Photos :)

This is my cute friend and co-worker Meagan who let me take some pictures of her this weekend :) I *love* having willing friends to practice on! :) I have oh-so-much to learn about photography, but I love it. So much fun :)

*life*

I have been so busy lately I haven't been able to blog....well..I guess I have time to blog but don't really have anything fun to blog about :)

Been staying busy with work, cleaning, trying to organize our house and I have been so busy I haven't scrapped in two weeks. :( That makes me sad! Hopefully will be able to soon....

and since I always think a post looks better with a picture here's a little pic of our happy family. haha :) Katie is actually squealing in delight, even though she looks mad :) :) Just shows that you never know what kind of pictures you're going to get :)
:) Charin

Randomness :)

I have been tagged by the lovely Jennifer to post eight fun things about myself. :) Love these! Here goes...
1. I sing and dance all the time in the comfort of my own living room. :) Used to love singing in front of other people, that was before I entered a teen talent competition in church and heard myself on tape. :)
2. I am so grateful for having my beautiful healthy baby girl that sometimes I start tearing up just looking at her.
3. I have a dream in the scrapbook world...some of you can probably guess what it is. :)
4. I keep my work area at work spotless. At home? :) Not so much.
5. I ate a bite of sushi for the first time a couple of weekends ago, I have Elsie to thank for that one, she shared. :)
6. 21 is my number. :) Let's see...Kevin and I started dating on Dec. 21st, got married on June 21st. He was 21 when we got married and I was 21 when we found out I was pregnant! Which was also on the 21st :) Pretty cool, huh? :)
7. I own about 25 pairs of flip flops :) Love them! Wish I could wear them every day, but that's just not possible working in a bank. :)
8. My Dad taught my husband when he was about 7, saw him years later and told me that I needed to introduce myself to one of his favorite students. :) Aww! I'm glad he did.
Fun! I am tagging Amy Silje and Joy

Monday eye candy :)

Some recent faves of mine on Flickr :) (two of these are from our photo shoot with Elsie) :)
You can see all of my favorites here

Had to share...

I was over at my Mom & Dad's today for my nephew Jared's birthday party(will share those pics later, still have to do some editing :) )and I am so glad that my brother in law Jamie told me to look up at the sky! Look at how gorgeous all of that light is. :) Love it, and I'm so glad I had my camera on me!

And this is my new favorite picture of Katie, Kevin took this one. :) Happy happy day full of pictures, my favorite kind. :)

Date night in our living room :)

Kevin and I have started a new tradition...renting movies that we missed out on since we've become parents :) and watching them after Katie goes to bed on Saturday nights. I feel like such a nerd because I go to work and say hey guys have you seen Blades of Glory?? or Stranger than Fiction? And of course they all did months ago. :) But that's ok. I just have new things to be excited about. :)

Today we watched the Pursuit of Happyness and ate some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. (something about Fall coming makes me want to bake more!).

I cried a couple of times during this movie, it's powerful! And both Kevin and I thought that it was a good reminder of how much we have to be thankful for....our marriage, having a roof over our heads and not having to worry about whether or not Katie is going to be able to eat that day.

Really makes any stress that we've gone through seem like nothing!

Definitely have a lot to be thankful for. :)

P.S. Completely off the subject, but I have a question for all of you Mama's! :) How long did it take for your babies first tooth to completely cut through? We've been able to see Katie's first one for about two weeks now but it's not completely out. Just curious. :)

Take a peek! :)

Here is one of the beautiful pictures that Elsie took of Katie! :)
I love it! :) More to come (lots more!) :)

Fun times :)

Yesterday Kevin, me and Katie went up to Springfield for
*the lovely and insanely talented elsie flannigan* to take our family pics! :) It was so much fun, can't wait to see how the pictures turn out! I will probably have those to share in 2 weeks or so...
I couldn't get over how many cool spots Springfield has to take pictures at! Seriously, so many cool building and bright colors. :) Loved it.
And another cool thing was that Elsie's cool friend Will was there to help out with the shoot, He has some serious photog. skills too! :) I have been "stalking" his photos on Flickr for awhile now, very very cool stuff. :) I was glad I got to meet him, very cool guy.
After the shoot we went to a Japanese restaurant and I had my very first taste of sushi...I was a little afraid to try it I'm not going to lie. :) But it was good! Fun day. :)
If you need some photography inspiration you have to look here! I love seeing their new pictures...here's wills and elsie's flickr sites.
If you need some awesome pictures taken get in touch with them!

