Challenge #8

I know you are wondering why I'm not posting Challenge #7 results. The truth is....yes, I do have the page done, but right now I'm so tired I really don't feel like taking pictures, uploading, cropping, and posting it right now.

We have a little girl at our house that has RSV and Bronchitis....yuck. So we have been a little short on sleep around here. I must say compared to other kids, we have got a trooper. She really is a "good" sick kid.

Today happened to be a little bit rougher just because we...well she....missed a nap. We laid on the couch together around 1:00. I had plans to get up after she fell asleep and go work on my post for today. Well, as it turns out I must have been more tired than her. I woke up about 20 minutes later to find her sitting on the OTHER couch across the room just watching me. She said, "Mommy you woke up......are you done napping?"

Whoops.....tally up another mother of the year award for me. I fall asleep while my sick 2 year old fends for herself.

So this evening got a little long with the occasional whining and crying....I'm sure due to sickness and being extremely overtired.

I did want to get my next challenge posted though. I will post my Challenge #7 results tomorrow....along with a ton of pics for my "365 days" blog. Here is Challenge #8....

Include a note or greeting card

Well, I am off to bed to catch some zzzz's before the little one wakes up....hopefully not before 7 AM.

it's a bird....it's a plane....no...it's a chip

Khloe came running into the kitchen yesterday about 5:00 P.M. soooo excited.....

K: Mommy, mommy come here. It's a chip

M: What? Where is a chip?

K: Outside, come on, come see (jumping up and down waving me in)

M: Khloe, there is not a chip outside

K: Yes, come on, come see the chip

So I make my way to the big picture window and this is what I see....



K: See, chip....up there

K: Can't reach it (as she tries grabbing for it)

Apparently the moon looks just like a Tostitos bite size chip.

Priceless.

dreams.....

You know when everyone always asks you what you want to be when you grow up? I ALWAYS wanted to be an orca whale trainer at SeaWorld....silly I know....but I always wanted to do it. I thought I would be like that kid in "Free Willy" and have some magical connection with these animals.

The dream to work at SeaWorld lasted a little longer than my one to work at McDonalds, I always thought it would be great to work there to get all of the free toys...... sorry.....I'm getting off topic....I'll save that story for another day.

Anyways, I have since grown up (in the last 5 minutes) and realized working with 12,000 pound animals is probably not the smartest job choice.

SCARY!!!! Kinda makes me think twice about going back to SeaWorld!

being a mom

I am LOVING this video from YouTube. Saw it on Wilna Furstenburg's blog and can't get enough. The ending is my favorite part about writing the story of your life....so true! Just wanted to pass it along to you mothers out there!

Challenge #7

I'm sitting here with my book in hand trying to pick out the next challenge. Today has been a moving day for me so I haven't even gotten a chance yet to look at the book. Here is what I came up with for this week.

Time's up...Finish a page in 60 minutes

I'm not real sure how this is possible...I think 2 hours is the fastest I have ever done a page. This will take some planning before I start. We'll see how I do.

Here is the cabinet that I spent a few hours cleaning today (these are the before pictures). It was used in the tanning room to let people store their lotions and goggles. It got a little abused....There is lotion and oil all over the outside and inside of the drawers. It is going to need one heck of a good paint job this spring, but it will be GREAT for storing scrapbook supplies in. I already almost have it full!

I am guessing the room will not totally get finished until the first part of May since I need to go get my desk and paint quite a few metal cabinets.

Back to cleaning! :)

Challenge #6 results and LOTS of extra stuff

Ok well got the little one to bed....finally.

Worked a portion of the day on finishing my layout for Challenge #6....seriously when will I learn?? This is getting unreal that I don't work on it before Saturday and Sunday. I keep making excuses. My famous one that seems to work every single week is.....

"Once this week gets over things will finally slow down." RIGHT.....I swear I have been saying this every single week since we brought Khloe home from the hospital. Do you ever feel like there are not enough hours in one day....I know....every single day! :)

So I did manage to finish my layout. Here was the challenge I took on:

Play around with circles

Should not have been a difficult one for me....but for some reason I could not wrap my brain around this one. I had ZERO ideas. I might add that my brain has not been functioning right this week....well for the past few weeks....but since this week is over I'm sure things will finally slow down! hee hee

Here is my (somewhat) finished layout:

Ehh....not real crazy about this one....but like I said....ZERO ideas floating around in this little head of mine. The only idea I had in mind was this circle collage of photos. Which I believe in the end was my pitfall. I knew I wanted to try that, but once I got it done I had no idea what to do with it and I was bound and determined I was going to use it. HMMM

So here is how I layed it out in Photoshop...I apologize for the bad picture...

