I know I haven't posted in FOREVER :) But it's a New Year!! And this year I'm planning to post more regularly!!  For Thanksgiving, I got a TON of really good photos of the kids… They were really cooperative, posed nicely without me having to say "stop poking your brother" and "don't do that!" "We can take a silly picture if you'll just give me one nice smile…" or even "Good Lord… just let me get ONE nice picture please!"  BUT the "Christmas Photo Shoot" was not exactly the same… There was lots of poking, eye rolling, and general misery :)  Here's my favorite photo of the day… It just about says it all :) It just screams "8 and almost 6" to me… I wish I had this one before I made the Christmas Cards… Alas, I'll have to settle for a page in a scrapbook album and here in my blog :)

 
  

On another fun note, we took a little impromptu visit to NYC just before New Years… I didn't bring the big camera and only had my phone… but here's one of my favorite pics of the kids with the Statue of Liberty in the background… It was pretty darn cold, but we had a blast!

Congratulations to Ms. Jackie for winning the Zutter prize from our blog hop…

Posted by: Ms. Jackie | October 21, 2009 at 10:07 PM "

Please send an email to nan at binditall.com with your shipping address so that she can send out your prize. Please put Blog Hop Winner in your subject

 

(To choose a winner, I listed all of the comments from my blog and gallery because it was cross posted… Then I used Random.org to choose a number… Congrats to Ms. Jackie!!!!)

 

 

**This is cross-posted on my design gallery blog… Link under my photo on the left :) You can see more zutter projects there**

I can't believe that it's already been a year on the Zutter Design Team… It seems like just yesterday we were on our way to the Ice Cream Social at the kids' school when I checked my email and squealed loud enough to concern my husband while he was driving!!! And here we are, just over a year later having been dubbed the "OZZ" (AKA Original Zutter Zisters)

At the end of our reign, our fabulous DT leader (Nan) had the idea that we should commemorate they year with a swap… So we each designed a set of 8×8 pages with a picture of ourselves, and a collage of our favorite projects from everyone else!! What a fabulous idea!!! Our last package included a complete set of everyone's pages, and also, a DT TShirt (wrapped in a pretty name-tag, which I used on my inside cover…) and the wonderful new coveralls with the matching page protectors!!!  The new page protectors are fabulous, I have the ones that you can re-position without un-binding!!! Brilliant!!

Before I show pics of my completed book, my "Year of OZZ" Lets get to the giveaway!! Each of us who are participating will be giving away an 8×8 coverall, and a set of page protectors!! All you have to do to enter is to post a comment here on this post… I'll randomly pick a winner from all the comments on 10/26. I hope you all enjoy this project as much as I did making it!! **Don't forget to visit the other OZZ'ers blogs(their links are in the sidebar) to enter their contests as well**

I had such a wonderful time on the Zutter team!! It was my first manufacturer team, and I've spent the year making some of my most favorite projects!! I'm thrilled that we'll be staying on as OZZ, so you'll still be seeing lots of Zutter projects :) Actually, you would anyway because I love mini-books, and Zutter makes them so easy :)  Anyway, without further ado :) Here's my OZZ book :)

 

Supplies Used:

Zutter 8×8 CoverAll (designed for page protectors)

Zutter 8×8 pre-punched page protectors (repositionable)

Patterned papers: The center of the cover, and the inside cover is 7gypsies, the rest (including the punchout letters) are Graphic 45

Prima flower

7 Gypsies clips and "announcing" tag

Robin's Nest Dew Drops

My layout used DCWV patterned papers :)

 
 
 
 

We'd love for you to all meet Finley :) He's our 5 month old goldendoodle puppy (who's clearly more golden than doodle!! :) )… We've had him for just over 2 weeks… He came to us housebroken (YEAH!!! And THANK YOU to his fabulous breeder!!!!) And he's just the sweetest pup ever (and we're not biased at ALL :)

oh my goodness!!  Well, you can't ever accuse us of doing something half-way :) Yesterday I was in the car, riding home from the American Girl Store and Bistro where Kathryn, Maureen and I had a fabulous lunch and shopping spree… Mike called my cell phone, and simply asked "How much does Sean weigh?"  I told him, and he said thanks and hung up… hmmmm… cryptic :)

So, we got home, and here comes Mike and Sean in the newest contraption… It's a "trail bike" which is essentially a small bike (just back wheel) that hooks to the larger bike and works almost like a bicycle-built-for-two, but for an adult and child… My bike is among the missing, so we went and got me a bike and a trail bike for Kathryn too…

Today we went to the Nashua River Rail Trail… It's a fabulous paved trail that follows an old railroad line… Lots of space for walkers, runners, rollerbladers, bikers and horses too!!! and because we don't ever do something half-way, wound up riding 15 miles total (I can't feel my legs, but I think they'll be OK later :) )… Kathryn was pretty unsure about the whole thing in the beginning, and I'm pretty sure she didn't move her feet on the pedals even once… BUT it was so much fun!!  Here's just a couple of pics from my phone…

Getting ready to take off… THat's my fabulous new bike, and Kathryn's ride-along :)

  Kathryn on her seat behind me (we weren't moving at the time :) I'm not that coordinated!)

Sean and Mike ready to go

Sean at a pit stop (they had to stop and wait for us slow-pokes quite a few times)