Homeschooling 101

This is where we are at - 101. Figuring it out, making plans, rethinking, reassessing. The only thing we are sure about is that we will be homeschooling. While unable to sleep tonight (this morning) I found this quiz -

What Type of Homeschooler Are You?

Salvador Dali Melting clocks are not a problem in your reality. You are an unschooler. You will tolerate a textbook, but only as a last resort. Mud is your friend. You prefer hands-on everything. If your school had an anthem, it would be Dont Worry, Be Happy. Visit my blog: http://www.GuiltFreeHomeschooling.org
Take this quiz!








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Interesting.

1/365

This weekend I decided to start a 365 photo journal. I will take a picture each day for the next year. I thought I would start on Oct. 1 but while making breakfast on Sunday a bagel begged to be photographed. We celebrate "birthday weekends" in our house - the birthday person gets to pick all meals, all outings and all activities for the weekend closest to their birthday. This past weekend has been Carl's birthday weekend. His breakfast of choice this morning was fresh whole wheat bagels with cream cheese and lox. While schmearing his bagel I discovered that the hole was a heart. A heart shaped hole in my love's bagel. How sweet.

Menu Planning Monday

I decided to try this whole blog meme idea and found a site that promotes Menu Mondays - great idea! So here is our dinner menu for the week:

Monday (Carl's Birthday) - cheese ravioli (vegan ravioli for William) and salad
Tuesday - chicken marsala (TJ's marsala sauce), dairy free mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus
Wednesday - linguine with seafood sauce and salad
Thursday (soccer practice) - crockpot black bean chili and salad
Friday (I might go to a craft night at church!) - take out
Saturday - dinner at an organic farm festival (or on the way home)
Sunday - TBA

Real, live LOs!

It feels *so* good to scrap again. It makes me so mushy about my family and gives me an outlet and release that I don't get in our day to day life. I have a couple of other LOs in the Stand Up and Scrap contest - they ended up being really special LOs to me, I can't share them now but I will post them later.

I am loving Christina Renee's goodies - I think I DL a freebie from her right before my digi break started. I never got a chance to use it (and I am sure it is gone now with a lot of the digi kits and LOs I hadn't backed up). Anyway - I just love this collab kit she has with Shabby Princess.


Another Christina Renee collab - this time it was a freebie! I did some recoloring to get a more kid friendly look to the background.


Some of those Stand Up and Scrap papers were just perfect for this simple page.


I am so honored to get to create for my long time friend, Chris Wasielewski who is making the leap from paper to digi.


Complete credits and journaling can be found at in my DST Gallery.

7 Months Later

After an extended creating vacation, I am back. I had major laptop woes. From a major crash (why didn't I ever back up my fonts?) to dropping the stupid thing while it was open and cracking the screen) the Toshiba and I were just not friends. As my birthday/Christmas/Arbor Day/Halloween/Thanksgiving/Flag day gift for the next year DH bought me a refurbished Dell business class computer - with the idea that it should be hardier and better able to withstand my abuse. I am now working on DL'ing, unzipping and reloading fonts, getting caught up in the digi world and picking through my pictures from the last 7 months.

Watch this space for a new LO... soon!

That is some yummy pasta!

Tonight we had a heating/ a/c guy out to give a quote for a new system. He has done some work on our old system and has been here a couple of times. He is very friendly with our kids - he has a boy William's age who also has a head full of blond curls. It rained most of the day and we were cleaning today so by this evening the boys were being insane, they were hungry and getting tired. They kept running through the livingroom, knocking this poor guy's paperwork down and yelling. They didn't want to leave the room so they got a special treat of a picnic dinner. I had already made penne with broccoli and chicken in a tomato cream sauce (no sauce for William). They were sitting pretty nicely on their big picnic towel, eating dinner when Zachary paused, peering at a piece of penne and announces "PENIS PASTA!". The A/C guy was cracking up. Carl and I were mortified but giggling and he just kept at it "penis pasta! Penis Pasta! PENIS PASTA!" Soon after Zachary bid farewell to the technician by calling him "Fan Man". Oh boy, the stories he has to tell tonight!

I like lime-y green

Is that obvious yet?

On a Whim by Julie Mead
Font - DB DIXI by Darcy Baldwin available at Blue Flombingo
“pee pee, pee pee” you yelled at me. you often do not have the words to explain what it is you want the world to hear but you still let your will be known. today you were proud. Some great accomplishment that involved pee pee. I was afraid. I followed you to the bathroom where you giggled and giggled as you showed me your baby on the potty, going “pee pee”.

