A New Blinkie!

I just got the news that I've been picked to be on Sya's Blueprint's Creative Team...YAY! Sya creates mostly templates.....and I LOVE templates because they help me get pages done so much faster and be more creative than I usually am! So I'm really excited to be sporting another CT Blinkie!

Her store is here if you want to check out her stuff!

And I'll be back with a longer post later...just wanted to share the news.......and my blinkie! (I love blinkies, can ya tell?)

Picture Day!

This has been the week for pictures I guess! School pictures for Alaina and Matthew were on Wednesday. At least having 2/3 of my children as boys, the "hair" issue is basically moot with as short as Karl insists it stay. And they don't really argue with me (yet) on wardrobe choices. Alaina, however.....a completely different story! She's 7 going on 17 basically. Thankfully, for picture day, although we argued over hairstyle (I'm sure I lost because once we leave her at daycare, she can do whatever she wants with her hair and she knows there's nothing Mom can do about it!), we at least easily agreed on the wardrobe choice. Everybody says we're too much alike, which is why we're already butting heads.....oh the teenage years will be FUN, huh? F.U.N! :) As far as I know, pictures at school went okay.....I guess we'll see when we get them back! I still say it's totally unfair you have to pay up front for pictures you haven't even SEEN yet....you should at least get proofs back, kwim?

Friday night, we decided to try and jumpstart the economy by going to Lowe's. We love Lowe's...and really, Lowe's should totally love us with as much moolah as they've gotten out of us over the last few years! Karl and I decided (well, I've been bugging him about this for at least a year and I think using Christmas is his reason for finally caving) to rip out the carpet on the stairs and in the upstairs hallway and put in laminate wood flooring to match the living room and kitchen. So that's our Christmas present to ourselves (Karl insists that this is MY present....so I'm assuming that means he's thinking he's still entitled to something else? hmm....he might be disappointed!)......we were going to start it this weekend.....but that hasn't happened yet as the boxes are still sitting on the floor in the living room. We'll get to it sometime!

And yesterday was sports picture day! Matthew's game was scheduled for 10:30, so they set up team pictures for 9:30....blah on the early start....here I was thinking I'd get a chance to sleep in! BOO! I invited my SIL Stacy to the game to take pictures since she's in the process of building a portfolio for her photography side business.......my kids show up a lot in that portfolio! :P

So again, we were forced to pay up front for pictures....blah! BUT, in a total shocker to me, the photog there actually LET the parents take pictures of the kids....I'm still confused.....remember how I was yelled at for taking pictures at the T-ball picture day a couple months ago? Different photog of course, but I was still waiting to get yelled at standing there with my camera.....but instead the guy tells the team to "hold still so the parents can take pictures"......YAY! wish i hadn't spent the money, kwim? *sigh*......

So here they are, the Choppers:

And Matthew didn't really want to cooperate for his mom (He DID manage a better smile for the official photog, so I guess my money wasn't COMPLETELY wasted).....My kids are generally used to having a camera stuck in their faces....however, Matthew is the least cooperative of the 3. Darnit!

This is the smile the photog got out of him.....so at least that picture should turn out well......however, for MOM........not cooperating!

Then we had some time to kill before the game actually started, so Stacy and I used the time to take pictures of Alaina in her cheerleading uniform. This was the best shot I got:

Looks official, huh? kinda...

Then it was game time.......Matthew was especially upset at first glance at their opponents....they were playing GIRLS! Oh the HORROR! GIRLS! They have COOTIES and stuff! EWWWWW! Of all the games he's played thus far, I don't think I've ever seen Matthew keep as much of a distance between him and the other players....seriously....he wouldn't hardly go near these girls. I kinda wish those girls had taken full advantage of the boys' prejudice and wiped the grass with them, but the boys did manage to win. Their coach had to keep telling them, "They're JUST ANOTHER TEAM GUYS!" :P not when you're 5.....They were GIRLS! So the Choppers beat the Butterflies (I loved the pink shirts and socks.......I tried to talk Alaina into playing next season 'cuz I love the girls' colors so much....so far she's not going for it....maybe I'll just get a pair of socks for ME...that's almost as good, huh?)

here they are, playing against those GIRLS! Oh the insanity!

