Scrapping tour

Today was a blast! Liz, Alex and I trekked through the East Bay, visiting scrapbook stores. Liz and Alex had never been to My Daughter's Wish (Pleasant Hill), and they wanted to go to Scrapbook Territory (Berkeley) as well, and since I've been to both I played tour guide.
I hadn't been to MDW for several weeks, and it was a great time to go, because Mallory was there (home on break from school). And it's always fun to see Sheri running a class, she does such a great job. MDW is definitely my favorite scrapbook store, because Sheri really gets interesting product, stuff that's different from anywhere else; she really can push you creatively, which is what I need!
It's always interesting to visit Scrapbook Territory, and it always to be raining when we go there! I was lucky enough to find Ali Edward's Life Artist, since I didn't get it when I should have from Creating Keepsakes. I can't wait to read through it tonight! Hopefully I will have time tomorrow to be creative....Tim Holtz has interesting thoughts on that today in his blog .
Happy crafting everyone!

Cookie Day

Our annual cookie day was a week before Christmas, and things went very smoothly this year! And I had a great time spending time with my new buddy, Lilly. She is adorable, and I think Amy (her mom) will have her hands very full once Lilly is more mobile - you can't let a sweet face fool you :)
The highlight for me this year, were the Peanut Buttercup Tarts....very tasty, and supremely easy! And I've started preparing for next year, already painting tins and cans for next year.
I'll be updating with Christmas pictures this week, and we're still celebrating with family this weekend. It was a wonderful Christmas, very relaxing, we stayed home, napped and all played with new toys. Once again John has proven he is the best husband in the world, getting me a new camera, a Canon Rebel xti!! It's so phenomenal, and I can't wait to figure out how to use it...even with my basic knowledge I'm taking pictures that look better.
Goodnight!

The season gets crazy!

What a crazy week! I watched little Peter nearly everyday, and that kid is hilarious!! And it's been such a wonderful experience for Sofia, she's talking more (even if it's to scream "Mine" like a banshee), and is getting the knack of interacting with someone nearer her own age. However, they've gone from bickering almost constantly to working together in their mischief, I can tell already I am in a HEAP of trouble!

I've also been getting as many hours as possible in on projects, as I have gift to finish and Tim Holtz ideas to play with. His 12 Tags of Christmas is now over, and I'm a little sad; it's been a blast looking at new ideas everyday, and hoping against hope to win the daily prize. Even though I didn't it was still really great to see step by step instructions for things you usually can only get in a very expensive class, and reading what every one else wrote, and the camaraderie was a lot of fun!

To explain the attached picture, I've been playing with the PhotoBooth on my Mac, and though I seem to have more wrinkles than I realized, it's not a half bad picture. I also washed my hair and put on make-up for no particular reason, so look out world!!

Off to make cookies....

Visiting Santa

One of my favorite things to do every holiday season, is to visit Santa. Only in the last two years has Matty willingly agreed to do this (his first experience with Santa was not very positive - some Santas are kind of mean!!), and I think it helps he has a little sister to set a brave example for. Last year I was the photographer for our school's Santa, and in all 250 children Sofie was the only one who screamed having her picture taken!
I had very high hopes for this year, I found a really great Santa, at the mall in Corte Madera; they actually built an entire cottage for Santa! We waited in line for an hour, and the entire time Matty rehearsed what he wanted to ask for (an electric guitar), and Sofie practiced what Santa says (ro, ro). You can see by the pictures that things actually went about as I expected! No matter how hard I tried, I could not peel her fingers from my arms, and honestly tears seemed to actually SHOOT from her eyes! It was very sad!
Since she refused to sit with Santa, it seemed a reasonable compromise to take Matty and Sofie's picture together outside the cottage, but unfortunately, Sofie spotted Santa through the window, and it went clearly downhill from there! But I will use this photo as part of our Christmas card next year :)

Creative Day

I think I've finally figured out how to get fairly decent photos of my layouts, so here are some. The Jenni Bowlin kits arrived yesterday, yeah!! So it's been a fun day of creating, doing laundry and cleaning bathrooms; and now I'm taking a few minutes to blog while cuddling with the Sofie-Belle. Later tonight I'm going to try to blog a few photos of our adventure yesterday to see Santa.
Happy Sunday all!

The celebrating has started!

We had a great time this weekend, celebrating an early Christmas and John's birthday, at his mother's in Sacramento. The kids loved waking up at Nona's house, and opening gifts.
And I finally got around to getting Sofie's bangs trimmed, and actually did it myself, having found my grandmother's "bang-trimming" scissors! I got them shockingly straight, more than likely because she wasn't expecting me to come at her with a pair of scissors!
Just starting and finishing some gifts for friends and family, and having fun working on tags inspired by Tim Holtz!