The Barf-fest Continues

Now Zachary has joined the festivities. It is 5am and I am up with Zachary who started barfing in his bed shortly after William barfed in our bed. Yesterday in a 30 minute period I cleaned up William barfing on the play tiles, peeing on the floor, pooping on the floor ("pee pee" no, honey that is a big POOP on the floor *gag*) and then Zachary overflowing the toilet when he "wiped myself with one square of toilet paper" uh, yeah. Right.

I am supposed to have a 7:30am optometrist appointment this morning but I am not sure how that will work with two potential pukers and DH having a HVAC guy coming this morning to check our AC that doesn't seem to want to make cool air. I think I will try to get the kids in to the pediatrician too since this is now day 6 of William having high temps, runny nose, coughing and barfing.

In laptop news the screen mess up has expanded - it now goes out to the right of the screen too - so I have a giant "V" of blacked out screen. I should try to take a picture of it later. Really quite annoying.

I did get my Bunco invites made and sent out -

credits on DST

A hot, hot night

And not the fun kind of hot. William had a temp of 104 last night. Poor peanut. Stripping him down and giving him our last dose of children's Motrin got him down to 101 this morning. Carl went out this morning and bought more Motrin and Tylenol, hopefully I can keep his temp down today. He seems pretty unaffected by it, happy and playing like normal. His cough is a bit grosser though. Yuck.

Unfortunately we will likely have to miss homeschool co-op tomorrow. Zachary announced this morning that he wanted to do homeschool today. I asked him what he wanted to learn and his answer: "dancin'"! Ohmy! Mommy is way unqualified to teach that. We did some silly dances and then he decided that was enough and wanted to do math. We have been doing finger math and he is really getting it. He keeps announcing that 2+2=4! Love it!

Today's task is to digi scrap Bunco invites and email them out and then work on the princess purse and mug inserts for prizes. And thank you for all of the condolences for my hurt laptop. I doubt it will get fixed - it is at least $400 for a new screen and that is without any labor involved. DH has a 3 year rule for computers so according to him this one won't be replaced until early 2009. Ugh. So I am stuck with this for the long term. Bummer.

(I feel naked posting this without a graphic/picture - I need to work on my invites and come back quick to post them!)

I broke it...

I broke my laptop. It still works but I now have a giant gash through the screen that serves as a constant reminder of what a complete klutz I am. I was sitting with William on the couch, my laptop on the arm of the couch. William fell off the couch and in the process of trying to keep him from falling on his head I knocked my laptop down and it did something bad inside. I am glad it still works but now I have to type blindly when I hit the left side of the screen. Digiscrapping is ok because I can shrink the screen but sending emails is a pain. Blah. That stinks.

William spent the weekend throwing up and now has a cough and runny nose. I was so impressed with how well we all made it through cold and flu season but it looks like we may be suffering at the back end.

My first broken laptop LO:


All the goodies are by Corina Nielsen and available at www.funkyplaygrounddesigns.com. The font is by Darcy Baldwin and available at www.blueflombingo.com - full credits at DST.
The paper is from Corina's The Big Day Collection - look at these crazy colors!

William's Speech Evaluation

We knew William was behind in his expressive speech but we had little idea he was so behind. The preliminary guess of the Speech Language Pathologist we saw on Friday was that he will test at an 11 month level. He will be 26 months this month. His receptive language is fine but he is just not hitting that big language explosion that is expected at his age. Tomorrow I will start the phone calls looking for more info and services for him.

LO with Penny Springmann's Shoot for the Stars kit and 2 pager template - also a Darcy Baldwin font!

An Update!?

Wow, I have a blog! LOL!

We have been keeping busy. The weather has been nice and we have spent a lot of time outside or at the park.

Our preschool homeschool group has evolved a bit. Our Monday mornings are now an open park/playdate for all age homeschool families and on Thursday mornings 3 of us are getting together with our 6 kids to do more directed "preschool time". Each mom will take a turn of a month or so of teaching a group of lessons. H started a group of lessons about the 5 senses yesterday. She made "touching bags" with different textures inside and the kids felt the items inside and then described them. They made textured collages and then we played outside. A's house is perfect for our preschool time and my boys love being over there. In fact Zachary loves it so much that there is much wailing and drama involved when it is time to leave.

