Mom of 2 Boys

The Christmas tree hunt is on

2009-12-28T07:07:00.001-08:00

We went out early-ish on a Sunday to get our tree. We went about 20 minutes away to the place we have been going for the last 5 years or so. I know there are some tree farms closer to our house – may look into that for the future. It was pretty cold but not raining so it was an okay trade off. We bundled up the boys nicely but I, of course, forgot my own cold weather gear – luckily we were meeting D and she lent me some gloves.

The boys loving life in the back of the mister’s truck:

D and J2

On the hunt:

There were spider webs on some of the trees and they were frozen too!

J2 was most confused about the mister being on the ground

It was a bit foggy in some places too – the boys were running around like crazy people. Note J2’s shoes – they were originally his cousin MD’s (she is now 16), then his cousin GG wore them, then J1 and now him. Not sure what I will do with them when he outgrows them.

This was the best family photo – the boys aren’t into posing, unless it is their idea.

And J2 in the big sleigh – he was shaking the ropes like there were horses (or reindeer??) attached – super cute!

J1 was up in his room playing and for some reason he crawled in J2’s crib and fell asleep.

The mister put the lights on the tree right after we brought it home but we didn’t get around to decorating it until the following weekend. I wasn’t too into it since I knew J2 would be unable to keep his hands off – and I was right. Grrr. We even just put ornaments on the top half of the tree but he still managed to get his hands on some. We didn’t turn the lights on most of the time because then he didn’t notice it much. Not very festive!

You can't see them too well but J1 is wearing his shiny red Doc Marten boots. The mister got a pass to the Doc Marten warehouse sale from his work and he usually goes every year for work boots. I went this year but only found one pair of sandals I liked and they were the wrong size. J1 found these boots and at $15 we had to get them.

And we didn’t put any presents under the tree until the boys were in bed Christmas Eve. Not sure they could have kept from opening them. Someday I suppose.

J1 is a poser

2009-12-24T22:46:00.001-08:00

Well, for some reason, although J1 doesn’t want to smile or be normal when I want to take a picture, he wants to do crazy poses sometimes so here is one session:

The two of them – don’t their jammies match the chair and blanket perfectly? Just a coincidence. I am sure I have the perfect scrapbooking kit for this.

Well, I had to go look and this is what I found:

I definitely think it will work but I’ll be keeping my eyes open because I love a new kit!

Anyway, back to my post.

Oh woe is him!

Wasn’t that a fun photo session? Next up – Christmas tree hunting and decorating.

Wow, it has been awhile…

2009-12-24T21:46:00.001-08:00

It is Christmas Eve and I am sitting at my computer watching Love Actually because it is a Christmas movie I *have* to watch and the mister is just so not into it. The first time I saw it, it was in the theater with my mom, aunt and bff D. My mom and aunt were down for my wedding reception so we took in this film. I thought I was going to die watching the porn couple scenes with my 70 year old aunt! Oh well, it was fun anyway. Since it has been so long, I am going to attempt to catch up. The last time I posted it was pumpkin pictures so here are some to catch up.

I asked my brother-in-law to take some pictures of the boys in the park – hoping for some good ones of J1 since he is so difficult with pictures these days. Well it didn’t really work out but here is a few from the drive over which were super cute. He looks like he is being really cool but he was sleeping. The park ones were okay - and those of you that got our Christmas card saw a couple of the candids which turned out better than the posed ones.

The boys and their cousins.

We had a Halloween party over at play park and J1 had the most fun playing with the flubber. Also tried to get a nice picture of them but, par for the course, I got nothing!

For a Halloween treat, I made the boys orange milk – they loved it!

silly boys!

I think I mentioned once that J2 uses my shirts as his blankies – here are some cute pics from Halloween day. Not sure how it got wrapped around his head!

Turns out the best pictures of their costumes were taken a couple days before the big day! J1 is Buzz Lightyear of course and J2 gets J1's leftover costume from a few years ago.

And the night of:

Okay, I’ll get this posted and work on the next post – just to keep you wanting more and not overwhelm you!

Lego Dinosaur

2009-11-01T21:48:00.001-08:00

I have lots of great pictures for the last week or so, including Halloween but I took some pictures tonight that I knew would be a quick post so here goes:

In case you couldn't tell, that is an Ankylosaurus named Tank. The blue block are feet and his armored plates. Check out an illustration here. J1 has been occasionally watching Dinosaur Train (he could watch it more if he would just use the dang potty!!) on PBS and he loves it - he is always talking about dinos now. Reminds me of my nephew who just turned 18!! He loved the dinos too - way, way back in the day. Oh, in case you were marveling at J1's awesome feat, I actually taped the head on!

Making a mess and picking pumpkins

2009-10-21T07:04:00.000-07:00

Well, in the past I haven't let J1 play with Play Doh much because I hate the mess - funny coming from me because, as my step-mom pointed out this past weekend, I am a notorious slob! She was saying it about my room when I was in HS but it is so true. I think I mentioned before that my mom used to pay my sister to clean my room when we were kids and, well, let's face it, everyone who knows me before I got married knows it's a fact! I am *somewhat* better now since I have the mister and the kids but only somewhat. That all being said, I'm not too into kid crafty messes. It is better now that J1 is a bit older because his craft mess is somewhat contained. Anyway, he has been wanting to play with the Play Doh lately so as soon as J2 goes down for his nap we break it out. We drag this little table from the family room and get him all set up on it. We get a new can usually every time to replace the stuff that got thrown away the last time. He also mixes them all together which I don't care about - I know some people do! Here is him playing away and the mess on the floor afterward. The pieces are pretty small and they dry quickly so the clean up isn't bad - just sweep and done.

Here is his squirrel - doesn't the head look like ET? We made a great bird together the other day and I had a picture of it but it didn't download like I thought and I deleted it off my camera before I realized it! Darn it - but now I double check and at least it was *just* a picture of a Play Doh bird.

My MIL grew a few pumpkins in her garden this year - thank goodness since I blew it at our pumpkin patch visit. Here are some snaps I took while we harvested them the other day.

No smile from J1 but it is better than his fake smile!

J2 was barefoot because I forgot his shoes - better than ruining socks. It wasn't very cold!

The pumpkin patch - not that you can tell that from the pictures!

2009-10-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

So we picked a perfect day to go to the pumpkin patch - the weather was beautiful and we got out of the house early enough that it wasn't crazy with people yet. We go to this one near where we used to live in Orchards - it is quite the fun place. For $8 each (J2 is free currently) you get:

1 pumpkin, any size
2 pumpkins to launch in their big pumpkin slingshot thing
corn maze
hay maze (for the little ones)
animals to pet (goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, chickens, turkey, donkey - seems like there was more)
freshly squeezed apple cider
a hot cider or hot chocolate
hay ride to pumpkin patch
rubber duck races (driven by a water pump)
pumpkin washing stations
tractors to climb on
a hay tower to climb on with tunnels
a nice place to take a family photo

That might be all. Anyway, we got there about 1/2 hour after they opened on a Sunday and went to the pumpkin launch first because it gets pretty busy later. J1 and the mister launched all six of our pumpkins. They have some barrels in the field and if you make it in you get some sort of a prize - no idea what since we have never done it! Here are the boys attempting it though:

Then J1 tried out the rubber duck race (with daddy's help) - it was pretty cute.

Then the boys climbed on the hay tower and I took a bunch of pictures:

And then my camera batteries died. I had briefly thought about bring some with us but in all the craziness of getting out the door, I forgot. Oh well. I did get some pumpkin pictures later - thanks Gramma! Stay tuned for those.

So we finally got on the hay ride out to the patch and the mister and J1 picked out our pumpkins while I chased J2 around the patch. He was having a blast even though he kept tripping on all the vines. We got back to the tractor station to wait for our ride back and J1 ran into a friend from school. It is the friend he talks about the most so he was thrilled. They got to ride together on the hay ride back and had so much fun - it was very cute. We did let the kids wander through the hay bale maze, pet the animals and have some cider before heading out to get our pumpkins so once we were back we just headed to the truck.

Here is our pumpkin family this year. The little tiny one in the middle and the small one on the ground are from our second pumpkin adventure.

Backyard fun - shhhh, don't tell daddy...

2009-10-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

Well, you can mention the play structure but not the birdbath - they are not supposed to play in it. :)

So it was a pretty nice morning for early October and we went outside to play. J1 is still wearing his jammie bottoms so it was at least before noon! I don't remember why they were playing in the birdbath but I just let them because they were having fun and the pictures are great!

And both boys were playing on the play structure. They don't do that very often so I had to get some pictures. J2 was carrying around a tomato that he was sort of gnawing on. It was fairly orange so I can't imagine it tasted great but he held onto it practically the whole time they were on the play structure.

J2 is turning around to go down the slide responsibly - on his belly! And J1 is doing his "bat" imitation. His favorite thing to do since we saw them at the zoo.

J1 "cheesing" for the camera - ugh! I have had to stop telling him to smile and say "just be serious" or I get pictures with dumb looks! And there is J2 and his tomato! We were outside a few weeks back picking stuff so I had a colander out with us. J2 picked a bunch of tomatoes and put them in the colander. Then he carried that thing with the tomatoes the rest of the time we were in the yard. J1 and I were running races back and forth across the yard and J2 would sometimes join in, still carrying the veggies. He would trip, spill all of them, put them all back in and run again. Crazy boy!

A dinner picnic and the Greek Fest

2009-10-21T06:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago J1 decided we needed to have a "dinner picnic" - basically eating outside on the deck. He loves a picnic and it makes for easier cleanup. Presumably the birds would eat the dinner debris and I wasn't forced to sweep yet again!

We also recently went to the Greek Festival in Portland. The mister and I have gone nearly every year since we met. We actually met at a Greek Restaurant (thanks Mo!) so it is sort of symbolic I guess. We really only go for the food though - so yummy! I think the servers are sort of disgusted with me, however, because I always order my gyro without tomatoes and onions - apparently some sort of affront to Greek cooking! I have been going to the Greek festival for many years, even before meeting the mister. My bff D took me with her family way back in the day.

Here we are just after eating. Trying to coerce J1 to look at the camera and not make a face - not an easy task!

Here is the church and the sign they have every year. I understand the intent - they have a beer garden as part of the festival and you aren't allowed to leave the premises, surely a condition of the alcohol license. But still, it is a funny sign!

You can't buy anything with actual cash, you have to buy "talents" and get your food that way. Maybe so it doesn't seem like you are spending a fortune for lunch? Not really sure. And of course, they always have kids dancing in their elaborate costumes. J1 enjoyed watching that a lot.

For some reason, we always end up parking near this playground so inevitably we have to hang there for a bit after we leave the festival. The boys had a blast though!

J2's first time on a merry-go-round - he liked it. Only fell off once!

And the slide - J2 was crazy about it. And all the pictures showed his reflection - way cooler than I knew when I was taking it!

New Digital Scrapping Blog

2009-10-16T20:03:00.001-07:00

I have decided to move the digital scrapping part of my blog to a new site so my family can just read about the kids. I'll have the digital downloads here for a bit but ultimately they will all be at my new site:

Kerry's Scraps

Thanks!!

Dogs and Frogs Quick Page Freebie

2009-10-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

It's finally (almost) Friday and time for the Dogs and Frogs Quick Page Freebie. Make sure to hop on over to the Growing Pains Scrapped blog to get Tracy's Quick Page and links to the rest of her CT for theirs! I also included the "Sisters" word art I made for my original layout - if you missed it, see it here (or go down 3 posts!). Hope you enjoy! There are a few other Quick Pages still available - click on freebies to your right and get them.

Click here to download

It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere...

2009-10-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

I got to play with this great, colorful kit from Misty O'Brien Designs this week - check it out in her store here. I love the bright, cheerful colors which are a bit outside my comfort zone! I am usually wearing darker colors and my boys are in, well, boy colors so I liked stretching my creativity with this. I have a few pictures from my bachelorette party that would have been perfect but I decided I didn't want those out for general viewing! I think my favorite part of this kit is the patterned papers - very unique and elegant swirly papers and fun dotted papers.

This is the first layout I made with it. I love tulips and have gone to the Tulip Festival in Woodburn, Oregon many times!