After the game, we said goodbye to auntie Stacy and headed off to watch the end of Alaina's swimming lessons that Karl had left to take her to. Then we went to the chinese buffet for lunch 'cuz Daddy was obviously deficient in MSG or something. And he knows I'm a pushover for eating out, so off we went. After we got home, the kids spent the afternoon outside playing (instead of taking naps)...I was scrapping mostly.....and for our evening's entertainment, we watched some TV and I scrapped and read Perez....downloaded some new songs for my iPod....put the boys' laundry away.....did some more laundry....and that was about it.

And now for the scrapbook pages....first, I started scrapping our day at the zoo last weekend here:

And with Vicki's new kit, Sweet Dreams, I scrapped a page of the butterflies we saw at the zoo:

And this is from Matthew's game on Tuesday where it rained THE WHOLE GAME! :(

And then for my blessing this week, I chose music.

Journaling reads: "Music has always been very important to me. I’ve always been a much better singer than pianist, but I still like to play the piano whenever I get the chance. My piano skills aren’t what they could or should be, since I only had a couple years’ worth of lessons, but I play at the level I can. I have a few favorites I never get tired of playing, and those songs are very calming to me. After a very stressfull day, I will sometimes sit at the keys and play something I love. I know I could play much better than I do, but I’m blessed to play as well as I can and to have any musical talent at all...For the blessing of music in my life, I’m very grateful."

For my travel page, it was Seattle....you can't work for Boeing and not end up in Seattle at some point, but until this year, I'd somehow managed to avoid it! I always make sure to have fun on my business trips, and Seattle was no exception.....I took the Travelocity Gnome up in the Space Needle with me.....he goes everywhere we go!

And I guess that's it for now....hope everybody had a great weekend!

A win at last and a surprise trip to the Zoo!

I should've posted this days ago, but I've been busy with "life" for lack of a better word. I haven't even scrapped this week really.....it's been very strange!

Last weekend, Matthew's soccer team won their first game! YAY! Actually, it was the first time they even SCORED...poor kids! Us parents were SOOOO excited to see that finally happen for them. Afterwards, Matthew wanted to know if they could play the "blue shirt team" again next time! :) Now our next hope is that Matthew can score a goal in a game.....fingers crossed! we took him to pizza hut (his favorite) for lunch to celebrate.....go Choppers!

Then Sunday, we went to church and told the kids we had a surprise for them afterwards....we had a guest speaker, and my Brush Creek friends should know him: Rob Ryder. I walked in and felt like I was 16 again. I started laughing and I could tell he knew he should know me, but couldn't remember my name.....when I told him I was "A Caudle", he and his wife Suzette started laughing and then they were like, 'yeah, you do look just like a Caudle' (I've never decided if that's an insult or a compliment!) Then I reminded him that he was the one that taught me CPR, then I shook him by the shoulders and started yelling, "ANNIE ANNIE! ARE YOU OKAY?" gotta love the memories, right? so it was fun to see a blast from the past at church.

After church, the entire congregation ended up down the street at KFC for lunch....and we still wouldnt' tell the kids where we were going. Alaina, in her astuteness, proclaimed as we were leaving KFC that we were NOT going on any kind of vacation because there was no luggage in the back, only Zach's stroller (do we travel too much ya think?)....so she told Matthew that we were probably doing something just for the afternoon, and "definitely outside 'cuz it's nice out".....she's a pretty smart cookie sometimes. Matthew's a lot easier to fool, and of course Zach couldn't have cared less....as long as he gets fed and has a dry diaper once in awhile, he's cool.