This morning we did salt painting and smooth painting and talked about the bumpy and smooth feeling when we touched it. Zachary painted a "T", "H" and an "A"! We had 3 big letters and talked about what word we could make from them - now we have "HAT" spelled out on our kitchen wall in big bumpy letters! I am so proud!

William is really, really 2. Now when you ask him how old he is he says "FIVE" and holds up all 5 fingers. Stinker. He thinks he is sooooo funny. Well he is pretty funny but we like hearing "two" also! He has no fear. We have had to move the loveseat in front of the fireplace to keep him from pulling the glass insert out again. When we are outside he will chase the cat anywhere - including off the side of the high deck. Yikes. William wants to keep up with everything his brother does. It isn't even that he wants to be like his big brother - he just doesn't want to be left out. As a result my 25.5 month old peed on the potty this week! He also pees on the floor many times a day since he won't leave any clothes and earlier in the week he peed in a toy bin and then brought it to me! At least he is getting the idea, I guess.

Zachary's new skill that he is so proud of (besides painting letters) is peeing in the bushes. He has been successfully using the potty for some time now but is terrified of the toilet and peeing standing up - so this week I have encouraged (yikes) him to pee in the bushes outside which after some hesitation he now finds wickedly cool. And success! We have had toilet peeing now too!

I have been in a bit of a scrapping funk but I did complete this page of Emme at her 2nd birthday party: (ACOT Spring Fling collab kit and a new handwriting font by Darcy Baldwin):


Last week I did a page about a quick clean with Traci Reed's new boy kit


Full credits for both on DST

We are family!

A small part of my big family at Thanksgiving 06. The credits list is HUGE and can be found at DST.


We have started taking afternoon walks with William actually walking! He loves his bear backpack harness thing - which is awesome because if we didn't have that he would be in the street in moments! Thursday afternoon we took a puddle walk during a break in the rain. I took my dSLR with us and the battery died! The boys LOVED splashing in the puddles and I loved watching them love it.

This weekend we have plans to visit our city's big brand new library! It looks gorgeous from the outside, I cannot wait to see inside! I am very anxious to go to Costco tomorrow to pick up my first big set of printed LOs. I am printing at 8x8 size... I hope it works well! A $20 experiment!

Scallop recipe - it was from the cookbook "How to Cook Everything" - I will try to get the recipe tomorrow and post it!

Happy Friday!

The week sure flew by! The boys and I had a tough Valentine's day - they were just super crazy and a trip to the park was disastrous when William kept trying to run away down big hills (straight towards the road) or in to muddy ravines. I gave the boys a bath after the park (about 50% of the bathwater ended up on the floor) and then an early picnic dinner on the livingroom floor. When Carl got home we put them to bed and then had some nice time together - interrupted by both boys waking up, screaming a number of times.

Carl made us scallops in a lemon glaze, fillet mignon and crusty hot bread. Our fresh asparagus was left out because of the multiple wakings. We had dinner and watched American Idol in between tending to the boys. We had a rare treat of mid-week wine, it was good stuff - 7 deadly Zins.


My valentine and I with Traci Reed's New Black Lace collection available at ACOT:

Corina's Papa Collection

This beautiful and very special collection is 20% off today at www.funkyplaygrounddesigns.com.






Kid = Kimberly Geswein
Kit = Corina Nielsen

Spring Chicken LO

full credits
William was so little! These pictures are not excellent and I have had them sitting for a long time waiting for the right kit to work with them. This fun kit compliments the vivid colors in the photos - and my cute kids!

Glitter, Glitter Everywhere

What was I thinking? Zachary helped me make a list of 11 people that we need to give Valentines to. And then I set a 2 year old and 4 year old free with red paint, red glitter glue, silver glitter, stickers, glue and paper. Ohmy. My kitchen table looks like a giant Valentine! We finally just had to walk away - we have Valentines in various stage of drying and we will write in them after lunch.

William has been exceptionally crabby and we are all sneezing this morning. The rain came back in town and so has a cold. I am hoping to get a LO done with Corina's new Spring Chicken



I have a LO that will be revealed with a new Corina collection tomorrow. I got to borrow Kimberly Geswein's beautiful daughter, Katie for my LO. I am itching to share - that kid is SO cute!

New Car! New Car! New Car!

