I'm so thrilled to announce I have a new site. Please come and visit me at www.heidisonboul.com
Thank you for following this blog for the last 6 years. The new site will go live tonight at midnight PST.

~H

So I'm running on 1.5 hours of sleep. I stayed up all night long working on the coding/linking of the site and just as I slipped into bed, Bradley greeted me and asked for Breakfast. Bummer! I honestly think these are the biggest bags I've ever had under my eyes. Lucky for me it's sunny weather outside, so I can rock sunglasses.

We are now done with 80% of the site and I can tell these last 2 days are going to be a mad dash to get everything perfect. I'm pretty sure it's my fault for making the work load so heavy, but I really want it to be da bomb before we show it to the world. Hey, so do you want another sneak peek?

What's a blog party without a ton of giveaways?!
When I first started working on the book, I had a lot of product donated to me and it made making the book feel like a picnic in the park. In fact I felt spoiled..almost like I was a 5 years old on Christmas morning. Once the book was finished, I contacted all the same companies and they were once again good to me... and now you ;)




Here is the giveaway line up this next week:
GCD Studios, Fiskars, American Crafts, Crate Paper, Studio Calico, My Mind’s Eye, Craft Junction, October Afternoon, Technique Tuesday AND let me tell you... they are all NEW collections and tools.


Some of you have already bought the online book and I'm dying to know what you think! Please do share a comment and let me know. For those that are waiting for the book, here is another sneak peek. This layout is one of my favorites in the book. It might be because Calvin is on it and he has the world's greatest chubby kissable cheeks.

Surprise! It's an early sneak peek of my alphabet chapter. Out of all the chapters in the book, this one is my favorite. I challenged myself to make a layout for every letter in the alphabet and it wasn't easy. When I got to Mm I thought "I don't know if I'll make it", but I pushed on and made it all the way to Zz. Each letter represents something different... from a technique, to a theme or a design. Xx was a tricky one until I figured out that I could do cross stitching for it. Yeah I know it's kinda cheating, but really... what works for X other than that?! haha



In about two weeks I'll show a real easy way to create this look, in a class and how to stay in form.


And if you haven't heard... you can now pre-order the book. The first batch of pre orders are going fast, so make sure to get it now. That way it won't be on back order for you. Before I go I wanted to thank everyone for their support and friendship. It means so much to me and I'm pretty sure this is why I love the scrapbook world so much. A whole lot of sisterhood.

We spent the weekend tending to our check list and I'm happy to say "we finally started our spring cleaning"! Oh man... the amount of dust we found was scary! We vacuumed in corners and organized piles from the last 4 months. The best part was, we only got to the front room and the boy's room. Being on bed rest for 3 weeks caused our house to look like a bomb went off in it and even though the boys hated cleaning, I enjoyed the smell of a dust free room and cleaning products. Sure there are more corners I need to get to, but at least we got 2 rooms completely done. Oh and we finally pushed the hutch into place. That thing has to way at least 2 hundred pounds!

The other item on our list : Finish Building My New Site

This week has been the week of field trips for Bradley's class and I was lucky enough to go on both. Both of the field trips had TONS of walking and going up hills, so I got in a lot of workouts (which is a good thing). In fact my legs are feeling a little sore and I have an awkward sunburn within my hair part. Isn't that the worst place to get a sunburn?!
So just for fun and because Bradley LOVES seeing himself on my blog, I thought I would share the photos



This last photo is of my face. Totally sunburned! Can someone say "I forgot my sunscreen"? Oh and I just found out we are going on another field trip next week. This school is so fantastic!!!!! What school goes on 4 field trips in 1 month?! Umm... our school! Oh and do you see the photo of the Lucha Libre Mask? Yep - I bought two of them for the boys. Thanks Olvera Street.

And before I go... I also wanted to share this new cover of the PaperCut Magazine. It took me forever to make these birds. Like FOREVER! I know it doesn't look like they should, but they totally did! Forming their bodies with wire and paper mache took me the whole day... I know.  So lame, but they look uber darn cute. Right?...RIGHT?! lol



I hope you all have a good weekend. Our family will be spending it cleaning and THIS MOM is so thrilled about it! CHA+The Book+The Miscarriage= ONE MESSY HOME!

P.S. DON'T FORGET about this post and my Book Release Party on April 29th-May 3rd. Make sure to follow my blog for the updates. There will be lots more coming.

I wish I can begin to tell you how much the boys LOVED this! If you haven't heard of it before it's called water zorbing, but I think it should be called hamstering. Ya know... being that they look like hamsters in a ball. Mr. Sonboul wanted to stand up so bad and it's really hard to do. Most people can't even get up and he was able to stand up for a few seconds... a few times. Must be all the P90. This was one of the items on our Spring Break list and it was a hit. lol we loved it so much that when we came home I was pricing them for summer time.

