January 2021 Highlights

 Here's what we were up to the first month of 2021!

Indoor dining opened back up so we went to our local Red Robin for the first time. It was okay, lol. But we had fun and spent time together as a family and I will always cherish those memories!

Jane coloring while waiting for our food at Red Robin.

Date night! We tried a local restaurant called Old Blinking Light for the first time. It was also just okay lol. I'm glad we tried it, but we love Cafe Rio the absolute most :)

Then we went and saw Wonder Woman 1984 in the theater - I LOVED it! Totally entertained the entire time.

I took myself to see The Little Things on Saturday. Not so good. Tough crowd lolol!

Netflix released Cobra Kai season 3 a whole week early, woohoo!! I loved it so much I'm watching the entire series again as I walk daily on the treadmill. I smile so big the whole time I'm walking, I'm such a noob.

We watched a couple episodes and we weren't understanding who some of the people and references were, so we went back and watched the original Karate Kid trilogy. I've seen the first one many times, but never II and III. And now Cobra Kai makes perfect sense!

The Bachelor premiered and Chris and I watch it together every Tuesday night. So entertaining.

On my own I've caught up on Bargain Mansions - Tamara Day is my FAVORITE designer. I love how she mixes and matches so many textures, metals, and colors.

We finished watching Bosch. The first season was AWESOME. The last 5 were just okay.

January 1st I posted this on instagram stories and it's been a pretty good month keeping up with doing workout videos three times a week.

I also accomplished my goal of walking 10,000 steps every single day!

Proof from my fitibit:

We go to in-person church every other Sunday and the other Sundays we watch a live YouTube stream at home. The kids' babysitter gave a talk, they thought that was pretty awesome to see her on TV.

First signs of spring and the flowers that will bloom soon! This brings me sooooo much joy! Flower season is my favorite season and here is living proof that it's on the way!

You've seen this view many times on here - it never gets old :)

One of my goals this month was to go on a new walking route - I accomplished this goal on January 31st - cuttin' it close! :)

I walked to the other side of the windmill (you can see it on the far left of the scenic view two photos above) and then made my way home. It was all downhill the way there and all uphill on the way back so I was pooped at the end. Next time I'm going to try walking north and see where those trails take me!

We saw The Emperor's New Groove together as a family in the theater. I have always loved that movie, it's hysterical. Then the next week I took Fox & Jane to see The Lego Movie in the theater. I've listened to it more times than I can count on various road trips when we lived in Germany and the kids were watching it in the back, but this was the first time I've SEEN it and I loved it! Jane filling her own slurpee cup and Fox filling his own soda cup. They're getting so independent!

We went to Yogurtland for the first time in almost a year. The flavors were limited and no fresh fruit toppings but it was still yummy with the yogurt chips.

Cafe Rio. Sabroso's. Bethany's chicken tacos. Not pictured: lots of Taco Bell. We love tacos and burritos :)

Have you had Crumbl cookies? They are soooo yummy. One opened up about 20 minutes away the summer of 2019 and we get them every once in awhile if a flavor is really enticing. Then they announced they were opening one just 5 minutes away! YAY! And also, uh oh lol. Each cookie can have like 1000 calories, but it's so worth it :) They were supposed to open up in October but like most things this past year it kept getting delayed because of various coronavirus related issues. Then I noticed on Google maps it was set to open up on a Thursday, woot woot! AAAaaand Pumpkin was a flavor that week! I'm so there! I went on opening day and got a box. Yum.

Sweet Jane is always up for me taking photos of her. I scrapped these right away to share on the first day of 2021.

We did a GNO to Kneaders on the first day restaurants opened back up.

I practice piano with the kids every day except Monday when their real teacher comes over. Jane has gotten so good! So has Fox! April will be 2 years since they started lessons and I'm so proud of both of them. The most tender moments happened when I started singing along to one of her songs and then SHE'D ask if I wanted to sing while she played, even though she'd completed that song and wasn't required to practice it anymore. She really WANTED to play it! So precious.

