Living and Scrapping My Life

12 on 12 in January

2012-01-12T22:28:00.001-07:00

I had been considering documenting a day each month in 2012 in pictures. I was going to do 3 on 3, but kept coming back to 12 on 12. I guess a lot of others in the scrap and photo world have the same idea because I am seeing it pop up everywhere today.

Here are the snippets of my day, my 12 on 12 for January

(1) Pancakes for breakfast before school. (2) Me and the new camera, thanks to the parents ;) - I need a haircut. (3) taking a much needed quick break this afternoon after non-stop meetings and demands from when I walked in until late this afternoon. (4) Lot's to do according to my planner. (5) What's on my podcast list this week (6) New Powerball ticket, the one I turned in was a loser. (7) Ouch, what it costs to fill up the Tahoe at $3.29/gallon (8) That's my boy, one shoe on one shoe off, let's go outside! (9) Mario is getting ready for an overnight trip to the bakery, where he will be the star of Nicholas's birthday cake on Saturday. (10) Looks like the first week back after winter break was a bit tough on Jackson (11) Pinterest - the ultimate time suck (12) Kiddos asleep, now it's play time for the grown ups

Is this thing on? I mean really?

2011-12-29T19:45:00.002-07:00

I have just not been into blogging lately, I mean like for a really long time. But it's almost a new year, so why not make a bit more of an effort? Yesterday I gave the blog a remodel and refresh so we are ready to go. It will be a short one tonight, kiddos need to get to bed.

We are having a nice Christmas recovery week off. I have been off since Friday and it has been great. I was worried at first, when Nicholas came down with pink eye last Thursday and we thought that Jackson was getting it too, but since N won't do eyedrops, the doctor gave them antibiotics and it cleared up before Christmas and J never completely got it.

Mike is sick as is our usual after Christmas tradition. The upside is we have stayed close to home and relaxed a lot.

Since you can't blog without a picture here is my first collage I created at Picasa today (how did I not know about this). This would have taken me 30 minutes in Photoshop and it was whipped out in 5 minutes on Picassa after a bit of fixing on the cropping.

Meet Happy the Elf he arrived on Thanksgiving night and kept an eye on N & J for Santa through Christmas. The boys were sad to see Happy go back with Santa on Christmas Eve, but I am making them a little mini book to capture all his adventures while he was here.

Be back soon!

This Man Changed Our World

2011-10-05T21:52:00.001-07:00

Steven Jobs

Apple CEO

Brilliant Innovator

1955 - 2011

I am not quite sure I can put my finger on why the passing of this man, that I did not know personally, has moved me so much. I am sure it has a lot to do with him dying of cancer at too young of an age. And it is almost this time last year that the beginning of the end of our time with my mom began. I know my heart aches for his family and friends. That is definitely part of it.

Maybe it was because I saw the news on my iPhone. A device I cannot live without because he knew we wanted it. Maybe it is because when I got home tonight, I saw Nicholas, at almost 5 years old, glued to my iPad playing one of a hundred games he has downloaded from the App Store. Maybe it is because I cannot survive my drive to and from work without the podcasts I listen to on my iPod Touch that come to me straight from iTunes several times each week.

Our world today would not be the same without this man. And I believe we are all very lucky for it.

Rest in peace Steve Jobs.

Week in the Life - Sunday

2011-08-01T06:59:00.001-07:00

Sunday, July 31

In Photos:

In Words:

Day: Sunday, July 31, 2011

Wake: 6:20 a.m.

Sleep: 10:50 p.m.

Weather: 108 degrees

Work: No thanks, hanging out today

Plan: Dinner at Garcia’s with the Carr grandparents

Eating: Pancakes & bacon for breakfast

Drinking: Lots of water

Exercising: Oops,I forgot

Listening: Silence, 4 kids in the house are now asleep

Watching: I wasn’t watching, but there was baseball

Feeling: Refreshed after a good night’s sleep

Thinking: About interior design

Doing: Measuring rooms; and, swimming before the storm

Wanting: To redecorate most of my house

Needing: Money to actually do it, ha!

Loving: Watching the Carr cousins bond

Week in the Life - Saturday

2011-07-31T07:36:00.001-07:00

Saturday, July 30

In Photos:

In Words:

Day: Saturday, July 30, 2011

Wake: 5:21 a.m. (thanks Marti)

Sleep: 10:35 p.m.

Weather: 106 degrees with a mid-day storm

Work: House chores most of the day until 3:00 p.m.

Plan: Jon & girls coming for the week

Eating: Subway subs for lunch

Drinking: Pomegranate lemonade

Exercising: Day off

Listening: Mario Kart on the Wii in the background

Watching: Tori & Dean on the DVR while scrapping

Feeling: So hot today and sticky today

Thinking: Nichols is obsessed with the Wii

Doing: Organizing my scrap room & the coupon binder; hanging a shelf in the laundry room & new posters in the boys room

Wanting: To create a “Cool in the Pool” mini album

Needing: A shower every time I come back inside from the heat

Loving: Nicholas so excited for his cousins to get here

Week in the Life - Friday

2011-07-30T20:58:00.001-07:00

Friday, July 29

In Photos:

In Words:

Day: Friday, July 29, 2011

Wake: 5:28 a.m.

Sleep: 1:05 a.m.

Weather: 108 degrees (or 103, but it is hot!)

Work: Arrive – 9:05 a.m. Depart 6:05 p.m.

Plan: To not work late tonight

Eating: Oregano’s Grandma G’s Rosemary Chicken Potato Pizza– yum!

Drinking: Ice Sparkling Water

Exercising: Yoga & Stretching

Listening: LOAD & Paperclipping Podcasts

Watching: Did you Hear About the Morgans?; Hawaii 5-0 & Tori & Dean on the DVR

Feeling: Free from some clutter

Thinking: About new work assignment – a fun challenge

Doing: Cleaning & organizing my scrap room

Wanting: To re-decorate the guest bathroom

Needing: A good night’s sleep

Loving: Extra time spent with Nicholas & Jackson this morning

Week in the Life - Thursday

2011-07-29T07:20:00.001-07:00

Thursday, July 28

In Photos:

In Words:

Day: Thursday, July 28, 2011

Wake: 5:35 a.m.

Sleep: 11:25 p.m.

Weather: 108 degrees

Work: Arrive – 8:53 Depart – 7:08

Plan: Run errand at lunch

Eating: In N Out Burger for lunch

Drinking: Starbucks Italian Roast Coffee

Exercising: Yoga & Stretching

Listening: Layout a Day & Motherload Podcasts

Watching: More Hawaii 5-0 & Tori & Dean on the DVR

Feeling: Exhausted but happy

Thinking: That work will never slow down to a livable pace…I guess that’s good

Doing: Organizing and purging photos

Wanting: A few more hours each day

Needing: To clean out the coupon binder

Loving: Nicholas’s excitement at learning how to play the Wii

Week in the Life - Wednesday

2011-07-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 27

In Photos:

In Words:

Day: Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Wake: 5:10 a.m.

Sleep: 10:40 p.m.

Weather: 104 degrees

Work: Arrive – 7:47 a.m. – Depart – 4:35 p.m.

Plan: Physical therapy – trying to heel my foot

Eating: Spaghetti

Drinking: Blackstone Merlot

Exercising: Yoga & stretching

Listening: Digi Show Podcast & weekend church service

Watching: More Hawaii 5-0 on the DVR

Feeling: Frustrated

Thinking: That I need to clear my head

Doing: Physical therapy to heal my foot and ankle

Wanting: Wood flooring in the family room

Needing: A more peaceful day tomorrow

Loving: Catching up on classes at Big Picture

Week in the Life - Monday & Tuesday

2011-07-27T07:05:00.001-07:00

I wasn't going to join the Week in the Life project this week. I decided Monday morning to go for it and just approach it differently than last year. It ends up being the same week I documented last year when I took tons of pictures every day and wrote tons of details.

This year, I am taking a cue from Kelly Purkey's class at Big Picture Classes and doing a quick summary of my day, mostly from my perspective with just a few photos.

Monday July 25

Day: Monday, July 25, 2011

Wake: 5:35 a.m.

Sleep: 10:50 p.m.

Weather: 101 degrees

Work: home sick today

Plan: first day of pre-k for Nicholas

Eating: tilapia tacos

Drinking: Landshark beer

Exercising: yoga & stretching – calves very sore

Listening: quiet house after boys are asleep

Watching: Tori & Dean re-runs on Oxygen

Feeling: achy, hot and tired today

Thinking: about losing weight

Doing: setting up school archive boxes from pre-school to 12^th grade for both boys

Wanting: to purge the excess in the house

Needing: to get some extra sleep

Loving: the box of memories Dion brought this weekend

Tuesday July 26

Day: Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Wake: 5:35 a.m. - after being licked by Marti

Sleep: 10:30 p.m. - in the family room chair

Weather: 106 degrees

Work: arrived - 9:45 departed – 7:15 home – 7:45

Plan: first day at new preschool for Jackson

Eating: awful Healthy Choice frozen meal for lunch

Drinking: iced tea

Exercising: yoga and stretching

Listening: Mike’s radio station when going to sleep

Watching: Hawaii 5-0 on the dvr

Feeling: so much better than yesterday – back to normal

Thinking: behind. I am too busy at work right today – too many meetings not enough work time.

Doing: volunteer training at Nicholas’s school

Wanting: to get home earlier at night

Needing: preservation spray from Michael’s

Loving: how excited Jackson was after getting his new outfit on for school & taking his 1^st day photo shoot

July 4th Weekend Roundup

2011-07-06T06:57:00.003-07:00

We stayed inside for most of the long weekend. With temperatures like this….

It was not pleasant outside. And we had some humidity thrown in for fun too.
Jackson started eating with a fork this weekend, and picked it up like he had been doing it forever.

I definitely have kiddos that do things when they are good and ready and not when I want them to.

Since we stayed inside Jackson spent a lot of time dragging every toy he cold find in his room to every other part of the hosue.

Mike beat Bowser in Super Mario Galaxy with Nicholas cheering him along the way.

