New "Classy Crafts" Video

New Video Sneak Peak

I'm busy getting ready for my "Summer Idea Book Unveiling/Crop 'Til Ya Drop" party this Saturday, so I haven't had a lot of time for blogging.

I did take a few minutes and film a new video tutorial last night though. The picture above is a sneak peak. As soon as I can get the audio file added, I'll post it - hopefully tonight!

ps... the name place cards above are for a "Queen for a Day" celebration that our church puts on for the single moms every year. They get spoiled rotten - including a formal tea luncheon, massages, manis and pedis, gifts, and the oil changed and minor repairs made on their cars!

New Kit for May

I'm offering a new mini-scrapbook kit in May. People attending my "Crop Til Ya Drop" event will get first dibs at these kits, and then I'll open them up to everyone.

This kit uses 1/3 of the new card kit "Happy Everything" (from the Summer 08 CTMH Idea Book), 1 sheet of striped paper, and a braggin' tags mini album. It's super cute, and incredibly fast and easy to put together. The title of my kit is "Happy Spring?" because I wanted to show the dichotomy of springy paper and snowy APRIL weather. The other kits will omit the "?" in the title - or people can request a different title.

Click HERE to see what all the inside pages look like! =)

May Card Class

These are the cards I'm teaching at my May card class! Take a close look because there's a TON of brand new CTMH products (stamps and papers) on these cards! Our Summer Idea Book comes out in just 8 days.

Be sure to check back here too - I'll be posting more great things made with new product later today or tomorrow.

Magic Moments Scrapbooking Kit

The scrapbook kit that CTMH is offering in honor of National Scrapbook Day is just INCREDIBLE! I've only spent about 3 hours on mine so far, and look at the results! 14 pages done - WITH journaling!!!

There are still 10 more pages left in the kit. I love how the papers look so great with my pictures. The colors are incredibly vibrant and fun - but they still allow the pictures to be the focal point.

If you want to see more exampls of completed Magic Moments Kit pages visit my friend Christine's blog. She's done some adorable pages with pictures of her boys.

April Scrapbook Class

This is the layout I'm teaching for Scrapbook Class on Sunday, April 27th. It features 2 layouts from the new CTMH Reflections guide, and a fun cardstock only layout. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from patterned paper and let the cardstock shine!

I also used the April Word Puzzle stamp set and the Homestead Alphabet stamps. The strips along the right side are for journaling. The big "A" is surrounded by brads, and then it says "April" in the space where there are no brads.

Let me know if you live in the Seattle area and would like to attend!

I've got my work cut out for me...

I got my winkflash order on Saturday. I ordered over 700 pictures so last night I sorted them. (ENABLER ALERT: They are having an AWESOME sale through then end of today - 6 cents for 4x6s, 8 cents for 5x7s and 99 cents for 8x10s.) Looks like I'll have a ton of new layouts to show you - assuming I can drag myself down to the cave sometime soon.

It will be good therapy to get some scrapping done. I decided to take advantage of the sale one more time, and ordered pictures for Evan's book today too. It was theraputic to look at them and remember our sweet boy.

Something Fun

While we were in Spokane we stayed with an incredible family. They have 3 girls, and Sammie had a blast playing with them. On Saturday Hailey and Abby taught Sam how to ride this little tricycle. It was so adorable! (That's Hailey in the background).

Thank you...

Thank you all for your prayers and kind words and cyber hugs. They have meant the world to us.

We are clinging to God and each other right now. God is truly giving us comfort. We've had several close friends call and pray with us over the phone, and some of our dearest friends came by and prayed with us in person. It felt good to cry and even laugh a little bit together.

We took Sammie to her first movie today (Horton...) and it was a joyful break to a sorrowful day.

We continue to covet your prayers - not just for us but for our birth mom and of course baby Evan.

We know that God is so very good because, while the ache in our hearts is still there, its sting is just a little less than yesterday. I'm sure that this will continue to be true as the days and weeks go by.

Just as it says in Jeremiah 29:11, we know that God has a wonderful plan for us - not to harm us, but a plan to give us a hope and a future. As the wonderful, heart wrenching worship song goes, "He gives and takes away, He gives and takes away. My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name." That is our prayer and the only thing that will get us through this.

Such Great Sorrow...

...I have not felt before in my life. This must be what a broken heart feels like.

Our birth mom changed her mind. She is on her way now to come and pick up Evan. Dave and I have cried so much tonight, that we have run out of tears and are now just numb. We don't know why God allows such pain - especially as every single aspect of this adoption seemed so miraculous. We would never want to stand in the way of a mother who wanted her child, but we love him too. For 5 days, we were Evan's mommy and daddy - and it just hurts so much to have to give him back.

Thankfully, we have the Lord to help us through this. We know there is a reason for our pain, and we know that God loves us. It says so in his Word, and that is where our hope is now. To Him we will cling...

22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."
25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.
33 For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

Lamentations 3:22-26, 32-33

We're home

We are home from Spokane, and starting to get into a routine. Evan is sleeping well (even through the night!) and eating great. He's up to about 2 ounces each feeding, but has stretched it out from every 2 hours to every 2 1/2 to 3.

Sammie is doing great! She loves being a big sister. I have a darling picture of her that I'll have to post tomorrow (since it's still in my camera) of her dressing up one of her bears in one of Evan's diapers, his hat and one of his receiving blankies! Too stinkin' cute.

Speaking of cute pictures, I have WAAAAAAY to many to even begin to post here. I decided just to pick one of my faves. Isn't this sweet?! I love my little guy! :) Next I'm off to winkflash.com to print a few hundred pictures of our family of 4! I just got a whole box of NEW CTMH scrap stuff just crying out to be used. New goodies early is just one of the many perks of being a consultant, not to mention getting a discount on them! Yippee!!!

