Back Home

I got back home after 5 days in Chicago with the girls of ScrapAddict. What a wonderful trip! I absolutely loved meeting everyone in person! It was so fun to put actual voices with names and faces. I first met Linda, Jess, Felicia and Carole (the Nana). Linda is great! She is like me in that she enjoys know the who is who in the scrapping world and it was fun to have someone watching out for those folks with me. We would see someone at the show and just look across at each other like - Did you just see _____ (fill in the blank because all the biggies were there!). She is so nice and I really enjoyed talking with her. Jess is sooo young! And I admired her way with kids - her kiddos are very lucky. She is a great mom I am sure! Both of Felicia's girls were totally taken with her and she was great! Felicia looked sooo young too. I guess they both are compared to me! LOL! I loved the store and going to the show with her. She has a huge job running SA and does it well. She was sooo nice to let us all stay at her house. We were quite a load of people to invade her home. And the meatballs she made with the pasta the first night were sooo good!! And the Nana! What a great woman she is! She is just awesome! I loved her personality and I love her relationship with her grandkids. What a wonderful woman! Next I met Julie. She is just like I imagined her to be a put together and fun person to be around. I loved talking to her and getting to know her in person. The we met Melanie. What an absolutely sweet person. She was fun to connect with! I think she was the person that most surprised me in real life - her voice was so much deeper then I imagined. I also got to meet Carol one of Felicia's newest members of the DT. She helps Felicia pack kits and I can see just how much help she is for Felicia. And was a great person! I really like her!

I also had a great time at the show. It was sooo fun to see the famous scrappers and soooo fun to see all the new product that is coming out. Felicia was really great about letting us help her pick out stuff for the kits in the upcoming months and that was great to have that input. It is amazing how big the show was! After one day we had only gotten through like 4 of 100 rows of booths! Crazy! But it has been something I have wanted to do since I got seriously into scrapping. This has always been on my list to get to one of these types of shows so I am glad to have finally done it.

But I was soooo happy to be home too! Nothing is better then pulling up the street and having both kids and Jock waiting out side and running to greet me at the car! I missed my family a lot!! They did great without me but it was a long time away and I was really ready to snuggle up those kids!

So today we are trying to get back on our routine. I need to get some wash done and the house picked up (was the cleaning lady really here just last Friday???). And I plan to spend a lot of time with my kiddos today just enjoying them!

Word to describe me - by my kids

One of the blog challenges on SA is to have your kids describe you. I'll tell you Remi gained a lot of points on this one!!! What a sweetie!

Here is Remi's list:
1. mom
2. beautiful
3. "trustful"
4. lovable
5. coldness (he likes that I am always cold because he is always hot and he can "steal my cold")
6. kissable and hugable

Here are Peyton's - a bit more off the wall. I reworded for her and asked her what I did for her that she liked:
1. car - I am thinking this is drive her in the car.
2. toy - don't know if this is buy her toys or play with her and her toys.
3. words - Not sure on this - maybe teach her words???
4. mommy
5. hold

A fun challenge and I can't wait to do the page about it!

Big Job

I have spent the last few days putting away layouts. WOW! What a huge job I had 170 something pages to put away plus I had just stuck some layouts in books but not in any order. But they are getting so organized and I am actually at the end of my CM album supply!! I saw an idea in a magazine a while back to put tag on a ribbon and tie it around the spine of the book to label each book. So I am doing that as I finish putting layouts in each album. I am hoping that if I can easily find the spot for a layout that I will be more apt to stick it in there once I am finished and not just let it sit and pile up like I have been doing. So far I have organized 10 books for Peyton and 9 for Remington. Rem obviously has a bunch more albums then that but they are older and back to when I was scrapping chronologically so they are all organized. My next issue is where to put the nice new albums. Mom had two really nice book cases made for me a few years ago. She measured the albums so that they fit perfectly. They both hold about 20 - 25 albums depending on how thick they are. Well, they are both stuffed now. So the newer albums are in those cases. I am thinking that I will take the older albums to the spare room in the basement and put them up on a shelf in the closet. The only bad part is that if anything ever happened to the house those are the albums that would be hard to recreate. It was before I scanned in my layouts and before my digital camera. I have all the negatives but those are up in the closet in the scrapbook room. But when it comes down to it all those albums have to go some where. And if something really did happen to our house and we had to get out fast there is realistically no way we could manage to get all those albums out anyway. Why do I worry about this kind of stuff??? LOL!! But anyway, I am hoping to finish this HUGE project today so I can actually scrap this weekend. I had visions of getting so many pages done while Jock was away and I have not done anything but organize albums!

