Busy and Missing DigiChick!

Boy oh boy, you don't realize how much you frequent a website until it's closed! Whew! The DigiChick is closed for revamping until Wednesday, and I have felt so lost! I guess I checked in there more than I thought--and I knew I was there a lot! hehehe I guess you could say I'm a true digi-dict!

I've been busy in my "free" time, though! I've been working on layouts galore--5 since Saturday, though I can only share 2 of them as the other three are for The DigiChick's March De-Zine (check here) in another week or two for the March issue--it's going to be great!

This first layout is for the DigiChick photo swap challenge. I drew Stacie's (bosco9700) name, so I got the opportunity to work with great pictures of her DD Madison Anne. I was also lucky to be able to use Marsha Zepeda's new kit Burst o'Charm, which will be available on The DigiChick when it reopens. It's an awesome kit, and the layout came together really easily.

Credits: papers and elements from Burst o'Charm by Marsha Zepeda
Inked overlay from Aged Overlay set by Nancie Rowe Janitz.
Fonts: SP Purkage and A Yummy Apology.

I just think that the picture of Madison Anne is so stinkin' cute! :) It was great to work with Stacie's photo--she had three other great ones. If I get a few minutes, I might try to do another layout with them, too.

I guess I've been in a circles mood. Here's my version of the DigiChick's February Week 3 Chick's Life challenge:
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Credits: I used the DigiChick Designers' Heart's Desire kit.
Chipboard "Love" is by me using Heart's Desire paper and chipboard action from Atomic Cupcake.
Fonts are Susie's Hand, Pharmacy, and akaFrivolity.
Inked overlay from Aged Overlay set by Nancie Rowe Janitz.
Fonts: SP Purkage and A Yummy Apology.

It's late--I know. I just couldn't get my head around it. Here's the journaling--full-on sappy, so prepare yourselves! Journaling reads: Love is...The nervous tone in your voice when you asked me to marry you ~ The way that you held me close when we danced our first dance as husband and wife ~ The pride in your eyes when we bought our first house ~ The way that you held me close when it took so long to get pregnant ~ The joy in your face when I told you were going to have a baby ~ the way you looked at Maggie for the first time ~ The way you make me laugh by acting silly with Maggie ~ The way you work so hard to make us secure ~ The way you giggle at silly jokes ~ The way you get the car when it’s raining ~You!

I'm working on some other things, too, but I need some cooperation from Maggie to get them done. She decided not to nap today, though she did spend a good hour and a half in her crib talking and "reading" out loud. She knows probably 5 or 6 books so well that she can "read" them and be fairly true to the type on the page. For other books she just makes stuff up based on the pictures. She has this funny voice that she uses when she reads, too. It cracks me up.

I got some great pictures of her at the park today. I need to download them tomorrow and maybe do a layout or two with them. Right now, though, it's 2:30 am and WAY past my bedtime (though I seem to always be up this late. Oh well!). Night, all!

Sickies BE GONE!

I think (I hope!) that we might finally be over the sickies! YAY! Maggie got hit first with strep and possibly some stomach bug (we're not sure if the secondary stuff was part of the strep or not). My poor little munchkin was so zonked that she didn't even say 20 words in one day--one WHOLE day!! Usually she says 20 words a minute, so that was quite a difference for her. Let's just say that Valentine's Day was some kind of ugly this year. When Maggie was recovering, Chris got a cold, so he was feeling puny, too. He was pretty much over it by Sunday, though, so we had a nice relaxing chilled out weekend of just hanging out around the house. On Monday, though, I got slammed. I'm not sure what it was, but I was nauseous and barely conscious for two days. I could hardly even keep my eyes open! Thank God for Dora and Diego and DVRs--Maggie watched several episodes over and over again and did a good job of basically entertaining herself. My little darling came to check on me and bring me "tea" several times, too. Sweet one.

