SOOOO SWEEEEPY

All I'm saying is that in my next life, I want to come back as one of these two.

In other news

Finally after over 2 long years, my sister is moving closer! Brandy being in North Carolina with my beautiful little neice and nephew so far away has been so difficult. Now they are only going to be about an hour which is SO much more manageable than almost 6 hours! :D I can't tell you how excited this has made us! Plus we'll get to see them this weekend when Mason gets Baptized! It's going to be a good week friends, I can feel it!

This little turtle key holder is for my friend Tina's B-day, I just think he's cute!

Inspired by

The next Scrap-Masters University on June 6th will be the start of our "inspired by" theme. So this layout is inspired by an Elsie Flanigan layout. This layout uses mainly 7 gypsy goodies and some vintage buttons. I'm really hoping to show the students how to take an inpiration piece and make it their own. And I chose Elsie 'cause everything the girl does is just so dern cute! :D Plus we should get the "love, Elsie" line in at the store anyday!

One Little Word

Hey blog readers! So some super cool chicka's started a new challange site called ONE LITTLE WORD http://onelittleword.blogspot.com/2007/05/word-up-go.html

It sounds super cool and fun! All of it was originally inspired by Ali. So here's my take on the first word GO

Almost everything here (except the Heidi letters which were leftover from a jenni bowlin kit and my Kristina Contes class) I received in a RAK (random act of kindness) from the DELIGHTFULLY talented Lisa Gary! http://artsyfartsychic.blogspot.com/

Just Chillin here!

After the mad house that was my party weekend (Callie and Cole had the friends party Saturday, and family party Sunday), yesterday I CLEANED and CLEANED some more. We had our house appraised last night for a refinance. That's always fun -thick sarcasm here. Anyway today I just want to chill but low and behold the LAUNDRY never ends!

Here's a quick layout I did of Peyton of one of my favorite pics! So FUN and she looks so relaxed! And for my SMU students, I'd like to point out the repetition of the circle theme on the two accents and also on the fold over portion to the right. You also may want to notice the Z theory too.
Here's the cute little bird spitter I got for Mother's day and a recent pond pic.

And the ego deflates

I work as a server2-3 nights a week at a seafood restaurant. I've been "serving" about 10 years and I know it sounds crazy but I love it. Really. I like the cash too but that goes with out saying! :D But anyway, it's fun, the money is good, I love the people I work with and it's DEFINATELY one of those jobs that when you leave, you LEAVE. No stress taking it home with you. And MAN do I love me some crabcakes at 50% off too!

Okay, my story...you know there is a story coming right? Over there is my niece, Kady. I love me some KADY! Cool kid, a little crazy cool but cool. She loves animals (ME too) and she's funny and witty and smart. People have said forever how much we look alike. I was 17 when she was born (that's important for this story). Fastforward to the restaurant. Every Thur. for about 9 months I make small talk with one of the hostesses that happens to be a friend of my neices family. She's a bit older and very sweet and she leaves as I'm coming. Thursday during our small talk she starts mentioning my mother. "your mother this and your mother that" Well, I haven't seen my mother in 14 years so I wasn't really sure where she was going with that. Finally, I said "WHO" when she said "your mother". I then realized she
thought I WAS Kady! OMG. Poor lady needs glasses! I tell her who I am and she said all these months she thought I WAS KADY! LOL So that night I go home with a MUCH LARGER HEAD. As I'm explaining the wonderful little story (in my eyes anyway, lol) to my husband, Peyton exclaims "why would she think you were Kady? You're not skinny!" There goes my ego...

The catastrophe and so much S'MORE!

Yes, I'm so PUNNY!

Let's start with the beginning. Tonight we celebrated Callie and Cole's birthday with a little "friends" party. They each got to invite a certain number of friends and we were going to order Pizza and then make s'mores on a camp fire. I'm going to lable the catastrophes here. There were probably more, I'm not sure. After a while it became the norm so whatever...

1. I purchase 2 cake mixes to make 24 cupcakes and 1 2 layer 8" round cake. As I slide the second tray of cupcakes in I realize the first one is in the way. So I thought I'd slide it out by hand, it had only been in a moment. It couldn't be HOT. WRONG! So I get burned AND dump the 12 batter filled cupcake liners onto my oven door.
2. My neighbors DO not have cake mixes around. ARGH! Doesn't anyone bake a daggonit cake ever? LOL MIL to the rescue.
3. I make the rest of the cupcakes and add a third layer to the layer cake. 3
is always better than one! Everything is seemingly going fine. Then I broke a

coffee mug full of water on the floor and CUT myself picking it up.

Little side not here, Callie and I then make the CHOCOLATE FRENCH BUTTERCREAM to frost these little bad boys with. YES, not only do I love to bake, I obviously do not have enough (insert anything here like, laundry to do, bills to pay, house to clean) to keep me busy. French buttercream kicks the fat booty of all other buttercreams in my esteemed opinion. Well maybe not esteemed but in my eyes, yeah! Good SCHtuff! Okay, I frost the cute little cupcakes and the bigger cake. Color small bits of frosting to make the beak and blue bird and then toast the coconut.

