monday . . .

This morning, everything in the Bonner house seemed to align together to produce this . . .

from an early morning wake up of Ryan screaming from his urine-soaked bed to him melting down because his "puppy" & "blankie" were soaked to sleeping with a 3 year old in our bed for 2 hours to waking up with nightmares (me not him - new mommy anxiety dreams) to waking up later than planned to rushing breakfast because I had to leave by 8:30 to be at preschool on time to waiting until 10 minutes before we had to leave to get dressed to realizing I never hit the start button on the dryer last night & the clothes were still soaked (which wouldn't normally be a problem except that I'm pregnant & finding an outfit on the fly just doesn't happen) to Ryan telling me as I brush his teeth that he doesn't want to go to school because the slide on the playground is scary to him melting down (again) because he has lost his Bullseye figure from his Toy Story Lego set & the world has now ended to rushing to get to school to being 10 minutes late - ahhhhh - crazy, crazy, crazy Mondays!!! I always vowed not to be the late mom - better luck tomorrow - right ??? Well I promised some first day pics from Friday - little man was not being the most cooperative . . .

All in all the first day went well - Saturday we headed off to the Rennaisance Festival & Ryan had his first experience in face painting . . .

We had a little "cousin snuggle time" on Sunday . . .

And of course ended up here - today - in my own little "perfect storm" - by the way - the update on the mattress is that urine does seep through plastic sheeting so if you thought it was actually "leak-proof" like the package says - it's all a lie!!! Any suggestions for keeping the mattress dry in the future would be greatly appreciated :)

One successful thing today (have to always think of a positive right???) is that I figured out how to use photo booth on my mac & upload to youtube - check out my cutie - future costume model extraordinaire . . .

I promise you I did not stage this at all - nor did I teach him the side to side move.

Okay - enough about my crazy life - on to some scrappy!!!

I was totally ecstatic to be asked by Erica over at Your Scrapbook Stash to guest design this month. She runs a fabulous online store with all the latest & greatest. And . . . free shipping over $30 & there is a 20% off your entire order coupon going on right now - check it out HERE. She sent me all sorts of yummy Bella Blvd. goodies from the Hello Beautiful & Midterm line. Here is my first layout I created . . .

The pics are from our trip to the ocean this summer with our very closest friends & their adorable kids :) Ryan loves them dearly & had such an awesome time. I LOVED the strong contrast of colors in this line - so bright & cheerful!!!

Here is a close-up of the butterfly - this is from the Cute Cuts patterned paper & I decided to emboss it with my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder. Then I sanded it gently to reveal the white core of the paper. A quick easy touch to add some pizzazz to a solid paper :)

Here is a close-up on the title work - these letters are actually hand cut from a journaling block on the Borders & Blocks paper. Loved these!!!!

Oh & there will be a sketch challenge happening later this week with the corresponding sketch to this layout - here is a sneak peek of the sketch . . .

If you are a bit hesitant to work with all these little pics & are wondering sizes that will work together easily on a 12 x 12 page . . . here is another sketch with the pic measurements I used . . .

Make sure to check on their blog later this week for all the details on the challenge!!

Oh & guess what??? Erica was SO SWEET to give me some STASH CASH to give away on my blog this month - today I am giving away $10 in STASH CASH to one lucky commenter - just leave a comment between now & tomorrow night (10pm EST). I will post the winner tomorrow night & you can get spending!!!

ttyl - julie :)