It's All About Us

Am I still considered a blogger?

2012-01-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome to 2012!

If one does not blog with any consistency, is that person still considered a blogger? I should try to get in here more often and start posting again.

I'm looking forward to this last year before the world ends (as far as the Mayans are concerned). I've just started at a new salon and will have the option of working more now that I do not have to share my station anymore. Yay!! It's great to know that when I clean my mess up and go home, and come back another day, that I won't have to clean up after somebody who must not see all her nail dust and clippings and therefore leaves them for me to take care of. See, it doesn't take much to make me happy. Just a clean station and lots of yarn to crochet with.

Happy New Year everyone!

Montana Vacation Part Deux

2011-08-21T20:59:00.002-07:00

Once we left the cabin, we headed to Kalispell. We spent several days at Marcie’s house. One of those days we headed to Big Mountain in White Fish. Jason missed out on our trip because he had another golf day planned with a friend.

You can just make out the ski trails in the mountain ahead.

As soon as we got there, we hopped on a lift to ride it to the top of the Alpine Slide ride. You can see some of the slide in the picture I snapped of Betsy, Taylor, Beau and Jim in the first lift.

And this is the picture of them from the lift I was riding on.

It’s me, Jessica and Parker. Aren’t we brave riding with the safety bar up? Actually, I didn’t know we had one!

And bringing up the rear is Jared, Olivia, Brittany and Jacob. Behind them is where the Alpine Slide ends.

Here’s a small section of the slide taken from my lift.

As you come up to the top, they tell you to get ready to run so the lift doesn’t run you over. Here’s my kids and Britt getting ready to run for it.

Time for some documentation photos….pay attention Jacob. Jared knows what to do.

Hey Jared, let me get a picture of you. Thanks for blocking my shot Jacob.

Um, Jacob… will you please cooperate so I can remember this day and scrapbook about it please.

Oh look, it’s me and my kids. The background almost looks fake in this picture. As you can tell, it was a chilly day.

This is looking down at part of the Alpine Slide track. That tiny man is there to take pictures so the tourists can spend lots of money for a copy.

Here is most of our group. Everyone gets instructions on how to operate the sled. I’ll be in line as soon as I get some photos.

Get your phones out so you can video your slide!

There goes Jared! Have fun!! So did they enjoy it?

YES!! Here they come up the lift to go down the slide again.

After sliding, we all went on a nature trial walk. Big Mountain also has zip line tours, but it was WAY over our budget.

We could hear these people coming down these lines before we could see them.

I really loved being on that trail. Living in Arizona makes you appreciate simple streams and green everywhere you look.

Finally the day trip is over and it’s time to go.

Everyone is a little tired and ready to call it a day.
That’s it for part deux. I’ll try and wrap up the Montana Vacation in one more post to come soon…..

Our Montana Vacation (part 1)

2011-07-27T15:04:00.002-07:00

We got to escape the heat of the the Phoenix valley for a little while this summer. Almost 2 whole weeks. We left the last week of June on a Thursday night and drove straight through like we always do. I have to say that the last 6 hours of our 21 hour drive are almost painful.
I took lots of photos of my view from the front seat of the truck.

As soon as we crossed the border, I took a picture of the first Montana snow-capped mountain. Beautiful. From here we only have about 4 more hours of driving until we make it to Plains.

Our windshield has collected some of the native insects. I’m very happy to see the sign that lets me know we are almost there.

Love the green hills up ahead.

This is the Clark Fork River. It is so swollen from all the snow melt. It’s flowing FAST and it’s muddy.

I had to throw this picture in here. This is down the street from my mom-in-law’s house. I LOVE it. I should have knocked on the door of the house and asked if they were interested in selling it. Don’t ya just love the wings?

Here’s another view of the Clark Fork as seen from the bridge in Plains.

It’s Tina (Fat Lard). These folks also had some miniature horses.

Isn’t it adorable?
We went to the cabin after the weekend. I was looking forward to seeing all the work that Jacob and his cousin Brittany had accomplished during their 2 weeks before the families arrived.

There used to be a shed right where Jacob is standing. He and Brit had muscled that thing down during many trips back and forth from Plains.

Katy Lou had to get a permit so we could burn all the scrap lumber and the kids each helped to chop some of the wood into fire pit sized chunks. The rest would be for the bonfire later.

Tell me who doesn’t enjoy a good bonfire? This picture does not do that fire justice. It was BIG and it made so much black smoke (probably creosote in those old railroad ties). I half expected the fire service to show up.

When dinner time rolled around about 3 hours later, Jacob decided to use it to cook his hotdog. Those coals were pumping off some serious heat, so he found himself some protection. LOL!

No trip to the cabin is complete without having s’mores.

Check out the wood burning stove. After our first night, Jason fired it up and cooked us all some bacon. He’s awesome.
The kids did so much work that they were done after one night and we ended up going on to Kalispell later on this day.
To be continued…..

How can it be almost June?

2011-05-28T17:47:00.003-07:00

I’m not sure, but I’d better start paying more attention. My blog has turned into a newsletter of sorts where I update you on what’s been happening. It works for now.
Last post brought us up to the end of March, so lets see what happened after that….

(I changed the photo to a super close up. I think I was scaring folks with the other)

April Fool’s Day and Jason went in for surgery to repair his hernia (our 5th wedding anniversary, too). It was a long day for both of us.

April also brought us General Conference for my church. I always love being able to hear the talks and to listen to President Monson.

Before the weather turned too hot, I decided to scalp one of our bushes down to the bare nothing. So long overdue.

I filled 2 1/2 lawn and leaf bags with the clippings. I have to say it was very satisfying to check this off my list.

I’m not sure you can see the cat at the top of the stairs, but he came running into the house late one night with his fur standing up and his tail looking like a bottle brush. He went straight upstairs and huddled on the floor. I took his picture and went out to the family room and took a couple photos (because I’m strange like that)

After I uploaded the pictures to my computer, I noticed what looks like red glowing eyes in the window. I think it’s creepy.

One afternoon, a bird flew in our open door and it was up in the window above the door. It kept flapping it’s wings like it was trying to fly out the window. I sent Jacob to get the ladder while I went to get the pool net so we could rescue the little guy. When Jacob got to the top, there was no bird.

We found it dead under the chair by my computer. I’m guessing he had a heart attack and died from the stress. Poor bird.

We celebrated Easter and got to have all the kids at the house, at the same time, dressed nice. Jason was so smart and got the tripod out for the camera and we got some family photos.

We also got the siblings to pose for some photos.

Jacob went to his first (and probably last) Prom. I’m so glad he had the experience before he finishes high school.

Jacob is now a high school graduate. There were times when I doubted we would see this day. He was very excited.

His class was HUGE. The school did a great job in getting all the student’s names read, and they all were able to walk and get their diplomas.

Even though Jason gets up at 3 in the morning for work, he came with me and stayed until Jacob got his diploma. We were both glad for the breeze that night, and once the sun set behind the hill, it wasn’t too bad.

My boys. Jacob keeps insisting that Jared will be at least 6’5” when he graduates in 3 more years. He very well could be if he keeps growing the way he is.

Life….as usual

2011-03-23T10:58:00.001-07:00

I get really caught up in life just moving along at breakneck speed. I swear that just yesterday my kids were in grade school, but here we are with both my boys in high school. And Jacob will graduate this spring!

This is him on our Tuesday night regular outing to our ARP meeting. Notice the headphones in his ears. So much for the uninterrupted time alone together where we could be talking to each other.

Just last week my baby boy Jared turned 15! Can it be possible to have a child only about 10 years younger than I imagine myself to be?

I had to work all day, but my sweet husband made him a cake at my request. It’s Jared’s favorite, yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Yummy, I’m sure, but I had to pass on sampling some due to dieting…again.

As I was looking through my photos to decide what to post here, I realized that I have very few recent photos of my kids, but lots of photos of my cat. My cat is the only one who seems to want to spend time with me (not counting my husband - LOL).

It is a usual practice for him to get right in my way when I’m at the computer. I know he’s thinking, “Why would you want to look at that when you can look at ME!?”

I’m still finding time almost every day to do my crochet. I had actually gotten the 5 or so projects I was working on down to only one. But that only lasted a few days. So now I only have 2 projects in the works.

This is the baby blanket I’m doing for a coworker at the salon. I really don’t like pastels so I’m not enjoying making this.

This is the other blanket I’m working on. It’s a vintage vertical stripe. Found the pattern HERE. The only other blankets I’ve made that are big enough to cover an adult from head to toe are the ones I did for the boys. This blanket is actually 6’10” long. It’s super simple and I love that there’s no pattern repeat on the colors.

My sister Margaret recently moved to Washington state. She is the first of the 4 sisters to leave Arizona. My sisters and I all went to her house the night before she was leaving and had an awesome visit with her. I can’t believe we didn’t take a group photo of us all that night.

So the next day, Jason and I went over and were able to help Margaret and Ron get the last of their truck loaded up. Ron had done an excellent job of packing their U-Haul. Not one inch of wasted space.

Here’s Jason and Ron getting the car trailer hooked up to the truck. I love my husband for being the man that he is.

Summer will be upon us before we know it. Jason and I finally have a pool pump that works, and also a cleaning system that works.

It took almost 3 months to get it fixed. Once the pump was running again, we were responsible to get the new cleaner up and running. This picture was taken after I’d spent a couple hours trying to get that dang cleaner to work. As you can see, I didn’t have much luck. I’m glad that it happened in the winter months. Not only because we weren’t swimming in it, but also because the cold helps keep algae from growing out of control.

After much failure, Jason called in a pool repair guy to fix our problems. Look! See all those clean places in the pool? That grumpy old man got that cleaner running like a champ. Now we can bring on the swim season. Too bad that means we’ll have to deal with all that heat, though.

If you haven’t checked it out, I do have all the current daily photos going on over at my Project 365 blog. I’m still working on the physical book from 2009.

I’ve got most of the photos printed and placed into the sleeves (only 15 more to go). But I’ve only got the journaling caught up through March (thank heavens for those blog posts). Once it’s done, I’ll get going on this year’s book so I won’t be 2 years behind again **she says while crossing her fingers**.

It’s About Time - - - -

2011-01-30T22:21:00.001-07:00

for an update!

First is the news that my Project 365 blog is back up and running after taking a whole year off. At first I thought I’d post the daily pics here, but decided for the sake of me using the journaling entries when I add the prints to my Project Life, that it would make it easier on me to keep it separate.

Do you want to see something really scary?

Actually, this photo proves to you how lucky we are here at the Rosenow household. Not everyone has their very own computer guru. Jason worked his fingers to the bone and his brain into a fuzzy mess with this latest task. But at the end of an entire week (ok, it was only 5 days) he had that computer up and running. The man actually brought it back from the dead. No joke.

And as long as I’m telling you about Jason, I’ll share with you what he spoiled me with this Christmas:

Yes, I am the proud owner of the iPad.

To make it more exciting, I let Elvis pose with it. Oh, do you notice all those crochet squared behind Elvis? That’s the blanket for Olivia in progress.

And this is the blanket completed. Thank you to my sisters who helped me figure out the best way to arrange the squares.

So that’s it for now. Just pop over to my other blog for the daily happenings.

Christmas is almost here

2010-12-21T22:45:00.001-07:00

I almost can’t believe that Christmas is in 4 days (and today is almost over!). I actually have most of my shopping finished. Just a few little things and some stocking stuffers are all that’s left to buy.

There are still gifts to be wrapped, but I love to see the tree with our decorations and the white lights. Sorry to Jacob who wishes we had colored lights on our tree.

I’ve had a great time making crochet gifts for my family.

Here are some of the dishrags I made. I plan to make many more of these in the coming year.

This is the long scarf I crocheted for my nephew, Elder Sam Jones, who is serving a mission in Indiana. It was a first for me with Tunisian crochet. I hope it helps to keep him warm in his new cold climate.

I also made 2 other scarves for a couple of my sisters that I forgot to get pictures of….1 for Beverly and 1 for Margaret. I need to get that camera warmed up for my Project 365 I’m doing again in the coming year.

Do you remember the hat in the book from this post? I began making it for my sister Suzee, but it’s on hold while I wait for the library to get that book back in stock so I can see the pattern again. LOL.

We are keeping pretty busy around here. Jason just spent the last weekend working. At work. I missed him. The kids are now on Christmas vacation (I refuse to call it ‘Winter Break’) until the 3rd of January. I’m so excited that I’ll get to sleep in on my days off!!

Earlier this month Jacob went to a Sweater Social at church for the youth. Jason pulled out a sweater from storage that was knit for him by his mom years ago…totally “old school”.

He won the prize for “itchiest sweater”.

Jared had his Winter Strings concert at Desert Vista. (That’s him behind the only kid without a Santa hat) Beverly and her daughter Kaity came with me. The concert was fabulous.

Jason got us a fire going using the dead tree branches we had to cut off the trees that I almost killed (they didn’t get watered for half of the summer since I didn’t realize we had a drip system). Olivia and Jacob came out to enjoy the flames. I used a night time setting that kept the lens open longer and it gave a cool affect with the embers coming off the fire.

Just this past weekend was the annual Lundberg family brunch. It was great being with my family. Of course the recent tradition of our little statue was continued.

His newest addition are the little tassels. Kaity is quite the creative girl. Yes, we are strange, but each year someone gets this guy in the gift exchange and has to add something to him and re-gift him the following year. I just want to make sure everyone knows that I plan to have him reside at my house when he is retired.

With the weather being so nice, Jason and I finally went shooting again. This time we took Beverly and her son Stephen with us.

It’s always fun to go shooting.

And just so you know…

we have a guard cat that keeps the ammo.

So Thankful

2010-11-28T22:38:00.001-07:00

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful holiday. I might even go so far as to say it is my favorite, but because my sons aren’t ever here with me for Thanksgiving, it defaults to my second favorite.

I thought I’d list a few of the things I’m most thankful for:

*********************

a loving and forgiving Savior

being married to my best friend

my 2 sons

my husband’s 2 daughters

a silky cat named Elvis

a home where we feel comfortable

family time together

creative talents

a nation where we are free

*********************

It is now officially the Christmas season and I still wonder how it got here so fast. Right now I’m busy making gifts and hoping to get everything finished that’s on my to-do list. I’ve had to put my latest crochet project on the back burner.

My loverly hexie blanket (ala Lucy at Attic24) will be there to pick back up when I’m done with everything else. Even unfinished, I’ve enjoyed using it since it finally got cold here.

Jason’s mom came down from Montana for Thanksgiving. The girls got a few great days with her and got to help make mom’s fabulous cherry pies.

One thing that I’ve been super bad about lately is taking photos. I plan to do Project 365 again in 2011 since it’s been great looking back through all the pictures from 2009. This time I might just use this blog to keep all my photos and journaling. That would improve another thing I’ve been super bad about…regular blogging.

That’s it from me tonight… I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and that you’ve had much to be thankful for.

Not tired of it yet…

2010-10-21T11:47:00.002-07:00

My youngest son (Jared) asked me last night if I get bored doing the same thing over and over. He was referring to me crocheting. I told him that I only get bored when I’m about half way done with a project and so I start looking around for what’s next.

I’ve been having some back spasms this week, and luckily only had to go to the salon on Monday, so I’ve had lots of time to rest and ice the back. I thought it was the perfect chance to finish the color blocks throw I’d been working on since some time in September. I FORCED myself to just do it. And last night I finally got that darn thing completed. It even took a turn in the washing machine (I’d accidentally gotten some peanut butter on it).

I call it my Lucky 13. Each strip has 13 blocks and I’d really planned to do 13 strips, but couldn’t muster up the will to do those last 2. It’s a good size for a lap throw measuring 45” X 47”.

I went to my local library branch looking for some books on crochet and picked up this book

and was quite intrigued by the motif on this hat

and so I grabbed some yarn and struggled through the directions.

I had a tough time with some of my slip stitches so I guess I need more practice. I’d like to do up 3 more and make a pretty pillow using them.

I’m hoping to get Jared’s ripple finished some time in the next week.

I set a one foot ruler on it to give you some perspective on the size. It’s 59” wide and is just about 47” long so far. It needs to be long enough to cover my six foot tall 14 year old. I’d be further along if I could just pay better attention. I’ve undone at least 10 rows throughout this. I just undid 3 1/2 rows last night when I realized I had one set of increase stitches off by one stitch and had thrown the rest of the pattern off. I’m using Susan B’s Easy Ripple pattern.

Oh, see those lovely pots that my yarn is in? Those are hand made by Jacob. He’s in his second year of ceramics class and there are some really great things coming home lately. I’ll have to gather them together and take some pictures to post soon.

I guess I’d better get hooking so I can start my next project.

Hey, what has Crissie been up to?

2010-10-06T15:24:00.001-07:00

I’ll bet you’re wondering what I’ve been doing with myself since I haven’t taken the time to keep up with my blogging. Well, I thought it would be nice to have another update using as many photos as I can. Now doesn’t that sound nice?

First up I’d like to share with you one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen driving on the freeway.

You don’t see this every day.

Here’s another shot as I was going by. I wonder where it was going?

My oldest son Jacob got a hole in the toe of his shoe. I didn’t have the funds to get him new ones, so I did a Frankenstein patch job. Don’t judge.

This is just a random picture of my cat Elvis. I have lots of pictures of him.

HEY, what’s that out on the fence?

Oh, it’s a lizard sunning himself. You’d better run away before my cat sees you and plays with you to death.

Our downstairs powder room was painted this dark shade of green when we moved in. I’ve never really liked it,

so I painted it. My sister Beverly said she liked the green paint better, but I love how bright it is in there now.

Then I went out to the family room and put some of that paint up to see how it would look. It was such a nice improvement over that ~~ugly~~ interesting faux finish we inherited that I painted the whole fireplace wall with it. Soon I will paint the rest of the family room/kitchen with the darkest of that gray-beige paint shown on that paint chip.

Oh look, it’s Elvis.

Here is where I’m sitting right now, except the desk is messier since I took this picture.

I’ve found that I have a new addiction to yarn shopping. So many afghans, so little time. It’s kind of sad, but I sometimes can’t fall asleep because I’m thinking of the next project I want to crochet.

This throw needs at least 2 more strips and then I need to put a nice edging on it. I think it will go nice with the new color I just put on the fireplace wall.

I hope it doesn’t spoil the surprise for little Holly, but this is a baby afghan I crocheted to give her for her birthday this month.

I’ve blogged since this, but these are the awesome brownies that my youngest son Jared made me for my birthday. I love that my boys can bake. They will be very popular if they go off to college after high school.

Yesterday we had a HUGE rain storm. Some areas around Phoenix even got hail the size of golf balls that broke windows and damaged cars. If you look closely, you can see a rainbow just to the left of center. Don’t worry, no drivers were injured during this photo-op.

And there’s that darn cat again.

For the love of crochet

2010-09-11T16:51:00.003-07:00

I have a new passion. It’s crochet. I’m not sure why it took me this long to find out that I would absolutely love it. I remember learning to make a crochet chain as a youth. And that’s about all I could make. I mean, how much fun is it to have a bunch of chains laying around?

Lucky for me, I would sit in the salon break room with Alicia and watch her crochet project after project. One day a couple months ago I asked if she would teach me how. Soon after, my sister Suzee came over and gave me some pointers to make crochet easier… and now I’m totally “HOOKED”.

My first project came about from my practice stitches. It turned into the longest scarf in the world. The edges weren’t even and my tension was terrible. But I loved doing it! And that meant that I wanted to know more about it. Enter GOOGLE. I found some fantastic blogs and tutorials. It was total Eye Candy for me. I happened upon Attic24 and almost drooled over her work. Her most current project was her Granny Stripe blanket. I really wanted to try making one. Happy Birthday to Jacob because he was the proud recipient of my first official crochet blanket.

I had a terrible time making my edges straight, but it was such a joy to make. I learned a lot during this project.

Here is a photo of the blanket during the making stage. Elvis gave his stamp of approval by flopping down on it.

Even before I finished it, I was looking at what to make for my next project. I picked up a little booklet from Joann craft store with 10 afghan patterns.

I got to learn some new stitches on this one. It’s a lap blanket size afghan.

Now I’m almost finished with a crocheted bag that Lucy from Attic24 shares a how to. It’s to hold my traveling crochet projects. I’m not in love with the variegated yarn I chose and plan to do another, but next time in many different colored yarns and change color on each row (ala Lucy Bag).

In case anyone is wondering what to get me for my birthday this Monday, I would LOVE to get yarn. And lots of it. Thanks :o)

Oh brother

2010-08-26T09:40:00.001-07:00

I feel it coming on. The empty feeling, like there isn’t anything to look forward to. That almost total lack of enthusiasm for anything. Some call it depression, but I refuse to go there. Right now I feel like Charlie Brown when he said, "Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, 'Why me?' And the voice says, 'Nothing personal your name just happened to come up.'"

I look around my house and I realize that it is in the same state that I am. Makes me wonder if I am creating an outward expression of what’s going on inside. And if that is the case, could I reverse this funk by perking up my house?

And so begins the list making (I love to make lists). Some of my lists are filled with things that I want to do, but aren’t totally necessary. Like painting the downstairs half-bath. It’s a very unflattering shade of green and I’ve hated it since we moved in. Then there are the lists that have all the important things. Like scooping the litter box and mopping the kitchen and finally getting all my clean laundry put away.

