Helping a Little Girl

A couple of weeks ago I was introduced to a cause for a little girl, Taylie Abbott by a friend who is a close friend of the family. Taylie is currently living with Acute Myeloid Leukemia and the family is seeking help for their little girl and her treatments. While on Facebook I stumbled across this blog http://adashofseason.blogspot.com. This woman did not know the Abbott family but has come up with a very selfless way to help with donations for this cause. For every person who posts information about "Taylie's Hope" to their blogs, $2 will be donated. Please refer to the above link for details. I don't know little Taylie, but I have two little healthy girls and couldn't imagine what this family is going through. It is my hope that by doing this post, I can help in a bigger way than I would be able to do myself. Taylie's website link is www.tayliebug.com. Please take the time to participate in this cause.

Ella's Birth Announcement

Just wanted to share Ella's birth announcement (in case you haven't seen it already).

Ava's Eventful Week

I just wanted to share the exciting events that have taken place this week. First, on Monday Shane decided he had had enough of changing Ava's diapers so somehow we convinced Ava to try wearing her big girl panties. After telling her that her diapers were all gone she has been going to the bathroom with very little prompting and doesn't seem to miss those diapers anymore! She is doing very well with her potty training! Yeah! She does have her accidents here and there but overall she is doing fabulous. Even better, after spending a day at her daycare without a potty chair, requiring her to use the "big girl toilet", she only wants to use the toilet now! Yeah again!! What a huge relief to only have one baby in diapers! Way to go Ava!!





Ava's next eventful act also took place this week. I had just stepped out of the shower when Ava came running into my room saying "I did it, I did it!" Well, that usually is a bad sign. When I found her she was holding scissors with pieces of her hair hanging off her arm! She had cut a chunk of her beautiful blonde curls right out of her bangs! I wanted to cry. I couldn't figure out where she learned to do such a thing since she has never received a haircut, nor seen anyone else get a haircut....or so I thought. Well, yesterday as I was watching a recorded episode of Sesame Street there was a segment of these dogs dressed as humans in a barber shop giving each other haircuts! I finally found her inspiration. I guess Sesame Street is quite the educational program! Here are some pictures. It was kind of hard getting a good shot so just look for the short hairs sticking out! Oh, and yes I did save the locks to put in her baby book for her first haircut--ha, ha, ha!


This isn't the best picture. Look at the hairs sticking out on the left. I tried pulling her hair back in a ponytail to see if I could hide it, but this is how it looked after swimming lessons.

Lake Tahoe

I just realized I promised to post some pictures of our trip to Lake Tahoe we took about 6 weeks ago. We were able to stay at our friend Deanna's family cabin and had a wonderful time. Ella was only 8 days old when we ventured out and she did awesome! Thanks Deanna for showing us such a great time and for your wonderful hospitality!





Ava loved her "Nina" (Deanna)

































After we left Lake Tahoe we took a detour to Deanna's home in Nevada City, CA. What a beautiful place. Her neighbor had this giant swing we had so much playing on.

Love My Girls

Just wanted to share some pictures of my girls. Ava is doing so good with Ella and is such a great big sister!

Excuses For Being The Worst Blogger Ever!

I have decided that I am officially the worst blogger ever! I realize I am way behind, but in my defense I have had lots of things happen over the past 3 weeks which have caused me to be such a slacker. Case in point:

1. On July 19th the girls from work threw me a baby shower. It was such a great shower. I really didn't need anything except for a double jogging stroller. I have had my eye on this quite expensive, but well worth the $$$, BOB duallie stroller ever since Ava was a baby. After some much needed convincing on Shane's part, I registered for my stroller. So, the girls from work pitched in and got me a gift card to go toward my stroller! I just got the beauty today! (I'll be sure to post some pics later so you can see why I'm making such a fuss over this amazing stroller!!) I will also be adding some pictures of my shower later, which brings me to the next reason I am such a slacking blogger!

