Scrappin' Frenzy!

We had a great Memorial Day weekend. We were really busy in the yard - so much that I'm still sore from it! But we got a lot done, which is good. We spent every evening from Thursday through Monday with friends - that was perhaps the best part. Even in the midst of that, I found some time to scrap, and so scrap I did! I'll show you those layouts in a minute, but I just have to say that tonight we have the excitement of Emmelia's graduation from preschool! I used to wonder why on earth kids need to have graduation ceremonies from preschool... but now I know - because it's so stinkin' cute! She has a little cap and gown and will get a diploma - the whole nine yards. I'm planning to take lots of photos and video of the event. I sent the Deac out today to get a graduation robe set for Emmelia's new Hello Kitty doll from Build-a-Bear so she can carry her doll with her in the procession. It just seemed like she deserved to get something special for the event - it's a Very. Big. Deal. , especially to her. She's been practicing the poem her class will recite and last night I even heard her muttering the words to the pledge of allegiance. So cute - I can't wait.

Here's the layouts I've made since my last post. I've been busy! You can see why I had to get a blog post in before the graduation pictures are ready for showing tomorrow...

These first two are from our weekend with Grammy and they are my two favorites. Click on the links to see credits for Build-a-Bear and Fountain.


































This one I had to do because Jen Caputo gave away her awesome Food of Love kit on her blog. It was perfect to do this layout with. So I also used a blog freebie template from Traci Sims for the layout. Credits are HERE.


This is kind of an odd one... but I wanted to use this photo because I thought it was cute. So I tried to be clever and unique with it. I'm not sure it worked, though. Here's the credits.


These last two are some Quick Pages I used to try to catch up on photos I haven't scrapped yet from a while ago. I didn't even bother to post them in the galleries, so if you want to know the credits, leave a comment or e-mail me.



































I wasn't sure about the colors on the Easter one and played around with it a bit to try to change it. But, turns out it kind of grows on you. It's nice to do something more non-traditional occasionally.

Well, better get going now, but look for cutie-pie graduation photos soon!

Fun Weekend

We had a really fun weekend. My mom came up to visit and take the kids to Build-a-Bear Workshop to celebrate Maura's birthday. We drove up to the shop and Maura was pretty overwhelmed with all the critters you could pick to stuff. She finally picked one and, as we were waiting in line she spotted a fountain outside that kids were playing in. In typical 3-year-old fashion, all bears and animals were forgotten in favor of playing in that fountain. So we put everything down and went outside for a while. Here's Maura and Grammy enjoying the fountain:
But, after that fun time, we coaxed the girls back into the store and proceeded to spend lots of money. Three dolls came home with us - Maura's pink bear named Tropher, Emmelia's Hello Kitty named Laura, and a snow leopard firefighter doll named Blaze that I got for the Deac in celebration of our 14th anniversary. Here's Maura with Tropher (I'm really not sure where she came up with that name!):
While we were there, we also made a bear to be donated to an international adoptions charity.

Here's the Deac completing the birth certificate for Blaze (so cute, isn't it?):

On Sunday, the Deac helped out with a wildland firefighting training while the girls and I hung out with Grammy. We went out to our favorite place for breakfast and got some flowers to plant in the yard. Grammy was kind enough to help us plant everything before she left, which is good because I was beginning to get tired (more about that later). We also made a concrete stepping stone with the girls' handprints in it for Grammy for her Mother's Day present.

Yeah, so on Monday I realized I had mastitis. I had been sick the week before, but chalked it up to a virus that has been going around. Over the weekend, I developed breast pain and the red streaking characteristic of an infection and by Monday there was no denying it. So I called my doc and got some antibiotics. I thought about trying to treat it to avoid antibiotics, but pretty much every source I looked at agreed that if red streaking is present for more than 48 hours, antibiotics are necessary. And I do have to say I feel a lot better - I didn't even realize how bad I felt until I felt better, if you know what I mean. I'm just still tired, probably from the antibiotics themselves. My goal this weekend is to take it easy (within reason - there's still weeds to pull).