Okay... off to work on my "to do" list. Dave and Evan are sacked out on the couch so I have some time to get something done!

Our First Gift

Our wonderful friend Christine gave us our first baby Evan gift. Isn't it beautiful!!! She added some actions to one of the pictures I sent her. We are so blessed!

Our first night was great! I took the first shift (10pm-2am) and then Dave took the second (2-6 am). Little E did great! We finally heard him cry - if you can call it that - because he HATES getting poopy diapers changed. Other than that, he's been quiet as a mouse and just as squeaky! He slept most of the night, and is up and awake this morning.

Sammie got a chance to snuggle him this morning too. I got the sweetest pictures of the two of them. She's very excited to be a big sister.

Well...little E is hungry again! I'll update more later!

Evan Jeremiah

Evan Jeremiah Davenport
(meaning: "Our Gracious God gave him swiftly")

April 10, 2008

Born at 2:25 am
7 pounds, 4 ounces
20 1/4"

It's been a long, emotional day, but our miracle boy is here, healthy and "home" with us (we are staying with friends)! We feel so incredibly blessed. Thank you all for your prayers. Please continue to pray that everything continues to go smoothly, and especially for our birth mom - she's gone through so much today.

More to come soon - we're oh so tired!

Baby's Coming!

We just got in to Spokane. It's 11:15 pm, and last we heard, our birth mom was at 8 cm. We're going to rest tonight (if that is even possible) and go meet our son in the morning!

Please keep all of us in your prayers (especially our wonderful birth mom)! I can't wait to post pictures of little Evan!

Mommy and Me shots

I've been trying to spend as much one on one time with Sammie as possible. With Evan's arrival drawing near she'll soon have to share. I took these shots the other day. The lighting was awful, but that's they beauty of black and white! You can take pictures that are terrible and make them gorgeous. (ps..yes I even took the ones that I'm in. I've become an expert at the one handed shot).

Practice

Last night we went to visit our friends, Josh, Amy and baby Isaac - who is now 1 month old! Sammie got to hold him and snuggle for a bit. She kept saying she was practicing for when baby Evan comes home! It was adorable...

It could be any day now! We're just waiting for that call saying our birth momma is in labor!

Busy Shopping Weekend

We had a busy weekend. Dave got a new guitar:

And I got this:


Inspire yourself with a Creative Cutter Inspiration, this compact cutter will cut 12” cardstock, chipboard, and more. You can use the inspiration to create home decor, wearables, stamps, and any paper craft project! Designed specifically for paper crafters this is the ultimate home paper cutting system






I earned my new toy by selling a bunch of stuff. Dave cheated by cashing in some of his work amex points (he gets to keep them as a perk for work).

Oh well... at least we both got what we wanted! LOL...

Ultimate Sammie Brag-ON!

I've known some smart kids before, but my child AMAZES me with how intelligent she is. It's seriously frightening at times - and I'm not showing my bias here (really).

This morning we were having breakfast, and out of the blue, Sammie says to me, "Momma, red and yellow and blue are thimary (primary) colors". I don't know where she picked this up, but we spent the next 5 minutes discussing primary colors, and how when you mix them together you get secondary colors.
A hillarious occurance for Sam is when they spell her name incorrectly at church. She likes to point out (to me - not her teachers) that "they are so silly momma. They spelled my name S-a-m-m-Y, but that's wrong. It's spelled S-a-m-m-I-E! hahahahaha". She can also write AND paint her name now. This afternoon I found her practicing her As on the easel.

My kid is amazing. I really could go on and on, but I don't want to bore you all away forever. Okay - so I guess I am a little biased, but it does scare me that she might be one of those super kids, who is taking college level courses by the time she is 10. I was hoping to remain smarter than my child until she was at least a teenager (they ALL know everything by then).

Anyway... I got some great pictures yesterday of her playing Sesame Street games on my laptop (haha...that's a pun because she was also sitting on my lap! Golly - I can be corny sometimes). I've not shown her this before because I like to be the one to use my laptop all day, and I don't want to share... but, it was a fun thing we could do together so I caved.

In these pictures she's playing "Journey to Ernie". Check out www.pbskids.com with your little ones. They'll love it!

Inspired

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days. No, our birth momma didn't go into labor... we're still waiting! Actually, the reason I haven't posted is because I've been too busy nesting. I swear - it's worse this time around than it was when I was pregnant! I think it has something to do with not having a huge, round belly getting in my way.

So, the past few days have been a blur of activity. I painted our son's room, and have been shopping galore! I didn't splurge on fun things like this with Sam because we had to buy really pricey things like a crib, a rocking chair, and all the other "necessities". This time, we have all that stuff already, so I can get a cute quilt, that matches the bumper, that matches the valance!

I'll share my "before" and "after" photos of our son's room later (aka - once it looks perfect), but I just HAD to share this. I've been working on it for a few days...

This is the quilt that I purchased for our son's room:
And this is what I was inspired to do because of it! Each letter is on a 9x12 canvas. All paper is cardstock and I used my cricut to cut the letters and the diamonds. I free-handed the fish, and they are popped up with 3d foam. CTMH Cardstock Colors are: heavenly blue, desert sand, kiwi, crystal blue and white daisy.

BTW: We are naming our son Evan Jeremiah. :)

Evan means "God is gracious" in Hebrew, and "Swift" in Gaelic. Isn't that just PERFECT!!!
Jeremiah means "Gift from God", so when you put the names together it means,
"Our gracious God gave him swiftly"