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Friday, November 23, 2007

Can you gain 10 pounds in a day?

Well... I think I might have. Yesterday was a whirl wind time of nothing but cooking and doing dishes. Get up- feed kids, clean up dishes. Make stuffing, prepare 25 lb bird for oven, and lunch time appetizers and finger foods to be ready by noon. Family arrives at noon- hungry. Bird goes in oven- and first grub session begins leaving trays of half eaten goodies and a mess of dishes. 1/2 hour is spent trying to cram all the left over goodies into an already stuffed refrigerator. Another round of dish cleaning begins and commences. Take time to eat a couple of the left over appetizers (all the ones that didn't find placement in the fridge) and read the paper to find out where all the sales are the next day that I won't be able to go to because husband has to work and this mom refuses to drag two little boys out in to a shopping frenzy. Can one shop the sales via phone? Doubt it- that is why I shop online. Anyway- brief break is over- back to the kitchen, honey is the coffee hot? No. Make more coffee - now it's on to all the sides that need to be prepared to go along with the turkey that is cooking too quickly. Hmmmm... Create another large disaster in the kitchen trying to get sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing and salad all done at the same time the turkey is supposed to come out of the oven. Does anyone ever really achieve this? Martha maybe? Anyway- bird comes out of the oven with the thermometer reading perfectly cooked. We begin carving - and realize that the under portion is a little too "pink" to be considered fully cooked. :( But the chicken bubbles (bubbles is what my 7 year old calls breasts) are fully cooked and beautiful so we hack into that and decide to put the rest of the bird back in the oven just to make sure no one dies of food poisoning. Grub session number two begins and ends in about 1/2 hour. Next round of cleaning begins and commences... with another 1/2 hour spent trying to re-arrange the refrigerator to accommodate mass amounts of left overs. In the time it takes to clean up- men sitting on couch have time to process everything they ate at dinner- and decide that as soon as mom sits down- they want dessert. So- back to the kitchen I go to set out a selection of pies, apple, pecan and pumpkin courtesy of mother-in- law. Dessert is served - or should I say grub session number three, another pot of coffee gone... and more dishes left for me to clean up. We decide to watch a movie, put the kids to bed- guests gone by midnight.

I'm going to go back now and lay on the couch :)

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Turkey Time - rapidly approaching!


Turkey Day is tomorrow! I spent 2 hours at the grocery store yesterday battling ladies pushing carts while chatting on cell phones! I swear that is worse than talking on the phone while you drive :( The whole grocery isle traffic is held up because some gal is chatting on the cell phone while staring at the shelves of canned goods - no one can pass by. One guy managed to maneuver around and grunted at her, it was hilarious- and she was quite oblivious to it all. My cell phone was buried in my purse, which was buried under $150 worth of groceries so I couldn't have chatted if I wanted to!


Today is scrap and clean day. Clean a little- scrap a little... probably more scrapping than cleaning, but oh well! Tomorrow I will be cooking all day long- which I LOVE!
Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

BTDL's Pick a Paper Line Challenge



The BTDL girls have a new challenge auction launching on ebay on Monday! As a group, we have selected the "Wild Saffron" Collection from K&Company to kick off our first Pick A Paper Line Challenge where each of us will use the same supplies to create something in our own unique style! I LOVE THIS PAPER LINE! Here is a sneak peak at my layout, I will be listing two!


Friday, November 16, 2007

Tis' the Season...

Turkey Day is rapidly approaching. While channel surfing the other day- I landed on the Martha Stewart show- she was helping her guest get a turkey ready for roasting. Talk about WOW. She used so much butter- I almost had a heart attack from watching. My husband's mouth was hanging open and I think I saw him drool. He thinks that this year should try the MS version with 14 pounds of butter and cheese cloth. :) So, I will be spending some time online today researching the MS method, with butter, twine and cheese cloth and hope that somewhere on her website they the demonstration to tie up the bird like she did! This could be an event worthy for America's Funniest Home Videos!

