I did it! 7 layouts in 2 days!!

Whew, I think I'm going to need a scraping break! Today is the last day of the Queen of Scrap contest on Scrapmatters. While I didn't get close to winning (some ladies did over 100 LOs this month!!), there was a participation prize announced yesterday for everyone who did at least 35 LOs. I was at 28 thinking I would like to get to 30 when I read that, but I really liked the prize, so I decided to go for it. Here's the fruit of my labor...

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Last Day of PreK

Today was M's last day of preK, I cannot believe she's done with preschool now. Here's her first day/last day pictures...

We were at her school all morning today doing a school wide "track meet". The older grades set up fun little events for the younger grades and preschoolers to compete in. M placed 2nd in two events and got ribbons for both. It was fun, and I got a lot of cute pictures of her with her friends (and the boy she says she's going to marry!).
I think we're going to make a scrapbook together this summer of all her school stuff. The books I've been working on are just family books, so I think it would be a fun summer project to do one of just her school stuff together... friends, parties, field trips, ect... I might try doing a hybrid chipboard album, but I'm not sure yet...

Here is a LO I did today for an 8 simple rules challenge over at ScrapMatters. I'm really loving the way it turned out!

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I'm off to watch the Lost marathon in a bit. We missed last week, so I'm going to catch that at 8 and then watch the new one after it. I still can't make up my mind on how I feel about that show. It drives me crazy, but I keep coming back for ANSWERS!! lol

I forgot one (and a small house update)

I meant to upload this one last night, but I missed it. Check out R's hair! It did that on it's own while we was swimming and then it stayed that way all night. lol

I talked to the relater today. There's been another relater who just drops by without an appointment and comes on in even if we're not home. His card appeared on our kitchen counter last week with all the other cards, and neither Matthew or I could figure out when he had a showing. Turns out he didn't. He came by again yesterday morning while I was home with the same client. I let them look around, but I really wasn't comfortable with it (and my house was a mess!). So, I told our relater about it and he called the other relater. Turns out his client is "interested" in our house. We'll see if anything comes of it since we've had interest in it before, but it's a good sign!
We also had another showing today, I made cookies (just the break and bake kind) so the house would smell good and now I'm trying to to eat all of them. I better hold off, I did promise the kids they could have one after dinner.

Pictures!

Here are some pictures from while we were down at Nana's...
Before you yell at me for R not having a helmet on let me explain that we got the bike while we were down there, and all he really did was sit on it a few times. He does have a helmet, and he will be wearing it whenever he rides. :)

Checking it out for the first time...

And pretending it was a motorcycle. lol

Here are some from playing out in the yard. Just some fun snaps. :)

And a few LOs I did today. I hadn't scrapped in a week I don't think, so I had to dive right in. That 4th of July LO was for a speed scrap at Scrapmatter's tonight. I'm not 100% happy with it, but I ran out of time. It feels a little too cluttered to me. Oh well...
This one was for the Tuesday Template Challenge over there. Fun stuff.

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Now I'm about to fall over, so I'm off to bed!

Does It Rain Everywhere On Memorial Day?

Seriously, is it just a California thing, or is Memorial Day always rainy for everyone?

I hear it rained a lot here over the weekend, we weren't here, but it was still not great weather at MIL's. Not that it mattered, we spent almost the whole weekend laying around inside watching tv and movies and playing games. It was great! The most exciting thing we did the whole weekend was a trip to Toy's R Us for the kids to spend some gift cards they had. Boy, was that overwhelming!
Nana and Zack got R a his first bike there too. It's very cute! I can't believe my baby boy is old enough for a bike though. I took some pictures of him on it and of both of them playing, I will post them later.

Just trying to play catch up today. I need to get to Target and the grocery store, but Matthew's van is dead so he's using the car to charge it right now (darn! lol).

This is M's last week of school... where the heck did time go? My babies are growing up way too fast!

What a difference a year makes

First of all, yesterday was the one year mark of when we moved over here. I'm not sure how much different things really are there. We've grown a ton, but as far as where we actually are, things don't feel much different. lol

But, I have to say I'm SO PROUD of M!! The kids started swim lessons this week. Some of you may remember how M was last year. She screamed. The whole time. For two weeks. She did not want to go in the water for anything! We got her goggles after the first session, and that helped a lot, but she was super dependent on those goggles and still pretty timid about the water.
Well, not anymore, she's doing awesome this year! I had them put her in a lower class because I wasn't sure how she'd do, and she definitely will need to move up for the next session. It's just R and one other little girl in their class, which is really nice. The other little girl doesn't listen well and is a little bit like M was last year, and it just makes me smile to see how far she's come.
So... here are some pics!