Nicholas hi-jacked my iPad and iPhone and played Angry Birds and ended up figuring out how to look for more games. After we paid for 2 or 3 games I told him he could not have any more that cost money. He figured out which ones were free and would bring me the iPad or phone and say “ Can I play this one? this one “don’t” cost money”. Kids.

After a hard afternoon of playing, Jackson crawled in Mike’s lap and fell asleep. He doesn’t look very comfortable to me.

On Sunday we did leave the house to go to the church in the morning. We also went out to a late lunch at the new Coach and Willie’s in downtown Chandler. The food was good, but expensive. It seemed like we were the only one’s brave enough to leave the air conditioning. The restaurant and the streets were pretty empty.

When Nicholas wasn’t playing the iPad, he took over the Wii. It is funny that something that he didn’t pay a lot of attention to a couple of months ago is now a complete obsession.

Last night we got a really bad dust storm that knocked the power out. The Wii wouldn't power back on and we thought it was a gonner. Mike was not looking forward to Nicholas's reaction, but thanks to Google we figured out how to reset the power supply.

I don’t even know what this shirt style is all about. LOL!

On the 4th, we stayed inside and Mike grilled slider burgers for dinner. We headed over to our church for fireworks.

We met up with friends, Michelle and Barry, that we hadn’t seen in forever. Nicholas and their little girl hit it off immediately.

And we ended the night with a bang!

Have a great week!

Happy 4th!

2011-07-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day! May your day be filled with....

eating sweet treats

celebrating freedom

spending time with family and friends

and ending the night with a bang!

This evening we are going to watch Fireworks in the Sky at our church while roasting in the evening heat. Enjoy your day.

ScrapTiffany Sketch

2011-06-15T06:23:00.000-07:00

The ScrapTiffany design team was given a sketch for today's challenge.

So with that, my design team term has come to an end. Tiffany has decided to stop the challenges and design team on her blog. I will miss working with Tiffany and all the great ladies on the design team. Head on over one more time today for one more round of scrappy goodness at ScrapTiffany.

Faulous Friday Finds at ScrapTiffany

2011-06-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Today I am hosting the blog over at ScrapTiffany.com. I have a roundup of my favorite photography resources. The more I play with my big girl camera the more I want to learn how to take better pictures. I am sharing websites you can check out, classes you van take, books you can read, post processing resources and more. Head on over to check it out...ScrapTiffany

Happy Friday!

Hello!

2011-06-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't been up to writing much lately. I am still recovering from foot surgery and it has been more painful than expected. I had surgery to relieve the plantar fascia and remove bone spurs on the heel. The plantar fascia apparently wasn't as bad as they had thought but the bone spurs were worse, so it is tough to walk. But every day it gets better.

I am excited to start the new session of Finding Photo Freedom (Library of Memories) over at Big Picture Classes today. I have been taking the class since 2008 and each year since as an alumni. Each year the refresher is good to help me evaluate my system and tweak where necessary. I am looking forward to this as my summer project.

I haven't been scrapping much lately, but I have a huge backlog of things I haven't shared. I played along in the Studio Calico National Scrapbook Day celebration and finished 8 layouts that week from their challenges.

This one with my mom is my personal favorite....

Hoping to get back into a regular blogging schedule, so I hope this is my fresh start. Happy Thursday!

Surgery Day & ScrapTiffany Layout

2011-05-19T06:45:00.001-07:00

Sunday was the new challenge at ScrapTiffany. I am a bit tardy getting mine up here. The challenge was to scrap your guilty pleasure. Without a doubt that would be good wine. Having the kiddos has definitely cut into the budget for that, but when we can we love to have a good bottle.

Today I am having foot surgery today. My foot pain started in October when we were on vacation and grew much worse after I started training for the 60 mile 3 day breast cancer walk.

After months of trying everything else, today I am having surgery. My plan to walk this year’s 3 day walk has been derailed, but I am looking forward to healing and getting back on the walking path for 2012.

Looking forward to lots of sleep this afternoon.

Happy Friday and Cosmo Cricket Class

2011-05-05T21:53:00.001-07:00

In a few short hours it will be Friday. I am looking forward to a weekend hanging out with family and brunch on Sunday for Mother’s Day. Hanging out with these little guys.

A while back I took a Cosmo Cricket class at my LSS, Paper Vineyard. I never shared the layouts and cards we made so I thought I would share them today, since I still haven’t finished my CKC post. I took 3 classes and 2 of them used the newest lines Salt Air and Upcycle. The third focused on CC’s fabric and the new Glubers.

Have a great weekend!

ScrapTiffany Sunday Challenge

2011-05-01T11:28:00.001-07:00

I’m a bit late getting my ScrapTiffany challenge up for today. I thought the 1st was tomorrow, oops!

I spent most of yesterday doing major cleanup on my laptop. I topped the day off with an upgrade to Windows 7, which took hours to complete. At one point I was certain that my computer was toast. But most things are looking fine now.

Of course it can’t be perfect. When I logged into Lightroom this morning,I needed an update that is downloading now. It looks quite large, so I am guessing I will have another day of computer maintenance ahead.

Today’s challenge at ScrapTiffany is Friendships. I did this layout about me and my best friend. I couldn’t do this crazy life without him. Head on over to ScrapTiffany to see what the rest of the design team ladies did.

I finished up my layouts from CKC last night. I am working on a post with an overview of my classes and my completed layouts. I hope to have it up later in the week.

Have a great Sunday!

Hoppy. Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

We are getting ready to check out the baskets from E.B. (that's Easter Bunny for those of you that did not see the movie "Hop"). And then a big Easter Egg Hunt with lots of kiddos.

Happy Easter!

(HOP decor from a Lickety Split kit)

Happy Friday

2011-04-22T06:33:00.000-07:00

I am looking forward to a short day at work and a weekend with family. The boys have no idea the fun they are going to have on Easter at the big Egg Hunt.

Hope you have a great Easter Weekend too. I'll leave you with a couple of layouts I completed recently.

With my favorite ever Studio Calico kit, Metropolitan I made this to gather last year's Christmas cards in one place.

For This layout I used the Studio Calico Who's Who kit. This was probably one of my least favorite kits, mostly because the colors were to feminine and I am in a house of boys. So I took it as a challenge and used up almost every bit of the kit. Picture from our photo shoot with Maggie Holmes last year.

Happy Friday to you!

Back from CKC Mesa & ScrapTiffany Blog Hop Winner

2011-04-19T22:06:00.005-07:00

The winner of my drawing from last weeks ScrapTiffany blog hop is posted below.

I got back from the best CKC scrapbook convention ever Saturday night. The rest of the weekend was super busy too....

Sunday we took the boys to the Garden Railroad Train Tour and came home to have my computer crash on me, Mike had to take it to Best Buy to get it fixed for me.

I had Monday off of work, so after Nicholas got out school we went to see the Easter Bunny (Jackson would not go near him)

We dyed Easter Eggs in the afternoon...

It was a great long weekend, that ended with Nicholas waking up in the middle of the night Monday with the stomach flu, and me feeling sick too. But all in all it was a great weekend, and I think Nicholas was already feeling better this evening.

Here's a quick recap of the convention. I will have a full review of my classes after I finish up my projects in the next couple of weeks.

This year's convention was....

Having 2 fun filled days with 2 fabulous friends (and another in spirit, who was home with her sick baby)....

Taking 8 awesome classes with 5 fabulous teachers, making 16 fun layouts, a mini book and 2 cards that I love....

Meeting 3 superstar Studio Calico girls (Lorie, Nicole H and Kelly Purkey)....

Receiving a few great giveaways....

Shopping....lots and lots of shopping....

Here is a recap of my shopping finds

Just when I thought I had all the Studio Calico goodness I could ever need....(okay I didn't really think that)....I of course did some stocking up at the SC booth.

A great deal found on a Slice cartridge, an awesome Fancy Pants book for altering, the one Distress Ink color I did not own....

Some new Basic Grey. A cute Easter altered project

And some Glitz Design goodies those brown woodgrain mini letters that I had been coveting, circle stamps I was drooling over, and my favorite Glitz line ever....

I have been going to the CKC Mesa show for years, and this was definitely the best all around show. The vendor fair was awesome, there was a good selection of shopping and a much improved selection of newer products. The classes we took had awesome teachers and great layouts that we loved.

And finally, I have drawn a winner from last week's ScrapTiffany blog hop.

True Random Number Generator

Result:

7Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Mary Ellyn said...

Cute idea

April 13, 2011 6:38 AM

Congrats Mary Ellen! I came home with some scrappy goodness including some Studio Calico, Basic Grey, and more. I sent you an e-mail so you can claim your goodies.

All In One - A ScrapTiffany Challenge & a 2 Page Layout!

2011-04-15T06:24:00.001-07:00

It’s Friday…

I have a 4 day weekend…

And I am off to the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Mesa for the next 2 days!

We are staying overnight at the convention hotel . So what could be better….

A girls weekend filled with…

…all things scrapbooking
…girl talk
…no kids (I’ll though I will miss them terribly)
…lots of classes
…and LOTS OF SHOPPING.

I call that…nirvana.

Before I head off, I am sharing today’s ScrapTiffany challenge on stamping. I have been dabbling a bit with embossing powders again, American Crafts Zing to be exact. I also have been on a roll scrapping our vacation from last October.

Here is my take on this week’s challenge…

I have been doing a few more two pagers lately and using lots of my favorite photos from our vacation. It’s fun to switch it up a bit.

Nicholas was impressed with the heat gun for embossing. He kept telling me to do it again. I love that one of my boys is already hanging out with me in my craft room. His future wife will sure appreciate me (may she be a scrapbooker or crafter). LOL!

Have a great weekend!

I’ll be back on Sunday to post the winner from the ScrapTiffany Blog Hop!

ScrapTiffany Recycled Blog Hop

2011-04-13T00:00:00.005-07:00

Welcome to the ScrapTiffany Recycled Blog Hop! I am your first stop and I am so excited you are joining us!

You should be arriving here from the ScrapTiffany blog. If you have landed here first, head on back to the ScrapTiffany blog to start hopping!

We are all going to have some fun with Recycling today and tomorrow. I used to own a scrapbook kit club, and we would often split products for our kits. One month we used chipboard from My Mind’s Eye that came in these buckets that looked so cute filled with glittered chipboard shapes.