Anywhoooo - my last weekend went GREAT. The Mitey Might Raiders made it to Autzen stadium, had dinner with the entire Pop Warner crew- had their pictures taken with Dennis Dixson and proceeded to CRUSH the Lions the next morning! It was AWESOME - they performed great as a team, were completing their passes, and scored a touch down on the very first play of the game. Kasey had a great game, with 6 tackles - which exceeded his personal goal for that game. Afterwards they all received little trophys :) Final Score = 30-12

Now... it's all over. I can't tell if I'm happy to be done with it- or bummed that all the excitement is done and over with. Next year, I will have two in football- and will have to figure out how to clone myself so I can have them at two different locations for practice at the same time! Starting Aug. 1st it will be 5 days a week, every evening until school starts. Lord help me, I'm going to need it!



Kasey, right before he tackled the QB :)

Little Man - big stadium

The 3 of us with our little champion.


Wednesday, November 7, 2007

My latest endeaver...

Custom Keepsake ~ Shadowbox pages - for baby names :) My sister in law saw a couple of prints with the baby name origin/meanings at one of our local bazaars - and told me I ought to create pages with this theme... so voila - here is my first attempt. I picked the name Ella as an example because I love what it means. I picked K&Company Sparkly Sweet Collection because the paper is beautiful and SPARKLY which is right up my alley. I have quite a few K&Co sparkly layouts under my belt :)


So... often people ask me what I "do". I reply, I am a full time SCRAPPER. They just don't get it. I stay home - with my kids. And while they are at school- I create pages for other people that I've never even met before. People from all over the world :) The UK, Australia, Canada, France- it's been FUN. Have I ever submitted my work for publication? No. I'm not that confident- and I fear rejection :) Also- my work doesn't exactly fit into the common scrapbook magazine norm of what is "popular". I don't like to create pages about what I "like" - I don't like taking pictures of my favorite book and then journaling for an entire page about why I liked it. I like taking pictures of the everyday things in life, and then doing what comes naturally. I think the judges eye's would pop out of their head with the amount of stuff that I put on my pages, and the sheer weight of them would surely cause a seizure I'm sure! HA! I could be the highlight of Lisa Bearnson's "what not to do on a page" articles. No really... what I create for myself is nothing like what I create for my clients. I like to focus on the pictures- and less on the froof. I tire easily of the one pic wonders that grace the covers of all the popular mags right now. Who takes just one picture of their kid in their Halloween custome? Are you kidding me? The world has gone digital people, I can take up to 250 high resolution pictures before I run out of space, and that is typically what I take of an event just so I can assure myself that I have at least THREE good pics out of the whole lot!! Hee Hee. Guess I need photography classes. But who has the time? Oh, and on the note of the one pic wonders... if I did that for all of my favorite pictures I would have no space left for ANYTHING in my house because it would be full of albums. Just not reasonable folks. I save the one pic wonder pages when I have a single photo of my child that belongs with nothing else. Those moments when you just snap a picture- no "event" taking place, just pick up the camera and catch a moment. Those are few and far between for me... I like to click click click away!
Anyway- I digress. Back to common questions I get asked... when do you scrap pages for yourself? My answer to that is quite sad. I haven't scrapped for myself in months! However, I do like to tease all my close friends that I'm still further along in the "caught up" phase then they are :) What do my personal layouts look like? Well..... here ya go, take a peek. And don't laugh because I'm including one pic wonder pages!








Sunday, November 4, 2007

Flu Season Strikes Again...

So the season starts... boys go to school. School is full of sick kids with nasty coughs, green oozing crud- and GERMS. One kid gets sick, then the other kid gets sick, and they pass it back and forth until Spring. In between- mom is just basically SICK of sick kids, and never has time for herself to be sick. Dad gets sick too- and then mom has three sick kids to take care of. Mom doesn't thing Dad is really sick, he just decides he needs a "Tivo" day and PLAYS sick.

It's a vicious cycle.

However, all is not lost. I have tremendous news to share with the millions who might be reading this very blog right now. (okay maybe I have 3 people reading this beside myself)

Kasey is going to the Championship Game at Autzen Stadium next Sunday! (that is if he isn't sick) They made it, they had the best record for Rogue Valley Mighty Mites and are going to show their stuff at the big stadium!!! WOO HOOOOOOO! I'm so excited!! So... oh faithful blog readers, please keep him in your prayers- that he is well enough to go to practice this week and stays well through out the next weekend. My luck- it will be MY turn to get the flu- on lets say, Friday. So, keep me in your prayers too. I'm taking every preventative flu medication on the market and if I have to sit there in the stadium with a bucket I WILL!