This is the second layout I did - the mister and I took his mom to a Mother's Day Tea at the Lavender Tea House in Sherwood, Oregon back when a friend owned it. The scones are to die for!

Fun Stuff Going on Today at Stuff to Scrap!

2009-10-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

Don't forget that today is $2 Tuesday at the Stuff to Scrap Store. There are some great kits on sale today and $2 is an excellent price. Check out the ones Growing Pains Scrapped has on sale - all fabulous kits:

I picked up My Fire Hero by Manda's Scrappin' Creations so I have a fun kit to scrap all those pictures of the boys visiting the fire station - which we seem to do at least once a year!

And later tonight there is another fun Speed Scrap. Speed Scraps are a great way to try new things and scrap outside your comfort zone - and you get a participation prize and some great chatting along the way!

Here is the prize provided by Flower Scraps:

Dogs and Frogs - a new kit from Growing Pains Scrapped

2009-10-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

Tracy at Growing Pains Scrapped has a new kit called Dogs and Frogs on her blog. It will be free this week and then you can get it in her stores at Stuff to Scrap and Scrap Mall. I love this kit! It is great for my boys but also works for any dog pictures you have. And don't forget about frog pictures - I know my sister has pictures from when we visited "Frog Lake" a few years ago and she can't be the only one with cute pictures of frogs!

Make sure to head over to her blog starting tomorrow. The release schedule is:

Monday: Papers
Tuesday: Elements
Wednesday: Alpha #1
Thursday: Alpha #2
Friday: Quick Pages

On Friday I will have a quick page made with this layout (I'll have the wordart available too):

I made this layout for the Stuff to Scrap template challenge for this month. It is a great template - if you haven't checked out the challenge and all the great layouts being made with it, click here to join the fun!

8 Values Quickpage Freebie

2009-10-09T00:10:00.000-07:00

Well, it is finally Friday and time for your quickpage. Make sure you have been to Tracy's blog to get her quickpages and the link to the rest of her CT's pages. Also make sure to check out the other half of the collab over at Kathy's blog - she has quickpages too and links for her CT. They wanted me to let you know that this kit will be free forever so make sure to send your friends!

Here is the preview of my quickpage:

And you can get it here

There are still freebies available for download here on my blog - just click freebie in the categories sections to link right to them. Thanks!!

Happy Early 20th Anniversary Sissy!!

2009-10-07T14:44:00.000-07:00

My sister and her husband are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary in Cabo right now - here's a layout I made for them! Hope you guys are having fun!

Gothic Romance Quick Page Freebie

2009-10-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

I made this quick page with Scrappy Cocoa's Gothic Romance kit - you can pick up the kit here. She has a Quick Page available on her blog too - head there to pick it up!

Here is the preview of my Quick Page. You can see the layout I did with it in this post if you missed it.

Download it here

Last of our coast vacation

2009-10-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I forgot to post this last entry. Here it is even though we have been back for over a week now.

Well, the mister was gone until about 4 p.m. fishing. Or “fishing” as they apparently only caught one fish the entire day. Oh well, what were we going to do with fish anyway? Shortly after he got home the Grammas came over to watch the boys and we headed to dinner. We went to the yummy Blackfish Café, which is where we have gone for at least the last 3 years, maybe 4. I need to check back in Microsoft Money and see how many years. It was great and we got awesome desserts to go – ate them for breakfast!

Thursday morning we went to the beach for a last hurrah for the boys. It was incredibly windy so we didn’t last long. We drove up to my MIL’s condo in the back of the mister’s truck – we were covered with sand so it seemed like a good idea. The drive was literally two minutes along a back road so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. We did pass a hotel with two cop cars in it (the entire Lincoln City force??) and a few cops standing around outside. Luckily they didn’t glance our way. We bathed the boys at the condo and fed J1 lunch. After that we headed back to our house and my MIL followed. She and I left all the boys and headed out for some girl time. We went to a yummy place for lunch and then went to the outlet stores. I picked up a birthday present for the mister’s cousin’s daughter’s (the mister’s first cousin once removed for those who like to know these things) 2nd birthday on Sunday. I also got some clothes for the boys, J1 mostly. J2 is pretty well set up with clothes and my stash of boy clothes up in the attic gets pretty light in the 4T and 5T range. I think this is when boys actually start to wear out their clothes and nobody has much to pass along. We went to Carter’s, Gymboree, The Gap and The Children’s Place – found great stuff at all of them. My MIL also got the boys some Christmas gifts and their Christmas jammies – rocket ship ones! After that we went to the library so we could cull some email before going home. Then on to the hardware store and the grocery store and then, finally, home.

We left right away to go to dinner. The mister chose Roadhouse 101 because he read an article about it and it was family friendly. The only downside was that there were peanuts everywhere – you could eat them and throw the shells on the floor. Nice but not so great when you have a child with a peanut allergy! Luckily J1’s peanut allergy isn’t bad and he hasn’t been exposed to it since he was nursing at four months so it isn’t one of those deadly ones. Still, not the greatest idea. He was fine though and both boys were angels at the restaurant which is always a bonus. I have a few 24-piece puzzles in zipper bags for when we travel so on a whim I threw them in the diaper bag. Turned out to be a great idea because it kept J1 busy and the puzzles are just the perfect size for his place at the table. We also brought along a bunch of little duplo blocks and J2 kept busy stacking those. Both excellent choices for keeping the boys busy – will keep some in the car from now on!

Home to watch Survivor and CSI – I guess Gray’s will have to wait until I get home. We are packing up and heading home tomorrow. It is nice to have the whole weekend to get back into the groove plus we have the birthday party Sunday in Salem. I have a new plan about blogging that involves J1’s laptop, the wireless card my step-mom is supposed to send me and the church where playpark is located – hopefully this plan will drastically improve my blogging!

More s'more making pics - forgot to post them before. J2 wasn't actually cold even though it was getting dark. I don't remember why he didn't have clothes on!

This was a picture from the deck the morning we left - super cool! The bird on the dock pole is a great big blue heron who lives right around here. J1 scared him a few times when he was playing down in the grass - the bird scared him right back when he squawked and flew off! And J1 wanted to pose for pictures - an opportunity I never pass up because he is usually not super cooperative when I want to take his picture. He is wearing one of his new outfits. Dig that wall paper border?? The lake house came decorated and furnished when our friends purchased it!

Check me out!

2009-10-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

Here is my introduction as a member of the Stuff to Scrap site's Creative Team. It has been fun so far and digital scrapping makes me so happy! If you like digital scrapping you should check out Stuff to Scrap's site - great challenges, fab kits and super nice people!

Gothic Romance by Scrappy Cocoa

2009-10-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

Check out this new kit by Scrappy Cocoa - her version of a Halloween kit - great colors and grungy elements! You can get the kit here and it is on sale right now so you'd better hurry up! Check out her other kits while you are there - I especially love Denim and Daisy, Homegrown and The O'Hara - they are on my wish list for sure!

Here are the layouts I made - this is J1 with his great granny.

This is me and the mister on our cruise honeymoon - we got married on the ship before setting sail.

Check out her blog for more inspiration from the other CT members and you can see my photo there too! :)

New Growing Pains Scrapped Collab this week

2009-10-04T20:05:00.000-07:00

Growing Pains Scrapped has another freebie collab this week - this time with The Latest Scoop, Too. The kit is called 8 Values for Truth and Righteousness and is inspired by a Young Women Youth group for the Mormon Church - read about it here. Now even if you aren't a member of the Mormon faith, you can't argue with the values this group strives for: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue - great goals for everyone really. Not only that, this kit is very versatile and can be used for a myriad of subjects so head over to Tracy's blog and get it! Here is her preview:

And make sure to go to The Latest Scoop, Too's blog to get her portion which is shown here:

The release will be as follows: Monday - papers, Tuesday - elements, Wednesday - alpha, Thursday - word art/value frames, Friday - quick page freebies, and Saturday - a calendar add-on and new mutual theme download.

Here are two pages I made:

This one was made into a quickpage which you can pick up here Friday:

Sunday Drive

2009-10-04T17:05:00.001-07:00

Who doesn't like a Sunday drive? When we were little, my sister and I would go on these long drives with our parents - just driving. Not sure they ever had a destination in mind or maybe I just don't remember. My dad had a truck with a canopy and he would put a really thick foam mattress in the back and we would hang out back there - this was before seat belts were mandatory of course! I don't remember much from those trips, just snippets really, but the memories are mostly happy, green-filled images - Alaska is very, very green in the summer.

This week, in my *job* as a creative team member for the Stuff to Scrap site, I got to scrap using a kit by Manda's Scrappin' Creations called Sunday Drive. Here is the preview or you can see it in the store; also check out her blog to see what else she has going on.

Here is the first layout I made with J1 in the mister's "fancy" car - can't believe the mister *allowed* J1 to even touch it, let alone sit in it!

The second one is for my bff D who likes baby toes more than just about anything else - maybe even chocolate!

Feel Good Friday?

2009-10-01T23:33:00.000-07:00

Man, you're going to love this month's collab kit by the STS designers called Sunshine Playground - it's packed full of great textures and elements in fabulous colors for all your kid pages! This kit contains 101 papers, 168 embellishments and 2 full alphas. And the best thing about this kit and the quick-pages is that all proceeds are donated to The No Child Left Out Project. You can read more about it at http://thenochildleftoutproject.blogspot.com/. Really, anything we can do to help a child be able to play at a playground is worth doing and you get a great kit to boot!

So, what are you waiting for? Head on over to the store to buy both the kit and the quick pages . And hey, if you don't do digital scrapping but are moved anyway, you can donate directly on the blog.

Stuff to Scrap Speed Scrap on Friday!

2009-10-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

Do you love a speed scrap? I do and Stuff to Scrap is having one tomorrow at 10am Pacific Time (you do the math if you are in a time zone not listed on the poster because it is just too late for me to try!) and you get a great set of papers from Scraps of Ellay for your participation prize. It matches her Cosmic Charlie kit which you can pick up here.

Hope to see you there!

October Road Brag Book Blog Train

2009-10-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally Friday (well, almost Friday anyway) and it is time for your brag book pages. If you just stumbled here, you should be starting at Growing Pains Scrapped blog - head there to get her pages and she has the links for her CT. Don't forget that The Scrappy Kat has pages and links on her blog and Flower Scraps' blog has her pages and links for her CT as well!

Here is what mine looks like:

and you can pick it up here

Newport Aquarium

2009-09-29T20:23:00.001-07:00

After J1’s doctor appointment we met my MIL at Fred Meyer for lunch. The mister and I hadn’t eaten breakfast because we were going to pick something up on the way but didn’t have time. Apparently my fault because we didn’t leave when he said we should. Here is the scene: Me: running around trying to get the kids fed and dressed, make sure they have food for the trip, get dressed myself, change diapers, pack the diaper bag, gather my cameras etc. - The mister: lying on the couch watching TV. Par for the course. So as we are driving and he mentions that we should have left at 9 instead of 9:15 I asked him if it would work if I just gave him instructions on how to help me get ready. I made sure he knew I wasn’t being snarky, I just really needed to know. He said, “I guess”. My BFF and I have talked about this many times as it isn’t new and she has been saying I need to just give him directions. Even things I have read say this but I have been hesitant because I don’t want to be a nag. I guess there is a line between soliciting help and being a nag and I need to locate it so that I am not coming off as a martyr which is annoying. Anyway, we were starving so we went to Freddies because the mister’s friend works there and they also sell the fishing license that he needed to go fishing with said friend tomorrow. We loaded up on food and then headed to the Aquarium.

They have a couple of places where you are allowed to touch the sealife – skates, sea anemones, starfish and fish. Both boys really enjoyed that but I don’t know if it was just playing in the water that J2 liked. Then J1 and the mister watched them feed the otters and then on to the seals and sea lions. They also have an octopus but the only thing I have ever seen of that is part of one leg and this time was no different. They have an aviary but it was closed. I’m not too into birds anyway so I didn’t really care. The coolest exhibit they have there is the Oceans of the Deep which is a tunnel-type walkway that has fish 360 around you. Very cool! There was one floor “window” that was pretty clear and J2 found himself standing on it. He came to an abrupt halt, stared down for a minute and then very carefully stepped off. It was pretty funny. After that he made sure to steer clear of that area. That is really the last exhibit so we walked a nature trail to the kid’s play area and hung there for a while. Oh, we also stopped at a gift shop where Gramma bought each boy a prize. I tried to get J1 to get a stick with a track inside and with small BBs that rolled down it – I figured he would like it as a light saber (or light "saver" if you are 3), a gun and a ship – the three things he makes out of anything that even remotely looks like a stick. No go – he was torn between a stick with a shark head on the end and a diver guy bath toy whose flippers move. He chose the diver guy because “he flies like a superhero”. Well, he played with it for 3 hours and just now came up and told me he is done with the guy and now wanted the shark head. “We have to go back to the zoo and get it,” he says. Fickle boy - and funny he thought we were at the zoo! J2 got a stuffed clown fish – I liked the frog but he apparently preferred the fish. Oh well, it wasn’t for me. I did get an aluminum water bottle – red with the Oregon Coast Aquarium logo on it – very nice. We are back at the house now just chilling. The mister is headed back to Newport early to go fishing and we are stuck without a vehicle and no park so it should be interesting. My MIL has her friend so they are busy, understandably so. Oh well, we often stay around the house but at we do have a backyard with toys. Tomorrow night the mister and I are headed to our anniversary dinner at the Blackfish Café and the Grammas will babysit. Good times.

Not sure why the pictures are so random but I am just leaving it!

New Fall Collab Kit

2009-09-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

Growing Pains-Scrapped has a new collab with The Scrappy Kat and Flower Scraps called October Road. This is a rich, colorful fall kit that will be great for all your pumpkin patch, Thanksgiving and fall pictures but would also work if you had a wedding, prom or homecoming with these colors. What about football pictures? Halloween? This kit would also work for those - especially if your school colors matched or if there were leaves and fall trees in your Trick or Treat pictures. Starting tomorrow you can get this collab for free - but just for a week then you can pick it up in the Stuff to Scrap store.

Here is Growing Pains-Scrapped's preview. Go check out her blog for her patterned paper and then head to the others for their parts!

Here is The Scrappy Kat 's preview:

And Flower Scraps' preview:

Here is my layout. It will be available as a brag book freebie page on Friday. I have so many pumpkin patch pictures but I wanted to show the versatility of the kit. This is my MIL and her sister at my rehearsal dinner. For those in the know, it wasn't actually a rehearsal dinner since we had already been married for two months. It was more of a let-the-families-get-to-know-each-other party, but let's face it, that is an absurdly long name!

Happy Anniversary to us!

2009-09-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

Monday was our 6th wedding anniversary – not sure what the gift for the 6th is supposed to be but I am guessing something random like bronze so suffice it to say we didn’t go traditional on the gifts. Chris got me a fabulous Calphalon wok from the outlet stores here. I had been wanting one and although it isn’t a romantic gift, the card was very romantic and lovely and I am nothing if not practical. I got him iTunes gift cards, which he was very pleased with. We didn’t do much during the day as I had a terrible headache. There is an awesome playground about a two-minute walk from the lake house and the mister headed there with the boys while I watched the rest of Sense and Sensibility. He was back within about four minutes with an upset J1. Apparently they were treating the playground equipment with a stain/sealant that takes five days to soak in – basically the entire time we will be here! What horrible timing. So the mister asked the guy doing the work where else there was a park so they headed over there. By the time they returned I had showered, cleaned up the house and prepared lunch for them. Good times!

Okay, let me switch subjects completely and I’ll get back to the anniversary after. I am listening to the Harry Potter series on my iPod and have made it up to book 6 (but only ½ of book 3). For whatever dumb reason, I forgot to load book 3 before leaving and that is the one the mister and I started when we went to Eastern Oregon in August – we were planning on finishing it on this trip – mistake #1. I also didn’t think about loading book 7 just in case I finished 6 - which I just did – mistake #2. In addition, I am watching the movies after I finish the books and didn’t bring the 5th movie with us – mistake #3. Apparently even with all the extra hours at home waiting to sign papers I still didn’t get everything I should have. I guess I am back to listening to the Twilight books again. I do have other books on there - maybe I should branch out – well, maybe not! And on a related note, there are at least 3 people from the Harry Potter movies in Sense and Sensibility – Professor Snape (with much better hair), Professor Trelawny (with much, much, much better hair) and Delores Umbrage. The mister said he isn’t surprised because I guess he read an article that mentioned that they were running out of British actors for the last HP movie. Also, Hugh Laurie is in there but I totally had to rewind to check him out, as I didn’t make the connection while watching it. I think it was the “huge” sideburns and all the hair – also maybe the British accent.

Okay, back to the anniversary. We were having grilled chicken and stir-fried noodles with veggies. We also had sparkling wine (not champagne because it is from Oregon) and ate on the deck. We took J2’s highchair out there so he was contained. It was so hot in the house it was the only pleasant place to be anyway. We brought an apple pie from our freezer (made by my MIL) and my MIL and her friend stopped by to have some with us. We watched the season opener of House – which was great – and then off to bed early because J1 had a doctor appointment the next morning in Newport.

our view from the deck

So that story is - on Saturday he was complaining that his ear lobe kept going into his ear – random as of course it was not. I called our insurance company to figure out what was the best course for medical out of town. It wasn’t an ER situation so I saw no reason to do that. An urgent care place apparently just falls under our deductible, which J1 has not even started using yet so I wasn’t hot for that. If we could have found a convenience care place (those new ones cropping up in Walgreens and CVS staffed with a NP usually) it would have just been the $25 co-pay but there were none within 50 miles of here. Our last option was to see a regular doctor for the $25 co-pay but we had to find someone who would see us. Well, I did find one in Newport that had an opening on Tuesday. It would cost us $93 out of pocket but we could most likely get the $68 back from our insurance company I would just have to submit it myself. There was an urgent care place in Depot Bay so I called them to see if the cost would be less but she quoted me between $82 and $395 for a new patient – what kind of range is that?? Well, the Aquarium is in Newport so we just decided to do both. Turns out that most likely there was just too much wax and they cleaned it out. He did say that it could be something more and that the wax was just a red herring so keep that in mind with future ear things. May have to do some googling about that.

UPDATE: I check out a web site and found that the traditional 6th anniversary gift is Candy or Iron – iron? Maybe an iron? I could use a new one. The modern one is wood – I’ll just leave that alone.

Our Coast Vacation

2009-09-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

Well, we were supposed to leave for Lincoln City at 8 or 9 am Saturday but we were stuck at home waiting for the notary to show up so we could sign the refinance papers for our home loan. We started the process about five months ago and it has been taking forever! I'm not really sure why, I heard many different excuses. At least they worked it so we still got the interest rate we would have gotten if it had gone through in a reasonable amount of time. Anyway, we *had* to close by Saturday because the appraisal was going to expire and since they didn't let me know until Friday afternoon about 3, I didn't have much time to get things together. It is (hopefully) done now and I am pleased - the rate went down a full point and the payment is down about $200 per month which is nice.

So we hit some horrible traffic heading out of Portland and were in the car probably 1 1/2 hours longer than we thought we would be but the boys did pretty well. We got to the lake house around 3:30, took an inventory and the mister and J1 were going to meet his family at the beach and then go grocery shopping. We stay at the house for free but everyone who stays is responsible for replenishing the consumables - dish soap, paper towels, laundry soap - that sort of thing. It is quite nice! Anyway, I was stayed home because J2 needed a nap.

Off they went to the beach but the mister brought J1 back before shopping because J1 was throwing sand at people and wouldn't stop. Oh well, we had nice snuggle time. The mister made bbq chicken for dinner and we just sat around and relaxed. I never have a chance to do that - there is always laundry to wash and fold, work to be done, playing on the computer - you name it. So, with a few exceptions, I am relaxing this week. I did bring J1's computer along so I can type up blog posts. It doesn't have internet at the moment but I can still type and upload later.

The house is on Devil's Lake in Lincoln City and it is a great place. It is two stories with basically a bedroom and bathroom on the top floor and another bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining room and kitchen on the bottom. There is also a nice deck and property down to the water and a dock. With the kids, we generally just gate off the 2nd story and live downstairs. The bedroom is quite large and we all sleep in there. We set up J2 in his portacrib, unroll J1's sleeping bag on the floor and the mister and I share the king sized bed. We *need* a king sized bed - I love it. We have a queen and it is a nice memory foam one but still, our bedroom has room for a king. Won't happen though since we do have the memory foam one and a queen sleigh bed that matches our bedroom set but it is nice to dream.

The boys are back on ranch time - getting up at around 8 am. My theory is that they may wake up at that time at home but just turn over and go back to sleep but when we are away, they look around and think "where the heck am I" and get up. Oh well, I don't have things to get done in the morning so it doesn't bother me much.

Today (Sunday) we went to see if we could meet up with the mister's family at the beach and they were on their way back up to my MIL's timeshare by the time we got there. We stayed and had lunch and then headed back to the beach. I wasn't looking forward to it with J2 since he *loves* the water and I was worried he would make a beeline for the ocean. Well, he did but the mister and his BIL helped and it wasn't bad at all. He got completely soaked but loved every minute of it. After a while, he was done with the water and stayed in the general area playing in the sand. He needed a nap so I took him back up to the timeshare and he got a quick bath and then his bottle. Everyone else came back shortly after that and J1 and his cousin GG both took baths and J2 was trying like crazy to get in the water again. Never saw a kid like it. At home when he hears the bath running, he gets all excited and then bangs on the bathroom door screaming until both kids are ready and I open the door. Just a water boy!

We were supposed to have everyone over for a spaghetti feed but the mister's sister and her family wanted to get back home so they left around 3. My MIL still came over for dinner and we built a fire in the fire pit. We tried to roast marshmallows for s'mores but it just didn't work. Oh well, my MIL came in and made them in the microwave - almost just as good! It is time to head to bed now. Oh, a final note. J1 said his favorite thing about the day was the beach, seeing his uncle, his aunt, his cousins, the other girl (GG’s friend who does have a name but J1 called her “the other girl” so I will too), and his Gramma – basically everything!

2009-09-25T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hey, check out this new kit by Growing Pains - Scrapped:

I love the deep colors in this kit and, while all the elements are great, I especially love the flowers and the hearts! You can pick up the kit here. Oh, and check out the layout I made - yes that is me! I listed the date as late 70's but after considering it for a bit, I have decided it is actually from the very early 80's - gotta go change that date.

2009-09-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Check out the upcoming sale at Stuff to Scrap. Head to the store to get the *stuff* you have been wishing for!

Video Catch Up

2009-09-18T07:11:00.001-07:00

I have been meaning to post this video of J1 singing happy birthday since July so here it is:

and my future baseball player?

I also have another great video but it needs editing and I have to find and load the software on my new computer and haven't done it. Hopefully I'll remember later.

Goings on

2009-09-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here is our backyard picnic. J1 loves eating in the backyard for some reason. It was J2's first time and, really, it didn't work out so well. He didn't understand the concept of eating by just sitting on a blanket but who cares, we had fun anyway. The main problem was that he kept walking on all the food and then stealing all of J1's pretzel sticks. He had hands full of them and still kept trying to take the rest - dropping the ones he had trying to get new ones.

J2 then moved on to eating strawberries - not sure why we still have some but at least he always has a snack when he goes outside. Sometimes he eats the greenery too but I guess that is good fiber.

Another day I was taking pictures of the garden and the fruit trees so J1 decided he needed to take pictures too. He has this great kid's digital camera that he got for Christmas or his birthday (who can remember when they are 5 days apart?) - I have never taken pictures off of it but it will be fun to do. That will be it's own blog post I think.

On a "cold" day we were again outside - I think J2 looks so much older when he is wearing long sleeves and long pants. The picture of the hand is J1's pet slug. He kept playing with it until he squished it and then was telling me it was sleeping before going to find its mommy. Poor slug!