I ended up with tons of these and it seemed so wasteful to just toss them, so for the past 2 years they have been recycled in several different ways for fun little gifts.
This seemed like the perfect item to dress up for Easter with a bit of papers I didn’t plan to use and a few tools from my stash.
Remove packaging
Punch a thin and thick border
Punch 3” scallop circle to cover lid
Adhere punched borders to pail

Break out the embossing powder, versamark and stamps
Start Zinging….
Cut out a cute chick and layer eggs around the pail with pop dots
Tie with ribbons, fill with jelly beans and give them to your favorite Easter Bunny.

I am going to the CKC Mesa Scrapbook Convention this weekend. I will be bringing some goodies back to give away to a commenter from this post.

So follow me and leave a comment for a chance to win. (I will pay for US postage, and would be happy to give away to an international winner if you help out with the postage and cover the difference).

Winner will be posted when I get back on Sunday.

Thanks for hopping by!

Next stop on the Blog Hop is Katie.

Happy Hopping!

Love Fridays and a ScrapTiffany Challenge

2011-04-01T06:48:00.001-07:00

Even when it means Saturday morning I must get up early and get our taxes done. I am sure we will get a refund, and even knowing that I always put it off as long as possible. I guess I just don’t like to spend a weekend that way.

Today is a layout challenge at ScrapTiffany. Sassy Lil Sketches provided this cute sketch for us to use:

The ladies over at ScrapTiffany have lots of fun takes on it. Here was mine:

I loved these pictures from our vacation last year at Disneyland, and was happy to finally get them on a page.

And here is another layout I did recently, my little man is a bit messy most the time. Maybe one day he won’t be and then we can just remember when he was “into everything”

I can dream anyway.

Well, I am off to get some routine blood work before finishing out the work week.

Have a great weekend!

A couple layouts to share

2011-03-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

Pictures from our first breakfast with the animals at the zoo. Nicholas had a ball feeing the goats.

Visiting Santa in 2009, the boy's letter's from Santa are tucked in the envelope.

Have a great week!

Is this a 3 year old or....

2011-03-25T17:58:00.001-07:00

a beaten wife?

Edited - to correct to 3 year old & 3rd birthday...

This picture is just wrong on so many levels....

But it still makes me laugh. This was me on my 3rd birthday. I don't remember the full story, but the way I remember the story as told to me was that a few days before my birthday my mom and dad were washing down the driveway and washing my Dad's truck. I think they told me not to do it, but I climbed up in the bed of the truck, and very obviously fell and gave myself a black eye.

It required a trip to the emergency room. My mom said they were questioned about it to make sure they didn't do this to me (they didn't). If I remember right I may have had a concussion. Now I know what's wrong with me. LOL!

I do remember later that evening, being on the couch with a big ice bag on my face. Then a few days later I got to celebrate turning 3 looking like this.

The iron, just add's to the image. Even more so, since I can't remember the last time I ironed anything.

Over the past 8 months, I have been working through the 23,000+ pictures stored on my computer and cataloged in Adobe Lightroom. Last year I scanned all of my pre-digital pictures, as well as those I had from my mom. I have spent tons of hours organizing these pictures by date, tagging them with who, what and a bit of where. Rating the best to cull them down, deleting bad pictures that just are not worth keeping.

Why did I do this? Well for a few reasons...

This process is making it easier to find the stories from my childhood and family history that I want to tell.
I want to enjoy these pictures. I can have them scrolling through a slide show on our digital frames and computer screen savers.
I have shared many of them with my parents and siblings.
I also think at the rate we take photos today. my boys will end up with hundreds of thousands of images from their family history. I don't want them to be so overwhelmed by the thought of it that they do nothing with them or worse delete them. Because they may not appreciate what they have until after I am gone. At that point they would be left wondering who the people in the photos are. The task to organize them at that point would be daunting, and likely never done.

I am establishing a process that I can maintain. And while I was already well on my way, I am loving the class that Kayla Lamoreaux is offering on her site for Lightroom organization. She started with digital scrapbooking supplies, but has just moved into the photo organization module. And amazingly she is giving this class for FREE. If you have any desire to improve your photo organization, I strongly suggest you check it out. Even if you use a different organization program she has a lot of really great methods for organizing your photos.

Happy Friday

2011-03-18T05:11:00.001-07:00

I unexplainably woke up at 4:00 am this morning and could not go back to sleep. I figured I may as well get up and be productive with the time. I am sure I will be loving it about 2:00 this afternoon when the lack of sleep hits. It will be even more fabulous because my entire afternoon is filled with back to back meetings. At least I have a 4 day weekend to look forward to.

Last weekend was Mike’s big 45th.

His choice of celebrating was to stay at home most of the weekend and cook for us. He started off the day with his Bobby Flay inspired Bloody Mary’s and brunch on the grill. Those breakfast sandwiches are too die for.

We just hung around the house all day and he grilled us fabulous burgers for dinner. I told him I would make him anything he wanted for his birthday cake. He picked Oreo Cheesecake. I found a few recipe ideas and made a Cheesecake Factory inspired Oreo Cheesecake for our dessert. It was probably my best cheesecake effort to date.

Nicholas loves birthdays, singing and helping blow out candles.

Nicholas has decided he likes to stamp and made his Daddy a birthday card.

The great thing for me is all weekend he wanted to go down to my scrap room to stamp and do crafts. He is pretty self sufficient down there, I set him up with his own drawer full of old stamps and stamp pads, paper, stickers, and other items I didn’t want anymore. It let me get some scrap time in too, I just have to let him have control of the TV while we are down there. But that’s okay.

This was my simple card for Mike. And since I have a ton of layouts I haven’t shared, here are a few….

Jackson’s first Christmas….

At the pumpkin patch, I scrapped the enlarged photo I had in our entry way during the fall season.

ZooLights at the Phoenix Zoo in 2009 in a rare 2 pager…

Have a great weekend….

Beauty

2011-03-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today’s challenge at ScrapTiffany is about Beauty.

It’s weird really. Today’s post was going to be about how we celebrated Mike’s 45th birthday this weekend. I will have to save that for another day. Because, I can’t stop thinking about my Mom right now, and that she will never again experience a beautiful Arizona sunset with us.

I guess it is because I worked on the design for her headstone this weekend. We had been putting it off, but it needed to be done. I sometimes wonder if I am putting the flowers in the right spot when I visit the cemetary. So I guess we need to have that to make sure, right?

I have been disconnecting from my online world a lot lately on purpose. I have been spending time doing a few things I want to do; rather than a little of everything. I am purposefully choosing to do less online.

Last year I finally scanned all the pictures I had and those that my mom had given to me as well. I am now organizing and tagging them in Lightroom. It is forcing me to spend a lot of time with my family and my childhood. That is a good thing. It is interesting the observations I make from this exercise.

I have a category called Who’s That? I don’t know who these people are. and with my mom gone, I am not sure if I will ever find out. I am happy that there aren’t many. I hope to give my children the gift of knowing who the people in the old photos are when I am not here to tell them anymore. I meant to ask my mom, but I didn’t.

One thing that really struck me…the last picture I had with my mom and me was from Thanksgiving 2009. Really? A year before she passed. I should be able to do better than that. I have a camera around at all times, how did that happen.

The other thing that struck me is the last pictures I have of my mom were from early October 2010. She looked really good. It was just a couple of weeks before we found out the cancer had spread...That our days with her were numbered and we didn’t even know it.

I zoomed in on this picture yesterday to see that the light still sparkled in her eyes. It made me realize that I watched it dim the last 2 weeks of her life. The last couple of days they were dark. The light was gone.

Thanks for letting me remember her today. I miss her.

A ScrapTiffany Challenge and More Layouts to Share

2011-03-01T06:32:00.001-07:00

Happy March to you! In Arizona that means one thing…..Spring Training baseball. Mike and I grew up Angels fans, and when we moved from California to Arizona one thing he didn’t like was that we couldn’t go to Angel’s games anymore. But, we have the next best thing here, Spring Training. Tempe Stadium is a great place to see a game, especially when you have little ones. The big grassy area is perfect for lounging and watching the games.

And of course we are raising our boys right….Angels babies!

So what better way to meet today’s ScrapTiffany Sports Challenge than to celebrate our Angel’s and Spring Training Baseball…..

Head on over to ScrapTiffany and check out the other ladies take on the challenge. And if you take the challenge e-mail your work to Tiffany (tiffany(at)scrapbooktiffany(dot)com), we would love to see it.

I also have a few more layouts to share. I was looking through my layout pictures and I still have a lot more to share. Here are a few….

New Shoes – using Studio Calico Candy Shoppe January 2011. Doing some shoe shopping.

Fall 2010 using October 2010 Back 40. Celebrating fall decorations around the house.

From a past Sunday Sketch at Studio Calico using Elementary. Nicholas Fall school picture.

And finally Happy Halloween using the Color Me Daisy October 2009 Halloween kit. My favorite Halloween picture from 2009.

Have a great week. It is quarter end for me at work and it will be a busy one for me.

Life, Organization, Scrapbooking and Valentine’s Day

2011-02-15T07:43:00.001-07:00

(Photo heavy post ahead)

2011 is already zipping on by. We have been keeping busy with long work days, home organization projects and trying to fit in some creative/hobby time (usually late at night after the boys go to sleep.

Today’s challenge at ScrapTiffany was to use metal or wire. I ended up making 3 layouts using this challenge. This is the one I submitted to Tiffany for the design team layouts.

This layout was rolling around my brain since a few days after my mom passed away in December. The Orianthi song Courage came on the radio and I knew this was something I needed to make….

For this one I used some old metal flowers mixed with new.

and this one I embossed a thin sheet of metal with the cuttlebug for the heart in the title and the photo corner. Pictures were from our photo shoot with Maggie Holmes.

We have been on a clean out, get rid of and organize mission lately. Two weekends ago we attacked the pantry and the linen closet.

This is what the pantry looked like when we started.

And now, although I am not happy with a few things, so I have ordered some more of the larger baskets and will move some of the smaller ones to the laundry room cabinets. But it is nice to have a place for everything,.

