Malaria No More

I donated a net today to Malaria No More. A very worthwhile organization - consider supporting it!

Malaria No More

Where the heck did the time go?

Sheesh, been forever and a day since I posted. I really just haven't been on the computer much at all lately, and haven't scrapped either.

I will be trying to scrap for NSD and one of my favorite places to hang out on the net is having a crop - they are always fun - and will hopefully help me get my mojo back.

Monsters Vs Aliens 3D

Got the kids up this morning and made them pancakes in the shape of their name. They were a hit! Emma had gone to a birthday party awhile ago for her friend Ava, and Ava's Mom had made pancakes in the shape of their initials, and had been asking for them every since. So of course I had to go one better - and do the whole name!


Then we went with Paula & her kids to see Monsters Vs Aliens 3D at the IMAX theater in Seattle. We spent some time wondering through the Pacific Science Center. Contrary to what it looks like - these are NOT the aliens from the movie!





The kids always love going over there and taking the bus! The movie was great and we had a really good time.

In the Navy

Mitch got to give the Oath of Enlistment to Braeden today, officially inducting him into the Delayed Entry Program of the US Navy! Braeden will be attending bootcamp in November followed by A school in Pensacola FL - to become a CTT (cryptological technician - technical).

I'm so proud of both of my boys! I think it is so cool that Mitch got to enlist Braeden - I think they both think so too!

So now I'm not just a Navy Wife - I'm a Navy Mom too!

Here's a pic of my guys

My little Cowgirl

Mitch took Emma in to town today and bought her a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. She looks so stinkin' cute!

A Bit O' Scrappin!!

I reached my scrappy goal for this month - of 5 layouts. It's nice to not be rushing to finish up on the last day - hope I can keep that up! Here is my 5th layout for the month. It is using a sketch by Anam for a contest over at ScrapAttack Scrapbooking.

Boots

Mitch wanted me to have some high heeled boots to wear with my new dresses. Anyone that knows me - knows that I am a mules/flip flop kinda gal - and because I'm 5'10ish I hardly ever wear heels. Mitch is a tad bit shorter than me - but he loves it when I wear heels - so from time to time I humor him!

Saturday Emma and I went on The Great Boot Hunt. I knew that boots were out of season - but was hopeful to find something on sale. Went to JCPenney - nada, went to Kohls - nada, went to Famous Footwear - 1 pair on clearance $60 - kinda ugly, went to Macy's - they had a ton - but on clearance $80. Went to Sears - a couple pairs $40 - not brown. I talked to Mitch and he said to go back and get the $80 pair at Macy's. So back I went - when they rang them up - they were only $35 - woot woot! So I got a black pair too! Now to learn how to walk in them!! And break them in - as I type this post I have the black pair on - wearing them with my yoga capri pants - not a great look - LOL.

Race To Witch Mountain

Mitch, Brett, Emma, Grandma Ruth and I all went to see this movie last night. The kids give it 9 3/4 out of 10. Us adults all liked it too. Makes me want to go watch the originals. The little girl from the original has a cameo as a waitress in this film - was waiting for a cameo from Kurt Russell too - but didn't see him. The theater was PACKED - and the couple behind us kept a running commentary up about the movie during the movie, and little kids kept having to go to the bathroom - and we were on the aisle row - and they kept stepping on my feet. So overall the theater experience wasn't great - but the movie was.

After the movie we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Of course we had the bloomin' onion. Everyone really enjoyed their meals - and it was Grandma Ruth's birthday - so she got a great Chocolate sundae with a candle in it. Fun family night.

Score!

Mitch mentioned recently that he would really like to see me in more dresses. My friend Bobbi had just been here, and she always dresses really cool and has fun and funky jewelry. When I mentioned that I liked her jewelry - Mitch mentioned he liked her dress and boots.

I was in Wal-Mart yesterday, looking for another pair of yoga pants (because Mitch likes the 1st pair so well) and saw some dresses that were similar to the one Bobbi was wearing. So I went for a closer look - and they were on the clearance rack - and were marked down to THREE DOLLARS. That's $3, 3 bucks!!!! Can you believe it?

I brought them home and did a fashion show for DH - and he was way pleased with them. He even took some pictures of me in one of them - he's so cute. I'd also been to get my hair cut and I had her blow it straight - which he also loves. So, it isn't the best picture - but here it is. Now to find some boots.

My Baby - the recruit

Today was a monumental day in our family.  Mitch took Braeden to the Navy recruiting office to start on the process of joining the Navy.  Braeden has swung between many options for after he graduated, but he finally decided to follow family tradition and join the Navy.  Braeden will be 4th generation Navy. His plan is to get training and money for college.  I hope that he does well, and travels and enjoys his time in the military.  It has certainly been a good life for us. I made Mitch promise to get a couple of shots for me, even though Braeden was not thrilled at the prospect.

