here's my take

I took challenge Kerry's ad challange and came up with this:

from this:

Not as cute as Lisa's which is truly amazing and what inspired me to do this challenge.

Nor is it as cute as Beth's which is just too dang fun!

But it's mine. Pulled from the tag line and patterns. Picture is a little funky and off, I should have spent more time making sure it was right, but I'm lazy :)

Thanks Kerry!! Now where's YOUR page??????

"the manifestation of our mind"

I'm addicted to reality TV. Love the crap. Just love it. Peter is totally confused by this. He'll sit behind me on the computer while one of my mindless shows (like "The Real World") is one and just shake his head at me. About every month of so he'll say to me, "You know Michelle, I just don't understand. You are a very intelligent person who's amazing beauty and keen sense of humor far exceeds everyone around you. (well maybe I hear that part) LOL I just don't get how you can watch this crap?"

He's right, it's dribble. But I like it. What I don't get is why HE can watch Mothra vs Godzilla (yes it's literally a huge moth - yeah you got it - THE BUG) and think that's "okay" but I watch real people making asses of themselves and I'm somehow 'touched' hahaa

So anyway, I wasn't going to talk about all that. I was going to talk about one of my favorite shows right now, Run's House It's the dude from RunDMC 'back in the day'. He's like a record guy and a preacher or something, I dunno, they really don't talk about what he does. aaaaaaaaaanyway, during one of the shows he's all hell bent on cleaning out the pool house. I can see why too because it's all packed to the rafters with crap. Mattresses. Boxes of Oprah Magazines. Pogo Sticks. The pool toys. You get it.

He's getting on his wife about it and as he swings his arm around pointing to the open door of the pool house he says, "this is the manifestation of our mind"

BOOM

It's like lightning hit me. That's what my mind looks like. Piled high with crap I don't need. Stuff I don't think I can get rid of. All that is burying the stuff I do need. I have to wade through all those boxes and mattresses to get to the good stuff. Imagine that for a minute. Needing to get past all that crap to get to the stuff that you need.

Well no more. I'm done with it. BUH-BY old crap I don't need. BUH-BY piles I have to walk over, or around, or through. I'm over you. Both literally and figuratively. I'm done with you. I need to
FREE MY MIIIND AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW! (okay yes, I did just go into EnVogue lol mybad.

Here's the deal I made with myself. No more "I'll do it later"s. No more putting crap off so long that I can't remember who and what I've put off. I'm taking the next few months (and yes I do think this will take MONTHS) to rid my mind of the clutter. To set up systems and boundaries for myself so I cannot fail with the everyday things I need to do. To either give away or throw away the crap that I haven't used. Even if I think I might use it someday.

To handle things.
To get things handled.
To make things work.

I can no longer handle putting things off. Forgetting things. Playing catch up with things. I just can't do it anymore.

and it will be good. :)

hit and miss

Well I've been hit and miss lately. So much going on, and nothing going on. I'll never understand how I can be so dang busy yet have done nothing. go figure. Life with 3 kids, a job, a husband and an obsession with scrapbooking I guess.

I'm supposed to take pictures of the house for Noah, cuz he forgot what his house looks like. He's been asking me to do it for days. But as with everything in my world I have 3 million things to do before I get that done. Consisting mainly of cleaning the house. LOL You know I couldn't possible post pictures of my messy house on the internet. Although Noah might not recognize it if I cleaned it. Thank goodness he's pretty understanding when I tell him I haven't been able to do it yet. He's a good kid.

anyway, I'll try to start doing better again. I was posting every weeknight. Got lots rambling around in my head I'm trying to straighted out and get put in place so bloggin has been put on the back burner for a bit. But don't leave me, I'll get back to it! :)

all soaked in california

Noah and Grandpa sent me some pictures today. He's having a good time. Still getting sad at night but by these pictures you'd never know it.

Here's Noah doing a handstand.

If this isn't an all boy move I don't know what is.

I'm still kinda of kicking myself for fighting going digital for so long. This is so dang awesome. Dad and Noah can go swimming on Sunday, take a couple pictures, email them to me, and in minutes I can have them uploaded here for all to see.

Remember when the fax was cool? LOL

GREAT JOB NOAH! thanks for the pictures! I miss you. I love you. I'll see you in 5 days!

day one

It's a ground breaking day in our house tonight. It's day one of having sarah and kate sleeping in the same room. Sarah has been in the guest bed for about a week now. Seeing as she could easily climb out of her crib it made no sense to try to keep her in it. And she's ready for a real bed. It's me who's not ready.

