It’s time for the fair!

I wanted to let all my local friends know that it’s opening day at the Evergreen State Fair today! I decided to venture out with everyone for a little fair-action. Here’s some pictures from our day.

It was a gorgeous day today. Perfect for going to the fair.

Nika and I started off having some raspberry filled scones and elephant ears!

Nika’s favorite barn was the cows this year. Baby cows are always cute!

And we made 2 trips to the bunny barn.

Lot’s of adorable photos and drawings from the 4-H kids.

There was a fun collection on display with some cool vintage Smoky the Bear trinkets and memorabilia.

I always enjoy the grange displays.

Here’s a photo for you quilting fans. I want to learn how to quilt one day.

I thought this quilt was very unique.

This was an incredible entry in the wood (art) category. Lots of detail, my photo doesn’t do it justice.

These cute ladies hosted a free kids make and take table (painted ceramics and design your own frame).

Nika painted a purple cow.

A photo from inside the Western Heritage Museum. Always lots of interesting and fun finds in here.

Today was kids day at the fair, all kids under age 15 receive free admission! Be sure to check out all the specials and discounts here. The Evergreen State Fair is going on until September 7th in Monroe Washington.

Scrappy shopping deals (steals) and baby shopping too!

I’ve been resting up trying to shake this cold and store up energy so I can have this baby soon! I’ve been surfing around a lot and I just discovered a new scrappy shopping deal site called Scrapbooksteals.com.

I purchased today’s steal, a Cosmo Cricket Fleuriste collection for $18.36 (plus free shipping) that included the following:

• 12 double sided design papers
• Two die cut papers
• Journaling cards
• 12” x 12” Strip Tease sheet
• Design studio

Also included:

• Jack’s Blackboard Album
• Fleuriste Ribbon: 5 designs, all with beautiful colors and textures. Approx. 1 yd. each.
• Fleuriste Cardstock Stickers: includes 14 cardstock stickers.
• Fleuriste Blackboard Shapes: 45 assorted black chipboard shapes feature flowers, floral frames, and flourishes. Color or cover with die-cuts, for a different look.
• Stickers: Drop Me A Note: 13″ x 6″ sheet, 15 stickers
• Stickers: Fabulous You: 13″ x 6″ sheet, 15 stickers
• Stickers: Girls Galore: 13″ x 6″ sheet, 15 stickers

That’s a whole lot a goodies at 55% off the regular price!! There is also a sister site called babysteals.com with super great buys on cute baby stuff too.

Hope you’re having a great weekend! XOXO

Did you miss me?

I sure missed you! Where have I been and why have I been such a bad blogger? Many of you know every summer my nieces come and stay with us. We’ve been busy doing lots of touristy things and having tons of fun. So much fun that I’ve been just too tired at night to get any personal time to blog or craft much.

The girls have gone back home now and I’m resting up and preparing for the arrival of our new baby. I’m due in 2 weeks (August 29th is the official due date). But I hope this little guy is coming early. For those of you who are on Facebook I will be updating on there during my delivery. Feel free to connect to me. I would love to see more of my crafty friends on there (NanaB, Tona)!!

I also post a lot of photos on Facebook too. I have a “Summer Fun” album on there that is public so you can see some of things I’ve been up to the last couple of months. Feel free to check out the pics here. Shown in the photo to the right is me and Nika at Boehms Chocolate factory in Issaquah Washington. One of the many places we took the kids while they were here.

Oh and I almost forgot to share we got a new puppy!! This is Scar, our new Great Dane. We got him end of June. Here’s a photo of him hanging out in Grandma’s garden.

I just wanted to give everyone an update since I’ve been MIA for a while. Now that summer is winding down I’m hoping to have more time to craft and blog. Thank you to all my blog subscribers who have been waiting and wondering when I was going to come back to my blog. I’m here and have missed you.

