JAMSquared

Want this adorable kit for free?

Head on over to facebook and “like” Amy’s Designs to receive Family Love for free. Then you can download the mini under “exclusive,” but hurry it is only available until the end of January.

I just joined the creative team for Queen Wild Scraps, which makes me a Wild Princess. I am super excited about this. I missed out on getting to play with the new kit being released today, but read all about it.

Queen Wild Scraps has this super cute new Valentine’s Day kit out today. And it will be on sale for 30% off until next Friday. Before I show you the kit though…have you heard the news? Lahni is now offering all of her new release templates in .page and .sbpage files for SBC users! She’ll also be slowly adding SBC formats to her old templates as well. So far she’s got Paper Pizzazz and Holly Jolly Christmas ready and in store and All About the Photos and Peek-A-Boo are coming soon! To celebrate she’s put some of them on sale – make sure you check them out in the store!

Some other exciting news – Queen Wild Scraps has a new newsletter and if you like freebies and coupons you should definitely sign up! Here’s a link you can follow to sign up: http://eepurl.com/izwgI

Alright – here’s the kit:

And just the papers:

The kit comes with 23 papers (including 8 glittered edged solids), 52 elements, and an uppercase alpha.

Want to see what the Wild Princesses did with the kit? And there are also some freebies on their blogs – make sure you click on their preview to go to their blog for all the freebies!

Brooke:

And Brooke made you a frame cluster:

Cori:

Donna:

Henriett:

And Henriett made you a freebie too:

Kendra:

And Kendra’s freebie which you can download right here:

Kimberly:

And she has a paper stack for you:

Kortni:

And she has a cluster frame for you:

Lauren:

And she has a cluster frame for you:

Meleah:

Jennifer of Word Art World provided this fabulous template for the January Word Art Challenge over at Gotta Pixel. I really like the idea of a year in review post like my sister did too, so I am combining them in this blog post. Don’t forget you can click on the picture to view it bigger.

Digikits:
Colors of My Life: Dates – Inspired Designs (month markers and fasteners)
Amy’s Designs – Ladybug (red stitching)
Meryl Bartho – Walk on the Wild Side (brown stitching)
Plum Dumpling Designs – The Greatest Gift (square present)
The Latest Scoop Too – The Greatest Gift (tall present)
Dani Moy Designs – Sail With Me (sailing elements)
Summer Driggs – Flipflop-sicles (flip flops & sunglasses)
Connie Prince – Just Imagine (butterfly)
Template: Word Art World – January 2012 Word Art Challenge

January – Pretty routine. Filled with Gymboree music classes and play dates with Jessica’s friends.

February – James and I went to San Francisco for four days without Jessica, our first time leaving her overnight. She had a blast with Nanny and Papa. More music classes and play dates. Mothers of Young Children (MYC) group at the church for me. We conceived Janette around the end of the month.

March – We put our house on the market and had it sold within a week. Lots of house-hunting (we looked at 50+ houses total). More play dates and MYC.

April – Pregnancy confirmed and monthly check-ups start. More househunting. Closing on selling and buying. Moving. MYC.

May – Playdates. MYC. We marked West Virignia off of our 50 states to visit list with a trip with my parents. We celebrated James’ Mom’s 60th birthday.

June – Jessica and I spent a week in Midland while most of the interior our new house was painted. Play dates. We bought Jessica a little wading pool for the backyard and we also started visiting our neighborhood pool. We traveled to Corpus Christi with James’ parents and our nephew Dawson for a little fun. James traveled to Toronto for work.

July – Our new washer, dryer and dishwasher were delivered. The anatomical ultrasound was performed and we decided not to find out the gender. Jessica took swimming lessons. Play dates. Dzubinski family reunion at the Antler’s Inn in Kingsland.

August – Play dates. Jessica started Mother’s Day Out at Abiding Love Lutheran Church.

September – Play dates. MDO. Monthly OB appointments changed to bimonthly appointments. I became the craft coordinator for the new MOPS (Mothers of Preschool Students) group at the church. We visited Midland and helped out after James’ Mom had her knee replaced.

