4am, where did you come from?

4am, where did you come from?

i was just down here in my scraproom, scrapping away and looked over at the clock. yipes! 4am! getting the girls up at 6:30am for an early dentist appointment tomorrow is gonna be a caffeine loaded endeavor, i think. :) guess that's the beauty of not needing too much sleep - you get to spend lots of family time and scrapping time.

but i figured i'd get my last couple of pictures up before i hit the hay for a couple of hours. just a couple of shots of the girls on the lawn. they love rolling down the hills. and now as a mom i understand why my mom never really liked it when we did that as kids. thank goodness for stain sticks! lol. but hey, a couple of grass stains aren't worth spoiling the fun of being a kid, right?

well off to bed before that alarm doesn't have to wake me up. lol. i psyched for another camping trip this weekend. oh, and i clocked another few miles on my bike today... not very many, but i did some minor hills. oi! i am really enjoying riding around stan. maybe one of these days we'll get good enough to go on a date ride somewhere. well, we've got aspirations of it anyway. :)

hope you're having a fabulous friday!

just a quickie

went on another great bike ride today with my mom and the girls. we went 11 miles today, and started at the opposite end of the trail we'd been riding. i realized that we were pretty darn close to the end on our sunday ride... makes me wish we'd gone just a bit farther. now i need to figure out a way to bring my camera on the bike. any ideas?

so the picture of the day was a quickie of emma in her tie-dye shirt she made at school.

do you hula?

after work this morning, the girls and i headed down toward my lss (lasting memories) for a design team interview. we got there a little early and decided to kill some time at toys-r-us. so we walked around and looked at all of the toys, and walked away with two new hula hoops. torrey is the hula hoop master. she can whip that hula hoop around, and it hardly looks like it's moving. she's gone more than 25 minutes straight hoopin' it up!

emma took a little longer getting the hang of it, but man did she have fun. there was a lot of laughing going on...

especially when i got going. (forgive the sweat pants, i was in process of getting comfy. lol) surprisingly it did come back to me after a bit, i think mostly from watching torrey, though! on one "contest" i even kept it up longer than the torrey-master! lol.

when stan got home we went on another bike ride. we only went 8 miles, but did it in the rain. so there were 4 soaked culbertsons at the end of the trail. we were feeling pretty tough when we got back to the car. hee hee. we need to pack our little camera for the bike rides, i think...

fatherly light

fatherly light

boy oh boy are my girlies (and me) lucky to have such a great daddy! they worked really hard toward the end of school to make him a couple of projects in their classes, and i helped them make him a t-shirt they thought up. they'd planned it a little more colorful, but due to budget cuts, they had to pick only one color of fabric paint. :)

so they picked out the saying, and i helped iron it on for them.

and they hand-printed the back & signed their names. (they even posed him for this picture!) i thought it was pretty dang cute. they were so sweet giving it to him this morning when they got up. and being the wonderful daddy he is, he wore it to church this morning, too. he was pretty proud to be sporting their handiwork. :)

then there was this piece of work... i think i mentioned awhile back that we had converted our old dining room light fixture into a chandelier for torrey's room. well, i finally finished stringing the last of the beads onto it last night. i didn't have a "before" picture, so i had to go searching for this one online. but this was it...

stan took it all apart, removed the glass & trumpet style lower light, spray painted it, and reassembled it. i picked out some beads with torrey from michaels, strung them and hung them on the freshly drilled holes. then stan hung it up today in torrey's room. i think it turned out really cool! and not too shabby for just the price of a few strings of beads!

anyway, this was the finished project. torrey was super happy with it. i'm thinking now that we'll have to install a dimmer switch because you could land a plane in her room. :)

oh and an update on the new bikes. we went out and got some of those padded bike shorts. (if you've ridden on a bike very far, you'll know why!) we took the kids out riding again today on this very nice local trail and they went 20 miles! it was such a fun day. we went with another family and just had a great time zipping down the trail. i'm loving this new family hobby.