So all seems to be well now. Now it's just catch-up time. I started working on some layouts for this month's De-Zine (check out DigiChick's Boutique for the February issue!) last night and things just weren't gelling for me. Maybe I'll do better tonight. We'll see. First I have to get some tutoring hours logged. I have four to do today, and Maggie is asleep, so I'd better take advantage of the quiet while I can! Happy Thursday!

The Usual Ramblings

As usual, I've got a whole bunch of rambling thoughts in my head. What else is new, right? :)

Maggie has been a bundle of cute lately. She's just so funny about the things that she thinks. We were on the way to the library to get a new book for me today and she started talking about a story hour we went to three months ago. It's not the most recent one we went to--we go every week--but for some reason that particular event was on her brain today. We stopped off at the library and when we got back into the car, she said, "I need my stuff!" When asked which stuff she meant, she said, "My Princess stuff!"--the Princess camera. Ok, that's a funny thing all by itself. This summer I got one of those waterproof disposable cameras for our trip to the beach. It was on the counter waiting for me to take it in for developing and she latched onto it. Six months later, she's still lugging the thing around and "taking pictures." I caved and bought a Disney Princess camera for her this weekend, so she gladly traded the old blue camera for the pink jeweled one. Little does she know that it's a real working camera that I have just neglected to load with film so far. lol

Oh, and tonight when she was going to bed, she gave me a huge hug. As she walks towards her room, she turned around and said, "Bye!" Then she made her doll wave bye. Then she wouldn't move until I said Bye to her doll. Then she walked a little more and we had to do the whole thing again. Finally she decided that enough was enough and she was off to bed. She's a funny little goose. :)

Lots of scrapping going on these days. I've still got an hour and a half of work tonight, and then I'm going to get scrapping again. :) I've felt quite productive lately.

ok--gotta run! Happy Monday!

Holy Schnikes what a super busy chat at TDC tonigh!

Man oh man, I knew that the new designer chat at DigiChick would be big tonight, but that place was ROCKING! It took me a good 15 minutes just to get in, and then I was bumped off several times, too. I tried to check out the Boutique afterwards, but no dice. There are too many people shopping. Hey--that's good for the designers. I hope that they are seeing a huge increase in sales tonight. We've got some terrific designers over at DigiChick--new and old. It's great to see them getting the recognition they deserve!!

Some of this and more of that

I just feel a little rambly today. Somehow I've managed to get hit with the same cold/respiratory infection that I've had three times already this year. Yick. Now I feel all croaky and gross...so not fun.

I've gotten lots of scrapping done lately. I finished my nephew's ABC book today. It's cute all together--I hope he likes it. I know that Maggie loved looking at pictures of herself when she was 1. Look here, here, and here for samples of the pages that I did for his book.

Speaking of Will, I can't believe he's a year old already. How crazy! It just seems like yesterday when we were all waiting at the hospital for him to be born.

Maggie has been cracking me up lately. She's full of questions--it's why this or what that. We had to go to Birmingham yesterday for my rheumatologist appointment and when we got off the interstate back here in Prattville, she says, "We almost home!" The next thing out of her mouth was, "I no take nap. Mary take nap but no Maggie take nap." (Mary is her doll.)

Today she was playing with her little tea set. She brought it over to me (carefully so that she didn't spill her "tea") and said, "You want tea?" Then she gave me pretend milk and pretend sugar and warned me that it was hot. lol She's so funny!

I've got a little more work to do tonight and then I'm going to try to get some scrapping done. I've been in a pretty productive zone lately--bad for the sleep, pretty good for my galleries. :) I've done 55 layouts so far this year--yay for me!

Ok, off to do some work, fold some laundry, and hopefully scrap a page or two. Happy Wednesday night!