So off we went to the zoo! I love our zoo. It's FREE! Can't beat that. The weather on Sunday was perfect for it too. And since I've been there umpteen times, I told Karl where to park where you don't have to pay (trying to make this a cheap afternoon, can ya tell?)......and the kids still didn't know where we were until we got to the entrance, and then they knew and were very excited.

So we spent a couple hours at the zoo....went to the Children's Zoo (which you have to pay to get into, but we always go to anyways because the kids love it so much) to pet the goats:

and I tried, unsuccessfully, to get my standard in-the-hippo's-mouth picture......alaina's almost getting too big for this....*SNIFF*.....and zach refused to cooperate, darnit.
we've never been inside the insectarium (because well...I DON"T LIKE BUGS!), but this time we went in.....Alaina likes butterflies, and I wanted to practice some macrophotography. I'm hoping Santa brings me a macro lens for Christmas this year......so hopefully Santa reads my blog! :) But I did pretty good even without the lens.....I entered this layout in a challenge on 'selective coloring', and I'm just tickled with how it turned out....cool, huh? I even took this picture through a glass window!

then we just walked around seeing the animals.....we got a snack (karl loves those gigantic pretzels.....i got a frozen lemonade....it was kinda hot out!) and i think we probably covered about half the zoo before we decided to call it quits and head for home. it was a good afternoon....a good surprise for the kids and we had a lot of fun. As you can tell, we're not ones to just sit around the house....we get bored doing that very easily!

Monday we started selling Girl Scout Cookies.....always a fun time......if Tatum wasn't a brownie, I'd be badgering all my KC friends to order.........we're trying to beat what Alaina sold last year, but I don't think it's gonna happen! Blame the economy I guess!

Tuesday Matthew had another soccer game. And it rained. POURED really...the entire time. In my brilliance, I forgot lawn chairs, so we got to stand and watch.......and most of my pictures turned out blurry because I was trying to hold an umbrella over me and zach and take pictures at the same time......oh well. they lost that game...badly. Matthew was having a hard time concentrating on the game...he wanted to play in the mud instead! I was glad when that game was over! We came home and I made a big pot of chilli!

Last night we had a game night at church and had a blast.....I took the kids to Steak n Shake for dinner and ate way too much yummy stuff, including a shake of course. BAD for the diet. I'm SOOOOO not going to be ready for a swimsuit on that cruise in 2 months.. :( I'm ready for the CRUISE of course! Just not the putting-on-a-swimsuit part! :P

Tonight is our monthly church study group....so I've got to clean the house, make a snack, and read the lesson. No problem! :P And that catches you up on us.....I'll post my layouts when I get them done, which probably won't be 'till the weekend since we have NO plans and that means I'm gonna scrap as much as possible! YAY!

I do have this layout to share......from our trip out to KC....I THINK i'm almost done scrapping it....maybe another layout or 2 to go! :P

and i guess that's it for now.....i'll update again after the weekend!

Head colds and finally fall weather!

I'm sick. I hate being sick. Moms aren't supposed to GET sick, right? But I feel lousy just the same. I'd love nothing more than to crawl into bed after taking an exaggerated dose of Nyquil (my drug of choice), pull the covers over my head and not wake up until I feel better. But that's not an option, so here I am!

This week has been fine...nothing too exciting to report really.......we caught up on some TV shows (hooray for TiVo!).....almost got caught up on laundry (does it ever REALLY end though?), restocked our cupboards with food, and that was about it. Work is work....same ol' same ol'......nothing new to report there......

