Total Randomness

I told my mom that I wanted pictures on my walls for Christmas, so she gave me money to order them. I've designed so many wall displays in ps, but I've never actually fallowed up with getting one on my wall. Not any longer. I just ordered all my prints tonight for this:

(just a quick play in ps, I want something like this, but it may not look exactly this way once it's on the wall)...
I need to go through my frames because I know I have a ton of basic black frames in the sizes I need, and then I'll have to go buy what I don't have, but it shouldn't be much. I cannot wait to get this on my wall! I really like that the pictures will be easy to swap out, or I can add more frames to the display if I want to.
For those who have been to our house, this will go on the wall across from the couch above the little bookshelf. I still want to do something over the couch... I'm thinking 3 big vertical prints, but I'm not sure what I want yet. I will probably wait until I can get to IKEA so I can get big frames there...

Next up, I loved the way my new blog header turned out so much that I copied it for a LO. I even made it count for a challenge over at SM! I think it's my first challenge all month... it's been a busy month! Although I do like the pink and green of the header best, I'm really happy with the way this LO came out!

credits here

To conclude my randomness for the night, did any other Giants fans out there see that we signed the Big Unit? My mouth about fell to the floor when I saw that! I'm not sure what to think... pitching seems to be the one thing they were doing pretty well on last season, but it can't hurt I guess...??

(and yes, real Giants fans say "we") :)

Wii had a great Christmas!

Like the twist on words? lol My MIL got us a Wii for Christmas, and we are LOVING it!! She wanted to get us one family gift, and I had to talk Matthew into letting her get the Wii, we're all glad I did!

Anyway... we'll get to that in a bit... TONS of pictures today! Nothing with a big wow factor, just my p&s, that's my way of simplifying the holidays. lol

Stockings...

The aftermath of those...

M got a tea set in her stocking (big hit!!), and she was having tea parties with whoever she could drag into her room (including the snowman lol)

This was so cute, M got to pick out presents at school for us, I love her big grin as she was watching R open his!! How sweet is that?

Opening her Bitty Baby Twins, she yelled "Thank you Mommy and Daddy!!" It was so cute!

R opening his pirate ship. When I asked him what it was he said "something I wanted!" lol

M and her twins, Thomas and Alexis (Lexie). I had to log on to a baby name website so she could pick names, she has so many babies she was having a hard time coming up with something that she hadn't already used.

I love to take pictures from above on Christmas morning, it really shows the craziness... this was after the first round of presents.

Opening presents from my dad and Barb. These are cloth napkins she made them.

Another one of M with her babies in the new stroller

When we first opened the Wii this was the kids favorite part (it might still be R's, poor guy can't quite get the hang of it yet)


Playing the Wii. We started with bowling

M was a natural. She beat us all the first game we played. lol

Mr. Goofball himself with my Dad

More Wii bowling...

High fives with Uncle Travis


So that was Christmas. It was such a nice day! We didn't go anywhere all day long! First we did stockings (at 6:30, oy...), then Nana, Zack, Cara, and Troy came over for a yummy breakfast (Strata and Coffee Cake) and presents. Then my dad and Barb came over for more presents and some Wii bowling, then we had about an hour to hang out (and we created Mii characters for all of us lol) and then my family on my mom's side came over for more presets and Wii fun. We had a nice small dinner, got the kids in bed at their normal bed time, and then Matthew and I played Wii by ourselves for a while before bed. It was such a relaxing and fun day!

...and as you can see, I'm already un-decorating. lol I know a lot of people leave their decorations up through the end of the year, but I'm just always so ready to be done with them by now. I want the space back that the tree is taking up, and I want to vacuum my whole house, and this year I want to decorate my walls (didn't quite get that done before Christmas took over). I got everything in the house down today except the tree and the lights on it. I would do the lights, but my crazy OCD husband likes to put them back in the little tiny box they came in, so I'm leaving them for him. lol
I'm ready to have a nice low key week before we head to SIL's for New Years... little cleaning, organizing, decorating, hopefully some scrapping, and lots of relaxing!