Kind of a neat process.....if you can figure out what to do with it afterwards. ;)

I have a few finishing touches to put on my page....once I can find the supplies in my office to do so. I'm in the midst of moving to my other room and things are looking pretty bad around here. I'm trying to decide what color to paint my new room. I would love to get new carpet as well...the green just doesn't do it for me....but it doesn't seem to be in my $350 budget. So for right now I'm going to have to work with it.

I did find a different desk though that would bring the cost down a bit. The only problem is they are out of stock right now, which means I may have to move my current desks into the other room, which I was not wanting to do.

Oh well.

So I did make mention last night about our FABULOUS supper that we had. We made some broccoli/cauliflower/cheese soup. Amazingly enough I got it right this time, with Troy's help. It could have maybe been just a bit thicker but it turned out great. But it was these little buggers that really had everyone talking.

Nothing like some crispy homemade potato skins courtesy of my new PW cookbook. We are in love! So much so that we made them all over again tonight. I have it decided in my head that they can't be all that bad for you.

Potato skins...potatos are supposed to be healthy, right?

Olive Oil....a good fat.

Bacon...cooked so crunchy that all of the fat cooked out...for sure.

Cheese....good dairy product, especially since I don't drink milk.

Covered on the outside with some course Kosher Salt.....See, perfectly healthy!

Oh man are they ever good! Troy talked about them all last night and all day today. Next up I want to try the twice baked potatos...yummy!

Alright, well I have not even begun to look through my book for my next challenge. So I will do so tonight and post it in the morning!

oh the weekend

What a day!

I have tons to write about and tons of pics to post......but I am waaay to tired. Just laying on the couch cheering on Apollo....and I have no plans to move anytime soon.

We had a HUGE day today. Where to even begin....well how about with me getting rear ended this morning. Luckily nothing serious....just got bumped from behind...the guy couldn't stop on the ice...but of course I had Khloe with me and it scared the bejebbers out of me. The cops came and it just so happened at the intersection I was at there were 3 accidents there in the last 45 minutes he told us. We pulled into a parking lot off of the street and as we were leaving, a Hummer came up and nailed a pickup from behind. Lucky for them the other cop that was assisting us was still sitting right beside them. What a DISASTER!!! Just lucky it was nothing major.

Maybe they will decide to sand the intersections at some point. Just a suggestion.

Went shopping for some new jeans and came home with nothing. I swear I tried on 30 pairs. I hate trying to find jeans, but all of my pairs now have holes in them so it is beyond time. Even though I'm well aware that is the style now...it doesn't always look the greatest at work.

Hmmm what else did we do today?

Oh yeah that's right we got rid of our tanning bed! YAY!!!! So excited....but too tired to even go downstairs and work in the room. I have so many ideas floating in my head for my new room that I don't even know where to start.

We made a gourmet supper tonight....at least for what we are used to......tried out a new recipe from my PW cookbook. It was fantastic....Troy is still talking about it. I'll share some pics and more tomorrow. Be prepared for a super long post.

I have a lot of work left to do on my page for the week.....but this week has just been super crazy. I'm looking forward to things getting back to normal...hopefully this week! I have soo many projects on my list to do and I can't wait to get started!

on the hunt...and a surprise (for me....not you.....sorry)

I am on a hunt to find a sewing machine.

I have been having a terrible time trying to find one....simply because I have absolutely no idea what to even begin to look for. I don't know brands, I don't know what should be on the machine, I don't even know anything about needles, bobbins (is that what they are called?), etc.

I'm at a complete and total loss.

One of my goals this year is to learn how to sew....ha ha I know...at least I still have 10 months left, right?

My mom can sew anything. If I ask her for something she has it done in less than a day, I swear. I asked her about sewing machines and all I learned was that my mom can speak Chinese....at least that is all I heard.

So the search continues...if anyone out there has any brilliant insight that they want to share with me feel free! I'm not getting too complicated....I just want to be able to sew on some scrapbooking pages....maybe try a few pillows....some easy little baby blankets for gifts. I'm just going for simple right now.

Simple is good.

Speaking of simplicity......

A package arrived for me in the mail today from Amazon. I looked at the package multiple times before opening it just bewildered, because as far as I could remember....which isn't very far these days....I had not ordered anything from Amazon. So I ripped into it and was super shocked to see this.....