2. Ava threw scissors at my brand new lap top, which I have only had for one month,and ruined the monitor! Therefore I am unable to retrieve the pictures from my baby shower until my computer gets fixed! I also dread using my desktop computer and avoid it if I can, so I haven't been too motivated to use it until now. So, you might be wondering why Ava had scissors in the first place? Well, that brings me to the third reason I have been such a bad blogger.

3. On July 23rd at 2:46 am we welcomed Ella Kate Langstaff! Yes, I had my baby! My labor started at about 6:30 that evening. We arrived at the hospital at about 1:00 am and Ella was born 1 hr and 46 minutes later! It happened very quickly and painfully, but it was a great delivery! Ella is perfect. She weighed 6 lbs 15 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She has been the most perfect baby and Shane and I couldn't be more proud. Ava just loves her to peices. She loves holding her and helping me in any way---let me repeat---any way possible! Oh, what a helper!! She really has adjusted well to having her new little sister and is just so cute with her. So, here is where the scissors comes into play... I really feel like I need to explain. I was cutting a string off Ella's umbilical cord and put the scissors down on the table. I was unable to put them away because Ella was crying and needed feeding. Well, Ava found the scissors and just as Shane went to take them from her she threw them, barely missing me and Ella, and hit the computer screen dead on! I do, however, have pictures to share of Ella's birth since those didn't quite make it on the laptop (thank goodness)!










Love my doctor, Dr. Kaneen


My great nurse, Laura Charleton











4. And the fourth reason I have been such a bad blogger is 8 days after Ella was born, we decided to take a our first family vacation and spent a few days at Lake Tahoe. Again, those pictures will be coming, but I think I'll wait until I get my laptop back!

I Got Lucky!

I don't know if it's just my daughter or a typical toddler, but Ava hates getting her picture taken. So, I decided to take my chances yesterday and got a few good shots of her. Fortunately, I'm using good photo editing software. It's amazing how good editing software can make even the worst pictures look good! Now, I just need to learn how to take pictures so I look like I know what I'm doing!

Love My Daddy

I just finished another page and thought I would share. I'm trying to figure out how to use these templates so I'm really just playing around. It was fun and I'm so happy that I'm finding the fun in scrapbooking again! This was Ava and Shane when she was 4 months old.

My First Creation

Well it took me all day, but I did my first digital scrapbook page. I hope now that I'm kind of getting the feel for the program that I might "artsy" side will kick it up a notch so I can do more than one page in one day~ Oh well, it was fun and I'm glad to be figuring it out!

Giving Digital Scrapbooking a Try!

Years ago back when scrapbooking was all about Creative Memories, dye cuts, fancy scissors, punches and stickers I was an avid scrapbooker. I kept up pretty good and actually really enjoyed it. Well, life happened, scrapbooking supplies were put away into storage and I haven't scrapbooked ever since. Needless to say, after years of missing out on the latest scrapbooking trends, my old ways are, well, "old school," and I now have to catch up with the new. So, after looking at lots of different scrapbooks and being educated by my sister, Andrea, I think I'm ready to take it up again. I have been introduced to some new words in my scrapbooking lingo such as Photoshop Elements, embelishment, elements, overlays, brushes, etc... way different from the good ole days! I've decided that rather than doing the traditional manual cutting, sewing, gluing, and taping blah, blah, blah-- you know all the stuff that takes way too much time, I would allow my computer to do the dirty work. I am taking on DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING!! I have learned there are several ways to perform this challenge so for my first project, just to get my feet wet, I went to a website called Smilebox where all I had to do was add pictures--so easy! While I don't plan on this being my method of scrapbooking I thought I'd try different techniques to find what works best for me. Eventually, I hope to move up to expert status and someday become as good as my sister, Andrea Sponenburgh. You really must check out her blog to see the adoreable scrapbooking pages she has done both traditionally and digitally http://andreaspon.com. What an inspiration!

Below I have put together a scrapbook of Ava's birth. I chose this so that when the new baby is born I will put together some scrapbook pages and be able to share a comparisons of their births. I can't wait to see what this little princess is going to look like! Anyway, enjoy for now and I'll be sure to add updates as I learn more and more about the digital scrapbooking world. Andrea, I'll be in touch!!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook