weekend concert

I still find Matthew's Lego scenarios in weird places. Today this was on the kitchen table. I asked him what it was....it's a rock concert. You can't really see in the pictures, but I love how the guitar guy is leaning back and has one leg in the air. It cracks me up. And that drum set rocks.

If you click on the photo below you can see that he even made little drumsticks. The guy standing behind the white wall is selling tickets.

From left to right - Lego Megan, young Anakin Skywalker, me, Lego Mike, Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan. Lego Mike has been around forever. He has a pilot uniform and glasses. You never know where he shows up. I have pictures of him sitting on the dash in our Mazda. Sometimes he sits on a magnetic brick on the refrigerator holding a Lego mug or flowers, and not long ago I found him on his head doing a breakdance move. Complete with mug and some scattered Lego coins. I should take more pictures of where we find Lego Mike. It is pretty funny to find him doing random things.

The funniest thing is, I love that Lego Mike is standing on the wall with his arms in the air. It must be some song that inspired him to jump up on the barrier. LOL.

Boys are so funny. Today Mike and I went to Kroger to pick up a few things. We were joking about not having the boys with us and hearing, "Can I go look at the Legos?" We peeked down the aisle when we walked by and sure enough there was another boy standing there with his hands in his pockets staring upwards towards all of the Lego boxes. The universal language of Lego. I have to admit, I still love playing with them too.

A bit of my scenic commute

***click on photos to enlarge
In the morning when I take my boys to school (which is about 15 minutes away) I realized that the drive is like morning yoga and a great cup of coffee. It's relaxing, and invigorating. It's our time to talk about what is expected of the day in school and I like having the time with the boys before dropping them off.

I also just love the scenery of the drive. There are several huge horse farms that I pass. They look like perfect playgrounds to me with miles and miles of hills and black fences, and barns that just make me swoon.

So today I had my camera with me and stopped to take a couple of photos on my way back home. I think I'll take more when traffic allows. There's really not a lot of traffic, but it figures at some point when there is something I'd love to slow down and take a picture of, there is somebody behind me.


That yellow house. I don't know exactly why, but I love it. Maybe it's the contrast with the snow....which is the only way I've seen it so far. I'm looking forward to seeing it when the grass and trees turn green again. But I come around a corner and that house pops out at me each time.

There is also a place where every single morning I see these winter fuzzy horses out eating from a huge bale of hay. This morning though....we had an hour delay for school due to some icy rain and snow overnight. (Yay for the extra hour of sleep!) But also because I guess the horses were done with breakfast by the time I was coming back from school this time. I stopped to get a picture of them. They were pretty curious that somebody had stopped. Horses crack me up like that. Like, "Hey....what's up?" Maybe it breaks up the monotony of their day. LOL.

I gave them each some attention and enjoyed the feeling of hot horse breath from their noses on cold bare hands. (Something only a horsey person could appreciate!)

OK snow, I like you, but move along now.

Spring. I'm ready for Spring. Not that I'm not enjoying winter anymore but it is getting a little long at this point. I think mainly because today was a taste of what is to come. It was in the 40s and the sky was beautiful. The snow on the ground was blinding. It's funny how after a couple of weeks of close to zero temperatures, that a 40 degree day is worthy of a tshirt and feels warm.

We even grilled out some steaks last night and hamburgers tonight. Plus had the car washed. I came out of Kroger earlier and didn't remember that my car was shiny silver instead of white washed, salt covered dirty. It was nice to see through the windshield. It was nice not to step in slush when I got out. (Even though the parking lots are still crazy with huge piles of snow from where the plows pushed it all just a few days ago.) There is supposedly more snow to come, but today felt like Spring was trying.

It's like any season. You love when a new one starts. The good thing is, winter will be back again. So I just enjoy things about each season. I swear, I could never move away from a place that has seasons now.

Much has been accomplished this weekend. The kids all had thier dental checkups, the garage is cleared out of moving stuff and the car can now have a place of it's own. Bunco.....which actually wasn't even a game because not enough people were able to come so it was just visiting in the old neighborhood with old friends, with drinks and goodies. It reminds me how good it is to get out and laugh.

Mike and I plan on getting the kids to bed and enjoying a movie on the couch tonight. A well deserved break. Happy weekend!

A few more.... just because.

The snow finally stopped. Today was another day off from school. However we ventured out for some photos and to get out into the world to have some dinner. The roads all are clear so I'm sure tomorrow school will be open again. *applause!*



Mike is out shoveling yet again..... trying to free the garbage can from it's 4 foot snowdrift it is stuck in for pick up tomorrow. Piper was out helping and it was so funny to see her leap into the snow. I am not kidding that it went up past her back, and when she was doing her nose first plowing through it, all you could see was a yellow tail sticking straight up with snow coming out behind as she dug. It looked like a cartoon.