The Pioneer Woman's cookbook!
(one that I had wanted for quite some time and just never went out and bought)

I think I stood and looked at the cover for quite awhile before diving into the box to try and find some sort of insight to my new found luck.

Sure enough there was a note from my friend Jessica wishing me a Happy Birthday!

So, THANK YOU so much for my gift! You are such a great friend, I miss you so much, and next time you come to visit I'll cook you up something tasty you lil' whippersnapper! hee hee

watch out for falling objects

I have been putting this post off for quite some time now. I debated picking up before I posted this picture....but I thought everyone should see it in it's true glory.

In case there was anyone out there doubting that I needed a bigger office/scrapbooking room....here is my proof.

I really don't know if I can cram another thing in this room (yes that is also a treadmill off to the left). Actually the floor is relatively clean from what it normally is....and usually there is stuff piled high on my chair. I have been putting off cleaning until this weekend when I move out of this room. I have been waiting for this day for probably the last 2 years!

I can't wait! The only reason I posted this picture is because I have been planning and planning what my new room will look like and I thought you should see the "before" picture. Because the "after" should be pretty amazing when I am finished. It may take me a month or so to get it in order. I need to plan a trip to an IKEA where I am getting a few furnishings. I am on a tight budget and have been saving "extra" money to do this so the plan is to spend less than $350 putting the room together. We'll see if I can come in under budget....I plan to check out a few auctions and try and find some "gems." Here is a picture of my new desk. I can't wait to get my hands on it! It will take a big chunk of my change, but it is a nice big desk with LOTS of storage and I have had my eye on it for years!

I will probably have to wait until spring to spray paint all of the filing cabinets, but that is on my to-do list and I have another little filing cabinet that is going to be just perfect for holding all of my supplies that will have to be spray painted as well. I'll post that a little later on.

I still need to pick out a few paint colors....sorry Troy....I don't think I have warned him that we are going to be painting. We both HATE to paint! But I'm actually excited to do it this time!

So stay tuned for some more exciting things that will be going on in my new room!

Challenge #5 results, Challenge #6, and some blog info

I really need to get my act together and start working on these challenges before Saturday night! So my goal for this next week...since it is going to be a very busy week....is to start working on my page tomorrow!

Challenge #5 was

Include your journaling within your title

I did what I said I was going to do and I went back and used my older photos. It was hard...but I did it! Here is my finished page

I am definitely loving the simplicity of the pages I have been working on lately. My goal this year is to save money....which means I'm trying to not buy a TON of new stuff....some here and there though won't hurt...especially the new Dear Lizzy line from American Crafts. I can't wait to get my hands on that stuff. So until then I'm trying really hard to use up some of my stash....and I have lots to use.

Challenge #6 is as follows

Play around with circles

I'm excited....I have some thoughts. Just need to pick out some pictures.

Ok so a lot of changes will be coming to the blog. Right now the first major change is a new blog address. The new address with take effect on Wednesday, February 17. The new address is....

http://thepetitepearl.blogspot.com

It is a name I came up with quite some time ago and have always wanted to do something with it. So after Wednesday... http://themefferds.blogspot.com will not exist. EVERYTHING from this blog will be transferred over. After that I will be giving the blog another makeover. I have lots of changes in store. Hopefully some that will make it a little easier to navigate around. You may have noticed some changes already in that aspect. So please please please bookmark the new address so you are not lost after Wednesday. If you type in this address after Wednesday...it should link you over for a short period of time, but I'm not sure how long. So be sure and use the new name.

Also, the blog will be public again. I just had to make some changes before I did that...they are done....so you won't have to log in anymore to either of my blogs. I know it is a short step to do...but nonetheless it is annoying, so I'm sorry, but thanks for hanging in there. Please be sure and pass the new name on to all of your friends!

lots going on

It has been one of those weeks....or rather one of those months. To make a very long story short, we own a tanning bed in our salon and have been trying to get rid of it for quite some time. We finally sold it, but the date for them picking it up keeps getting pushed back. It was supposed to be this weekend and now it is not until next weekend. It has literally just been a big mess for my business and I can't wait to get things back on track.

The main reason for us selling the bed was for more room in our house. I am planning to move my office/scrapbooking room to the tanning room and give Khloe a play room. Her toys have been overtaking our house. We are really tired of tripping over everything in every room we walk into. I'm sure she will be thrilled to have her own room to put things in. I've got some big plans for both of the rooms as well as my salon. As much as I hate painting I really can't wait to throw a fresh coat of paint on the walls and start from scratch.