Wishing everyone a happy scrappy weekend!

The kids started going back to in-person school after winter break.

Me when I put in some effort 4 times this month haha.

I loved the Poldark television series sooo much that I asked for the books for Christmas and I started the first one. So far so good!

New rainbow sneakers! Zsoka sent me the link to a flower Lego bouquet and I was allll over that! I can't kill plastic flowers!

Our stairs finally got finished, woohoo!!

We picked out cabinets and counters for our reno that starts in three weeks. I'm super scared but also super excited. We're staying here through the reno so I might get a little cranky lololol.

Picking tile and backsplash.

Our washing machine malfunctioned so we had a plumber over to fix it. Apparently there is something we're supposed to clean out once in awhile and we hadn't done that the entire almost 3 years we've lived here (the washer/dryer set came with the house). Whoops. Sometimes I feel like I don't know anything about being a homeowner. Is there a 101 class of things you're supposed to maintain and check and how often? Asking for a friend ;)

Hi Joey!

Rachel montage. She's the most photographed specimen in our house because she's always with me.

It's been awhile since it snowed and then it did. The most wintery days are still to come in February and March.

A couple days later I had the AC on in the car because it was so hot. I truly love Denver weather.

On the scrappy front!

Here are the projects I made and shared here on the blog in January:

Butterfly Layout // Valentine's Day Memory Explosion Box Zoom Class // Planner Plans
Flower MemoryDex Card // Feather Friends Layout // Small Memory Explosion Box
Adventure Layout // Large Memory Explosion Box // Hawaii Layout

I gave away 5 free cut files in my Happy Scrappy Place Facebook group as well as one in a Newsletter and designed a New Year bundle:

One of the highlights was the release of my new Wonders collection!

Wonders starts shipping in March and I'm so excited to send out the pre-orders and create tons of new projects with it.

Also announced was my collaboration with We R Memory Keepers for a selection of 4x4 albums!!! These start shipping in April and I'm soooo excited to use them and not have them be so hard to find anymore!

I received some bad news and went into a funk for a couple weeks. But then I decided to turn it around and make it something positive! More details coming soon :)

Snippets of my office.

Excited to be on the Scrapbook & Cards Today creative team for another year and continue in my role as Creative Editor!

I posted "Ask me a question or show you a photo of?" in my stories and loved answering some of them. Hopefully you can click on this photo below to enlarge and read some of the responses.

How do you store your washi tape? I keep Christmas, Halloween, Maggie Holmes themed, and "extra" washi rolls on embroidery hoops.

And then I have other collections wrapped around tags. I plan to use these in my planner.

Speaking of planners, I have kept up with an entire month of planning documenting! Here is the cart where I keep my supplies. Every Saturday morning I print pictures from the past week and write about our days. Throughout the week I keep track of our daily activities so I can recall them on Saturday. I think I finally have a system that works!

I spruced up my planner/documenter with a super cute charm from Emily Inspired Designs. All the charms I use on my December Dailies and October Occasionally mini albums are from her and Shara Crane.

The other huge scrappy thing that happened in January was the release of my Memory Explosion Box Recollections endcap in Michaels!

So surreal seeing it with my own two eyes for the first time!

Heeeeey!

The pretty pastel products in the collection.

Have you signed up for my Zoom class on Thursday?!

Fox doing a happy dance seeing himself on the signage :)

I had a few friends over to make Memory Explosion Boxes - recap coming soon!

Soooo fun seeing everyone share their photos of the endcap!

I am wanting to add more original art to our empty walls and picked up these two flower paintings by the uber talented Dawn McVey.

Tamara Day (from Bargain Mansions) has a shop with her favorite things so I scooped up these two colorful prints:

Etta Vee's father in law is also a painter and recently opened an Etsy shop - GilRaulet22. I got this painting for Christmas and it arrived in the mail recently. It's a beautiful landscape of somewhere in France. I love the pink sky.

Last but not least:

Here's to another fun-filled month!