I'd be tired even without the cold since Zach is being difficult with his bedtime......call it the terrible twos or whatever you want....he just will NOT go to sleep! If we put him in his room by himself, he'll scream for 3 hours. (NO joke....from 7 until 10 he screamed the other night....I nearly went insane.).....if one of us goes in there with him and lays on the bed with him, he'll just sit there and babble (he still doesn't TALK much really) and play.....I've laid there for an hour while he'd drive a hotwheels car up and down my arm. We've tried putting the other kids in there with him since it seemed to work out okay last weekend at the hotel....but he just keeps them awake too. so I'm at my wits end with him and getting him to go to sleep. Please give me some ideas! Or at least reassure me that eventually he'll fall asleep before 11PM and someday I'll get more than 5 hours of sleep a night??? UGH....I am so tired it's not even funny....it's like having a newborn again! I don't have that "dad" ability to sleep through it....if he's awake, I'm awake. Sleeping through the crying is definitely a 'dad thing'....kwim?

but that's all i've got to rant about today.......so since nothing else has happened in my life that's worth writing about, I'll just post my blessing and travel page and be done with it, k? :P

First up, my blessing for the week....SURELY you guys saw this coming from a mile away.....if not, then you're not paying very good attention to my project here! :P My friends, Kerri, Sarah, and Sue.........our friendship is probably more of a blessing to me than you guys realize. I wish we got to see each other more often...I miss you so much!!!

I hope you appreciate the bad-hair pic from 1992, girls! :P wish I could make it bigger here so you could get the full effect! :)>

Journaling reads:

"I remember meeting Kerri and her younger sister Sarah the summer I was twelve. I met Sue the following summer. Their friendship made the summers a lot more fun at camp, and it’s because of them that those summers were so memorable and fun for me. We spent nearly every waking moment with each other at Brush Creek, talking about all the boys we liked and all those other little teenage dramas. They live out in the Kansas City area, so camp was about the only time we really got to see each other...but we’d all write 10-page letters to each other during the school year to stay in touch Now that we’re grown, I treasure their friendship even more. I’m glad we still have each other and that our kids are starting to become friends. They are a blessing to me."

And my travel page for the week.....Shipshewana, Indiana!.......Since my SIL Nicole is away this weekend at this very place and I couldn't go, I thought making it my travel page would make me feel a little better (it didn't!). This is the B&B that all the women in her family (aunts/cousins/etc) gather at each year for a weekend of talking, scrapping, shopping, eating, etc. I got to go a couple years ago....hopefully I can go again next year! It was a lot of fun!

And for other layouts I've done.........one of me and Sue's and Sarah's babies:

And another one from last weekend at Paradise Park with the kids...

So that's it for now......have a great weekend!

We just wanted to get away!

And now we're back! :D Usually Matthew has a soccer game on Saturday morning, but this Saturday, he didn't....they had a game on Wednesday night instead. I don't know why the change in schedule, BUT it freed up our weekend, so we decided we needed to GO SOMEWHERE....because if we sat here, we'd be guilt-tripped into doing something around the house like fixing something or cleaning something, and that's just not our idea of fun. :P So I contacted my dear old friend Kerri out near Kansas City and informed her we were coming out and she needed to prepare herself for the onslaught of 5 hermans. (or something to that effect)

So Friday, we left here as soon as Karl got home from school. we stopped just west of St. Louis for dinner at Longhorn steakhouse (yum....you'll learn by the end of this post that this was a total "blew my diet BIG TIME" kind of weekend...and that's okay, 'cuz all diets start over again on Monday, right? RIGHT!).......then when we piled back into the van, I got Alaina and Matthew all situated with their DVD players and HEADPHONES (must not forget the headphones or else the parents are subjected to listening to hours and hours of kids' movies from the backseat!). I sat by Zach and flipped open my laptop and I scrapped the whole way out there. YAY!

So this is what I got done in the car.....a 2-pager layout of our visit to the princess Diana memorial fountain in London....

we got out to the Kansas City area around 9:30ish I think? had to make a couple potty stops of course......our hotel was downtown (we were getting a free night at the Hyatt, so we splurged and paid for the 2nd night vs. just getting an el cheapo hotel). by the time we got checked in and everything carted up to the 35th floor (seriously, 35th floor? impressive! we kept singing the theme to "the Jeffersons"...the snooty people probably didn't think it was as funny as I did!), it was WAY past bedtime. we got the kids in their jammies and into bed ASAP.