I have a sewing cabinet inherited from my mom that I started to sand and prime so I could change the ugly 70’s style wood stain to lovely white paint. I started “fixing” it years ago. Last weekend I moved it into the house so I can finally finish it and get the sewing machine put away (it’s too darn hot to work outside right now). That job is on the top of the list I am making now. The only problem with this item on my list is that it seems like it will take such a long time to finish. This could be why it’s never been completed. That cabinet needs to get done so I can look forward to the fun stuff. And get out of my funk. Who knows, maybe just the act of getting busy on it will make the sun come out again.

Charlie Brown also said, "This is my 'depressed stance'. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this." Nope, not going to be a Charlie Brown….at least not today.

Happy Birthday Jacob

2010-08-10T10:23:00.001-07:00

My first born is 17 years old today. I know that you hear a lot of old people say how fast time goes by, but I am NOT old. I will tell you this, time has gone by SO fast.

This is a scanned photo of Jacob when he was only a year and a half old. Look at those bright blue eyes!

I found other scanned images of him on various birthdays past (these were the days before digital cameras - or at least my knowledge of them)

I LOVE this picture. His cousin Christy is helping with the blowing out of the candles. Too cute.

I’m not sure how old he is here. This one is a good find since it has my mom in it. I sure do miss her. I’m sure she’s checking in on our Jacob.

Seven years old. Jared is really adorable getting in on the picture action.

Eight years old. I love the looks on the kids’ faces that are in the ‘blowing out of the candles’ photos.

12 years old. (obviously a digital camera in use here) I was dating Jason at this time.

This is just last year (and gone are the days of the fancy store bought birthday cake). I’m sure that cake tasted better than it looked.

This is Jacob just 2 weeks ago. He looks like a man. Gone is the little boy.

Happy Birthday Jacob dear. I love you.

Summer Vacation

2010-07-11T20:42:00.002-07:00

This year for our family summer vacation, we went to visit Jason’s sister Betsy and her family in California. They live just outside of Sacramento in Granite Bay. As is our norm, we drove straight through the night to get there. Thankfully it was only 12 hours and not the 22 it takes to get to Montana.

Our family of 5 took up a lot of space, but the kids happily slept each night on the trampoline.

Unlike the nights in Phoenix, the nights in Sacramento get nice and cool. You definitely would NOT try this where the overnight lows are in the 90’s.

Betsy and Jim have a great yard complete with big diving pool, a duck and chickens. I’m pretty sure someone got in the pool every day we were there.

Even the duck went swimming a time or two.

Jim is pretty funny…and obviously not afraid of duck poop.

Jared was glad that Parker had an X-Box to play.

Looks like Parker is taking a break while Jared plays…

One of our day trips was to Old Sacramento. Cool old town buildings right next to the river.

Another day trip we took was to San Francisco. Betsy said to be sure and bring jackets since it gets cold there even in the summer. Everyone followed her advice except Jacob. And he got COLD. Especially when we went on the cable cars.

When we crossed one of the bridges to get there, I snapped a couple photos. It was pretty foggy.

Here’s some of our group coming out of the parking garage.

There’s Alcatraz Island in the distance.

…the kids posing with a new friend.

Jared, Jacob, Brittany, Jessica, Olivia,

and Parker. All the kids wanted to be “Standees” on the cable car.

Betsy & Jim had to sit.

And so did Jason & I. I’m so glad we got the opportunity to do this.

On our return cable car ride, Jason and I both got to be “standees”. I was right in the front and had a great view (and it was really cold!)

Many thanks to Betsy, Jim & their kids for putting up with all of us for a week. Jason & I hope to host the Burman family at our house if they take a trip to Phoenix.

Time for an update

2010-04-14T13:10:00.001-07:00

My little blog is being neglected. I see it every time I open the internet since it’s my home page, yet almost 3 months have gone by without any updates. So without further ado, the update (and I will include lots of pictures) -

I really like our new place. Every house I’ve lived in has it’s own “feel”. When we first moved in, this one had quite a bit of energy to it. Elvis was a real spaz for a few weeks until he adjusted to it.

Jason was taking a break on our 2nd night there when I snapped this photo. Seems to be quite a bit of activity going on.

We moved in just in time to see the pool get resurfaced. This is when it was halfway done draining. All the stuff in the bottom is from the tree that fell onto the house. When the guys came to remove it, lots of stuff fell into the pool as they were chopping it up.

It was pretty loud when the pool guys were jack hammering the surface. I grabbed this picture during one of their breaks.

And now it’s almost full. Filling it took a few days.

Jared made Student of the Month in January. I’m really proud of him.

I made the mistake of using my steam cleaner on a spot in my grout where I’d dropped something and worried it would stain it. It was a mistake because I learned how dirty it was and ended up having to clean the entire kitchen and family room. Lucky for me that Jacob wanted to earn some money and he did the largest part of the job. He is a very good cleaner when he sets his mind to it.

Jason installed a new faucet for our kitchen sink. The old one had apparently been leaking for some time and the whole under sink area is warped. We used this opportunity to reseal the whole thing back down since it didn't have a very good seal.

Our whole family went to Organ Stop Pizza. This was a pretty fun place. Not one we’ll do again any time soon since their pizza is a bit pricey.

I couldn’t stand the color of the girls’ bedroom, and we wanted to do something for organization in their closet, so it went from this….

…to this. I love the bright green. And if you’re wondering, we got the shelving units at Ikea.

We took a trip out to Lake Pleasant with my sister Suzee and her family to go shooting. Jason and I have been a few times to other places by ourselves, so this was a fun change of pace.

Jason brought his .30-06 with him and I got to find out how LOUD that thing is. Made me jump. I also experienced first hand how much kick that bad boy has. Came close to getting a black eye.

A big ol’ bumble bee came flying inside when we had our front door open to enjoy the fresh air and breezes. I really didn’t want that thing inside, so my sweet husband got busy getting rid of it.

See what he does to make me happy? There was no other way to reach it, so he used the pool net. It took several tries, but he eventually got it on the net and flung it towards the front door and the bumble bee flew right back outside. My Hero!

Jason and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary on April Fool’s Day. The next day we drove to Palm Springs, CA and spent a couple days with our friends Scott & Maureen. This picture was taken at the golf course where they all golfed and I rode along and cheered them on (I don’t know how to golf…yet).

As you can see, it was a beautiful day. It was great getting away with Jason.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the update. Hopefully it won’t be another 3 months before I come back.

Moving sucks

2010-01-25T09:23:00.001-07:00

For the past week, my husband and I have been moving. Again. In just a year’s time. You would think we enjoy the process. You would be wrong.

I know there are those out there that see the beauty in not having too long to collect “stuff” that you just store in your homes for 30 years or more. This is actually a great way to pare down on those not so used items. Or perhaps there might be some out there that love the adventure of cleaning a different house for a change. Let me share with you some of the FUN things I got to clean up before I could move my possessions in.

Ok, so this wouldn’t stop you from using it, but it is pretty gross. How about the top? Is it any better?

Nope. And that’s not just dust. I was lucky enough that it was also greasy.

This is what I got off the fridge top after wiping it down for the 3rd time.

It’s just the top of the fridge. What’s the big deal? Those kinds of things are easy to overlook. I’m sure the cabinets are clean.

Oops, looks like someone forgot something. Either that, or it was left on purpose since the cabinet had to be pried open and I’m sure they were super tired from all the cleaning they had already done. HAHAHA! I crack myself up.

I wish you all could have touched the sticky, greasy cabinet fronts. It’s the kind of experience that kids getting ready to go out into the world on their own for the first time should have. Then they would understand why mamma tells them that they need to wipe down the cabinets when they clean the kitchen. Just because you don’t necessarily SEE the dirt doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Moving on. Lets go upstairs and see if there is anything interesting to take care of….

HEY, this is cool! Not every day you find candle wax melted into your bedroom carpet. Time is wasting. Lets unpack the bathroom boxes and store our things.

YIKES! I’m not putting my things in there! Looks like I need to work a little harder.

There…that’s better. Hey, shouldn’t we be finished moving by now?

Uh oh, here comes the rain! It NEVER rains in Arizona! Guess we will put the move on hold and just relax for a bit.

WHOA! All that rain and strong winds ended up knocking the neighbor’s tree down. Right into our backyard. I wonder what else we have to look forward to? Fiery hail? Plague of frogs?

The next time you hear me talking about moving, just smack me in the forehead.

Susan Boyle - Wild Horses

2010-01-04T22:53:00.001-07:00

If I didn't know this was a Rolling Stones song, I would never have believed someone telling me it was. Simply AMAZING.

He likes it! Hey Elvis

2009-12-28T22:55:00.001-07:00

As Jacob was showing me a Family Guy movie clip on his iPod touch, he noticed our cat enjoying a gross cookie and grabbed the camera.

(this is our loft coffee table, so please pretend that you don’t notice the mess)

I’d brought the cookie upstairs to get a picture of him for my Project 365 (see post #362) and then I handed him to Jacob, who put him on the table.

I am beginning to wonder if it wasn’t really a cookie for cats. It was pretty gross, but Elvis licked this guy for couple of minutes.

Glad that at least one member of this household was able to enjoy the little guy.

A Christmas memory

2009-12-08T21:36:00.003-07:00

One Christmas memory of mine is the year my mom and dad went out and bought a REAL tree. We’d never had a real tree in my lifetime before then. I remember being so excited and how I couldn’t wait for them to get home with our first real tree.
Our house had a big picture window looking out to the front and when they got home, my dad stopped in front of the window to display our new tree. My heart sank. Imagine, if you will, Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. I wondered how they could have bought such an ugly tree. I remember the biggest smile on my mom’s face. Oh how that woman loved to play tricks on people. (Something she’d learned growing up)
It turned out that the tree was beautiful on the other side and that only about a third of it was a Charlie Brown tree. They must have gotten a great bargain, and my mom, being the incredibly smart woman that she was, realized that we would just put that tree in a corner and that back side would never be seen. When it was decorated, I felt like there had never been a tree a beautiful as ours.

(this is just a photo I grabbed from google images…and we never had a fireplace, either.)
Of course this is a great memory. But one thing makes it even better. Our cats. You can imagine that a tree with not many branches on one side and the other side all decked out in ornaments might not be so balanced. Add the weight of one curious cat and you have a recipe for a very funny story. Yup, that tree went down with the cat. Broke some ornaments and spilled the water out of the tree stand. I can only wish there had been home videos back in those days and that one had been pointed at that tree.

Thanksgiving and other stuff

2009-11-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

Today I am testing out Windows Live Writer for my blog post today. If updating my blog and inserting photos this way is easier, then I’m all for it.

We spent the morning with all the kids. Jason made bacon and eggs and I made French toast. Once we were finished, we sent our kiddos off to their other parent’s homes to eat their Thanksgiving feast. No, the boys aren’t standing on a platform, and the girls aren’t standing in a hole.