Christmas Eve Pictures

Just waiting for the kids to get to sleep, so I thought I'd post some pictures from today...

I decided to take pictures of the kids watching the NORAD Santa tracker so I can scrap it (I'm a true scrapper again!).

(Don't ask, I don't know why she's wearing a hat and mittens in the house, I swear I keep it warm in here!!)



I also took a screenshot of the map right before the kids went to bed, I thought that would be fun to add to the scrapbook page.

Nana taught M how to text tonight... oy... lol
I love the fish face! Both of my kids make the cutest faces when they're concentrating really hard on something.

Christmas Eve Cuties! (I'm starting a yearly pictures in front of the tree in their new jammies, I did it last year too, so I can call it a tradition now, right?)

Speaking of traditions, I think we have too many for Christmas Eve... We were tucking R in bed before I realized that I hadn't read The Night Before Christmas. I had to get him back up and go read it before we could put them to bed. lol
It is getting a little crazy though, especially when we're not home for the evening. Get home, check to see where Santa is, open new PJs, get PJs on, take picture in front of tree, pick cookies for Santa and get them all set out with the glass of milk and all 4 letters to Santa (R lost his first one, then M found it after we'd written a second one, M did one at home and one at school), brush teeth, check Santa again, bed... oops, read TNBC, bed.
M was so excited she had us open her presents that she got for us at school. She got me some lip gloss and Matthew a red, white, and blue beenie. She was so cute watching us open them!

Well, they've been quite for a while, I think it's safe for Santa to come now!

Hope everyone has a great Christmas!!

Tracking Santa

NORAD TRACKS SANTA

The kids and I did this last year and it was really fun! It's also a great way to show them other countries and (attempt to) explain time zones and all that good stuff. lol We'll be keeping an eye on him as he gets closer to us!!

Coming Along... (and some random pics)

The other day I decided to cut up M's 2008 calendar and decorate her wall. I had originally bought this calendar on clearance back in January or February with the thought that I would fame all of the cute little pictures for her room, but then when I saw how expencive 12 8x8 frames would be I decided to just let her use it as a calendar. Now that it's almost 09 I figured it couldn't hurt to tack them up. I like how they turned out! What do you think?

Yesterday, after making sure Matthew took the rest of the cookies my mom and I baked last week to work with him, the kids and I made two more batches of cookies. I always buy the bag of sugar cookie mix for our Santa cookies (yes, I can make them from scratch, but I'm lazy and these taste just as good if not better), but I saw they had a special gingerbread limited addition mix and I had to try that too (I have yet to actually try a gingerbread one though LOL). I realized I didn't have any Christmas sprinkles, so we used some that I bought on clearance at Target after Easter and some pink and blue ones I had left from when I was pregnant with R (all you Thursday night people know what that's about :))
Anyway, here are a few of our finished cookies...


R went totally crazy with the sprinkles, M yelled at him more than once about using all of them... lol

And one of M finishing up, she LOVES this kind of stuff! (please ignore the super cluttered counters, baking and unpacking don't mix well!)

Yesterday and today I did major grocery shopping (for us anyway). My fridge and counter are so full of food right now that I had to take these pictures. The empty space in the fridge was waiting for the second cheesecake I was baking today, and I need to fit a strata and bowl of cranberry sauce in there tomorrow before the cheesecakes come out. Yikes!!
This might not look that bad, but I'm sure it's the fullest my fridge has ever been. There's stuff piled, stacked, and shoved on every shelf. lol

And some of the yummy stuff I got at Costco today... Don't mind the 'Happy Birthday' plate on the counter, I was unpacking a couple boxes of dishes yesterday and still hadn't found a spot for that.


So, how's that for a random post? :)

Merry Christmas

Now that our cards have gone out to just about everyone I'll post it here.


I've been getting a lot of comments about R's pout and if I told him to do it. Nope, that was all on his own, and just because I asked him to hold sissy's hand. That's so the stage we're in right now, I had to go with it.


My week is looking pretty crazy. Here's what I have to do the next 3 days...