Home *sweet* Home

It seems like I have been so busy lately that I haven't really gotten to be home much. :) But it just makes me appreciate it more when I am!
I love how you can make your own little cozy world filled with things that you love and call it your home. It's your safe place, your place to recharge when life gets crazy. And because Fall is sooooo close and I love Fall it's been making me really love yummy warm colors in our house! :) Here are a few random things in our house that I love. Lots and lots and lots of black, red and coffee colors. A lot of people are surprised that I don't decorate in brighter colors (especially my scrapbook friends, since pretty much every page I make is covered in pink! ha ha) but I love earth colors too. :)
But I am definitely wanting to re-do our kitchen in 50's decor! Wouldn't some red and white polka dots be cute? :) With some of those funky aluminum glasses? Cute cute. Really want to do that sometime.
Well I need to go get some other stuff done, just wanted to share that. :) And I will be back tomorrow with some updates, Kevin and I have some *very very* fun plans tomorrow! :)
I'm gonna leave you with these ten reasons to be excited that Fall's coming :)
1. Cozy sweaters
2. Candles with cinnamon in their name :)
3. French Vanilla Cappuccino!
4. Crispy cool days with perfectly clear blue skies!
5. Walks in the park without feeling like you just ran a marathon before you even get on the track :)
6. Pretty Fall leaves
7. A season that gets people to stop and think about what they have to be thankful for :)
8. Snuggling under blankets and watching old movies :)
9. Simply because it's a new season, and change is good :)
10. French Vanilla Cappuccino...and yeah I know I listed that one twice! It deserves it :)

We finally found the time :)

Yesterday my mom and my sister came over and we scrapped all afternoon! :) It was so much fun, we've been talking about doing this for *months* and finally did it. Had a little red velvet cake (yummy!) and just enjoyed each others company. ;) And this is what I heard my sweet husband say every time I got up to get Katie..."I've got her, keep scrapping" :) Love him.

And then Jessica (my big sis) made me happy because she said that she actually wanted me to take some pictures of her! :) I love having a willing subject to photograph, I need the practice. Here are a few that I took, I felt so bad because I suggested that she stand under a tree in my backyard and it had been raining so we both got a little bit dripping on us. :) Ooops! And then my cameras battery went dead. So our little photo shoot lasted a whole 5 minutes. : )

I will post my pages from our crop soon, waiting for a sunny day to take pictures of them. :)

What's new? :)

Hi! So it's been awhile since I've posted on here, wanted to share what we've been up to this weekend. :) Kevin brought up the fact that Katie's big enough to take to the swings at the pak, I'm so glad he did! She loved it! That first picture cracks me up, that's the face she made when the wind was blowing in her face :)
Aww :) Love my baby's smile!

I had this*yummy* broccoli soup from Quiznos, love it! You should definitely give it a try. Makes me think of Fall, can't wait for that this year. :)
We rented this movie last night, it's good! We're both big Will Ferrell fans. We wanted to rent Bladed of Glory but all 100 copies were rented out. (OK, so it was probably less copies than that but there were a lot!) has anyone seen Blades of Glory? Did you like it?
And we had a little photo shoot in the car :) I always like doing that. I am *not* really quite this pale, weird lighting I guess. :)
My cute husband...he doesn't love for me to take his picture so it made me happy that he smiled instead of making a face! :)

I also got some fun new scrapbooking supplies from Scrapbook Addiction, we did some grocery shopping and I didn't do nearly enough housecleaning. As always. :)
What did you do this weekend?
I've got to go get ready for dinner at my in-laws! Have a great day :)
Charin

Yay!! :)

Look what I won from Elle's studio! :) So excited, I just found out about this incredibly talented girl a couple of weeks ago, love her style!! Here's a link to her Etsy shop...lots of eye candy over there! :) Thanks so much, Elle!! :)
Charin

Fun new project :)

I came across this cool challenge blog last week... very cool concept! Since Katie was born I have really been thinking that I need to scrap more about me, not just about everyone else in my life. I want her to be able to read about her Mama back when she was born. ;)
So this will definitely help! :) If you haven't already, you should definitely join in on the fun. Here's my cover and the two pages so far...more to come! :)
Charin

So this is what they do all day :)

I've wondered sometimes what my husband and daughter do while I'm at work in the afternoons. :)
Well, today he had pictures to show me. Yep, my sweet 7 month old little baby girl is holding a Nintendo controller!! ha ha
And no, she doesn't really play Super Mario Bros. but it looks like she is, huh? :) My crazy husband! :) But I love that he took pictures of it for me. :)
P.S. Excuse our messy living room! :) We're installing new flooring and everything is a mess right now. But I didn't want that to stop me from sharing :)

It's Monday already??