We were conducting an experiment in hotel behaviour....putting all 3 of them in a bed together......we put zach in the middle, thinking he might roll off, and the beds were HIGH (taller than him), so we thought that was the best......they ALL flop around so much, we just knew one of them was going to end up bruised in the morning! Zach was infatuated with watching the cars on the street below out the window....and putting just about anything he could fit into the little mini fridge we had in our room (shoes, my purse, water bottles....more shoes!).....for some reason, Zach wanted to sleep with his sippy cup....I don't know WHY, as this is something he never does at home....but since he started screaming like a banshee when I took it away, I compromised and let him have it (for fear we'd get a call from the front desk from someone else complaining about a screaming kid!), figuring I'd just take it away once he fell asleep. So that's what I did. so off we all went to bed...

Then i heard a big 'thump' at about 1AM and waited for "the cry" thinking he'd fallen out of bed (no, i did not have the energy to just bolt out of bed to tend to whichever child had hit the floor...anybody that's got 3 kids knows what i'm talking about, right? no cry no foul!) but it was Zach....he'd gotten out of bed by himself and gone to the little fridge and had gotten his sippy cup out of it and was just standing there in the middle of the hotel room chugging away at it. Then he insisted on taking it back to bed with him...and I was too tired to care....little stinker knew I'd taken it away and was forcing my hand on this 2nd round. whatever. Zach wins round 2...I didn't stay awake to take it away the 2nd time.

And this is how they ended up in the morning.....Zach somehow flipped around in the night and was facing the wrong direction, but other than that, not too bad!

Saturday morning, I tried to sleep as late as possible, but didn't last past 8 or so. bummer. we all got up and around and went downstairs to eat breakfast at the buffet in the hotel.....knowing full well that eating there was our most expensive option....we were that lazy! then we walked over to the mall that was connected to our hotel to kill some time while we were waiting for Kerri to get off work. We went to this little model train store and that would've entertained Matthew and Zach for HOURS.....then we went to the Crayola store and let them color.......and then just kinda window shopped around and then headed back to our room. Watched a movie on the hotel TV (Ghost...haven't seen that in YEARS!) and I put the finishing touches on the layouts I did in the car.....then we left for lunch at Gates' BBQ....which is a tradition for us whenever we go to Kansas City. YUMMY BBQ!! totally pigged out there....then it was finally time to head over to Kerri's.

Zach fell asleep on the way over to her house, as we had to make a side stop at WalMart for batteries for the little train set we'd bought for Matthew...and a couple other things......so when we got to Kerri's, Zach was still passed out. we laid him down on one of their beds ,and then karl proceeded to crash on their couch while the older kids went out back to play and Kerri and I chatted. Once Zach woke up, we decided to take the kids to Paradise Place.....Karl was still unconscious, so we left him behind. :)

The kids had an absolute blast there.....it's a lot like the Magic House here in St. Louis....probably the favorite thing was the ball pit......seriously, if I wasn't pretty sure we'd have all been kicked out, I would've taken a big dive in here.......I really wanted to push Kerri in, but I think she knew that subconsciously 'cuz she never got between me and the doorway! darn!

and I already got this part of the afternoon scrapped: (this is what I did on the way home! see how productive I can be when I want to?)

After the ball pit, Alaina and Tessa went to a cooking class....Matthew and Zach hit the water tables, and of course Zach wouldn't have anything to do with the jackets that keep you dry...OH NO...what fun would THAT be? So he got completely and totally drenched. He finally quit even TRYING to stay dry and just started dumping the water on himself....nice! then he tried to dump it on ME....but thankfully, I'm still faster than him!

All the kids except Zach painted their faces.....and I don't get what Tessa was doing either, so it's not just you, Kerri.....but they were cute anyways......Matthew told me he was an "ant".....see the brown antennae? yeah, I didn't really 'get it' either until they told me. I must have no imagination anymore, huh? But here they are:

They also played in the little pretend grocery store, and Zach really liked the pizza place....he's not really showing off his 2-year-old physique.....his shirt was just that wet!