More Scrapping

Doing some challenges for Fun Month at Scrap Attack and also for Scrappy Day at Scrap Supply. Trying to push myself to finish up my goal of 5 layouts a month prior to the last day of the month - LOL. This puts me at 4 for the month - yeah me!

Some "me" time

With Mitch home taking care of cooking, and alot of the housework and entertaining of the kids - I was able to spend some time at my scrapbook table working on more challenges for Fun Month at Scrap Attack. I squeaked in the last of the layouts that I needed to make my goal of 5 for the month.

A Family Again!

Mitch is home - and we are a complete family again. Now will come the period of adjustment as we all get used to being together again. The kids ran out and jumped into Mitch's arms when we came home - and I was so busy living in the moment - I don't have any pictures :( Brett cried and hugged him and told him that he had missed his smell of copenhagen. Emma cried and just told him how much she loved him and missed him. Braeden just gave him a big hug and said he was glad he was home.

Today's the Day!

Mitch is due to arrive this afternoon from Frankfurt Germany. The kids and I are ready for him to be home and we are all excited for him to finally get here. I'm heading to the airport in a couple hours - and wouldn't it figure that it is raining today - for the first time in ages!!

It's Official

Mitch will be arriving in Seattle on Sunday afternoon. To say that we are all excited would be an understatement. Yesterday one of the boxes he mailed home arrived - and it was so good to open it up and put away his clothes and know that soon he'd be here to wear them!

Sock Hop

Our PTA put on a Sock Hop night at the Elementary School. You were encouraged to dress up 50's style and come and have fun! Brett wasn't too sure about going, I wasn't looking forward to going - but Emma was excited to go, so off we went. We had a fantastic time! The PTA had awesome decorations up, a fun DJ who played some games like Hot Potato and a Hula Hoop contest. Brett danced with a GIRL! It was totally cute - and he told me that he loved the dancing and was having the greatest day of his life. I was the adult winner of Hot Potato and got a glow stick for my efforts LOL. Emma and I looked more early 60's than 50's - but Brett nailed the 50's look. My friend Paula dressed up too - and she teased her hair into a beehive - and I teased her that she looked like a sober Amy Winehouse. Her kids were dressed in 50's cool, with her daughter having the cats eye glasses, saddle shoes and poodle skirt. We took the kids to McDonalds afterwards for milkshakes and food - and then went to Paula's to watch movies and let the kids play. Fun time!

International Night

We have the Passport Club at our Elementary school and I am the volunteer coordinator and also help out on Check Day. My good friend Paula runs the club and she is passionate about the fact that kids should know about the world that they live in. This year she ran a fundraiser for the club - and decided that the kids who participated in the fundraiser would get a great reward. Her first thought was a field trip to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle to see Lucy's Legacy , but due to some transportation and insurance issues - that had to be cancelled. Next she decided to hold an International Night, and have volunteers prepare foods from different countries and she would prepare a recipe book/passport that would tell a bit about each country - give the recipe and have a place where when they went to the "Country" to taste the food they would get a stamp in their passport. All her had work paid off, we had a lot of attendance - there was great food and the kids got to learn about drums and African dance and music from the group Planet Afua . I was the "official" photographer for the night and took tons of photos, I also got to taste lots of food. My favorite by far was this dish

Ethiopian Injera and Doro Wat (bread and chicken stew)
Injera:

Combine 2 ½ cups flour, 1 tbsp. baking powder in a bowl. Whisk in 3 cups club soda or sparkling water. Mix into a smooth thin batter. Heat a large non stick skillet. Dip enough batter from the bowl to cover the bottom of the skillet and pour in quickly, all at once. Lift and rotate the pan to cover the bottom completely with a thin layer, and set it back down on the heat. When the moisture has evaporated and small holes appear in the surface, remove the injera. Stack the injera on top of each other and keep warm in the oven on low.

Doro Wat:

Chop up 4 cups of chicken and cook in 1 stick of butter. Add 5 large cloves of garlic, chopped. Also add 1 small chopped onion and 2-3 carrot stalks- sliced. Season with 1 tsp. chili powder and ½ tsp. pepper and salt, or to taste. Add in one can of tomato sauce (14 oz) and simmer for ½ hour or so, until carrots are tender. Stir in 3-5 hardboiled eggs, chopped and serve with injera.

You take a piece of the injera and wrap it up around the stew- eating with your fingers.

Fun Month Begins

I'm trying really hard to keep up with my goal of 5 layouts per month and with that intent - I'm participating in some challenges for the Fun Month at Scrap Attack . Yesterday was the first day of fun month - and I got one layout done.