What have all of you been up to? Would love to hear from you or just leave a comment and say hi. Connect to me on Facebook so you don’t miss any of the baby delivery news. I’ll try and be back as much as I can. XOXO

Hip kid-friendly tunes & a give-away!

I’m always on the lookout for creative and unique music for little Nika to listen to. She loves to dance and sing. We’ve been rockin out to our latest discovery from the Brian Waite Band “20,000 Volts Under the Sea“. I just love it! I never knew kids music could be so hip. Even my honey was surprised to know it was a kids CD. Really fun songs and definitely not your typical kid tunes. 

There’s a a great rock base with a wonderful blend of funk, blues, and even reggae. It’s not often a band can accomplish several styles of music well and these guys go even further by combining these styles into a playful and fun collection of songs.

This dad trio writes, plays and performs all their own stuff. You can download free samples of their music here.

** Give-away **
I have one extra CD to give one of you! Just leave a comment on this post. For fun tell me about the special little someone you’re going to share these rockin tunes with. I’ll leave comments open until Thursday 5/28 and pick a random winner. Please only one comment per person, open to US mailing addresses.

Check out how fun these guys are in concert! I’m totally going to take Nika to see them this summer

For those of you in the NW here’s where you can find them…

Friday, July 17th @ 12-1pm and 1:30-2:30pm
King County Fair
Enumclaw Expo Center – Main Stage, Enumclaw, WA

Wednesday, July 22nd @ 10-11am
Kirkland Family Concert
Marina Park, Kirkland, WA

Thursday, July 30th @ 10-11am
Everett Family Concert
Thornton A. Sullivan Park, Everett, WA

Sunday, November 8th @ 11am – 12pm
The Buddy Club Children’s Show
Randall Museum, San Francisco, CA
Tickets call 510-236-SHOW

Hope you are having a fabulous day. Check back tomorrow for Friday’s Freebie, it’s a good one! XOXO

Where have I been?!?!

Hello May and where have I been?!?! I took a bit of a hiatus during April. It wasn’t planned. Now that I’m in my 2nd trimester my energy level seems back to normal and it just turned out to be a busy month. Many of you were so sweet to reach out and see if I was alright (thank you). Yes, I’m perfectly fine and baby’s doing fine too. Here’s a short list of what my April was like and a few pics.

• Celebrated little Nika’s 2nd birthday (over 3 weekends) and hosted a 40+ person party at our house.
  

• Finally finished my taxes!
• Had 2 Easter celebrations.
• Finished up the last of the remodel projects on our old house. Getting ready to put it on the market next week. Woo hoo!!
• Been doing a lot of work in our dirt yard (aka the front yard). Trying to get it weeded so we can put down some grass and landscape.
• Put in a new Rainbow play structure for Nika in the backyard.

• Getting ready for these two cuties to come visit and mapping out our summer plans.
• Took a trip up north and went to the Tulip Festival. This was such a fun little get-a-way. I’ll share more of these pics and details with you next week.

• And a baby update…had the 20 week ultrasound and it’s confirmed we are having a boy! He is doing great and looks super healthy. Feeling lots of little baby kicks now too, so exciting!

That’s just the short list from last month. I’m sure now that the weather is getting nicer a lot of you are spending more time outside, spring cleaning and planning summer fun! I have missed my online friends and hope to get back to blogging more regularly. Thank you again for the emails and comments. I always appreciate hearing from you. I’ll post a great freebie find for ya tomorrow. Big hugs and kisses XOXO ~ Cathy

Crafty coupons and a butterfly project for kids!

In case you have crafty shopping coming up…here’s some printable coupons for Joanns and Michaels.

Michaels 50% off any one regular priced item, good through March 28th

Joanns 40% & 50% off any one regular priced item coupons, good through March 28th

Craft project for kids: Check out this easy butterfly clothespin project for kids. There’s a printable pattern to color and cutout and you could use some patterned paper scraps to alter the clothespins too!