This and That

Happy Friday!! I can't tell you how happy I am that it's Friday again! Even better, we're not going anywhere this weekend--yep, that's right--NOWHERE! This is the first time since the weekend before Thanksgiving that Maggie and I haven't gone somewhere, and I'm looking forward to some down time. So what am I going to do with my time at home this weekend? Clean and...SCRAP! I feel like I haven't done much scrapping lately (though I really have, it's just been for stuff I can't post yet like De-Zine layouts or CK's Hall of Fame entry). I need to put together a little ABC book for Will (my nephew) this weekend, too, since his birthday is next weekend. I feel sure I've got more than enough stuff planned to fill my weekend!

We're having friends over for dinner on Sunday, so that'll be fun, too. They're going to come over before the Super Bowl starts, so DH can concentrate on the game when it's on. lol! He's going to smoke some ribs, so dinner should be lower maintainence for me. We'll see about that, though.

Oh, Maggie has been doing the funniest thing for the last couple of days. She'll look at me and say, "Money in my pocket?" If I say yes or smile or anything, she'll put her hand in her pocket (or her fake pocket if there's no pocket in her outfit) and take out her "money." Then she'll put the pretend money in the palm of my hand. If I ask her how much money it is, she always says, "Two dodders!" (Remind you of a movie? "I want my two dollars!!") She's cracking me up. I don't know where she got this little game, but she tells me she's going to buy groceries and a shirt with her monies. hehehe This kid cracks me up! Oh, life with a two year old is fun!

I was Tagged by Mari K! so here goes:

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was working as a substitute teacher during the day and going back to school for my Masters in Education at night.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Unpacking! We had just moved into this house and there were boxes EVERYWHERE! Even though Maggie was just a little over 1, she wanted to "help," so I had to work when she was asleep.

Five snacks you enjoy:
Baked Lays, M&Ms (bad bad bad, I know!), chips and cheese dip from the Mexican place, Milky Way, anything chocolate

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
Anything by the Wiggles or from the Signing Time dvds, "It's the Rescue Pack!" from Diego, Lullaby and Goodnight, Any nursery rhyme

Five bad habits:
Eating too much, working out too little, getting too little sleep, spending too much time on the computer, driving too fast

Five things you like doing:
Scrapping, reading, writing, playing with Maggie, singing

Five things you would never wear, buy or get again:
People buy things for themselves? lol Ok, an exercise ball (those things are freaking HUGE!), anything with a horizontal stripe, half of the "non-leaking" sippy cups we own (they ALL leak!), birth control pills, short shirts/sweaters/jackets (Mari is right--they are SO not flattering).

Five favorite toys:
my laptop, my digital camera, DD's Barbie Jeep, LeapPad's Learning Table, my guitar (even though I don't play it enough)

Five people I want tagged:
Laura
Jan
Andrea
Marsha
Michelle

Have a happy day, everyone!

My big news

Ok, my big news...

Mari K has picked me to be on her Creative Team! YAY! I'm so super duper excited! She's a new designer at DigiChick, and so far I have loved everything that she has done. I'm so excited to be working with her and I can't wait to see what cool things she has in store for us.

Yay for me and for Mari K! :-)

I've got news! I've got news!

Oh, I just got some exciting news! I can't share yet, though, until I know when the announcement will be. I'm super duper excited, though! I just wanted to pop in and say that. I'll share my news as soon as I get the all-clear!

Another whirlwind weekend!

Whew! Another whirlwind weekend has flown past. This is the last weekend we're out of town (until the 11th, anyway). Maggie and I have been out of town for every single weekend since before Thanksgiving. How crazy is that?!

This weekend was fun, though. We went to my parents' house first. My dad came back from another business trip to China, so he was excited to see Maggie. This is when we found about Fiona and the new baby. :) On Saturday, Chris got home (well, to Atlanta) from his week-long business trip to Colorado, so we picked him up at the airport on the way to his parents' house in Atlanta.

