he said

she said, she said, she said

just thought i'd share a layout i made the other day for a design team call at my lss. i've had the title idea in my head for a year, and it still didn't turn out exactly like i'd hoped... so i feel a mini album coming on at some point with the same theme. love those maya roap chipboard potty people!

and a quick card for the road (since we're hitting the road to go camping as soon as the girls get home from school). i love browsing through the galleries over at splitcoast stampers for card inspiration. there's tons there, and you can look ideas up by stamp manufacturer, stamp set, card theme, etc. how cool is that. it's fabulous if you're looking for quick ideas for that last minute birthday or thank you card. :)

going crazy, wanna come?

going crazy, wanna come?

hey all you crazy folks out there... it's crazy hair day again. (at least it was at the girls' school today.) so last night the girls set their alarms early to make sure we had plenty-o-time to figure out what we wanted to do to promote craziness today. promptly at 6am... we decided we should snuggle and sleep just a little longer. we did eventually make it out of bed, and got the hairdo's going. after much discussion, we decided on a modified version of last year's crazy hairdo. 4 braids instead of 2, and the addition of a bunch of pipe cleaners. we raided the craft bin, and set to work. we finished in plenty of time to get some pictures, and get to school to watch the rest of the crazy 'do's arrive! :)

i {heart} crazy hair day!

and since i didn't get yesterday's picture up... here it is. we had a little family after school snack picnic in the backyard. ahhhhh... i love spring!

fly away

{fly away}

i just thought this series of pictures were so darn funny. emma was out showing off her spinning pettiskirt pile (she was wearing 2 pettiskirts and a tutu style skirt). she decided to make a jump for it, which in rapid fire looked pretty fun.

so i know the tree that appears to be coming out of her head is one of those photo no-no's. but hey, that's the beauty of just taking pictures for you. you can break the "rules" if you want. (that and i'm not in the mood to photoshop out the tree trunk. lol)

yesterday stan & torrey worked together to paint the crown molding for her room. she pulled out one of stan's work shirts to use as a smock (military issue desert undershirt). i thought it was pretty darn cute to see them in matching work shirts. what can i say, i'm a sucker for matching! ::shock::

oh! i have a new review online at the scrap review with a chance to win a 1 year membership to clickin' moms! you just need to post a comment on the review over at tsr before noon EST tomorrow (thursday).

happy memorial day

{remember}

to those who have served, to those who have given their lives, to those who have loved those that gave all... thank you. thank you for being one that gave up your freedom so we could enjoy that very freedom here at home. thank you.

wow, it's been a crazy weekend. charity tea, baby shower, yard work, camping and some remembrance of fallen heros. it was go, go, go. funny how those busy weekends lead into busy weeks. guess it's just that time of year, or maybe it's just this time of life. lol.

but i did get a chance to make a diaper cake for a shower this weekend. and i think the mommy really enjoyed it, so that made me happy. i'm glad i was too busy to notice that the whole thing is a little cockeyed and leaning to the left. oops. guess that's what you get when you use a chopstick to support the top layer. :)

the rest of our veggies were planted in the garden this weekend. and while working on pulling back some ivy stan stumbled upon a duck nest. the mama's been hanging out in the pond a lot lately, so we weren't really surprised. but we were quite excited at the prospect of baby duckies in a few weeks. now we're just trying to figure out if she's eating our goldfish or not. the girls and i fed her some bread the other day. she keeps her distance from us, but comes back to the pond after we're gone. so this was as good as i could get on a close up shot of mama duck.

emma *mastered* a new jump roping skill this last week. she can now crisscross the rope in front of her while jumping. and hey! i thought that was pretty sweet. way to go sis! but since my computer is only feeling like uploading this jump rope picture... you get the non-crisscross jumping picture. :)

kids are cool

kids are cool

i'll have to show the girls the blog title tomorrow morning. maybe it'll make up for their disappointment in there being a mother's day and father's day, but no children's day. i told them pretty much every other day is children's day, but i don't think they believed me. lol. funny girls.

