My one and only New Year's Resolution

I'm way excited about an idea I found off of CreatingKeepsakes.  It's called Project365.  It's a way to document a year by taking a photo every day.  A kit by Becky Higgins is the focus of their project.  I was thinking about buying the kit, but knew that if it involve printing pictures in 4x6 fashion I would never do it consistently.  It's perfect for those who work with prints but I was thinking I wanted to do it digitally and was thinking it would be cool if a digital designer would make templates.   I was over the moon excited tonight to sign into my LiveMail blog feeds to find Meredith at Moriginals is creating templates for just that purpose.

And.... One of my favorite designers, Pam at Digitreats is doing a year in review "megakit" in 3 color schemes called, smirk, giggle, and shout.  And she does a monthly calendar template which I will use at the start of a new month so my book will all co-ordinate throughout the year.  So cool! 

And if I run out of ideas of what to take pictures of other than my smiling (or not so smiling) kiddos I found a list of 365 ideas to use. So I think this is a resolution I can keep.  I'm even setting daily reminder in my phonebook to remind me to take my pictures. 

Now I just need to get an Eye-Fi card make downloading pictures completely efortless!

Octa-claus

For weeks Trevor has been talking non stop about "enemies"  I could not figure out where on earth he picked up that word.  Tonight at bedtime I told him we would go see Santa Claus.  He said, "tell octa-claus enemy for kiss-mas, choo-choos, James, Henry, and uhhhh Harwold, and uhhhh enemy.  Yeah, enemy."

Light bulb moment... enemy = Emily.  Whew, he's to young to have any enemies!  It's funny because most of the words he says with perfect enunciation but a few things leave me scratching my head.

Something that has left us puzzled for more than a month now is his constant use of the word "fawk-horse" it sounds slightly naughty.  I think it has something to do with Thomas, and he seems to use it most when playing with something that has a trailer.  Any ideas?  Unfortunately a google search of fawk-horse did not help me out.

Completely unrelated but equally funny was something that happened at work today.  A woman runs into our store about an hour before close and said, "I dis wanna look at sum glasses real quick"  I told her, "you have plenty time we don't close until 7."  She replied with a wag of her head, "Dat's not what your dow-r seys."  Mmmm-kay our door has a sign I typed that says please use other door with an arrow pointing to the other door.  It's been super windy and was blowing open so I latched the one side.  Apparently an arrow is universal sign for closed.  So as her husband tried on some frames I heard her exclaim, "shiiiit you look like frankenstein!"  It left me wondering what kind of glasses exactly would frankenstein wear. 

Will I ever get a nice family portrait

I had this super cute dress for Jayden that I planned to use for Christmas family photos.  I wanted a coordinating outfit for Trevor in red, black, and white.  I searched every store in the mall and all the suitable boys holiday attire had navy blue in it, while all of the girls clothes were all red and black.  Why oh why is this?  I finally found the perfect sweater at Old Navy and it was on sale.  Then I just had to find black slacks for him to match.  One wouldn't think this should be that difficult.  Again I went to every store in the mall and Target.  No luck.  The closest I came was 2t black sweat pants at Walmart.

Fast forward to the next day, picture day, all was going good.  The kids were excited and I promised Trevor if he was good he would get to go see "Octa-claus"  (Santa Claus in Trevor speak)  He said he would, "Say cheese, smile."  The photographer arranged us and did his thing.  Trevor was smiling nicely and the photographer snapped one picture but Jayden was scowling.  The next ten minutes were spent trying to get Jayden to smile and Trevor was still cooperating.  But Jayden wanted no part of it, finally by the time she cracked a little smile, Trevor was D.O.N.E.  He had a full scale meltdown and we gave up.  We had to drag him out of the studio and carry him through the store screaming.

The scheduled us for 5pm to try again.  But I decided to give up and not even try.  It's just not worth the hassle.  Maybe in another 3 or 4 years I can get a decent family picture.  So there's no evidence of our little photo shoot.  But, here is a picture of their super cute clothes.   I guess you'll have to take my word for it how extremely adorable they were.