An artist in the making

Little Nika loves to play in my craft room. She organizes, sorts and plays with with just about everything in there. I snapped this pic of her the other day just sitting at my (embarrassingly messy) desk. She was having fun with some Sharpie markers and drawing. Next to the markers is her beloved bunny “Nay-Nay”.

Nika’s Christmas 2008

One of the many crafting projects I did during the holidays was teach myself how to sew with a machine. My husband purchased me one for my birthday a few years ago and I have barely used it. For Nika’s big Christmas present this year my honey made her a beautiful wood doll bed. I decided that I would make the bedding. With just a couple weeks to learn how to sew I started watching You Tube videos and looking for tutorials online. After many fights with my sewing machine and a whole spool of thread later I managed to make the bedding. Here’s some pics from our Christmas.

Here’s Nika getting her 1st glimpse of what’s under the tree. She sees the doll bed and is getting excited. She loves doll beds but has never had one of her own.

Dragging it out from under the tree.

She is so excited here and I just love how happy she looks in this photo. Standing up all tall and proud…her very own doll bed.

Setting up her baby in the bed.

It was so fun to watch her get in the bed too.

Another one of Nika’s favorite things is credit card machines. We got her this play register with a credit card swiper. She is an excellent swiper!!

Taking her baby for a stroll. I love how she has her purse on her arm and wallet in hand. There is a credit card in the wallet too!

Here’s what the weather was doing outside. It’s very rare we get a white Christmas in the NW. It snowed hard all day. We had a total of 2 feet of snow.

Here’s a close-up of the doll bed my husband made and the bedding I made to go with it.

Show & Tell – Clear (acetate) Santa card…and where to go for great Santa pics!

Here’s this years Santa photo. I’ve been wanting to make a clear (acetate) card and thought I would try it out with this photo.

For the card base I actually used an overhead transparency. I had a pack laying around that I had purchased from the office supply store. I cut and scored the card, then folded using a bone folder. Next I distressed the edges of the patterned paper. After matting the photo onto the paper I embellished with a rub-on, sticker and flower. I also stamped the date. To finish off I used a foam brush and painted gold metallic paint around the edges. I really like the effect the paint gave to the card.

Where to go for great Santa photos
For this years Santa photo we went to Cougar Mountain Zoo in Issaquah Washington. It’s our favorite local zoo and also the best place we’ve found for Santa photos. They have an annual reindeer festival during the month of December that includes admission to the zoo, a visit to Santa’s house, hourly stories read by elves, a place to do some holiday coloring and write Santa a letter, lots of festive holiday decorations and a cool giant sled for taking fun pics. One of my favorite things about getting the Santa photos done here is that you have the option of using your own camera! They ask for a $5 donation if you use your own camera. The Santa house is really nicely done too. Santa has a gorgeous hand carved wood chair, wonderful Christmas trees (the kind you would see in your own house), lots of toys and stuffed animals everywhere, and a bucket of candy canes and chocolate!! Santa also has a whole herd of REAL reindeer. The staff will help you take photos with the reindeer from inside the Santa house. You can also feed Santa’s reindeer while there. We went on a rainy day during the week and there was only 1 other family ahead of us in line. The weekends are much busier. If you are not a fan of the mall for Santa photos I would highly recommend a visit to Cougar Mountain Zoo.

Nika cuteness

I recently got the images back from Nika’s photo shoot she did for Joah Love. These were taken in July at the Seattle Asian Art Museum by Joy Marie.

Here’s a fun little Joah Love video with tons of baby cuteness!

Pictures

I’m here at the old house catching up on emails and doing a couple blog posts since we still don’t have Internet at the new house. Comcast did come out last week and did a bunch of stuff. We’re just waiting for one of the engineers to get back to us. Hopefully it will be this week.

I took a bunch of house pictures. Here I am all excited to share some stuff with you, and now realize I didn’t download them!! I do have some pics, here they are…

Here’s my messy craft room. I haven’t been able to get much unpacked. One of my bookshelves got damaged in the move. I’m waiting for it to get fixed so I can set out all my stuff. I did unpack a bag of Halloween papers and goodies which is laying on my desk in this photo. I’ll have some fun Halloween projects to share later this week.

