Remembering my Dad

While we are all getting things ready to welcome the year
I am remembering my Dad that passed away 2 years ago today
after losing his battle with cancer.

In August I did this layout for challenge #2 at The Story Matters.

It asked what you would do if you had 30 days, and I wrote

I would take 1 picture a day of my dad with you 2 girls from December 1st 2006 until December 31st 2006 when he lost his battle with cancer.
I would record his voice from December 1st 2006 until December 31st 2006 telling you where he was from, his favorite song and his advise on life.
I would THANK him for 30 days for loving us so much and NOT have waited until December 31st 2006.

This is something that hunted me every day until I finally put it on paper that day, it still eats at me that I never told my Dad how grateful I was that he LOVED my mom the way he did, especially since he married her knowing she had 3 kids and 2 of us (one of them being me) were bad @$$ kids for the first few years.

I am thankful for this wonderful hobby and for the challenge blogs that have taught me how to express myself better and how to journal it all, this has been a therapeutic experience like no other.

On a lighter note, I want to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR and may 2009 bring you all HAPPINESS, HEALTH, UNITY, CREATIVITY and nothing but the best.
See you in 2009, hugs.... Maryangella

Yet another ear infection

This Saturday I was supposed to get together with Jiggy Jen and my sister in law Amanda to scrap but plans had to be changed since Soli had a 102 fever Friday night for the second day in a row. The girls came over to my house to scrap instead, but before that we headed to THE PAPER NICHE. because they were having a 50% off everything SALE!!!!!! Yep ladies, needless to say we lost our ever loving minds, well...I did since I am just out of control like that ;D ;D ;D .

I would rather buy papers than a pair of shoes, now you get the point right?

After that we headed home where as soon as I was ready to start scrapping I noticed that Solimar was burning up again...so off we were to Pediatrics Associates I kid you not, I am 1 visit away from getting my own VIP card to that place, we are there almost every month.

The doctor confirmed that fact that she had not 1 but double ear infections and gave a a prescription and off we went. Here are 2 layouts I managed to do once we got home.

The first layout was for my sister in law, she had this picture sitting amongst 500 others in a box and I thought the papers were perfect for it and I used the left over papers for my second layout and my new Tim Holtz mask letters to spell out Angel. Loving the Scenic Route papers right about now!

Thank you for stopping by and have a great day!

I believe in Santa

Hello all, I hope you have been enjoying your time with your family.
Like I said before, I love this time of the year because of the magic that in brings.

The Story Matters. has this wonderful challenge that happens to end today... nothing
like waiting 'till the last day right? Things have been crazy but I took a few minutes out
of my crazy life and whipped out this layout.





This is a picture I took of the goodies the girls had left Santa and his reindeers after he dropped off the gifts and I included on the layout the little THANK YOU note he left the girls. Santa ate 14 1/2 cookies ;D Hope you like it.

Have a wonderful week.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our HAPPY home to yours!



As crazy as this time of year is, between Soli's birthday, school brake, parties, Elf duties that can drive a mom crazy...this is what makes it all worth it.


Per Angejolie's request (DEMAND) we baked cookies for Santa.


Left carrots for the reindeers and milk for Santa



.....And this is what REALLY makes it all worth it


This year AJ asked for DS games (those games can brake Santa's bank) and all Soli cared about was her Baby Alive.


Grandma and Happy came over with Hallie and Riley to give the girls their gifts, that's the beauty of living next door to my in laws, The 411 on Grandma and Happy is that they are H and R's grandparents but our girls consider them their grandparents too.

I love this time of the year because I get to live it through our girls eyes and the best part of it is that I will get to scrap it all for them to relive it one day.

This is us last night for Noche Buena

Note to self...never ever again ask my brother to take a picture of us.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.

Trying something out

Hello there!

I was reading Sasha's. blog and she had a little tip on making your layouts look brighter when you post them so I decided to try it out. Let's see if this one looks better than the one bellow.



There is still a lot that I need to learn about this wonderful hobby but thanks to great people like Sasha. I learn something new just about every day.

Second try at challenge 27

OK, so I feel a little silly.
I did a layout the other day for SCRAPMOJO.
and because I 1/2 read it due to the "mommy she pulled my hair" "I no pull hair, I hit" "mommy can we have ice cream" well you get the point..... I did not use a favorite Christmas quote, so I did an entire new layout :)

For the ALL I WANT quote I painted over some colorful letter with white paint and while they were wet I covered them with some Martha Stewart glitter, I stickled anything and everything I could stickle :D and I thought it would be cute to exacto the candy cane, tree etc... instead of letting them be hidden by the black cardstock.

Can you tell I LOVE me some Sassafras papers? :D Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Friday.

