Running On Empty

Happy Mother's Day Month!

You see, every occasion that celebrates me get's it's own month.  Not sure when it started but everyone around here has caught on - even the kids LOL!   We got great news this morning--my counsin Matt --who is a twin-- and his wife gave birth to TWIN BOYS!  I'm so happy for them--and to think he's carrying that gene, I think it's very cool.

Today Katie and I did a 3.2 mile race and I really enjoyed spending that time with her and seeing how much she loves to run.  We're not sprinters by any means, but we did run quite a bit, and walked too. We did the whole thing in about 50 minutes.

April was a crazy-busy month. Ryan moved up in Karate and now has his orange belt. This included a night of showing-off for the parents and celebrating. He also had a class musical "How does your garden grow" where he was one of four WEEDS - and he got to RAP. So, so funny! Katie went rock-climbing at an indoor place for a friend's birthday and was a total natural. The girl has no fear at all. We're finishing up Spring soccer - yesterday the ball she kicked toward the goal was ONE inch away from scoring. UGH--so close...the REF had to make the call and he said "NOPE" Did I mention Jeff was the REF yesterday?  At least he's fair!  She also had a musical in April "YO LEONARDO" and all 5 of the second grade classes performed together. Katie's class represented the art of sculpture...it was awesome and so fun to see her and all of the friends she's growing up with do so well.

Here are some photos.... have a great week :)

For Angie

Please keep Angie and her family in your thoughts and prayers - Monday is going to be an incredibly awful day for their family.  Sweet blessings to Audrey Caroline...

I finally did it!

After about a year of planning and a few days of second-guessing myself - I did it. I cut 13 inches of my hair off...and will be donating it to Locks of Love. Working everyday with families who have sick, dying children is hard and often times you feel a little bit hopeless. Well, today I felt great! (I almost cried when I heard Melissa - my awesome stylist start cutting).

Okay...on to the pictures!

The first ones are obviously the before shots..

and during the cut:

and the finished look:

I'm very happy with it, and actually think I should have gone a bit shorter.

Looking forward to 10 hours of scrapping tomorrow!

Happy Spring

You know what that means right? Yes, we're getting closer to summer! We've been incredibly busy here. Cleaning house and de-cluttering, school projects, planning a couples weekend HERE in a few weeks and just trying to juggle it all. A few weeks ago Barney Saltzberg came to our school as the guest author. Oh my--he's funny and his books are awesome.  Go get the music CD - my kids love it and I actually like to sign along.  His "Be With Me" song is my favorite. You can hear samples on his website under the music link. He also sings "Where oh where is my underwear" funny, funny stuff. In honor of his visit all of the teachers and kids had "crazy hair day" (he has a book named this). Here's a couple pics of the kids:

Katie also caught another lizard in the backyard. This guy is HUGE. He sticks around too--she plays with him everyday.

We've also been eating and selling these:

Ryan also loves his new sport:

Happy Easter!

Photo Share

I was organizing my studio, printed photos and my computer photo files this weekend. Boy that was a long process--but it feels good to know where everything is and put away.

This month has been busy, here are just a few pictures I wanted to share:

First, we have the best fingersandwiches EVER - made by Nora, for our sorority rush party (note the bread matches our sorority colors!). I provide the house, she brings good food and does the dishes (we swear it's our way of having to get out of doing the small talk thing with everyone). It's good to be an alum!

The picture above is of the 120 young women that were here!

Ryan and his American Girl Doll--one I won at a charity auction. The bidding was fierce--this one lady and I kept going back and forth. She finally asked me if my daughter really wanted it and I told her Katie already had one but my son wanted one of his own. She loved it--and let me win!!

Ryan at his class patriotic play.

Katie got to play the xylophone during her class valentines day show and was named student of the month for February!!

we also went to the Living Desert and got to catch butterflies...good fun. On a sad note, my friend came home from work the day before valentines day and found her husband. He somehow died--at age 53. It was/is devistating news.  On Valentines day roses were delivered to her -- from her hubby...how incredible is that? The service is Saturday. We're very, very sad.

Snow day!

What a fabulous day (minus the 3 hour traffic jam up the mountain) we had in Big Bear. The kids have never been sledding and our very dear friends invited us to their cabin for the day - it was a beautiful, warm day and we spent it all in the snow. One scary part of our day was Ryan's first sledding run--he got off course and slammed right into a tree. Luckily he turned the sled at the right time and he was protected by the sled. Poor guy--he was freaked. I held him for a good 20 minutes and then made him get right back on the sled with our friend Ron -- just look at the fear in his face:

But, he soon got over the fear-- and had a BLAST:

Here are just a few more shots from our great day:

The Month of Love

Yay! I'm still very happy about how well the crop went last weekend. It took me a couple of days to recover and I also spent a few days taking care of Kate--who is never sick. She even missed 3 days of school this week.  I wasn't able to get a thing accomplished (scrapbooking wise) at the crop, and I've been itching to create ever since. I was able to make this in the last couple of days for an upcoming class I'm teaching at Collective Journey February 23rd. Class kits are available if you can't make the class...just drop me an email!

Oh yeah...big congrats to Laura for winning the TARA WHITNEY photoshoot. She is one lucky girl!

January - is almost over

where does the time go?

We're going to pack up a lunch and head outside today. Exploring and doing a bit of this:

I'm ready for summer already...bring on the sun, please!

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!

We've been a little busy with the hustle and bustle of the season - here's just a glimpse of what we've been up to:

The kids with their very own "who-ville" singing around the tree, Katie's class got to go on a fieldtrip to see "Hollydazzle" it was awesome:

Katie even got to go up on stage and sing with Santa! Speaking of Santa, Katie finally talked to him (she's never, ever wanted to sit or talk to him) I'll post more about our encounter in another post...

Here are a few decorations around the house:

Above photos include my mantle, our village (which is much prettier lit) and one of my favorite ornaments- I get a new one each year that's a bit different, but they all have our names and the year.

We spent a bit of time in the mountains with friends too...

And decorated some cookies...

Okay...gotta run...having a few friends over tonight!