J1 looks very happy in this picture but shortly after that he was throwing a fit - can't remember what about. I had him go sit on the stairs which is sort of like a time out but I only do it when he is having a meltdown. I take him there, very calmly, and just tell him to sit there until he is done. He still cries for a bit but at least he is out of my sight and I can't hear him well. This night he fell asleep for a bit - he must have been very tired which probably led to the meltdown in the first place. I can't believe he didn't fall off the stair.

On another note, I will be on a couple of scrapbook designer's creative teams starting next month. This means I make some layouts with their kits and promote their work around the digi scrapbooking world. I am very excited - look for the posts in the future right here. Along with it I will probably get a new look for my blog and hopefully be posting more often.

We recently went to the zoo and I have new garden pictures so I'll get those posted soon. I keep thinking that it takes a really long time to post here but his only took me about 15 minutes - I just need to keep that in mind.

I am watching the season finale of Gray's Anatomy right now - to get geared up for the new season starting next week. I'll have to see if I can talk the mister into letting me watch it, but if not, it will be on the DVR!

Latest digital pages

2009-08-22T08:28:00.001-07:00

Here are my latest ones - still honing the skills...

Just random stuff

2009-08-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we have been home a couple of weeks and not much is going on but we seem to be very busy. My garden is producing stuff. The lettuce is just about gone and the carrots are finally big enough to eat. The mister's onions are nearing ready I think - hooray for all of us! The green beans are getting ready to come into existence and I have gotten two cucumbers which I mixed with some of the ripe tomatoes and made a cucumber, tomato and feta salad - yum! Pretty much the only way I like to eat raw tomatoes. We grew roma so I can make sauce so don't judge! Our one plum fell off the tree the other day - well, the mister thinks it was a squirrel. It definitely wasn't J1 so that is good news. It was too high for him to pick plus it was on the tree when we went to bed and on the ground when we got up. Phew. The mister is watching closely since J1 picked most of our apples really early last year - he was so pissed. And he was picking green strawberries too. J1 has been great this year and has not been picking anything he shouldn't. The pear has so much fruit it is sagging and there are tons of apples - should be a nice fall for fruit-eating. The blueberries are just about gone but there are a few strawberries left. I need to harvest and dry the herbs - maybe I'll get some small paper bags at the store and get that going.

I made a tactical laundry error last week. J1 spilled ketchup on our little throw rug in the kitchen so I decided to wash it. It is red and had never been washed so I knew it would bleed. I threw it in with some towels, bibs and a couple of the mister's garage rags. Well, I grossly underestimated the amount of bleeding that would go on and it turned everything *very* pink. That top one is a bib that my MIL made and it says "little prince" and is now totally pink. You need to look at the picture close up to appreciate it. The towel in the back is supposed to be yellow (like the edges) and is completely orange. I tried a wash with vinegar and a wash with bleach and the color didn't change a bit! Oh well, it was only bibs and towels.

It was a bit cold this day so I dressed J2 in long sleeves and pants. For some reason in this outfit, he looked so old. Where did my baby go?

When I was transitioning J2 out of our bedroom (at 7 months when he could finally crawl out of the co-sleeper) I put him in the portable crib in the spare room for a week so he could get used to sleeping alone without keeping J1 up. I felt so bad for him that the first night I took off my shirt and threw it in the crib with him - I had read that the smell would comfort him. Well, since then, he as adopted my shirts as his "blankie". He isn't picky, any t-shirt will do. Luckily I have quite a few I wear only around the house or as nightshirts so he has lots to choose from, I can rotate them for washing and I still have some to wear. Anyway, he used to be okay with just having them while sleeping but lately he sneaks back into his room any chance he gets and takes them out of the crib and drags them all over the house! This day he actually got tangled up in one and wasn't very happy. Didn't help that his mommy was too busy laughing and taking pictures to rescue him.

My bff D and I are having a garage sale next Friday. I decided that I would never have time to list all my boys' clothes on eBay and the off-label ones aren't selling for much anyway so it isn't worth my time. The garage sale is the answer. I also went through the eight totes of toys I had stashed in the spare room and attic and got a bunch to sell. Next I am going to go through my craft room and get out all the CTMH papers I have had since about 2000 and sell those and anything else I can find. I am trying to be brutal. Need D here to enforce it.

Vacation wrap up

2009-08-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

Friday we headed to the county fair at around 1:30. There was a bit more steer-watching to do and then on to the exhibits. We left J2 at the ranch with my MIL since he was sleeping and probably couldn't care less about looking at quilts and stuff. He may have liked the animals but he would have been in the backpack anyway so maybe not.

We watched the steer for just a little bit and then we visited animals. We looked at sheep and cows but somehow missed the pigs. Apparently there was a mama with like 8 babies. Sad to have missed that. Then we moved on to a tent with birds and bunnies. There was a huge turkey, some very cute ducks and so many cute bunnies. Also chickens but they aren't so cute. One had laid an egg which was sort of funny - doesn't seem like a conducive atmosphere for egg-laying but who am I to judge? The mister's cousin knew one of the girls that had bunnies so J1 got to hold one.

They had these super cute and fuzzy bunnies so I took a picture for my sister. She used to love bunnies - maybe she still does.

As we were walking out, there were a bunch of tractors so of course J1 had to "drive" all of them. He couldn't get into one so he sat on the tire instead - it was taller than he was!

We left the boys with my MIL that night and headed to dinner with the cousins and their kids. It was so yummy! That was pretty much it for our vacation. We headed out the next morning at about 10. We stopped in The Dalles for a break for the kids at this great park where they were also having a car show - fun for all boys in my family!

It was a good time but it was great to be home too.

Miscellanous scrapbook pages

2009-08-10T20:09:00.001-07:00

I am doing some challenges to learn some new techniques and get some practice. Thought I'd share with you.

Vacation Days Continued

2009-08-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

Well, the temps finally cooled down which helped with sleeping. And the mister's cousin put heavy drapes on the windows in our room so the boys would stop getting up with the sun so that was nice too. The blackberry expedition was a success - they came home with 13 gallons or something and we got to eat some and a pie was made today. We went up to the cabin for dinner Monday night and had grilled burgers and hot dogs. We weren't up there too late.

Tuesday my MIL and I took the boys into town (Baker City) to a park which was great fun except it was so hot and muggy we only stayed about 45 minutes or so. Then she took us to Bi-Mart to get the boys some new toys so J1 thought that was fab. She got him this motorcycle thing that comes with a screwdriver and it comes all apart - very cool! There are many different ones listed on the box but I couldn't find any online even. Lame!

That afternoon we headed back up to the cabin for dinner again. I got to play some Mexican Train Dominoes - I don't get to play games very often so I was excited to do so. For those of you not familiar - it is a very fun game - check out Wikipedia: Me xican Train. The boys (the mister and his cousin too, not just the kids!) went to Frog Lake (not sure that is an official name - it may be just a swampy area) but apparently there aren't many frogs left. In 2005 we came with my sister and kids and there were many, many frogs although it seemed that most had only 3 legs and a stump. Maybe whatever caused that made them go away.

Wednesday the mister and J1 went up to the cabin for lunch and to hang out. J2 and I stayed at the ranch until after his nap then we headed up with my MIL. We had dinner there again and played some more Mexican Train. The boys had gone to the lake earlier in the day to watch another cousin fish and I guess J1 caught a fish too. I am supposed to get pics of that so I will post them if I do. J1 and the mister stayed up at the cabin that night and J2 and I rode back with my MIL to stay at the ranch. The cabin is only a one room place with a loft so having the baby there doesn't make much sense.

On Thursday my MIL and I drove to town again so I could get some diaper cream and we had yummy treats from Dairy Queen. J2 fell asleep on the way there so we drove around the valley being tourists until he woke up. Shortly after that, the mister and J1 arrived back at the ranch. We headed to town to watch his cousin show a steer at the Baker County Fair. It was pretty fun to watch the kids with the animals and I was sitting by the mister's Uncle G who had stories of his youth and also the scoop on what made each animal good or bad. The floor of the arena was covered in sand and there were some boys playing underneath the bleachers so J1 wanted to go play with them. I didn't want to let him just because it was so dirty but Uncle G convinced me I should and not worry about a little dirt. I know he is right but... Anyway, I let him go down but stayed close so I could keep an eye on him - so much for watching steer. After that we were supposed to go to dinner with another cousin but the boys were not in the mood - the steer-watching lasted until about 7:30 which is just too late to try to wrangle them at a restaurant. The mister went and we just came home and ate. We are planning on going back to the fair today (Friday) to look around and see the exhibits.

Eastern Oregon days 1 & 2

2009-08-02T16:57:00.000-07:00

We left for Haines, Oregon http://www.hainesoregon.com/ on Saturday morning. Since we didn't start packing until late Friday, we were about 1 hour behind what the mister wanted. But since his cousins were going to be gone when we arrived, it wasn't that big a deal. The drive over (about 5 hours without stops) wasn't too bad. We were listening to Harry Potter book #3 which helped pass the time. We did have to turn on some Beach Boys to lull J2 to sleep at one point and we did stop at 1 rest stop and 1 gas station. All and all an uneventful trip. My MIL took us to dinner with her sister which was nice. The boys both put away lots of food so that was good too. The cousins came home and we visited with them until about 11 when we all (boys included) went to sleep. I was anticipating a long, peaceful morning without boys since they went to sleep so late but they were up early. J2 got up at 6 when I did and J1 woke up at 8. Not super common for J2 and almost unheard of for J1. Ugh. It is a farm so I guess they are keeping farmer's hours. Here is the sunset from the ranch and the hummingbirds that are almost constantly flying around out front - very cool!

Today we went to the Sumpter Valley Railway http://www.svry.com/ to take a ride on the steam engine train. We thought J1 would really like it since he supposedly likes trains. My MIL drove us all to Sumpter and then went to wait for us at the stop in McEwen. I thought the round trip may be too long for the boys and I think I was right. It was pretty hot and we chose to sit outside. Once you choose a seat, you couldn't move when the train was in motion. It was okay with the breeze but still fairly warm. J2 liked it quite a bit but J1 wanted to get off right away and then curled up and slept on the mister's lap. He was quite tired from running around at the ranch and not sleeping a lot but still... After that we went to lunch and back to the ranch. We had a yummy dinner on the patio and then to bed early for me and J2.

Not sure what is next but at some point we are going to the cabin in Anthony Lakes and I think the mister is going to pick blackberries at 4:30 tomorrow morning. Ick!

Dinosaurs, snakes and the dentist

2009-08-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

I have been pretty busy lately but we have been having fun. I was looking through a box of animal figurines that my sister gave me back in the day. I was hoping there was some dinosaurs in there since J1 is liking them quite a bit lately thanks to the Land Before Time movies. I didn't find any dinosaurs but there was an incredibly long snake that has joined our family. It isn't a girl or a boy snake, it's just a snake. J1 usually attributes gender to his things - his blanket is a her - but not snakes I guess. It doesn't have a name either but it apparently likes to watch the dinosaur movies because it keeps requesting them.

Speaking of dinosaurs, I got this book http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Dinosaurs-Paul-Barrett/dp/0792282248 at a National Geographic warehouse sale a couple of years ago, remembering that my eldest nephew had a thing for dinosaurs and anticipating that the boys might as well. Well, since watching the LBT movies, J1 has been wanting me to read this book to him. Makes me want to jump out the window - it is pretty excruciating. Plus, I can't pronounce most of the names, which is the main thing he wants to know. I found this website http://www.kidsturncentral.com/topics/dinosaurs/dinonames.htm which has them phonetically spelled out. Now I just need to figure out how to pronounce the phonetic things. Anyway, I plan on printing these out and leaving them in the book. If I don't "accidentally" lose the book that is.

The boys went to the dentist Friday. I have been taking J1 since he was 6 months old I think. I was hoping that by taking him early he wouldn't be scared. Well, it seemed to be working until his appointment when he turned 3. He refused to let them clean his teeth - it was scary he said. It was much the same this time except the dentist came in and actually cleaned most of them and then brushed on the fluoride. J1 got him back by spitting on the floor - twice. I acted horrified but it was actually pretty funny. J2 did fine but he is Mr. Random Tooth-Getter. He has all four on the top plus one molar on the top and only one tooth on the bottom so far. He looks a bit WT with that one bottom tooth - it even looks a bit crooked! The dentist said not to worry so I'm not!