It's Real Life: STORE IT: KITCHEN

  

     I told myself next time Jessica had a It's Real Life I would play.  Much to my chagrin it was the kitchen.  My kitchen is a bit of a mess, so here it is!  The photos are of course not staged and are not photoshopped, except for a little bit of cropping and exposure correction in a few.

 

I don't use "tupperware" I use gladware.  It's so much cheaper and stacks so nicely.  Why is it that the containers always disappear (or is it the lids reproduce?)  The lower shelf has my recipe binder for recipes that I've printed.  There's also the cookbook "Deceptively Delicious"  I use to try and sneak veggies into everything.  Most times Trevor isn't fooled.

Stainless steal container that holds all my cooking utensils, I love bamboo spoons.

2 baby bottle drying racks that hold sippy's and other misc. plastic things while they drip dry, they never get dry in the dishwasher.

This is pretty much the extent of cleaning supplies I use.  I guess I do use dishwasher detergent.  Very vinegar spray with a little tea tree oil.  A bottle of foaming dish soap.  I just keep refilling it with very diluted dishsoap.  Perfect for a little squirt when cleaning pots and pans, everything else goes in the dishwasher.  I don't imagine it would work as good for washing a sink of dishes

A very poorly used space, this is where appliances such as my food processor, blender, and who knows what else gets piled up, there's an identical cabinet below crammed to the brim.  In this cabinet is also my magic bullet which I love and use all the time.

The green and white thing my vidalia chop wizard which I think is one of the best inventions ever.  I gave it to everyone for Christmas last year.

This is where we "wee-cycle".  It's a really grimy landing on our basement stairs.  Muddy dogs stained the brick and it never comes clean.  Oh and that nice hole in the wall is where Cheyenne (our former Great Dane) decided to snack on drywall.  Repeatedly!

This is my compost bin, I just started composting in the fall so we'll see how it goes.

 

My favorite part of the kitchen and probably the only thing that will remain when when we remodel in a few years.  I love my pantry, it's one of the things that I fell in love with when we looked at this house.

My laptop is my cookbook!  I use Mastercook software after trying about 5 different  programs, I think this one is the best.  I have a stepstool I put my laptop on though so if there is a spill it doesn't land on my keyboard.

And that about does it.

A little too ambitious?

In my livemail blog feeds I have numerous digitalscrapbook freebie sites.  This photoshop template came via another site and I thought it was a clever way to showcase 1 picture each day for the month of December.   I didn't take a picture picture yesterday but I did the day before that I could sneak in.

Speaking of sneaking, I came upon this idea after the kids were in bed so I snuck upstairs and snapped a picture of them both sleeping.  Bad mommy... I had my fingers crossed that they wouldn't wake up.  They didn't even stir.

So I'm going to try and take a picture every single day this month.  With all of the Christmas happenings, there will be plenty of photo opps so it's a good month to do this.

For your reading pleasure

These are posts that I wrote in september but backdated.   Maybe you've seen them, maybe you haven't. 

Scared Mama

End of an Era

Spring, Glorious Spring!

Funny things

The other day at the doctor's office a voice came over the intercom perfectly clear.  Trevor looked up at the ceiling and said, "Mama, sky's talking!"

Jayden was throwing a major fit and Travis was trying to get her sitting still for a time out.  She was screaming like crazy and Trevor warned, "She gonna bite you."  In this told you so kind of tone.  He should know, a few weeks ago she bit him hard on the cheek and left a big mark.