Next week my baby graduates from pre-K. They are having a ceremony, complete with little caps and gowns. I know it will be so cute. I just wish we knew what school she'll be going to next year. Actually, there's no rush as long as she gets into the one we want.

As of today, there are only 47 days until the CHP exam. Which, I found out today, will likely be in Lakewood. Bleh. That means I have to drive about an hour to an hour and a half to get there and the exam begins at 8 am. Bleh.

It's not easy being green.....

I decided to scrap today. I found an email in my inbox that I'd been saving about my friend Amy's new Salientia Exploration mini-kit (by the way, the geek in me loves that she uses scientific names for her kit designs), so I went and downloaded it. Inspiration struck when I remembered a photo I'd taken of Emmelia playing on a frog sculpture in one of the little playground areas on Pearl Street when we were there in March. Amy had also challenged me way back in February to scraplift this layout she'd liked and sent to me. So this is the result. I think it came out pretty fun and, what's more, I used EVERY thing in the kit. That's kind of unusual for me these days. I love feedback, so be sure to tell me what you think! Full credits are HERE.

Other than that, things are going well. I'm currently trying to figure out if I can take an Arabic class this summer. It's a non-credit class designed for staff, so it's not only cheap but also pretty laid back. The only fly in the ointment is that it happens at the same time I'd need to leave to take Emmelia to karate lessons. But I think the father of Emmelia's friend who's also doing karate might take them both there. I could still get to the dojo halfway through the class and see how she's progressing. And it's only for a couple of months... we'll see. Speaking of which, she and her sister are coming over tonight so I should probably plan to leave on time tonight so I'll be home when their parents need to drop them off.

14 years!

Fourteen years ago today, in fact right around this time of day, the Deac and I were taking vows and saying "I do." It's hard to believe 14 years have gone by! But I'm glad to say that I'm married to my best friend. (awww)

We don't have any particular plans, but might go out to dinner later this week.

Tonight the girls have tumbling class, so that wraps up doing anything much tonight. Oh, and before tumbling class, Emmelia has karate. And today I just signed BOTH kids up (I don't have a baby anymore! *sniff* *sniff*) for soccer in the fall. And this summer there will be swimming lessons. We will be busy, but I think it will be a good kind of busy. We'll still be spending time with the kids and they'll be getting some exercise.

Mother's Day was nice, but would've been better if the kids had taken a nap. Hee. No, really, we had a nice day and Emmelia gave me a tulip-shaped recipe clip that she painted with her picture on it. Clipped to it was a recipe she invented for "chocolate cake." It included 2 cups Splenda and I realized that the Deac's diabetes is already having an effect on the way the girls think about food. In a good way, I think. Maura gave me a pot she decorated with tissue paper and glue. It had a few barely-started Aster seedlings in it. I'm keeping it at work where plants seem to thrive, rather than at home, where plants seem to die from neglect.

I took some photos of the girls on Sunday, and then later used the camera self-timer (the Deac had a fire call, so I had to be creative) to take some of all 3 of us together. Here's a layout I made with some of those photos:

I'm not completely enamored of this layout, but I can't quite put my finger on what I don't like about it. I do like Christine's new "Mother May I?" kit. It might be that I wouldn't have placed things that way, but sort of "had" to because of the template (of course, you never "have" to with a template - and in fact I did move some of the template pieces around). In other words, they aren't placed where I would have put them myself. Maybe that's it - and I do think it's a limitation of templates - they help you when you don't feel that creative, but they stifle creativity at the same time. Anyway, full credits are HERE.

Well, I'd better get going to pick up Emmelia, change her into her gi and take her to the dojo!

Catch up

Wow - sorry to drop off the face of the planet like that. I've been busy with work and studying physics. I've been surprised at how I've actually enjoyed the health physics study. I'm feeling more confident about things, but still have a TON of studying to do!