Since Jason and I were alone, we went to share my sister Suzee’s turkey and fixins. We had a good time (even though Jason spent the better part of it setting up the Jones family wireless printer).

As you can tell from these pictures, the guys all stayed in the office while the women folk set up for the meal.

See how lovely Suzee’s turkey is? It was delicious, too.

Beverly was also alone with no kids, so she carpooled with me and Jason to the other side of the world. I don’t think Suzee and I could live any further apart and still be in the Greater Phoenix Area.

Thank you Jones family for including us in your Thanksgiving feast. We’d love to get together with you more often.

We are armed....Finally

2009-11-20T18:06:00.001-07:00

Today, Jason and I went to Caswells Shooting Range. We've been looking at hand guns for a while now and today we "pulled the trigger". Lucky for me that today is Friday, because it was ladies day. My lane fee, gun rental, ear and eye protection were FREE. We just had to pay for the ammo.

Before today I had never shot a hand gun. I was actually shaking when I stepped up to take my first few shots. I got to try out a 22 the firsts time. It was small and probably wouldn't do enough damage to really be used for protection. Next I tried out the 9mm. I loved it. Check out that Bad Guy target! Not too shabby for a first timer! I was shooting from 25 feet. Next time I'll try for a longer distance.

Here's the Springfield XD 9mm. Ain't it a beauty? I hope it won't be too long until we can get out and do some target practice out in the desert.

As you can tell, I am one happy mama. Just tell the bad guys not to bother coming over to our place....unless they feel lucky!

Fun with the internet

2009-11-04T21:05:00.002-07:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

BlackBerry saves my Project 365

2009-10-30T15:14:00.000-07:00

I have been taking a picture every day (well, almost every day) for this whole year. I'll admit that there have been a few occasions where I've had to go back and find a photo to make up for missing a day.

As this year winds down, I find that getting a picture taken each day gets easier instead of harder. This is because I have been taking more pictures with my BlackBerry. I've always got it with me. I have a wonderful camera that Jason bought me for my birthday, but I don't have room for it in my purse. Most of the photos from around my house are taken with my Canon PowerShot G10. But I have been using the BlackBerry's camera more and more while I'm out, or at home if there isn't time to run and grab my good camera.

There are only 62 more days left this year that I need to document with my daily photos. I'm almost amazed that I've followed through on Project 365 since it really is a huge commitment. I'm always somewhat behind on getting the photos posted to my other blog where I journal about each photo, but usually no more than 2 weeks. Now if I could just get caught up with the scrapbook side of it!

Scrapping again

2009-10-20T08:05:00.001-07:00

The University of Montana Grizzlies were in Flagstaff again this year. They play the NAU Lumberjacks in Arizona every other year. Of course Jason and I went up early for the tailgating party. I ended up scrapping some of my photos from our day. (click the photo to see it larger)

I used a template by Simply Yin. It was part of the Digi Files 8 over at The Daily Digi. Except for the tiny tabs (by Katie Pertiet) everthing else in the layout is from Dani Mogstad's kit Softly Falling which is also part of the Digi Files 8.

Elvis

2009-10-18T19:59:00.001-07:00

This cat could be fatter, but not much.

Snap out of it!

2009-09-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

I hate feeling down. Of course we all have days when we feel like that, but I've been having those days a lot lately. Depression runs in my family (and I'd taken medication for it after my second son was born) but I don't think I'm at that point. Perhaps I'm bored. I do go through a low point whenever I finish a project, and my 2008 vacation scrapbook is done and I don't have anything else planned. But who knows.

I do enjoy coming across things that make me smile. This is one of the latest things that I've seen that was good enough to share:

It's coming!

2009-09-09T08:16:00.007-07:00

I'm just days away from turning 40. I pretty much still feel like I'm in my 20's. Things are the same. Except for having a 16 year old son and a 13 year old son. And being married for the second time. And having 2 step-daughters. Yup, things are basically the same.

I had a disturbing thought. If I live to be 80 years old, then I am middle aged. Wow. Those words conjure up mental images of women with grey hair and frumpy bodies. Scary.

(By the way, I tried to add some pictures to this post but blogger isn't working correctly)

Good for a laugh

2009-09-01T20:46:00.001-07:00

I have Tracey's facebook wall post to thank for this little number!

Scrapbook layouts

2009-08-20T21:14:00.004-07:00

I'm actually trying to get a whole scrapbook done from our 2008 Montana vacation. Believe it or not, I have 6 layouts completed and I plan on 3 more double page spreads. Here's what I've done so far....

All the layouts use templates from Simply Yin (she offers wonderful freebies!)

Huckleberry time!!

2009-08-06T13:38:00.006-07:00

Before I met Jason, I would have thought that a huckleberry was just a character from a cartoon. A couple of years ago on our Montana trip, I went with Jason on a huckleberry finding mission. We were successful in finding a patch of the elusive little berries and now we make sure that each time we go to Montana, we take a drive up the mountain to our spot with the huckleberries and spend as much time as we can picking them.

We were fortunate to be going a few weeks later in July this year. I say fortunate because the huckleberries had more time to get ripe for us. Jason and I drove up alone one of the first days we got to Montana to scout out whether or not they were ripe and hoping that they hadn't been discovered by the locals. We had our first hint that the huckleberries were close by when we found a big pile of bear poop on the road. It was purple-ish...which meant that there were definitely berries nearby!

Do you see that tiny little berry? THAT is a huckleberry. Just click on the photo to see the details full size.
Jason took a picture of me with my baggie of berries since I'm usually the one behind the camera. Now I have visual proof that I was really there! LOL...

After a week of vacation, the kids were ready to pack up and head back to Arizona. They had no more reason to stay since the cousins had already gone back home to California. We told them that we were going to go pick berries one more time and if they wanted to leave a day early, then they had to lose a little sleep and go huckleberry picking with me while Jason was golfing with his buddy, Scott.
Here they all are with their own baggies of berries. Well, there were so many more left and Jason really wanted to go back out, that he and I went back later that day and picked some more. I was amazed to find that we were also surrounded by wild strawberries. They were EVERYWHERE! Here is a handful that I picked. They were really small but were super sweet and delicious.
The strawberries went into my tummy right away. I think I should have picked some more to share, but we were not there to pick strawberries.
So now we have 3 baggies like this in our refrigerator with fragrant, tart little huckleberries. Now I understand why they charge up to $40 for a gallon of these things. It took us at least 2 hours of picking to get this much.
I'd tell you to come by and try some, but by the time you get here, they will be all gone!

Rope swing at Twin Lakes

2009-07-30T08:40:00.007-07:00

One of the things the kids looked forward to on this Montana trip was going back to Twin Lakes near the cabin so they could swing on the rope swing they found last year. We were all very happy that it was still there.

Jacob by the rope

Jared has the rope and Olivia and Parker wait for their turn.

The bravest kids use the make shift ladder to get a lot more out of their swing.

Jared out on the rope

When they got bored with the swing, the kids practiced skipping rocks before we took off.

You have to make sure you find a good rock to skip.

Everyone looks to see how far the rock makes it across the lake.
We didn't stay as long this time that we did last year. Sadly, Samantha had to stay behind at the cabin with her dad since she wasn't feeling well because of blood sugar problems from her diabetes.

Counting down

2009-07-15T07:58:00.004-07:00

We are only 9 days away from our annual summer trip to Montana. And I have done NOTHING to prepare. I haven't looked at my wardrobe or planned a grocery list. I haven't even colored my hair or bought a new bathing suit. Of course, I might not need a bathing suit this year since there is a very good possibility we won't be getting out on the lake.

I need to get excited about this trip so I can stop worrying about the long drive in the truck with 4 kids. They did pretty good last year, but we only had one child who was remotely happy about going.

This was them as we pulled out of our driveway last year. See what I'm talking about?

This summer, our kids will get to enjoy the company of the Burman cousins as well as the Albright cousins. Jason and I are hoping this will make it a more enjoyable experience for the older kids.

This is a photo from 2 years ago of the Burman kids with 3 of our kids at The Circle (actually, our 4th kid is there but seems to be hiding). I think they are all smiling because they were going to have ice cream. I know it always makes me smile.

It's time to buy some hair color and get my lists together so I will be ready to enjoy our family vacation. I might even go get me a new bathing suit and hope for time on a lake shore for a little swimming.

A day for scrapbooking

2009-06-28T14:09:00.003-07:00

I made myself sit down and actually do a scrapbook page. Last weekend I joined my sisters Suzee, Margaret and Beverly, my niece Kacie and Bev's friend Terri for lunch at Claim Jumper. Our life long family friend Chris and his son joined us in time to buy us dessert. It was a lot of fun but unfortunately it didn't end so well because of a heated discussion about something from when my mom died. Anyway, here is the scrapbook page I did this afternoon....

Template by Yin, Artimia kit with additional items from Katie Pertiet

I are not smart

2009-06-19T19:54:00.003-07:00

I must be truthful with you. I don't always do the smartest things. Let me give you an example of the most recent dumb thing I've done.....
This is a really dumb thing to do when you've just recently lost 20 lbs. Yeah, making Toffee Crack is something you only do if you want to gorge yourself on high sugar, high fat treats.
I even went the extra mile and added pecan pieces and some melted white chocolate bark to the top.
And since misery loves company I wanted to share these images with you and perhaps you will visit this website for the incredibly simple recipe for this highly addictive snack.

Recollections

2009-06-15T22:00:00.010-07:00

I am one of 4. My dad, at times, affectionately called us Thing One, Thing Two, Thing Three and Thing Four (go read The Cat In The Hat) and I am Thing 4. It wasn't always easy being the baby of the family (although my sisters seem to think I was spoiled).

We were pretty poor when I was a kid. I remember we sometimes got hand-me-downs from a family with older girls. I was the smallest so I got the hand-me-downs that my sisters had grown out of. My mom was a great seamstress so quite often she made our clothes.

If you'd ever spent time at our house back in those days, this was a common site to see....

Holly, sitting at her sewing machine. And if you are curious about what she is working on, then the next photo is for you.
She made each of us a Holly Hobbie doll and our very own Holly Hobbie dress. As you can see, we were very happy.

I wasn't always happy to have sisters. We had our fair share of fights growing up. Of course if you were the one caught being mean, you had to say the family prayer that night. Have you ever tried to pray when you are being a meany? Not an easy thing to do.

Now that I'm a mom, I look back to the days of my youth and can't help but ask, How in the world did our parents not kill us? I have only 2 and there were days that I thought they might not make it to their teenage years. My mom and dad had 4 girls in 4 years.

I really love these sisters of mine and I treasure every memory of growing up in that crazy house. BTW, I think we are overdue for a get-together.

It's OK to scraplift!