Here is a little series of my little girl. Who does not look very little in these photos. I'm always amazed at how grown up and pretty she looks.

Of course anymore, there's a few weird poses in between the good ones. Usually I get a peace sign or something like this:

Then she normals out again.

global warming

Mike may kill me for posting these pictures. Unlike me, he's not a fan of the snow. I can understand why.....I mean really I have a choice whether or not to go out in it. I get to enjoy it from the warmth of my living room and venture out occasionally. For him, this is what he came home to yesterday after work - a non existent driveway. It had literally snowed ALL day, nonstop since he had left for work at 5:30 in the morning. When he came home he had to dig a space to park the car.

I had even dug some out the day before, and it didn't help at all.

It continued snowing until around midnight last night, so even after these efforts of digging it looked like none had been done again this morning. Other than the fact that the snow drift areas are getting taller and taller. Pretty much the entire area is in what is considered a snow emergency level 2. Which means, don't go anywhere.

I know I'll enjoy looking back at the snow photos this summer when I am complaining about the humidity.

Monday. More snow. Day off from school number....hell, I've lost count.

More snow. You can't even tell by this photo, but it is coming down sideways in little tiny eye stinging flakes. All of that on the deck railing is new from overnight. More is on the way, and they are even saying into this coming weekend. Looks like there may be several more snow days this week....much happiness from the kids. I hope to get out later and take some photos. I love the way the area looks when it's covered in snow.

Supplies: 365 Inspiration sketch from Oscraps; PP from 3Paper Peonies; AE wordart from Designer Digitals; font Myriad Pro.

A quickie page from photos and journaling taken early in 09. This is what I hope to do during the snow day - more scrapping and getting stories down. I'm not motivated to do anything domestic today. LOL. Even though I'm sure I will get around to it in a bit. It waits for me and so far no amount of wishing makes it go away magically!

We were given some tickets a couple of weeks ago to go to a hockey game last night. I had forgotten how much I love hockey. Mike and I used to go to some games in Phoenix.....years and years ago. Tonight did not disappoint as there was a lot of slamming against the glass and even two fights. Usually I'm not a violent person, but something about hockey, you expect it. LOL. It's fun to be rowdy once in awhile!

The kids had a blast. All of the kids were given a tshirt when they came into the arena and it was also $1 City BBQ night. Pulled pork sandwiches for $1 each! Yum. They were really good. - and the Cyclones won. Perfect evening.

There seems to be some debate about whether or not tomorrow is a day off for the kids. Since we have had so many snow days lately, one of the websites says that there is school tomorrow. Lots of groans from the kids. But, there wasn't anything written that came home or any phone calls yet. So we're kind of confused. Add to that, I have a doctor's appointment for Matthew tomorrow anyway, which was purposely made because it was a day off from school! THEN on top of it all, another big snowstorm is supposed to start tonight and it may be another snowday afterall. LOL. Who knows.

I like when the make up snow days are tacked onto the end of the year because I am all about shorter summer vacations. They get so bored so quickly anyway. We'll see what happens tomorrow!

Happy valentines day AND AZ statehood day! LOL. I'll never forget that date even here in the big blue.

layouts

Supplies: Inspiration sketch 365 from Oscraps; Blakely papers (solid gray and PP) by Karla Dudley at digichick; (green PP) Noel by MMartin at Designer Digitals.

Supplies: template by me; PP by 3PP neutrals minikit freebie.
Just a quick posting of a couple of pages I've finished. I was so happy to finish the one from a cruise back in 2004. Those were photos I've always dreaded scrapping for some reason. I hadn't taken many pictures on that trip and it just didn't feel right. Thank you digital. Now they are done. (My kids all look so little!)

More boxes unloaded, more homeless stuff taken to the basement, more laundry and chores this weekend. Big family outing tonight. More later!

Happy weekend!

More snow!

Snow day number 2 around here, and the last I saw on the news there is another band that will be making it's way here on the weekend. Have I told you lately..... I love snow? haha.

Actually having the kids home the past couple of days has helped a bit too. It's nice when they are home and I can have a little help getting stuff finished around here. We're down to the last bits of stuff to get put away and are finally back on normal life schedule too. Laundry, cooking, etc. I know, we are incredibly and utterly boring right now aren't we?

Megan took this photo of me, and I had to show off my fabulous new coat. I love coats. And I love Kohl's too. Next year at this time when all the winter coats start going on clearance I am going to go crazy. I'll need a basement just for my coat collection. I loved them in Phoenix and hardly ever had the chance to wear the heavy ones.