1. ">Antique'>http://flickr.com/photos/89329932@N00/1143334866/">Antique bubble waltz, 2. 51*(365), 3. yum., 4. 60'>http://flickr.com/photos/61787893@N00/688689388/">60 minutes in Ellicott City: 8122 Main St., 5. Don't" cry Baby, 6. star*lover, 7. oh'>http://flickr.com/photos/32738672@N00/723154246/">oh sparklers, 8. Wiltshire, 9. Love'>http://flickr.com/photos/71367583@N00/565731119/">Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word, 10. Lavender'>http://flickr.com/photos/7121172@N02/567513120/">Lavender Flower, Please View Large!, 11. Untitled, 12. hmmmmm.....

Hi! :)
I wanted to share some recent faves from Flickr. I love this site, I am so inspired by these talented photographers! :)

I can't believe the weekend's over already, crazy. But we did get a lot done for once! ha ha
Lots of cleaning, grocery shopping...you know, the boring stuff. :)
Have a great day!
Charin

Silly Mama! :)

I have been feeding Katie cereal every night before bed because someone (well, everyone actually! :) ) told me that it would help her sleep better. For the record, that does not work because she is 7 months old and still wakes me up 5 times a night!! :) So tonight when I was feeding her she got very, very upset. I finally realized what the problem was, she wanted to feed herself. :) Duh, she knows how to do it! Silly Mama. :)

She had so much fun! Mashing the cereal in her hands, finger painting on her highchair tray, running it through her hair...she had a great time. :) And she did manage to eat some of it. :)

:) I love this little girl so much that I didn't even mind cleaning up the mess when she dumped the contents of her bowl across the room. :)

*23* things

I got this cool idea from Elsie who got it from here :)
Such a cool idea! So here is my list of *23 things to do before I turn 24* :) And I've got almost a year to complete them, so I can so do this. :)

1. Master a new recipe
2. Find a new author to love reading :)
3. Drink lots of water every single day ( I love it and drink tons at work but not so much at home)
4. Start mailing out birthday gifts on time!!! :) I am so horrible at this one!
5. Take Katie to the park more often
6. *Exercise* on a regular basis (even when I don't feel like it)
7. Lose 15 pounds. Yep, I really need/ want to do this one
8. Start sending in my scrap pages to design teams/magazines without fear of being rejected :)
If it's a dream of mine, why am I so afraid to try? Just asking myself that one.
9. Go two weeks without eating out once! :)
10. Take a photography class
11. Get a system down for organizing our bills and stuff like that :) One that I actually stick with!
12. Start going to bed earlier :)
13. Scrapbook or do something creative every day
14. Keep my living room clean! :)
15. Call my Mamaw more often
16. Have a date night with Kevin at *least* once a month
17. Go to Springfield one weekend to go shopping and take pictures :)
18. Give away a RAK on my blog ( I want to do this one soon!)
19. Let Kevin sleep in on the weekends :) And try really hard not to wake him up all the time on my days off
20. Watch some old Doris Day movies :)
21. Clean out my closet
22. Buy new living room furniture
23. Learn how to really use Photoshop! :)

That was fun! :) :)
Now here's to getting them done. :)

Hi :)

Hi :) I can't believe it's Tuesday already! I have got to start updating this blog more often. ;)
I just wanted to share these pages and card that I've made over the past few days, I've been staying up way too late playing around but it feels good to get some done! :) The second page and the card were made using the I *heart* candy town collection from scrap in style. I love the collection! Lots of fun colors and fun non-scrap items to use.

And I this picture of Katie is just because I think she's beautiful and wanted to share. :)
She was just waking up from her nap when I took it.

The past couple of weeks have been a little insane for us, Kevin is working 2 hours overtime every day. That may not seem like a big deal, but he only gets like 4 hours sleep during the day total so it really stinks. I guess the paycheck will be nice, but I feel so bad for him! Oh! And we actually went on a date this weekend!! It was the first time since Katie was born, I checked my cell phone about a million times. :) I'm glad we went though.

Hmmmm, I guess I better get off here and start cleaning. I told myself I would clean all day and it's 2:00 and I haven't even started! ha ha

Have a good day!
Charin