cutie, funny & pouty

cutie, funny & pouty

cutie
the super sweet jennifer evans, the brains behind create well - create often, also has a darling etsy shop with lots of cool handmade scrapping embellies. she sent me a fabulous package of goodies as a thank you for the being a guest designer for her site. how sweet is that? being the fabulous lady she is, she even threw in a couple of these cute little handmade headbands for the girls! thank you, thank you, thank you jennifer!!!

funny
because i'm me, i think life is best filled with lots of laughter. and i'm pretty darn lucky to be married to one funny guy, who can take a joke. we made some hello kitty waffles for breakfast this morning, and the whip cream just happened to be handy... so i gave the girls and stan little whip cream smiley faces. it's definitely not the best picture, but it reminded me of the daily fun we have in our life... just one of the many, many things i'm thankful for. i'm one lucky ducky!

pouty
little princess pouty face made picture of the day with this one. it just kind of sums my baby girl up. she's got such a soft heart that breaks so easily. reminds me a lot of me as a kid. sometimes it's a little maddening, but not something i'd ever want to change about her. she can go from happy to sad in 2 seconds flat, but she can make the trip almost as fast. gotta love how God made each one of us each so US! :)

family night & some cards

after helping some fellow moms do some setting up for a local soap box derby event tomorrow, we decided to grab pizza and head to family night at the local sports club. the girls played like crazy on the bouncy house, the kidz circuit training, racquetball & the pool. i even tried out that gravity thingy that spins you upside down. i've never been on one of those, but MAN! that was fun! i wish i had one of those babies at our house. the girls were too enamoured with the whole thing to snap a picture, so this was my only memory of it... this and my nice tight ab muscles. lol.


and while i was at the posting, i thought i'd post a few of these cards i made the other day from an lss kit i picked up. :)

**oh! and i had an article on DSLR camera post at tsr {the scrap review} the other day if you're interested. **

lasts & firsts

lasts & firsts

last day of school - first day of summer vacation! wednesday the girls had a wonderfully fun last day of school. i'm still kind of wondering where the whole year went. it was nice that stan had to work a little later, so we were able to take the girls to school together, and go out to lunch as a family when they got out.

it was one of those days where we got to think back on all of the events of the year. i am so thankful for all of the new friends they made this year, and how welcoming the families and staff were to our family. it always makes you a little nervous for your kids to make all new friends in a new school. we were so blessed to meet so many wonderful families and teachers... not to mention starting all of the fun new traditions at the new school. i love it when a plan comes together!

after school we went to the pet store and picked up a few more fishies for the pond just for kicks. emma made sure to explain to torrey exactly how she should go about the releasing process. pretty dang funny.

then we headed out to a friend's 40th birthday party. love a party where all of the families are there too. the kids had a great time. anytime you can fit almost 40 people in a restaurant with kids and maintain some kind of sanity, is a fabulous time!

yesterday our new bikes were all done being assembled, and we went on our first family bike ride. the girls made it for a 10 mile ride! i was pretty darn impressed with them. although i can now see why people wear those cushy bottomed bike pants! i'll be investing in some of those very soon!

the last full day

the last full day

i'm not exactly sure where this past school year went, but it is now 2 hours of school away from being finished. yowza! i'm pretty sure the reason time is going by so fast has nothing to do with me getting any older... that couldn't be it. lol. but really, it has been a wonderful whirlwind school year at our new school. the staff & parents have just taken us in and made us feel so welcome. the girls love the school & all of their new friends. and i have to say i'm going to miss this year's teachers terribly next year. i had lunch today with the girls and their friends, and watched the end of year awards assembly. so so much fun! i even ran a quick errand for emma's teacher for next year. i ran to get some pictures developed for her last minute, and since she was nice enough to trust me with her camera... i made sure to leave a few little "presents" on it for her to find later! we'll see if she ever trusts me with it again! lol

yesterday i was laid up with a migraine, and only got a couple of pictures. i did get these from laying on the couch just before i turned the expander in torrey's mouth. this little gizmo is fondly called "the key to the castle" at our house. i get to use it to crank the expander each day. i got such a kick out of torrey's expressions. what a goof!


