Sight-seeing with the Lyonses

Our very good friends recently came to visit, gave us good reason to hire a babysitter, and reminded us of all the great outdoors we are surrounded by. Here are some layouts I created with Studio J to capture these terrific memories:

Hope for Japan - CTMH fundraiser for Red Cross!

Close To My Heart founder Jeanette Lynton had the Design Team at CTMH working to create a new stamp set (pictured above) to offer with 100% of purchase price - just $5 (plus shipping and tax on a regular A-sized stamp [$7.95 retail value]) going to the Red Cross to support relief efforts in Japan. I love being associated with a company that takes action to help!

If you care to get one (or a few) of these, click on the "Shop with Me" link to the right and place an order through my website. As long as you are there, check out the While Supplies Last section. Those little 3x3 Kraft mini albums I made into ornaments are now down to $1...I would love a whole tree with different little albums all over it at Christmas!

That puts me in mind of a Shel Silverstein poem called "Merry":

No one's hanging stockings up
No one's baking pie
No one's looking up to see
A new star in the sky

No one's talking brotherhood
And no one's giving gifts
And no one loves a Christmas tree
On March the 25th.

I know I'm a day late with thinking of this, since it's now March 26th. Still, I've always loved that "Where the Sidewalk Ends" poem!

"Membory"

Once I had a terrific memory. My husband relies on mine heavily, at least when it comes to remembering where he left objects he desires to find. I don't know if my memory has gotten poorer, or if I'm just getting overloaded on unusual things that I wouldn't really think are "important" to remember but are a requirement of life as a mom.

Vincent has a phenomenal memory. He remembers exact lines from movies, sequences of events, details about conversations. His visual memory is sharp too. (He had his vision tested the other day as a component of the pre-kindergarten physical, and he has 20/15 vision, which may help.) We've been playing "Memory" - "Membory" as he calls it - lately. Tonight, I got to be his team mate for the game against Daddy and Verona. Vincent looked at me and said, "You get to win tonight, Mommy." When I questioned how he knew that, he said simply, "Because you're on my team. And I always win."

Matt got out his phone/camera and recorded a repeat of the interaction, which wasn't nearly as funny as my "membory" of the initial delivery in all its innocence and his confidence. He posted it to youtube.com ("Vincent and mom").

I'm just babbling here tonight, but I was amused. I promise my next blog post will be about something just to amuse you...like a tutorial of some kind. Now, to get one going...

Here's to Good Friends

We have been blessed to have "Uncle Mark" and "Aunt Ann" here since Saturday for Ann's Girls Gone Wild Spring Break from Michigan State University. I'm fighting a cold, still have all the usual duties of my life, but am elated that they are visiting and enjoying the beautiful weather, scenery, and all that the Pacific Northwest has to offer (at least in our little Hamlet).

I've been a little remiss in posting my projects. Look what I made after returning from Michigan (in about four hours). These arrived Monday, so Aunt Ann got to witness how giddy I get just putting the printed pages into their Memory Protectors. As a Studio J member, I have access to some exclusive papers and layout options, get once-a-month shipping for free, get my Memory Protectors for free, and get JPGs too. All for half the price of standard Studio J pages! :)

Log on to my website (JuliAnne.MyCTMH.com) to create your own account and play with the program a little. It's free to do so and even create layouts...but to save them for more than 90 days, you'll need to make a purchase.

There are more layouts I completed, but they contain group shots with other people's children, so I'll err on the side of discretion and NOT post them here. I'm not even so flippant to put all the layouts of my precious Vs out there. The potty training pages (which have NO "action" shots but do show part of Verona's underwear in one photo) are omitted here, even though it was a big moment in our life! Ms. V's best friend is wearing "chones" now too!