New Fancy Pants!

CHA is the Craft and Hobby Association. Twice a year they have a Convention, in the winter it's in Anaheim, and in the summer it's in Chicago... where vendors display their latest product for retailers to purchase. I'm lucky enough to get to go again for the second time. I'm so excited! I can't wait to play with my scrappy friends. I'm going to be working in a couple of different booths, which I haven't done before, and I was also fortunate enough to be asked to create several samples for various booths.

Fancy Pants Designs sent me a lot of their product that was geared towards the boys. I asked Sabrina if I could borrow a few pictures of Kael, and she was happy to oblige and sent me a ton to choose from. I may ask to use some more in the future. The birthday party pictures I took at Raegan's birthday party last year. In the meantime, I wanted you to check out some of the work that will be headed with me to California.

Jan. 20th Events of the Day

I made Morgan a super cute crown. It has glitter and bling and butterflies on it. She LOVES it.

Opening gifts

Her sweet face as we sang Happy Birthday.

YUM! I've noticed that Morgan never eats her cake so I decided to go for Ice Cream Cake from Baskin Robbins. White cake with "Icing on the Cake" icecream. I had never heard of it, but that ice cream was YUMMMO. We will definitely do an ice cream cake again. It was a huge hit!

It snowed and snowed this morning, our first snow in a month, so after eating, presents, and cake, we suited up and headed outside. By then it was starting to melt off a little, but not enough to ruin our fun!

Morgan and Payton on the big sled.

Raegan preferred to go solo on her green disk or with our neighbor Sara who came over to sled with us.

The triple threat.

Goofing off as usual.

I knew she'd like it, so even though PJ said no, I sent her down in the sled solo anyway.

I knew she'd like it!

Even Steve took a spin.

Me too!

Payton was the last kid standing and before she headed in, requested a quick trip around the property from Grandma, who was happy to oblige.

I had to get a photo of the three girls. Rylee, on the left, will be moving a couple of hours away at the end of the month. She won't be too far away and I hope we see her often! These three are thicks as thieves!

After everyone came inside I realized we hadn't hacked into the butterfly pinata. So after most everyone left, we found a way to hang it inside, and Morgan, Payton, and Raegan beat on it for a little while, and eventually with our help they were able to get access to the goods inside. And then Steve took Rae home.

All in all it was a great birthday! Morgan got some great gifts and got to spend time with her closest friends. Who can ask for anything more!

:)

She's 4

I can't believe she's 4. I can't believe I'm the parent of a 4 year old. Happy Birthday sweetie.

How Cute is this?

http://www.nickjr.com/shows/ni-hao-kai-lan/index.jhtml

Yes. That's Ni-hau Kai lan. And if you go to the middle of the screen on the right.... you can do a Dragon Boat race game.

How cute is that! The show hasn't started yet so I'm not sure what it's going to be like, but we've seen previews where this cute little chinese girl races boats with her little friends, and it makes us all smile, thinking of Grammabon.

Super cute!

The Follow UP

They did fine.

They made cookies from scratch. They needed to chill the dough before baking the actual cookies, so I'm told Morgan slept with a cookie cutter.

PJ didn't sleep well but she doesn't always sleep well at home so I'm okay with that.

They had great fun.

I got a lot done! So did Steve. He had friends come help him downstairs and we are almost ready to texture and paint! Still filling in the cracks and sanding the drywall.....

As I've mentioned before, Scrapbooking is a part-time job for me now... and, well, January is going to be my biggest month ever because of commitments, preparations for CHA next month, and I've decided to enter this great big 'ole contest too. So I'm majorly swamped.

Anyway.... didn't want to leave y'all hanging. The girls did fine, we did fine, and we'll do it again.

:)

Packing Up

For the first time in their little lives, Morgan and Payton are going to stay the night at Grandma and Grandpa's. I have some serious deadlines on some scrappy projects, and Steve could get some serious quality time downstairs, so they are staying the night with Jon and Kathy on Friday. I have a little anxiety about this, but it is solely around the fact that PJ doesn't always sleep through the night and I'll feel bad if they have to get up with her. But as they have said, they did the parent thing twice... so I'm sure everything will be fine.