Just one more week.....just one more week

warning...do not read if you are eating right now

Ok so the warning is real.

What you are about to see may disgust some of you or it may make some of you laugh. So if you get grossed out real easily....probably don't look at these pics.

Sorry, but this was too funny not to document. Funny in a way that it is funny the first couple of times and now it is becoming a problem that needs to be fixed. But I needed to capture a few pictures first. Because to me....this is what it is all about.....the little quirky stuff that your kids do that you just have to take pictures of and document....so hear goes.

The other day I came into the livingroom to find that Khloe had pulled both of her socks off. She can now for the most part get herself dressed and undressed and there is no helping her. EVERYTHING is "Let me do it."

So I see her sitting the chair with her legs pulled up and she is wrenching on her toes. A bit like the picture below.

So I ask "What are you doing?" First she says "I don't know." Because her other favorite phrase right now is "I don't know." I ask again and she looks up at me and smiles and says "Cleaning the jam."

It takes me a minute and then I realize that she is sitting there cleaning the "toe jam" out of her toes. Wonderful. I'm going on the record right now and saying that neither Troy nor I sit and clean the "toe jam" out of our toes. I have NO IDEA where she came up with this.

So this has become a new obsession at our house. Everyday for the last 3-4 days Khloe has come home from daycare to "clean the jam out." I thought, ok don't make a big deal out of it and like most things it will just go away.

Then last night she chose the kitchen table as her designated picking spot.....after we have had numerous conversations about having our feet on the table.

Oh yes and did I forget to mention that she has now asked for a napkin to put the "yuckies" on. She even says "Ew gross" when she gets some out.....SIGH.

So after snapping this picture I remind her that our feet do not belong on the table.

Well we have always said that we have a smart little girl. So she decides...fine I won't put my feet ON the table.....

but nobody ever said anything about holding them OVER the table.

I have decided that this is a painful process. She really wrenches her toes apart and usually within 10 minutes of stopping she is complaining that her toes hurt. Imagine that.

The photo shoot ended and then it was time to stop the insanity that goes on at our house and get her away from the table.

In case any of you are worried about eating at our table again. It has been completely sanitized....multiple times....and I can assure you that there will be no more "jam sessions".....at least at the table.

working

For quite some time I have wanted to separate my scrapbooking/project blog from my family blog. I have some great ideas for some tutorials/do-it-yourself projects/etc that I have been wanting to add to my blog, I just never wanted to take the time to sit down and rearrange.

Time's up...I need to start.

So my blog will go public again. This time it will just be a little bit different. So hang with me for a little bit here while I get things rearranged.....it could look messy for awhile! :)

Sorry for the inconvenience. I'm not enjoying it much either, but I'll get things back on track here in the next week or so.

you just never know

We have been trying to get Khloe to lay by herself to take a nap and go to bed. She does it at the sitter....so why not here, right?

When she finally agrees to lay by herself it usually only lasts about 2 min, if that, before she wants one of us to lay with her. Is she spoiled in this aspect? Probably. But when she was a baby we tried the whole cry it out thing and it just didn't work. So we lay with her....every nap and every bedtime. Sometimes going to bed at night can take up to an hour. Yeah you can about imagine the outcome of those nights.

So today it came time to put Khloe down for a nap. She wanted to lay on the couch...sometimes she does...which I'm fine with. So I just laid down beside her, covered up, and read her a story.

She then told me "Want to lay by myself." I think my eyes about popped out of my head. "What?" I said. "Want to lay by myself....you go work on 'puter" she said.

WOW!

So I went and started working on my computer and sure enough within about 2-3 min she was out! Maybe this "being sick" isn't all bad! ;)

AMAZING!

Will it happen again? Probably not....but for one day it was a pretty amazing story! It was so amazing....I couldn't even resist taking a picture of the cute little peanut. Ok so she didn't exactly sleep alone! She had four snuggly friends to keep her company.

Challenge #5

Time to pick my next challenge!

Usually when I pick these I try to have a few photos in mind that I might want to use for the layout. Sometimes I use them and other times I change my mind and use other ones.

This time....I have no idea what I'm doing or what pictures I'm using.

hmmm

The challenge for this week is:

Include your journaling within your title

Interesting, I know. No ideas on this end....yet.


On a different note.....Neither Troy nor I are big football fan, but we do always watch the Superbowl and always get sucked in. I was rooting for the Saints if for no other reason than I thought they were a little bit of the underdog....so I was glad to see them win.

Yet again I was very impressed with the half-time show....not.