October – OB appointments become weekly. MDO. Play dates. Jessica turned two on the 16th. James turned 32 on the 25th. Janette was born on the 31st, two weeks early.

November – James lost his job in AMD’s 1400 employee reduction in force. Jessica had her first dentist appointment. MDO. Play dates. We spent Thanksgiving with the Dzubinski family at my brother’s house. I turned 31 on the 30th.

December – MDO. Play dates. Jessica really got Christmas this year and enjoyed singing and pointing out baby Jesus. The Dzubinski family Christmas celebration was held the weekend before Christmas at my parents. We also spent a little time with James’ family while in Midland. We went to Christmas Eve service at SHPC and enjoyed Aric and Kristy’s Christmas Day tradition of fondue. James’ parents and our nephew Dawson arrived the day after Christmas and spent the rest of the month visiting us.

*** Updated to add: Due to an unforeseen issue, the release of the digikit has been delayed. It will be released 1/10/11.***

Today is release day for a new scrapping digi-kit by Amy’s Designs called Playground. It is perfect to scrap those photos of your kids at the playground, but it is versatile enough to scrap everyday moments.

I chose to scrap these photos of Jessica at the playground with her friends. Sadly, we won’t be seeing William and Alex at the playground anymore, because they moved to Lubbock.

Digikit: Amy’s Designs – Playground
Template: Connie Prince – Background BBQ
Fonts Used: a song for Jennifer bold (title), BlackJack (journaling)

Journaling reads: Jessica enjoyed playing with her friends Millie, William and Alex. She insisted on holding onto her water cup while playing. Running around the adjacent soccer field was almost more fun than the playground equipment. October 7, 2011 – Circle C Metro Park

Check out what the rest of the creative team came up with here.

Saturday, Janette turned two months old and today she had her two month well check. She weighed in at 12 pounds 2 ounces (75%). This is 5.2 ounces more than her sister at the same age. She measured 23 inches tall (75%) and her head circumference is 37.5 cm (25%). She also got 3 shots and a liquid vaccine. Poor baby did not like the nurse poking her.

Looking through photos to decide which ones would make this post, I felt a little guilty. I have not taken near as many photos of Janette as I did of Jessica by the time she was 2 months old, but I will assuage my guilt by saying with Jessica I took like 12 photos of the same thing in a 3 minute interval whereas with Janette I only take like 1-2 photos in a 3 minute interval. So I’m going to say I’m taking quality photos instead of quantity of photos. The other thing is that Jessica is in a lot of the photos of Janette. I don’t know how to get around that. I do like that Jessica tells me “Janette photo” when she sees me with the camera, so that is helping me get more photos.

Janette is regularly sleeping 6-7 hours at night and last night she slept for 9. There are still 1 or 2 nights a week that she wakes more often, but I am blessed and can’t complain. At night, she has no problem sleeping in the crib. The daytime is a different story. Most of the time, she will wake right up as soon as I put her in the crib, so currently most of her daytime sleeping occurs in the bouncer or swing. There have been a handful of times where she will nap for 30 minutes in the crib, but I haven’t figured out the daytime crib aversion yet. She will also sleep in the car seat, which is fabulous, especially for the long drive to Midand.

She enjoys tummy time. I think some of that is probably because Jessica likes to lay down next to her. Jessica especially likes to put the mirror toy in front of Janette’s face.

Janette is gaining better control of her neck and upper body, allowing her to sit up with support.

So far, she has shown no interest in pacifiers, but being so laid back, there haven’t been too many instances where a pacifier was needed. Recently she has started sucking on her hands a little, but only when she is hungry. The jury is still out on Janette becoming a thumb-sucker, but I think she won’t. She is a drooler though.

It is so amazing to watch Janette watch Jessica or James or me. She is so intent when looking at us.

Janette’s first Christmas was pretty awesome. She didn’t have a problem sitting in Santa’s lap, unlike her sister who decided this year that Santa was not someone she wanted to get near even though she pointed him out on TV with a happy sounding “Santa.”

Janette didn’t mind one bit Jessica helping her open her gifts.

I can’t wait to see what this next month brings.