aside from that, there was a volunteer appreciation tea at the school today. the some of the kids did a little choir concert for the parent helpers, then served us some little treats. very cute! torrey's a student ambassador, so she was helping out. pretty darn cute.

i love the sound of little ones singing! they have the sweetest little voices. i could listen to it all day long!

after school we headed back to the orthodontist for torrey's x-rays, pictures and spacers. i love all of the staff in the office. when i was paying today's bill on the way out, we were joking about how all they did was put rubberbands in and take pictures... and i said,"man, i put rubberbands on them, and take pictures everyday... i really should get paid too!" we all got a good laugh. i told the girls they owed me $300 bucks, but they just laughed at me. oh well. maybe next time!

smile big! and i mean REALLY big.

is it just me

is it just me?

this whole taking a picture a day thing really makes you realize how fast time is traveling. i mean, for starters we're 140 days into 2009. i mean, when did that happen? but when i was looking at today's picture it seems like i'm getting a glimpse of my kids in the future. you know how when you look at baby pictures of your little ones, and you see their present selves in their baby faces? (did that even make sense?) well, the top picture really seems more like i'm looking at their future selves. maybe i'm just losing my mind? i mean, i took the top picture about 5 minutes before the one just below this one...

and in this one, they look more their current ages. is it just me? (because there is a strong possibility i've gone off the deep end. ask anyone i know! lol) so tell me what you think...

kinda looks like a mirror. so much the same, and yet so so SO different! they were playing school after school. not just regular school, i was informed this was boarding school. so what does that mean? emma gets to bring her american girl doll and blanket into torrey's room while torrey teaches her stuff. (we watch a lot of old movies, so the boarding school idea is pretty intriguing.)

and it's back to the orthodontist for this one tomorrow. x-rays, molds and all of that good stuff. hopefully that expander thing doesn't hurt when they put it in. she's kind of nervous.

sock dance madness

sock dance madness

gotta love frantic mornings. admittedly, i am a last minute sort of girl. i press the snooze button way too many times, i doddle, get distracted easily, and often run late. i do, however, get the girls off to school in time. though i'm not always finished getting myself presentable until after they're out the door. today was no exception. but because i love my daughter & her teacher THAT much, i ran down to the school first thing this morning, before shower or make up, when i got the call to get a picture of emma's class doing their sock dance. (they *get* to dance around with socks when they get perfect attendance 17 times. consequently, there are also 17 letters in "perfect attendance". seeing the connection? clever, huh. lol) it's pretty darn fun to watch.

anyway, here it is... the finale to the sock dance story, and my creativity for the day. i'm dozing off here at the computer, so i'm thinking i should drag myself off to bed. lots of work to get done tomorrow! scrappy and volunteer. better get to bed so i can press the snooze 15 times in the morning. hee hee. so i'll wrap it up with a picture of the rain falling on my deck this afternoon. now, sleep.

getting caught

getting caught

they have this program at school from time to time called "get caught reading". if that was at our house, i think torrey would be in the big house for reading by now. :) she's our shamelessly content bookworm. just one of those kids who devours books constantly. i remember thinking when she was reading novels in kindergarten, that i was some kind of mom to get those results... then reality spends a little time with you and you realize, maybe it's got way more to do with her personality, smarts and insides than me. lol. especially when sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get emma to sit down and read without 150 major distractions to the process (yah, she's her mama's girl). anyway, i love that she loves to read!

once she noticed me snapping pictures, she picked up a movie case, dropped the glasses down and busted out the silly face. i love my kids!!!

backyard babe

backyard babe

lucky me! a couple of weeks ago the fabulous ladies at pencil lines (the amazing international scrapbook sketch/challenge blog) asked if i'd be their guest designer this week. well who could say no to such an amazing team? not me! every week they have a different designer that comes up with a sketch. then the designer and all of their amazing team come up with layouts for the sketch. how cool is that? they feature designers & a team from all over the world. their sketches are also available as layered digital templates, which is pretty darn cool. hope you get a chance to check it out this week!

after church, we spent a good part of the day with some friends enjoying the sunshine. how can you beat sittin' in the sun eating salmon that you just smoked on a cedar plank. ah, heaven! i love watching kids play and listening to the make believe worlds they come up with. just a perfect sort of sunday afternoon. by the time we headed home the girls were pretty wiped out, but emma was still up for some backyard picture taking. again, lucky me! :)

this tree in our yard emma calls "her tree." mom, get a picture of me with my tree. look at how tall i am next to my tree. what kid doesn't like a tree that's just about the same size as them?

from emma's tree (japanese maple) looking up

she is her mama's girl with those fancy faces. it's funny how we could pass for twin silly faces. although, she pulls it off WAY better than i could ever hope to.

around the world & at home

around the world & at home

it's already the middle of may, and we're hitting our six month window for our next (sixth) deployment. it's still a long way off, but now starts some of the talks about the this and that's of getting ready. so with that in mind friday, i figured i'd take a picture of the map in our entryway. it's a fun project that stan and i worked on together a couple of years ago. we cut the backing, glued on cork board, mounted the map and made a custom frame together. there are pins in the map for every place he's been with the navy, and a different color for each deployment. it's amazing to look at the world and all of the places he's been. makes me thankful for what he and all of the other service members do for our country everyday.

it was an amazingly sunshiny day today, and stan & i went and picked up the rest of the supplies we needed to finish making a fountain in our front yard. i was surprised how easy it was! a lot had already been done by the previous owner, but in less than an hour we had a beautiful fountain. it sounds so pretty. and it looks pretty darn nice too.

and on a side note, i have another article up at the scrap review today on studio calico's kit club. this is one of the projects, you can check out the others there.

hope you're having a fabulous weekend!

parenthood & outer space

parenthood & outer space

so i had one of those bad mom moments today. the school called saying emma was complaining of an ear ache. now she's had stuffy/runny nose, but nothing crazy. no fever, aches or anything. well i brought the cold meds to school, and she was sporting her best drama face. i decided to take her home even though i didn't think she was really that bad off. (i was even laughing with the school nurse about it on the way out!) well, in the car on the way home she threw up. um, guess i was wrong. i called my pediatric nurse friend to see if she thought we should come in. she said we should, so i did. would you believe the poor little sweetie had a major double ear infection! glad i pulled her out of school. sheesh! her equilibrium was way off, so she was getting dizzy & sick.

anyway, i picked her up her very own box of klenex with her prescription, and we snuggled down and watched the sound of music. i ran upstairs for a minute, and when i came down she found these little crown magnet holder things i picked up at hoity toity the other day, and set them up as klenex holders. lol. even when she's sick - she's creative! :)


as for the rest of these, i'll have to fill in the blanks for the explanation tomorrow. i'm sitting here trying to type really quietly since my poor hubby has to get up at 2am to fly tomorrow... so i'll finish the rest up later! :)

**ok, now it's morning and stan's off on his flight, and i don't have to try and type quietly next to him in bed. lol. i suppose i could have got up and moved my laptop somewhere else, but who wants to move after you're all warm and snuggly? :)

so this set of pictures were from the space program that emma's class did on wednesday night. they've been learning all about space and the planets. they sang songs, recited facts about the different planets, read about their imaginary planets they made, and their wishes. it was wonderfully cute & hilarious. what were emma's wishes, you say? "all of the spaghetti in the world, a d.s. and a car." i could maybe put a dent in the first one anyway...

one of the coolest things about their space unit was the "space bubble" emma's teacher had set up in their classroom. how cool is it to have a giant bubble with stars & planets with glow in the dark that the whole class can fit inside of... and is powered solely by a box fan? have i mentioned how cool her teacher is??

i'd been in the space bubble a couple of times over the past few weeks on my volunteer days... but this was stan & torrey's first chance to climb inside the coolness. with several other families we poured into the bubble, and she turned off the lights.

this is the best i could do for a picture of what the inside of the bubble looked like in the dark. so so cool. totally made me want to construct one out of tarps and duct tape. :)

the great fish release

the great fish release

i had to get a picture of this baby today. i saw this cool 'do here this last night, and decided to give it a shot today. it turned out very cool, but took a lot longer than i thought it would. usually the girls' hair only takes me about 5-10 minutes a piece, but this baby took something like 45 minutes just for emma. which left me no time to duplicate it on torrey, although i think i could have done it a bit faster the second time. so torrey got a modified double braid of the same thing which was a little more "grown up'ish" as she said.

it looked so cool i really wanted a picture of it. but since we were almost late to school, i was getting pictures while urging emma to get her shoes & socks on faster so we could zip to the school before they were late! lol. so so the story of our life!


this evening we headed to petco to pick up some more goldfish. we picked up 15 last week for our backyard pond. we thought 15 would be a good number... until we got them in there and realized that was like dropping 15 pennies in your living room. they're there, but they don't fill it up. that and those little buggers can hide like no body's business! they burrow in the mud at the bottom of the pond. so we thought picking up some buddies may coax them out a bit... or at least let us get a few more glimpses of life in the pond.

so we picked out 100'ish fishies to come home with us. gotta love 13 cent fish! the petco lady who helped us was so stinkin' funny, and totally reminded me of donna downey. who is also a total crack up. sorry donna, you're totally the petco girl to me now. :)


then came the great release, and boy am i glad we went for the big numbers. because i think we lost something like 30 of those ones between the pet store and the pond/release. poor little guys. there's a mass grave on the side of the pond for them right now. hopefully it doesn't discourage the ones left behind. either way, it was a great way to spend $13. :)

mother's day madness

mother's day madness

have i ever mentioned that i have the best kids in the entire world? well, i'm pretty sure i do. for mother's day emma set her alarm for 6am to get up to make me breakfast in bed. which she made all by herself. (did i mention i love this age?!) she even made it with my whole wheat light bread. gotta love that girl. and another big thank you to my sister for getting emma that paula dean kid's cookbook for christmas. you're the best!
torrey came down during our family breakfast in bed to shower me with her presents. i got this hand painted flower pot & some other handmade goodies. i loved the book of coupons with things like, "i won't complain for one whole day" or "good for taking out all of the trash for one day". i thought it particularily funny that almost all of the coupons expired may 11th. lol.

stan got a couple of shots of the girls and i for me. my favorite mother's day gift every year.


figured i'd put up the cards i made. this one was for my mom to go with the metal flying pig metal yard art thingy we got her. hee hee. it goes with the chicken that has it's own story to tell.
we also packed our mother's day with a surprise 30th birthday party we threw for our friend. it was so fun, i'm thinking we're going to have to have a party on mother's day every year.

and today... i feel like i dove into a whole new phase of parenting taking torrey to her first ever orthodontist appointment. crazy. she's getting an expander in for her crossbite. she was really excited until we walked into the office and it "smelled like the dentist." and that smell always makes her nervous. but they were so amazing. i was so impressed with the doc and all of the staff. they eased her worries, were super nice and treated her like a queen. i love it when you find amazing docs to work with! (nevermind that the picture turned out making the ortho look kinda scary. lol)

hope your mother's day was amazing!!!

mommy & me day

mommy & me day

on a whim a couple of months ago we redid the decor in the girls' rooms in hopes of them keeping their rooms cleaner... i have to admit that i didn't really have high hopes for this process. being an inherent mess myself, i figured it would last about as long as it does for me... which is usually right up until i use the space again. lol. anyway, much to my surprise, they've kept their rooms very clean. and emma's even made her bed everyday since! so in celebration of this momentous accomplishment, we went out antiquing to find a little decor reward for her room. (torrey decided to hang with daddy and do yard work.)


she had a bunch of cool stuff in the running... an old bulb style perfume bottle, a decorative bird cage, a pedestal with a glass dome, a turquoise diamond-style paper weight, a frilly pink apron (this girl's got style!). but in the end she went with a fancy vintage barbie dress and cape set. after all of that hard shopping we snapped some pictures, then ran a couple more errands. just a fun hang out sort of day. makes me miss our thursday date days of years past... i love being a mom!

