OUR BIG DATE

Our latest RCS studio challenge asked us to make a layout based on the movie "Valentine's Day."  Well, my husband and I aren't ones that take many pictures of ourselves...So I had to get a little creative for this one.  Since a big part of Valentine's Day is the "date" part, I decided to focus on our biggest date of the year; the Ohio State vs Miami University football game at the Horseshoe in Columbus, OH.  Why was that such an important date?  Because our Alma maters were facing off for the first time in ten years!  I told him a long time ago that going to a Buckeyes football game was on my bucket list. Being married to a Buckeye Alumni, his school has grown on me over the years. So when he learned that Miami was the opening game of the OSU football season, somehow or another he scored us two tickets on the 10 yard line.  And it was a blast!  Although Miami lost, they sure did give the Buckeyes a run for their money during the first quarter.  It truly was an experience and a great date!  I would happily go to another game, and this time, I won't be rooting for the other team.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR BLOG HOP!

Welcome to Day 2 of the Love is in the Air Blog Hop, brought to you by the layout design team from Red Carpet Studio!

If you haven't hopped through Day 1 yet, make sure to do so!

This weekend the Red Carpet Studio design team would like to share with you love-themed projects to inspire you during this Valentine's Day season. Throughout the hop you'll see a variety of projects and we hope one or more of these wonderful creations inspire you to create. :)

If you've come from Chas' blog, you're in the right place. If you'd like to start at the beginning of the hop, please visit Red Carpet Studio.

For today's hop I made... "WE LOVE MOUSTACHES"

I have the goofiest girls ever!  They both thought it would be hysterical to wear fake moustaches around the house and rock the Groucho Marx look.  This moment marked the beginning of collecting all things facial hair in our house.  We now have moustace headbands, moustache necklaces, moustache earrings....we accessorize with facial hair.  So perhaps the title of my page shouldn't be "We love moustaches" but instead "We are obsessed with moustaches!" And I love it!
 

We also have some fabulous sponsors giving away prizes to those who comment on every stop of both days the hop!

The Cutting Cafe

3 digital stamp sets of the winner's choice

SK Digis

$6 gift certificate

"Whooo's Your Valentine?" Kit from Close to My Heart

Sponsored by CTMH Consultant Janet Royer

LoveBug Creations

12 yard ribbon set - Winner's choice of Red Hot Lover or The Yummy Collection

Please make sure to comment both days on every stop of the hop AND leave your contact information to be eligible to win. Winners will be announced on Tuesday January 29th at Red Carpet Studio along with the winners of our "Sparkle" layout challenge.

Your next stop is Robin's blog.

And here's the entire lineup:

Red Carpet Studio - http://redcarpetstudiochallenge.blogspot.com

Chas - http://ittybittyladybugs.blogspot.com/

Stephanie J - http://sthom97093.blogspot.com/

Robin - http://www.thecricutscrapper.blogspot.com/

Monique - http://living-in-the-positive.blogspot.com/

Sandra - http://crea-sandra.blogspot.com/

Tonya G - http://scrappingfunwithtonya.blogspot.com

Tonya M - http://ittybittyladybugs.blogspot.com/

Happy Hopping! 

SNOWFLAKES ARE KISSES FROM HEAVEN

For this week's challenge for RCS, we were asked to make a sparkly layout.  I love sparkles.....Sparkly vampires, sparkly clothes, sparkly paper.  So when I learned of this challenge, the first sparkly inspiration that came to my mind was snow.  And sadly, we haven't seen a lot of it in our neck of the woods in the last year....And being a teacher, that's a sad thing.  We love snow days, I think more than our students.....When the weather report came in for this past December 25, we were once again disappointed; no White Christmas.  Then suddenly in true Ohio weather fashion, no snow went to blizzard warning the day after Christmas!  And not only did we have a mini blizzard, we had thundersnow!  It's the weirdest thing to experience; snow falling, lightening bolts, & big thunder booms!  So anyway, I took these pics of my snow baby a couple of days after our first snow in over a year.  I used glitter paper to matte my main pictures, sparkly brads from Doodlebug Design to secure my pictures on the sparkly paper (it is a bit hard to get card stock to stick to glitter paper), and sparkly snowflakes from Jolee's Boutique.  Hopefully at some point this winter I can make a few more sparkly layouts.  Namely any day Monday through Friday; weekends are OFF LIMITS!

SAY SOMETHING; SAY ANYTHING!

For this RCS layout, the inspiration was the 80's movie "Say Anything."  I do love me some John Cusack.....my personal fave movie of his is "Better Off Dead," but I do enjoy this one.  Although no one has held up a radio to my window professing their love to me, my husband did go on a wild goose chase once to find me the pens that I used to love to write with when we first started dating.....I guess that's my real life version of this movie.  And also how I knew he was the one....