For Challenge #4 - Clean Slate
This started as a PageMaps sketch - and then went totally sideways.

Bazzill Cardstock
Moxxie Paper
Misc. Staple
Black Sharpie Pen

Journaling:
Paula & I took the kids bowling. I'd forgotten what a workout bowling can be ~ especially when your shoes stick and the only ball with big enough finger holes is a 14 pounder! Mai Ly bowled better than the rest of us and Brett used his Yabba Dabba Do technique
All Star Lanes
1-19-2009

Two Week Countdown {maybe}

Well as of information we have today - Mitch is due home from his year long deployment in 2 weeks. Of course this is about the 4th date that we have for his arrival - so it is still only a number. I keep telling him that I'll believe it when he gives me his flight info to pick him up from Sea-Tac.

As far as the year of him being gone goes - it has gone by VERY quickly. It seems to have passed in a blink of an eye in some ways and in others it has been the longest year of my life. We will all be so happy to be back together as a family.

I made this layout (it is a scraplift of my friend Jen's layout - even lifted the title!) and journaled a wee bit about how I'm handling the separation.

Some Scrappy Shopping

I had to go to the Dr. the other day, diagnosis - bronchitis. Soo, to make me feel better, I did a bit of scrappy shopping while I was out.

{SAS}SY Fun Month

February 15th and running through March 15th Scrap Attack Scrapbooking will be having a {SAS}sy Fun Month! So if you like challenges, chatting and prizes you won’t want to miss out on all the fun!

Carnivals are always a {fun} place with so much going on. So keeping along those lines, we’ve put together a small “midway” of activities for you to complete during our {SAS}sy Fun Month.

For each activity you complete, you will receive a ticket! The tickets will be entered into a drawing for some fun prizes courtesy of SAS! At the end of the {SAS}sy Fun Month, we’ll total the tickets, enter them into a drawing and pull 7 random winners! The more you play, the better your chances are to win some fun stuff courtesy of Scrap Attack Scrapbooking!

My new favorite snack

I was in Albertsons a couple of days ago and came across this



I love sunflower seeds - but hate the mess of cracking the shells and spitting them out - so I tend toward the already shelled ones. I thought that I'd give these Honey Roasted ones a try - and they are absolutely addicting! As we have already discussed - I have a tendency toward addiction - so it is a good thing that I channel it towards scrapping, game play and now Honey Roasted Sunflower Nuts!

These have such a subtle flavor to them - you still get mainly the taste of the sunflower seed - with a slightly sweet taste to it. Ymmm - perfection!

I scrapped

Amazingly enough - I finally got some scrapping done this year. I have turned into the biggest procrastinator - and I hate that about myself - but it is what it is. Here are the results of my scrappin-fest yesterday - thanks Jen for hanging out with me via IM and cheering me on.

The Search is over

After Mitch spending weeks looking through online sites for the truck that he wanted - I am the one that finally found the truck. I showed the link to Mitch and he was so excited!! So, off the kids and I went to Bellingham to test drive the truck and possibly buy it. It was the first time I've ever bought a vehicle myself - and it was an interesting experience - especially since we were haggling via email with Mitch over price. The salesman was great and I'd recommend Rairdon Dodge in Bellingham if anyone is around that area and looking to buy a vehicle.



So here is Mitch's new baby , it is a stick shift - so Braeden hasn't been able to drive it like he wants to - because he hasn't learned how to drive a stick. I went out with him once in it - and we ended up just parking it - because I was afraid he was gonna drop the tranny ;)

The Dancing Brush

Emma has been wanting to go to the ceramics studio in Poulsbo called Dancing Brush for quite some time, so today Mommy guilt got the best of me - and I took her. I was planning on just watching her create and taking pictures - but she said I needed to create something too. So while she worked on a mug for her Dad, I made up my own species of plant - called a Cactus Tree - LOL.



evidentally my paintbrush didn't dance - it committed hari kari - LOL.

My Favorite Pizza

Just a little random about me fact today - this is my absolute favorite pizza - add some dried red pepper flakes to it and I'm in piggy heaven!!

This is the Cowboy Pizza from Papa Murphy's Take N Bake Pizza.
Premium pepperoni, Italian sausage, fresh mushrooms, black olives and herb & cheese blend. Yummmm - now I want this for lunch!!

Bowling

We went bowling with my friend Paula and her two kids. I haven't been bowling in forever - next time I'm home I should go and see if I can find my old bowling ball - although I bet my fat fingers probably wouldn't fit in it anymore.  I had a hard time finding a bowling ball that worked for me - and my shoes weren't sliding well - so my back was pretty sore from all the jerking movements when I tried to bowl.