Back to work...laundry calls and a certain little boy who is dying to use my computer so he can watch more lego star wars stuff on you tube is peeking at me from behind the stairs.

More snow photos later!

k

Want to see snow pictures?

I say it every time. I love snow. I love how peaceful it is. The world sounds different when it snows. It's pretty. - and I like it. There may be a day when I am sick of it, but I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed having the experience of it in my life and the good and bad that comes with it. - We woke up to the photo above. That's the view from our back window. I have to say, when there isn't snow on the trees I am looking forward to them being green. When it's just cold and dead looking, it's not the prettiest view.

Our garage is full of stuff and probably will be until spring at this point. It's too cold to go out and move anything around. So my car lives outside for the time being. It had about 5 inches of snow on the roof, hood and everything. Mike was dusting and scraping it off the windshield this morning before we did some errands. This big chunk of snow on the hood stayed on while we drove down the freeway. It's kind of a game to see how long it lasts.

Below is a chunk that flew up and stuck to the antenna. It just made us laugh especially with how long it stayed there, so I took a picture of it.

The park near our house:

Lots of bridge covered creeks that I can't wait to walk on when it warms up.

I don't think that our area got as much as was predicted from this storm. Most of it went north of us. We're supposed to get more this weekend. Of course the kids were all kind of bummed that this happened over the weekend making it to where there wasn't a chance of a snow day from school. Bummer.

Supplies: 365 Inspiration from Kitty Designs and Paislee Presslines no. 3 from Oscraps; AE wordart from designer digitals; Remember wordart no.1 Anna Aspnes from designer digitals; Sobe papers by Karla Dudley at digichick.

Still waiting for this storm to hit us. Nothing yet. Here is a layout I did last night while reminding the boys to stop talking and go to sleep. Who knows, at this rate I may actually get caught up on a year for once. - Just getting the story down about Jet. Flower's will be coming soon. Little stinker tortoises. They aren't enjoying the cold very much and I think miss having grass to roam around in. The first warm day we have they have a new huge park to go play in.

It makes me cold to see Trevor's bare legs in these photos right now too! Brrr! I have to say that I am looking a bit forward to some warmer weather at this point. I love snow, I love my big coats and all that.....but I really want to go for a long walk.

Stay warm.

That would be Trevor. We've always kind of joked about this, at least since 1st grade. He has a bunch of friends that are boys, but he seems to always have one female friend who he becomes inseparable with.

First it was Sophia in Phoenix. Who was from Boston originally. She was the cutest little tomboy with long curly dark hair. Even teachers at school commented on what good friends they were. Then, Emily K who was a pretty little blond girl who we actually saw her grab Trevor's hand in line at a school carnival in second grade. They were waiting in line for one of those inflatable obstacle course things where they were going to beat each other off a podium with big foam sticks. Then....moving here he found Olivia. A girl down the street with blond hair. They were inseparable when we lived in Union and spent HOURS playing in a creek behind her house. She was a perfect match for Trevor. He doesn't like bugs much, but she did. They'd go find bugs, make up stories about finding bones and even found a snake once. She of course would do all of the creepy animal holding, but they had a ton of fun together. Now....

Yesterday Trevor came home and said that he had a phone number of a new friend. This friend ended up showing up at the front door about an hour later.....Katie. An adorable little red head girl who just moved here from Iowa. She lives down the street. Braving the cold yesterday, she asked if T could play and Trevor went out for about an hour. I couldn't help but think that Olivia would be furious if she knew. Haha.

Yes, he has tons of friends who are boys, that he plays legos with, wii and wrestling in the front yard.... but this is one thing about him that I always thought was kind of funny. It was only a matter of time when he started school this week that the girls would be curious about him. Heaven help us when he actually starts to get phone calls.

****

I went to the store today totally forgetting that a big storm is on the way. I was checking out and the cashier mentioned that I was smart for getting there early before the rush later this afternoon. Aha...it is 'storm preparation' time. Which just happened to fall on a day when I needed a million things from the store anyway. The last time a storm like this was on the way, people had bought all the bread, milk and bananas. Now I'm prepared and didn't even think about it. Go me.

Easing back into normal.....

Supplies: 365 Inspiration sketch by Kitty Designs at Oscraps; Blakely paper and brush by Karla Dudley at the digichick; AE circle month text from Designer Digitals. Text for title and initals New Times Roman.