Sunday was the big event--my Christmas present day! Chris got me a class at the Viking Cooking School--Basic Knife Skills. My sister and sister-in-law were also taking the class (Christmas presents for all of us), so it was lots of fun to get together with them without the kiddos for a little while. I learned all sorts of new things about using my knives. The most impressive one, though, is that if you buy chicken breasts with the bones and rib meat (for like $1.70 a pound) instead of the boneless skinless ones (about $4 a pound) and then bone the chicken yourself, you could save enough in a year to buy a David Yurman diamond tennis bracelet! That's what the teacher said, anyway. I'm not interested in the bracelet (though diamonds would be nice), but a digi-Rebel seems much more doable if I make the sacrifice! Cool, huh?

Since we were traveling this weekend, I didn't get much scrapping done. I did two pages, though. The first is a re-do for the first week of the DigiChick's It's a Chick's Life challenges:

Credits: Papers from Michelle Pearson's German Chocolate kit (Digiscrappin.biz),
Tags from Ronnie McCray's Earth's Bread Basket (download from her blog), Ribbons
from Jen Wilson's All Tied Up kit (Scrapbook-Bytes). Fonts are SP Purkage and 2Peas
International.

I originally did this challenge by reviewing Maggie's year, so I thought I'd go back and redo this one to complement the other challeges for January.

The other page I finished this weekend is for Gina Miller's Sketch Challenge at Scrapbook-Bytes.

Credits: Papers are from Gina Miller's Burst of Mango kit (Scrapbook-Bytes) and
Flower from Gina Miller's Funky Flowers (Scrapbook-Bytes). Fonts are Scriptina,
2Peas Goofball, 2Peas International, and Courteney's Journal.


I'm going to try to get some scrapping in today, but I need to get Maggie to take a nap (she's quite happily pretending she doesn't need one at the moment) and do my 3 hours of tutoring first. Ahhhh, work. What a drag! :)

I have finally caved...

Ok, I've finally caved in to the world of blogs! It seems like everyone else is on the blog train, so here I am, trying to get in on the act. :) God only knows who would be interested in reading my crazy ramblings, but somebody might find some humor in it.

I suppose I'll introduce myself on the off chance that someone actually decides to check out this space. I'm Sinead, also known as maggieandmommy in the digi-scrap world. As you may have guessed already, I've got a daughter--Maggie. She's 2, though she thinks she's 22. I feel certain that there will be many a story about the hijinks of Maggie here. She pretty much just cracks me up all the time. I'm married to a pretty great guy--Chris--though don't tell him that because it might go to his head. He's a real sweetie and doesn't give me a hard time about all the time I spend on my computer. I've got a brother and a sister (who just told me she's pregnant again!), and I'm close to my parents and in-laws. I moved to the US (Georgia) from Ireland when I was almost 3, though most of my extended family is still there or in England.

My computer time is divided between work--I'm a writing tutor for Smarthinking--and digiscrapping. More on that in a minute. Before Maggie was born, I was an English teacher, first at the high school level and then at a community college. When she was born, I wanted to stay at home, so online tutoring just seemed like the best choice. If I have to work (and I do, unfortunately), then this is the best option.

Now...the best computer time that I spend is on digital scrapbooking. I tried to scrap the traditional way when Maggie was born. I did a few pages, but it just took so long to get a page done and it was a pain to get everything out and put everything up. Then there was the intimidation of messing something up. I was scared that I'd mess up a picture or the paper or whatever. So I was a sorta scrapper.

Then a friend (Paula--yay!) mentioned that she knew some people who did digital scrapbooking. She gave me some links--one of them to DigiChick. I was hooked. I've been digi-scrapping since October 2005 and I've done about 100 pages (probably more but I'm scared to count!). Earlier this month I was picked to be on the Creative Team at DigiChick (yay!), which is a great honor for me. I'm also working on their De-Zine, which is a monthly digital publication.

Ok, so that's probably more about me than you'd ever want to know. I promise (my invisible reader) that I won't always be so boring. :)