It was cold today... well, not COLD, but when you're wet and sitting on the side of the pool in the WIND it's cold. They were shivering here, but still oh so cute!!


Just look at her, I cannot get over how far she's come!


That's my baby girl UNDER the water!

And doing a glide...


R is doing really well too, but I didn't get many good pics of him during the lesson. At the end they turn on the play structure that sprays water and let the kids play, he LOVES the slide! Last year he wouldn't go on it when the water was spraying, but now it's no problem. :)

And one of him hanging on the wall. :)

Little Odds and Ends...

We having a showing tomorrow morning at 10. Our relater called 10 minutes after I got off the phone with my mom. I had just been telling her how we hadn't had a showing in over a week and that my house was a wreck because of it. We've been busy and when we're home we've been outside (or I've been scrapbooking during nap!), and if nobody's going to be seeing it I just can't make myself keep it "show ready". I wiped down the bathrooms tonight, and we'll give it a quick go over before we leave for church in the morning, but I'm so over it being perfect.

I'm not sure what the actual high was here today, but it got up to 110 on our back patio. I bought a new pool at Target, it's huge! It's 72"x120" I think... It took FOREVER to fill it not even half way up, but the kids had a blast running and jumping and "diving" in it all afternoon. Matthew and I even got in.

No pictures today. The kids get annoyed when I pull the camera out and I didn't feel like dealing with it. lol
Here's a layout I did during nap today though. I'm having so much fun scrapping all our Disney pictures.

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Splish Splash

It's HOT! lol
The kids have been spending a lot of time in their pool(s) outside. I did just have the little baby pool set up (the one in the first two pictures), but yesterday I thought I might blow up their bigger pool with the cool rain canopy. Yeah... it didn't work at all. The canopy just kept falling over. So, Matthew cut the pool up and threw it away. So today I go get out our other bigger regular pool (the one in the last 3 pictures). I get it all set up and it worked okay before lunch. Then we went back out after naps and it was a mess. I tried to refill two of the rings with air (while it was full of water hahaha), and then when I tried to pull the plug on the bottom to let some of the hot water out the plug ripped off taking some of the bottom with it. Nice... So the kids played in it for a bit today while it had a slow leak, and now it's drained and going to be put in the garbage too. I think the kids and I will be hitting Target tomorrow in search of a bigger pool that might work.
Anyway, here are my favorite pictures from the last two pool outings...


M is such a goof. Last year at swim lessons she would scream and cry every time she had to put her head under water. We finally got her some goggles and it completely solved the problem. But now she wants to wear them anytime she does anything having to do with water (like last summer she had to wear them while running through the sprinklers). She looks like a goof, but at least she's happy.



And here are a few layouts I've done in the last two days. I'm really happy with this teacup one, not so sure about the Ariel one...

Fun Field Trip

M had a field trip yesterday to this big blow up party equipment place, so R and I tagged along and we had so much fun! Great exercise too, I'm sore today!! Here are a few (really bad) pictures...





I've been wanting a new p&s camera for a while just because they've gotten so much better in the last 3 years sense I got that one, but after looking at these pictures I REALLY want a new one NOW!! I wonder if I can talk Matthew into letting me use the Christmas money I just found in an envelope for one... Probably not, but maybe I'll ask anyway. lol I don't even know what I want, I need to do some research. I love my SLR (although I want to upgrade that too, but that will come out of photographer money when I start working again), but I don't want to have to drag the big camera around with me on field trips and things like that. I want a nice little camera that I can toss in my purse and go. Anyone have a great one that they love?

New Plan

Seriously... if there's one thing I should know by now it's that I don't know anything. Every time I think I'm up to speed on what Matthew's thinking we should do with this move he changes his mind. I'm so use to it I usually tell people that I have no clue what's actually going on, and surprisingly that doesn't really bug me.
So, he came home today and said maybe we should give it until the end of June to try to sell the house instead of the end of May. That's fine by me. I'm not sick of this 100+ degree weather yet, and I can come up with a whole long list of things I want to do with the kids before we move. Swim lessons, the Pirate and Princess party at the public pool, the "water park", the real water park, lots of time in the kiddie pool in our backyard, and I think I even want to brave tent camping with the kids... somewhere close to start with though.
Of course, if the house actually does sell before the end of June I'm going to have to change my plans again, so I guess I still don't really know what's going on.