This is the start of the new backsplash, behind the stove. I have one more piece on backorder that will fit below the shelf area down to the counter top. But this is making me very happy.

Superbowl Sunday was spent hanging around the house. Or climbing if you are Jackson…

Making some yummy treats…

Nicholas liked watching half time and the commercials more than the football game (just like his mommy)….

I was home early from a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday. Jackson was playing and then suddenly it was quiet….

Nicholas now knows how to play Daddy’s train game on the computer….

This past Saturday, Mike’s mom came to watch the boys so Mike and I could attack this disaster. Our house has a 2 car and 1 car garage set up. The 1 car garage has become a dumping ground for everything….

We took out everything opened all the bins and boxes. Moved all the shelves, swept, and wiped down everything. Then we added new shelving and a file cabinet. And we actually have a garage again.

In January I also did the larger garage. It wasn’t as crammed with stuff. This side just needed a better set up and a good clean out. I guess I didn’t take a before shot, but here is how it looks now….

my favorite area is this one. We do most of our grocery shopping at Costco, saving money is great, but storing the bulk stuff is a pain. Now it is all in one place, convenient to grab when we need it and easy to unload after the Costco trip each week.

Nicholas in daddy’s shoes (showing off the closet that is coming up on the list of things to clean out).

Mike has been busy working on his radio project.

We celebrated Valentine’s with a few goodies for the kiddos.

my Valentine’s present will be shipping from Verizon soon….

After the kiddos went to bed, my Valentine and I spent the rest of the evening enjoying

Dinner….Greek Salad

Wild Mushroom Lasagna and Meatballs….

and a movie…

Have a great week!

Superbowl Party Food….

2011-02-02T23:52:00.001-07:00

Our Superbowl Sunday tradition for years has been to make some treats to enjoy during the game…honestly the yummy food is the best part for me. I get bored with the game and usually go scrap with the game on, just to watch the commercials and half time.

Last year the boys participated in the festivities, and we kept the food simple so they would like it.

Nicholas even cheered on the teams…..

This year we decided to up our “game” menu. We haven’t settled in on the final menu, but I thought I would share a few ideas for more upscale appetizers for your Superbowl Party.

For New Year’s Eve we made several appetizers for our evening at home. We will be doing something along the lines of these on Sunday, but they will definitely be of this caliber…

Grilled Stuffed Jalapeno Chiles with Grilled Red Pepper-Tomato Sauce (Bobby Flay Food Network)

Grilled Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms (myrecipes.com)

Next up were a couple of my recipes…

Parmesan Crusted Shrimp Bruschetta (recipe below)

and our favorite….

Filet Parmesan Crostini (recipe below)

Then of course we had to have dessert….

Coconut Cake (bakeat350.blogspot.com)

Recipes…

Parmesan Toasts

Long thin sourdough baguette
olive oil
cooking spray
garlic powder
fresh grated parmesan

Slice bread into 24ish 1/2 inch thick slices. Spray cookie sheet covered in foil with cooking spray. Brush both sides of bread slices with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic powder and parmesan. Bake at 350 degrees for 6-10 minutes until lightly toasted.

Parmesan Crusted Shrimp Bruschetta (makes 12 servings)

12 Parmesan Toasts (see recipe above)
12 large deveined cooked shrimp
2 tsp olive oil
12 parmesan cheese slivers
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
1 Tbsp fresh grated parmesan
1 tsp garlic powder
2 fresh tomatoes
2 tsp olive oil
1 garlic clove
12 torn fresh basil leaves

Heat up shrimp in skillet with olive oil.
Toss cooked shrimp in bread crumbs, grated parmesan and garlic powder
Finely chop tomato and garlic clove, toss with olive oil
Layer each parmesan toast with one basil leaf, a spoonful of tomato mixture, a sliver of parmesan cheese and 1 large shrimp.

Filet Parmesan Crostini

(this was our favorite and is on the menu for Superbowl Sunday)

12 Parmesan Toasts (see recipe above)
12-16 oz thinly sliced filet mingon medallions (Whole Foods sliced it for me)
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp butter
12 parmesan cheese slivers
Horseradish Sauce Recipe
12 fresh parsley leaves

In a skillet melt butter and add olive oil. When butter is melted and oil is hot, add filet and sauté until desired doneness. Cut to 12 slices.
Layer each toast with sliver of parmesan cheese, slice of filet, drizzle with horseradish sauce, and top with parsley leaf.

Hope you have a tasty Superbowl Sunday!

Has it really been 2 weeks?

2011-02-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

I guess so. Life has been busy. I have been working a lot of late nights and time with the kiddos has been short, so I my time online has been very limited lately. We have also dug into a few house organization projects, so that has kept me busy on the weekends.

It is time for a ScrapTiffany challenge. The first challenge for February was to use a yellow and grey color scheme.

Good colors for a Studio Calico kit. I think this was Napa Valley (November), with a few other things thrown in.

I have always loved this picture of Mike and Jackson. Jackson is definitely Mike’s son. Jackson is very attached to his daddy. He is super grumpy when he is hungry, doesn’t like to be told he can’t do something, quiet at times and a chatterbox other times….which one am I talking about? Both.

I have been sidelined by heel pain. I was doing well on my walking for the 3 day Walk, but I am suffering from plantar fasciitis. My doctor has tried several treatments to let me keep walking, but I haven’t seen a tremendous amount of improvement, so I agreed begrudgingly to wear a boot for 2 weeks. Which means no walking, no extra things. Lots of rest. But hopefully it will be what I need to get over the hump and avoid physical therapy or worse, surgery.

Since I didn’t have to get up early to walk or go to work, I stayed up until 12:00 am on Sunday night and got 4 layouts done with January’s Studio Calico kit. I was struggling with this kit, so used a couple of challenges to get a start.

First was the Sunday Sketch at Studio Calico. I converted the sketch to a 12x12, but otherwise stayed pretty close to the original design.

Studio Calico was hosting some CHA challenges this weekend, one of them was a self portrait, so this was my take.

I’ll share the other 2 and more soon.

I have lots more to talk about, but it’s getting late and I am trying to get more sleep. So it will need to wait for another day.

Have a great week!

ScrapTiffany Sketch Challenge

2011-01-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

It’s time for another ScrapTiffany challenge. This time the Design Team was asked to work with this sketch by our own Bev. If you want to join in the fun, email your take on the sketch to Tiffany at Tiffany(at)ScrapTiffany(dot)com.

Here was my take on it with a couple of my more recent favorite pictures of me and my mama.

I picked out the pictures when I saw the sketch, but I have to admit, when it came time to journal I couldn’t do it, so I found some sentiment stickers that said something instead.

It’s funny how some days you can write or talk about someone you miss easier than others. The day I made this, just wasn’t one of those easier days. But I am okay with that.

Hope you have a great Saturday. And if you are a lucky one with a 3 day weekend (I’m not), enjoy!

School Time

2011-01-13T22:44:00.001-07:00

Today our littlest man started pre-school….

We debated if he was too young. If it would be a good thing for him.

He isn’t talking much yet, and probably needs a bit more of a push and some social interaction.

We thought pre-school at 2 might be better than waiting until 3. So today, we let go and watched our baby become a toddler….

He had a good first day and will go twice a week for now.

Nicholas gets his daddy to himself 2 mornings a week, too. Although I think he was sad not to be able to stay today when we dropped off Jackson. I think he missed his “may-me”.

Today was exactly one year ago that Nicholas started pre-school at 3.

And this afternoon we realized…they wore the same sweatshirt to their first day of school….

…maybe it’s happenstance…

…..I see it as good luck….

…don’t you think?

This kid….

2011-01-11T22:24:00.001-07:00

Planned to post this Sunday, but we were too busy spending time with this kid….

This kid…

…is a big lovebug

…is obsessed with trains

…can do a US map puzzle

…is enthusiastic about learning

…is curious and inquisitive

…talks about his extended family all the time

….has a mind like a steel trap

…loves to play with his Daddy

…is compassionate and kind

…is a protective big brother

…is sweet to his doggies

…loves to cuddle with his Mama

…is 4!

At his request he had a Thomas party on Saturday…

Nana and Grandpa C and Grandpa R were in attendance for his party…

Dinner was one of his favorites, hot dogs and chips….

presents were opened (that is the US puzzle that he figured out how to do in no time)…

cake was had (no frosting, please, mom)….

Sunday we headed up to North Phoenix to the Adobe Western Railroad where we road the train a couple of times….

Nicholas and Mike spent lots of time inside watching the small trains

and more time outside watching the train that looked like the one we had under the Christmas tree…

I hung out with this guy while he wore himself out running all over the place

and just a little something for Grandpa and Grandma J….

All in all a great birthday weekend.

Tuesday Tutorial at ScrapTiffany

2011-01-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

I'm hosting the Tuesday Tutorial over at ScrapTiffany. Come on by and learn how to make this:

Peace–It’s Just One Little Word

2011-01-02T22:44:00.001-07:00

On December 1st I wrote this from a journaling prompt to “encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?”

December 1 ~ One Word.

2010 in one word…Chaos. It has felt like we are chasing our tails all year. Our business was so consuming so we stopped, but the rest of the year has been a whirlwind. Some self imposed, some imposed on us. As we are winding up the year, work for me has been more crazy than normal with a structure reorganization. And November brought us heart break in the sudden bad turn in my mom’s health. Now that we are in December, I am spending my evenings in the hospital, my days at work, the few minutes I have in the morning with my boys and squeezing in Christmas shopping on my lunch hour.

As I look to 2011 I hope for Peace. Time to enjoy our life, time to enjoy our boys, and some freedom from everyday worries. No life is perfect, but I pray we have some peace in our days.

Little did I know when I wrote those words, that we would be faced with more before the year would end. Ten days after I wrote this, my mom left us. We dealt with the holidays grieving our huge loss, one we didn’t expect to happen so quickly.

I have never chosen a word of the year before, it is a “popular” thing for us scrapbookers to do. But this year it seemed so appropriate. I felt a need for calm, quiet, reflection, hope, and serenity.

