fancy pants entry...

Hooray for Fancy Pants :)

celebrating TEN

...one month early.

Our "pool" party was minus a pool last Saturday, seeing I think it may have hit 58 degrees. Not sure the sun ever came out. Major bummer. That's what I get for trying to have a party a month early, huh? Oh well, it's done, and I knew September was crazy busy for Mike's family as his parents are going to Greece for 2 weeks, his brother to Vegas, his sisters were going to be gone sometime during the month as well.

We decided we are going to have a bonfire for Cal's birthday with my side at the end of the month. Looking forward to lots of fall bonfires...

Cal got an MP3 player from Mike's parents. Mike and I are the 'mean' parents who wouldn't let their 10 year old have an IPOD. (Cal is perfectly happy with the MP3 player, I don't think he'd know the difference...)

This time I had full intentions on actually blocking off the entire upstairs to prevent the mayhem that went down last time. Instead Mike came up with putting tape across the bedroom doors and blocking them with boxes. Yes, I think it is crazy we have to do this. But anything to prevent major destruction...
We left the bathroom door open and put tons of toys in the hallway to play with (our hallway up there is enormous, like a playroom in itself!). Kids still managed to: go in the bathroom and lock themselves in 3 at a time with toys, go into the bonus room even though they were told not to(AKA my scrap stuff--a BIG no-no), and the one who threw polly pockets over the balcony last time decided throwing a juice box over the balcony was a better idea this time. I am so done with birthday parties in my own house that have that many small children. I will pay the $XXX to go anywhere else next time.

time well spent

yea, me!! I completed a page :) It's a little dark because I took the pictures tonight, but you get the idea. She's so cute!!



Spent my week doing MAD organizing!! I went through my tool box full of scrap stuff. Thought about selling the box, then realized I should really just renovate it's use. So I literally spent hours Friday sorting every last brad, button, and flower. It is an organizational showcase now :) Probably not for long! But it feels good to go through all that stuff now and then mostly to remember what I have. Spent lots of time going through pictures on the computer, too, to fill my album full of photoless layouts from page classed I've taught or kits I've bought (Holy cow, there are so many; I didn't count, but wowzers. So many.) But I've ordered a ton of pictures to put on those pages, so I can count those as complete soon enough. And, on top of all that, I also spent one night going through one album of Cal's and wrote dates and journaling (if I hadn't already). This all kids at school stuff is going pretty well. I'm getting lots accomplished ;) Looking forward to more scrap time...
need to buy:
*Jenni Bowlin memo(?) rubons with a school/cursive alphabet (I saw them in the latest Studio Calico kit...anyone know if these are Jenni Bowlin?)
*Maya Road chipboard tin with road signs (I am kicking myself for not buying them the other day at Hannah's!!)

Prepping for baby...

So maybe it's a little early to be getting ready for the new baby...But the other night when my grandparents came over for dinner, they brought along the cradle. The cradle has been in the family for about 40 years (I think...someone in the fam correct me if I'm wrong). My uncle was in it, both my sister and I, and all our kids have used it (I'm sure other cousins have, too). Those little babes can't use it for long, since they grow so fast, but still neat to know so many other babes in the family have slept here.

Maddie was so excited to show us the cradle (we saw it come into the house, but she wanted to show us the cradle set up in our bedroom). "Look where my baby sister is going to sleep!!" And she ran to get a blanket. She wrapped the little mattress with her own pink fuzzy blanket and said, "I'm going to let my sister have this blanket because we can share and it's so soft and warm. She will plobly (probably) love it!"

Hard to believe, eleven weeks from now we will have another little girl in the family!

Birthday Overload!

So when I was little, my family had so many birthdays to celebrate from the end of July thru the beginning of September, I remember us having a big BirthdayFest instead of celebrating individual birthdays. There are at least 6 I count off the top of my head. And then add Mike's family into the mix, there are at least 3 more birthdays in his immediate family in that time span. Not to mention the few friends I have with August birthdays, too : ) It's a happening month, I guess!!

We had a surprise birthday for my Dad's 50th, and he was surprised! I really thought he knew, but on the contrary, he had no idea. He would freak to know I posted a picture of him on the internet, but this is my blog so I'll do what I want (this particular picture is about 20 years old, that's me in the background : ) I took his old pictures and put some into a book I made off of shutterfly. It turned out so cool, but darn it, I didn't take a picture of it. Perhaps I'll try to remember to do that next time I am there.





Then last week we celebrated my Mom's birthday. She didn't hit the milestone of 50, only 48.
We went to Olive Garden and then to my Grandma's for coffee cake and muffins.


Other family birthdays in that stretch: my Great Grandma (Cal, Kaycey, and I went the other day to visit after the Make a Wish walk), my Grandma (they came over for dinner last night, haven't uploaded pictures), my Aunt Lorie (Grandma's sister), my cousin, Mike's sister, Mike's Dad (they celebrated by working on building a new garage), & our niece. Happy birthday to all family & friends celebrating birthdays!!

More birthdays coming up: Cal and Mike in the next month. We were planning this Saturday on having Mike's side of the family over for a pool party (a little early) for Cal's birthday. Too bad it's supposed to be 65 and showers :(