Today:
Plan meals (including everything I need for Christmas) for next week and a half and make lists for Safeway and Costco
Go to Safeway with both kids in tow
Deal with boxes that are still in the house
Clean the house
Wrap presents (could be done another day)
And now bake and decorate cookies with the kids (I woke up this morning and realized that baking cookies is what the activity of the day is on the kids' calendar, and it can't be switched with anything else, and it MUST get done, I ...er, I mean Santa... loves those cookies!)

Tuesday:
Doctor's appointment 10am
Go to Costco (without kids!)
Pick up one last minute gift
Make two cheesecakes for CE Dinner
Finish cleaning house

Wendesday:
SIL & MIL here
Make Strata for Christmas morning
Make cranberry sauce
CE dinner @ Matthew's uncles (What time?!?)

Guess I better get going!

Late Night Online Shopping

After I had finished my LO the other night I was online getting it uploaded for Britt when I noticed I got an email from Gymboree. I have been buying stuff from the sight like crazy lately because they're having such great deals right now, and last time I checked they were pretty out of stock on things, but I thought I'd check one more time before I went to bed. M really needs more long sleeved PJs, and there are only a few brands that make the kind I like in her size now. So, I went to their site to see if they had any more pajamas that weren't completle sold out, and thry had 3 new lines up, and all were included in the sales they had going on already!

I have to say that I have always LOVED Gymoree, but now that M is in the "big girl" section at most stores I'm finding that I'm buying her a lot more gymbo stuff than I use to. I love that it still looks like clothes a GILR would wear, not a teenager.

Anyway... I ended up buying her Easter dress. Yes, I know it's not even Christmas yet, but I found this one that I love, and it was on sale, so I thought why not? Here it is:

and I got this sweter to go with it:
Isn't that cute?!? I figure it will be easy to find something to cordinate for R, and it's something she can wear more than just once.

I also got a few things for both of their too big boxes (they both seem really empty all of a sudden).

AND, they were still doing gymbucks, so come January I get to go shopping again! Can't beat that!

Scrapbook Friday

I didn't think I was going to manage to get anything done this week (scrapbook wise), but I actually ended up doing a 2 pager last! ...and then staying up until 11:30 shopping at Gymboree online, oops! lol (but that's another post...)

Britt has a new template pack out today, Inspired by Kate (another awesome CT member!) that I absolutely LOVE!! Seriously, these are totally my style, and I can't wait to play with each and every one of them over and over again!

So, here's what I ended up doing... I used the same template for both pages, I just changed a few things on the second page...

(These are from when it snowed in Redding last year, not the snow we just got earlier in the week)

page1

full credits

page2

full credits

I have lots more to post about, but no time right now. I'll be back later, hope you're all having a nice holiday season so far!

SNOW!!

It's been snowing here on and off all morning. Not just sleet like over the weekend, actual big fluffy snowflakes! Of course, they're not really sticking, but hey, this is exciting stuff for us!
I ran to the grocery store in between snow flurries and it started up again pretty heavy while we were in there. It was so funny how everyone in the store was all excited and talking about it. Then I drove home in it and when I turned onto our street a couple of the builders were standing out watching it.
R still doesn't like it. I got him out of the car and told him he could play in it, but he wanted to go right inside.
I feel for M's teachers. Her teacher told my mom last week that the two weeks before Christmas break are the hardest of the whole year, add the snow to that and I can't imagine they'll be getting anything productive done today!
I tried to take some pictures of the snow coming down. It doesn't look like much, it was a lot thicker than this, but this is the best I could get. And here's the front of our house too for those of you who were asking. :)

Christmasy Stuff (& pictures)

Just a bunch of random Christmasy stuff from the last few days...