4. Moving on to catastrophe 4. I frost and decorate all the cakes. Callie and I are pleasedwith the 24 cute little cupcake nests. I carefully take the tray of cakes into the dining room to put them infront of the window. It's a nice cool day and the breeze SHOULD set the frosting beautifully. About 10 min. later I realize we had not closed the gate into the dining room. WITH a totally sick stomach I peek into there and see that CHESTER has helped himself to 13 of my 24 "gourmet frosted cupcakes". Oh the brown DEVIL!
5. It rains during the party so the Campfire IS NOT an option! GOSH!


My mother in law was awesome and ran to get me some bakery cupcakes...:D So anyway we made indoor S'mores. YUMMY goodness was had and enjoyed by all. Hey check out the face on that cutie <---- He still had fun! That's what it's all about.

Although I bet Chester had the most fun of all!

Not always

The twins turned 11. The TWINS TURNED 11.

Middle school is looming, hormones are fluctuating, feet are growing, times are changing. I know that soon these big two are not going to want to be back there in the back seat. And SOON, too soon they probably won't want to be in the car with me at all. It happens so fast. Really. I can clearly PERFECTLY clearly remember about 12 years ago, with big tears sliding down my cheeks, sobbing to Matt that I was so worried that we would never hear little feet running on our hardwood floors. I can't tell you how often I remind US about that. It really comes in handy to remember this when Cole runs through in his big 9 1/2 MENS muddy sneakers and when the click clack of one pair of Callie's multitude of flip flops resonates across the tile of the kitchen or better yet when she TAPtap TAPs on the marble slab of the fireplace in her tap shoes. Let's not forget the CLACK CLACK of a pair of plastic dress up heels on the wee one. I wish I could let my then 24 year old self HEAR the sounds that I hear now, I could tell ME that it would be okay. That one day our house would vibrate with the noise of 6 feet. I smile because I know it won't always be loud and believe it or not I know that quiet in the future will once again make me sad.

I think this is my new favorite picture.

Silly Mood

Tonight I just wanted to goof off and play with a couple silly pics I have from the Zoo. Totally non-stress, non thinking layouts but those are fun! Altough most of my layouts are non stress! LOL

I found this super SUPER cool site today called Scrap In Style TV. OMG I can tell this is going to be a GREAT uplifting happy scrap place! I love that. If you haven't noticed, I'm all about the happy. Too many things in life aren't so don't dwell on the bad! :D

This pic of Grace totally incredibly CRACKS me UP! I know the thumbs up was accidental but my GAWD, you CAN NOT look at that and not LAUGH OUT LOUD! That girls a scamp!

And this pic of Dorrie....too funny! Dorrie is so funny at the zoo! Her arm DID get tired holding up that ostrich while I focused. poor girl.

FLOWER HEAVEN

This morning Stephanie and I went to my favorite greenhouse. This place is AWESOME and huge and considering that they usually are PACKED prior to mother's day they still had an incredible selection. It's called Grier Nursery and they supply flowers for many of the hotels in Baltimore. Their stuff is always GORGEOUS!

Here's Steph hunting for the perfect hanging basket (the girl bought 5). I'm gonna get in trouble because as I'm snappin the pic's she's saying how she MUST have prior approval on all photos before I blog them. sorry steph! :D You still love me right?

Here she is after she finds ONE of the perfect baskets! If you look real close in the last pic you can see the top of Peyton's head in the sea of blossoms.

Balance...

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Today was so beautiful, the weather was perfect! We went shopping at the pond store, I got a super cute little bird that spits water from her beak, she's a sweet little wren. Matt already hooked her up to the pond so I'll snap her pic tomorrow! We went to Home Depot (of course, I think we are there EVERY weekend!) and then went a few other places. Our good friends Jeff and Steph (HI STEPH) stopped by with their cuties. We tried to talk them into dinner but it was a no go. :(

Tonight I scrapped! In the kitchen! My scrap-room is truly so scary right now that I'm dreading going in there. YIKES! Oh and yesterday was a GREAT mail day! My Jenni Bowlin stuff was on the door step when we came home! It's gorgeous as usual, AND here is some EXCITING NEWS! Teresa McFayden of FOOFALA fame is coming to Scrap-Masters! AUGUST is gonna be hot for more reasons than one CHICKIES! She's going to teach us some FOOFIE goodness! I've got some other goodies up my sleeve but I just can't share quite yet!

This will be our next build a page. Remember girls, if you are in the MD area, the BAP's are only $6.00 and they INCLUDE everything plus a COOL 6 x 6 picture, just remember to bring your digital media! This page has Foofala, K & Co. Fontwerks and a cool Heidi Swapp stamp! We will also have a more boyish BAP to offer but it's not quite done! LOL Just like Peyton in the picture, I've got a LOT to balance!

bloggin' fool....yeah, that's me today!

