've got a party coming up, I'd love to help you design it! You can see my party packs here, or if you want something completely custom, just e-mail me! 

Halloween Party!

We threw a Halloween party the weekend before Halloween. Our swanky neighbors made these awesome gravestones for our front yard. My favorite is that on Cedric Digory's headstone it says {Team Edward}. Ha. :)

We played a game called Trick or Treat. There was a bowl full of strips of paper that either said "Trick" or "Treat" on them. If you got "Treat" you picked a piece of candy out of the candy bowl. If you picked "Trick," you had to perform a trick in order to get your treat. This would be me putting as many marshmallows in my mouth as possible in an attempt to accomplish the trick: Ghostbuster.

Nasty.

The Mummy.

Donuts on a String.

The Scarecrow: Also known as "General Humiliation." Thanks for being a good sport Jake!

Tommy after bobbing for apples. Took him a while, and he was in almost up to his shoulders before he found the apple with the quarter in it. :)

The Littles. Chris's wife, Emily, is blindfolded and trying to get chocolate syrup into his mouth without bending her knees. Most of the time this is quite messy. These two were way too good at it. Made for a bit of a let-down, but their communication skills were impressive.

Our conjoined twins [Brian & Allison] drawing the best ogre they could using their feet and pistachio pudding.

Not too shabby, eh?

Mario & Princess Peach taking their turn in the apple bobbing bucket.

We had a total blast and will definitely be doing this again! Thanks to everybody who came!

Avatars!

For Halloween this year C and I dressed up as Avatars. I hated that movie. But, I made a deal with C that if he built this, I would be an Avatar. I didn't think it would actually happen, but he had that bed built so fast! And so, I had to hold up my end of the deal.

The only issue was we got as far as face paint and C's wig until the day of the party. C had grabbed his camo stuff from AZ while we were down there in August, but I had NOTHING to wear over my stretchy blue pants [which happen to be C's running tights when it gets cold.] I made a skirt out of an old button up shirt I had and threw on a brown top. A couple of braids later and Bam. Avatar.

It was way too much work to get all painted like that to just go to one party, so after our Halloween Party ended, we headed to BYU campus to liven things up a bit.

We peered through the windows in the library where people were studying, ran from tree to tree and peered out at innocent passers-by, and sometimes ran full force through groups of people just to freak them out. It was wonderfully immature and hilarious.

The highlight of my night was by the freshman dorms. There were these two freshman boys who were doing the swagger walk, like they were all that. I ran full force about a foot away from them and they ran into each other in a total panic trying to get away from me. It was hysterical to watch them try to regain their "cool" stature after squealing like little girls. Bahahaha.

C really embraced the part.

We even paid the security guards in the library a little visit. They informed us that the face paint and the wig classified as a "costume" so they could not allow us into the library. I'm really grateful they were able to tell me that what we were wearing were costumes. We had been unsure up to that point.

Overall, a rousing success of a night. It was a blast!

An Attitude of Gratitude

I've figured out that when you're going through a trial like this, it's really easy to get into a "poor me" mindset. That often turns to bitterness, hate, and a continual downward spiral of sadness.

Truth is, that's not a very enjoyable way to live life. And so, in the spirit of Thanksgiving [YAY November!], I've decided to scrap a mini-album this month of 30 things I'm thankful for. I'll write the journaling of what I'm thankful for every single day, but the actual page probably won't happen on a daily basis. We're traveling a lot this month and it's just not realistic to sit down in front of a computer and scrap for an hour every day. At the end of this, though, I'll have a wonderful reminder of my thankful-fors from right here, right now. A snapshot of my life exactly as it is in this moment. And hopefully, when times get really tough, I'll be able to flip through this book and remember just exactly how much I have to be grateful for.

So, without further ado, here's the cover and my entry for November 1st.

I've never done a mini-album before, so I'm trying to keep things simple for myself. All pages will be done with the collab "Grateful Moment" from Lydia Designs and Ashalee Wall available here.