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!