Digital scrapbooking details

2009-07-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

Once again, my sister is ordering me around. Welcome to my childhood. :)

She has asked me for some details about digital scrapbooking. I am fairly new to the craft but here goes. I purchased the Creative Memories product, StoryBook Creator Plus (http://www.creativememories.com/MainMenu/Our-products-and-services/Digital-Scrapbooking/Digital-Scrapbooking-Software/StoryBook-Creator-Plus-CD) at a CM get together that my friend Laura had. I had it for just about a year and didn't do much with it. When I loaded it on my new computer, I found a great tutorial on the CM website and then was able to use it.

Basically it is the same process as paper scrapbooking but the paper and embellishments (called elements) are in digital form (and thus can be used over and over). It seems that the majority of people doing digital scrapping are using Photoshop Elements, which has a heinous learning curve but is more powerful than the CM product. I am very pleased with CM so I don't have any plans to switch.

The program comes with some papers and elements and the CM site has plenty of free options to download. And of course, they have lots to purchase - and their product is great. You can also import any purchased or freebie items from one of the many, many sites around the web. This only works in the purchased version, not the free one CM has. The program has many template pages, similar to the books you can get from Shutterfly and the like. You can purchase the finished book from CM and it is a beautiful book with excellent quality.

You can also create pages to print at a local or online printer. These don't have templates, just blank pages to start with, which the same as starting with blank scrapbook paper. So you import your digital pictures and then just start creating your page. I usually throw the pictures on the page that I want to use and start looking through my stash for background pages to match. Once the background is chosen and the pictures are placed, there are numerous ways to enhance the pictures. You can crop, resize, add mats or photo corners, change the colors, sharpen, and soften, among many others. You can also "cut" the papers into innumerable shapes to enhance your pages. Then you move on to journaling and embellishing. Usually included in the kits are tags and journaling boxes, or you can just "cut" a piece of coordinating paper and write on that. Oh, and you can also "sample" a color from anywhere on your page (picture, element, paper) and use that to color anything else on your page - instant matching! Then you add embellishments - ribbons, buttons, swirls, brads, sticker-type things - just as in real life. It is pretty fun but, unfortunately, it isn't any faster for me to scrapbook this way. I am a super slow scrapper but at least I can be halfway through a page and walk away without leaving a mess!

Some of my favorite digital scrapbooking sites:

http://scrappingsisters.blogspot.com/ - lots of great freebies and super cute kits

http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/ - links to freebies all over the world - and funny posts to boot. Plus, you gotta like anyone who loves Ikea.

http://bobcatshaven.blogspot.com/ - hints and tips about the CM software. Cool techniques and how tos.

http://digi-designs.proboards.com/index.cgi - great kits and good sales

http://www.scrapmatters.com/ - also really nice kits

http://www.enchantedstudioscraps.com/xcart/ - cute kits for sale and $1 fairy finds every week - a great price!

http://www.twolittlepixels.com/shoppe/home.php - I just found this one but their kits are right up my alley

http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/home.php - they also have a $1 section

http://www.thedigichick.com/shop/ - very cute kits

And to finish, a couple more of J1's pages.

The dots and orange on the first page were actual papers. I created the green box on the top of the first page by "sampling" the green dot color and making a rectangle. I did the same thing with the orange ribbon on the second page. The blue mat around the two pics on the 2nd page was also "sampled" from the dots. Everything else were just stuff I had and it happened to match.

My first digital scrapbooking pages

2009-07-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

Here are the first few pages I have made for J1's scrapbook. He is only 3 1/2 so I'm not that far behind (I lie to myself)! Acquiring digital scrapbooking stuff is my latest obsession. I don't last long without an obsession of some sort. It was actual scrapbooking stuff for awhile but that has waned since I don't have time to use it at the moment. After that it was embroidery files for my embroidery machine. Ditto for the lack of time. Then I moved on to cloth diapers. My stash is more than complete now so on to the next one. This is something that I can do without having to gather materials and print photos and most of the stuff I have acquired has been free or super cheap. I have to say, with the exception of the initial software purchase, this is a fairly inexpensive obsession. I will have to print these someday and that will be an expense. I think it is only $1.50 for an 8 1/2 x 11 at Costco so it isn't too bad. Oh, and on most of these, I have taken off journaling and names so if it looks like something is missing, it probably is.

Happenings

2009-07-21T07:09:00.001-07:00

Well, things have been pretty tame since we returned from Alaska. I did have a birthday but, now that I think about it, not actually a birthday cake. Maybe my MIL will have a get together at her house and get one (a small hint??). :)

The mister's sister and her family did call and sing happy birthday as did my MIL. J1 also sang it upon my prompting and I had him do it again later to film.

While looking through those, I found these two of J2. In the first one he is playing with a balloon left over from his birthday - 2 months ago. This balloon provided many hours of entertainment and joy - thanks D! Hey, I never paid you back for those did I? I suck.

This one was of J2 "jumping" on the mini trampoline in our family room. He loves jumping - hooray, another boy who likes to jump. I wonder if there is another kind?

Saturday the mister and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie. We went to Cinetopia http://www.cinetopiatheaters.com/cinema/theaters.htm and sat in the living room theater. Second row from the top, directly in the center. Fabulous seats. Sure, it is a bit more expensive than your average theater but we only go to a movie a couple times a year so the splurge is worth it and the movie was great. The boys were at D's and she was having a party so they had a blast. Sunday the mister went to a car show in Woodburn that is for Mopar cars. I know, blah, blah, blah, insert Peanut's teacher talk here. But he had fun. Here is his car on display at the show.

I was left at home with this huge zucchini from my MIL to deal with.

I put the pencil in for reference. She has these in her garden and I barely have flowers on my yellow squash. Bitter. Anyway, I managed to make 6 loafs of bread and 12 muffins with this sucker. I gave away 4 of the loafs and froze one of them.

With the fruit bounty in the summer, the boys have been eating fruit like crazy. Here are some recent pictures of the fallout.

This was raspberries from the Vancouver Farmer's Market - they were extremely good.

J2 and I went to the produce store last night because, for some reason, they carry this taco salad dressing that the mister likes and we can't find anywhere else. My garden is overflowing with lettuce so the mister suggested taco salad. We are having it again tonight with chicken instead of beef. And really, I will probably have it for lunch too, since I have leftovers. Anyway, the lady at the store gave J2 a huge strawberry which started this mess and I bought some blackberries (I know, *bought* blackberries - I would pick them if I knew a place that wasn't right by a road) and this mayhem ensued. At least it does get better. J1 wasn't quite as messy as J2 - there is hope.

D gave J1 a Spiderman costume. He has never been much into costumes. I had a pirate one for him last Halloween (to match J2's pirate costume) and he refused to wear it. Would not put even one part of it on. He was okay with a cowboy costume which consisted of chaps and a vest over his normal clothes. None of which prepared me for this:

He kept asking me to go outside and take pictures and did the same thing the next night. I remember my youngest nephew liked to wear costumes. Maybe it will be a thing although he hasn't worn it since.

Vacation wrap up

2009-07-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

Starting with Tuesday, things slowed down considerably. We went to the tot swim at the local pool (also the high school) and it was great. They have a little side pool that opens to the regular pool but it is only 2 1/2 feet so J1 was able to walk and play in there by himself - he loved that. J2 loves being in the water so he was just happy. They have a bunch of toys for the kids - boats, balls, floating sea animals, rings and even a floating boat that J2 could ride in. We did that both Tuesday and Thursday. This is what happened after the Thursday session:

On Wednesday, the mister and J1 went on a boat ride up the Stikine River. They went with this tour company http://www.alaskawaters.com/ and did the Stikine River Cruise Day Tour. It was five hours but apparently J1 did great. I met them when they got back and some women that were also on the tour said I had a nice, well-behaved son. Boy were they fooled! A nice person that was on the boat with them is supposed to send a picture. Here's hoping...

Thursday in the early evening we went on a tour of Wrangell by car. We saw all the many harbors full of fancy boats and then the golf course. http://www.wrangellalaskagolf.com/ People apparently come in from all over SE Alaska to golf. I don't know if it is that great or if there is just a lack of options. Pretty cool though, and you can walk your dog there off hours which is fab. The main downside is that there is no alcohol allowed. Well, I guess that is a downside since, in the movies and on tv, my main exposure to golf, there is great emphasis on drinking while golfing. Maybe in real life people don't care that much. I was also on the search for some Salmon berries but the only ones we found were out of our reach - so sad!

The last place we went was the petroglyph beach. http://www.wrangell.com/visitors/attractions/history/petroglyph/index.html There are apparently over 40 to find but I only saw about 7. The beach "sand" is mainly crushed shells and glass so the mister, who was wearing sandals, didn't want to stay long. Here are a few pics of what I found.

We also watched a Lord of the Rings marathon - I had been wanting to see them again and mom had only seen the first one. I think she needs to watch them again, without kids, to really appreciate how great they are.

We left on Friday on the 10:30 jet. We sailed through security which was nice and the flight to Petersburg was uneventful. We were there for close to an hour, stuck on the plane with squirmy kids. That was bad but then we were sitting on the tarmac in Juneau for 1 1/2 hours - so long we had to go back to the gate and get more fuel. J2 was going back and forth between the mister and me, crying, fussing, whining for pretty much that whole time. My arms were tired, it felt like I was wrestling with him. J1 was bored and since we were out on the tarmac but not yet passed 10,000 feet, we couldn't let him watch his DVD. Still don't have a clue what caused the delay. We finally took off and J1 got to watch his movie and J2 was calmer but still didn't fall asleep until literally 5 minutes before we landed in Seattle, 1 1/2 hours late. Our connection was leaving at 6 and we landed, in a different terminal, at 5:30. We grabbed our stuff and walked as fast as we could with a 3 year old and just made it to our connection. J2 slept 1/2 of the way through the Seattle airport but was awake for the flight to Portland. That was our easiest flight of the day. Travel days like that make me not want to travel but I have to say, compared to 2 years ago when J1 and I went to Wrangell, he was a dream traveller this time. Gives me hope.

We had fun, mom was great and we are glad to be home too. Nothing like being home.

Vacation side trip

2009-07-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

The fireworks on Saturday evening were fab. They have a 1/2 hour show and it is so close, it rattles the walls in my mom's place. Both boys slept right through it.

Sunday morning we met up with my cousin and aunt and took a boat over to Petersburg (http://www.petersburg.org/) where another aunt and some cousins live. My aunt was having a 50 year wedding anniversary party that night so it was great to be able to go. You can take a ferry to get there, which isn't too expensive - $33 each for me and the mister one way and the kids were free but the scheduling didn't work out. You can also take Alaska Airlines but I didn't even price that out, knowing it would be prohibitively expensive. The best option is to know someone who has a boat that can drive you about 15 minutes over there - you also have to know someone on the other side to pick you up as it is about 45 minutes into town from there. My cousin here worked it all out and all we had to do was show up - gotta love that!

My cousin JM's husband G and my uncle were there to collect us. This was the first time meeting JM's husband - he was super nice! JM has a huge playroom on the top floor of their house and the boys were in heaven. We hung out there for a bit and then headed down to my aunt's house to help set up and see everyone. I went back in the early afternoon for J2 to take a nap and soon after that J1 came back since, according to the mister, he wanted to go back to the "house with the toys".

The party was a blast and there was so much food we were all stuffed. People were impressed with J2 as he was toddling around munching on pickled asparagus. I love them and, apparently, so does he. JM has a bouncy house and a pool/water slide in the yard below my aunt's house so the mister and I spent a couple of hours down there with the boys during the party.

The mister and I had a bad night's sleep as we were sharing the bed with J2 and he is a bed hog and kicks a lot - ugh! J1 had a nice bed on the floor so he was happy. I would have liked to plop J2 in bed with him but he probably would have crawled off. G made us delicious french toast and sausage for breakfast and then we just hung out. At 1 we headed out to a beach close to the boat launch and had lunch over a fire. My two aunts, two uncles and cousins and their families were there - 22 people in all I think. The kids played in the water and found treasures on the beach. It was mostly fun but sort of hard with J2 since there was the fire so we couldn't just let him roam freely and the beaches are rocky so that wasn't safe for roaming either. But we made it with little trauma and got on the boat back to Wrangell again. The evening was uneventful but hot. We were praying for clouds as the house was 80 degrees but no such luck. Things should be pretty mellow from here on out. There is a "tot swim" at the local pool today so we may head up there. J2 loves the pool.