2009-06-10T16:25:00.007-07:00

I've been feeling kind of down for a few days so I thought maybe if I did some scrapping I'd take my mind off my troubles. Here are a couple of pages that I scraplifted* today.
My page of Jacob is scraplifted from this page.

My page of Jared is scraplifted from a layout I saved in my ideas folder, but I have no idea who did the original. It was a good way to pass the time.

*scraplift: the act of copying ideas and designs from another person’s scrapbook page to use in your own pages.

Yeah, something is wrong with me

2009-06-03T21:16:00.002-07:00

Ever since I came across this website, I have been totally addicted. I spend way too much time drooling over the photos and having fantasies. You'd think that I would be smart and stay away since pretty much everything I see is forbidden to me. My family is shocked that I torture myself in this manner. Why? they ask me.... I tell them that soon, although not soon enough, I'll be fulfilling my fantasies. Ah, I am counting down the days.

You Might Enjoy This

2009-05-22T20:49:00.002-07:00

I'm finding myself singing this song and it's making me hungry.

Sometimes I Wonder

2009-05-15T12:53:00.005-07:00

On any given day, I have many questions that go through my head. Today I will share just a few with you....

If I am running the air conditioner at 78 degrees (with the thermostat upstairs), why is my loft 82 degrees?

Have you ever seen such a cute little USB memory stick? (compare it to the regular memory stick above it)

Why do I take so many pictures of my cat? Does he even care that nobody can resist his silkiness?

How can my child sleep with his bed like this?

How can my child sleep with his bed like this? Wait, I'm beginning to repeat myself.

Is ther an unwritten rule that says at least 85% of boxers manufactured should be plaid?

Why didn't we take the cute cake off the outside box it came in before we took pictures? Why did we leave it there for the whole party?

If anyone has some answers, I'd love to hear them.

Ingenious...Totally!

2009-05-08T20:53:00.004-07:00

I was in a bit of a dilemma today. I've got this old pair of worn in Levis. They are at that stage where they are soft and the denim is thinning a bit. Well, they had a small rip in the seat that became larger from wearing them over my growing behind. Because I am ~~cheap~~ cost conscience, I decided to repair them instead of replacing them. So I got some cute flower iron-on patches to repair them with. Unfortunately the iron has been missing ever since we moved. I really wanted them fixed.

And then it came to me. We had another iron in the house. And I knew exactly where it was. Only this iron isn't usually used for anything remotely like this. It was my step-daughter's flat iron for her hair. I said to myself, "It gets hot...just like a clothes iron." And do you know what? It worked GREAT!
I just kept moving it and squeezing until each little petal was fused tight to the jeans. Ingenious! In fact, I think it worked even better than the times I've had to iron on patches for my kids clothes using a regular iron. I don't think I'll tell her that I found another use for her flat iron. We'll just keep this our little secret.

Science Fairs and Camping Out

2009-05-06T08:24:00.003-07:00

Just last week my step-daughter Olivia participated in her school's Science Fair. Unfortunately we got some bad information about what time it was happening so we got there as it was ending. We went in anyway so we could check out her project.

Her daddy is checking out the eggs that she did her experiment with.

She had 4 eggs in different substances and recorded what each did to it's egg.

Olivia is showing us one that was unaffected. The most odd thing I see in this picture is the sweatshirt she is wearing. I'm telling you it was about 95 degrees outside this day.

Had to get a close-up of her eggs during the experiment. That egg in vinegar is pretty gross looking.

As that week came to a close, we were ready for our kid free time. Only those moms and dads who are on their second marriages would know what these are all about. (As much as we love our children, we still enjoy the time they spend at the other parental unit's home.) We decided to load up the truck on Saturday and head up to the cooler climate of Payson, AZ.
It takes us less than 2 hours to get there. We love to drive around....even when we have no place to go. It's a stress reliever for us and we always enjoy each other's company and conversation.

Saturday night we just sat around by our fire talking and playing Farkle. I thought it was chilly, but Jason thought it was great. I was feeling a little sorry for myself because I'm on a diet and wasn't able to eat the pizza he brought back to our camp site. Yeah, yeah, I know pizza is NOT a camp food, but we didn't plan in advance and the impromptu adventure is more important than what you eat.

In the morning, Jason lit our fire back up and we put our percolator on the hot coals. While waiting for it to get hot, I snapped a few pictures to show you why I really don't mind camping out.

Jason found this super duper cool truck tent at Cabela's. It sets up super fast and then we hook the opening around the end of the truck.

Standing inside the tent (and yes, it's tall enough to stand upright in) you can see our very cozy bed set up in the bed of the pickup. Jason bought an air mattress that fits the pickup bed and we throw a thick foam pad on top of that. Then I put some king size sheets on it with some blankets and VOILA! Comfort at it's finest.

I can't wait to go again while it's still cold enough to have a fire going. Too bad most of our kids don't enjoy camping.

Get Ready

2009-04-26T20:55:00.004-07:00

Mother's Day is just around the corner...

I'm In A Funk

2009-04-24T23:39:00.007-07:00

On Easter Sunday, my hubby's brother-in-law passed away. Keith was only 50 years old when his heart totally gave out. Just this past Monday was his funeral.

My kids went to their dad's house for that weekend we were in Montana. The house should have been locked up tight...I even left a note for the boys telling them to not forget to lock all the doors and window. Great plan! Except for one deviation. Jacob (my 15 year old) forgot how to use his brain and conveniently left his window open for his buddies to come in while nobody was home. And those "friends" threw a party. In my house.

So I'm about 1000 miles from home when my youngest son Jared calls me and tells me that someone broke into the house. They were getting dropped off by their dad. I was totally freaked out and couldn't do a thing about it.

But after we got home, we realized that Jason's laptop, all our stuff that usually sits on the counter top and on my entry way table had been hidden in closets and drawers (and the cops my ex called said that it was one of the boys' friends) So we forced a confession out of Jacob. I just wonder how he thought he could get away with that. He wasn't even here to enjoy the party with them!

We actually feel very lucky that the worst that happened was they ate lots of food out of the fridge, ate all our candy, dirtied every cup in the house, spilled booze on my tile floor and left it very sticky so I could spend an hour mopping it. Oh, and they stole the boys' Wii and my totally cool aprons that Suzee made for me! I mean, we aren't glad those things happened, but we could have come home to something like this.....

(this is the Pair-A-Dice Bar that had recently burned down in Paradise, Montana.)

I'm hoping that very soon I'll just snap out of this funk. It's hard when you are grieving the loss of one family member and wanting to kill your kid at the same time. Well, I don't really want to kill my son. But I would like him to suffer a bit. I've been told more than once this week that this too shall pass. I just wish it would have passed me completely.

A Weekend In Montana

2009-04-13T22:01:00.009-07:00

Friday afternoon Jason and I flew up to Montana. His grandma had passed away and Jason was going to be gone for more than a week. He asked if I would like to at least come up for the weekend. Of course I did! I hurried up and put together a small scrapbook album for his mom so if she felt lonely in the days ahead, she could look at the family photos and know she's loved and appreciated.
Since meeting Jason, I have been to Montana 5 times in 3 years. I absolutely love it there. Being an Arizona native, I'm used to brown. So for me, being there is a feast for my eyes. Everything is different than I'm used to

This is a view from the airplane window. I love the snow on the mountain and the winding river down below.

Look at what is in the Missoula airport waiting to greet new arrivals. This bear is HUGE! (Don't worry...I'm not really scared!)

Jason was on the Plains high school football team, so I snapped this picture of the scoreboard.
I just can't imagine growing up in a town where the grass is green and the views of the mountains are regular features.

I was trying to get a shot of the football goal posts in the distance. I didn't notice at the time, but the local businesses seem to put up advertisements on the fence. Do all small town funeral homes advertise at schools?

Just beyond the grocery store is this little old jail. I love that it's still there. The sign says it was built in 1904. Jason tells me that the town would have a day when they'd lock people up and then they have to raise "bail" to get out. Then the money goes to benefit something (I wish I remember what).

Just up one of the hills is a new development for home sites. This is the view from one of them.

And this is just some of the forest just outside of the main part of town.

Something else that I think is wonderful is this natural mountain spring. You can just pull off the road and fill your bottles up for free. That water is really cold! I hope you notice the University of Montana logo on that bottle. Yeah, I'm such a tourist.

Something else that anybody from the greater Phoenix area would find amazing is that EVERY bridge you go over has WATER running under it. I'm not kidding you.

Easter Sunday, my last day, Jason drove me back to Missoula for my flight home. But first we visited the grounds of his Alma Mater. I know you probably can't tell, but there is an "M" at the top of that hill. (Jason tells me it's a hill, but anyone from my neck of the woods would know it's a mountain.) I thought it was cool that there is a trail that zig-zags it's way up that folks were hiking. If I lived near it, that's what I would do.

It's all about the GRIZ. These folks take their football seriously.

There are Griz claws everywhere. Trash cans included.

One more picture before we leave...

The time had come for me to board my plane and head for home. My boys were waiting for me and nail clients were on the schedule for Monday morning. My heart was breaking as I was leaving because we had just gotten the worst news. Jason's brother-in-law had passed away that night. I wanted more than anything to stay. I love this new family of mine and I hurt for their loss. May God bless and comfort them.

Happy Anniversary

2009-04-01T20:48:00.006-07:00

Today Jason and I celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary! Yes, we got married on April Fool's Day.
I never intended to get remarried so soon after my divorce, but I fell head over heels in love with Jason and I couldn't let him get away. I am one of the lucky ones who can say that they married their best friend.
When we began planning our wedding, we knew that we wanted to be able to enjoy ourselves. I have to tell you that I had so much fun and was totally relaxed from start to finish.
The day was beautiful and the sun was so bright. Jason and I loved our wedding theme of 'Gettin' Hitched' and we were 'Tying the knot'.

This began our journey of being a blended family. Looking at these photos now makes me feel like it was so long ago because all of our kids have grown up so much.

Jason's family traveled from all over to be there to celebrate with us. These women did so much for us to help make sure everything was beautiful.

My family lives fairly close so of course they were there. My sister Suzee helped me make the invitations. They were super duper awesome. She's so generous with her time and is such a hard worker. I'm glad she was there as my matron of honor.
Every time I think back to this day, I feel so happy. I wouldn't ask for anything to be different.

The boys had a lot of changes in their lives in such a short time. They have rolled with those changes pretty well. I'm very thankful for them and for the way they've handled these last few years.

Here we are, doing what we do so much of....Laughing! He can always make me smile, even when I want to be crabby.

I love you Jason. I am so proud and happy to be your wife. I can't wait to see what the future looks like with you by my side.

How To Tell If You Are In Sun City

2009-03-22T21:25:00.003-07:00

Today Jason and went to lunch with our friend Michael Shane. Don't ask me why, but we ended up in Sun City which is a place where old folks live so they don't have to be around young'ens here in Arizona. Anyway, this was in the ladies bathroom...

