thank goodness this week is over

First the layout. Made with one of my favorite kits Studio Calico Who's Who. Seriously if you aren't a subscriber why not?! I pretty much stopped scrapbooking from the time Megan was born until she turned 2. Sure I still purchased new stuff and thought about doing it but it just never happened. Last spring I decided that instead of spending my money on stuff that I would never use i would buy one kit a month from Studio Calico. Best decision I ever made! I scrapbook all the time now. Love SC and the community there.

Now the bad week. First Kip was busy all last weekend and had a pretty bad week with work stuff. The problem with IT is you can't do changeovers during business hours so he was gone a LOT and really tired all week. Not really good for his mood ya know?

Then Kip's grandfather passed away. Very sad indeed. He lived a long full life and he was pretty sick towards the end, so it is for the best but still sad regardless. We went and hung out with his mom Wed. afternoon and I wish I could have done more for her. There wasn't a service or funeral, his wishes, so at least she didn't have that to deal with.

Thank goodness we are leaving next week! Myrtle Beach here we come. We are all ready for a break and to escape reality for a bit. Hope you enjoy your weekend! Will try to come back next time with happier news.

10 minutes to kill

So I still have ten minutes left before I have to go back to work. Might as well post on ye old blog that I seem to completely forget about. .

In light of some very sad news I have gathered over the past couple of weeks, I am trying to focus on the good things we have had. Here's my list:

1. Aunt Carole paid a visit! We love a visit from her. She's the perfect Great Aunt for the girls. She loves to spoil them and they love to be spoiled back (and I do not mean by buying things, I mean by actually paying attention to them and loving them so much!).

2. Kip is almost done with his insane schedule. It's been crazy around here. I am pretty sure being a single parent is not for me. He better keep loving me because I'm not giving him a choice!

3. Planning our trip to North and South Carolina. We are all getting very excited to get out of town for the week. We will be staying on the ocean, hopefully the weather will work in out favor.

4. Finally made it thru The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Now I see why so many people loved it. I like that it had just enough foreshadowing to keep you involved, but not enough so that you would pick up on what really happened. Excited to start the next book in the series.

5. We managed to get outside to the park a few times last week. Hooray for warm weather! Of course by warm I mean 50 degrees, but that's a heat wave to us Michigan folk after a long winter.

6. Making my way back into running. I am staying fairly consistant with a pace of 9:30 per mile, which is where I left off last year. I'm trying to get under 9:00 by June but I'm taking it easy to avoid injury. Just running a couple miles every other day until I feel myself getting stronger. My calf muscle is acting up again so I am being very careful.

And with that I must be off. Hope you have a great week!

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.