A few weeks ago I was walking out of the house with the kids in the morning to go to daycare.  Trevor excited said, "Mama Mama wook, bunny!"  I looked all around and there was no bunny to be found.  Trevor said, "In da tree, in da tree!"  I look up and saw the "bunny" a squirrel happily chewing on a nut.  I said, "Silly boy that's a squirrel." Trevor asked, "What he doing?" I said he was eating his breakfast.  Trevor asked, "He eating fruit woops?"  I just laughed and agreed with him and hurried him towards the garage.   As we were walking away he was hollering over his shoulder, "Bye quirrel, Hab a good day quirrel, see you soon quirrel!"  Jayden was just shrieking with glee through this whole exchange.

Trevor's new "thing" is after asking him to do something numerous times and getting really irritated with him he says with disgust, "Okay okay okay" but still doesn't do what it is we are asking him to do.

When he is done eating he almost always asks, "be 'cused?"  And he almost always says please and thank you without being prompted.  Jayden usually says "peas" when she wants something and says "see sue" with an added head nod when you give her something.  I have such polite babies!

My poor, sad, neglected little blog

I must say I've been rather lazy lately.  I think I may have seasonal affective disorder.   I have absolutely no energy to do anything.  My house is a pit and I have a mountain of laundry to do.  Today I went and looked at getting a new stove, since ours seems to only have one burner that works.  Maybe that will motivate me to actually cook a meal... or maybe I'll just hibernate until spring.  Maybe I should just hire a maid!

I do have a new addiction in facebook.  Previously I was more into myspace and thought facebook was boring.  But I'm finding a lot of long lost friends and former classmates.  So if you're reading this and you actually know me rather than stumbled across my blog via some whacked out google search feel free to look me up.  You can find my by my first name and maiden last name.  If your stumped on that leave a comment and I may give you a hint.  Yeah, I've seem some pretty absurd google search hits come up in my stat reports... odd!

So I know one of my last posts, back in ohhhh September, was somewhat of a promise to backdate some  posts and do a little more updating.   I'm going to really try and focus on getting some of the gaps filled in because I really want to get my '08 family journal/scrapbook printed around the first of the year.  Wow that's really scary... only exactly a month away and it will be time for new resolutions so easily broken! 

Lot's has been happening, but before I do too much I have to get about 3 months worth of pictures off my camera and edited so hang tight for a few days anyway!

Green Stuff

Earth911 is a great resource for tips on recycling and local listings for stuff that isn't so easy to recycle like electronics, batteries and cd's.

Speaking of CD's, here is a site that recycles cd's at no charge, you just ship them.

Did you know that you can drop off your old worn out athletic shoes and Nike uses the parts to make different parts of sport surfaces and playgrounds?

Check out this article from Harvard Medical School.  Most drugs are safe and effective much past their expiration date.  Ok I suppose this is a bit of a stretch to be a "green" article, but it would keep some stuff out of the trash and save you some green!

And if you do have to dispose of any medications, Don't Flush Them!!!

Do you use reusable shopping bags and recycle plastic bags that you do end up with?

It's that time again...

Over the next few days I'll be backdating a bunch of posts from earlier this year.  I want to get started on making my photo book of our 2008 happenings and need to get things organized.   I have a bunch of drafts to add pictures to and get posted.  So if you see some crazy old posts in your feeds you'll know what I'm up to.  :o)

How cool is this

I decided I needed a new look for my plain jane blog and found this site from a scrapping site I frequent. Super easy to put a background while still using a blogger template so I didn't have to do much HTML crap. Here is a link to the post that explains how to use her most awesome scrapbook-esque backgrounds.

I think I need to get a life

I just bought this vacuum and tried it out just a tiny bit since the kiddos are in bed.  How sad is it that I'm actually looking forward to vacuuming tomorrow?   It's pretty cool that it has a static type duster that you stick in the holder and it sucks the crap off of it.  In just the tiny spot I vacuumed it sucked up a ton of stuff and I vacuumed on Sunday.

What's in your bag.

An Iowa Mom posted about a show and tell where her son decorated a paper bag and put 3 things in it that showed who he is.  So she shared if she had to do the same project what would she put in here bag.  And asked her readers to share what they would do.

