Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

This was a fun layout to make and it was published in CREATE magazine. I'm obsessed with The Stamps of Life products and am in their monthly stamp club. Every month on the first, a new stamp set is mailed out, and these adorable snowman stamps were one of the monthly shipments. I fell in love with it, and knew exactly how I was going to use them!

To truly appreciate this layout and know how special it is, I just have to brag for a minute. . .  Caleb has THE BEST therapists. I cannot tell you how much we love these dedicated women who come into our home, and not only join us in our fight to keep Caleb's muscles as strong and functional as possible but become part of our family. When Dave died, it was some of them I called first to help take care of the boys while I had to make arrangements and just survive. There are not enough words to explain how much we love and are grateful for Leigh, Colleen, Sylvia, Jennifer, Nora, Ashley, Linda, Maryl & Julie. In the midst of an awful disease, they have become some of the biggest blessings!

With that being said, this therapy session was so much fun that I just had to take pictures! Caleb's occupational therapist, Jennifer, made a huge dice, but instead of numbers each side had a snowman "accessory". You could roll a hat, mitten, scarf, carrot nose or coal buttons. You had to put on whatever you rolled and the first person decorated in snowman apparel won the game. Caleb had no idea he was actually working on dressing himself, which is one his therapy goals. Both Caleb and Jen looked adorable as the game progressed, and (Surprise!) Caleb won.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this game. With a power wheel chair Caleb is very limited when it comes to playing in the snow. He's never been able to build a real live snowman. This was the next best thing!

If you would like to check out The Stamps of Life monthly stamp club I mentioned, follow the link. This is my all time favorite stamping company!

http://thestampsoflife.com/club.htm

"I'm So Escited!"

It's a new year and that means New Year's Resolution time. One very important resolution I made is to scrapbook more! In all reality I didn't get much chance to scrapbook in 2015, and I didn't take the thousands of pictures I usually do - maybe only 3,000 - not counting the 1,600 I took during our week at Disney. Believe it or not, that is way below my average. 

In the little time I did get to scrapbook I made this page. So far, it's the only picture I have scrapbooked of our week in Florida, courtesy of the organization Baking Memories 4 Kids. I can't wait to get going on that album - I have big plans for it! 

This photo was taken at Lego Land. We were waiting in line to ride the Dragon Roller Coaster (for the second time) and in characteristic Zach style, he could not be still. He kept saying over and over, "I'm so escited!" He turned to me, half jumped up on me, half hugged me and screamed again, "I'm so escited!"

I wanted to do a page just of this photo to always remember my Zach Attack as his love of roller coasters was born! I'm so glad my mom had the camera and was able to capture this sweet moment in time. 

Scrapbooking Tips

For the title of this layout I quoted Zachary. He's been in speech therapy for four years, but he still mispronounces words, and I find it adorable. I don't ever want to forget how he said things because as his therapy continues there are fewer words like this. So when I need to title a page I try, as much as possible, to incorporate these expressions.

Another go-to technique I use all the time is cutting apart seldom used letters to make an apostrophe. One of the biggest frustration with letter stickers is they never give you enough e's, a's or punctuation. I had already used all the apostrophes so I cut apart a "x" to make do. If I hadn't pointed it out, you would have never noticed, would you?