Yes, this is the reason we must always carry a camera with us when we go places.

This Made Me Laugh Out Loud

2009-03-19T12:20:00.003-07:00

When I was dropping Jacob off at school, I saw something that had me laughing. I didn't have my camera with me (I should know better than to ever leave home without it). On my next trip out I went back and got a picture, just so I could share it with you.

Did Someone Say CAKE?

2009-03-15T08:38:00.005-07:00

These are my adventures in making cake balls. Since I had never made them before, I read a few ideas from folks who have made these and most said to not mix the frosting when the cake is too warm, so I waited until it was a little cooler.
This is the delicious devil's food cake in the bowl. I know it's delicious because I sampled a piece. (or two)

I chose to mix in chocolate fudge frosting. Jared approved of this.

I used all of the frosting even though some people who made this said they didn't need all of it. The bags of chocolate chips in the picture were later melted down to make the coating...it was too messy for me to get any pictures.

I'm almost done scooping all the cake. It is really creamy and smooth with the frosting mixed in.

I went back and rolled all the scoops with my hands to make them into tighter balls.

Here they are with their chocolate coating, cooling in the fridge.

I actually forgot to get a photo of them finished and on a plate until a day later. Here are all that's left of the two full cookie sheets.

So I had some left over melted chocolate and couldn't bear to toss it out and knew that if I just ate it I would get a sick tummy, so I grabbed the bag of sliced, frozen strawberries and dipped a few into the chocolate until the water ruined the chocolate. These are yummy.

I hope your mouth is watering and you are thinking about chocolate now. I think I'll go eat a cake ball for breakfast.

Tomorrow My Baby Turns 13

2009-03-13T18:24:00.003-07:00

I just can't believe it's been that long. As Jason says, "Fun flies when you're doing time". So in anticipation of the big day, I thought I'd blog tonight to tell you what I'm doing. Instead of the traditional cake, we will be having Cake Balls (not to be confused with Schweddy Ball you've probably seen on Saturday Night Live).

First you bake the cake. Then once it's done, crumble the warm cake in a bowl and stir in a can of frosting until it's blended. Then you use a melon baller (or since I don't have one, a small cookie scoop) and dip balls of cake into warm chocolate. Cool on wax paper until set. I can't wait. I plan to take some pics.

Just wanted to post some pictures of Jared
This is Jared when he was only 2 and a half years old. Just love that grin.
And this is Jared today. The hair is longer and he is a lot taller but he's still my baby.

Just One Question

2009-03-06T21:16:00.003-07:00

I was just wondering if you think my ring holder looks like a boy cat with my rings hanging on it? Uh, no? Oh, me either.

Let's Have A Garage Sale

2009-03-01T08:17:00.006-07:00

Moving really does suck. Jason and I came to the conclusion during this move that we needed to condense our belongings. When we got married, we each brought a whole house full of stuff with us. I couldn't part with much of my own property because after my divorce from Jerry I was gun-shy about long term commitments. I had this fear in the back of my head that warned me to save it all because Jason could leave, too. Now it's 3 years later and I am much more secure in my marriage and realize Jason is here for the long haul.

So, as we began the awful process of packing and moving, we started to give a lot of stuff away. I was prepared to just drop everything off at D.I. (for those who didn't grow up in an LDS home, D.I. stands for Deseret Industries, which is a second-hand store) and be done with it. My sister Suzee had been ~~doing all my packing~~ helping us move and suggested we have a garage sale to get rid of our extra junk. I really hate to have people poke through my things, but she pointed out that $1 for something we were just going to toss is more that we had before. So we had a garage sale...

Jason bought us donuts to give us the necessary sugar high we needed to get set up. Olivia was our helper for the day. She is the only one of our 4 kids willing to help. Can you read what's on the blue tape? We had to stop people from asking how much we wanted for the things that still needed to be moved.

I took my camera because I blog and everyone knows that bloggers take their camera everywhere. I took pictures of our ~~crap~~ saleable items.
Just looking at it makes you wish you'd been there to get the good stuff, I know...

These office chairs are still available.

And another picture of our goods. I think out of all the things you see here, only that VCR and DVD player actually sold.

Being an Arizona girl, I had to go sit in the sun to warm up. I mean, it was only around 70 degrees. So you can imagine how cold it was in the shade.

This last picture tells it all. We are on our way back to the new house. I took a nap, too, once we were home.

Things I Love About Jason

2009-02-25T20:38:00.006-07:00

He is so easy to talk to

He does nice things for me for no reason

He never complains about all the time I spend on the computer

He laughs when he reads the technical help page on craigslist

He is the best friend I've ever had

He shares his sweatshirt with me when I'm cold

He will make breakfast for the whole family

He is very generous

He goes along with my decorating ideas

He takes good care of us

Jason

How Is Crissie Doing?

2009-02-19T11:54:00.004-07:00

You are all aware that I've been suffering with sciatica. For the last few weeks I've been using these Wei patches, and I have to say that I am doing MUCH better these days. I thought you'd all be interested to see what patch removal day is like, so I've put together a series of photos for you to get the full affect.

This first picture is of the inside of my Wei Patch. It is a combination of all kinds of herbs and spices (well, not spices, but it's more fun to say it that way). I works almost like magic...magic tar.

Now you can see what my back looks like when the patch comes off. Kind of looks like it made the hair on my back grow, but that's not really what happens. Those hairs are just coated with the magic tar. It's VERY sticky, too. "How in the world do you get that stuff off", you ask?

Here is the magic tar remover. Looks a lot like olive oil.

Just pour it onto a paper towel and place it on the goopy spot. You need to let it stay there for a couple minutes so it can do it's work. Then you begin to wipe it off. I've gotten much better at it since my first patch.

See how gross the paper towel is now? But my back is nice and clean.

See...I'm smiling! I can even walk around without looking like I'm 80 years old.

Elvis had to come and see what that bottle was all about. I think he licked some off the edge.

I guess now that I'm up and about, I have no more excuses for not getting the rest of my kitchen chairs painted. It will be so nice once everything is finished and Jason and I can just relax.

Nothing Much

2009-02-13T19:23:00.003-07:00

Well, I just popped in to my regular blog to tell you all that I don't have anything to blog about. Yeah, pretty boring. I could go on and on about how hard I've been working setting up my house and how I'm usually so tired by 7 p.m. that I go to bed shortly after that.

But other than that, I really don't have anything to share except this picture of Elvis on our balcony.

He's The Bomb!

2009-02-03T21:14:00.003-07:00

My hubby is really fantastic! When I got home from work tonight, he had my computer all set up and he's got the external hard drive set up for me to do my back ups.

What a great man! Honey, these kisses are for you!!

I'm BACK...sort of

2009-02-02T21:12:00.004-07:00

I have really missed getting on the computer! We began our move on Friday with me not being able to do anything more than sit in a chair and let everyone else do the work. I have a pinched nerve in my right hip...the sciatica nerve. It is the most excruciating pain I have had since I was in back labor with my first born.

As you can see by the image, every area that it shows in red hurts on me (except the foot but it always feels like it's falling asleep). Because of my inability to walk without having to bend over like an old lady and not for any period of time, the amount of "stuff" at the old house is way more than it would have been if I were feeling better.

My computer is still not set up and I'm having to use the laptop tonight for this post. I am way behind on posting to my Project 365 blog. Hopefully very soon I will be up and running and will get caught up.

Yesterday

2009-01-28T20:16:00.005-07:00

I guess I'm the only one of my blogging sisters who didn't post something yesterday about it being my mom's birthday. Just like I did when she was still with us, I forgot until today. Of course, I do think about her quite often and I miss her a lot. Most times I miss her when I find something I think she would have laughed at, such as this visual pun....
This is a creation by Terry Border.

Other times, I would just love to talk to her and tell her about my crazy life. I think she would have really loved Jason.

I can't believe it's been 5 years that she's been gone. Happy belated birthday Mom.

New Home For Chooch

2009-01-23T20:30:00.003-07:00

I have finally got someone to adopt our dog. I'm very happy about who he will be going to live with. I got an email in response to my craigslist post from a gal who's 90 year old grandfather's dog just died. This man lives alone but his family visits often. She tells me that his dog was what gave him a reason to get up each day. She and her mom came by our house to meet Chooch today. They wanted to be sure he'd be the right dog. Well, he is a sweet little guy, and he is just looking for someone to love him that he can love in return. This gal asked if I would like them to send Christmas cards each year to keep in touch so I can hear about our dog and how he's doing out in Payson. I have the best feeling about it. She'll be coming back on Wednesday morning to get Chooch on their way up to visit the grandfather.

Scrap Page

2009-01-21T22:38:00.003-07:00

I thought I'd wind down by doing a little scrapbooking....

Our Rental House

2009-01-15T14:00:00.005-07:00

Well folks, we finally narrowed our search for a house to rent and put an application on one. Good news! We were accepted and will begin our move in 2 weeks. I've been going through my belongings and have tossed out a full trash can full of "stuff" I obviously thought was important once. When faced with packing and moving it, suddenly it's garbage. We've also bagged many items for donation.

Here is a photo of the house. Unfortunately for the girls, it only has 4 bedrooms and now they will have to share.

I'm wondering if anyone wants to come and help? We take possesion on Friday the 30th, and if you aren't affraid of driving, could use some furniture movers on Saturday :)

Feeling A Little Overwhelmed

2009-01-11T20:37:00.003-07:00

I guess it's time for me to blog about the big news. Jason and I are moving. We have the house on the market right now and are trying to do a short sale. We're still not sure where we're moving to. We had a place all lined up, but we decided against it. We've been searching in a limited area within the grade school boundaries. There are some great places further out there...and choosing one of them would put a big strain on me, making sure Jared gets to and from school. I already moved him once from his school and his neighborhood friends and I hesitate to do that to him again.

Right now we have so much going on that we are feeling quite stressed. I really hate having to make sure the house is "show ready" every day. But I gotta do what I gotta do.

I guess that's about it for today. I leave you with a photo of my counter in the downstairs.

I have the stuff from the shelf boxed up. The things laying on the counter are from the fireplace mantle, ready to be cleaned up and packed. It's a start!

Back At School!

2009-01-05T21:33:00.003-07:00

I know my kids aren't happy to be back at school. They really love Christmas vacation. 2 weeks of mostly free time to play with their friends and to enjoy their new goodies.

Jason and I were talking about our childhood years and we were trying to remember if we, as kids, had the number of sleep overs that our kids do now. Almost every night this past week we were either sending a kid (or two) to a friend's house or friends were staying here.

I spent this last week sick with a cold. I've had bad chest congestion and my head is working double time making lots of snot. Let me tell you how much I appreciate Mucinex DM. Without their drug, I wouldn't be breathing very well right now. It really does kick the mucus out of your lungs.