At first Morgan didn't want to go... she wanted us to go with her. But after talking with her for a bit and reminding her that she'll have a lot of fun, she seemed to be a bit sold on the idea. Shortly thereafter she was hustling and bustling around the house with plastic grocery bags. Later I walked into her room to this:

While it is overkill for just one night, I was actually quite impressed with the items she thought to pack.

I think they'll be just fine.

Can I get a Woot Woot?!

Yahooie! We got a trailer! We are very serious about family time. We do a lot of camping and running around during the summer. I'm not a non-outdoor girl, but once you have kids, I just want to be able wash my hands and their faces, you know? They get dirty the second they are outside their sleeping area, and after 4 years of diapers it's just a wonderful thing to have a place to get clean. After some serious negotiation skills that would make his mother-in-law proud, Steve wheeled a deal for this:

It's brand new. It's HUGE. It's much bigger now that we're home than it was sitting in the lot next to the motorhomes.

Wow. I think Steve said it's 25 feet? Not sure on that one.

This photo was taken from the couch. That's the sink and the stove, the microwave is up top, and the bunks are to the right. You can see a sliver of the bathroom door.

Here's the bunks! There is an emergency access door, and the bottom bed also lifts up because that door opens from the outside too so that you can store bikes or whatnot while on the road.

The girls already picked their spot!

This is me stading by the bunk with my back to the bathroom. That's the dinette and the couch, both of which pull out to become beds. Not house sized beds, but beds nonetheless.

My back is to the bathroom now, looking straight ahead. Kitchen on the right, entertainment center, and you can see the master suite behind Steve.

The master suite. We might dink around with the bed because it's a little small for Steve, but we ARE camping. I just love all the storage! That was such a headache in the camper. The bed lifts up and there's tons of storage underneath it too. Not a bad fabric pattern, eh?

This shows the entertainment center with surround sound and the kitchen with the entry door. We need to get a little TV. Roughing it shmoughing it. hee hee

This is a photo of the dinette and couch from the entry door. While trying to take this photo the stereo was on, and Morgan was busy doing an interpretive contemporary dance. wow. And yes, Alyca. You bought her that dress a couple of years ago and she wears it ALL the time.

The couch.

The dinette. the table collapses and you move the cushions around for the bed.

Both the dinette and couch are on the slideout.

The trailer with the slide out.

SO exciting. I can't wait to camp now! We already do a couple of trips that are 3-5 days but this makes me want to do more! We'll have enough water to bathe, I don't have to ration it like I did in the camper, room for the extra clothes, the dog can even come..... oh it just makes me smile.

:)

Do I still look like me?

So I walked in the bathroom, caught my mug in the mirror, and thought, wowee, does that really even look like me? I thought I'd check with those who know me.

I got my hair cut last week. It's a little too short, and it's fairly flat today because I'm not going anywhere so I didn't need to get too fancy. Too bad for the poor lighting, because it's darker and lighter.... a fun weave.

ANd... I'm wearing my glasses. I got glasses a year or two ago, but they were stolen the first day I wore them to the office because of the cute Kate Spade frames, and I've been too irritated to get more. I'm a little farsighted because of all my computer time, and I get headaches, so they aren't much of a prescription but make the computer screen just a tad bigger which helps. These are Coach and have little dragonfly bling on the side.

This is a photo of me with my makeup on, so that you can see the detail. hee hee. No really. That's what I look like when I'm all dolled up.
Anyway, I've never worn glasses in my life, I only need them sometimes on the computer so I didn't want contacts... which is good because I can't imagine sticking my FINGER in my EYE... so I thought I'd pick up some cute shades and watch them like a hawk so they don't get stolen!

Anyway... I'll update with more schtuff later. Steve just called me and may be driving home with a new camp trailer here in an hour or so... price is confirmed, deposit made, just having to do paperwork so I don't know if I'll see it today, but I'll post pictures when I do. A'camping we will go!