and to all of the mom's out there that give and give up so much for the love of the dear ones in their lives... this little laugh is for you! happy mother's day!

mother's day munchies

mother's day munchies

friday i had the honor of going to the mother's day luncheon a in emma's class. they made us beautiful paper hats, with hand made tissue flowers. we dined with our sandwiches and baby carrots. it was the best! then all of the kids read a couple of pages out of their "mom's many hats" books. too cute. emma had some pretty funny pages in there that i got a good laugh out of. gotta love a kid's perspective!

emma and her teacher - who, in my opion, is seriously one of the best teachers on the planet. she literally astounds stan & i every time we see her in action. :)

i'm thinking there should be a new gameshow called, are you taller than a first grader. i think it it were any other grade i'd be a sure loser. the third graders are already passing me up!

i {heart} recess

this week was teacher appreciation. and MAN, do we appreciate the girls' teachers! i made a couple of these little tins for them & filled it with a little gift card. it's really not enough to say the kind of thank you they deserve, but i guess it's the thought that counts. :)

when your lunch speaks to you

when your lunch speaks to you

does it say i love you?

i {heart} my toaster. it toasts little messages onto my bread, and i just think that's so darn cool. we've had the toaster for several years, and i still think it's fun every time the bread pops out. i mean, you gotta love it when your bread says nice things to you. so i figured that should be my pic of the day when i toasted some bread to go with the veggie chili i made for lunch.

and i had to scan this baby in for fun. i found this when going through torrey's school folder this morning. i guess i'm a pretty busy girl. :) what a great girl!

time off, tulips & other stuff

time off, tulips & other stuff

shhhhh. don't tell anyone, but i took a little time off yesterday with my girlies. i picked them up from school at lunch time and we had some a family "mental health" day. after a couple of very busy weeks, the girls and i spent some time running around at one of our favorite gardens ever. i packed a lunch, and we set off for a surprise date. we couldn't have timed it better as we were one of only a few people there, and it started to pour rain as we were driving home. we picked up our traditional big bag of fresh popped kettle corn, and ran around like a bunch of crazies.

roozengaarde is one of the biggest tulip (& other bulb flower) growers in our area. they sell bulbs to people all over the world. they have over a thousand acres of tulip fields abloom in the spring. the girls and i hit their garden every year to check out all of the different kinds of tulips. there are tons of different varieties. i think this one was called "yellow crown". i'd never seen it before, but thought it was pretty dang cool lookin'. the daffodils the girls are smelling were called geranium, because you guessed it... they smelled just like geraniums. :)

i know i've been a little on the picture happy side lately, but hey, i've got some pretty dang cute subjects if you ask me. i'm not really sure what inspired torrey's little jig here, but i thought it was so stinkin' funny, that i was snapping away. she broke her hand holding sister time for a minute to busta-move, then went right back to walking the path with emma. kids are so fun!

more and more and more tulip pictures...

emma stuck a cherry blossom that had blown on the ground into her hair... so that ended up as the picture of the day. something just so magical about walking around on a windy day with cherry blossoms swirling around you.


i get pictures of the girls kissing this frog every year. this year, to my great joy, it was met with willing subjects. i mean, the frog has never been much of a problem, but for the last couple of years apparently the cool-i-don't-want-to-be-embarrassed bug hit one of my children. but this year, she ran right up, and said, "mom i'll kiss it for you without complaining!" lol. maybe it was the big bag of kettle corn i'd just purchased that spurred the sweet sentiment. i prefer to think that it must have something to do with my uncanny mothering skills {{cough}}.