However, for this layout, I decided to use a picture of my daughter opening up her favorite Christmas present; the iPad.  When she opened up this gift, she literally went speechless.  And that's pretty rare for her.  I snapped a picture of her complete shock, and thought it would be perfect for this project.  She didn't say anything for quite some time after opening this gift; she just sat there with her hand over her mouth giggling with delight.  When she did finally say something, it was, "I can't believe I got an iPad!"  Once I got my pictures ready for this project, I hit up my stash of Doodlebug Design Christmas paper. I have a thing for Doodlebug too right now....

To sum it all up, my daughter has started speaking again since opening the iPad.  She has become a Pinterestaholic with her iPad constantly saying, "Mom, lets make this!" or "Mom, check this out...."  Not to mention, I have to be careful not to go around the house singing or dancing because she's facetiming all her buddies.  So, yes, she's saying something now!  Mostly, "Thank you for the iPad!"

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS ARE SUGARY SWEET

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the inspiration behind this RCS challenge.  I'm one of those seasonal scrapbookers....I don't scrapbook chronologically; I go with what motivates me at the time.  And with my gazillion Christmas pictures right now, that's what motivates me!  And I knew just the pictures I wanted to use for this challenge; our structurally sound gingerbread house!  It's been a tradition for my girls to build a gingerbread house every year.  Now, this isn't your normal, edible gingerbread house....this house can withstand all sorts of natural disasters ranging from an accidental dropping to an attack by the dog.....Why you ask?  Because Daddy uses the caulking gun instead of icing.....So while it looks deliciously good, it would really do a number on your teeth and intestinal tract.  Once I decided on the pictures, I searched through my growing stash of paper and found the cutest Doodlebug design Christmas paper with gingerbread men & peppermint sticks on it; perfect for this challenge!  So that is the story behind this layout!

THE SANTA CLAUS CHALLENGE

As I look at this picture for the latest RCS challenge, I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude that my children are alive.  I was trying to finish up this page when the horrific news hit the TV yesterday about the tragedy in Newtown, CT. These girls are my life.  I remember their first day of kindergarten.....they were so excited to ride the big girl bus.  They came home with little tags attached to their clothes that said, "I live at.....I ride bus..." in case they got lost.  As the weeks progressed, they came home singing silly songs, showing me beautiful pieces of artwork they created....My younger daughter even started reading on her own very early into her Kindergarten experience.  It was magical to watch them grow.  At Christmas time, they were so excited to visit Santa in their lunchroom (a tradition being featured in this layout).  As they progressed through the grades, my overwhelming sense of worry began to subside.  Nothing bad could happen to them at elementary school, right?....That all changed yesterday.  In summary, this was an extremely bittersweet page to make for this challenge.  I am so thankful that this morning I got to wake up with my two beautiful little girls alive and excited for Christmas.  I am so heartbroken for the innocence lost in this country.  And mostly, I am so incredibly saddened for the families who are facing the unimaginable in the upcoming days, weeks, months, years ahead......I guess in the words of the sticker found at the bottom of my page, we have to believe......Believe that something good will come from this sickening act of violence.  A colleague of mine posted this on her facebook page yesterday, and I think it's a good way to end this blog entry:
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world.”
— Mister Rogers

SEASIDE ESCAPE

For this challenge for Red Carpet Studios, we were asked to make a movie based on "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation."  I remember the first time I watched this movie.....I was in High School, I was at a basketball game on a Saturday night, my Dad picked me up early for some reason....I came home, plopped down on the couch, was flipping through the channels, and found this movie on HBO.  Little did I realize that a Christmas tradition began for me and my family.  It's not Christmas in the Thompson house (my parents) until this movie is watched at least once.  (And it already has been watched at least once this year and it's only November!)  I think we all can relate to Clark Griswold wanting his family to have the best Christmas ever, and it turns into a disaster.  While we have had some Griwoldesque Christmas' in my family (the worst was when my Dad went into the hospital on Christmas Eve with a kidney stone, my husband backed his truck out of our driveway to hit our neighbor's relative visiting from Washington, and our Christmas Eve dinner that we spent the entire day cooking being ate in another location because of all the mishaps....), I chose to focus on the "vacation" portion.  I took this picture of my daughter this past summer during our family vacation to Panama City, Florida.  We had a terrific time and fortunately, no Clark Griswold moments.  Before my old scrapbook store Simply Scrapbooks closed, I stocked up on this Fancy Pants beach paper.  I loved the swirly ocean water on the paper and decided it would look great with the picture of my daughter hanging out in the Gulf of Mexico.