Scrapping Anyway

Despite the busy weekend with potty training, I still found some tim (usually w/ Carly in my arms) to work on my 2008 family scrapbook. I skipped over 2007 for now so that I could get caught up on the current stuff while it’s fresh on my mind. I actually got halfway through with the pages I have planned for this book!

This Thursday

This Thursday is going to be some wild crazy fun, I tell ya! I volunteered to host our playgroup’s Easter Egg Hunt Party at my house this Thursday, and so far, from the looks of the RSVPs I’ve gotten on the e-vite, it looks like this may be our biggest turn out for a playgroup yet! Including Jonah and myself, we’re going to have 13 moms and 19 children between 0-3ish years old! Holy moly that’s a lot of people, but I think I can handle it, and I’m really looking forward to it! I’m sure a lot of people think I’m insane for hosting a party of this magnitude at 36 weeks preggo, but this is going to be a blast! I just hope I have enough food and such!

Wanted to post a couple of pictures from the insanity:

Playroom Starting to Fill Up

Getting Ready To Unleash the Egg Hunters

The Mad Dash to Get Eggs

Moms Showing the Younger Ones How

People, Eggs, Bunny Ears, and Cameras Everywhere!

Jonah Wouldnt Wear Them, So I Did

The Pile-o-Diaper Bags

All the Little Booster Chairs Lined Up for Lunch

Jonah and His Friend (And the Car Easter Basket Jonah Stole From Him)

The Start of 2006

I’ve started working on the digital scrapbook for 2006 today. I’m only 3.5 years behind, right? I had intentions of having a family scrapbook for every year. Traditional scrapbooking, with cutting paper and gluing photos is time consuming, not to mention expensive, so I have recently turned to digital scrapbooking. The idea being that maybe I can catch up to where I’m SUPPOSED to be and not have it cost me an arm and a leg!

So I will update with new pages as I finish them, but so far, here are the first two. My title page, new year’s eve party and the first event I have pictures of in 2006… going to “Naughty School Girl Night” at the Lizard Lounge with our friends. Wow… we SO did not fit in there! I felt, though, that the hilarity of us going to something like that needed to be documented anyway. Our kids will get a good laugh out of it one day, I’m sure!

family portrait (front page)

new year

lizard lounge

valentines

girls night

easter

ren faire

england

france

switzerland

germany

stiles wedding

south padre

pregnancy

pea friends

halloween

halloween

christmas

christmas

new car (back page)

birthday party (not printed)

bachelorette party (not printed)

Update – 4/16/09

I finished up the last pages this week and ordered my book to be printed yesterday. I can’t wait to see how it turned out! I ended up having to leave out the bachelorette party page because the file was corrupted for some reason (maybe my computer knew what the content on the page was! haha ) but since it was out, and I needed to take out one more page to make all the other layouts stay in the right order I took out our birthday party page too. Worked out well enough cause that gave me exactly the 20 pages you get with a photobook without having to pay extra to add pages in. I was originally going to do a paper back copy cause it’s $10 cheaper, but I discovered that you can’t have the album title printed on the spine if you do that, and I already have one other hard cover book of the same size from them… so I decided to go ahead and spend the extra $10 to make my book more durable, and easier to find on the shelf.

Here’s a link to the digital preview of my book, or if you have flash, I think this preview thing might work here:

Click here to view this photo book larger

Mini Darth Vader

Posing With the Light Saber

We went to a party last night with a few of our college friends that was to be a “lash hoorah” sort of party before Sarah-jenne and I have our babies in a few weeks. The theme was Star Wars so Jonah and I dressed up (Jason’s a slacker)… Jonah was Darth Vader, a costume I picked up the day before at Party City for $6 because of a fluke with their system… guess they’re not used to selling costumes in the off season cause it said “item not for sale” when they rang it up. It was supposed to be $19.99 according to their website, but the manager gave it to me for $5.99! I got a couple of cute pictures of him, but never got a picture of myself with my Jawa costume on. I have one from when I wore it for going to see Episode 3 in theaters, but didn’t get a shot of the pregnant Jawa. Oh well. I think for Halloween this year, we’ll all 4 dress up as Star Wars characters since Jonah will still probably fit in his Vader costume. I just need to get an infant sized Princess Leah costume for our little girl when it gets closer, and Jason needs to pick a star wars costume too.

Trying to Collapse the Light Saber

The snacks were all Star Wars themed too. We made some Princess Leah Garlic Bread Rolls. There were also Chewy Wookie Cookies, Light Saber Taquitos (you could dip them into queso, salsa, or guacamole to make your “light saber” whatever color you wanted hehe), Bobba Fettacunie, Ham Solo, and a Death Star Cookie Cake. We watched episodes 4 & 5 then started playing Munchkin while episode 6 started up before heading home. Jonah was really well behaved the whole night, but it was way past his bedtime when we left. We got him in bed at about 10pm! Poor little guy, so tired, but he had a great time. So did we!