Home Alone

...well kinda. Jock just left for a golf trip in the mountains. Dad and his friends used to do this forever. Go up to the mountains for four or five days and play the beautiful mountain courses. They usually play two courses a day and then find time for poker in the evening. The classic guys weekend. When Jock was in the golf business they realized that he could get them on great courses and usually for a better price (mountain golf is waaay expensive!!) So they started inviting Jock to come along. Now, the "Mountain Tour" ,as it is refered to, is Jock's responsibility and for the most part it is Jock, my brother and their friends are the people who go. They still invite the "old" guys but the new generation has definately taken hold of the Mountain Tour.

So, anyway, that leaves the kiddos and I here to fend for ourselves for the weekend. We are finally out of the rainy spell so I am thinking that there is a trip to the pool each day in our future. And since Remi just got back from camp last night (which, unlike his mom, he absolutely loved!!) he is aching to play with his friends so I am sure there will be a house full of kids here too. And then I plan to spend every evening in the scrapbook room. My first order of business is to put some layouts in albums. My LSS is discontinuing some albums and is having a great sale - 50% off if you buy 3+ albums. So I bought 6 KI 12x12 albums (3 for each kid) last night and I am ready to fill those babies up!! I also have one last undone old challenge from SA to catch up on - scraplift myself. Then there is my continuing quest to catch up on my Donna Downey class and keep up to date on the Product Playground class. So, I am looking forward to just having some uninterupted scrapping time. I think I should be getting a few "chick" flicks in the mail today from Netflicks so I am set for the weekend. Oh, and lastly, I need to gather up what scrapping stuff I am taking to Chicago next week. I can't believe it is finally here!! Only a week away!! Yipee!!

New 'Do

I have a few things coming up that I wanted to lookgood for so Idecided it was time to get in and get my hair done. Somehow that is the thing that goes before anything else. I mean really - I have my hair cut like once or twice a year. LOL! So I went and got it highlighted and cut. I really like it. The color is natural but lighter. And the cut is fun and "flippy". LOL! So now I am prepared to go meet ladies from ScrapAddict in Chicago next week. And then head to my 20 year high school reunion (although I am quite sure I am not old enough for that!! LOL!) a couple of weeks after I get home. Here are the before and after pictures.

A New Album Idea

You know since I have nothing else to do scrapbook wise I thought I would start a new album! LOL! I found a picture of Remi at two and had one of Peyton handy also so I decided to put them both on a page to just compare. And from there I thought I would do an album comparing them at each age. For now it is not too many pages. I am going to do one of them at birth and age one to add to the age two layout. Then I may fill in with some other ages - 18 months, 3 months, 6 months, etc.. We'll see how motivated I am. But I love the idea of both of them at the same age on one page. And really it won't be that hard to keep up because it is really only on page a year. So here is the first page. It is one of my current fav pages. I really like how it turned out.
It is a landscape 8 1/2 x 11 page. It is hard to see where the edges of the page are but you can almost see the ribbon I attached to the top so I can hang the page in my scrapbook room for a while because I am loving it sooo much! LOL!