Last night's little bit of insomnia yielded a new layout today. I started it last night, and finished in between my chores today. One of my favorite things about the new place is that my computer is up on a landing at the top of the stairs. About five feet from an upstairs laundry room.....which is also maybe 10 feet away at the most, from the farthest bedroom. So I can multitask like crazy. While I wait for the last few minutes of a spin cycle, I can check email or work on a page. THEN there has been NO laundry clutter since unpacking since I can pull things out of the dryer, hang them, fold them and put them right away into drawers and on kid's beds! Saaaweeet! So in between making beds, laundry and cleaning bathrooms today....I finished up this page. (above)

I'm thinking that I have so many similar photos of the kids separately, that some times I might make pages about the same things but they will go to that child's album eventually instead of only the family one. That is one thing I love about digital is that if I decide I want two copies of a page, I order two. I don't have to really make two separate pages like before. So my kids are getting at the ages I decided to do family album and individual. So....each one will have a page about them carving pumpkins, etc.

Just like this Lego one. Legos are just a big part of our lives right now. LOL. I did a similar one of Matthew working on a set he was building after Christmas.

supplies: K Pertiet; AE The Story wordart; PP Adore by Three Paper Peonies

Ding. And there goes my laundry buzzer again.

Now where did THAT time go? Little update.

We picked a good weekend to move. Sarcastic at first, since it was raining and drizzling. Thankfully the rain held off while we were doing the outside stuff. We had the fastest movers in the world too. Thanks guys! But then my sarcasm also turns to real gratitude when the next few days we had snow! I much prefer the drizzle for going in and out, than snow.

Things went off without a hitch really. As usual, even after weeding through furniture and things that wouldn't fit in our new house we still have A LOT of stuff. I swear, next time I'm selling everything and starting all over. I say that every time.

So the week after has been spent trying to get things put away. It is starting to look more like a home, and things have found a place to stay and pictures have been put up on the walls. There are still those leftover boxes of the random "Oh my gosh what do I do with this stuff?" that I still have to sort through. Luckily, the basement is huge. I put most of it down there and will deal with it in the spring.

No pictures of our new house yet. I'll keep you guessing for awhile.

The kids had the first week off of school. I kept them home since it was chaotic trying to find all the stuff to get them registered at the new school. However, yesterday was their first day at the new schools. Megan had a great day. They all did. I took Megan to register first, and she had a buddy come and pick her up from the office and show her around. It was cute watching the two girls walk down the locker lined hallway. Megan didn't even turn around to wave. I know she would have.... but she was so excited. She always loves starting new schools. She sees it as a way to reinvent herself.

Trevor and Matthew were next. I took them to their school..... which is much farther considering. But it is a beautiful drive. There are at least three HUGE thoroughbred farms on the way. Winding roads through trees, old plantation homes and creeks. I can't wait to see it when the trees turn green again.

When the boys and I were standing up by the office with the admissions woman, a boy came up to Trevor and asked if his name was Trevor. (T was so nervous the whole time, Matthew just rolled along like he usually does.) Trevor answered the boy and the boy said, "Oh you are in my class! We have a cool teacher!" Trevor said, "Sweet." We got the tour of the school and Trevor got to go into his class first. The teacher said that somebody who works with Mike had a son in her class, and all the kids talked about that morning before announcements was that they were getting a new student. I think that made T feel pretty special.

Later that day, Trevor came home and said that he was asked by a bunch of kids to sit by him at lunch....and as usual.... most were girls. Apparently one even said Trevor was cute. LOL.

Matthew went to his class after that. The door opened, and the teacher came out to greet him. All the kids were supposed to be watching a film but instead all eyes were on Matthew. Normally you'd think that would be great cause for an anxiety attack. Not for Matthew. At least if he was nervous, he hides it well. The teacher talked to us for a minute and then showed him his desk. He was off without a problem.

Megan took this picture of me waiting by the door looking out the peep hole waiting for the boys to be dropped off from the bus. (Wow, I really have absolutely no butt at all.)



When everybody was home, I took Megan across the street to Kroger (It's beautiful....it reminds me of AJ's in Phoenix. AJ's and a mall. There is a FOOD COURT in the Kroger! A Fred Meyer jewelry store, furniture store and a huge Starbucks.) Megan had gotten a Starbucks giftcard for Christmas from a friend, so she asked if we could celebrate by going there after school. We picked up some things for dinner and then came home.

Of course Mike cooked a fabo dinner, and we heard stories about the day. About the crazy kid on the bus who yells all the time, about the good food the cafeteria has and that there is a smoothie machine. That Megan finally got a top locker, but is afraid she can't open the lock all the time, that classes are fun and stories about all of the new people they met. It looks like it will be a good year for them.

More later. I have a few more things I need to do before going to pick up Miss M at school. It feels good to be hooked up with a computer again.