After a few delays on Saturday, Carl was home with our new van! It was pouring rain and the birthday party we had planned to go to was canceled (not because of the rain but because the birthday girl was sick). The rain kept Carl from getting the carseats in but I did take the van for a solo spin around the neighborhood. We have a bunch of fun little extras - power sliding doors and liftgate, power rear quarter windows (the 3rd row windows), power adjustable driver and passenger seats (which I didn't think was that big of a deal but now that I can brace William's car seat against the passenger seat and still be comfy - I think it is an excellent deal!), fake wood paneling (LOL), upgraded fabric... but those are all just extras - the important part is that it is SAFE!



Sunday we got the seats installed and went for a drive. We met my parents, brother, his GF and Emme for lunch. We had really good Chinese food with a bunch of fiascoes - Carl dumped his soup in to his lap and William dumped his soup on to my foot. After lunch we went to an indoor play place. William spent the first hour like this...

He eventually woke up and had a great time with Emme and Zachary.



There was a group people there with some really rowdy dads. They were throwing balls at each other (the dads) and their kids - hard. It was pretty chaotic for awhile. There was one very friendly dad that was making us a bit uncomfortable with just how friendly he was to these kids he didn't know. He kept following Emme in to a dark, secluded spot underneath the play structure - creepy.

Zachary had told the OFD (over friendly dad) his name at some point, because Zachary is a friendly guy like that. At some point Zachary and another child crashed in to each other - Carl saw it and said that Zachary was being too rough. So Zachary and I sat down and talked about playing gently and he was reminded that if he could not play gently we would have to leave (I was having a hard time with this since the group of DADS were not playing gently - I should have given them the same talk, although I wouldn't have had them sit on my lap for the talk!). So a few minutes after Zachary and I talk I hear OFD yelling across the entire play area "Zachary, Zachary" and I think - wow, they must have had a friend named Zachary arrive because he certainly cannot be yelling for MY Zachary like that. OFD gets off his butt and walks across the play area, past me, glancing over his shoulder and says "you don't mind, I need to talk to Zachary" - I quickly informed him that I DID in fact mind, and asked what the problem was. WTF. You don't get to call my child across the room and talk to him. NO NO NO. So he tells me that Zachary pushed this girl and he needs to talk to him about it. UH, NO! Dude, that is MY job, which I have already done. I did talk to Zachary about it, again - and that wasn't even the girl he crashed with - this guy had NO idea what he was talking about. It was so odd. Thankfully he left soon after and we had some quieter playtime before we headed home for a dinner of PB&J and cereal.

To buy and to sell

The Odyssey is sold and there is a "sold" sign on the demo Sedona that Carl test drove tonight - he will go back to finish the purchase tomorrow. Hopefully we will be going to a gymnastics birthday party in our new van tomorrow!

In other news... ACOT's birthday bash is tomorrow! Join me 1-2am EST (or 10-11pm my time) at ACOT! There will loads of games, contests, crops and prizes all day and I will be closing up the festivities late at night!

Can you hear me now?

YES! HE CAN! The hearing test was passed with flying colors! William was so cooperative and so stinking adorable during the battery of tests the audiologist performed. She was so impressed with how great he did and asked if he was always this well behaved - uh, NO, never! LOL!

We have the Odyssey in our driveway! Finally. 75 days, $17,700 in repairs and $3500 in rental fees later. Goodness.

Today we will work on selling/trading in the van and hopefully we will have a Kia Sedona by 5pm tomorrow when we have a gymnastics birthday party. Sunday we might have breakfast or lunch with my family (to celebrate my birthday, 2 weeks later). My mom and I just scheduled one of my birthday babysitting days for Feb. 17th. Wahoooooooooo! Date night, well date afternoon since we try to get back by 7-8pm and get the kids changed and in the car and on the way home. We need it.

I hope to be back later with a new LO.

Thursday already?

How is that possible? This morning we have William's hearing test and we are hoping to pick up the Odyssey this afternoon. Hoping. The Kia dealership has really low balled the trade in offer so we are going to try a couple of other avenues first. At the least we need to get back what we owe on it- although it would have been nice to make $$ on it like we had the potential to do before the accident.

Last night I finished my first LO for Penny with her gorgeous Chirp set (see yesterday's post for the full kit and link). Full credits in my gallery on DST

Maybe tomorrow...