Peace – (noun) – 1. a state of tranquility or quiet. 2. harmony in personal relationships

Synonyms – calm, quiet, stillness, silence, tranquility, harmony, serenity, agreement, friendship, love, order, unity, relaxation, rest, repose

Quotes that resonated with me -

“Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away.” ~ Robert Fulghum

“When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.” ~ Peace Pilgrim

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it”

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” ~ Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta

“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Peace is its own reward.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere” ~ François de la Rochefoucauld

“Peace is the deliberate adjustment of my life to the will of God.”

“All we are saying is give peace a chance.” ~ John Lennon

“Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.” ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

To help me remain committed to my word for 2011 I have signed up for Ali Edwards One Little Word class at Big Picture Classes. Each month we will receive an assignment to help us remember what we have committed to, I know this will be important for me this year.

ScrapTiffany…playing catch up

2011-01-01T13:47:00.001-07:00

I think it’s about time I do a ScrapTiffany post again.

With the loss of my Mom last month, I have been off of my regular blogging routine, and Tiffany has been graciously understanding with my ScrapTiffany assignments.

I wasn’t sure I would have the desire to scrap, but found during the past few weeks I have found a bit of solace in a little scrap therapy. So if you check in at ScrapTiffany regularly you would see I have had submissions posted most weeks, but hadn’t updated my blog .

Anyway, we are going to remedy that today with a big catch up post. First, today’s post over at ScrapTiffany is the kick off of the new Design Team and a brand new blog design. Our challenge for the week was to scraplift another design team member. I chose a layout by one of the new designers, Sophie to scraplift. I still want to do a more thorough “Turning 40” post and layout, but other things took priority on my birthday and I just haven’t gotten to it. For now, I have the most important things documented on what I want to focus on at 40…

I used the Studio Calico December Metropolitan kit and add-on’s for this one. This was Sophie’s layout that I lifted….

Next in the catching up department, a couple weeks back we did an All About Boys challenge. I was able to scrap one of my favorite pictures taken this year of Mike and Jackson using a Citrus Tree Studio kit I picked up over the summer.

Check out the other designers here and here

And one last ScrapTiffany layout I have not posted. Last week we had a Year in Review challenge which I happily used as an excuse to use my Studio Calico month stamps along with a quick collage and another layout from the Studio Calico December kit.

Check out the fun ideas the ScrapTiffany designers had to document 2010 here and here.

On Tuesday it is my turn to host the ScrapTiffany blog here is a peek at what I have coming….

See you soon….

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T22:54:00.001-07:00

Mike surprised me with an IPad. Literally, I was shocked and had no idea he had bought one for me. A few weeks ago I mentioned I would like one. But I didn’t think I would be getting one any time soon, and it wasn’t even on my wish list for Christmas.

Even better, he actually got a picture of my complete surprise.

I think he is the best husband ever…..

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas. More to share soon.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T12:21:00.002-07:00

From my family to yours….

Pictures we have displayed for the holidays around the house from our photo shoot with Maggie Holmes.

Digital brushes by Ali Edwards and Katie Pertiet, at Designer Digitals and Ali Edwards font.

Too Soon to Say Goodbye

2010-12-19T18:00:00.002-07:00

Linda Rettberg, 10/16/1946 - 12/11/2010

One week ago yesterday I lost one of my best friends, my confidante, my hero, The person who gave me drive to want better. The woman who taught me to speak up for myself. This beautiful, loving, generous woman who is my Mom.

Saying goodbye to my Mother is something I don’t think I have even begun to absorb. One thing that struck me these past few weeks as I spoke with family members and Mom’s friends was something I have always known about her. They all said to me that Mom was the strongest woman that they knew, she inspired them with her courage and happiness. Mom was a fighter, she was strong and she was a hero to me.

For twelve years we watched her battle cancer with strength, resolve and dignity. Even when she was scared, she was strong for her family and reassured us she would fight it and win. All during this time she continued to work and live her life, although she may have slowed down more recently, she still kept busy with the life she loved. She loved decorating and taking care of her home, spending time with her husband Dion and cuddling with her three little dogs: Brandi, Megan and Missy.

She still worked through almost 7 years of non-stop chemotherapy treatment, only stopping work after starting treatments for the cancer that had spread to her bone marrow. A treatment that would leave her so tired, she would not be able to go to work. That was just about 5 weeks before she left us.

Shortly after starting the bone marrow chemotherapy, she was very sick. She was sent of an MRI and was told the cancer had spread to her brain. She started chemotherapy within days. After 3 treatments she was so weak she couldn't eat or drink. She went to the hospital for the first time since having her mastectomy over 12 years ago.

She never regained her strength and after a week my Mom chose to go into hospice care. We hoped she would come home under this care and we would have a few more months. But there was another plan. Just 4 days after arriving at the hospice facility, she passed peacefully with Dion and me at her side.

I have so many memories of my Mom that I will be able to hold in my heart. We looked forward to Sunday afternoons when she would come by to visit us. She always brought cookies and treats for Nicholas and Jackson. Nicholas calls her Nana Cookie. Today was Sunday and earlier I thought I wonder if Mom is coming over today, and realized she wouldn't be.

She loved being a Nana and after we had Nicholas and Jackson she was happy to get to see them often. My brothers children live out of state and she always wished she could see them more than once or twice a year. It will be my mission to make sure my boys know their Nana, although she is no longer here with us, she loved and adored all of her grandsons. And I want them to know that. Nicholas was very attached to her and I still haven't found the words to explain to him that she is not with us here anymore, but will always be looking out for us. I want to cry everytime he asks if Nana feels better or asks Where's Nana?

I loved to make Thanksgiving dinner with my mom each year. Most years all the dishes were made from scratch. I ran "Thanksgiving Boot Camp" and my Mom and I worked along side each other preparing several things we loved. My stuffing may never be the same, as she was a key ingredient, she would taste test it until it was seasoned perfectly. Thanksgiving was one of her favorite holidays.

This year Mom had just started radiation therapy for the brain cancer, so it took all her energy to just come for a couple of hours. And sadly it turned out to be the last actual meal she really ate in her last 2 weeks with us.

When we were kids Mom would take us on the weekends to get fried chicken or a hot dog for a treat out. Simple things, that made us happy.When we were growing up Mom would sacrifice for herself to make sure we didn't go without anything. At times it must have been hard when she was on her own, but looking back, she made it look easy. She always let us know that my brother and I were very important to her.

When it was just Mom and me living at her townhouse in Aliso Viejo, we would take walks after work and then chat some more over a glass of wine. Saturdays, of course, were spent cleaning and she taught me everything I could ever want to know about that.

We talked on the phone often about anything and everything. I will miss being able to just pick up the phone and know she will be there. When I had good news or was upset she was who I wanted to talk to. I looked forward to just chatting with her about anything and everything. Yesterday I thought, I should call Mom, and realized I no longer could.

Today, my Mom's husband, Dion came by and brought me a mini album I had made for my Mom in 2004 for Mother's Day. As I looked at it through tears the words I wrote then were very much the same I would write today.

These were two of my favorite pages from the album:

What I Love About You

There are so many things I love about you. I love that you are my friend. I love that you like to have fun and aren't afraid to be silly. I love that you take good care of yourself. I love your smile. I love your laugh. I love that you love your kids so much. I love that you always have an opinion. I love that you have so much energy. I love that you are my little mom. I love that your house looks like it belongs in a magazine. I love that we cook Thanksgiving dinner together each year and have fun doing it. But most of all I love you.

What You Taught Me

To have fun
Everything happens for a reason
To love your family
To treat others with respect
To take care of myself
How to clean anything
To be myself
To be silly sometimes
To go after my dreams
How to shop

Quote:

All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my Mother.

The book closed with the lyrics to Celine Dion's song, "Because You Loved Me". I know I am a better person, because my Mother loved me.

We laid Mom to rest on Friday in a beautiful service that celebrated who she was. I was thankful for her friends that came and talked to us about their memories of Mom.

Now I must figure out how to pick up the pieces and go on.

I love you mama. You will always be in my heart.

ScrapTiffany's Thrifty Thursday

2010-12-09T06:52:00.001-07:00

It's Thrifty Thursday today on the ScrapTiffany blog and it was my turn to post. I wrote about how I got thrifty with my Thickers. Here's a peek....

Head on over to ScrapTiffany to see the rest.

ScrapTiffany Monday

2010-12-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

This week at ScrapTiffany was handmade flowers. I made mine by punching several circles and adhering them together, folding them to make petals and then forming my flower with the petals.

Check out what the other ladies did at ScrapTiffany.

Last week I was consumed with dealing with putting my mom and the hospital, so I didn't get around to posting last week's ScrapTiffany challenge. It was a sketch challenge week, and this was my take on it.

You can see last week's challenge here and here over at ScrapTiffany.

Have a great Monday.

Chocolate Mint M&M Cookies

2010-12-05T18:58:00.002-07:00

I recently picked up a bag of these...

and of course I needed to do something with them right?

So I thought they would be great in some Chocolate Cookies. After looking around the internet for some ideas, I made up my own, by substituting some peppermint extract into a pretty basic chocolate cookie recipe. That added just the right hint of mint to the cookies. I think it would be great if you had some peppermint oil instead.

Chocolate Mint M&M Cookies

2 sticks of butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp peppermint extract

2 cups flour

1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa Powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

With an electric mixer beat butter sugar, eggs and peppermint extract until smooth and fluffy. In a separate bowl measure flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and whisk together with a fork.

Stir in Mint M&M's and drop onto parchment paper (or splat mat) on cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees 7-9 minutes. Let cool on pan and then transfer to wire rack.

Eat. Enjoy. Repeat.

Nicholas enjoyed helping too....

Christmas, Weekend Round Up and a Turkey

2010-11-22T06:43:00.000-07:00

I've been MIA lately, with a lot going on. Last week we received some upsetting family news, and the end of the week was spent processing it.

Work has been crazy lately, we are consolidating our office with our Denver office and everything is moving to our office here in Phoenix. So work life has been busy in interviewing, hiring and planning for this transition. Oh, and it is year end, and I am an accountant.

I have been working a lot of hours lately, and seeing my family less than I would like. But, I know I am lucky that I will still have my job after this transition.