Now assuming it was a grocery sack sized bag...  here's what I would put in my bag.

1. My purple laptop, it shows all of me, my digiscrapping, Pictures/personalities/artwork of my kids. Also I do some stuff for work on it too.

2. This one would be tied between my phone (blackberry) and my camera. But since my phone also takes pictures I'll choose my phone. I use it for everything. To do lists, shopping lists. If I lost my phone I'd probably feel like an arm was severed.

A glimpse into either of the above shows you pretty much who I am in it's entirety.

3. Coffee mug. I'm a coffee junkie. But I always use travel mugs, never paper cups. I'm nutso when it comes to as little waste as possible.

So now I ask you... what would you put in your bag?

3 Years Old!

 

I can't believe my firstborn is 3 years old!  He's doing amazing in preschool.  He can count to 14 at least.  At preschool they practice counting to 30!   And to 10 in spanish.  He knows his colors fairly well though sometimes makes mistakes. 

He amazed me the other day in naming shapes.  He pointed at a stop sign and pointed at a sign and said "octagon"  I was showing off his skills to my mom and pulled out a book the had a picture of a stop sign in it and asked him where the octagon was.  He said "where go octagon?"  Turns out the stop sign in the book was a hexagon.  So there wasn't an octagon on the page.  He surprised me even more when he pointed out squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals, and diamonds.  But I about fell out of my chair when he pointed out a crescent! 

So here's some pictures of Trevor's party.  We had a great time and he loves Thomas so that's the theme we went with.

    

Real Life: How I roll

My friend Jessica is back from maternity leave so it's time for another "It's real life" post.  The assignment this week is to take pictures of my wheels.  My car is a '98 Nissan Sentra.  It's got ALOT of miles on it, it's on it's second transmission and second engine.  It's a really pretty midnight purple.  Best part of all it's paid for!

 

 

Don't you love the big huge dent?  I have NO idea where that one came from.

 

Jayden and Trevor's car seats.  If you enlarge the picture you'll see I still have an ice scrapper on the floor.  There's a blanket we use for picnics and such.  The black and white polka dot bag is one of my bags I use for shopping.  I got 4 of them from the vendor expo at my business meeting in Phoenix.  They are huge and holds lots of stuff.  I use those along with a few Walmart and target totes.  I use them all the time.  The only place I don't use them is at Target because I like their bags for my diaper pail.  They're big and super strong.

 

Oh look there's that button that's been missing for a few months!  And is that a peanut?  There's tons more under the seat and on the floor.

 

One of my many recycling containers at work.  We recycle EVERYTHING!  We print on both sides of the paper and recycle it when we're done.  We recycle the individual boxes the lenses come in and also the plastic bags the individual frames come in.  I drive by several different drop of sites on my way home from work so it's easy to recycle.  Inside the container is recycled plastic bags I need to drop off next time I got to the store.   There's also my coffee cup.  I must have coffee every day to function.  I have to race to the store to start the coffee before the Dr does.  I can't drink his "coffee syrup"  it's literally that thick.   Oh and a few Mardi Gras bead hanging from my rearview mirror.  They've been there so long they've faded.

 

Last but not least is my trunk.  There's a basket of clothes that I need to take for consignment.  I haven't consigned clothes in forever but I've lost some weight so I've got a bunch of fairly new clothes that are too big.  There's a baby carrier something like this but black and blue.  Tool kit, another blanket, tray for the stroller, hammer, and mysterious crap on the carpet.  Oh look there's another ice scraper.  If I would have taken this picture a week ago there would have also been a box with sale fliers from my last job that I meant to drop off  over 6 months ago from my last job!  I don't use my trunk much because it is very dangerous.  It about killed me once when the mechanism that keeps it open failed and fell shut on me and the latch hit me in the back of the head.  We have a stick in there we use to prop it open.

And there you have it, my dirty car!

"Scared Mama!"