Layouts and Pictures

Just wanted to post some fun stuff before I go to bed. I just finished the blue half of this LO for a speed crop tonight. I had to leave half way though the crop, but I came back and finished late just for the fun of it. I love how these pages go together!

I did this one during nap time today for a template challenge over at Scrapmatters. I have tried to scrap these pictures so many times and I kept getting stuck. I'm glad to say that I'm finally happy with the way it came out. This will be the first page in our Disney book, so I wanted it to set the right mood. lol

And here's a couple of pictures of R at the water park today. I took a ton of pictures, but the sun was really harsh and there was no shad over the water part, so they didn't turn out very well. He was so silly, he kept putting his face right in the spray and then screaming when the water would hit him. He loved it though! I'm going to try to go back a couple more times this week. I want to go as often as we can before the schools get out, I know it will get crazy there after that!

New Plan

Here's our latest plan...

We'll keep the house on the market until June, if we don't get a full asking price by then we're going to try to rent it. Hopefully we'll be able to get enough for it that we can rent something over there.
That scares me for so many reasons, but I'm trying my best just to have faith and not think about it too much. lol


It's supposed to get hot this week... up past 100 by Thursday. I'm going to take R to the "water park" (kid's water playground) in just a bit, he's so excited! I think we'll go again on Friday morning so M can go too. I'm trying to squeeze in all the fun warm weather activities I can now that I know we won't be here much longer. I know we'll miss the warm weather when we're back in the fog!

Exercise is Great!

I walked every day this week (except for today, we played tennis instead). Yesterday I wasn't going to walk because M doesn't have school on Fridays, but my back was hurting and I felt like I really needed to get some exercise, so I loaded up M's bike into the car (great exercise in itself!) and we headed to a different trail that does allow bikes. That girl is fast now! She kept telling me to run so she could go faster. lol I think we'll make that our Friday tradition.
I'm feeling great though! I really need to make exercise a priority even when our schedules change.

We'll... that's about it for now. Happy Mother's Day to all my mommy friends out there! Hope you all have a great day tomorrow!

Stimulating the Economy

We got our government money today, so being the good American that I am I decided I better stimulate the (scrapbooking) economy a little today. I was really needing some good boy kits as it seems like all I have are flowers and ribbons, so I went searching. Here's what I ended up getting... Construction Zone

Beep Chugga Zoom

Sports Mania: Baseball

And I did end up getting one kind of girly one, but I have really been wanting a good sun element, so that was my excuse. lol Rooty Tooty

I also got the Hey Girlfriend kit for free with my purchase. :)

I put the Beep Chugga Zoom kit right to work and made this layout that I think is one of my new favorites.

I finished 07, although there are a few pages that I want to redo, I'm still saying I'm done and moving onto Disney pictures. :)

As far as the rest of our government money is concerned, I think most will go do dentist bills, concert tickets we already bought (the Trace concert from earlier in the week and Alan Jackson in July), and hopefully we'll have enough left for a couple of Giants games. We're going to try to take the kids right after 4th of July and then Matthew and I will go again in August or September for our 8th anniversary. It's our tradition to go to a game every year for our anniversary... on the first year we did it (in '02) we were at the game that Bonds hit #600, and last year Matthew caught a foul ball. Good times...

My Ears Are Ringing

We just got home from the Trace Adkins concert and boy, was it LOUD! It was fun though, there's nothing better than hearing good music live.

I don't have much else to post about tonight, so here's a bunch of random pictures I have been meaning to pull off my camera for a while now...

The baby geese that we've been seeing on our walk for a few weeks. How cute are they?!?

I think this might be one of my new favorites. First popsicles of the season! (they did that on their own, how sweet is that?!?)

R enjoying his new birthday presents!! He says he's all ready to go hiking now. lol


R came in after his nap today and said "I have lots of stuff." This is pretty much all the stuff on his bed except for his pillow and quilt. lol Of course, I had to take a picture before I would pick him (and all his stuff) up.


And M's newest trick...