Here’s little Nika’s play room. We’re still trying to figure out how to layout this space. Nika loves it!!

I love this picture of Nika. She had a blast looking at herself with these fun hairclips in her hair. She’s sitting on the floor in the master bath.

My fluffy kitty. He’s been staying close to the master bedroom as he’s been a little distressed with the move. I need to get a photo of our other kitty to share with you too.

Here’s the wonderful deer. We see them every day out in the pasture and in the front yard too. This is out towards the back of the pasture. That square spot they are on is where our barn is going to be built. The white pipe is temporary sprinklers to help the grass grow. The rainy season is starting so we’ll be taking that out soon.

One of my favorite features of the house…the covered wrap around deck. This will be so wonderful for Nika to play on during the rainy days. I’ll be spending lots of time out here gazing at this girl. She’ll be joining us at the end of this month, can’t wait!

Here’s one last pic of Miss Nika playing out on the deck. She’s really loving the new house.

We’re home…and packing up to move!

We had 4 fun-filled, yet relaxing days at the beach. It was so great!! Nika loved being there too. Here’s some pics from our trip. We discovered this really cool 1,000 acre u-pick farm near the house. Lots of wonderful berries, lavender and all kinds of other goodness. You can read about the farm and see more pics here. Here’s little Nika playing in the berry fields. She loves going to the u-pick farms.

Here’s the view from the front of the house at Sunset.

I really liked how purply {is that a word?} the sky and clouds looked at Sunset.

There were a lot of birds flying-in and flying-by too. I suppose migration is already starting. It was really neat to see so many birds every where. Oh, there were the cutest family of quails that would come by every evening and peck around out back in the yard. I wanted to get a photo but they would scramble away as soon as I opened the door. Pictured below is a small flock of the many geese that stopped over for a rest.

The move is finally happening!! I may not be posting much this week since we are packing up the house to move this Friday. We still have a lot to do and too many things to pack. Hope you have a great week. XOOXO

Show & Tell – Nika and me digi page

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my profile picture online. Here’s a more recent photo of me with little Nika. This was taken in July when we went to the beach in Port Angeles. I made this digi page using the Memory Mixer software and a little Photoshop Elements.

My blueberry girl

Yesterday I took Nika to one of the local u-pick blueberry farms. She loves blueberries, picking them and eating them. Here’s some pics of my little blueberry girl having fun at the farm. These are all digital layouts made with Memory Mixer software and the Lasting Impressions digi kit. Click on the images for a close-up view. XOOXO

For those of you local, the Larson Lake Blueberry Farm is a nice little get-away that is right off of 148th in Bellevue. Great spot for a picnic lunch, nice trails to walk around the farm, wide aisles in the blueberry patch, and it’s ok to bring dogs. There is also a produce stand with fruits and vegetables at great prices. The u-pick blueberries are only $1 per pound!! The only downside is the limited parking. We went on a Tueday after lunch and the lot was full with cars waiting to park.

Fun at the park

Nika and I went to check out the Bellevue Botanical Gardens today. Oh wow, it was so awesome and free!! Who knew Bellevue had this gem of a park? There are 53 acres of gardens, woodlands, meadows and wetlands to explore. The trails are great mostly gravel, and some paved {Nika’s stroller worked just fine on the gravel trails}. We had a lot of fun checking everything out.

They also have a really cool winter lights show called Garden d’Lights in December. I’ve heard great things about it and will definately be checking it out this year.

If you do visit the Bellevue Botanical Gardens with kids, be sure to make a stop next door at the Wilburton Hill Park. There is a really nice playground with a cool spiderweb and also a zipline swing. Yes, the zipline is strong enough for the adults too…yahoo!! When leaving the main entrance of the Botanical Garden turn right onto the main road and you’ll see the sign/entrance for Wilburton Park.