Two Babies in One Day!

What a blessed and exciting day! We are proud great-grandparents of a brand new beautiful 7 lb. 10 oz. boy. Baby Isaac and mommy Mandy are doing fine -- healthy and happy for mom, -- and healthy, hungry and now sleepy for Isaac. It's hard to believe that I got to hold this precious one in my arms only 3 hours after he was born. He's our sixth great-grandchild. Children are one of God's great miracles.

And we are new parents too! A little baby girl who we named KoKo joined our family today -- a lovely blue point, half Siamese and half Himalayean, with bright blue eyes. She's 3 months old and loves to be held and cuttled. YumYum seems pretty laid back about the whole thing and seems not to mind that she has a new little sister.

Love these manila envelope books.

After taking some bookmaking classes earlier in the spring, I was so inspired that I've been in a whirlwind of bookmaking ever since. The book pages are manila envelopes and the backgrounds, elements, and embellishments were made from the Graphics 45 BotanicaBella Collection (my very fav design paper company). Also used were buttons, brads, ribbons and other delightful little pieces. Some of the embellishments were made from bits and scraps of the paper, which I love to do because it really gives me another avenue for creativity. You may not be able to notice it in the pictures, but I used mounting tape quite liberally which gave nice dimension to the pages. Here's the cover of the book . . . you can see the rest of the pages in the slideshow at right.

For the last few months I've been venturing into scrapbooking. I'd never had an urge to scrapbook until I journeyed through Israel -- plus a club that I belong to insisted that everyone must do a scrapbook page for that month's project. So now I'm finding myself looking forward to designing the next layout for my Israel pictures. But, oh my, I've not yet been able to "crop" many pictures and I really have a hard time leaving any pictures out! Another love I have is making books and I just happen to have a Zutter Binder. And while using it the other day I was hit with this brilliant (for me anyway) idea -- why don't I make a couple of mini albums on my album page. You can see the result below. By using the 1/2 " Zutter binding coils and making 2 mini albums, I was able to use 24 pictures on just one page! And . . . I was even able to print the name of the city, Modi'in, in Hebrew by finding it on an Israeli webpage. I'm just having too much fun!

A Sweet, Sweet Family

These 2 pictures are from the prayer time for Cathy on Friday. Not pictured are Mary and Emily.

After church today there was a Potluck Dinner Farewell for Casey, Cathy, Ethan, and Josiah -- I've never met a more sweet, God-loving family than this family. They will be tremendously missed by me and, of course, our whole church family. But the good thing is that God has plans for their lives and on top of that, we get to follow along in their journey via Cathy's blog "Sweeter than the Day Before." See link at right. Here's a couple of pictures from dinner today.

Gone but certainly not forgotten. We love you!!!

After viewing so many "sneak peaks" of the new products being showcased at CHA this weekend, I'm in high anticipation of them being released to retail stores. Finding a place to purchase online may be a bit of a challenge - but that may be my only option since stamping and scrapbooking supplies are disappointingly limited here. I'm expecially excited about new papers and paper pads from Graphics 45 (www.graphics45.com), and from Kaisercraft, the Duchess set and the Pennyroyale collection (www.kaisercraft.net). Soooo beautiful . . . I'm fairly bursting with creative ideas!

My first Ink-Ling! Yea!

Just spent a morning of warm fellowship and prayer at Mary's house. We gathered to pray for Cathy's and her family's relocation to Texas in order for Casey to attend seminary. It was a wonderful time of sharing stories and memories, laughing and crying, partaking of a delicious brunch, and then pouring out our hearts to God in prayer for Cathy, Casey, Ethan, and Josiah. We are all walking in faith together that our Heavenly Father will lead their way and provide for all their needs. You can follow Cathy's blog by clicking on the link to the right. Pictures will be posted soon!

In the meantime, here's a picture of the going-away card I made for Casey and gave to him during our staff lunch.