Challenge 27

OK, so I have never ever done a challenge at SCRAPMOJO. because to be honest with you they are so cool, funky of the chain.....well, you get the point, that I have always been SCuuuRED to submit anything. But today I got the guts to submit this double layout.









I used the pictures that we took at the beach 2 Sundays ago for our Christmas picutre.
All you had to do was a layout and add some bling. My bling was not only the letters but I also stickled the noses, the trees and the cherries. And why did I do 2? I'm all about the WANT NOT WASTE NOT! So I flipped the paper, slapped on another picture and added the scraps.

Thanks for stopping by and checking what I'm up to. Have a great night.

Sketch #6

Here is a layout that I did using sketch #6 made by the talented Anne-Marie from INSPIRED BLUEPRINTS. This has got to be one one my favorite sketches ever because I created a layout that is so out of my comfort zone with stickers and stickles and I am extremely please with. This page is of Angejolie when she was 1 year and 4 months old, She fractured her arm when she tripped. I know a lot of people would wonder what kind of a craxy mom takes pictures of her baby while in the ER and my answer is a mom that has but 1 picture of herself at the age of 8. I want our girls to have as many memories of their lives, the good times as well as the bad times :)







If you have not yet checked out INSPIRED BLUEPRINTS. swing by and take a look.
The sketches are awesome and the ladies have nothing but love for each other.

(12/17/08) I had to change it one more time...I know I am COU COU like that ;D
The little Live card was just not centered to my liking, so I decided to add a Maya Road swirl.


I also added some ribbons to my layout of the day Solimar was born, now I am happy with it and have it on my dresser to look at every morning.



Have a wonderful hump day ladies and thank you for checking out my blog

2 posts in 1 day and long as heck

So this is what I woke up to this morning, our beautiful birthday girl

I tried to get a picture of the 2 of us since Roger and Angejolie were gone to work and school and this is the best that I could do because SoliSol was not having it.


I still can not believe that my baby is 2.

Here is my birthday girl blowing her candle


Being a big girl and cutting her cake


Enjoying her cake




And here is a layout I did last night of the moment Solimar was placed in my arms.
Don't worry...I might be in a tub but I am wearing a brallette (misspelled?)

I wrote "this is the very moment that I fell in love with you"

Thank you for reading, have a great night... Oh yeah! Socia, feel free to leave a message, all you have to do is click on leave a comment and even though you do not have a blog you can hit anonymous and just type your name at the end of your message ;)

2 years ago today

Our beautiful Solimar joined our family.

At around 7 am as I was finishing Angejolie's layout for her school yearbook and getting ready to go to her school Christmas play... when a little voice in me told me to go to The Miami Birthing Center and get checked since these braxton hicks contractions were non stop. As I got there at 7:40 am I remember Carole (one of the greatest midwife) met me in the parking lot and asked me who had driven me there... my answer "ME" since my husband was at work. She took me inside and checked me, she said I was 5 cm dilated, so I asked her if I could go to AJ's school play and promised to be back in 2 hours since my labor with AJ was 31 hours, she told me "NO" well a few minutes later she checked me and I was 7 cm dilated so I called Roger and told him he needed to get here ASAP. Now for those of you who live in South FLA, my husband was by i75 and 595 and had to head East...that traffic in the morning is a you know what so thank God for his siren and lights because not even 1/2 an hour later I was 9 cm dilated in the tub and ready to do my thing and in came my Roger and a few minutes later came Solimar. From beginning to end it all took 1 hour and 35 minutes.









No one made it in time to see her be born since it all happened so fast. Angejolie was so disappointed because she wanted to be there to see her little come into the worl but she got to be the first one to hold her so she was happy about that.





I just noticed the painting in the background. what's up with that? ;D I hope they got rid of it.


Some people thought and still think we were crazy for having Solimar in at The Miami Birthing Center but truth be told it was 300 times better than my delivery at the hospital with Angejolie.

And Cherie the head midwife has delivered over 10,000 babies in the past 25 years and not only in the US but all over the world, including in countries were there was no power while she was volunteering + I had 4 AWESOME midwives with me the entire time...well... all 1 hour and 15 minutes but they were great.

Now my baby is 2, speaking her mind and keeping us on our toes, how times has flown.

Here she is playing with the Christmas lights




Thank you for reading this long post.

Have a wonderful week.

Christmas mini book

My mom has been asking me for a little book of pictures, so I decided to make her a mini Christmas album. I got my inspiration from HERE. This woman is off the chain.























Sorry for the NOT SO GOOD pictures but I took them indoors at night.

Mini books are so NOT my thing but I will do just about anything to make my Mima happy.
I tried to keep it as simple as possible because if you know me... I can get crazy witht the layering of papers and my Mom is a plain old album kinda gal.

Can I just tell you that she LOVED it!

Anyhow, I hope you have had a wonderful week and that you have an even better weekend.