I've blogged like a million times in the last 2 days! Sick of me? :D So I promised my SMU ladies tonight that I'd post these just in case
they needed them. These were the two we did tonight. Our topic was white space and visual triangle/Z. I really love my SMU ladies!

In other news, I have a Peytonism for you. Today she asked me what type of dog Scoobie doo was. I told her a "Great Dane". She asked if she was allowed to say that and I said "of course"! So then, she wanted to know if when something went wrong could she say, "oh Dane!"

I told her no. :D

And also, let me just tell you that my least favorite color combo is red and yellow, together. I really need to blame this on my sister in law, Karen (she never reads this, well I hope not but what I am about to say I would tell her in person, if I had to!). Get ready for this because it's a pretty scary visual.

In the eighties, when girls used to wear those thick bunchy socks, Karen (and this pains me to even type) would pair two pairsof socks....RED AND YELLOW! ARCKKKK, ARGGGGH! Horrific then, and even more horrific to think of it now. Man I wish I had a picture. I guess I don't really need one, I'm already scarred for life. But in this layout <---- I can handle it for some reason, maybe there is enough blue and green to counteract whatever weird red/yellow antibodies I must have!

Next SMU

Here's one of the next SMU's. The techniques will be hand cut flowers, title on the photos and collaged photos (all photos touching). We'll use the fun doodlebug line that's all black and white but we'll pop it with color! Yours won't have to be pink, especiall if you want a boyish layout.

Hodge Podge

Crazy hodge podge post here. Early this year, we changed our family room and gave it a more pottery barn feel. I'm lovin' still. The top is painted a soft robin egg blue (appropos, huh?). I've always liked this color, our powder room has been painted that for years. Anyway, I'm insanely attracted now to anything this color. And anyone that knows me KNOWS I have a fabric softener addiction. SO NOW, Downy is making me VERY happy by combining my two loves! This Tahitian Waterfall smells totally delish! YUMMMM.

Thought 2. My sister is a GREAT MOM! Really, she has so much love and patience! Considering her little ones are 13 months apart and she makes it look like a piece of cake!

Thought3. I love this pic of Callie and my Dad at the Zoo!

Thought 4. Here's that mountain goat I mentioned. click on his pic to see his pearly whites up close! This guy is totally GRINNING!

She

Martha, Martha, ohhh I love me some Martha! I really do like the craft goodness that Martha has put out at Michaels, I know it's full of controversy but hey, I like it! The green background floral is Ms. Marthas. I have another layout with Martha goodies but I don't think I'm gonna post it 'cause I'm toying with the idea of submitting and I really like that layout! :D This pink ledger paper is Fontwerks that we finally got in at Scrap-Masters and I'm in LOVE. Such cool paper, but then again, I haven't met many ledger papers I didn't like!

WHEWWWWW!

Things have finally settled down here at the Bedsaul household! Last week was CRAZY busy. Here's a quick recap...

Started with dress rehearsals for the girls 3 nights straight in full make up and custume. Luckily we had some major help because I worked two of those nights! Matt and his mom had to fill in! My sister, Brandy drove 6 hours with the babies (Grace 16 mo. and Mason 3 mo.) from N.C. She is a SAINT! :D It was so so SO great to see them but the first 4 days were nuts with the dress rehearsals and then the 3 shows! Callie and I were gone on Saturday for 10 hours between both of the shows! That girl can DANCE! Love her to pieces! My little tappin' queen! I had to make some kind of baked good for the refreshments at the shows so I made Butterscotch Chocolate Chunk Blondies, they are one of my families favorites and I must say apparently they were the first to sell out! :D ~ reaching around to pat self on back! I'll share the recipe at the end of this post! Sunday we had one more show with both girls in it and pretty much the whole family came to the show. I must say that little Grace was MUCH better behaved than my father! If I only had a muzzle...


And look at that toe action on Callie! Do you know how hard to do that is in TAPS? And little Peyton did awesome! Not a shy bone in that girls body. She exudes self-confidence!

We went to the Baltimore Zoo on Tuesday. The big kids skipped school (yeah, I'm a cool mom like that! LOL) and we all had FUN! The zoo was more then a little bit lacking but we were all together and how can you not have fun at the zoo? I fell in love with a super cute mountain goat that had a real smile! His pearly whites were always visible, it was hysterical. After the zoo we went to an early dinner (eggplant parm...yummy) then we drove into the city for dessert at Vacarro's in Little Italy. DOUBLE YUM! They have the best Ameretti's.

Sadly, my sister left on Thursday. So hard to see her go. :(

Well, here's the recipe...

Butterscotch Blondies

2 1/4 Cups flour
2 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 Cup butter
1/2 cup grandulated sugar
2 Cups firmly packed DARK brown sugar
1 t vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup chopped milk chocolate bars - coarse

Preheat oven to 350

combine flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, cream butter sugars and vanilla until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in flour mixture. Stir in chunks by hand. Spread into a greased 10 x 15 jelly roll pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, cool cut into small squares.