Merry Christmas!

So it's Christmas Eve and we still fight every day to get Megan to eat. She is so stubborn. When after a half hour of fighting with her we told her she needed to eat or she couldn't open her Christmas Eve present...surely that would change her mind right? WRONG. She said "Ok." and went to bed. I swear my hair is going to be all gray by her next birthday. (she did eventually get up and take a couple more bites but it took some coaxing from Kip.)

The stockings are hung, reindeer food on the lawn, we have been tracking santa and baking cookies all day. Just waiting for the big guy to arrive. Hard to believe it is almost over.

Now you must indulge me for a moment. My favorite kit club where I order all of my scrapbook goodness is having a contest. I need to make a Christmas list for their site. These are all my favorite things I haven't managed to snag just yet, with Christmas I had to be good.

1. Doilies Stamp
2. Mister Huey MH in Apple Jack and Lunchtray
3. Tweets Rub-ons
4. Noah Alphabet

Of course there are new inks and all kinds of fun things I would buy from the shop but these are on my wishlist for January!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

scrapbook space

There is a discussion going on about small scrapbook spaces. We all share a basement together, no fancy room for me. I like that I get to be with my family. I don't think I would ever scrapbook if I were by myself somewhere. So this is our lovely basement. (We didn't really think we would still be here or that pink carpet would be gone by now.)



As you can see my side is on the left and Kip's side is on the right. Sometimes this is good and sometimes...well he plays games and yells.



This is the top of my desk. We bought this folding table as a make-do type thing until I could find the desk I really wanted. Again we thought we were moving and didn't want to buy furniture until after that. The little box houses my newest Studio Calico kit and the tins have pens/twine/jute in them.

Here is a better picture of the whole area. Nothing fancy but it works. I don't know how I have scrapped for 7 years and this is all I have but it's true! The blue tub has my sc kits in it. I need to figure out a better place for it but my cat is addicted to chewing on plastic and she isn't allowed near my kits! It's the only place that is safe. I keep my ink pads in the bread box. I tried to put my mists in there but they were too tall with the lids on and I couldn't handle having them without lids on. You can't see it but my sewing machine is on the floor. I just pull it up to use it. The pink basket is recycling.

And then what isn't photo'd is the rest of the room which houses all of the children's toys, our tv, wii equipment, kid's computer and craft desk, and couch.


So there it is. I didn't even clean it up for you. :)

Pets

Our out of focus friends. I will be back to do a post marathon post tonight.

Summer is here!

Bailey had her last day of school. We will miss Mrs. Crawford very much. She was an excellent teacher and was a wonderful person. I think she set a great example for Bailey for what school is like and taught her many very important skills both socially and academically. I spent a lot of time in the school this year volunteering for the class and helping with the school store. It feels like family when you walk in, I just love it there. We are very lucky considering the anxiety I had last year this time praying that Bailey would be accepted into their school of choice program.

I finally finished a layout. This kit has me stumped. I don't know why, it seemed so my style and I just have the most difficult time using it. I did this one last night for the Studio Calico Sunday Sketch Challenge . I really am happy with how it turned out, that is one of the best pictures I have of Kip's grandparents. Grandpa normally doesn't smile at all.

Miss Bailey attended yet another fabulous birthday party for her friend Katie. A friend of theirs painted all of the girls faces, she did an amazing job. If we end up doing a sleepover party I'm pretty sure we will be hiring her to come to Bailey's. It was really glittery when she first had it done but by the time we got home alot of it had rubbed off.

I had coffee with a friend and we attempted to go find garage sales yesterday but we were pretty much rained out. I didn't find any of the treasures that I was after, I did get a brand new AE sweater though for a buck, score!

Miss Megan is potty training today. So far we have had one accident and one success. I will take that over our previous attempts (this is our first success ever lol.)

Just as I was going to post this we have an update, we had another accident followed by 2 successes.

And that's our week.

in my absence we...

We shopped at the best toy store around. It's quaint and charming and filled with wonder for kids.

We inspected the dog statues downtown.

We ran in the new fountain for the first time.

We have spent at least 4 days at the beach already! We flew kites and played at playgrounds. We even swam a little last week.

We had Grandpa Roy visit and took him Angi, Dorothy, and Alice to see the carousal.

Soccer has come and gone. Bailey scored several goals this year and has decided she wants to play again. School is almost over. One more week and it will be summer vacation. We are going to miss her teacher, she's the best and has taught Bailey so much this year. I probably don't give myself enough credit, I'm sure the fact that we read with her every. single. day. has added to her love of learning.

I celebrated my 32nd birthday and Mother's Day. Now it's Memorial Weekend and Megan has a tummy bug. It really stinks. I had looked forward to lots of time outside, bbqs, and fun. Hopefully she gets better today and nobody else gets it. It wasn't alot of fun last night. However, since I was up already I was able to look thru the http://studiocalico.com/ gallery while she watched cartoons, and I am so excited for the June kit to come! Makes me want to get outside and take lots of pictures. The kit is so bright and fun this month, very summery. The main is honestly my favorite this month although I did add Rec League and a few goodies to my cart. I also managed to swipe Martha's monarch butterfly punch at M's today, it was even on sale.

Well I am off to tend to the little and get her back up and running. Oh speaking of running, umm my husband signed us up to run a 1/2 marathon June 19th. We've had to kick it in gear to prepare and went from 3 miles to 5 miles to 7 miles in three weeks. I'm pretty sure I have some sort of injury in my left calf, but only 3 weeks til the race so I'm going to muster through the pain, probaby doing serious damage that I will later regret.

oh and one other thing, guess who is going to see David Gray in August for our 5 year anniversary? me, that's who! So terribly excited I can't even stand it.

And I am officially a "soccer mom", tho ill-prepared

Bailey had her first soccer game today. It was freezing! 49 degrees with a windchill that had to have brought it down another 10 degrees. I didn't bring hats or gloves for anyone. No blanket for us sitting on the sidelines. No cash for the concession stand. I totally failed. Bailey doesn't really know though, she just had a good time. They were so cute, a little herd of children running around the field chasing the ball. No goalies, no scores...just good fun. My favorite was when she was going the wrong way. haha. I said before they even started I bet she runs the wrong way if she gets it, sure enough. Grandma treated us to Pizza Hut after the game since Bailey played so well.

Miss Megan is so sick. She's scaring me. She fell asleep playing rockband, literally fell asleep on top of the guitar. It was very pitiful, and that child is not one to just crash so she must not be feeling well at all. Her temp is around 102 right now so we are keeping a close eye on her. Kip is sick too and I haven't felt the best, while Bailey has a cough. Who wants to come over?!?

We did manage to make up my Amish Friendship Bread that we have been *mushing* for 10 days. Today was finally the day and it is yummy. I read on the internet that you can make it without the starter part so I might have to experiment and see if they are right.

Off to do a little relaxing.