I can't say I'm happy about her being out of the crib. Not because I'm sad she's growing up. Not at all that. It's because there's no more sleeping in for me. Turns out this girl wakes up as early as Noah does (grrreat). I didn't really know that because she would hang out and just play in her crib. She'd play, fall back asleep, play some more, sing and so on. She'd RARELY cry to be pulled out of bed. aah....those were the days.

Seeing as I'm going to lose my mornings in bed I might as well regain my scrapbook room. So Kate's getting moved into Sarah's crib (yes...you were right Beth. I don't need your crib) That's going to free up the scrapbook room. Not that I'm going to scrap in there but at least I'll be able to go in there and work/clean/organize/stash stuff without waking her up.

So far it's not going so well. It's 9:05. Both are still awake. I put them each in their own room to fall asleep at 7:30. The plan was to move Kate when both were asleep. Yeah, didn't work. Kate woke right up and screamed her head off, which naturally, woke up Sarah. Now they are both wide awake and excited to see eachother.

I finally got Sarah to stop turning on the light and locking the door. Now they are just in there babbling at eachother and playing with blocks. All in all I suppose it could be worse. I mean it's really not going to hurt them or me if they are awake in there. My concern is really when my day will begin. It should be interesting.

Wish me luck :)


***** update ****
9:55 - After finding Sarah IN the crib with Kate, nakid, they are both quiet. Awake, but quiet. And at least on their own beds and dressed. Sarah took her pull off because she was wet (ugh - but that's another whole saga). Who knew she could get in the crib??? Girlz got skillz.

***** update ****
11:00 - Found Sarah in the crib again. The two had been awake but at least in bed. we'd had enough after sarah being in the crib again so we put Kate back in her room. We'll try again tomorrow. aw well...

Say HI to Noah

Here's my boy! Say HI to him would ya??? He'd love it.
 
I'm going to email my dad and have Noah check out the blog. I know he's get a kick out of some comments directly to him :)

LOVE YOU NOAH!!!! 

he's gone :(

Ya know, I know I joke about my kids. About how loud they are. About how messy they are. About how much utterly exhausting they are. But dang I love them.

It's day 2 that noah's been gone. He's with his grandpa for 2 weeks. (Thanks daddy!) It's so weird not having him here tonight. He's gone every other week at his Dad's so yesterday and today weren't too wierd. But by the time 6:30pm hit (his normal return time) things started feeling funky. And now it's 10:00 pm and this house feels so damn empty.

We emailed eachother this morning, which is fun. He's typing them out himself and only asking for some spelling help. This is his first email. got it first thing this morning. What a nice way to wake up.

"I love you I want to write about my new camera it can’t take very good picture outside but it can take good pictures inside. I love you so much.

Mommy
Love
Noah."

I was feeling good. Then I got this one:

"I love too. I hope you have a grate morning too and I love you so much. That I can’t stop crying because I miss You so much that I can’t stop crying on the computer because I miss you so much I cry every day I hope You miss me too.

Noah
Love
Mommy."

okay, who's crying?!?!? dude seriously, that's....tough.

Then I got an email from my dad. It made me feel better.
"....I think he’s exaggerating a bit about the crying. When we got done reading at bedtime last night I could tell he was feeling homesick; the lip thing. We talked about it and I told him it was okay to feel sad that Mom wasn’t here. He may be feeling like crying but isn’t showing it....."

I still had to call :) He's fine. Mommy? Well, I will be, in 2 weeks! Then I'll yelling at him to stop throwing the ball in the house and to stop jumping on the furniture....just as it should be :)

it's been two weeks already

just after Kate turned 14 months she started walking. She finally figured it out.
I shouldn't say finally like we've been working on it. It's funny how multilple kids work. With your first you start working with your baby on day one. They can't sit up, crawl, walk, run fast enough. With your second you start early, but not too early because you realize they really do figure it out all on their own. With the third it's more like, "no kiddo, don't worry about walking. It's overrated. you don't need to do it." I fear what I would do if I had another. I'd probably strap em down! Good think we're stopped at 3 eh?

 

Seriously though, she's the cutest thing ever. Unfortunately, like every baby, she pretty much sucks at not walking into things. Err...no wait. Rephrase. She's pretty damn good at walking into things. And falling on her head, she's good at that too.