How many times can the body shop say "maybe tomorrow"? We have been hearing "maybe tomorrow" since last Wednesday. A solid week of "maybe tomorrow"s is getting very old. I am getting really stressed out by all of this. I just want it to be DONE and for us to have a safe vehicle for our family that doesn't require us losing $$ on. Ugh. What a PITA.


In fun digi news... I have been invited to be a part of the CT for Penny's Miscellany! This is the first kit I am playing with -

A big thanks to GERI!

Geri called me and talked me through fixing what ailed my blog. THANK YOU, GERI!

If you are just joining me for the day I have a big weekend/Monday update a couple of posts down - with photos included. Our day has been hectic and we haven't even left the house. The Odyssey is still not finished. The alignment is now correct but now the systems all have to be set because the airbag sensors will not go off. Once again, a glaring reminder that we are doing the right thing in not putting the kids back in this vehicle. $18k+ in repairs, 2 months and one fiasco after another. They are thinking we might get it back tomorrow. Goodness.

On the home front. William has been in rare 2-year-old form today. Stripping and leaving a trail of tinkle behind him, full blown tantrums at every turn (especially when I insisted that the dog's dish was full - he kept wanting to pile the kibble on top of the dog food mountain and was FURIOUS with me when I made him stop) and the most charming when I have been dealing with the body shop, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, auto glass services, a doctor's office - you get the idea - every time I picked up the phone he was in my face, SCREAMING. ACK! I do think this is spectacularly deviant behavior because he isn't feeling well. He sneezed throughout the morning, fell asleep during Sesame Street at 10am, didn't eat his lunch and is now sacked out against my side on the couch while I type. We have been so blessed this winter - one pre-Christmas cold and Zachary's short bout with the stomach flu last week, I guess it is our time to have another batch of sickies.

Note to self...

Don't try to customize your blog. All you have succeeded in doing is screwing it up. WTG!

"It is Spankish for Naughty"

Full credits on DST

journaling....
“Liljack” was all you would say when I asked what you were doing in the bathroom. You had been in there a long time and I peeked in to see if you needed help. Over and over you stated “liljack” as you continued to pump foam soap all over the sink, counter and floor. Finally, as I grew more frustrated you told me “Liljack, it is Spanish for naughty”. Spanish or not, naughty you were.

Monday Bloody Monday

Yesterday we spent nearly 3 hours at the park. Our homeschool preschool met for a play day. We had a nice time, met some new friends and the boys played hard. In the last 30 minutes they both bit it. The park we were at is mostly padded, foam ground cover or sand - and both boys took a header on the cement. Goodness. William has an itty bitty goose egg on top of the one he got a week or so ago from falling over the gate in to the kitchen. Zachary got a good bunch of road rash on his forehead, temple and cheek. Poor guys.

After the park we came home for what turned in to a messy, messy lunch. The boys were both covered with blackberries and almond butter, on top of the sand and dirt from the park. So in the tub they went. They spent a good hour in there with bath paints (we make our own colors out of baby shampoo and food coloring) and then got a good scrub down and soak. Then we had spaghetti for dinner LOL! Duh.

The best part of bath paints is painting a brother.

Our weekend was busy with lots of nothing. A couple of trips to the park, the farmer's market, watching the Krispy Kreme donut machines, Target, the grocery store (on Super Bowl Sunday - BAD idea).

Watching the donut machine.

William doesn't like the bridges that move so Zachary took
him by the hand to help him across. So sweet.
My boys.
Running to catch up with Daddy and Brother.

We are still waiting for the Odyssey back... it failed alignment. Duh. An SUV hit the tire going 40 MPH. Why would it pass the alignment tests? The impact broke the steering column from the inside. This wasn't a fender bender, I still cannot believe they did not total the van. And now we are discussing waiting until we have #3 to buy a van and using the Jeep again as our family vehicle. Uck. Being financially responsible sucks. We need to discuss the costs and benefits some more but it is a possibility we will be selling the Odyssey and repairing the Jeep.

AAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH

Nov. 26th a stupid man ran a red light and smashed our van. 2 months of pain, bruising, body shops, tow companies, rentals, doctor appointments, insurance companies, new carseats... you get the idea. It has been a mess and of course it won't end well, why would it? I just called the body shop back, after waiting for a call back that never came and very casually I was told my van would be ready on MONDAY. MONDAY? As in 3 days after the insurance company has cut off our rental? Monday, as in after the weekend we planned to trade the van in for a new van? Monday, as in we turn in the rental today and have no vehicle for the weekend? MONDAY? NO! That is NOT ok. I demanded to talk to a supervisor who said he would try to push it through and if it didn't go through he would pay our rental over the weekend. Except that Enterprise can't double direct bill so WE would have to pay the rental and hope to be reimbursed by the body shop. Good grief.

