The Paustenbaughs

What a Holiday

This was our home away from home for the last week.  We decided way back in late summer that we would take a cruise since no family was visiting us for the holliday and it would be our last actual vacation for some time with the upcoming move to Japan.

Terry and I aren't really cruise people, but we knew the girls would love it and it seemed like a good fit with the itinerary.  And we all ended up having so much fun together on and off the ship. 

There were tons of activities on the ship for them to do and we took advantage of all of them!

We chose not to get off the ship in Florida since it was Christmas Day and we figured many things were closed for the holiday, so instead we spent most of our time here:

Sitting poolside in the warm sun was definitely a holiday treat and we had to keep reminding ourselves that it was Christmas!  I'm not a fan of cold, even at holiday time so this was right up my alley!  I'll sit poolside any day of the week!

We stopped at Nassau, Bahamas the next day and aside from the long bus ride to the beach, we enjoyed our time there.  I will say though that a one time visit was enough for us.  I believe we ran into a lot of hungover locals since their big celebration starts at midnight on December 26th!  The beach was really nice though and we took advantage of the few hours of day light we had left when we got there.

Our favorite stop hands down was the Royal Carribean private island, Coco Cay.  We got to spend the entire day there, playing in the sand and water and getting a little holiday tan to boot!

Someone was rather excited to find "a baby palm tree!!!"

While someone else was busy building a sand city:

If you look behind Maya they had this incredible Aqua Park that we went to play on for about an hour.  I have to admit though that when we were putting on life vests and getting ready to go in a brief cloud and rain period passed and I was not in a happy place!  Me + cold water + clouds= not a good mix.  But just as we got in the water the clouds parted and full on sun came our way!

We got home yesterday and I'm now on laundry load numero 6 and still going strong.  But we had fun and got away together so that's all that counts!

Now ready to enjoy some New Year's Eve festivities and get ready for an exciting 2012!

Until next time!

Year End Review

I normally lose track of time and don’t get around to this, but absolutely love catching up on some of my favorite blogs that do post this. 

It’s my top ten favorite layouts from 2011.  It was fun looking back and seeing what has been produced over this past year!  Of course after having lost all of my layout photos from my external drive, it was a little more labor intensive going to my galleries to try to retrieve all of them!  (Mental note: back up your back up!!)

So in no particular order, here goes.

Ormolu

I applied for the Ormolu design team on a whim after seeing a link from Nicole Harper on Twitter.  Boy, am I glad I did because I haven’t loved a particular product this much in a while.  I kind of would marry her tags and buttons if I could!

I’ve done a few no photo layouts before and this one is my favorite.  It didn’t start off as a no photo, but ended up that way and I’m glad it did.  Love the colors in the travel line.

Fact or Fiction? I’m in love!  I like the colors of this one, but most of all that I finally sat down to scrap just Terry and I. I don’t have many of those and am always glad when I sit and do one of just us.  Like taking a vacation with just us-rarely done, but always needed!

Pebbles

Of course I love Pebbles and will become a fossil design team member there if they’ll let me!  Each release gets better and better and I’m honored to be able to design with each one.

I always love teaming up with American Crafts and doing a product swap.  This is one of the layouts from our swap this year and the products blend so well it’s nearly effortless.  The title technique I saw on April Foster’s blog and had to try it out!

Our summer was jam packed and so amazing.  I loved being able to do a general highlight of it all and this year was the wallet sized photo kick on my layouts.

These 2 crack me up!  This is from Halloween 2010 and every time I look at this photo I start cracking up!  I don’t normally use purple on layouts, but it blended well on this one and brought out the witch next to the cow!

WCS

I have followed Write.Click.Scrapbook since it began over 2 years ago and was beyond thrilled to be part of the collective.  Always love our gallery theme each month and that I get to go into my stash to create my layouts!

I love this one for the sentimental reason and for that stamp.  I’ve only used it that one time and need to bust it out again!  We sure miss our old truck, but hopefully we paid it a respectful homage with this layout!

Miscellany

And of course when not creating for design team work, it’s nice to have free reign and just create for creating’s sake!

Hm, thinking I should make more layout about my husband and I because for having so few, 2 of them are in my top faves!  I love the oversized photo and wanted a lot of space for journaling because the Capitol Building means so much to us as a couple.

What do you get when you combine a crazy Ella photo, Silhouette circles and October Afternoon goodies?  One of my recent favorites!  This one came together pretty quickly once the circles were cut and I laugh every single time at the photo and layout.  This is so her!