Haven’t Felt Up to Posting Much

I know I haven’t been updating here, or anywhere really, very much the past couple of weeks or so… but my heart just isn’t in it. It’s breaking for several of my friends right now. I’m sure they could use the prayers, and I could use some myself… to have the right words to say to them… because right now I’m at a loss for words with some of their situations. I think to help myself navigate through the pain I’m feeling for them, it’d help to share the issues (not their names obviously) but maybe some of you have helped others through tough situations like these before and can give me some advice. For now, all I can do is pray diligently for them.

• a husband who was caught sending inappropriate texts to a female co-worker by his wife. thankfully they seem to be working things out.
• a husband who has unrealistic expectations of his (2nd) wife when it comes to bodily appearance and upkeep of the house when she is working full time to provide the family with insurance (so he can run his own dream business), takes care of their young daughter, and takes care of HIS daughter from the previous marriage, when it’s his time for visitation. come to find, he may have been cheating on her with as many as 3 other women. they separated this weekend.
• a husband who is depressed about having failed out of the nursing program he was in, and my friend who is trying to be supportive of him, but depressed that it means she may be stuck in this full time job she hates and never get the opportunity to stay at home with their young son or have more children. we’re hoping he’ll be allowed to re-take the tests in the fall and it won’t put him too far behind schedule to still graduate.
• a husband who’s just found out that the restaurant he was recently hired to manage has gone bankrupt and he is now out of a job.
• a husband who’s had several bacterial and viral infections over the last few months that has had him in the hospital several time, missing a lot of time from work. thankfully his wife hasn’t caught anything he’s had yet.
• a long term fiance (and father of 2 young kids together) who thinks the world revolves around him, isn’t very helpful with the kids, has video game addictions, and has verbally aggressive tendencies when he feels like he was “made a fool of” whether real or imagined. very bipolar sounding from the stories I’ve heard, but my stay-at-home-mom friend stays because she has no money, no where to go, no degree and no real job opportunities to be able to support 2 kids on her own. at least he’s not physically abusive.
• a couple who just lost their baby at around 20 weeks, when they were going for the ultrasound to find out the baby’s gender, they found no heart beat.
• a couple who were trying to adopt a baby from a young, teenage, girl in their family recently found out (after several months of drama over whether the girl would give the baby up or not, who the father might be, and the girl’s refusal to get prenatal care) that the baby never even existed. at least there’s not a baby being denied prenatal care.
• a husband who’s had to move to an apartment 1.5 hours away from his wife and 2 kids to be able to focus on finishing his medical rotations, and swimming in debt at the same time.

There are probably more that I can’t think of right off hand, but needless to say, I have a lot of friends who are suffering right now… and all I can do is pray and send out lots of hugs.

A Baby Sprinkle

I have a good friend, here in our area, that has been dying to throw me a shower for this baby girl. Having just had a baby shower (or 3) just a couple of years ago, there aren’t a WHOLE lot of things that we really need. Being that this is a girl, obviously, we’ll want to infuse a little more pink into things around here, so I agreed to let her play host to a “baby sprinkle” (hehe, a term my pea friend Kelly told me about using for 2nd baby showers!)

My delima is that some people might think it rude for me to put them on a baby shower invite list again, cause some people think you’re only allowed to have one baby shower. So to avoid any weird feelings, and un-due pressure on my friends and family to feel obligated to attend a shower they don’t want to, I’m taking myself out of the loop all together. If you are interested in going to a baby shower in honor of this new little girly addition to our family, please email my friend Crystal at crysrae23@yahoo.com . She will be planning the shower soon and will send out the invites to those who’ve contacted her. I don’t want to know who asked to be invited and who didn’t. It just doesn’t matter to me because I love all of my friends and I’m not the least bit offended if you don’t want to come! I totally understand! I personally think it’ll be fun to show up and not know who might or might not be there.

Questions I generally hear around baby shower time -

Where are you registered?
I registered at Wal-Mart, Target, and Babies R’ Us. I also have a few things from Ikea that I was interested in, but they don’t have a registry option yet. So if you’re interested in seeing that stuff, take a look at our Wishlist.com Registry. That registry includes things from all 3 of the other registries and a few things as general ideas (like what size I expect she’ll be wearing during what season).

The Bedding With Our Proposed Paint Colors

What theme and colors are the nursery?
 We bought the “L is for Ladybug” 4pc crib set from Wal-mart.com and the paint colors are also from Wal-mart… “Azalea” (a dark hot pink), “Pretty Petunia” (a medium pink), and a white are our wall colors. “China Aster” (a pastel pink) and “Aloe” (a light green) are 2 other paint colors that are in the bedding besides the red and black ladybugs.  We are using red as our main accessory accent color in the room because the walls are pink, there is white nursery furniture, and we have a black leather recliner and black velvet black-out drapes in there already. There are a few accessory pieces, like the window valance and extra crib sheets, that go with the set on our Wal-mart registry, but unfortunately I think they’re all “online only” or “in limited stores”.  

