{happy leap day!}

Leap Day always reminds me of Pirates of Penzance. Don't laugh! It stuck in my head how the pirate dude couldn't marry the girl (I think) because it turned out he was born on Leap Day and was only 1/4 as old as he thought he was. I probably desecrated that, but forgive me - it was years and years ago when I saw the movie version!

I got a new sofa! For months and months I have been searching for the perfect small sectional to replace our ratty, dirty, beat up, cut up couch. I finally found it:





My happy butt is sitting on it right now as I type this. I'm thrilled!

I know I'm very behind on sharing my photos, so I'll share a few of my faves:

Jessie and Alex made sock puppets the other day and even put on a show for the whole family.



We got to see a few of my favorite bands recently: Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, and Seether. It was an awesome show! I accidentally bought floor tickets though, and 3.5 hours in 3" heels is not fun!



I found the coolest thing for my iPod!! Unique Skins is a website that lets you upload your own image to be made into a skin for your device. I designed this one to match my planner, and I am thrilled with how it came out! Easy to apply, and it fits my iPod PERFECTLY!



And this one is my absolute favorite! We were playing Guitar Hero the other night, and Alex decided to jump in as the singer! Look at him rock out!! How cute is that?

{latest layouts}

Some LilyPad goodies:





And a bit of introspection with lots of the latest from {we are} storytellers:



Here's to "leaping" forward! Cheers!

{in heaven}

My Prima box came today!!! I am surrounded by eye candy. Now off to play...

{behind the scenes}

We've had a few technical difficulties that unfortunately forced us to put off opening day. We've all been working frantically, and now have all the bugs fixed! Yay! We will be opening this time, and have a store full of wonderful products! We are so excited, and hope you will be too! It really worked out better for you, because we decided to have a sale ;)

Check out some of the goodies you will be able to grab!



















Hope to see you there!!

I have a ton of Project 363 photos and little anecdotes to share, but that will have to wait a few more days. Busy busy!!

Here's to fresh starts! Cheers!

{the story is about to begin...}

As anticipated, We Are Storytellers will be open today! The official launch time is 5:00 p.m. PST, or 7:00 p.m. CST, my time. We are all very excited, and we know everyone will be very impressed with the site!

I finished up my yearly planner last night. Yes, I'm late, but better late than never, right? I design and print my own planner pages, because I can never find one that I like well enough to keep up with. So this is the one I made:







Each week has a 2-page spread with the day, date, and two mini-calendars at the top. I added some colorful stripes to keep it fresh, but wanted to keep most of it white, so as to not use too much ink (although I ended up cheating and had hubby print all 85 pages for me at work on his laser printer!). I really agonized over the design, and reworked it at least 4 times until I had something I was completely happy with.

Each month also has a two-page spread with a little column on the right to add notes to. This way I can easily see my whole month at a glance. The pages are all made from folded paper, so there is a front and back to each side, with no white space, and no gluing necessary!

I printed the front and back covers on transparencies to give it a bit of weight, and added Emily Power's Transparency Printables to give it a bit of flair (they will be available at Storytellers as well). For the front, I simply added a few basic paper supplies to dress it up: a coaster board that just happened to have the perfect punched holes, some ruler tape, and some Thickers numbers. I removed the binder mechanism from my old planner and added some ribbon, then put all the pages inside!

I also printed out some tabbed dividers on transparencies to make finding each month easy. I'm so happy with how it turned out! Easy to use, and oh so chic! The best part? You can now have one too!



I've packaged all the templates up and included everything I used to make my planner (except for Emily's transparency overlays and the paper products, of course!) so that you can print out and make one too! Make it look just like mine, or add your own papers and touches. It comes with complete, detailed, illustrated instructions, and it is available only at Storytellers.

The colors I used to make the planner coordinate perfectly with the kit that Emily Merritt and I have teamed up to offer you!



This has seriously turned out to be one of my favorite kits! Every paper in this kit would go perfectly as a background to the planner! See what our team members have done so far:































I haven't had time to sit down and play with it yet, but I plan to do that today! Can't wait!

A few more peeks of my other products you will find when the doors open:

{latest layout}

Lastly, here's a little layout I did with the new collab kit by the Powers sisters and Marcie Reckinger:



A little Valentine love :) Happy Valentine's Day! Cheers!

{all is well}

Last Tuesday's storms brought lots of damage and devastation to Memphis. I think there were a total of 8 tornados, and around 55 deaths here in the Midsouth. There was one that touched down only 10 miles from our house. It ripped the roof off of a house and deposited it in the middle of the freeway. Luckily, it completely missed our house. Hubby's office didn't get so lucky. The worst tornado, in South Memphis, that destroyed one of our malls, also made its way through the International Paper headquarters, only a few miles from the mall. It kept Ed home for 2 days while they restored power. There was also significant damage to some of the buildings there. I haven't seen it in person yet, but Ed says you can see the path it took. It was a terrifying night, especially since tornados are my absolute worst fear (even though I've never seen one in person). I have nightmares about them constantly! I feel so blessed that we got so lucky. The power in the house flickered but never went out, and there was lots of wind and rain, but no damage. The sky above our house was a scary sight:



I hope that's the closest I ever come to a tornado!

Not only did we survive the storms, but somehow we managed to survive the flu! 3 of us were sick for a week, and Jessie ended up missing five whole days of school! Alex and Jessie just couldn't get over their fevers. We are all mostly well now, and I'm sure that it won't be long until we are back to normal! After sleeping for 2 whole days, Alex is running around again. It's very serious if it can keep that boy down!





I missed Ash Wednesday services because I was bed-ridden, but I am keeping true to the Lenten season. Fasting for Ash Wednesday. No meat on Fridays. The girls and I are all giving up some sort of treat. So tonight, since I didn't feel like cooking, we ordered Chinese, with shrimp instead of chicken. Yum! Not really much of a sacrifice, huh?



Well, that's it for now. Unfortunately, I have to now tend to the tornado that has hit the inside of my house while Mom was too sick to tidy up! Here's to weathering the storm! Cheers!

{blech}

Not feeling so great today. I feel all achy, and I feel the chills coming. Ew. It's been through Helen, and today Jessie stayed home from school:



Poor thing! And she felt like this just yesterday:



So we're both sitting here watching Hannah Montana. The oldest just walked in from school, and she feels great! So unlike her. She will use any excuse to stay home, so I'm just waiting for her to catch it too ;) She made me cut her hair the other day. I fought like crazy to keep from doing it, but she won in the end, like she usually does. She's a bit extreme, and is not afraid of individuality at all, and I applaud her for that. I tease her and tell her she has "boy hair," but the truth is it's pretty cute on her:



Teenagers.

The wee one is handling it like a trooper. Playing quietly by himself. Snapped this of him the other day:



He doesn't take regular naps. He quit doing that at 1. But occasionally, even he wears out. Wish I were doing that right now!

This is one of his favorite forms of entertainment recently:



Yes, that's a pillowcase over his head. He thinks he's hiding, but he's not fooling anyone. See the little footsies sticking out? heehee

latest layout

Some photos we snapped, preparing for her Valentine's cards. Hopefully we can find time to whip some up before the big day!

Here's to looooooong naps! Cheers!