No... your eyes are not deceiving you! I made a layout for my blog and I'm posting about it... Can you believe it?!

Yesterday I was finally feeling up to some crafting time and so I pulled out all my supplies from the Craft Junctions March Kits. I used a combo of two kits, but most of the papers came from here. If you've looked at my blog this past weekend, I'm pretty sure you'll notice these photos too. They are from this post. So lots of links to look at. Fun right?!

I wanted to keep the layout's color tones warm and yet at the same time... soft. Almost like a sunrise color scheme. The crafty bug has bit me again and it felt so good to scrapbook. While I was on bed rest, I looked at all my crafty friend's blogs and I felt so inspired by all their work. It was nice to just absorb the talents of others, so that when I picked up my scissors... I was ready to work. Oh and speaking of other scrapbookers... my sweet and sassy fun sister in law made a few layouts herself. I thought she did such a great job and I wanted to share the link to them. If you are a scrapper... go leave her some love HERE.


There will be TONS of giveaways of product I used in the book and fun sneaks of the chapters and other goodies :) I hope you stop by and join me on this REALLY BIG moment in my scrappy life. Thanks for being a friend

~H

We seemed to be the last school on Spring Break, which was perfect when going to Disneyland. We walked on almost every ride and the longest we waited was around 30 minutes for a bigger rides. Which again... is not bad at all. With all the sadness in our lives, we wanted to do something special for the boys and decided to take them to the happiest place on earth. Thanks to Uncle Jimmy... we got in for free :)



This was the first time Bradley went on Space Mountain and he is now officially hooked. Calvin decided not to go on it, so Bradley and Mr. Sonboul took our fast passes and went a second time. I think we heard Bradley scream "IT WAS AWESOME" and kabillion times.

A Funny Calvin Fact:
He likes to act super tough on the outside, but he is super tender on the inside. Almost every ride we wanted to go on (like Buzz Light Year) Calvin said "I'm scared and I don't want to get on it". The last time we took him to Disneyland was when he was 3, so he didn't remember any of the rides. Getting him on any ride was just like this photo and every time he got off the ride he would say: "I LOVE THAT RIDE!!! It was totally awesome"! So being the "good" parents that we are, we forced him to get on all the rides...except for the really big rides. Besides he was too short for those anyways.

Later in the day Calvin got picked to train in the Jedi Academy. This photo makes me laugh every time I see it... being that he was staring down Darth Vedar. haha


We let the boys take their chore allowance along. They both bought a sword which was around 5 bucks. Now that we are home, they have been playing pirates for days. So I can say it was money well spent by the boys. Oh and because we saved so much money on getting in Disneyland, we went for a yummy mexican dinner. Dude, it was $50 for the 4 of us.... Disneyland you are so crazy! Let me tell you though, it was delicious AND that salsa KICKED this white girls butt! I even had to spit it out. I know... real classy, but really it was CRAZY hot! It had be begging for water.

We are sad that Spring Break is over, but it was time well spent. While on our break we did all of this:

• Visited the Beach and built a sand castle
• Had a Redo of Easter
• Had a cousin spend the night
• Played tons of board games and the Wii here and there
• Ate amazing food everyday
• Went Miniature Golfing
• Slick track diving/go carts
• Held and visited our neighbor's birds
• Went to the movies
• Visited the LA Temple
• Went to Diddy Riese for ice cook sandwhiches 
• Went to Disneyland and rode a TON of rides
• Went to the Cube
• Slept in
• Went water zorbing
• Went to a bubble show...which was AMAZING!

• Breakfast: waffles, whipped cream, and fresh strawberries 
• Lunch: Fettuccine alfredo with tomatoes and salad
• Dinner: Bakes potatoes, steak and salad. 
• Treats: Mini root beer floats. 

All of it was so good and it made Conference even more fun.

So to help us all heal, we have been packing our week with magical family moments. Visiting the surf and sand...was a perfect spontaneous moment and with normal clothes on, we played in the wave and then built a sand castle. When we put the finishing touches on the castle, we waited for the shore to fill the moat and when it did... we were so excited. There were only a few people at the beach, so we felt like kings and were able to just be goofy.

Later that night when Calvin was asked to bless the food, he asked in prayer that "mommy would have another baby soon and that it won't die. That the baby won't take long to grow". All his prayers have this same theme and longing to be a big brother. Yes it was the perfect day at the beach filled with laughter and joy, but we all have this aching lingering in our hearts and it's not that we are trying to ignore it... but to just deal with it. That part hurts too.

So today. Today I can breathe and it feels nice. We all seem to hug each other a little tighter and longer, since the big loss. That even though the baby isn't with us any more, we are all so much closer.