i also snapped these quick pics of a butterfly on our flowers which i thought was a cool find. the bottom one has the butterfly and a bee about to land. what are the chances?


a couple of side notes from today. i made my first hairdo video for a friend that asked. but since emma went to all of the trouble of video taping, and torrey did such a great job as the hair model, i wanted to share it here, too. :)



**one last note, i was the guest designer on

create well, create often

this week. a fun blog run by the very sweet, not to mention talented, jen evans. check out her site if you get a chance!**

hope you're having a fabulous week!

date days & school days

date days & school days

with some of the expander trauma (see the orthodontist post), i decided torrey could use a mommy/daughter date day. so we went out for her first ever pedicure & manicure. it was pretty dang cute. i had my fixed 50mm lens on, so i couldn't get the whole shebang from the chair next door, but i could get this one. :) we hit the scrapbook store, and picked her up some goodies, and had dinner together. i love these kind of days!

our piggies.

my second attempt at this hairdo. i was much more successful this time around. it's amazing how much easier they are the second time around. i'm trying to speedily get this post up since at midnight (in 30'ish minutes) the power to all of camano island is going out. they're building a new bridge onto the island, and have to move the main power lines. so please don't mind my hurried typing. :)

yesterday was a busy day at school. there is so much fun to be had in the last few days. friday was beach day, 1st grade graduation & summer birthdays bash. emma's teacher did a little picnic on the lawn with all of the parents & had a little ceremony where she presented their portfolios of projects from the year.


i just thought this picture was cool. disclaimer: no child was injured in the photographing of this stunt. although this running somersault looks like it would end in permanent neck injury... it surprisingly ended in a wicked cool somersault. lucky for me!

then it was up to torrey's class for the summer birthdays bash. we brought decorate your own cookie goodies to celebrate torrey's summer birthday with her class. oh yah, you could totally smell the sugar rush coming on! :)

when the girls got home from school, stan filled up his john deere trailer with water and drove the girls around the yard. apparently the water was pretty dang cold... but man-o-man they laughed so hard. those are the kinds of memories that last a lifetime. stan's such darn great daddy! :)

counting my blessings

i spent the better part of today restructuring a bunch of our financial schtuff after an unauthorized paypal charge came through this morning. what a pain! i was so thankful that it wasn't any worse. we caught it very fast, so the damage was minimal. oi! loads of hours of work with the bank got it all mostly back in shape.

anyway, it lead me to think about all of the things in my life i'm thankful for. my girls, my husband, our house, our faith, and so much more. we really do have so so much to be thankful for in our daily lives.

anyway, tonight i am falling asleep at the keyboard. that long day of dealings must be extra tired today. so i'm going to sign off for the night. hopefully falling asleep won't bring any more of this kind of excitment! lol

why you're glad i'm not YOUR mom

we went to the orthodontist yesterday to have torrey's expander put in. because i'm me, i had my camera in tow. anyway, they were so sweet and explained everything to torrey beforehand with the mold. i took the mold and lifted the top and bottom and told her they were going to expand her mouth that way. she just shook her head. lol. there is just something fun about talking to your kids with their own mouth. i could have brought that mold home with me for hours of fun...

nothing makes you feel pretty like a couple of cotton sticks shoved in your mouth. she was such a good sport having it put in. although there was one minor breakdown when she tried to eat in the evening. after a special trip to the store with daddy to pick up some soft foods, all was well. today was the game of trying to find the words she couldn't say right. so far i think the winners are research, kitty, and weird.

stan's comment on this one... "hey kid, looks like you've got the blues..." lol. i love my husband!


yesterday we tried out this hairdo. i looked at the instructions the night before, and didn't recheck my laptop in the morning. so really we kind of just made up our own deal here. so maybe i'll have to try to do the actual do sometime. :)

as for the rest of these... just more pictures of my lovlies.