Aunts, uncles and cousins

Corralling the J2 and the bonfire

Fourth of July Celebrations

2009-07-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

We are in Wrangell, Alaska (http://www.wrangell.com/) for the Fourth of July this year. My parents both grew up here and my mom is living here again for her "retirement". It is a pretty fun place to celebrate the 4th even though it is a very small town. Maybe because it *is* a small town? Anyway, we got our fill today. Started at 10am when J1 and the mister went to check out the fire trucks that were staging for the parade. J1 had the opportunity to ride on one of the fire trucks in the parade and was even sitting on it but then they started to play with the sirens and he was done. He didn't like the loud motorcycles either so apparently he is sensitive to loud sounds this month. Anyway, they came back to just go watch the parade so off we went to meet my uncle and aunt (my mom's brother and sister) to watch. We were at the very beginning of the parade and if you are after candy, this is the place to be. J1 had very little competition and he scored. Not that he can eat a bunch of it (allergies) and he really shouldn't eat any of it but I am giving him a bit.

After the parade we strolled a bit and then went to the "toddler games" which was basically just behind mom's house. They had candy grabs for the different age groups. All kids got .50 for participating and then $3 for first place, $2 for second and $1 for first. J2 got to do an animal cracker grab and he won. Anyone who knows him shouldn't be surprised. They had the crackers thrown on a blanket and the kids were around the perimeter. Most of the babies were just calmly sitting in their mom's arms and J2 was straining to get to the crackers. He got them so fast the coordinator didn't even see it. At least the other moms did and set her straight. J1 did his candy hunt and he got Hershey's Kisses. He apparently tied for third but didn't get any loot. That's what happens when the mister is in charge - I would have spoken up but he didn't care. J1 insisted on eating one even though I warned him he shouldn't because of his milk allergy. Well, he liked it for the first few seconds and then was pretty unhappy. He said it hurt his mouth and he looked a bit woozy and ill. Oops! Probably should have been more forceful but I guess things like that will help him learn and take us more seriously. After that they had a ball chase which the kids had to get the ball and themselves to their parent - that was it, no other rules. J2 was unopposed so he won another $3 plus the .50. J1 came in third in his age group (and, yes, there were more than three kids). After that they had a free-for-all where they just put down all the candy and money they had left. No age group, no specific winner - just grab what you can. Luckily for us, most of the kids were wanting the candy and J1 was getting the money. He ended up getting $7.50 in quarters from that plus a few pieces of candy. J2 ended up with a one dollar bill somehow during the free for all - just walking all over the field with the bill clutched in his hand. J1 left the toddler games $9.50 richer and J2 had $8. A successful money-making day for all boys.

We went back to mom's and put J2 down for a nap then took off again. We ate lunch and brought lunch back to mom and then we went to let J1 jump in the jumpy house and eat blue cotton candy. Then we watched a dunk tank for awhile because J1 was fascinated by it and moved on to the logging competition. There were many events within that and the mister wanted to see something involving chainsaws but when we got there they were just doing the big hand saw thing which he didn't care about. We moved on to the Craftboat races which are handmade, non-electric boats that race. Pretty funny. We stopped at a food booth for funnel cake and J1 got an airbrush tattoo of a dragon and tried his hand at a ring toss. We watched the egg-on-a-spoon races for a bit and finally strolled home. They were having an egg toss after that but the mister didn't want to participate. My sister and I did the egg toss two years ago when J1 and I came up here for the fourth. That one was an attempt to break a world record. I don't know if they did but we did get a certificate. Okay, I just Googled it and apparently we did hold the world record - http://thewrangellsentinel.com/Stories/111507eggtoss.htm ewrangellsen tin el.com/Stori es/111507eggtoss.htm - but apparently Skagway didn't like that, so the next year they beat it. http://www.skagway.com/index.html

Tonight are the fireworks and they set them off so close to my mom's place it is deafening. Not so good given J1's dislike of the loud noises earlier. Time will tell.

Tomorrow morning we are headed to Petersburg to visit my mom's other sister and my cousins. We are taking a boat with my aunt and cousins so that should be fun.

Air travel

2009-07-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

Well, our first airplane trip with two boys took place Friday July 3rd. It turned out well except for the fact that I went to sleep at 11 pm Thursday and thanks to J2 I got up at 1:45 and never went back to sleep. D picked us up at 3:30 am (yes, she is a peach) to drive us to the airport. The boys were a bit shell shocked being up so early so it was a pretty quiet ride. We got all our stuff onto the sidewalk and found, to our dismay, that it was so damned early the curbside check in wasn't even open! We had two very heavy car seats, three large suitcases, a port-a-crib and a rolling carry-on suitcase. Plus the backpack that J2 was in and J1's little backpack. Phew. Well, we managed to get everything weighed, checked in and then wheeled back over to TSA. Actually, this was the easier part of getting to the plane. Then we had to hit security - ugh! We had at least three things over the 3 oz limit - legitimate things as food for kids is allowed, but still, could have been an issue. So here we are at the security thing, J2 on my back and we had to put through the x-ray: coats and shoes from all of us, J1's backpack, both car seats, cell phones, the backpack, and the carry on suitcase. I had to tell a couple people to just go ahead of us! Anyway, I didn't realized until we were sitting at the gate that I hadn't taken out the cooler of food I had. I was supposed to and just forgot and they didn't ask. Guess I could have been a successful terrorist! :)

We left the mister at the gate and roamed around a bit before we had to get on the plane. We found the moving sidewalk and J1 had a blast riding it back and forth. The first flight was a short hop to Seattle on a prop plane. J2 thankfully slept and J1 was good and calm so that was a successful flight. We had a one hour layover in Seattle and we roamed again while leaving the mister watching the bags. We weren't able to have J2's car seat on that flight because we didn't pay for a seat and the plane was full but J1 had his and was asleep before we even took off. J2 was out soon after and both were asleep until just before we landed and then they both complained loudly (aka: cried) about the ear pain. We had a short stop over in Ketchikan and then back up for 24 minutes to Wrangell. Both boys were awake for that but it was pretty uneventful. All and all a nice flying experience. Going back probably won't be as smooth because we won't be getting up so early but maybe I will have a use for all the for-the-airplane toys I got for J1.

I was dead on my feet by about 4 and took a short nap which sort of helped but I gave up and headed to bed with J2 at about 9:30. I slept until 6 am so I am feeling back on schedule again. They boys are having fun here - so many people come and go and mom has a bunch of toys on a low shelf and a big open floor area for them to play. The only downsides are there is a shortage of seating for grown-ups and only mom's computer so I am unable to use it unless she is sleeping. Luckily she doesn't get up very early.

More on the cloth diaper world

2009-07-01T05:57:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to continue my expose on the cloth diaper world but just have a few boy pics to post first.

J1 decided we should "picnic" for dinner so we even moved J2's high chair outside. It was really nice except for the ants D put on my plate after she cleaned up the food J2 threw off his tray - that was nasty. Though it was nice that she picked up the food so thanks! :) And the pork that the mister cooked was perfect and tender. That man can bbq meat like no one else. When I cook meat it always turns into leather.

And here is J1, aka Mr. Daredevil, on his play structure. Like how it is on the deck? Wouldn't want it to ruin the grass. Turns out the mister isn't alone in this obsession. One friend told me her father used to let them run in the sprinkler but they couldn't stand still because their feet would smash down the grass. Men! Usually I try to be casual about the crazy climbing of the boys because I want them to be brave and have fun. I had to put a stop to this one though because I was picturing him falling forward and breaking his neck. Still makes me shudder. Oh, here's another funny thing that came of out J1's mouth. He was jumping off this kid-sized table we have in the family room and landing on the couch pillows. I told him to stop jumping and he said "I'm not jumping, I am just falling off the table onto the pillows". Also known as JUMPING! We brought the trampoline back down from the attic. J2 "jumps" on his knees so it is well loved.

And finally, this is what happens when J2 wakes up at 6 am instead of his normal 9 am. Thanks for jinxing me D - this was Monday morning!

On to the world of cloth diapers. There seems to be a certain mindset of a bunch of the women who cloth diaper. No one get offended - I know it isn't all of you - I am just saying "a bunch". There are numerous cloth diapering "communities" where you can get answers, buy, sell, brag, whatever. The one I used to frequent most was diaperswappers.com. There you can have a "signature" and people would post about all the beliefs they have. You would see stuff like exclusive breastfeeding, non-vaxing (or delayed vaxing), attachment parenting, natural toys only, crap like that. Stuff that makes a normal mom feel, well, annoyed. I am all for breastfeeding but there are many people who are down right rude to moms who are feeding formula. Who cares how the baby gets food? Do we need this level of judging of other moms who are just trying to make it through the day? I'll admit to being judgmental when I hear something like, "I didn't breastfeed so I could get my figure back" but I guess that is rude too. The non-vaxing and delayed-vaxing just pisses me off. There are so many studies that dispute the link between vaccinations and autisim and on the other side - mostly just celebrities spouting about how they *know* the vaccines were the problem. Not vaccinating your kid puts my baby at risk until he is fully vaccinated and that makes it a problem for me. Attachment parenting - who goes for the "unattached parenting?" And only "natural" toys - don't get me started.

Okay, that was sort of a rant and not the direction I was intending for this post. Mostly I wanted to write about all the cloth options that I discovered once I joined that community. I knew about cloth diapers of course but had no idea the vast range of options there were for cloth items.

Cloth Wipes - I was hesitant to start using these. I decided to do things in baby steps so I didn't get any until a few months into using cloth. I love them and wouldn't go back. In fact, I really dislike using disposable wipes now.

Mama Cloth - sort of self explanatory. There are so many options, fabrics, prices, how would you decide? Everyone swears by this so it is intriguing.

Family Cloth - well, the first time I read about this was on a blog and she didn't say what it was so I had to google - I'll torture you and make you do the same. Suffice it to say, I won't be doing this. Ever.

Nursing Pads - a good idea all around and I probably would have done this if I had found them before I had a lifetime supply of the disposable ones.

Tampons - um, wow. That's all I have to say. Check out this link so you know I am not making stuff up: http://hyenacart.com/FernandFaerie/index.php?c=14&p=33864 I haven't actually read anything from anyone who has used these (except the person who wrote the ad) but I would not even try them.

Paper towels - also called un-paper towels. I just use washcloths to clean up the boys and dish towels to dry my hands. We still use paper towels in place of napkins. We use the small select-a-sheet ones and a roll lasts 1 or 2 months - I feel okay about this. Some of the un-paper towels come with snaps and attach to a roll so you can use them on the paper towel holder which is sort of cool. Still, I don't see the point to this.

I have also seen cloth "cotton balls", face mitts, and swiffer pads. I actually like the swiffer pad idea. I was telling my friend KVO some of this stuff when I was visiting her a couple of weeks ago and she said she just uses microfiber cloths attached with velcro and a spray bottle of cleaner for her swiffer. I tried it and it works great! I do like having an alternative to buying those expensive swiffer pads - that makes me happy.

If you are interested in any of the items mentioned, check out Hyena Cart (http://hyenacart.com/) or Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/). You'll probably be sorry you did because they have the cutest things to spend money on. But they are great sites for unique gifts.

Reminiscing...

2009-06-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

So I haven't posted lately because I am feeling sad about my changed vacation. Trying to get over it but what has inspired me to post is these old pics I came across while searching for items for the childhood scrapbook album I am working on.

First are "cool" pictures of me and my sister.

The first one of her is cool because she is wearing a famous "hang ten" hoodie. Those were so popular and elusive for us no-so-wealthy types. And if she didn't have braces, they hadn't been off long so that is cool too.