The TV Ban

So Matty has been watching about six straight days of movies and TV since he's been sick, and it's obviously had a negative impact on his behavior. Since he was well enough to go to school today, I decided he was also too well for ANY TV. I usually let him watch some cartoons while Sofia's napping, since that is one of the few moments in my day I can get anything done, without being up too late. Instead, today we did crafts; Sofia even learned to not eat Play-Doh, which is a huge accomplishment for her! I've decided that she generally only puts things in her mouth now for two reasons - habit, and to get me to chase her.
Here are some pictures of the kids being crafty, and yes, Sofia colored on my white Pottery Barn table with a black crayon. But it's all good....that's how we roll here (and besides, some Soft Scrub got it right up).

"That's Cute"

I got a Hoth Han Solo....yeah!! I feel pretty done for Matty now for gifts. I feel this is really a special Christmas, since I'm not sure how much longer Santa will be real for him.
Sofia and I took this picture today with Photo Booth on my Mac...she was having a blast with it, we took probably 10 pictures in a row. This is the one she seemed to like best; when I showed it to her she said "that's cute", which is fun since it's one of the few things she can say!
Have a great evening all.

Star Wars and the evils of Ebay

This is day three of Matty home sick, and he's watching Star Wars for the 3rd time. In fact, he's watched the original trilogy twice, and it looks like he'll do it again today!
As Christmas is fast approaching, and considering Matty's new Star Wars addiction, I've developed a small Ebay addiction. Matty hasn't seen any of the new trilogy, and knows nothing about it; but most of the Star Wars toys now available in stores are for the newer movies. John is a purist, and I prefer the originals myself, so finding the toys to go with them is a struggle. I'm hoping to win a Hoth Han Solo, to go with the Tauntaun I've already found. I swore I wouldn't get too involved in finding toys this year (I really didn't want to relive the CARs madness of last Christmas!), but I know it will be worth it on Christmas morning!

New mug

Just one of my purchases from SF on Friday; a new Tinkerbell mug. Sofia is in love with my new mug, I had to abandon my coffee this morning, for fear she would dump it on herself.
BG ornaments done, now to finish a few gifts, and maybe play with my new grungeboard!

Almost December :)

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and maybe got some shopping in! John and I spent all day in San Francisco roaming around Union Square, shopping, and seeing all the beautiful decorations. We actually almost got all of our shopping done, which is so satisfying, and I'm hoping to spend the rest of the month playing with the kids, scrapping, and baking!

John has safely landed, and should hopefully be home soon...with both the kids home sick, it will be a relief to have the poor man home! Unfortunately, he sounds as bad as they do; and after I mistakenly drank from Matty's straw, I'll probably be sick by the end of week.

Right now I'm making Basic Grey ornaments, I'll take pictures and upload them soon. They are so gorgeous, Figgy Pudding is fantastic. I'm going to have to find something to do with all the leftover Christmas paper from last year, because between Figgy Pudding, and Elsie's Noel, I'm going to have far more Christmas paper than one woman needs!

Thanksgiving

Another great Thanksgiving, though it wasn't the same without my stepmom, Suzi, who was home ill. Suzi, I hope your dinner reaches you in one piece!
Once again, Matty sort of touched his dinner, and shockingly he did not touch the apple pie, which he's been begging a piece from since we made it. Nana Suzi sent a wine cake, a family favorite, so that trumped any thing else at the table :)
It's a stressful moment for John every year, but with the help of Bob, the carving went smoothly.

Trimming the Tree

This year I was inspired to start decorating for the holidays early, and I'm fortunate to have a very patient husband! And Matty is very confused, and it took several days to assure him that Christmas is not suddenly happening before Thanksgiving.
Last night several friends came over, and we made huge headway getting Christmas cards done. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I didn't send out the cards I almost finished last year, so my cards should be sent out by Thanksgiving! Yeah!!
I've also managed to get most of the gifts I've purchased wrapped, and what concerns me is that since so far I seem to be ahead of the game for the holidays, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hopefully, it will be a smooth and happy holiday season!
My favorite part of decorating the tree is getting out the ornaments, as almost every single one has a story attached to it. Poor Sofia got the idea of how to decorate the tree, but she doesn't quite have the necessary dexterity to hang the ornaments. We have to hang everything with ribbons, since she put just about everything she can find into her mouth, so hooks are too dangerous even if they are easier to use!
Now we get ready for a week of more decorating, turkey buying and pie baking!