So we had a lot of fun at Paradise Park.....and I still have lots to scrap of it! We headed back to Kerri's house and Karl was awake, swearing he "didn't really sleep" after we left....SUUUUUUUURRRRRRRE! :P Sue and her baby boy Kalani showed up, so I finally got to meet that little cutie! I sent karl out to get some medicine for Kalani (which worked pretty quick, huh?) and an ice cream cake for dessert....he comes back with a DQ ice cream cake with a Superman on it and "Happy Birthday Karl" written on it. Uhm, his birthday's in APRIL! dork! The kids insisted on singing "happy birthday" to him anyways......we should've made him blow out candles too, darnit. so happy birthday karl, ya big dork! good cake though!

Poor Kerri......uhm.........the lasagna? :P Is it done YET? thankfully the kids filled up on chips and other junk so by the time the lasagna was done enough around the edges that we could eat some of it (I'm thinking the rest of it STILL isn't done!) it was pretty late.......and the kids ended up not even eating much of it.....and so I know what Kerri had for lunch today! (and possibly tomorrow and the day after that!). But it's the thought that counts and nobody starved! Enjoy the rest of Karl's birthday cake, okay guys? :P

we spent the rest of the evening just hanging out.....Kerri's mom, Karen showed up for dinner too, and it's been a long time since I'd seen her too, so it was nice to see her again and chat about stuff. Kerri filled me in on everything I was ingorant of about our church camp friends....all these little kids we used to have in our cabins when we were counselors are married and having kids! Gosh am I THAT old? seriously? And I also showed Kerri how to do a digital scrapbook page to try and lure her away from that "paper schmaper" stuff she's still doing!

I was determined to get a picture of Kalani smiling....and I'm totally in favor of him being Elvis for Halloween.....with the "do" this kid has, it would be perfect! Kerri, Sue and I had so much fun just hanging out together!

And the kids had a good time too, playing outside,

and bonding over an episode of iCarly......

but my boys refused to sit for a picture with a bunch of GIRLS....

And since Sarah didn't make it out to Kerri's house to see us, we showed up on her doorstep this morning.....'cuz our hotel was pretty close to their house and there was no way I was leaving town without seeing little gigi! :P We didn't get to stay much longer than 10 minutes since they were on their way to church and Karl was already sneezing from his allergies (I conveniently forgot to mention that they had a cat to him until it was too late for him to back out of the visit!).

so here's me and little Greta

And me and Sarah, who will forever make me feel short! :(

And the Hartley three...Sarah, Scott and little miss Greta (LOVE those socks!)

Then we were on the road to home around 10AMish.......we stopped in Independence at Denny's for brunch and then hit the road for home.....I scrapped the layouts from Paradise Park and finished this one I'd started at Kerri's house on the way home......our hotel in Wales....basically the only hotel on the trip that I really liked and was worthy of taking pictures of!

We finally made it back to our house around 5 I think. we stopped for a late lunch out in St. Charles at a Cracker Barrel (more YUMMY diet-blowing food), then we had to pick up Keely at the sitter's house, then we stopped at the mall really quick....so it was a long drawn-out trip home! Once we got home, we started in on the usual 'stuff', and are still doing that now.....for me, updating the blog ranks up there in the priorities.....whereas Karl and Matthew are playing Lego Batman on the Wii. I did clean out the van though, which was gross. and I mean GROSS....because I even cleaned out the goo in the wells where the seats attach to the floor. EWWW........ that's about as productive as I wanted to be today.

So that's it for our weekend.....on the go, which is the way we like it! Thanks to Kerri for having us over, and I really do hope you guys can come out here for spring break! I'll put a lasagna in the oven NOW, and it might be done by then, huh? :P

have a great week everybody!!!