today my friend's daughter came to hang out for awhile. after helping me with dinner she asked if i'd do her hair for her. which i did. twice. the first time, i put it up in a cute little hairstyle. well, at least i thought it was cute. she told me she looked like a ballarina. (and from her tone she didn't mean that to be a cool thing.) after a little begging, she convinsed me to take it out and try something more grown up (and COOL) looking. so out came the teasing comb, and we went for this look. apparently jr highers have an opinion about their hairdos. lol. anyway, she was happy with this one, and let me get a couple of pictures of her afterwards.

oh, on a sidenote, i've been having some troubles with my pictures looking desaturated on blogger. after quite a bit of google research, most of which said make sure you convert their color profile to sRGB rather than Adobe RGB, i found an answer. (if you're having troubles, try the RGB deal first... it didn't work for me, but this did.) i use firefox, and found a solution for my saturation issues here. yea!!!

sorry for the super long rambling post. :)

winning is sweet!

winning is so sweet!

i'm finally back! i actually got back sunday afternoon, but i've been a little trashed for the past couple of days. i spent a couple of weeks going literally nonstop, and i'm finally kind of back to normal!

so i'm catching up on posting my 365 pictures, and the winners of my nsd giveaway! yea. :) i feel like i've been a little out of the groove for the past few days on my 365 pics. they're not all of my favorites, but i have taken pics each day... so i'm considering that a success.

this is a picture of my friend cindy. i know she'll probably hate it, but it makes me laugh every time i see it. at our ladies retreat, she was constantly shocked by our lack of "filters" before we said stuff. i told her i have filters, they just are more relaxed than hers. way more! :) so this is her, "this is what having a filter looks like" face. lol.

a pretty wild flower on a path out at the conference center. the picture is a lot more vibrant, but apparently the upload sucks that vibrancy out of the pictures... :)

the group of ladies that lead worship at our women's retreat. aren't they cute? these two ladies are also grandmas! i hope i look as cute as them as a grammy.

and for the winners! thanks to random.org, i have 5 winners!!!

#1

Steffanie S. said...

Before scrapbooking, I never thought of myself as very creative or, much less, an artist. Now I am scrappin' and card-makin' and getting wonderful compliments from everyone. I finally found my creative outlet! I have met so many wonderful people and my family love to see what I do with our photos! I am so grateful to have found this hobby :)

May 2, 2009 8:11 AM

#2

Shannon said...

scrappin is my release from the craziness of life.... It's my happy place...

May 3, 2009 7:54 PM

#3

kim.mom said...

Have a great time this weekend! That is what is so great about scrapbooking is documenting memories. Being a military family we move alot and it is nice to have scrapbooks to help the kids remember all the places we've lived and the people we've met.

May 2, 2009 12:23 AM

#4

Michelle said...

I love that it makes me write down the little stuff that I would otherwise forget. Collecting the cute papers and fun stuff is just a bonus!

May 4, 2009 7:40 AM

#5

PaperParadise said...

I'm so glad I got into scrapbooking and paper crafts. It has given me so much! I have met so many wonderful people! I have been given the chance to do things I never thought I could! Happy day!

May 2, 2009 6:26 AM

congratulations winners! if your name is here, please email me your info, and i'll get your goodies out to you! hope you guys had a fabulous national scrapbook day!

happy national scrapbook day!!!

celebrate the little things
happy national scrapbook day!

as you read this, i am off on a great relaxing weekend with a bunch of fabulous ladies from my church at a women's retreat. but i wanted to be sure to celebrate some fabulous scrappy goodness with all of my bloggie friends!



i love these little holidays that we can sneak onto the calendar to celebrate the little joys of life. pretty darn fabulous if you ask me! so in honor of national scrapbook day i put together some goodies for giving away. i've got 5 goodie packs up for grabs, including some stampin up stamp sets, glitz packs, mini albums and some all around scrappy fun! so since i'm in the middle of trying to pack for my weekend, i can't really come up with anything super creative... so how about you post your favorite thing about scrapbooking & how it's blessed your life. how's that? i'll be drawing names on tueday. :)


also check out the scrap review for some fun national scrapbook day projects & sketches! the pictures are little sneak peaks of the my take on one of the sketches. check out tsr for the full layout! :)

happy celebrating!