Let's look at her right now, shall we? She's got 2 rather large bumps on her head. They are pretty colors too. One is an bright shade of redish/purple. Smack dab right in the middle of her forhead. That one's from yesterday. The second is off to the side and more of a light, translucent shade of green from mid last week sometime. Can't remember exactly when. Poor baby. This wouldn't happen if she just stuck with crawling! LOL

Such is life. I'd better get to learning photoshop :) Wouldn't want to have those bruises in any enlargements!!! 

where's waldo

Remember that game? Was it actually a game? Or just a crazy fad? I dunno. I've never played but I always thought those pictures were fun to look at. I love that kinda of stuff.

Love it so much, in fact, that I've got a little where's waldo game of my own. Something's changed on my blog. This anyone could possibly find it???

I wasn't going to do a prize or anything. I was going to just let the winner have braggin rights to being the first who found my stilly change. But once I typed that out it sounded lame. So there will be a prize, or sorts. I'll give a page kit to the first to post with the winning guess. I don't do mail so that could be a problem LOL Maybe braggin rights are better :) you decide...

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

never doubt a mother

when it comes to the birthweight of her children.

Has any woman ever forgotten how much their babies weighed?? I mean come on now. When you push a watermelon out of a place that's, well, not the size of a watermelon, one tends to remember the specifics.

My husband doesn't seem to get this concept. He told me (yes told me)how much Kate weighed. I was floored that he questioned me. Now see, for those who don't know, I have big babies. Toddlers even. My smallest was 10 pounds, 14 ounces. That's the "runt". From there they just got bigger. According to my dear hubby they are even bigger than I remember.

Don't get me wrong. I do kinda like the bragging rights earned by pumping out such huge babies. I get a kick out of telling people the numbers, the double digit numbers, and watching their face curl and their legs cross. I love the GASP at the very idea of pushing (and I'm always asked if I had a C-section) out such a large human being. But, I'm not going to make the numbers bigger. They are impressive enough all on their own.

So I'm going back and fourth with him about how much Kate weighed. Still floored that he's actually arguing me about it. Then he BETS me. bets. 50 bucks. Like he's got money to burn. I almost think he's kidding. He cannot be betting me on this one. Oh but he is. Silly man.

 

Well I finally remembered this bet while sitting at my computer so I pulled up the picture. There it is, 11-12, just as I remembered. Just as I knew. Silly, silly man.

He'll never pay me. He'll make some stupid double or nothing bet with me that I'll win, and not get paid on either. Someday I'll be a millionaire with all the IOU's. Maybe I'll have to break his kneecaps :) 

just cuz

they are both sinkin' cute!
Laurel and Katie :)
  
I do need to post about my weekend of scrappin at the Creative Escape preview. It was amazing. It deserves it's own post, which I don't have the energy to do right now. Check back though, I'll fill y'all in soon. (or fill you in as much as I can. They had us sign a confidentialality thingamaginie.)

whoops

um...yeah. Imma dork.

I'll admit it, I've been kinda bummed that no one's made a comment lately. Was feeling sorry for myself, then felt stupid about feeling rejected. I know this isn't the most exciting blog ever. And it's not like a million people come here, but dayum....one post was about KATE'S FIRST BIRTHDAY :( I was like, shoot (okay I said shit) someone could at least say Happy-Freekin Birthday to my cute little peanut!!!

then Beth (thanks girl!) emailed me......yeah......I must have changed something that required authorization to make a comment. DIDN'T KNOW I DID THAT!

I think I've fixed it. I say think because I don't know what I changed to make it like that. Hopefully it works. If not, please, someone please tell me. My ego can't take a commentless blog. ;)

and I'm off

Just a quick post before I head off the Creative Escape preview/test-run thing with heidi swapp and the team from Bazzill.

There are a group of volunteers (that's me!) who are going to do all the projects and learn tons of stuff. We are doing that so when we are there on the day of the escape we'll know what the heck we are doing.

Should be fun :)

p.s. impressed with my linking know-how??? LOL Yeah pretty damn easy, feeling pretty stupid now ;)

2 months ago yesterday

Kate turned one.

I remember Noah's first birthday party. He had two actually. One was by necessity as my dad was very seriously ill in Mayo Clinic Hospital. So we packed up everyone, bought a little cake, had a separate set of gifts and had a little shin dig in his room. It was fun. then we went down to the 'real' one that Noah's dad (or well I should say Noah's dad's mother) planned. :) It was great fun. Did the BBQ thing at the park. Tons of gifts. Tons of food. Tons of cake. It was a good time.