Tears... many tears

So I am still waiting to hear from the body shop that the Odyssey is ready for pick up - I called and the guy I have been working with for 2 months is out today. Nice. So now they are trying to find someone else who can let me know what is going on.

I have also been in email contact throughout the morning with the internet manager of the local Kia dealer. We are now considering a claret red 2006 EX that has been used a demo and has 1500+ miles on it. The manager confirmed that it has only been driven by one of the district managers and is in excellent condition. Now we are waiting to hear if we would purchase this vehicle as new or used and how that effects the bottom line.

But while nerve wracking, none of that is bringing me to tears. My friend and designer Kimberly had told me about a high school friend of hers who has cancer and today on DST she posted a link to the friend's blog. Oh, so sad. I am so thankful for my health (that I take for granted and should really be doing much more to preserve) and then time and energy that I have to spend with my babies. My heart is just breaking for this woman and her family. I have been reading the blog from the beginning, in tears.

We are a Nielsen Family

Well sort of. We are doing a one week "TV Viewing Diary". It is sort of stressing me out. I don't know that I want to see how much TV we watch written down in journal format! Tivo has made a reality TV junkie out of me. I am tempted to wait to watch some of these shows until next week when we don't have to record everything. Well, tempted but right now I am watching Real Housewives of Orange County while blogging and scrapping. *blush*


We are still on track to get the Odyssey back tomorrow. The wheeling and dealing of finding a new van is stressing me out and making me feel like Wonder Woman all at once. At first we were just dealing with the local dealer's Costco pricing plan but then I started doing more research and realized we could likely find a better price. I am negotiating with the local dealer as well as contacting 3 other dealerships to see what they have in-stock and if they can give me a better price. One of the dealerships called this evening and asked all sorts of questions that I now know better than to answer! Like what does how much we owe on our trade in have to do with the price of the new vehicle? NOTHING! Or what price am I looking for? Huh? No way... you tell me your price and we can go from there. We are looking for a 2006 so while we have some wiggle room in that they want to clear them out there is not a ton of inventory to chose from. Here is hoping that tomorrow we find the right van at the right price!

Bad Mom

More Cornia goodies and my tales of bad momness from today.
Journaling:
I can’t help it. Sometimes I laugh when I really shouldn’t. Sometimes you crack me up when you are the ultimate in serious. And some days your “pain” leaves me in fits of giggles. What a bad mom.
Today we were in the bathroom, discussing the merits of peeing standing up in to the toilet thereby eliminating the need for me to constantly empty your potty. You were not convinced. In all of your 4 year old drama you sat yourself on the edge of the bathtub to prove your unwillingness to even make an effort. Your plop landed you on the shower curtain, which pulled down the curtain rod. The curtain rod bounced off your head and you fell in to the tub, feet up in the air. You were shocked and furious at the curtain. You thought I was crying with you but I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face. Your spill was classic and once I knew you were not hurt it was downright hilarious. Bad, bad momma.

A page that has been awaiting the release of Traci Reed's fun new Punk Love kit -

As usual - full credits on DST

Car confusion

It has now been over 2 months since we were in an accident in our 2006 Honda Odyssey. The repair totals are now about $18,000, that isn't a typo... $18,000. Plus $41/day for a rental van = $2500+ taxes. We were told that the rental direct bill will be cut off on Friday and we are hoping to get the Odyssey back by Thursday or Friday afternoon. We will then trade in the Odyssey (hopefully) for a 2006 or 2007 Kia Sedona, the vehicle with the highest overall safety rating. We love the Odyssey and it served us well but we do not want to drive a vehicle with that much work on it. The Kia is a better choice financially but we do miss the luxury of the Honda. Our rental is a 2007 Sedona - so we have had possibly the world's longest test drive! We are pretty open to any color and extras - we just want the best deal on a safe van.

More Corina goodies...

September 2006, Carl and I celebrated 10 years of being together. I love this quote and our blemished, chin fat picture LOL! Everything by Corina Nielsen and available at www.funkyplaygrounddesigns.com.