Silly little stocking head. Yes, that is his stocking. No, I did not mean to make it that big. lol I wanted to fix them to be smaller this year, but my mom is in the middle of moving and building a house and can't find her sewing machine, so the kids get lucky again this year with super big stockings.
(sorry it took me so long to get this online Grandpa! ...I took this picture while I was on the phone with him on Tuesday)


The kids playing in the van before the Trucker's Parade last night (they were just playing, M doesn't ride without a carset or booster seat)


The parade was fun! I just took my p&s because I didn't want to deal with the big camera in the rain, so I didn't really get any good pictures of the trucks. M's favorite was a Hawaiian teamed truck (I thought it was appropriate since my MIL had just left for Hawaii that morning!).
They changed the direction of the parade this year (I've been going to this parade since I was a kid and it's always gone the same way until this year), and because of all the one-way streets in town it was on a different street. We had a great parking spot to watch had it been going the same direction as it ALWAYS did, but we ended having to run up a block just before it started. Luckily the rain and sleet held off and we didn't get wet!

Today we decorated the gingerbread house...
I'm so glad the kids help me, because I know it wouldn't look much better if I did it myself (that frosting is HARD to work with!!), so at least I can say the kids did it, right? lol


This one makes me laugh. The kit came with two gingerbread men, but only one spot on the tray, so I let the kids share the extra one. M had just put a peice of candy (that she didn't like) from it in her mouth, and R had just taken a bite of the (very hard) cookie, I just love how they both look like they think it's discusting. They really did like it, I just think the picture is funny.

When it was done I played a little bit. I love the detail shots at weddings, this is about as close as I'm going to get for a while... lol

Busy "Lazy Day"

I was hoping to have a lazy day today, ha!

Yesterday I had a photo shoot, and I got most of it proofed last night, but I needed to finish it up and get it online, so I did that, then I sent in an order for a shoot I did last week. I also baked a candied apple pie cheesecake, put together a gingerbread house so the kids can decorate it tomorrow, and I just put enchilada casserole in the oven (which takes forever to make!). We're going to the trucker's parade tonight, and I want to get a good parking spot so we don't have to stand in the 37 degree temps with rain and sleet to watch, so we need to leave here by 5:30 or so, so timing dinner to be ready early enough made my day even busier.

I guess I'll relax after Christmas.

Scrapbook Friday

Just one for today... Britt has an AWESOME new kit out, called Hustle & Bustle, and it's so much fun!! I cannot wait to play with it more, I love the color combo and all the fun things she's packed in there. Anyway... it's been a crazy busy week for me, but I did get one page done with it. I love how Christmasy it is!


She also has a bonus alpha with it right now (which is the one I used on this page), how awesome is that!?!


I'm off to pick up M from school in a few and then I have a photo shoot with a good friend. Pray it doesn't rain on us!!

Getting the Tree & Christmas Stuff...

Here are some snaps from getting the tree. I'm sad to say that I'm not at all impressed with the p&s camera we got for our anniversary. But, oh well, these are fine for scrapbooking. :)

Being cute

This made me laugh. R doesn't like loud noises at all, so when it came time for Matthew to cut the tree down (with a hand saw) this is what R did. lol

Our family picture

The kids carrying the tree to the car (don't you love how much R is helping?). Matthew grabbed it right after I took this.


So, I have to post a little about Christmas. I just totally changed what we're doing for M and went from "small Christmas" to "huge Christmas" with the click of the mouse. She decided the day after I ordered her present (horse & carriage from Disney -which btw, was less when I bought it- and Prince Charming doll) that she HAD to have the blond bitty twins from American Girl. At first I was trying to drop hints to her that she might not get them, maybe for her birthday, ect... Well, she was not getting it at all, and she is convinced that's what she's getting. I had pretty much gotten her everything else on her list except that (between us and Santa), but I was just feeling like she wasn't going to get what she wanted most. So, today I talked to a few people and ended up ordering the whole set. My grandparents are sending money that will go towards it (thanks Grandma & Grandpa!!), and my mom said they might chip in, but Matthew figured if we were going to get it for her birthday we might as well just do it now (I'm stashing the other things on her list for her birthday, she's not getting everything at Christmas). I know she's going to be so excited to get it, and at her age I really want Christmas to be special for her.
Now just to make sure R has enough under the tree to look right... I'm thinking a couple $3 puzzles or something would work for him... lol