In case you can't tell, I am wearing a Shawn Cassidy shirt in this one. Who is more cool than Shawn Cassidy really?? There are eight candles on my (cherry chip) cake so this was late-ish 70's. Mom always let us choose our cake flavor and dinner on our birthdays. I chose cherry chip for many years it seems. I remember choosing some sort of beef roast for dinner and it seems like my sister chose pork roast. Or maybe vice versa - hard to remember. What kid chooses that sort of dinner? Probably those mostly raised on canned and jarred food. Not that my mom couldn't cook - she makes a mean chili, mac & cheese and, apparently, pot roast. She was a working mom and just didn't have the time. Most of us can relate - except back then I don't think people were heaping on the mommy guilt.

Well, the coolness of this one is just obvious really. This was at the beach by our parent's house in AK. I think this was the summer after we moved to that house and sissy was visiting from mom's - mid 80's. We spent a lot of time taking pictures that summer and not doing much else. Fun times!

This is the famous Doug Dawson from Deadliest Catch. We hung out a lot back in the day. Wasn't he cool even back then? I think he is about 11 here.

This was my dad's cat - Kitty. She actually used the toilet which was awesome - if not a bit disturbing. This was in the early 70's (can't you tell from the colors and style of the bathroom?) and I *think* my dad taught her to do this. He is a thrifty man who appreciates things to be neat - neither of which is achieved by having a litter box.

And last is this picture of my cousin. I am hoping to see her this summer. She lived with us when I was 11 or 12 for about a year I think. She had her first son then, my first real time spent with babies. Her son is my first cousin once removed and second cousin to my kids for those who care. :) Anyway, this baby is all grown up now and has a child the same age as J1. Crazy since I only remember him as this tiny baby.

My boys are silly (and apparently very tired)

2009-06-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Whenever the mister is eating fruit or yogurt J2 is right there, begging like a dog. He stares, bangs on the arm of the chair and makes vehement noises until he gets some food. Then he keeps opening his mouth like a baby bird until all the food is gone. Last night he also got some silly time with daddy.

D came over after her class yesterday and I tried to feed her dinner but apparently she is disgusted by my cooking! :) We had yummy chicken gyros with chicken marinated in Greek Seasoning from Penzey's. They have the best spices and, luckily for us, there is an actual store in Portland. The only problem is that I can't get out of there for less than about $30 which seems to be an exorbitant amount to spend on spices. If I went there more frequently, it would be less per trip, so that's something to keep in mind. It is actually less to buy a bag of basil there - less than $3 for a 1 oz. bag and we spent over $4 at Wal-Mart for .5 oz. of Spice Island. Maybe the other spices are less overall too.

Anyway, we went for a walk and J1 took his scooter. It is a Radio Flyer 3-wheeled one so he does pretty well on it. He looked like such a big kid with his helmet riding the scooter but unfortunately I didn't have my camera. He only rode less than 1/2 way around our normal circle and then actually wanted the mister to carry him. He did walk the rest of the way but without much enthusiasm. Turns out he was pretty tired since this is what happened a little later:

His hand was actually still in the bowl with the veggie booty curled in his fingers. The flip side to this was that he got up at 8 this morning instead of his normal 9 - 9:30 and J2 was up at 6:15. I plopped him back in bed when J1 got up so I could still have a bit of morning peace. J1 is watching the Land Before Time movie - one of his new favs. Thanks D for the set!

Yesterday I "put some stuff" in both boys' hair after their bath. J1 is always wanting me to put product in his hair so he can be just like me. Well, now he actually has a haircut that warrants it so he is pleased. I put some in J2's hair just to be silly - and gave him sort of a mohawk. He didn't notice or care but it made for cute pics and J1 said it was just like one of his friends at school so he liked it.

Oh, I have actual peas now, not just out-of-control huge plants. I even ate some the other day - delish! I remember my dad having peas growing on the side of his Aleutian Homes house when we were kids. I don't remember huge plants like mine so they must have been a different variety. I do remember eating them even though I didn't like peas. I actually didn't like regular peas (frozen or fresh are good but canned are still nasty) until a few years ago but it seems like my sissy always liked them. When did she eat them when we were growing up? Doesn't seem like something we would have in our cupboards or freezer. Was dad bitter that we ate all his peas?? I was too young to notice or care.

We are in trouble now

2009-06-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

J2 finally walked today - I have videographic proof. Good for the mister since he was at work when it all went down. Enjoy. I guess this is all my sister will get to see since they are being driven out of Wrangell. :(

A summer haircut

2009-06-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

I took J1 to get his haircut today. It is one of those strip mall walk-in places and I had a free haircut coupon. They actually only cut boys hair and they play sports on tvs all over and have various hand held video games too. J1 would have been in heaven but I had to wake him up to go inside so he was pretty out of it. Here are the before and after:

I promised him a drink from Sonic if he sat still - here is the drama.

Father's Day and Farmers' Market

2009-06-21T10:43:00.001-07:00

There are other "f" words I would like to add to that alliteration but I will refrain in an effort to stay family-friendly.

Today is Father's Day and the mister made breakfast. He always cooks breakfast and dinner on the weekends so why stray from that just because someone decided we should honor fathers?? We had cinnamon rolls which we shared with the boys. Here is J2 after he ate just the middle part. The mister said he looked like a hobo.

J1 made him a card at school - well he sort of made it. I guess the teachers actually made it and he just answered a couple of questions. It is super cute though.

To honor him for the day I am actually making dinner (chicken enchilada soup) and treats. The treat he requested was red velvet cupcakes. I have to say I just don't *get* red velvet cake. What is the draw? They are just chocolate cupcakes that are dyed red. So why the red? Wouldn't they taste just the same without all the messy, stainy red food coloring? Whatever, I made them. I let the mister pick out the cupcake liners from the extensive stash we have and he chose the Halloween ones. What's really crazy is those are the exact ones J1 always picks out when we he gets to choose. Is it in the genes??

Yesterday I went to the farmers' market (yes sissy, there are many farmers) with D, her mom and son, and the boys. The fruit was primarily strawberries and raspberries so we didn't end up with anything. The mister was after peaches, nectarines and plums and D did want strawberries but they were cheaper at our local produce store and that is the ultimate in buying local. The flowers were plentiful though (not that we bought any, just enjoyed looking at them) and the boys had fun at the playground. Plus we got Kettle Corn so J1 was extra happy.

On Friday, D and her mom came for dinner. D and I were doing something in my office and her mom was in the other room with the boys but not paying strict attention to them. She found them both under the kitchen table with the box of cookies, stuffing their faces.

Parental PSA

Yes, this could happen to you. I just wanted to get a warning out to all you parents. We had something completely unexpected and unforeseen happen this morning. It seems highly unlikely that it would happen to anyone else but just in case:

Yea, that was loaded with heavy, heavy sarcasm. The mister left his full coffee cup next to his chair and went outside. Luckily it wasn't hot anymore.

CM Storybook Plus software rocks!

2009-06-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

In the process of reloading all my software onto my new computer I realized the coupon I got when I purchased Creative Memories Storybook Plus software is going to expire at the end of this month. Were it not for my computer dying, I probably wouldn't have noticed this for 1 - 2 years and then would have been exceedingly bitter. I guess that is one good thing about getting a new computer. As I mentioned in a prior post, scrapbooking has gone by the wayside right now. I want to do it but dragging out all the stuff doesn't seem worth it because I know that once I am set up to work, J2 will wake up from his nap, even if he had only been asleep for 12 1/2 minutes. That's how it works around here.

Last year, my friend Laura hosted a CM thing one day at a park which was the best idea ever. There was a covered part where all the scrapbooking stuff could be and then a playground for the kids to play and stay out of our hair. Well, the hostess was extolling the virtues of this program and what great things it could do. I was excited but also torn since I actually do enjoy the physical act of creating pages with paper. That being said, I am also woefully behind with no clear path to catching up. I am in the middle of 2006 in our family albums and have done nothing for the boys. As a compromise, I have decided to continue the family albums the traditional way and create albums for the boys the digital way. Buying the software and installing it was as far as I got until yesterday. I did poke around a little but the learning curve seemed to be high. Yesterday I found some online tutorials made by CM and now I am up and running. The only problem now is I think I have found another thing to be obsessed about. You can get digital content everywhere on the web and import it into the program which is way worse than shopping in a brick and mortar store. Oh bother.

I am having a hard time trying to figure out how to convey all the cool things this program can do so I guess if you are interested, you'll have to check it out for yourselves. For the albums, you can create many sizes and I think I am leaning towards 8 1/2 x 11. Costco will print those pages for about 1.50 and if I can find an album with slip in pages I would be done in no time. Another idea I have seen is to create party invitations using a 4 x 6 size. This gives enormous flexibility and design options and would only cost about .17 each - that is a smoking deal. Look for one in your mailbox soon!

I have been actively using CM's Memory Manager for a few years. It is software that helps manage digital photos - you can group them according to whatever criteria you have and it has a backup feature that does incremental backups so nothing is missed or duplicated. It is a great piece of software too and I found out I can choose the pictures in that program and "share" them with the Storybook program and they will be waiting for me when I open it. And in case you were wondering, I am not a CM consultant, I just like their products!

Here are some of the layouts I made while doing the tutorials. They are totally random because I just used the pictures from J2's birthday and I was doing all sorts of different techniques on each layout. My real ones will be better.

One of the scrapbook albums that is on my to do list is an album about me and Chris that tells about our childhood with details of schools, sports, siblings, friends, hobbies etc. so the boys have something tangible to look at and see that we were just the same as them. This is the album I am aiming to get done before my coupon expires since it is a bound album and is not what I am planning on doing for the boy's albums. It is a fun idea I just need to figure out how to make it all come together in 10 days! With that, see you later!

Have cloth diapers gone mainstream??

2009-06-19T07:39:00.001-07:00

Well, it seemed that way for about 10 minutes when the local Target stores started carrying Bum Genius pocket diapers. Apparently the world wasn't ready for it because they were very quickly on closeout. So sad I missed that since those diapers are *never* on sale. The best you can usually hope for is free shipping - which is nice but not "Target closeout" nice.

I started using cloth diapers at the end of last year - only because I realized that J2's eczema resulted directly from the Pampers we were using. I had gotten some Seventh Generation diapers on closeout ($5 per package - usually around $15 I think) and while using them his rash completely went away. It was truly a light bulb moment. Anyway, mom helped me with my initial stash and we were off and running. I decided to get some for J1 as well since I would be doing the laundry anyway and I had heard that cloth diapers made kids want to Potty Train earlier. Well, that didn't work for J1 as he likes wearing the "colored diapers" as he calls them. We are still working on that particular parenting landmine but that is another post.

It turns out I really like using cloth. It is nice not to be buying disposable diapers every week and stressing about coupons and finding sales. I like not putting the huge amount of disposables into landfills. It is mind boggling to think of how many diapers I was going through and then to multiply that by - well, by some huge, unfathomable number - which equals all other parents doing the same thing. It is sort of horrifying. I didn't really think of that before I started cloth so I am not judging, just explaining where I am now. I do still use disposables - when I am going to be gone all day, vacations, when other people are watching the kids - but it is just a small fraction of what I was using. And the washing doesn't bother me either. People make comments about the laundry being a deterrent to cloth but I don't really get that. Diapers do need to have a few extra cycles but all that requires is pushing buttons - it is still only one load. Although, if you didn't have your own washer & dryer, I wouldn't do it either - laundromat, ugh! And for me at least, folding clothes is an excuse to hide in my bedroom, watch some shows the mister doesn't like, and let him parent for awhile. Who doesn't want that??