And because of my busy work schedule, at home it is beginning to look....

a lot like.....Christmas.....

(p.s. the picture for the frame is being printed today to go with the Christmas theme)

Yes, we put up our tree and decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving. I have to work the Friday after Turkey Day and we host the meal every year. So several years ago we stopped trying to do it all after Thanksgiving and moved the inside decorating to a week before. I have a few finishing touches to add after a trip to the store, so I will share some more photos soon.

It was sad putting this away.

Turkey does really get the short stick. (Although the Halloween stuff was gone a few weeks ago).

Friday night this crazy boy....

...crawled out of his bed....twice. He hasn't tried it again. But we did buy a toddler bed over the weekend just in case. Unfortunately the crib tent doesn't work on his style of crib. Stinker!

Mike put all the trees up last week (yes, all means 3, 5 if you count the small ones in the boys rooms). On Saturday he took the boys out during the day so I could do all the rest of the decorations. Then Saturday night we all enjoyed the tradition Mike and I have had for years. Munchies and snacks while enjoying our now decorated house.

Sunday we just hung out and rested. I have picked up the cold that the rest of the family is getting over. So we just laid low...

As we head into the home stretch for my two favorite holidays of the year, our challenge at ScrapTiffany this week was Food/Recipes. So on honor of the big bird I'll be cooking later this week, I featured Turkey My Way. I have perfected my bird over the past 15 years that I have been the holiday host. And I am pretty proud of it.

I'll give you two of my secrets, a fresh organic turkey and Reynolds Oven Bags. The rest is my secret, ;)

Head over to ScrapTiffany to see what the other designers did.

Just a peek at one of the pictures from our recent photo shoot with Maggie Holmes. We are lucky that she lives nearby. We met Maggie a few weeks ago and late last week picked up our photos.

I'll share some more tomorrow. Have a great Monday.

Birthday Boy Weekend & ScrapTiffany Monday

2010-11-15T07:20:00.001-07:00

Last week got away from me, and I didn't get a chance to post the winner for my drawing from the ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop. So without further delay the winner is (as picked by Random.org)...

Scrapfaire said...

Red Velvet Cake is a must for Christmas! Love your recipe file!

November 8, 2010 4:58 AM

Congratulations! E-mail me here to claim your box of goodies.

Mike and I did some Christmas shopping on Friday night at Toys R Us. Our first date night in about a year. Santa will be making 2 little boys very happy this year.

After shopping, we did get to go out to a grown up dinner at Dvine Wine and Bistro. It was fabulous. We splurged and had bruschetta for an appetizer, shared a bowl of potato bacon soup, and then we both ordered the filet mingon for dinner. We finished it off with a Kahlua Mouse Chocolate Cake. And to go with dinner we had a fantastic bottle of wine, Opolo Moutain Zin - '06 Paso Robles. Oh to be a grown up again.

Jackson's birthday party was this weekend. He really loves the Yo Gabba Gabba show on Nick Jr. I bought tickets last week to take him to the live show coming in a few weeks. When the music starts for the show, it doesn't matter where he is in the house, he comes running to watch.

I had the "brilliant" idea to make Yo Gabba Gabba the party theme. Of course that was before I realized that there were no themed decorations to go with said theme. Add this to the ton of hours I have been working, and it leaves me in a jam. I didn't have much creative time to make decorations, but I had bought a couple of things to go with the theme already.

So we improvised with printable decorations from the Nick Jr site, a few scrap supplies and some colorful decorations from the disco and general birthday sections at Party City.

I attempted to make the cake match the theme.

I was pretty happy with the banner.

Even the birthday cards were Yo Gabba Gabba (printables and wrapping paper on a card base, with StayzOn ink for the stamped message).

Party time...while Daddy grilled dinner, we played outside...

Nicholas worked on his picture taking skills....

As taken by Nicholas....

After dinner was presents....

Then of course cake....

I made a pumpkin spice cake with pumpkin cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Jackson ate 2 pieces. So I guess he liked it as much as the rest of us.

And I need to dig out the camera manual because of all the pictures that should have been great turned out blurry. I am blurring the focal point and getting the background sharp. Not sure what I did to the settings to make that happen. But it is frustrating.

Last week the ScrapTiffany team participated in the Hippity Hop Blog Hop, which was a collaboration of a few challenge blog sites. The hop is over but you can still check out the posts starting here at the Sassy Lil' Sketches blog. I didn't have any time to post anything as the week progressed. But I will now share the layout I did for the Blog Hop challenge.

It was a recipe challenge where each blog added one ingredient to the "recipe" to use for your layout:

Ingredients:

Sketch from Sassy Lil' Sketches

Use 3 of the same thing from ScrapFit

Use ink paint or mist or all 3 from Crop Suey

Use some Lace from ScrapTiffany

Use some texture or embossing from Cuttlebug Spot

So here is mine....

How I made mine...

Sketch - Kept the overall general design in tact

Use 3 of the same thing - Stars were my pick for 3

Use ink paint or mist or all 3 - I chose some Studio Calico Mr. Huey's for my banner with a base coat and a spritz of white on top for a splattered look.

Use some Lace from ScrapTiffany - Lace designed paper

Use some texture or embossing from Cuttlebug Spot - Circle journal spot embossed with my Cuttlebug

And finally, this weeks challenge for ScrapTiffany was to use crepe paper. So I bought some to decorate for Jackson's party so I would have some for a layout.

Here is what I did...

I stitched the crepe paper down to make my sky background. I thought it would rip, but it worked just fine. I found some vellum in my stash and used my new Fiskars Cloud punches to make my clouds.

I also played with some new Martha Stewart punches I have recently picked up on clearance and during last weeks Veterans Day sale at Michaels. Martha Stewart now has some punch anywhere punches in some basic shapes and designs so I punched out my journaling spot and added some paper behind it. There are a few other newer Martha punches I am going to have to get my hands on one coupon at a time, of course.

Now it is time to get ready for work, and another busy full week. Hope you have a great one!

2 Years Ago Today....

2010-11-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

This adorable little guy came bursting into our lives....

and today this sweet hearted, lovable, rambunctious little guy is two....

Happy Birthday my Little J. I love you!

ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop

2010-11-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop. We are so excited to share our Holiday Ideas with you on Monday and Tuesday this week.

You should have arrived here from Laurel's blog. If you arrived here first, head back to the ScrapTiffany blog.

I am so excited to finally share this project with you. Every year around Chirstmas I do some holiday baking. I always make the same line up of treats, but every year I end up hunting around for my recipes. I needed to get them all in one place. I had this box leftover from a mini album project and it was the perfect size for a recipe box.

I used some Pink Paislee and some fabulous music note fabric from a Color Me Daisy kit (no longer available). I added American Crafts Thickers, a splash of paint, a dab of ink, a trip through the sewing machine, some punching and the outside of my box was decorated....

Close up (I told you that fabric was fabulous)...

Backside of box...

The tabbed recipe cards were cut from the Cricut From My Kitchen cartridge...

I typed up the recipes and labels and added a couple of paper strips (Lettering Delights Going Nuts font)...

And what would a recipe be without a yummy picture. On the backside of the recipe card I added a picture, a couple of paper strips and another tab.

Thanks for visiting me for the ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop.

Leave a comment telling me what your favorite holiday treat is and I will draw a name to receive a box of some scrappy goodies that will include some things I have left from a few past Studio Calico and Mosh Posh kits, as well as some holiday scrappy goodies.

The next stop on the ScrapTiffany Blog Hop tour is Norazah.

And if you get lost here are all the ScrapTiffany ladies to help you get back on track:

Michelle (me)

Happy November!

2010-11-01T07:22:00.001-07:00

We had a very busy and very fun weekend with all the Halloween festivities.

I baked pumpkin spice cupcakes and burned sugar cookies on Saturday morning.

We went to the pumpkin patch at Schnepf Farms

And played in the train park at the farm

We decorated the burned sugar cookies. Nicholas likes to decorate but doesn't like to eat cookies with frosting on them. So Mike will eat those, and I set aside the cookies I did not burn for Nicholas to eat, sans frosting.

I carved the pumpkin and Nicholas had a chat with him

The boys dressed up in their costumes

Jackson really didn't like his at first, but he got comfortable as the night wore on

And went trick or treating, we made it through 4 blocks in our neighborhood. One more than last year.

Then came home and checked out our haul (and maybe had a pack or two of M&M's.

This week at ScrapTiffany was a Color Challenge. The colors worked well with my October Mosh Posh kit. The title came from a song they sang on Glee while I was making this page.

Wednesday is my turn at the ScrapTiffany blog and I have something fun to share for fall.

And next week is our Blog Hop at ScrapTiffany. So check back next Monday and Tuesday for some Holiday inspiration and a chance to win some goodies.

Also, the design team at ScrapTiffany was asked to participate in the Hippity Hoppity Blog Hop as well. So check us out next week over on the ScrapTiffany blog.

Have a great Monday!

Halloween is almost upon us....

2010-10-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite holidays is almost upon us. I love decorating for Halloween and seeing the kids (my own included) all dressed up in their Halloween costumes trick-or-treating is a blast. I also love to make Halloween crafts, I guess it is partly because I have a little more time to make Halloween decorations, more than Christmas decorations once the Christmas season is upon us.

This week's challenge at ScrapTiffany was Halloween. A little while ago Jenni Bowlin offered a Limited Edition Vintage Halloween kit, that I snapped up the morning it went on sale (it sold out within a couple of hours). It paired perfectly with a 7 Gypsies Receipt Tray that I bought at Studio Calico, a bit of last years Color Me Daisy Halloween kit (vintage postcard and Pink Paislee papers) and some mini letters by My Little Shoebox. With that mix of products, I created this to hang in our house for the Halloween season.

Check out the other fun things the ladies made at ScrapTiffany today and visit again on Friday for even more Halloween inspiration.

