From Courtney's Closet #25 - an inspiration challenge

Today I'm actually doing a From Carter's Closet!! My little peanut was only about three months old when I took this photo. He had the chubbiest little cheeks as a baby!! You all get to see every week how very thankful I am for my sweet baby girl, but I thought on Thanksgiving I'd share an old photo of my first love. Being a mommy to these two sweeties is certainly the thing I'm most thankful for on this Thanksgiving day! Ok... plus... I never got around to taking a photo of Courtney in one of her outfits before I sat down to work on this card last night, and since we had spent the day at the zoo I felt like making an animal card! So I searched Carter's old photos until I found one that fit the theme! LOL Is that cheating? Nah. :D I used my Spellbinders Labels One dies to cut out the card this week - I've seen these shaped cards around Blogland and have been wanting to try one! I pulled out my beloved Stampin' Up Wild About You set for the elephant - one of the few sets in my stash with solid images - I totally prefer to color so I've finally learned to stop buying solid stamps!! But this is one I make an exception for! But as usual, I wasn't happy with the image after just stamping him, so I went and painted over him with some December Sky Blingz paint. He is soooo shimmery IRL! I am loving that paint! I also put a little Angel Wings Shimmerz on the little butterfly, which is from Papertrey's Butterfly Kisses set. I didn't have any striped DP that I liked for this card, so I went with gingham instead, using strips of three different colors of gingham paper to create the background. I figured if I used gingham, Maria would like it even if nobody else does! :D So does Carter's little jammies inspire you at all?? If so, put the turkey in the oven and head to the stamp room while it roasts! LOL If you make a card this week, make sure and link back here so I can find you. And if you upload to Splitcoast, use keyword FCCC. Last week's little party dress was a hit! And six wonderful ladies liked it enough to jump in and play along! First up, Erin, who joined us for the first (and hopefully not last!) time with this cute card. I *heart* it! (hee hee) :Sue said she didn't have much time for stamping so she threw this one together quickly. Geesh! I wish I could make something so perfect and elegant quickly!!Sharon joined us again (yay!) with this pretty and elegant card:Maria's card is elegant as well, and I just love the way she did the ribbon and button:Berenice's card has a really great background with those diamonds, love that!And this week, my favorite has to be Karen. Isn't this the cutest thing?!? And sooo perfect for the challenge. I just love it - you've really outdone yourself this week Karen!!Thanks everyone for playing!! And thanks everyone else for stopping in to take a peek! I am thankful for so many things this year in addition to my family, and of course one of them is all of the wonderful friends I've made thanks to this little blog!! Your visits and comments truly make my day, I appreciate every single one of them so very much!! Happy Thanksgiving!!

• Stamps: Wild About You and sentiment from Stampin' Up, Butterfly Kisses from Papertrey Ink
• Paper: Ballet Blue, Green Galore, Whisper White, The Paper Studio DP
• Ink: Ballet Blue, Only Orange
• Accessories: Shimmerz/Blingz paints, yellow embroidery foss, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, Nestabilities Labels One dies, rhinestones, black and clear glaze pens

If any of you are curious about our trip to Dallas, I thought I'd share a little update. I have mixed feelings about how it went. The three hour trip each way went ok considering we had two little ones in the car, they both did pretty darn good. The trip back yesterday afternoon was a little less fun thanks to heavy traffic adding an extra hour or so to the trip, but that's to be expected on the busiest travel day of the year I suppose. The night in the hotel room, well - NOT FUN AT ALL!!!! Ugh. I so wish my children would sleep away from home!! I've pretty much sworn off going on any trips until they are grown and out of the house! Ok, maybe not that long... and, well, I do have to take them to Michigan for Christmas... sigh... already not looking forward to the nights up there!! But anyway, we survived. And we had some fun during the days too. Here are a couple photos...
We really enjoyed the Dallas Zoo - it was really nice! Here's Carter at the entrance:We don't really get much fall color here in Texas, but there were several oaks at the zoo, among other trees, and the leaves were really beautiful!It was a fairly chilly morning so we were bundled up - although Courtney didn't enjoy her hood!Here's my little otter drinking his milk:Look Judy, a giraffe!Me and my pumpkin on the monorail, can you tell we didn't get much sleep the night before??Uh-oh!!Thanks for indulging me - sorry this is one of the world's longest posts! And extra sorry if you are on dial-up!