My friends mean a lot to me, even if I do leave them every 2-3 years.  I think that’s what makes them even more special, yet I always get anxious when we move, afraid I won’t find that one (or more) special friends.  I’m definitely not one to only scrap the happy and good; it’s therapeutic to scrap the anxious and not so good too.

Finally, our family.  We have tons of fun together, although it’s not always sunshine and roses in our house, we do laugh a lot and never, ever take life too seriously.  It’s too short and too many fun things to do.

 

Thank you for letting me share these and thank you for even reading (if you made it this far).  I appreciate everyone stopping by this year and commenting on my posts, especially the non scrappy ones.  I am always grateful for opportunities that come my way and try to never take them for granted.

Happy New Year!

Bahamian Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

We're trying something different this year and vacationing over Christmas and we couldn't be more excited!  This is our home for the next 7 days:

We are beyond excited and cannot wait to get to the beaches!!

Hope you have a fantastic holiday filled with family and friends!

My New Best Friend

I know some people love The Elf on The Shelf and others find him a bit creepy.  I have to admit, I find the sneaky, shy smile on his face rather creepy and stalkerish, but overall love the concept.  Instead of telling the girls, especially one Ella G., that "Santa is watching"; we literally have an elf that is watching her occasional naughtiness and Jed seems to have an impact on her!

Jed and I have become fast friends this holiday season.  Since it's just he and I every evening after the girls go to bed at 8, we have a lot of time to kill before my own bedtime.  He loses me on the weekends though when the Mister is home!

So after a glass of wine and some scheming, we come up with a plan of how he will watch the girls each day. I post these on Twitter, but keep forgetting to put them over here!

He has gone on piggy back rides:

He's a modern elf, who texts Santa and posts racy photos of reindeer on facebook:

He has to work off his holiday treats and chocolate (oh, and wine):

He even gets invited to ugly sweater parties:

He has tried to have fun in a ball pit, but ended up getting stuck:

And after all this he needs a nice long soak in a tub:

So yes, I DO have a lot of time on my hands these days!  Not sure what I'll do when it's no longer the holidays!  Is there a Valentine cupid I can hide and hang out with??!!

The Real Deal

So I think we may have made up for not seeing clubhouse Santa this year.  On a whim we decided to head to the Museum of the Marine Corps for their family holiday event.  We weren't sure what to expect and if Santa would look like an ex-con or if the line would be out the door.

We were hugely and very pleasantly surprised when we got there and saw that the line consisted of only 3 families.  Score!

We were even more suprised when the girls walked up and were face to face with this man:

Holy Legit Santa and Mrs. Clause!  He was amazing and so, so good with the girls.  No outlandish Ho, Ho, Ho-ing and just as gentle as could be.

I'm pretty sure that even Terry and I were convinced that he was the real deal and not "one of Santa's helpers"!  I don't think the girls will look at other Santa's the same way.  Seriously amazing.

So happy we decided to head over and check it all out.  We are back in good graces with the girls I believe!

I also whipped up a quick card this weekend for the Ormolu Blog today featuring the big guy:

Kaitlin will be closing up the shop for the holidays so head over to the blog and check out the teams' cards for the site.  I went very non traditional papers and colors and actually liked how the card turned out-that's a first!  I normally never like my cards because they freak me out!

Also come check me out over at the Write.Click.Scrapbook site today too.

Happy Monday!

Clubhouse Santa

We live in one of those suburban communities with the community pool, activities at the holidays, HomeOwners Association, the whole nine.  You know, the Real Housewives of Suburban America!  I feel that way sometimes, but more often I feel lucky to live here and to have made some great down to earth friends and have figured out how to steer clear of those Real Housewives!

One of our favorites parts of the community is the Christmas activity.  Each year one of our neighbors dons his Santa suit and will see the children from the community that go up to our neighborhood clubhouse. 

The only requirement is to bring a plate of cookies to share with everyone.  All the children get a candy cane and an age appropriate holiday book after they see Santa too.  And the best part for the parents?  The line is short and no crazy amount of money for a bad Santa photo!

Our Santa is a friend so he normally waits until I have the photo I want and then will have the girls get down.  So awesome! 

However, this year we the parents are on the naughty list.  Completely forgot about Clubhouse Santa and now it's too late.  Guess who is scrambling to find somewhere to take the girls this weekend to sit with the jolly old man?  Yep, you're looking at her. 