This is how they want us to think about our mucus. I've chosen to use the picture of the female mucus because I don't like to think of that ugly man mucus inside my lungs. Now I'm pretty much just taking Sudafed for the head congestion. I'd rather be taking Claritin D but I don't feel like going to the pharmacy to buy an over the counter drug right now.

I hope all of you have escaped getting sick. It really sucks.

It's A New Year!

2009-01-01T11:33:00.005-07:00

Happy New Year! First, I wanted to let everyone know that I'm starting a blog to document my own Project 365. CLICK HERE to see the details. It's a big goal and I hope that I can keep up.

Last night Jason and I (and his girls) went to Tom and Verina's to ring in the new year. We had fun and we learned a few new games. Have you ever played Farkle? I'm not game smart and I was able to catch on after a few times around the table. Very fun. We also learned 9 Hole. If we have another family gathering, Jason and I will teach ya'll how to play.

Oh, if you like the word art, go visit Bethany's blog! I have to tell you, that girl makes the BEST word art you can find. AND, she gives away a freebie every day.

Now it's time for me to run and get busy finding some templates to use in my Project 365. Wish me luck!

My Christmas Post

2008-12-29T23:50:00.005-07:00

Yeah, it's a bit late, but I figured I'd share some photos of our Christmas.

Here in this first picture you see our tree and our wonderful yule log burning.

Here are my favorite people. Look...they're smiling!

I made one of my kids take a picture of me with Jason...can't have enough of those.

I sure love that husband of mine...he gives this fat girl candy (that's love, baby). I mean, look at that spare tire! OK, I am hitting the workout DVD's hard after this jug of my favorite candy is gone. Honey, I'm sure that by our anniversary there will be less of me to love.

As you know, I'm a Nail Tech and I get great gifts from my clients. This one I just had to share...
My client (who is more like a girlfriend) Sheri Nork gave me this WAY cool bottle of vodka. She made her husband go back to the store and get me one after he brought her a bottle home. You see, I introduced her to the Twilight series and she knows how much I love Edward (but not more that you, Jason). I think it is an awesome bottle. It looks like blood inside. Thanks Sheri!

So that's all I have for tonight. Actually, it's now after midnight, so I guess I should say that's all for this morning.

Did Someone Say Party?

2008-12-22T21:25:00.006-07:00

This past Saturday was our annual family Christmas Brunch. Much of my time leading up to it was spent on my craft projects. Here are some photos of what I was doing.

This first picture is of the scrapbook I made for my step-mom, Susan. It's a little brag book of her grand kids. It's not what I was planning, but I ended up ditching the first book because I couldn't make it come together. All the pages are done on chipboard so it's nice and sturdy. Here is a picture of what it looked like before I assembled it...

I printed the photos on my home printer. I just cut them out and glued them onto the chipboard.

Next is the little book I did for Margaret. I liked the colors in the paper because it went so well with the color in her great family photo I used on the cover. Same idea of printing out pictures and gluing them on the chipboard

This is the little black and white brag book I literally put together at the last minute. I photoshopped all the pictures to make them black and white and then I ran some fantastic wordart onto transparencies and assembled them in front of the pictures. The transparencies are separate from the photos so you can move them off the pictures.

This is the t-shirt I made up for Suzee. I absolutly love it (and made one for myself, too). I used the wordart from a freebie digital kit.

This was such a fun time for me and all these goodies made me excited for our family day.

Here are just a few of the pictures I snapped...

Alas, my time with the little statue is at an end. My addition is the big gun and holster. Now he can look tough in his thong and hat.

Hi Kaity! Say "Cheese"

Here's Suzee and Margaret sporting some awesome aprons that Suzee made.

And finally just a group shot of the people who were sitting across the room from me. Looks like Suzee and Kaity are critiquing the pictures they just took.

I think we should all get together more than just once a year. You agree?

Still Nothing

2008-12-18T14:45:00.004-07:00

I've been very hopeful that something fun or exciting would happen in my life that I could blog about. I mean, wouldn't it be so cool if I posted about winning the lottery or being voted Prom Queen? Sadly, neither of those cool things happened to me. I've just been trying to get my scrap projects completed. I'm very close to being done with 2 of them and I need to get rolling on the 3rd one. After this Saturday, I'll post some photos of what I've been doing.

I was supposed to have driven out to B.F.E. (that's Gilbert, AZ in case you are wondering) this morning, but I'm practicing my procrastinating. I told Suzee I'd help her out since it's only a 30 mile one way trip for me but much further for her. I'll try to get it done a little later today.

So that's about it folks. I do like to share a picture or two when I blog, so without further ado....

Here is a picture of my gay cats spooning on my bed. It has nothing to do with this post. I just think they are cute.

Officially Obsessed

2008-12-04T09:17:00.006-07:00

Yup, it's official...I've got Twilight Obsession. And to show you just how bad it is, I am sharing the layout I did. The little picture in the layout is from a photo shoot the guys did for some magazine. I think it's great because they are all wearing vampire teeth.

Okay, I know I'm strange, but ever since I came across that first Twilight scrapbook layout, I've had this obsession to do my own. "What! There are more weirdos out there?" you ask. Oh yes, and I totally love all their layouts. And because I can, I made a collage of some of them....

They are a little tough to see in this post, but if you click the picture you should be able to see them better. I had over a dozen more I could have used, but had to limit myself. LOL!

I'd love to see what Suzee, my other scrapbooking sister, can do. She's the bomb when it comes to scrapbook stuff. And Margaret, if you can find a picture from the movie and want to put me in it, I'd love that!

Que The William Tell Overture!

2008-12-02T09:06:00.003-07:00

The time has come to begin my mad, crazy rush into the Christmas season. I haven't even begun. Well, actually, I did get our tree assembled and plugged in this past weekend. This Thursday when the girls come home we will most likely begin decorating.

I am trying VERY hard to not let my Grinchy heart keep me from enjoying the season. So this year we are focusing on the real meaning of Christmas. When our Savior is the focus, my heart will surely grow three sizes.

I plan to find stories to read to the family that will draw His spirit into our festivities. If you know any, please forward them to me. I'll be scouring the public library for children's books...even grown up children like to look at pictures when the story is being read.

I have a couple scrapbook projects in the works and hopefully they will be completed on time. I can't say too much about what I'm doing yet, but of course you know I'll post the pictures once the projects have reached their destination.

Time to turn on the Christmas music and get busy...

HI HO SILVER....AWAY!!

I've Been Tagged & Some Other Stuff

2008-11-26T17:18:00.005-07:00

My sister Suzee TAGGED me:

*Open your pictures file on your computer

*Grab the fourth picture in the fourth file!

*Now Post it and blog what you remember about that picture.

This is my awesome hubby Jason with his favorite radio personality Colin Cowherd.
During the Super Bowl here in Arizona this year, the ESPN guys were broadcasting downtown close to Jason's work. Lucky man got to have his picture taken with my husband.

I only know 3 bloggers I could tag and Suzee is one of them, so I'd love to see what Margaret and Leigh put up on their blogs. :)

And now some other stuff:

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving already! It should be a wonderful day. We have our brood for the morning only so we are doing a Thanksgiving brunch. Once the kiddos leave for the day, Jason and I are going to laze around on the couch watching football and having a delicious pizza dinner. I am very excited! The clean up will be a dream and I will not have to complain that I over-ate.

Hope you all have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving!

Just A Little Crush?

2008-11-21T16:55:00.003-07:00

Is it wrong to be dreamy over a fictional character? Because I've got it bad for Edward Cullen. I just saw Twilight today (with my REAL love) and the more I think about the movie, the more I believe I will go watch it again. I am re-reading the book because it's just that good.

I realize they did have to use some creative licence to put a 498 page novel into a 2 hour movie.

Let me just agree with Suzee; if you want to see a LOVE story, this is it. Just because Edward is a vampire does not make it a vampire story. So go see it so you might understand just a little about why I feel the way I do about him.

Hated It

2008-11-18T10:13:00.003-07:00

I kept looking at the layout I did for the State Fair and I totally hated it. So I went back and used the same photos in a different layout.

Still doesn't seem complete but I like it much better. More fun?

Another Page

2008-11-16T11:21:00.004-07:00

I was able to scrap another page. (I scrap lifted a layout that I saw at After 5 Designs but cannot figure out who did the original.)

I need to print out my layouts and just put them into a general scrapbook...no theme.

Tonight I have to drive all the way out to my ex's house and pick up the boys. It's about a 100 mile round trip. Thankfully I only have to do this once every 6 weeks.

Hope you all have had a great weekend!

Some Scrapbookin'

2008-11-14T17:42:00.004-07:00

YES! I finally forced myself to sit down and scrap a couple layouts. The first one is my State Fair layout...

And the second one is Jacob's cast layout...

That's it for today's post. Not much else is going on right now. I'll try and make up some stuff to tell you about soon. LOL!

My Favorite Thanksgiving Recipe

2008-11-05T09:55:00.003-07:00

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I'm not sure how it got here so fast. Our Thanksgiving is going to be a quiet one this year. Being a blended family, our children have 2 homes in which to celebrate all the holidays. Actually, my boys have never been with me on Thanksgiving since their dad and I split up. We did that because we wanted our divorce to make as small of an impact on our boys as possible and that meant that they would continue the tradition of having their Thanksgiving meal with their dad's family. In exchange, I got to have them every Christmas morning. It's worked out okay. I think that Jacob and Jared are old enough now to make some changes and so I'll need to talk to their dad about that.

Jason and I will have all the kids on Thanksgiving morning and we will do a big brunch for them. Then they will go to the other parent's and have the big meal. Jason and I don't plan on making a turkey with all the trimmings. The one dish that I MUST have is Sweet Potato Casserole. It is my absolute favorite! I make it every year and have shared our family recipe with many friends. This year I made a digital recipe card to share.

I used the freebie kit Everescents by Liz @ Sweet Digi Scraps and freebie alpah by Ziggle Designs

If you think you don't like sweet potatoes, give this recipe a try. It's almost like a dessert.

What Kind Of Blogger Are You?

2008-11-02T21:39:00.002-07:00

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary.

If it happens, you blog it. And you make it as entertaining as possible.

You may be guilty of over-sharing a bit on your blog, but you can't help it.

Your life is truly an open book. Or in this case, an open blog!

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

What's Been Going On?

2008-10-29T20:26:00.008-07:00

It's been a busy week since I blogged last. I should have put some photos up last time that showed Jacob getting cast #2 put on, so I'm posting them now. BTW, this was done Wednesday before we went to the fair.

Here is the mummy wrapping that goes under the cast to make it more comfortable.

Doctor is just starting the outer wrap

He's working quickly

And here is the finished product!

This cast fits snugly and doesn't allow the movement that he had with his first cast (after all his swelling went down he had WAY too much wiggle room). He should be able to have it removed in 2 weeks if he gets enough new bone growth.