Love that Emme Pie!

I am loving Corina's new Funky Valentine, perfect for these old pictures of Emme.

I'm back!

Well that was a long blog break. No more, I am committing myself to regular updates, granted I am not going to define "regular" but for now - I am back.


33. I am! Yesterday was my birthday and why does 33 sound SO much older than 32? We spent the day out of the house. Carl took a vacation day and we had a home school preschool group field trip planned to the Jelly Belly Factory. We toured the factory - a tad bit disappointing. It was cool to see the factory at work but the tour guide was less than stellar and the frequent video clips were trite and difficult to see. The kids did seem to like it. Zachary was not bothered by the loud factory noise, didn't need to run back to the car to use the potty seat and William stayed in the stroller happily peering through the stroller height windows throughout the 40 minute tour.

After a little Jelly Belly shopping we had lunch with our friends. The kids were well behaved but loud and scared away all the other patrons in the room with us! Thankfully we were there for a late lunch so the restaurant wasn't too full. I received a sombrero and a sarenade and Heather brought me cupcakes and cookies for the kids! It was fun!

We started the long drive home and stopped on the way at Mother & Baby Source in Davis. I wanted to see an Ergo in person. It was a really nice store and they were very helpful. I think the Ergo would work well for both William and/or a new baby. I had to return a few Christmas gifts so I might use that $$ to purchase a new Ergo in camel. OR I am still considering a Beco but Carl is much less likely to try a Beco than an Ergo. Of course I still have the fabric to make a BMT so the Ergo could statisfy the need for utility while the BMT could satisfy my desire for fun and funky.

The boys and I are having a "quiet" day at home. Granted little is quiet in a house with a 2 year old and 4 year old. We have been building tall block structures which William knocks down with great gusto, infuriating Zachary. Big fun!

So maybe I stink at this?


Now I have time to blog since I cannot scrap *waaaa*. My laptop is *FULL*. DH ordered a 500GB Storage Server from Costco.com and we were expecting it on 9/13. When we checked the shipping info we found that it had left California (where we are) and is now on its way to NEW JERSEY! WHAT??? So I finally go a hold of both UPS and Costco today and they are innitating an investigation and if it is confirmed by UPS to Costco that it is indeed lost then they will expidite ship a new item. Geesh. All I want to do is DL the stuff I have purchased and get to play!


I love my last page. September 13th was the 10th anniversary of our first date. The song "Head Over Feet" by Alanis Morissette was a frequent guest in my CD player those first weeks of our relationship and on Wednesday I was in the car and that song came on! I knew I had to come home and scrap it! I had to keep deleting things from my laptop in order to keep working/saving. I stayed up until 5am completing the page. I love that picture of DH. My cutie pie :)


I have some other faves I haven't shared on my blog - well how could I share if I never post LOL!


Zachary LOVES his Buzz.
This picture is from late spring (when he also still loved the binkie) but Buzz is still a constant companion. Why couldn't he love a darker colored friend? LOL Buzz is scuzzy! I thought this kit from Shawna Clingerman was perfect for Buzz pages! Especially since Zachary wants to be Buzz for Halloween! My awesome friend Geri is sending her boys' Buzz costume for us to borrow and the Woody Hat for William. William is such a peanut that the Woody Costumes out there are just all too big so I am thinking a pair of jeans, a yellow button up, the Woody hat and then I will make a vest with a badge. I have been searching for some teeny cowboy boots but I won't pay $15 for something he will only wear for Halloween.


Last year both of my boys were pumpkins... the same pumpkin Zachary was for his first 3 Halloweens LOL! This is the first year we will be breaking the Pumpkin mold!

I am a winner!


I won a prize at a baby shower today! The prize was really cool - an umbrella. What a fun play on the idea of a "shower"! How I won, well rather embarrassing.

The shower was for a friend who had her second son on August 17th. Yes, that is right, just over a week ago! Baby Paul was there and amazingly beautiful. The only "game" we played was a mixer. We each got a paper to nominate 3 people - one for most embarassing potty/diaper changing story, one for the most embarassing breastfeeding/feeding story and the last was for the most memorable tantrum.

The most embarassing potty story was a mother/daughter team that was at the shower - years ago when the daughter (who is now a grandma) was 2 she wandered away from mom at Montgomery Wards and "used" a display toilet in the hardware section! LOL! Yikes!