What kind of diapers and wipes do you like?
Huggies is our favorite brand for both. I like both kinds of diapers that Huggies makes (“Snug and Dry” and “Natural Fit”)  but the Snug and Dry are usually the ones we get because they tend to be less expensive. I like all the different scents of the Huggies wipes too. We don’t need anymore of the wipes boxes though, the bags of refills will do just fine.

What is the one “big” thing on your registry that you hope to get?
Being that this is our second baby, we have most of the “big” stuff already. I also tend to try and find good deals by buying some stuff used, on craigslist, consignment sales, or whatever. So I guess if I had to say, it’d be a toss up between the Rainforest Healthy Care Booster Seat and/or the Infant to Toddler Rocker, both by Fisher Price. Neither of them are really “big” items, but that’s about as big as it gets this time around I guess. We already those two items for Jonah, but because of their longevity of use, he still uses his and will probably continue to use them for the next year or two. Obviously, they were great items for us the first time around, so we’ll definitely want them for this little girl too.

Thank You Everyone!!!

I just wanted to post a great big “thank you” to all our friends and family who not only gave Jason and I some great gifts, but spoiled our kiddo rotten!   Since having him, I feel like I’m actually happier seeing him get his gifts than worrying about what I get myself. So seeing so much love poured out on him just makes my day. I really do appreciate you ALL!

Jonahs Christmas Haul - 2008

I have always liked the tradition, my mom had, of taking a “Christmas Haul” picture of what all the kids got for Christmas each year, so here’s Jonah’s from this year. Poor Jonah didn’t get anything for Christmas this year, can’t you tell?! hahaha now to find a place to put it all! It was a miracle in intself, just being able to get it all into our van to bring it home!

Annual Halloween Party

Just thought I’d post a few pictures of the costumes worn at the Halloween party last night. Some of the guys really like to try and go for that total-shock-factor. I think that award either goes to King Leonidas (from the movie 300) or Darth Vader in Drag… definitely hard to decide who’d win it though! There were definitely some great costumes this year! I made the costumes for Jason and I, plus the PacMan head, and most of the Queen Gorgo dress, so I was quite busy this past week!

Queen Gorgo & King Leonidas (from the movie 300)

Pirate & Whitey the Parrot

Witch

Adam Jones (aka PacMan Jones)

Speed Bump & Caveman

Flightless Bumble Bee & Lumberjack

Pregnant Padme (Starwars Episode III)

Clark Kent as Chuck Norris

Ghetto Priest

Boxer

Darth in Drag

Thor

Luke Skywalker

Flapper

My Finished Pages

As I finish the pages to my “Week in the Life” scrapbook, I’ll post them here for your viewing pleasure. I’m pretty new to the whole digital scrapbooking (this is actually my first fully digital scrapbook.) Update: as of 10-15-08 I have finished the book! I suppose maybe I should make a cover page for it, but I’ll leave that for when/if I decide to actually get it printed. Here are all 22 pages though! Wow, look at me go, starting and finishing a major project within a reasonable time frame! *gasp* Now I guess I need to focus on finishing our bathroom project! hehe

Pages 01 & 02

 

Pages 03 & 04

 

Pages 05 & 06

 

Pages 07 & 08

 

Pages 09 & 10

 

Pages 11 & 12

 

Pages 13 & 14

 

Pages 15 & 16

 

Pages 17 & 18

 

Pages 19 & 20

  

Pages 21 & 22

GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE:

I got this wonderful freebie set of digital scrapbooking papers and embellishments, called “Express Yourself”, by Ronna Penner, from the Shabby Princess website. The “Week in the Life” project idea, again, was from Alli Edward’s Blog. The “Story of Today” layout idea was from her templates that she sells (I just made my own to look like hers) and the other layouts were also from her designs for a Shutterfly album called “Everyday Life” (which I also just made my own versions of). The “Official Allie Edwards Sript Font” you see used was downloaded for free from her site as well. Other standard issue fonts used: courier new, corbel, city blueprint, and impact.

Labor Day Weekend

It’s going to be a busy one, I won’t deny that! Here’s the run down of the extended weekend, and I’ll add whatever other details and pics after the fact, when we get back! 

Tonight our friend Brent is spending the night here so he can run a race around here in the morning. Then we’ll be headed off in the morning to go to my great aunt (mom’s mom’s sister) and her husband’s surprise 50th anniversary family cookout. Then we’ll stay at my grandparents’ house (the farm) on Saturday night, and travel down to Tyler to visit Jason’s mom and see his grandfather’s new place at the assisted living place. My sister is also turning 18 today, and is having her party tonight, so I’ll miss that unfortunately, but we’ll see them on Sunday and Monday too. Then head back here on Monday afternoon and just pass out from our weekend of travels and partying!

Pictures to come! (If I remember to take some!)

Edited on 9/1/08 to apologize for not taking any pictures…. I was a bit distracted with all that was going on. More to come on that later.