I love the fancy new gizmos at the bowling alley, the automatic gutter guards if you want them, the automatic score keeping.  Makes it easier for sure.  We had a lot of fun bowling - although none of use will be signing up for leagues soon LOL.

I was Photo Tagged

By Jen

You have been PHOTO TAGGED!!

Go on your hard drive to your “pictures” file.

Open the 4th file.

Pick the 4th photo.

Blog about it.



So here it is, a not so great photo from 2004 - Braeden during the first real snow that we ever had since moving to Kingston. The neighbor had this sled and we all went out and played outside in the snow. And no, I haven't scrapped it yet.

Trip to Seattle

Paula & I took the kids over on the Ferry to Seattle, then we rode the bus to Seattle Center and went to the Pacific Science Center and saw The Day The Earth Stood Still at the IMAX theater. It was too loud for Emma - so I had to wrap her scarf around her ears - put her hood up and hold my hands over hear ears while the movie was going - but over all we had a great time. Brett wasn't all that keen to go - but after we got there - he was so enthralled by all the displays - and wants to go back again soon. I think one of the highlights of the day for Brett & Emma was getting to ride on Public Transit..

Wish I'd Seen This Before Christmas

This is so hilarious - love it!

Unconventional Christmas Part 2

The second part of our unconventional Christmas came about because we had snow on the ground - from the winter storms that we had been getting hit with - and as a result the Propane trucks couldn't make their rounds - and we ended up running out of propane - which meant no heat, no hot water, no dryer and no stove. So I had all the fixings for Christmas dinner here - but the venue had to be moved to Paul & Ruth's since they are all electric. I did as much prep work here as I could - here is the turkey ready to head over to their house to go in the oven, and here is another picture of the eggs boiling on the burner on the grill for deviled eggs. I also made the pie crust here - and ran over there to cook it and make the filling. The meal turned out wonderful though, the company was great - and so even though it was a most non-traditional Christmas - it was a wonderful Christmas.

Unconventional Christmas Part 1

This was always gonna be a very different Christmas for us this year - with Mitch being overseas - and his Mom having to work - it was going to be just me, the kids and Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Paul (our adopted neighbors). To start with, we had a good web-cam connection on Christmas Eve morning - so Mitch thought it would be best to go ahead and do presents then - so one by one - the kids opened their presents in front of the web-cam so that Mitch could get to be a part of the excitement of Christmas present opening. Here are some photos of the present opening - the kids loved getting their presents early - and having more time to play with them - they also loved having their Dad be a part of the celebration. So on Christmas morning all we had to do was Santa presents and Stockings - made for a nice easy morning.







and this is a bittersweet photo for me - as this could possibly be the last Christmas morning that I have with all my kiddos - since Braeden is 18 and on the verge of leaving the nest and living his own life - who knows where upcoming Christmases will find him?

Winter Storm 2008

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Here we go again!

Well I fell off the blog wagon again - so any posts from here to November 1st are new as of today. Sigh - one of these days I will learn to be a better time manager!!

Right now it is 28 degrees outside and we have the remnants of about 1 1/2 inches of snow on the ground. The kids had a 2 hour delay for school. I went and ran errands after they got off to school - and had to go back in and get my sunglasses because the sun was shining so brightly on the snow. Weather.com says that it is 28 feels like 17. Brrrrrrrr....

Christmas Card & Letter He**

I do this to myself every year - procrastinate until I am in Christmas Card & Letter He**.  Every January I decide to make my cards - and I vow to start sooner - and make it not such a rush, and every year finds me working on them during the first week of December. And instead of enjoying the process I can be found franticly trying to get  all 100 or so of them made, labels printed, christmas letter written and envelopes stuffed.  One of these years, I will actually start them early enough that I can sit back, drink hot buttered rums - and laugh at all the suckers still working on theirs.  Well, a girl can dream can't she?

Here are some photos of the process - and the final product.

Ready to start putting them together - after stamping and cutting out 120 trees and 120 stars, and using the Revolution, Cuttlebug and Nestabilities to cut out the rectangles and the scalloped rectangles - I'm ready to begin gluing. And here is the finished product, after I stamped a saying into the inside of each and then signed the back with my intials and year, and signed the inside - Mitch, Kim  & kids (although Mitch and kids had nothing to do with it).



I agonize every year over what to say in the traditional newsletter.  This year I took a class on BPS called The Scrappable Holiday Letter - and one of her ideas was to approach it like it were a gift catalog - and each of you was a gift.  Mitch and I sure had fun writing this one - although I do wonder if anyone will "get" it when they get it - LOL.  Below is the final letter - I bought a template and scrap kit from Scrap Girls to use to design the newsletter.


 So I finished it all up this morning - and they are officially in the hands of the USPS.  Whew!!