Most embarassing breastfeeding story went to the mom who 15 years ago was a frantic first time mother and answered the door to a horrified mailman who pointed out that her nursing bra and nursing shirt were completely open.

And I won for most memorable tantrum... a month or so ago we were at Costco. Zachary (3.5) was in the big part of the cart, William (1.5) was in the front. We were all getting tired and crabby and the lines were long. I took the boys in the cart to get in line while DH went and picked up a few last items. As he walked away he tossed a box in to the cart with Zachary. Zachary picked up the box and started YELLING "MOMMA, WHAT IS THIS???? WHAAAAAAAAAAT ISSSSSSSSSS ITTTTT?". I asked him to put it down, stop yelling. He continued. I asked again... so he THREW it. The box skidded to a stop 3 lanes away, on the foot of an older gentleman. I couldn't get to the box because of the lines, couldn't leave the boys unattended. So I stood, mortified, while this nice man returned my box of 3 dozen condoms. All of that and who knows if we will even use that huge box before the expiration date! *LOL*

Well at least I got a cool new umbrella and a story to tell my future DIL out of the whole experience!

We went on a date last night. A real, honest DATE! Granted it started at 3pm and was over before 7pm but it was just my love and I! We went out for Thai food - something we never get with kids because we don't give them peanuts. Yum! We splurged on carbs and had an order of Pad Thai and then stuck with good healthy goodies like a huge plate of beautiful grilled veggies and beef satay. It was so yum! I had a glass of Reisling and DH had a Thai iced tea. We had such a lovely time just talking and enjoying each other. After dinner we went to Starbucks and played checkers. I tried to have a South Beach Diet friendly latte but it wasn't great - maybe 2 shots of SF vanilla syrup next time? When we got to my parents' to pick up the boys they were happily playing in the tub but glad to see us.


This date was to celebrate our 10th dating anniversary on 9/13 (our first date was on Friday the 13th!). My mom is having surgery in the coming weeks so we went now while we could. I will blog more another day about my mom, right now it is a little too raw. Anyway, 10 YEARS! Amazing! I so love this frustrating and dedicated man!

Kit - No Place Like Home by Tamara Burwick available at www.digiscrappin.biz (full credits at DST)



We packed up the boys and drove home where I found my Mojo! Welcome back!

Paula Duncan and Robin Carlton's 2 Scoops Kit - Creme De Menthe available at Sweet Shoppe Designs (full credits at DST)


Kit - Hayfield Dream by Paula Duncan (full credits at DST)

Well now that I started, why stop there?

We have these two beautiful boys and are hoping for a 3 child to bless our family. We had discussed trying to make a new person this late summer/early fall... as in now. But we made a big decision. We are waiting, probably until next late summer/fall. We do not want another holiday season baby and I think that I would enjoy having the boys a little older. So if we try next fall we would have a spring/summer baby that would be 5.5 and 3.5 younger than his/her older brothers. That works for me.

We made this decision this week and then tonight ran in to my OB/GYN at Costco! I adore her. She thought we were crazy to have 2 in almost 2 years so she approved when she heard that we won't be getting on her OB schedule for awhile longer!

I have to say that there are so many beautiful pink-girly kits out there that I am often wishing I could pick the gender of #3 just for the LOs (that is really, really sick, isn't it?).

So tonight I was complimented on my scrapping but my blogging ability was trashed. So trying again.


How about some life basics?

My sons are 1.5 and 3.5. They are awesome and frustrating and adorable. And they aren't getting enough sleep. Zachary has finished napping, most days. At 3.5 he doesn't seem to need a nap everyday but on no nap days he should probably be in bed at about 5:45pm LOL! So we have a new found dedication to a reasonable (7:30pm) bedtime. This is really cramping our style. Taking the two of them out to run errands on my own is so not fun, so we have been running errands after dinner. Well that is out because now DH gets home at 5:45, we eat dinner at 6, do baths and get the boys in PJs, read stories, brush teeth and it is after 7!

On the other hand, the kids were both asleep at 7:30 tonight! AMAZING! Too bad DH fell asleep soon after and is still snoozing on the couch. Geesh. We are getting O L D.



I have been in a scrapping funk lately but here are a couple of recent creations... (visit my DST gallery for full credits):


Two LOs using Mindy Wade's Rise and Shine kit available at www.scrapchicstudios.com

My crabby guys on Christmas morning.

William and his many faces.