Vacation Finale - San Diego Zoo, Old Town and Heading Home

2010-10-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

Day 7, Friday, October 15^th, 2010

Last night I sent a text my friend Stella to get some breakfast recommendations. We didn’t have plans for Friday so we decided to go out to breakfast. She sent me a few suggestions, and we picked the Broken Yolk in Pacific Beach. We got there about 9:00 am and it was busy. We had a really good breakfast. We both had omelets with home fries. Nicholas and Jackson ate the muffin that came with my breakfast with pancakes and bacon.

It had been sprinkling since we woke up and we weren’t sure what we were going to do. Mike thought we should go to the zoo to keep the kids entertained. Kids were free for the month of October so we headed over.

We got to the zoo and even though it isn’t really that far from the water, there was no sprinkling. It was cool but not wet.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the day. I had some animals that really liked to pose for the camera...

I think this sleeping Koala Bear is so sweet...

Look at the bears eyes...

The leopard was named Princess or something like that, she loved to pose.

The giraffe's were cool. Some of my best poses were in to the sky, and were too washed out, but I like this one. At the Phoenix Zoo all the food spots are up above so they don't have to bend down like this.

Love this kangaraoo

Kissing camels (they really were, the one in the back though had some gross stuff coming out of his mouth that turns some of the better shots of the front two into something less than pleasant)\

Llamas?

Nicholas walked a lot of the zoo on foot....

Frogs/toads near the elephant exhibits

This elephant was dancing, with her trunk bouncing back and forth....

Yes this is the kid that will not wear shoes and socks. He is just like his mama, hates shoes. I know there were people looking at us like we were crazy.

Spacing on what animal this is, but many of them were happy to pose for us.

This is probably one of my favorite shots from the day. Right after this, the lion got up on a rock and strated making all kinds of howling and roaring noises, I would have photographed it but his butt was to us, so nothing great to look at, but cool to listen to.

Nicholas was interested in the tar pits.

Another model, I mean cooperative animal.

Hills do not slow my boys down. Jackson is peeking back at Nicholas and me, happy he isn't walking.

The gorillas came right up to the glass viewing area.

These minature alligators didn't move, they were like statues.

It looked like they were posing for us.

Nicholas checking out what is going on...

This monkey was talking to another one right below him...

Tourists.

This was really cool but everyone was trying to get the picture of this hippo with its eyes and ears above water and it's huge body below the surface. This was the best I could get without people in it.

There is something just weird about how these turtles look swimming.

This lizard is looking right at me.

Looks like the tortoise is as well.

We stayed until the zoo closed and then decided to go straight to dinner at Old Town. Old Town Mexican Café had been recommended by both my friend Stella and Scott and Lori. So even though it looked packed we decided to try it. It turned out there was only a 10 minute wait that ended up being less than 5 minutes. We had guacamole and chips with margaritas. For dinner the boys had tacos and quesadilla and Mike and I both had combos with Mexican beers.

Towards the end of our dinner the Mariachis came in to the area to play and Jackson loved it. He was whipping his head around to watch them and giving them big cheesy grins.

To burn off dinner we walked around Old Town before heading back to the hotel.

We got back early enough to let the kids just chill out watching Disney shows while I started packing us up. We got the kids in bed around 9:00 and Mike and I talked about next year’s vacation. We decided after this trip that the boys are ready and more importantly we are ready to take them to Walt Disney World next year. So I checked out pricing so we can start saving.

Day 8, Saturday, October 16^th,2010

We got up around 7:00 and got ready and finished packing. We were going to grab Einstein’s for breakfast but there was a huge line and it was a bit cold to sit outside. So we headed over to the Red Marlin for breakfast. We had the buffet breakfast and were in and out of there pretty quickly. We loaded up the car to get on the road and were on our way around 10:30. We stopped quickly once and made it home around 4:00.

It turned out to be easier than the boys than we expected. Taking kids is definitely a different vacation than the old days of late nights, fancy restaurants and going as fast or slow as we feel like. Everything is at their pace, but they were very flexible and good little travelers. So I look forward to many more vacations with my little family.

Now that we are home, Nicholas asks us at least once a day if we had fun in California or Disneyland. He is still talking about the trip a lot a week later.

Vacation Pt. 3 - San Diego Trains, Gaslamp & Sea World

2010-10-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

Day 5, Wednesday

After racing around each day to get to a theme park we needed a break from that. We slept in and took more time to get moving. We decided to eat breakfast at the Red Marlin, the hotel restaurant. We missed the fact that they had a buffet and ordered off the menu. We all liked our breakfast, even though it was pretty expensive for omelets and pancakes.

We were low on a few things so we headed over to Target after breakfast. We weren’t able to do laundry at the Embassy Suites so we were going to run out of socks for the boys and Mike didn’t bring many long sleeve shirts for the cooler weather.

After our shopping side trip, we headed over to Balboa Park and spent a few hours at the train museum. Nicholas really enjoyed all the miniature trains and Mike really enjoyed taking him there.

When Nicholas sees a railroad crossing sign (he calls them traffic lights) he gets really excited, so he was super happy to get to see one up close.

Jackson and Nicholas played with the kids trains for a while too.

Mike showed Nicholas the Tehachapi area, (Nicholas even know what that is from watching videos of trains going through there). Someday we will take him there.

In the picture it really does almost look like being there.

We spent a lot of time in the room with all the little town replicas. I loved to see all the details, like the cars driving through the McDonald's drive through (they really moved).

And how they had incorporate Halloween throughout the display. They even had a candy train that had cars carrying candy.

It was getting late and we hadn’t had lunch so we headed over to the Gaslamp Quarter.

We ate lunch at Tin Fish a restaurant we stumbled upon right on the train line next to Petco Park. Nicholas and Mike could watch the trains while we ate. The food was good. I had fish and chips which were really good, the boys had a quesadilla and Mike had fish tacos. The Landshark beer was perfect to wash it down.

We had a few birds eat with us. They could not be shooed away.

After lunch we walked around the Gaslamp Quarter.

And watched a few more trains

We headed back to the hotel around 5:00. This was the view from our hotel room. We were right on the marina. We only had a bit of sun on Wednesday. The rest of our time in San Diego was overcast.

We headed to dinner at Café Japengo in La Jolla for sushi. I hadn’t been there since I used to travel to San Diego for work a few years ago. There was a bit of a wait, but the boys were pretty patient. Fortunately, they did have a kids menu, so the kids had their usual chicken fingers and fries. Mike and I started with Duck Potstickers and then shared a few sushi rolls (Fifty-fifty roll, Hawaiin Special, Spicy Tuna and Philadelphia Roll) which were all yummy.

And here is my favorite face again...

The boys fell asleep on the way back to the hotel and went down to bed easily. Mike and I didn’t stay up much later either.

Day 5, Sea World

A really nice thing about the San Diego portion of our trip was that we didn’t feel like we had to rush out of the room in the morning. We slept in a bit and got ready. We went to Einstein’s for bagel sandwiches and coffee for us and muffins and milk for the boys.

We were on our way to Sea World by 9:30. Our hotel was pretty much right across from Sea World and we easily made it by the 10:00 am opening even after getting turned around finding the entrance.

Mike and I hadn’t been to Sea World in about 20 years so it was like being somewhere for the first time. We saw the wild artic exhibit with the polar bears and walrus's

This bird was riding around on the walrus's backs.

I love this kid....

The penguins were awesome to watch..

In the shark encounter Nicholas kept shoving me to keep moving when I was taking pictures. Without a flash and low light most of the pictures didn't come out great, but I did get a couple.

In the next aquarium exhibit, these frogs were cool, but the glass was so fogged up it was hard to get a great picture of them. They looked like they were wearing some cool wet suits.

We headed to our first show, with the Sea Lions

We weren’t sure how Jackson would do at the shows since sitting still is not something he is interested in. But it wasn’t crowded so we waited until it was almost show time and got a seat. Once the show started he was fine. The show was cute, with just a lot of little skits.

We took a popcorn and pretzel break after the show and then it was time for Shamu. This show was a bit more crowded. The boys did fine; Nicholas needed to sit on my lap to see. He seemed to enjoy the show. We all really enjoyed the Shamu show. It is just incredible what these whales are trained to do. And I was so happy I had bought my zoom lens before this trip, or I would never have gotten shots like this from as far away as we were.

After Shamu we wanted lunch but so did everyone else, so we went to the star fish area and then through a couple of the aquarium exhibits hoping the lines would go down. Nicholas would touch the water but not the star fish. He is hit or miss on this, sometimes he will at the aquarium we go to by home, but not today.

I had a fascination with the turtles on this trip. They were amazing to watch swim.

Of course what would a fish tank be without Nemo? Nicholas loved this.

I just loved the colors of some of the tanks. I was playing a lot with the camera settings to try to get them right for these conditions. Some turned out much better than others.

The lunch lines didn't diminish so we finally braved the lunch line. Mike took the kids to a table while I waited in a really, really long line. Right when I was at the front waiting to get the last of our entrees, Mike came to find me and told me we had to leave. Nicholas had dumped lemonade on himself and was having a complete meltdown. He was crying and saying he was sorry, and wanted to be changed. We haven’t had to change the kids while we were out in ages, so we had no spare clothes. So I abandoned lunch at the front of the line and we went back to the hotel.

We were going to try the Corvette Diner for lunch, but then decided to just go to the hotel restaurant, the Red Marlin. It was almost 3:00 by this time. We were able to sit out on the patio, and since it was so late Mike and I just shared some steamed clams and a cheese platter appetizer and had a glass of wine for me and beer for him. The boys nibbled on their kids meals. It was actually a nice break from the park and much better food than we were going to have at Sea World.

We headed back over to Sea World about 4:30. The park was only open until 6:00 and it was emptying out. We missed all the rest of the shows, but we managed to get through all the other exhibits. We spent some time at the dolphins, and I even got to pet one.

We visited the batrays/stingrays and Morrey Eels. Mike pet a batray. Nicholas remembered getting splashed by one at the Phoenix Zoo and wanted nothing to do with them. There was a cave to walk through with the eels and they were quite strange looking. Fascinating and creepy at the same time.

We watched the sea lions get fed and bumped into Jackson’s speech therapist, Jill and her family. The sea lions were super loud and entertaining.