Enough said.

Still snowing at our house. I kept looking at Weather Underground today. They are usually pretty accurate, but when I got up this morning they were predicting one inch for today. I think there was about 4 inches by the time I woke up and probably another 4 by tonight. I don't think it is ever going to stop snowing. Good thing we finally buckled down and bought a snow blower because it sounds like we are going to get hit hard the next couple of days. Troy is loving the snow....that way he can justify his big purchase! :)

Challenge #4 results

Sunday already....the weekends are just flying by for us.

I hate it.

I finished up yet another challenge this week. It is nice to see that Khloe's album is finally getting some pages to it! I'm really struggling with going back and using the pictures that I took pre-dslr. So my goal is, as much as possible, to do every other layout with older pictures.

Why not add another challenge in there, right? :)

Here are the results from Challenge #4, which was:

Combine black & white and color on a layout

I had a few thoughts on this one. I wasn't sure which approach I was going to take. Here is the direction I went with.

I was simply going to use just the one photograph of her that was partially colored back. Then I decided it needed just a little bit more so I added the two smaller photographs to the bottom. I struggled with this page simply because I thought it needed more, yet I was really happy with how it looked. I really did not add any embellishments except for the three little rub on butterflies. It was hard for me not to get carried away and try and add more, but I really want some of these pictures to stand out more so I need to leave the page a little bit simpler.

These challenges for me are about more than just finishing the challenge that is listed in the book. I really want to expand what I am doing and try things that I have never tried before.


For this layout I printed the flower accent that you see, on the lower right hand side, off of my computer. I laid it out on an 8.5x11 sheet in Photoshop and printed a test page first. It seemed to turn out ok, but I was still pretty nervous that I would "ruin" the only green sheet of paper I had in this shade. I figured if it turned out bad I could improvise and try and cover it up.

I held my breath...printed....and voila!

It turned out PERFECT!

I rubbed on a few butterflies, stamped on my journaling spots, and it was better than I had imagined!

I'll be back later with the next challenge!

valentine's day

I had a cancellation today at work due to the weather so I decided to get Khloe's Valentine treat bags put together for her party at daycare next week.



I just bought some clear cello bags (25 for $1 on sale at Hobby Lobby) and put some M&M's, Hershey Kisses, and a sucker in them. Tied them up with a little ribbon and attached the little tags I had made.

I just downsized this photo to a 2x3 and added a cute little clipart and signed her name...using my fabulous Bamboo Craft Tablet. I was able to put 4 of them on a 4x6 sheet. Snapfish was running a special awhile back on photos for a penny for each 4x6 up to 50 photos. So I got 8 tags made for 2 cents. Pretty amazing right!

I think I probably spent less on these than actually going to the store and buying valentines!

So another thing crossed off the list for the week. Too bad I am not very far on my challenge page!

My sitter mentioned to me on Wednesday that she was amazed at how Khloe never got sick. So me...being the proud parent...agreed and said "Yes, she NEVER gets sick." As soon as the words left my mouth I knew I had caused irreversible damage....because what ALWAYS happens when you brag about not getting sick?

Yep, I have a very sick kid tonight. AUGHHH someday I will learn!

going digital

I thought I would share a couple of digital pages that I tried.

This was my first attempt at a digital page. I had this one printed out and I signed the bottom line with a heart and mama again.

Here is my second one that is not quite done yet. I need to figure out what I want to do for some journaling on it.

I may stick a few digital pages in Khloe's album, but I definitely like to touch my paper and embellishments rather than having a flat page when I am finished, but these are pretty cute.

If you want to try a digital layout head over to Two Peas in a Bucket or Designer Digitals. That is where I get the majority of my digital stuff. They have tons to choose from. Be careful you will feel very overwhelmed at first! I had a really hard time deciding on papers, brushes, etc.

sorry mom

My mom would hate it if we ever threw her a surprise party.

She would hate it if we ever put a picture in the paper for her on her birthday.

So she would probably hate it if I wrote an entire post on my blog about her.

But too bad....that's exactly what I have planned.

My mom did all of the food for the scrapbooking event this weekend and as always went above and beyond the call of duty. Whenever she says "it isn't going to be much," it always means "watch out cause I pulled out all the stops."

She shows up not only with all of the main dishes for lunch and supper, but with 2 extra salads, a veggie tray, and 3 different desserts for people to choose from. After my strict instructions to only do one of each (because we always have so much left over).

As always....the food was wonderful and I think everyone went home full!

Thanks Mom!