Then he turned two. Had a bigger party. Actually made my own cakes. There were two. They were Bob and Larry from the veggietales. The big one was both, bob and larry. the little one, the one Noah was to eat was just Bob the tomato. It was DARRRRLING. More fun.

Then I had Sarah. More parties.

Now I have Kate. Poor thing is getting ripped off. We, at the last minute, went to Chili's for dinner. It was me, Peter, my brother and his girlfriend, My long time friend Lori, and Peter's Aunt. That's it. We didn't even get her a cake. She had a plate of whipped cream.
 
How pathetic is that. I mean she's cute and all. Still got some cute pictures. And lord knows she really doesn't need cake. I think she's gonna like sweets just fine, knowing her parents. But really. Whipped cream? I've really lost it. 

this is a test

of the emergency linking system
This is only a test
if there were a real link you would have just clicked somewhere that actually took you somwhere.

In the case that I actually figure this out, this test may be followed by random names that will that you to fun and exciting places.

But this is only a test.

teacher gifts, thanks, and other stuff

I'm a little late on this one but this is what I did for the teachers.
 
The teacher and her aide each got a scrapbook - 34 pages each. The letter you see is the first page (and their last initial - duh!) Each child has their own page that consists of a Q&A card that was super cute. Questions like "if you had a million dollars what would you buy Mrs. P and why" And answers like "I would buy her a massage because her back might hurt" HAHAHaaa such cuteness. Each child also did a cute little drawing and there's a photo. Scrapbooking wise it's SUPER simple.

Sorry the picture is so crappy and cut off. I am too lazy to edit them into perfect little frames or to post more than one actual image (which means I have to move pictures to my computer and post like 'normal' and not thru Picasa) Anyway, they are 11 X 8 1/2 (landscape) albums. This was the first one I've done in that format. Have to say I loved it!

I also made each of them, and the room mom, a silver bracelet. You can kinda see it in that bag. And the main teacher got an amazing multi-colored charm/dangle bracelet that I picked up at the scrapbook store. I just couldn't resist it.

In other news, yesterday's events are still freaking us all out but things are moving forward. Mom and daughter are doing well - all things considered - and there's already been blessings that have come out of such a grizzly discovery. They are all still in a safe house while CPS and the police are gather evidence and mount their case. There is no resistance or doubt that this has been happening on the part of the authorties so that's good (good in the sense it helps gather info - not good in the sense that it really did happen) Please do keep them in your prayers, they are being heard and felt.

I might be hit and miss this week. I'm going to try to post daily as I like the break but I have a couple HUMUNGO deadlines at work that will have me working around the clock. No worries if I'm not here. If things get bad - or I catch that death of a cold Beth had I'll let y'all know.

And to end on a happy note, Kate is officially walking. Pictures soon.

OH! and if I haven't told you this lately, I love you each one of you so much. Please know that. 

bad, bad news

After a fun filled weekend of swimming and scrapbooking I just got tragic news. I can't get into too much detail but a family who I love deeply is devestated tonight. A child has been hurt in the most unimaginable way by the most trusted man in her life. My weekend recap posts will have to wait. In the meantime I ask that you pray. Pray hard. Please.

Please pray she will be okay.
Please pray her mother can be strong.
Please pray that this 'man' will go to prison.
Please pray that there are no others.
Please pray for them all.

please....

maybe it's just me

But dammit if I don't think this is the cutest thing ever.

 

Noah and Kaila were playing ball outside Sunday morning (yes we skipped church - sinners!) when Sarah decided she wanted to watch from outside. She didn't want to play. She just wanted to watch. She was still in her jammies and barefoot so I really didn't want her 'officially' outside but she, in her native 2 1/2 year old speak, told me that she wanted to just sit at the door. It sounded like this, "no (okay that's always pretty clear) jus wan sit"

So she opened the door just wide enough to slip out. Then she, very deliberately, put each foot down juuuust past the threshold, slowly lowering her bottom down so that her back against the door. The topper was when she placed her folded hands in her lap. AAHHH!!! the CUTENESS. Look it up in Websters...that is what you'll find. Come on do it! Look it up, I dare ya! LOL

I didn't last not but then ot much does when you are two. It was just long enough to snag the camera and get a shot - and well have digital proof that my windows really need cleaned. :)