Santa time...

Well, the most stressful of my holiday events is over, supper club with Santa at our house last Saturday. Ben did waaay better with Santa than 2 years ago, he was one of the first kids up on Santa's lap this year!

In 2007, we tried to distract Ben with a school bus toy, but once he realized where he was...uh-oh. This year he handled it like a pro!

Unfortunately, he told Santa he wants a DS (like his sister). We're going to call his Leapster 2 a "Leapster DS." Good thing it has buttons & a stylus like sister's DS...

Oddly enough, Tess did NOT ask Santa for gerbils like she's been telling everyone she wanted to, and better yet, she did not question the fact I told her, that Santa does not like to bring pets on his sleigh  (because it's a long trip and it's not good for the animals -- except the reindeer, of course).

Okay, next year I'm going to try and do better with this blogging biz. Yeah, I say that every year. Like I'm going to get to the gym and write that novel, too.

Happy holidays! Don't forget to track Santa's progress (one of my new favorite Christmas Eve traditions!)

Worth a listen...

NPR's reading of the Declaration of Independence.

History. It's a good thing to remember now and then.

Happy Mother's Day!

Still a favorite...

Easter and then some

Survived spring break week (barely). So nice to have E back home (even if he got to go to work all week...yes, even all day Good Friday).

Too much candy for Tess, though. I'm glad she's at my MIL's with E & her brother. Three! meltdowns! before! breakfast! (not including the jellybeans at 6:30a).

The Easter bunny came by at 6a to leave jelly bean trails from each child's bedroom door to the spot where their Easter baskets were located:

Luckily, she (I'm convinced the Easter bunny is a she...c'mon, give us ladies one holiday, right? Santa's got his and I've never seen a female leprechaun, we can't be witches only...besides, who REALLY goes and fills those baskets? Can I get a what-what...)

SHE put Tess's basket in our room, so that I would know when she was up (see 6:30a, above) and feel some of her excitement, not like Christmas 2007...ahem.

Grandma wanted a picture of the dress she made for Tess & her AG doll, we got it but not without (another) tantrum and sour face (AFTER the photo was taken, thank goodness):
I would have preferred that she comb her hair (and the doll's), but as we had just experienced Meltdown #2, I let it go. As Tess so wisely noted, "her hair matches mine!" Somehow I don't think Grandma is going to appreciate that...

Lil Guy got a very nice basket, too, and I got a nice photo of the both of them. Rare, believe it or not. Tess cannot be in hug range without squeezing Ben until he smacks her.

I had to move fast.


Hope you are having a bright, sunny Easter weekend too.


Peace out.

Busy Bee

I've had an explosion of creativity this weekend. I've ignored housework, laundry, cooking, kids & hubby to get these done:

...good thing, too, because I checked the SIStv forum and they are due FRIDAY, the 20th, not the 28th like I thought.

These are ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) for a Rainbow ATC swap Stacey Fike is hostessing. You make six of each color, then get six different colors back. So I'll be getting 18 rainbow-colored ATCs in exchange, sweet!

In Valentines Day news, I got a new printer. My Epson may just need new toner cartridges, but it has been smearing black ink with its rollers lately, despite nozzle checks & head cleaning, and cartridges are $25 a pop (I need black and CMYK, so that's $50, ouch); it was time to try something new.

The new one (Kodak ESP 5) has a built-in scanner (something else I've been needing) but I'm not really thrilled with the print quality. E, of course, did his Consumer Reports (aka The Engineer's Assistant) and CNet research, and found this one to be the fastest on print time as well as one of the cheapest (ahem) on the market, so...Happy Valentine's Day to me.

Tess got conversation heart stickers, Ben got a Mack toy (Cars movie, naturally), E got a (very) funny card (let's just say it involved fuzzy monkeys and a banana joke), I got a printer (and some consolation flowers Saturday night...I might have shared Pitiful Husband Attempts at Valentines Day stories from Friday night with E earlier in the day...oops)...well, it was better than most romantic holidays around here :)

Resolutions

Hmmm, maybe mine should be to give up my blog...no...can't quite do that...but I am on facebook a LOT more often, so if you know me (or think you do), drop me a line and I can give you my moniker "IRL..."

At least I took the Christmas music off.

All Things Tim

To keep me from thinking about the huge flame war/phone call fight I'm in the middle of with family (Merry 'effing Christmas, eh?!), I'm over at Tim Holtz's blog, enraptured by his 12 Tags of Christmas tutorials. Oh, and I've posted some holiday music, which you can turn off if it makes you crazy.

Speaking of going crazy, I had to go to special notice at the All Things Tim Yahoo group, as there are about 900 members and over 200 emails a day coming off of it. But it's a fun place for swaps and ideas and talkin' Tim.

Here's a bit of Christmas knitty goodness for ya...I'm halfway through Mom's Noro armwarmers...luckily I think my brother and I have kept her out of our happy holiday battle (it's been a long time coming, is all I can say about that).



I'd better go cast on arm warmer #2...peace out.

Squeezing in

I'm not sure how we doubled our living space, yet still can't fit my whole clan in our dining room. Minus two of my siblings and a new SIL, even. Oh wait,

One seven-foot Christmas tree

One six-foot-five nephew

One high chair shoved in a corner

One obscenely giant pile of presents

...and a partridge in a pear tree.

At least I got to crop for 13 hours yesterday...roughly 11a to 11:30p. I finished the cover art for Ben's Favorite Photos album, the first circle journal for Creative Escape (two 8"x8" pages on My Town), two two-page layouts for Ben's First Year album, and our Thanksgiving layout (another 2-pager).

One of my gifts for Christmas was a gift certificate for Shutterfly, with which I promptly bought one of their Most Excellent pre-paid plans (500 4"x6" photos for 12 cents each, expires in 2 years but I've already ordered 50 photos and I'm not nearly done with my 2007 photos/pages yet).

Good thing I signed up for Lain's FREE class at Big Picture Scrapbooking. That will help me finish up 2007.

For Kids Young and Old

I love it. The NORADsanta.org site jams up around midnight, after all of us adults get home from candlelight service and the kids are finally asleep. Or maybe not.



Man! That big guy is really on the move ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Make a slide show, scrapbook, or ecard

There's FIVE pages to this; it freezes up my computer every time. If you're patient, you should (eventually) get a play arrow to move around the "layouts."

At least the music is pretty.