Today

Such a dreary and rainy day. We have had soooo much rain. In fact in lots of areas here, there has been our yearly total of percipitation that has accumulated in the last week or so. It has rained on and off - but mostly on - for the last week. I actually am not minding it. Except for the fact that we are not able to go to the pool to swim.

Remi is off to camp and I already miss him. I can't believe that I am not going to be able to talk to him until Wed.!! I hope that he is having a great time at camp but I sure do miss him here. He did take my old camera and told me that he would take lots of pictures so he could show me everything he does. What a sweet kid!! Dad called and said that when he left with mom, Aunt Janice and Kaitlynn, both the kids were soooo wound up. So that is a good thing - they were not missing home and were excited to get to camp. His favorite thing was when I showed him the $5.00 gift certificate that he got for the camp store. He thought that the idea of a camp store was a great one and he couldn't wait to check out what they have in the store.

So we just had a nice, slow day here today. We have been so busy that it was nice to just have a relaxing day. Peyton and I ran a few errands - got dog food and crickets for the salamander, go to Archivers to pick up a few things, and the grocery store for stuff for dinner. Then Peyton napped and I scrapbooked for a while. It was nice to have a quite moment to do that while Jock ws golfing and then watching the NASCAR race. I am trying to get caught up on challenges from ScrapAddict and my Donna Downey on line class. I got two Donna Downey assignments done totally and a good start on a third. I have only done about a third of the assignements. But I really want to try to get caught up on those. Next up are some of the SA challenges and before Tues night I need to get my Product Playground layout done, and lastly before Wed I need to get my book club layout done. So I have some scrapping to do. I should have some more time to do that tonight and tomorrow during Peyton's nap. Now we are making dinner and then maybe watch a movie after dinner. All in all a nice Sunday.

The other thing I need to do is decide on what to do with my hair. I am going to get it cut and highlighted tomorrow and I think I want a change of 'do. I am thinking of something with bangs but shorter layers on the side and a bit longer in the back. I don't know. But I do know that I am going to Chicago in a week and a half and to my 20 year reunion in about three weeks so I want something that makes me look good! LOL!

Summer Camp

I went to summer camp twice when I was growing up - I HATED it!! Too much of a home body I guess. The first time was with my brothers and some other friends from church - so it was not like I was not with people I knew but I hated every minute of it. I think that was when I was in 5th or 6th grade.

I tried it again when I was in like 7th or 8th grade. The kids in my church youth group were very close and we all went as a group. I was older - more interested in the friends that I was with (especially the boys! LOL!) so it was a bit better - but I still had not desire to go back ever again. I guess I am just not the summer camp kids of a gal.

So, here I am planning to send Remi off to summer camp tomorrow. Yikes!! I am having those flashes of lump in the stomach feelings and tears and all the other horrible feeling from my times at camp. But he is going with my mom. It is actually pretty neat - they are doing a grandparent/grandchild camp. My aunt and one of granddaughters (that Remi knows and likes) are going too. So I think he will be fine - basically. But as I was putting him to bed last night he told me, "Mom, I can already feel the missing you starting." Poor kid - just like me. LOL! I told him that he will be fine and he will be with grammy so it will be so fun - dang, I hate lying to my kid! But maybe he will really like it once he is there. He does have a great time when he is with my mom. He can stay with her for three days and not bat an eye. They have hiking and horseback riding and crafts and games and the big penny carnival a the end. SO I think there will be lots of fun I just hope he enjoys himself.

So we are getting him all packed today - gotta run to the store and buy him some hiking type boots. And then we are headed to the Rockies game tonight. We are going with my dad, my brother and his girlfriend and who knows who else. Dad traded our tickets out with another person in our row so we have the whole row of tickets tonight. The best part of the game - tornadoughs!! They are these absolutely delicious soft pretzel on a stick thing that they bathe in butter and then cover with Parmesan cheese (or cinnamon and sugar but I never get that). They are the best!!! In fact being the scrapbooker I am I should take my camera and take a picture tonight so I can do a layout about them. LOL!

