Happy Birthday Cookin Up Creations!

Come join us for a party...a scraping party that is..

There will be lots of challenges, games and prizes!!!

CHS Prom 2012

Prom time is here.  I have loved seeing the photos of friend's children all dressed up!!  Well,  our turn happened yesterday!

Here are some photos of Juliet and her date Shon before they went to meet up with the "group".  We took them to the beach and took some nice shots.  I will remember that heels and sand do not mix in the future!!

They were so cute doing the flower exchange...a true life skill...how to pin on a boutonniere without stabbing yourself:

We still have 4 weeks of school which are going to be very busy!!  

Spring Break in San Francisco

Juliet and I took advantage of the week off to plan a trip to San Francisco.  Of course, it rained a lot but we had a good time.  Our primary goal was to visit some schools...and we did have 2 full days of doing just that! Of course, we didn't take photos of that...only the tourist sites we visited!!  Our hotel was near Fisherman's Wharf so we spent a lot of time there.

The view of the wharf...with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

The cable cars were the easiest way to get to down town San Francisco... which was perfect as there was a stop just a block from our hotel!!  Here is our view from the bus stop.... and down the hill was a perfect view of Alcatraz.

We met some interesting people on our daily travels.  The brakeman for the car was a great guy...loved his job and knew a lot of the locals who rode his car.  He insisted on taking a bunch of photos of us!

We went to Ghirardelli Chocolate but the line for the ice cream parlor was out the door...and even in the cold and rain...but boy did it smell delicious!

Our cable car went by the top of Lombard street.  Of course we had to get off once and walk down!!

 By the 3rd day, we were much better at catching the trolley cars...there is a secret...don't go to the first stop on the route...there are lines there but if you walk a couple of blocks to the next stop, there will be spaces...or at least a spot to hold on ...which is part of the fun!!

Our last night in San Francisco was quite exciting.  There was a major storm with amazing lightning...I am posting this photo from the news...I love it!!  We didn't see this happen but we sure saw a lot of flashes!!

Good to be back home..

March Madness!!

March has come and gone...so quickly...where did it go??? 

 We had a busy month with visits from family, Spring Break for Braxton and the general school/play/work things that keep everyone going.

 Here is a glimpse of things around here...

 The birds love our fountain...This hummingbird was so cute taking his bath...I almost forgot to take his photo before he flew off!

  

A cell phone photo of my oldest on his Spring break road trip...no, I don't think he is supposed to be on that rock!!

We have  bananas!!!  Not sure when to harvest them or if they will be edible or not!!

I must have planted some iris last year because they are springing up all over my cutting garden.  I love getting mystery bags from the clearance rack!!

Izzy and I discovered a trail behind the golf course last weekend...Of course, the camera went along too!

Climbing on the retaining wall for the tee at hole 10!  Okay, maybe the rock climbing runs in the family(see above photo!)  Yes, she does have red hair.  She has had a hunk of red underneath for about 4 months now.

BTW...Little Red Scrapbook kits have been really fun lately...here are a few layouts I did recently.

January Lily Bee Kit

February Kit...My Mind's Eye - Miss Caroline.

Thanks for looking...Have a great April!!!

Happy Friday!!!

It is a beautiful day here in So Cal...

so I thought I would share some of our sunshine with everyone!!

Apparently, these daffodils do not know that it is February!!

I also want to share a layout I recently completed for the

  Friday Bo Bunny Challenge. 

I started with a fun photo of Izzy that was taken by her friend for their photography class. 

 It worked perfectly with this sketch by Agnieszka Piskorz from the Bo Bunny blog.....

I used some "vintage" Bo Bunny Papers from their Petal Pushers Collection

(one of my favorites that I had been hoarding!):

Thanks for looking!

Have a great weekend!!

A little bit of the holidays...

This year was a little different as this was our first year with out Braxton at home for the holidays.  I was a bit sad, but the girls still took the traditional tree photos without him.

This first layout is based on a great sketch by Becky Fleck from the Pagemaps blog. 

I used papers from Bo Bunny's Father Christmas line.  

 I loved these papers so much I did a second layout featuring them and some embellishments from Theresa Collins new Christmas line.  

Thanks for looking!

Happy New Year!!!

Here is a photo of the girls from our cruise. We left San Diego on New Years Eve!!  We spent lots of time on deck, watching shows, eating and watching whales swim along side the ship(it is their migration time and we followed their path near Cabo San Lucas)

Our first stop was Puerto Vallarta.  The girls and I spent the first day riding horses to a waterfall, snorkeling and just sitting on a private beach. This required lots of bumpy boat rides to get us to each of these places, but it was worth it!

Our second day in Puerto Vallarta, the girls and I went zip lining in the mountains. 

The next day was a stop in Cabo...we were pretty tired by then so only Juliet and I went ashore for some shopping and some yummy nachos!

It was a nice break from the real world.  No internet for 7 days...