Trevor has been a little chicken as of late.  Today after dinner he wouldn't get down from his chair, saying "Bunny git you"  "I scared mama" and WHINING!  Maybe he shouldn't have watched this video.  

Once I coaxed him down and stepped on an ant he freaked out about en route to the sink I thought we were good.  Out of nowhere he started crying hysterically for absolutely no reason.  I was sitting in the room with him and NOTHING happened.  Jayden was already in bed so I knew she didn't do anything.  Between his sniffles and sobs I heard him say, "Baby bite me" and wouldn't go near the new potty training doll that we got last week and pointed at her mouth.  Then he said "nau-ny baby!"  and threw her in the toybox and shut the lid.   Mmmmmm-kay

My precious!

I'm over the moon excited about my new laptop.  I got it at Staples and the experience was pretty much a disaster.  But they came through finally and I got my new computer.  I got a surprise check Friday from my former employer that I had no idea was coming. 

Trav, the sweet heart that he is said that I could finally get a laptop that I have been wanting for YEARS since I fried my last one.  So off to staples we went and I found they had Dells in purdy colors and a great deal to boot.  I wanted purple but they only stocked the red so being the instant gratification gal that I am I decided to settle for the red.  Fast forward nearly an hour and a half we're at the check out to purchase that and a new monitor for Trav we find out they are completely out of stock.  Grrrrr they should have check for that way before then.  So I decided to get the purple one, oops out of stock on those online.  Plus they were out of stock on the monitor and the one the were going to offer as a subsitition.  So we left with nothing. 

The next day, without the kids in tow I went back to talk to a manager and voiced my frustration about the lack checking stock levels early in the transaction and how much of our time was wasted.  I let them know that we got the monitor elsewhere but I still wanted the computer.  She gave me an extra $100 off because she couldn't find the rebate on it that I didn't know about.  And gave me a $10 coupon.  AND the purple was back in stock.  It was retail $850, by the time I was done, I got it for $585.  I looked everywhere online and couldn't find a better deal for all the specs that I wanted. 

Yesterday I called to check and see when it would arrive at the store and be ready to pick up since they were also going to do all the set up for me at no charge.  Surprise, they told me that the purple one was back out of stock and that somehow my order had fallen through and would I settle for a red one and they would overnight it.  Fine!  I had no fight left in me and was really ticked.  I was really excited when I got a call this morning and that it the purple one came it.  Woo hoo!  I love it, Vista so far isn't as bad as what I was expecting, and there are even a few things I like better than XP.  We'll see how it works when I start installing stuff!

 

It's all smudgy already.  :o( Oh and here's what my desktop looks like.  It was from a digital scrapbooking freebie I got somewhere

Some days my kids drive me crazy

But never THIS crazy.  Just a random picture I found somewhere in surfing.  I'm cleaning off my hard drive to move everything to my new computer.  :o) More on that later!

Sucking up

Today we went to a smallish water park that had a nice area for the little ones with fountains, dumping buckets, waterslides, and a lazy river. We thought it would be a fun afternoon. Trevor wasn't too keen on the whole thing and Jayden was leary but seemed to enjoy herself until she did a face plant.

It all went downhill when we went to try the lazy river and they wouldn't let us use this floaty seat thing that we put over the tubes that is perfect for Jayden so she could still have her lower half somewhat in the water and is way safer than holding her while in the tubes. Lifeguard said, "no, you have to use the little yellow ones with the bottoms and walk beside them if they are under five." Ok, annoyed but we complied. We took 1 1/2 loops around and Trevor had enough and was crying so we used an exit by one of the slides. The lifeguard said, "Next time you need to use the other exit." Ummm sorry, if he wasn't ~freaking~ out we would have used that exit. And duh, why would there be an exit if you aren't supposed to use it?