After the game Remi is going to go home with my dad and then my mom will pick him up there in the morning to head to camp until Wed. I am gonna miss him like crazy!! He is such a good kid and I miss having him around when he is not here. But hopefully he will be having a great time.

The Momma Bear in me

The other day Remi was out front playing. One of the kids that lives down the street was riding in his battery powered car. Remi generally does not like this kid - he is quite a bit younger, he is mean, and he lies. But Rem was out and he was out so they were just talking to each other. I was sitting on our step watching them play. This car that he has is pretty new to them but they got it at a garage sale for $10 and then the dad replaced the dead battery with a lawnmower battery. So it has a lot of power. The boys were looking under the hood - as boy will do. LOL! I didn't think anything about it. Remi has one of those cars and he used to play with it all the time (it is too small for him now) and it was always fine. Then the phone rang and I ran into get it in the mean time the boys got in the car and went down the street toward the other boys house. Those kids go up and down the street all day so I just didn't think about it. Just a few minutes later Remi came running in crying. He told me something happened to the car and the other boy told him, "You better go tell your mom because I am going to tell my parents and you are going to be in trouble." Little brat!! Anyway, so I finally got it figured out that they were looking at the car again and they made the battery short out and the other boy got a burn on his fingers.

Now, let me say, I don't think any of this was a safe and good choice by my son! And after the incident we talked about how dangerous this was.

But anyway, I told Remi we better go to there house and see what had happened. So we went down a couple of houses and they were not outside but the car was. Remi lifted the hood and showed me the wires had burnt up. Yikes!! So we went to the door and generally, while I am not particularly a fan of the kids in this family we have always been on a friendly basis with the family. So we rang the bell and the mom came to the door and just started yelling and screaming at Remi!! I was so shocked that I just kind of stood there. My sweet dear child stammered out an apology and told them if it was broken that they could have his car and that he didn't really know what happened. She just kept yelling that it was all Remi fault and that her son got burn because Remi was messing around. Well, that snapped me out of it. I told her that I had been out watching the kids and her son was in by the battery just as Remi was and if he got a burn on his hand he must have had it in there (she told us during her tirade that her kids know better then to touch the battery and never look in there or mess with it). She said that his whole hand was burnt - I saw later in the conversation that he had a little red spot on his finger. She just kept going! There was no calming down. So finally I just told her, "Look, your hubby told me you bought the truck for $10 at a garage sale and put the lawnmower battery in it. I think that is a huge part of the problem. Topo much power for a little vehicle like this and it shorted out. But at any rate since Remi was PARTLY (not completely) responsible in this we will pay you for half of a new battery or half of the $10 you bought the car for if you can't fix it. Let us know" And I turned Remi around and left. I was so upset that she would speak to my child like that!

I later was telling Jock about it. He was mad beyond reason - wanted to march right down there and tell her a thing or two. I finally convinced him that it would do no good. These people are moving to a new state in the next couple days and it was just as well to let them go and leave it alone. I told him that if we had gone to the door and she had calmly but firmly told Remi how dangerous that was and that BOTH of them should not have been doing that. I would have been totally supportive! But instead she put all the blame on my kid, like Remi held her son down made him open the hood, purposely messed with the battery with the intent of breaking it and then held her son's finger to the wire so he would be hurt! And in the mean time her son was totally innocent and had a halo around his head the whole time!

So, that was about a week ago. The next day the stupid car was up and running with a new lawnmower battery and they are still running it up and down the street all the time. Needless to say, we had a big talk with Rem about how dangerous that was and to not mess with batteries like that. And we have told him just to steer clear of that family. They never asked us for any money for the thing. And I am just staying away. The thing that I hate is that this lady goes of on everyone! Another lady on the street said that two of her kids have been yelled at by her for really silly things. And the topper - at the beginning of the summer Remi was outside with some other friends and came running in side to tell me that this lady made the Ice Cram Lady cry!! Apparently, the ice cream lady had given her kids some ice cream without getting permission from her first. And she just let loose on the poor ice cream lady. Her husband had to actually pull her away from the ice cream truck. She is just a wacky lady. I will be so glad when they are gone because her wacky-ness seems to be getting worse and directed more to the neighborhood kids.