Happy Thursday! 

December Journal

Last year I was a December Daily epic failure.  You want to know where my 2010 DD is?  In a drawer in our guest bedroom under a pile.  Do you think it will get done?  Highly doubtful. 

I'm horrible about the daily stuff.  Sure, I can work under a deadline and get a layout, cards, etc. done, but keeping up with something every day?  No way Jose!

So this year I'm doing a December Journal.  Just documenting and highlighting those festivities and family moments in general, not on a daily basis.  I can't tell you how freeing it feels!  I don't feel like i have to walk around with a camera to get a photo for that day.

I used lots of Ormolu and Echo Park for this one and so far am loving how it's going!  I bought this binder from Ormolu as a base and painted it with off white paint, then lightly misted it with Mister Huey Shine.

I know there is a push by the turkey industry to keep the turkey in Thanksgiving, but for us that signals family time and gathering for the holidays.  We don't get to see family much and when we do we like to take advantage as much as possible so we celebrate.  That's also decorating time with the long weekend.

And a show to start the weekend/season too.

The decor:

And of course I had to document the race from hell!

I'll be updating more along the way, but am pleased with what has been documented so far.  More time with friends coming up and I couldn't be more happy to kick back and enjoy good friends!

 

Weekend Re-Cap

We went into December not having much to do and are coming out with something nearly every day of the weekend.  Tis the season, right?!

This is from last weekend, but after spouting off about how chocolate let me down I ran out of space (oops).

Maya had her holiday piano recital and we always love hearing her play.  For someone so shy, she gets right up there and plays loud and clear for everyone!  Love that!

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We headed out to the National Zoo last night to take a look at their zoo lights.  Very cool displays of lights and music up there for sure.

And before it got officially dark I had to snap a couple of shots of my cuties all bundled up because it was beyond cold last night!

This one got festive with the holiday spirit and her animal hat to impress the animals.

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The wrapping and gift giving bug hit the girlies too this weekend after visiting their school's holiday store.  You know, it's all those fine goods that you can pick up for $2-3 for an unsuspecting grandma and grandpa.  A giant keychain that says GRANDPA on it, but it's the thought that counts, right?!!  We weren't in the door 2 seconds and they're all spread out with paper, tape and ribbons to wrap them all up!

I foresee mama's wrappers in my future!

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And I'll be sharing what I have done on my December Journal tomorrow, but a little sneak of Ormolu goodies I've been using!

Martha Would Be Proud

For someone who doesn't do much Christmas scrapping, I have done my fair share this November and December!  It actually has been easier than I thought so I might be getting past my Christmas scrapping phobia!

This week at the Pebbles Blog we are highlighting holiday gifts using the Welcome Christmas line.  I decided to try and make some handmade bows and let me just say that this was by far the easiest project I've made in a long, long time!

I found these cute little kraft boxes at Michaels and at first was going to cover them in paper as my project, but then decided the colorful bows would be perfect on top of those.

I added some ribbon and twist ties and in a matter of minutes it was done!  The Welcome Christmas line also has a nice font stamp available that I used for the tag by embossing it and making it pop with some white embossing powder.

Super easy, which is very much key for me these days!

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Thank you all for your kind words yesterday!  It was just what I needed to hear after her tears and nearly some of my own tears too.  It means a lot to hear your own stories of moving around and surviving to tell about it later!  I get overwhelmed with all of that sometimes.

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I had a mini blog re-do thanks to Two Happy Mamas and some goodies from Paisley Press.  It was overdue and needed after my tinkering a couple of months ago!

 

Have a great Friday and great weekend!

I Forget

I forget that even though she's the crazy one, the live wire, the go with the flow gal, that she's still sensitive and gets her feelings hurt easily.

I forget that she's "just 6" sometimes and interact with her as if she is as old as her sister.

I forget that sometimes she just needs my attention. Period.

I forget that even though she is very social and outgoing, that she still needs me to be there, to go on field trips, eat lunch with her and just be around.  She was reduced to tears when I didn't get chosen to chaperone a field trip.  I was nearly reduced to tears too.

I forget that even though she doesn't ask a lot of questions about the move, that she still has anxiety.  She brought a worksheet home yesterday that asked what her worry was and she wrote: "I worry my friends won't remember me".  Broke my heart.  In two.

I need to remember.  Every day.  Even during the days that I just want to forget everything around me.  Forgetting isn't worth it.