We finished up by walking through another aquarium then headed out. Boys were done. And yes, it was cool and Jackson refused to wear shoes and socks. After putting them back on about a dozen times all week, we had given up. If he was in the stroller the shoes and socks were off. If he didn't fuss we figured he wasn't cold.

We thought we would try Phil’s BBQ tonight, but again the wait line was huge. So we decided to head over to La Jolla and have fondue at another place I had been to a few years ago, Forever Fondue. This one was a bit tough on the kids. They both had fell asleep in the car and were a bit sleepy when we first got there. There was no kids menu for our picky eaters. So we had to make due for them with the snacks we had in our bag and a basket of tortilla chips the restaurant provided.

My favorite part of eating out for fondue is the appetizer and dessert. Mike likes the main course because of all the sauces. We started with salads and then shared Cheddar and Smoked Gouda Cheese Fondue. Our main meals were a mixture of seafood, chicken and steak and vegetables. For dessert we had Milk Chocolate Fondue, Nicholas did like the pound cake that came with it, but not in the chocolate (he doesn’t know what he is missing).

The kids fell asleep on the way home and were again easy to get to bed.

Next up the San Diego Zoo and coming home....

Vacation Part Deux

2010-10-21T22:44:00.000-07:00

We did make it back to the hotel safely, exhausted with aching tired feet, but safe. The boys went down easy and Mike got us a drink from the bar, which neither one of us finished before falling asleep ourselves.

Anyway, on to Day 3...

We had 7:40 am reservations for the Surf's Up Character Breakfast at Paradise Pier Hotel. That was early after our long day. But we made it just in time, thanks of course to valet parking (which is free by the way if you are going to the character breakfast).

Nicholas loved the characters and it wasn't that busy that morning, so he got lot's of attention from the characters.

Here he is smooching with Minnie Mouse

Even though he didn't know who Stitch was, they sure spent a lot of time hanging out. I think Stitch was at our table for at least 5 minutes on 2 different occasions.

Then he needed to discuss the comfort of Daisy's shoes and hair bow.

Jackson on the other hand was not really sure if he was liking all this talk with big furry things...

We ditched the walking from the hotel thing and parked at Disneyland this day and made it to the once again busy park about 9:30.

We headed to Buzz Lightyear first and Nicholas had fun shooting and Jackson tried to chew on the gun. We headed over to the Tiki Birds next. Jackson wasn’t to crazy about it so Mike took him outside and I watched with Nicholas. He seemed to enjoy it. Next we took a Jungle Cruise. Nicholas liked picking out the animals and Jackson was smiling the whole time.

We rode Pirates next. We weren't sure if that was going to be good or bad, but they were fine.

I am sure they needed naps....

We decided to get out of the park for lunch so we headed over to Downtown Disney and ate lunch at ESPN Zone. Mike and I could enjoy a beer with our lunch and Nicholas loved all the TV’s and numbers on the scoreboards so he was entertained. Mike had Sliders for lunch and I had a club sandwich. I thought we would be going back to the hotel for an afternoon rest, but everyone seemed rejuvenated after the break so we headed back to the park. We rode the train around the park which we thought Nicholas would like, but after a couple of stops he was over it. Jackson did fall asleep so I took Nicholas on Winnie the Pooh. We rode the cars again, which he loved “driving”. We took the Monorail around its loop once and Nicholas loved that. Then we rode the submarines. Mike and I hadn’t been on that since it was re-opened as Nemo. It was cute for the kids. It was much longer than I remembered.

When we got off the submarines, we had to race back to the front to avoid the parade and get out to Downtown Disney for our dinner reservations at Rainforest Café. It was another nice break from the park. And even though it was crowded because we had reservations we were seated right away. The kids liked their hot dogs. It was probably the most Nicholas had eaten since we had been at Disneyland.

This is the face I get from Jackson when he sees the camera. One of his few words is "cheese".

After dinner we headed over to California Adventure and rode the Monster’s ride again right before it closed then walked over to Bug’s Land and rode the little train. By the time we were finished it was almost time for fireworks so we walked back to Disneyland to watch them from Main Street.

We got a good spot and tried to keep the boys awake to watch. Jackson dozed on my shoulder, but Nicholas woke up when they started.

We liked the new show. After it was over we headed to the tram and back to the hotel. It was much better than the long walk we had last night.

We got the boys down to sleep and then we flipped around the channels ending up watching Showbiz tonight. Mike pays no attention to celeberty “news” and gossip. So I ended up having to give him a running commentary on who some of these people were and why anyone would care about whatever they were talking about. Since I don’t pay a lot of attention to that either it was pretty funny. I do somehow seem to know who most of these people are and why they are famous.

Day 4

We had to pack up this morning to check out of the hotel. We were spending the first half of the day at Disney and then heading down to San Diego for the rest of our vacation. Before checking out we headed down to the very crowded buffet and had breakfast. We got our bags from the room and left them at the bell desk and drove over to Disney.

It turned out that the $15 a day to park was worth it. It was so hot during our days there that I wouldn’t have wanted to walk down Harbor Boulevard after spending hours at Disney.

Our timing was great just as we were walking down Main Street there was Mickey and Friends coming down Main Street in a mini parade.

I loved all the Fall decorations in the park, even if my kiddos wouldn't let me stop and get many pictures of them. But I did manage a few.

We headed to Fantasyland and rode Dumbo and the Carousel and then Casey Jr.’s Train.

Gotta love this kid.

We stopped for a popcorn snack. Jackson loves popcorn like his mommy and as long as we kept the box in front of him he was happy. Nicholas decided he wanted to try soda and liked it. Hopefully he will forget about it at home, because he won’t be getting it again anytime soon.

We went on It’s a Small World one more time. Nicholas was singing the song and waving at the people in the boats. A little boy about 10 stuck his tongue out at him. Not nice but Nicholas didn’t even care. The next boat came with nice people waving back and telling him to have fun on his ride. The boys were wide eyed through the ride and Nicholas was signing along.

We decided it was probably a good time to start heading out. We stopped by the candy store and got some treats and then headed to Downtown Disney for a quick lunch at the Jazz Kitchen take out location. Mike had Gumbo Ya Ya and I had a cheeseburger, both were pretty good and it was actually cheaper than eating average park food.

Then it was back to the tram and to the hotel to get our bags.

Goodbye Disneyland....

It was time to head to San Diego for the second half of the vacation. It was a little cooler at Disneyland that day, but it cooled off quite a bit as we headed down the coast. It was a nice drive and only took about 1 ½ hours.

We were staying at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay. We paid with both hotel stays with points, so we splurged on suites. We were so glad we did. It let us stay up after the boys and we had lots of room to spread out

We got checked in pretty quickly and the bell hop took us to the room with our huge pile of stuff. I had read a lot of mixed review on this hotel but we had very few complaints. Our room was nice, a little dated for a “ recently renovated” hotel. But it was still nice enough.

My biggest complaint was no TV channels for the kids to watch. To get TV for the kids you had to do pay per view. They had a Disney Channel or PBS kids option for $10 a day. Add that to the $10/day for wi-fi and the $20/day for self parking and I can see why people feel they are nickled and dimed at the hotel.

There was an Einstiens and a full service restaurant as well as a bar in the pool area. They were all pricey, but I expect that at any hotel.

Our room was on the first floor overlooking the marina. We could hear the sea lions barking from our room. Too bad it was overcast the whole time we were there, but it was still quite nice.

After getting unpacked and changed for dinner we headed out. We were going to try Phil’s BBQ, as it had been recommended by a friend but it was packed. It was late so we decided to head out somewhere else. We drove north to La Jolla and ate at Karl Strauss Brewery. The kids liked their pizza, I had BBQ ribs and Mike had pork chops. We tried their Oktoberfest beer which was very good (and I don’t usually like Oktoberfest beers).

After dinner we headed back to the hotel. To get the boys to fall asleep Nicholas wants me to lay down with him, he is usually out in a couple of minutes. I watched some TV and had a glass of wine while Mike got Jackson to sleep. Mike ended up falling asleep on the couch watching TV after I went to bed.

Last 3 days coming soon....

Living and Scrapping My Life

12 on 12 in January

Is this thing on? I mean really?

This Man Changed Our World

Week in the Life - Sunday

Week in the Life - Saturday

Week in the Life - Friday

Week in the Life - Thursday

Week in the Life - Wednesday

Week in the Life - Monday & Tuesday

July 4th Weekend Roundup

Happy 4th!

ScrapTiffany Sketch

Faulous Friday Finds at ScrapTiffany

Hello!

Surgery Day & ScrapTiffany Layout

Happy Friday and Cosmo Cricket Class

ScrapTiffany Sunday Challenge

Hoppy. Happy Easter!

Happy Friday

Back from CKC Mesa & ScrapTiffany Blog Hop Winner

All In One - A ScrapTiffany Challenge & a 2 Page Layout!

ScrapTiffany Recycled Blog Hop

Love Fridays and a ScrapTiffany Challenge

A couple layouts to share

Is this a 3 year old or....

Happy Friday

Beauty

A ScrapTiffany Challenge and More Layouts to Share

Life, Organization, Scrapbooking and Valentine’s Day

Superbowl Party Food….

Grilled Stuffed Jalapeno Chiles with Grilled Red Pepper-Tomato Sauce(Bobby Flay Food Network)

Grilled Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms (myrecipes.com)

Next up were a couple of my recipes…

and our favorite….

Has it really been 2 weeks?

ScrapTiffany Sketch Challenge

School Time

This kid….

Tuesday Tutorial at ScrapTiffany

Peace–It’s Just One Little Word

ScrapTiffany…playing catch up

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Too Soon to Say Goodbye

ScrapTiffany's Thrifty Thursday

ScrapTiffany Monday

Chocolate Mint M&M Cookies

Christmas, Weekend Round Up and a Turkey

Birthday Boy Weekend & ScrapTiffany Monday

2 Years Ago Today....

ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop

Happy November!

Halloween is almost upon us....

Vacation Finale - San Diego Zoo, Old Town and Heading Home

Vacation Pt. 3 - San Diego Trains, Gaslamp & Sea World

Vacation Part Deux

Grilled Stuffed Jalapeno Chiles with Grilled Red Pepper-Tomato Sauce (Bobby Flay Food Network)