meet fenway

what a weekend! we spent 2 days at rich's grandparents house. while there we spent an afternoon at the pool - ellie spent the entire time in the pool! the next day we went to a place called lion country safari. it was part amusement park, part drive-through safari. more on that to come.

on sunday we decided to go to the local humane society to check out the cats. we've been talking a bit about getting a cat but neither rich nor i have ever owned a cat so we wanted to check them out before adopting one. actually, we didn't even plan on adopting a cat on sunday. but we were there and saw so many cute kittens. they have a bunch in kennels but then they also have 2 big rooms where cats can roam free - one for kittens, one for adults. we didn't last long in the adult room at all, neither of the girls liked the adult cats. but the kitten room - madison was in heaven! ellie liked them but she was a bit scared. she's at the "it's going to get me" age with all animals. madison did really well playing but we left without adopting a cat and went to petsmart where a local rescue has cats on site. that rescue doesn't let families with kids under 4 adopt kittens under 6 months so we knew we weren't interested.

but madison kept asking if we could go buy our kitty. we knew we'd be adopting one, but hadn't planned on doing it for 3 weeks - until after my parents came to visit. but we had seen some kittens we loved and we didn't know if they'd still be there in 3 weeks. we bought some supplies and headed back to the humane society. we narrowed our choices down to 3 kittens, all were 2 months old. we got to go into a familiarization room with each to see how they mixed with us and the kids. the last 3 were pretty shy and scared and skittish. the first was super playful and interactive and not afraid of the girls.

and so the first one became the newest member of our family. meet fenway.

she's 10 weeks old and weighs about 2.5 lbs. she's sweet and playful and active and great with the kids. she does paw at tessie but only when tessie is trying to play..and she does let tessie try to play a bit before pawing. of course, tessie has about 43-48 lbs on her! i think that once they adjust to each other, they'll be great friends.

we are so happy to have her as a part of our family! i hope your weekend was just as good! :)

all because two people fell in love

click photo for creditsremember how i posted yesterday about how i am always inspired by song lyrics? well the lyrics i used for the title here are lyrics by brad paisley that i've wanted to use for a very long time....but i never felt i could do them justice? some people get weird about scrapping with really pretty supplies or with a great picture because they are worried that they won't do it justice. but me? i apparently get this way about song lyrics and quotes. strange. anyway, i realized that i was waiting for the perfect picture of both girls together. then i realized that this never, ever happens. so i figured that this picture isn't perfect, but it's adorable and makes me smile. so i ran with it. because this is what every day in our house looks like - crazy, wacky and full of laughs. and that's what i love.

oh, and did i mention that the template that i used (part of a set of 4) and the block alphas are on sale for 50% off today (5/23) only? go check them out!

inspired by: song lyrics

one of the things that i constantly find myself inspired by while scrapping is song lyrics. i may use them as a title or as the journaling...or even both. i didn't realize just how often i did this until i looked through my gallery and found 7 layouts from the past 3 months.

a look at my inspiration in action (click each photo for credits):

[as a side note, i totally recommend going through your galleries - it's amazing how inspiring it is to see past layouts!]

how about you - do you use song lyrics on layouts? link me up if you do...i'd love to see!

our weekend

our weekend, via instagram. it's amazing how many little moments are packed into two short days. i live for the weekends. i look forward to the time spent with family, the time spent relaxing, the time spend laughing. and, of course, the sleeping in (read: 7:15am instead of 5am) doesn't hurt!

we had a wonderful weekend, and i hope you did too!

wings and pb&j

i have two great (at least i think so!) layouts to share with you today. both are for froggy friday at the lilypad. the first one uses a banner from a great new pack by amy martin, a super fun kit and a funky template.

click photo for credits

next i used a new product from sahlin studio. i am still drooling over these butterflies. seriously gorgeous.

click photo for credits

that picture makes my heart smile. and i just love that quote and have been wanting to use it on a layout for some time.

be sure to check out the other great releases this week too! and have a great weekend!