I had purchased a disposable waterproof camera thinking I would get some cute pictures of my kids splashing and having fun. After the lazy river I pulled out my camera and just had it around my wrist walking with Trevor. A lifeguard walking by said, "You aren't allowed to take pictures" What???? I responded, "I'm not allowed to take close-up pictures of MY OWN CHILDREN???" She said, "If you want to take pictures you'll have to talk to the manager." I was really pissed by this time and Trav was furious.

We planned to leave but I went to talk to the manager first. When I asked about the pictures she said that I could wear this stupid lanyarn with a sign saying I was allowed to take pictures and said I could only take pictures of my own children and make sure not to get anyone else in the picture. Well gee, I hadn't intended on taking pictures of anyone's kids. I would be ticked if someone was taking pictures of my children but it it was an issue I would report it. But I think that is a STUPID rule. I felt like I was being treated like a gradeschooler the whole time we were there. How about getting on the gradeschool kids running through the kiddy pool nearly toppling over toddlers. That would be a better use of the lifeguards time.

So we left but first out of spite I snapped a picture of the kids, what were they going to do? Kick us out? Too bad, I really wanted some cute pictures. The kids have really cute swimsuits with matching floppy brim hats I got at target. I'll have to try and find a wading pool on clearance somewhere so I can finish off that roll of film. I haven't had to "finish off a roll of film" in eons!

Ok rant over after swimming we had lunch at IHOP. Jayden was cranky but not horrible. I took her out two times and she settled right down. Trevor did perfect! He ate a good amount of food which is unusual for him eating out. He loved the strawberry topping I had ordered on the side. He kept hugging me and saying "I U" After I told him he needed to eat some food before got anymore strawberries he ate some food and had seemed to forget about the berries. Out of nowhere he put his arm around me and said, "Awwwww mommy!" in the sweetest voice like he does when I come from work. Then he looked up at me and said, "more berries?" Little turkey!

Psycho bunny

Backdated Posts

Once again I have a whole bunch of backdated posts.  I am *really* going to try to do better in keeping up with my posts.  So here are a bunch of drafts that have been sitting around waiting to be posted.  Plus some other more recent ones that were posted out of order so they may have been missed.  There will be more in another day or 2

Our first Play group

Graduation

Easter

Jayden's First Birthday

Oh what a day

Stars of the Week

Blue

Springtime picnic

Phoenix Business Trip

Random pictures I love part 2

Trevor loves to help sweep the floor, rinse dishes and wants to do everything on his own lately.  (May 15) "That sun?"  No silly boy that's the moon! (May 15)

My all time favorite Trevor picture to date, taken when we were having a picnic.  He usually doesn't pose for pictures and throws a fit if I try to take one.  (May 18)  Taking a walk (May 20)      

Playdate at Liz's house.  Trevor lubs Ev-wyn     (May 22)

Jayden finally walks more than a few steps!  She's really on the move now!   (June 18)   Just goofing around.  They are buddies most of the time.  Often hugging and kissing on each other.  The hugging and kissing often turns into rough housing.  Trevor tries and often succeeds in tackling Jayden to the floor.  (July 6)

Random pictures I love

Since I was so bad about blogging for awhile and that there a bunch of pictures I thought were blogworthy but never blogged I figured I'd share a few!

Jayden at a Dr appointment in January

Spaghettio Hitler? (January)

This picture was taken Feb 2, it was an insane amount of snow!

 

Trevor's attempt to get ready for school himself, notice the coat is on upside down and hat is crooked, but otherwise he's ready to go! (Feb 11) Partners in crime (Feb 23) Princess Jayden is 11months old (Feb 27)  The kiddos love to fight over this chair.  Pretty in pink  (March 4) Bottles no more!  (March 12)   Both love to "read" books.  Trevor went through a stage of tearing up books, and Jayden is starting to lately.  Hopefully it passes.  They've destroyed more than their fair share of books and it makes me crazy.  We read lots of stories everyday.  (March 12)  On May 25th my youngest brother graduated High school.  The kids were wiped out on the way home.  They had a really busy day.  I can't resist snapping pictures of my babes sleeping.