My stash

My friend Mo is using cloth and started when LJ was born. I think that is impressive because I never even considered it when J1 was born. I'm not sure why though. I was doing other crunch-ish things - baby wearing, making his baby food, only breast feeding, that sort of thing. A couple of moms in my baby group were using cloth and the leader was an advocate as well but I just couldn't make the leap. Now I wish I had but, hindsight and all that. My sister even used cloth, I'm pretty sure just with her third. I *think* she mainly did because the had just moved to Unalaska (see her blog at right - she is one of my two followers lol) and they were majorly expensive there. I could be wrong about the reason but she will correct me if I am - she loves a chance to correct me on something. :)

For cloth, we use primarily pocket diapers. Mostly we have Fuzzi Bunz (http://www.fuzzibunz.com/) but not the one size or anything, just normal sized ones. I also have a few of the aforementioned Bum Genius (http://www.bumgenius.com/) 3.0 and 2.0. They both work great but I am not crazy about the Velcro. I much prefer snaps. I have a few other pockets thrown in just because they were a good deal or I wanted to try them out. I also got some overnight diapers for J1 because you really need something great for overnight. I ended up with some Very Baby Simply Nights made by Tallulah Baby (http://tallulahbaby.com/simply-nights-cloth-diapers/) and they are great! I struggled with this purchase because they were fairly expensive - around $30 each!! My break even point for J1 was about 6 months of not buying disposable overnight diapers and I just hit that mark this month. Plus I can use them for J2 when the time comes so it was a purchase that did pay off in the end. Thank God! My favorite WAHM (work at home mom) diapers are Chunky Monkey (http://hyenacart.com/chunkymonke ydiapers/) because they are so trim and she has super cute fabrics. Even though I don't *need* anymore diapers, I frequently check her site for clearance items or new cute fabrics. Here are some of my favorite CM ones (Chunky Monkey not Creative Memories) plus one Happy Heiny (the Hawaiian print one).

2 Boys in matching Fuzzi Bunz

J2 in his giraffe diaper - just *had* to buy this one!

I bought this one in honor of my sister.

I had other things I was going to talk about in this post but it is too long already so I will post about what other cloth things are available another day. It really is interesting and pretty cool. Some stuff is a bit disturbing too - at least to me, but I'll let you decide.

Making cookies

2009-06-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

I made these snickerdoodle cookies last night with J1's help. He loves to help me bake but it takes immense patience and sometimes I just don't have it. Luckily last night he was engrossed in eating a lime popcicle so I got to measure most of the ingredients into the bowl before he was there to "help" me. In between, the mister was freaking out because some of his music didn't survive the transfer of computers. I know the music is somewhere but I was baking and just didn't have time, nor did I really care at that moment, to help him. Between that and chasing kids around, my cookie dough was well mixed! It was so soft I couldn't really bake them plus it was almost 9pm so I had J1 help me do one batch and I cooked up the rest this morning while the boys were sleeping. The best thing about snickerdoodles is that J1 is actually extremely helpful. I can roll the dough into balls and put them in the cinnamon sugar and then he rolls them around and puts them on the tray. This is good teamwork since my hands don't get sugar on them, he loves doing it, and it doesn't matter if the balls get squished as they still come out perfectly round. Plus, snickerdoodles are the mister's favorite cookie so we get lots of practice. Too bad for him but these are for our Play Park's end of year picnic today. I used colored sugar since it was fun and different. I got the sugar at Target in their dollar section and they are for the Fourth of July but I don't think anyone will complain. They are made in the USA so I am not even worried about poisioning the kids with China-made things! My recipe is from Allrecipes.com - here is the link: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mrs-Siggs-Snickerdoodles/Detail.aspx They are the best I have ever had. I used this dairy free margarine called Nucoa in place of the butter and shortening because of J1's dairy allergy but they are still great. I could have used shortening since it is also dairy-free but I was being lazy. If you like those, her peanut butter cookies are also fabulous. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mrs-Siggs-Peanut-Butter-Cookies/Detail.aspx I have made these with cashew butter, because of J1's peanut allergy, and they were the best cookie ever!

And I did get the new computer all set up finally. Here is a picture - and yes, it is usually that messy. See the prior post about my cleaning! The only down side so far is that this computer doesn't have the correct connections for my split keyboard so I am making due with this horrible tiny one that makes my forearms ache. That will be the task for tomorrow when J1 is at school!

For those who missed it...

2009-06-17T08:30:00.001-07:00

Which was basically my whole side of the family - not that I'm bitter! :)

Jack turned one at the end of May. Don't know how that happened so fast. It seems like time went super slow when J1 was a baby. There was plenty of time to fill out the baby book, take tons of pictures, learn sign language, make baby food, you get the picture. When J2 was born (like a month ago it seems) that just wasn't the case. The baby book is only a tad bit filled out although I have a plan. I know of the basic timeline for most things so I am just going to pick a date and memorialize it - once it is in the book, that is when it happened! There are actual weeks that went by with no pictures taken - ugh. This blog is helping in that regard like scrapbooking used to help - "oh, that will be great for the blog, better take some pictures." My whole picture-taking life used to be ruled by scrapbooking. I would set up shots with my layouts in mind - not faking anything but just making sure I had ample pictures to tell the story. But with the birth of J2, scrapbooking basically went out the window. I just haven't made the time. Facebook doesn't help with my time management either but let's not go there.

On his actual birthday, he had his 1 year checkup - shots and all. Oops, forgot about the shot aspect of that appointment when I made it but since he is just one, it didn't mean anything to him being miserable on that day verses any other day. And since he is such a squirmer, he got some scrapes from the needle and an extra poke. I'll keep that in mind for next time. So that day passed without much fanfare. The mister's birthday was two days before that and I made him yummy mac & cheese with bacon which he *had* to eat as leftovers for a couple of days so he was happy. The party plan was a BBQ on Sunday celebrating both boys' birthdays with just family since the one year old doesn't really have friends. I guess I could have invited some of the mister's friends but it didn't occur to me until just now - sorry mister!

All my in-laws came plus my bff D and her mom. Also my friend Mo and her family. The first time I had seen her little one, LJ, since the hospital so that was great. Here is our spread of food and the cupcakes. Hiding behind the bowl of chips is the trifle I made for the mister - his fav - homemade angel food cake, homemade pudding and strawberries and bananas. Very yummy. The cupcakes and frosting were also homemade. It is easier to make things from scratch because of J1's food allergies - plus I just like to. We also (and when I say "we" I really mean "the mister") made burgers, hot dogs and chicken.

Here is J2 opening J1's presents. J2 was oblivious and J1 was pretty happy so that worked out. And J2 eating his cupcake. He was pretty sticky.

I mentioned that we had some fruit trees and blueberries in the yard. Here are some pictures:

Looks like a bumper crop of blueberries this year - hooray!

Our pear tree is five kinds grafted together (so it can pollinate itself) and this is one of them.

Another pear - there are quite a few growing. I think we got about six last year but none grew enough to actually taste good.

One of many, many apples - Macintosh I think. We got a few edible ones last year - 6 of the 15 that grew. J1 picked the other 9 when they were about the size of a walnut. Bitter!

One of the two lone plums we have growing. I think this spot is cursed for fruit trees. Our peach never did much and then got sick so we replaced it with this plum which also has five kinds grafted together.

The Pretzel Wars

J1 decided to share these pretzels with J2 (and the floor). J2 clearly has handfuls of pretzels but would still grab J1's pile so J1 was protecting them by laying on them. What a mess!

Funny boys and a crazy garden

2009-06-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

So I wasn't going to post until I got my new computer up and running (so I wasn't tempted to throw this one through the window - more for the window's sake than the computer) but it won't be ready until tomorrow (hopefully) and I have a few minutes. I should be cleaning my office but I don't love cleaning. Just ask my everyone. My mom used to pay my sister to clean my room. Good all around I say. Okay, so my "office" is just an "L" shaped computer desk surrounded by a very large baby gate. That is to keep the kids out not to keep me in. By now J1 can just climb over the gate but doesn't for the most part. J2 just stands outside the gate and cries until I let him in so it is mostly just to contain the mess I guess. So earlier today I was stuffing the cloth diapers and watching Denise Richard's reality show (which is pretty good btw). J2 was napping and J1 was being pretty quiet - always a worry. I told him to get out of my gate - it was just a guess but I knew I had left it open. He came running in and said that I had left the gate open but he had closed it. So when I asked what he had been doing he said "I was just doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing". Gotta love the honesty. Turns out he was playing with my new computer which is on the dining room table but it is only the monitor and the mouse so there wasn't much he could do. Funny though.

Last night we were in the backyard, J1 running around like a crazy boy (is there another way??), J2 chewing on rocks (his favorite backyard pasttime), the mister was touching up the shed and I was playing with my new camera.

Then J2 moved on to the sand table - ugh! They both had to go straight into the bath.

(check out this picture close up - super cute)

The mister built me a raised garden this year so I could grow veggies with J1 and hopefully convince him to eat some. Right now the only veggies he gets are part of his Vfusion juice that is apparently 1/2 fruit and 1/2 veggies. Lame. J2 eats cucumber, broccoli, tomato, feta cheese, meat - all things J1 won't. J1 has food allergies so we couldn't easily share our meals with him. I think it makes a huge difference to just give your kid's bites of your dinner to expand their horizons. But I digress... In March I planted peas, onions, carrots and lettuce. Then last month I added tomatoes and herbs (in containers), squash (just in the ground), beans, peppers and cucumbers. We also have 3 fruit trees, strawberries and blueberries. And J1 is old enough not to pick green blueberries this year and hopefully J2 is oblivious to the fact that it is something to bother and stick to his rocks. So here are my peas - they are totally out of control - taller than me.

But no actual peas yet. They are blooming so I guess that is the first step. I am doing fine with my garden - pulling the weeds out and keeping it watered. I am not down with the bug thing yet. I found a caterpiller in my lettuce the other day. I gingerly grabbed it and tossed it over the fence (sorry neighbors!) and then saw a bunch of caterpiller eggs way down in the lettuce. I assume that is what they are as they looked like the pictures in "The Very Hungry Caterpiller" - my only exposure to such things. Anyway, I immediately called my MIL and asked her what to do. She said I could a) pick them off, b) try to wash them off with the hose or c) pull the lettuce out and start over. After shuddering I chose option c. The plants had been around a while and had produced quite a bit of lettuce already so into the yard debris cart they went. Ick. Okay, back to cleaning the office as J2 should be up soon and I need to come up with something for dinner.

My sister made me...

2009-06-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

So my sister has been bugging me to start up a blog - I guess so she can easily see pictures of the boys. I have been meaning to for a while but have been hesitant because I just don't need another time-suck in my life. What the heck though, maybe if I blog the goings-on in my life I will actually have the information to fill out J2's baby book when (or if) I ever have time. Must suck being the second born - maybe 1/10th the pictures taken of him, barely filled out baby book, hand-me-down toys and clothes. I don't remember those things though, and I am the baby, so there is hope for J2 skipping therapy. I am saving money just in case... As far as I know, our mom didn't finish either of our baby books so no bitterness there. And in most of the pictures we have, it is the two of us together. I did have some therapy though, back in the day, so I guess those may not be the best indicators.

Today I got out and walked before the mister left for work and way before the boys woke up. It was so nice to get out and it was fairly cool too. Only had to wear my coat for a bit though. And shockingly enough, there were quite a few people out walking - apparently this isn't a new, novel idea I had!

I went to Costco with D, my bff, yesterday. Just for milk, eggs, that sort of thing. I ended up leaving with a digital camera (a Nikon L100). My old one was 3 years old and had been dropped numerous times. It was pretty tough though because for all the drops, I only had to get the battery door fixed. Well, until the last time anyway. I was visiting my highschool friend KVS and we were taking kids to the Point Defiance Zoo (http://www.pdza.org/) - a fine zoo with just about the best view ever! Anyway, got one picture and then dropped it again. I guess it had just reached its limit. My video camera does take stills but they aren't great and it doesn't have a flash. Anyway, my new goal is to *always* use the neck strap and hope for the best. Who has money for new cameras all the time? This did result in conking the baby on the head with the camera but I'll get the hang of it.

Speaking of babies - J2 is on the verge of walking. He actually just took one step while I was typing this. Must get the video camera ready. The boys are on the floor fighting over Legos. Seriously, there are hundreds of Legos down there and yet, still a fight. Foreshadowing things to come for sure. Ugh.

My new computer is off today finally for my computer dude to load XP. I was fine sticking with my old one for another year or two but the motherboard had other ideas. I am not really interested in Vista and I get mixed reactions when I ask but most people recommend XP. Some leaned heavily on Macs but with my QuickBooks needs, that just won't work. So I am "downgrading" to XP and having my old hard drive added to my new one. I am currently using my old old computer and it is the slowest thing ever. Feel glad most of the time that I actually have something to work on at all but sometimes I want to toss it out the window.

Okay, that's enough random crap - pretty much what it will be all the time though. That's just how my mind works.