And in the meantime, I told Jock that I have my "speech" prepared if and when she ever talks to me again. And after having time to process the whole event I have a few things to tell her about how you treat other people's children.

I mean, Remi was certainly not innocent in the whole event but it is my responsibility as his parent to deal with him - not hers. And if she would deal with her own kids a bit more then they would be a lot better off!

WOW! That was quite a tirade! LOL! I am done now!

Catching Up

Since I have been MIA for a while on my blog I thought I would catch up on a few old blog challenges from ScrapAddict.

So, this one is to list your splurges.

Well, my first and most obvious is scrapbook supplies. But she said I couldn't use that. So I guess I will have to think deep then that. ... Let's see, I guess I would have to say that my Yankee Candles are a type of a splurge. I don't buy the candles at the dollar store that my mom tells me I should because they just don't smell as good for as long. Yankee Candles do just fill up the house with their wonderful smell and it lasts for a long time. People always comment when they come into the house how good it smells. That is why I buy my Yankee Candles. Although to be honest, I do buy them at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and usually get the 40% off candle of the month unless it is some real sweet and sugary smell.

And another splurge is my laptop. I, in no way, needed this computer. But I don't know how I lived without it and my wireless internet connection. I use it everyday! Love it!!

Two Days in a Row!!!

This is amazing!! I am writing for the second day in a row!! Yipee!! LOL!

There is a challenge on ScrapAddict to list my favorite 5 things about myself. This was a bit hard - and as far as physical things, I am still thinking! LOL!

But here is my top 5:

1. I am a great mom.
2. I am patient.
3. I am a very positive person.
4. I am a good friend.
5. I am a happy and upbeat person.

Fourth Of July

Happy 4th of July!! I need to remember to email Janelle and Aunt Nancy and wish them Happy BDay.

We had a great time last night at Todd's for the fireworks! It doesn't get much better then watching them from his porch with snacks, a bathroom and no crowds. LOL! The bad part of fireworks is that they are so late at night - well, late for our family. We were afraid that the baseball game would have a rain delay and then they would be really late but it was about the regular time. Peyton, Remi and Jock all about fell asleep. But the wait was worth it. They do put on a great show! Peyton thought that the they were great! She loves the small fireworks that they shoot off at the Sky Sox game every time there is a home run and during the 7th inning stretch. So this was amazing to her!! So many more and so big and pretty! She just sat on Jock's lap and smiled a huge smile. For Remi, fireworks are all about the cookies. LOL! When he was about three we got some of those pink and white circus cookies on 4th of July. He enjoyed eating them while watching the fireworks. Then the next year he kept telling us that we needed to get the "firecrack" cookies. We had no idea what he was talking about. Finally we remembered the cookies we had the previous year. And with that the tradition of the "firecrack" cookies was born. LOL! Now, they are a must at every firework watching event. Last year we were at the store in about May and they had red, white, and blue cookies instead of pink and white. Remi really wanted them but I told him that May was just too early to buy those cookies. Well, by the 4th they were, of course, gone. So this year, in May, when we saw the cookies I bought them. Well, our niece and friend stayed at our house a few weeks ago and Jock told them that they were welcome to eat anything they wanted. Yup, you guessed it, they ate the precious red, white, and blue firecrack cookies!! And by then they were gone from the store again. So we had the regular old pink and white cookies this year. But in the end I don't think that Remi really cared. His thing is that you can not open the bag until the fireworks start and as soon as that first bang goes, he tears open the bag and proceeds to stuff as many cookies as possible in his mouth until the last firework is shot. It is a tradition.