I've also been doing a lot of physical therapy to aid my recovery from the tendon release surgery. It is going really well and I am encouraged. I have been having a lot of ankle pain because my ankle bones were never able to move correctly with each other. The tendons used to keep the joint too tight. So now that the tendons are as loose as they should be, my ankle bones are hitting each other instead of gliding around nicely. Anyway, PT has been helping immensely and I'm starting to learn how to walk again - normally! It's exciting.

I haven't felt at all like scrapping. Some of it is because I'm too busy to spend time on it, but some of it is also that I'm going through one of my periodic phases of being annoyed with how commercial and "fake" the digiscrap world has become. Oh well. Since I really need to study, it's okay with me that I don't particularly feel like scrapping. I can catch up AFTER the exam.... I did manage to finish up a layout I started last week sometime with the recent mega-freebie kit In Memory of Miles (credits HERE):
The girls started tumbling classes this week. Maura was afraid of it, but Emmelia loved every second. By the end of Emmelia's class (Maura's was first), Maura had warmed up to it, so I think next week will go better. You can see some not-so-great photos in my flickr badge.

This summer we will be doing (not all at the same time - we're taking the phased approach) tumbling, violin (Maura is starting now, too!), swimming and karate. In the fall, soccer for Emmelia, violin for both and of course Emmelia will start kindergarten. I'd actually love for her to do hockey in the K-5 league, but I doubt I can convince her that it is that fun. I might have to have their babysitter take them ice skating. She plays college hockey, so maybe her influence would help.

Hope everyone enjoys their weekend. We don't have much planned - haircuts, gardening, etc. but the weather is supposed to be gorgeous, so I can't wait.

Busy!

I have been swamped lately! Mostly with work - it's the change of months and that always means I have a few more things to do. Besides that, I'm really trying to study for this exam that is coming up in only TWO months!!! I have a LOT to study and learn before then! It really needs to take over my life.

I'm finishing up typing all the information into our parish directory. I'm excited that we will have one, but I've been gathering photos and information forms since the beginning of February. I really need to get it published soon before things change drastically (seems like people are always having babies, getting married, or moving in our parish). In 2 months, we'll have a new priest and it will be out of date anyway, but it will still be a useful base.

This weekend the girls have a birthday party they were invited to, then Emmelia has rehearsal on Saturday for her violin recital on Sunday! I'm really hoping she'll play her solo. She might not - this past weekend we had the Church School program and where was my child when they called her name to say her line ("God is Forgiveness")? Outside playing. Sigh. Well, we'll see how it goes - there really isn't a lot of pressure and that is nice. I think she might refuse because she's just been in that mood lately. At her lesson last week, she absolutely refused to participate, even leaving the studio and going outside while her teacher and I were talking. She's doing great with practicing, though. Her teacher gave me an idea for giving kids a visual idea of practice and we got the supplies for it this weekend. It's fairly simple - there is one box that has several tongue depressors. On each one is written a task to do - either a piece to play, or a rhythym to clap. Some non-violin-related things are thrown in, too, like "Give Papa a hug." As each task is accomplished, Emmelia gets to put the stick in another box and she can see visually how much she has done and how much more she has to do during practice. As she gets older, we can add or subtract sticks and she'll be able to read them on her own.

This weekend I went on a bike ride with the kids. We just rode over to the house of friends and the kids played a bit before we rode back. It was great to get out and enjoy the sunshine, though. Maura rode in the trailer and Emmelia rode the bike she got for Christmas! Even though we had to cross a very busy street, she did a wonderful job of staying with me and listening for direction.

Tomorrow is the funeral for one of the bus drivers at the daycare center. He had a stroke 2 weeks ago and went downhill quickly. The parent action committee is taking in food for the teachers to munch on during the day so they can have some time to just process and chat without having to worry about getting/heating their lunch. Emmelia has mentioned Mr. Jack a few times, so she is aware of what is going on. When I told her he died, she said she misses him and Grandad. She's a sweet girl. She often tells me how much she misses her grandad.