What a week

I've wanted to post all week, but it's just been one of those weeks! I love this picture of John and Sofia playing together, she loves sitting in this tent reading stories.
We trimmed the Christmas tree Friday night, I'll be posting some pictures this weekend.

Awards Ceremony

The awards ceremony this morning was very nice. Matty's friend, Megan, also received an award, and I'm very thrilled for her, she's such a sweet girl. Matty received an award for displaying mutual respect for everyone at school. Since he's been on the sassy side at home, it's fabulous he's being so good at school! He was so proud of himself, and when his class was getting ready to return to their room, he came over to me, and thanked me for coming - he's so cute!!
Sofie was behaving pretty well, for having to sit there for half an hour, and she wasn't too interested until she heard Matty's name, and she started clapping and yelling "yeah!!". She is so thrilled with her brother, she seems to think everything he does is wonderful. I'm so glad they like each other so much!

The Awards Dinner

As I was going through Matty's backpack yesterday before school, I found a note that he would be receiving an award Thursday morning. Needless to say, I was thrilled! If your child receives an award in November, then you know they really, really earned it, and it's not something they're given at the end of the year for their self-esteem (that happend to us last year!). No one can make me laugh like Matty can, and when I told him about the award he looked genuinely confused and said "but I thought I was really bad at school yesterday". I have no idea what he meant, and he refused to elaborate, but it was hilarious (I don't think he actually did anything naughty the day before, so I'm not very worried).
In honor of his award me and John took the kids out to dinner last night; one of Matty's favorite things to do is to go to restaurants, he asks every day to go to one. It was a very nice dinner, no one had a tantrum, only a few things were thrown on the floor (Sofie's table manners still need work), and everyone colored very nicely throughout the meal.
I'll update the blog later today with news of Matty's award, as we have no idea what it's for, and I'll include some pictures if they turn out.

End of the soccer season...

Matty played his last soccer game today, and did a great job. He made several fantastic saves for his team, and is getting better and better at defense! After the game the team had a pizza party, played video games, and generally wreaked havoc at a local pizza parlor. I'm really going to miss his Saturday games, his team and everyone's parents and siblings are so much fun to spend time with, and all really, really love soccer. And Sandra, the team mom, did an extraordinary job making this season special for the boys; because of her, everyone had their names on their jerseys and an awesome banner to display at the games. We were really lucky to have her. Coach Steve has the patience of a saint, and really helped the boys to learn how to play a good, clean game, and have fun doing it.

And my wonderful husband really made my day today....I woke up to a clean kitchen, and a vacuumed family room! He's the greatest!!

Cool photos

My grandma gave me these photos a few years ago, and today I scanned them into the computer, so I can play with scrapping them. I especially love the one of me and my mom, even though I was clearly not the cutest baby! But because I was a spoiled baby, I was very beautifully dressed!
And this photo of my grandparents is my all-time favorite photo of them. This is actually their wedding picture, and they both look so fantastic, and so very happy. This photo was taken in 1950, and the one of me and my mom was taken in 1976.
This is the only wedding picture I have of my parents, and though my mom looks beautiful, I'm glad these hats were not in style when I got married! And I think my dad wore that suit for the next ten years!
I can't wait for the November Jenni Bowlin kit, it looks like it would look great with these black and white pictures.

What a happy Halloween!

Sofia had a blast trick-or-treating for the first time, and she's nearly perfected saying "thank you" and "good-bye" when given candy! And she only tried to enter one home, and in her defense it looked exactly like ours from the outside.

Matty and Inder declared (several times) that Halloween is BETTER than Christmas! Matty made an awesome looking Obiwan Kenobi, and I had so much fun dressing up with the kids. I went as a Tavern Wench, to match my little Pirate Wench (aka Sofia). John made it about a block and a half before going home to change, since he felt silly; I thought he made a great Darth Vadar, but I have to agree the mask was really suffocating. I'll have pictures of John up in a few days.

And we were lucky enough to get rid of all the Halloween candy we bought, so all in all this year was a success!

Happy Halloween!!

Well, it's been awhile since I've blogged, me and Matty have been scheduled for something almost every day since school started! But soccer ends on Saturday, so we'll be getting quite a bit of our time back to ourselves again.

I'm putting up some pictures from Smith Family Farms, where we went yesterday to get our pumpkins. The kids and I had a great time....we went on a hay ride, picked our pumpkins, went to the hoot-nanny (yes, I said hoot-nanny), got lost in the corn maze, and took about 175 pictures!

I hope everyone has a safe Halloween.