We took the whole fam-damily (plus 2 more) and went camping last weekend in Prescott. It was lots of fun and the only real hardship was freezing my butt off in the tent. Jason and I plan to look for some kind of portable heater we can use to take the chill off. He is fine in the cold, but he looks out for me :)

Lately, I've been running Jacob all over the place. After a long battle with acne resisting all the medication the doctors prescribed, he is getting ready to start Actuate. This morning I had to take him to get his blood work done. They'll have to test it every month in order to fill the next month's worth of medication. We are fortunate to have a Sonoran Lab almost in our back yard. Only this morning when we went there, they were closed due to a water main break in the parking lot and the water had been shut off to those offices. So off we went to the next closest one. Unfortunately, that location was VERY busy. We waited about an hour and then I took Jacob to get some breakfast before dropping him off at school. He will have to fast every time they do his blood draw. I'm hoping this is the answer we've been looking for. I feel so bad for him having to go through this.

On Monday while I was still at work Jason came home to find this on the living room floor...

Yup, that's a baby bunny. Our cats are at it again. There is a wash that runs right by the end of our cul-de-sac and has lots of wildlife living in it. I've seen these little guys in the neighbor's yard and always think they are so cute. Obviously the cats think they are cute, too. And fun. There was rabbit fur chunks all over the house. Jacob is truly his mother's son because he had to get a couple pictures to document the moment. Thanks Jacob...it's gruesome, but it is for posterity. It was not dead yet so Jason had to end it's suffering. He's not very happy with those animals.

So now you know the happenings. Until next time, Peace out!

Did Someone Say State Fair?

2008-10-23T08:15:00.004-07:00

Yesterday my kids and I got to tag along for Suzee's State Fair excursion. (If you click her name you'll see her post about it.) We were very fortunate that Suzee has connections...or rather her daughter Kacie has connections. Jordan is Kacie's friend and her grandparents are carnies. They were kind enough to share their pass to enjoy the park with us. The only things I had to pay for were the parking for my car and the drinks we got.

Suzee and I let the older kids run free and we went to the kiddie portion of the fair where her little guy had a blast! After a while we had the kids come join us and I got some photos of them.

Here they are ready to ride the Dragon.

Jacob and Jared on the slide

and then on the sky ride. The big ape in the other lift seems to be totally relaxed.

Jordan and Kacie on the ferris wheel.

Me and Suzee relaxing for a bit out of the sun.

I don't think I've walked that much in a VERY long time. Today I'm feeling like an old lady. LOL!

New Scrapbook Page

2008-10-21T10:17:00.005-07:00

I finally got around to scrapping again. I've been playing but not really creating. Here is my attempt at being creative.

I used the brush set and paper by Fei-Fei. I'm not sure where that wordart came from.

I should probably find a photo of Jared to extract and do a page for him. I'll post it once it's done, too.

Something entertaining

2008-10-18T22:27:00.001-07:00

I had this youtube video sent to me. Maybe you'll enjoy it....

Holly's Daughter

2008-10-15T11:00:00.002-07:00

Yes, I am Holly's daughter. If you are not one of the 4 of us, you may ask "What does that mean?" Well, it means that we were raised with VERY strict rules regarding how we were to conduct ourselves under the roof of HER house. My sisters and I learned quickly that there were things we did not do. For instance, we had hand towels and we had dish towels and we knew the difference and were NOT allowed to dry our hands on dish towels. We also knew that unless we bought it ourselves, we were to treat everything with respect. It was actually a lesson I am glad we learned.

I began drilling some of the lessons I learned into the heads of my sons when they were quite young. They have embraced the Bathroom Towel Rule that states you will use a bath towel for several days before you are allowed to put it into the hamper. I am pleased that I don't have to wash a load of their bath towels every few days. Unfortunately Jacob is slow to learn about respecting the structure of the house.

The following picture shows our downstairs bathroom door that he put his hard head into. He claims to have tripped coming down the steps....hmmm, likely story.

This next photo is the inside of his bedroom door. It used to be our downstairs closet door but Jacob punched a hole in it. That duct tape is covering the evidence.

You are aware that I am now in a "blended family" and now have members of my household that were not raised by Holly's daughter. So now I try very hard to look the other way when they forget the Bathroom Towel Rule or something I didn't think needed a rule....

Yes, it used to be a good bathroom hand towel. Sadly, someone didn't think twice before using it to clean themselves off from Halloween makeup. I just don't get it. What is wrong with soap and water? And I know that it didn't phase this child to ruin someone else's property.

I will take a few deep breaths and try and forget for a moment that I was raised by Holly....

Oh who am I kidding?

Ice Cream Personality Test

2008-10-09T09:16:00.002-07:00

I took the Ice Cream Personality Test and here is what it says about me...

Your Ice Cream Personality:

You like to think of yourself as a fairly modest person. And it's true that you don't talk yourself up... but you're also pretty happy with who you are.

You are a pretty cautious person. You look before you leap, and you don't leap often. There's a bit of a wild child within you, but it doesn't get out often.

You are a somewhat open minded person, but deep down you're fairly conservative. You don't like trying new things very much. And if you do find something new you like, you stick with it.

You are a natural multitasker. You feel alive when you're doing more than one thing at a time.

You are a serious and contemplative person. You definitely do your own thing in life.

The Ice Cream Personality Test

What does it say about you?

Baby Shower

2008-10-07T11:03:00.006-07:00

Saturday was my niece Kaity's baby shower. It was a lot of fun spending time with all the people that showed up to celebrate the upcoming arrival of baby Holly. So now that the party is over, I can show you the sweet craft project that Bev made for her new grandbaby...

I think she did such a good job on the wall letters. This was her first attempt at being "crafty". Now that she knows how simple and fun making stuff can be, perhaps she'll attempt more things.
Here are a few pictures from the shower....

Kaity & her friends

Here she is behind the large pile of gifts

Standing Room Only

Opening her gifts

Bev with her kids Kaity & Stephen

So Bev, are you happy now? LOL! Next time be sure to actually USE your camera!

In the spirit of fun

2008-10-02T11:26:00.003-07:00

So after reading Margaret's post, I thought I'd share my funny that I put together. I have to say that I think all the Lundberg girls may be a bit on the demented side. This little scrap page kept me laughing for at least 30 min while I found the best photos to put JB into. It all started as a practice at extracting a portion of a photo....

Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy Dies

2008-10-01T18:46:00.003-07:00

I found this little tidbit here and because it made me think of my mom (she just loved a good pun) Ithought I would pass it along...

There has been a sad passing. The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours.

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for millions.

Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 350 for about 20 minutes.

If this made you smile for even a brief second, please rise to the occasion and take time to pass it on and share that smile with someone else who may be having a crumby day and kneads it.

October ALREADY

2008-09-30T19:39:00.004-07:00

I just finished my computer desktop image for October. I always use the freebie desktop from the Shabby Princess blog and the one for October is lovely (as always!). Here's what I did with mine.

Go grab one for yourself. She offers it to fit both standard screens and wide screens. Don't you just love how there is room for all your icons on the left so your great photos don't get covered up?

Happy Scrappin' ya'll!

Sticks and Stone May Break His Bones...

2008-09-28T16:13:00.004-07:00

AGAIN!

Jacob (my oldest) has broken his wrist once again. The last time was when he was in the 3rd grade so I suppose that this repeat performance isn't so bad.

His first break was in the 3rd grade on someone else's skates. The kids were trying to see who could jump off a ramp and land the furthest.... He won! And he broke both his ulna and radius bones in his right wrist.

This time, he was looking over his shoulder while on his long board (skateboard) and somehow fell and fractured a small bone in his wrist.

Luck for us he has become a frequent flier at the urgent care.

This photo is from Mother's Day when he smacked his head into a tether ball pole and we spent a whole evening at the urgent care and they recommended an ambulance ride to the hospital to get him a cat scan on his head. Of course he was fine (I always said he was hard headed!)

So how was your weekend?

Remedial Typist

2008-09-25T09:08:00.003-07:00

I found this typing test while reading Sweet Shoppe Design blog this morning. They do this thing called From Our Blog To Yours and you are supposed to post something they request on your blog then go back and comment in their blog with a link to your posting. It lets you earn points...but I'm not going to play along just because I don't need one more thing to keep up with. LOL! BUT, I did take the test just to see how fast I type. And it's not very fast.
53 words

Typing Test

So now when you read my posts, you'll realize all the time I took to share my life with you. It ain't easy! LOL. Did I tell you that I got a "D" in typing in high school?

My latest project

2008-09-21T10:03:00.005-07:00

Last week I finally did some scrapbooking. I had been planning to make a coaster album for a long time and when I saw the quick page pack from Little Dreamer Designs on sale I figured it was time. I totally copied the example for my cover page, but you know, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Here are some pictures of the little 4" X 4" album....

While I was taking these pictures, my cat Elvis figured it should be all about him and he came and flopped his silky body on the desk.

So now I'm ready to get another album completed. I am really enjoying the hybrid thing. I just need to find a great way to display my projects at home. I just have them sitting in a basket on my coffee table now.

Yesterday I helped my sister Beverly make her daughter a fun craft project as a baby shower gift. Kaity's shower is October 3 so I'll have to wait to post any pictures of her gift until after that.

So that's it for today folks... Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend!

Yup, I'm a copycat!

2008-09-18T20:39:00.003-07:00

So Suzee blogged about a cool mosaic. And of course I have to do my own...so with much ado, here is mine....

1. Dedicated to Christine aka show me ur pix!'s, 2. 241/365: My Sunday Lunch, 3. Good Morning Glendale, 4. Bliss, 5. Gerard Butler, 6. Cd Art, 7. Home, 8. Tiramisù, 9. Hot stuff!, 10. take me to the light, 11. friendly roses, 12. Domestic Godess

To make your own: a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search. b. Using only the first page, pick an image.c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name (or your blog name or handle or whatever)

Uh, I had to cheat a little...I actually went on to the second page on flikr once (or twice).

Cool...thanks Suzee! And like she says, Now it's your turn.

Birds and moths and lizards. Oh My!

2008-09-17T18:20:00.004-07:00

I just love cats. We always had them while I was growing up. My two cats are so sweet and silky. Now, let me tell you why I want to shoot them. They love to bring creatures into the house that have NO business being indoors. You probably remember the post about the dead bird in my bed. Well, they just keep sharing their friends with the family. Like this mutant moth...

Ugly thing, isn't it! But this first picture doesn't show just how big it really is so I included a shot of "it" with the cat. Look how small Elvis' paw is in comparison.

Pretty creepy. And the sound of it's wings beating against the floor sent chills down my spine. Then Elvis caught another bird...and brought him inside to share with his brother. The poor guy was wounded pretty bad. I just picked him up in a paper towel and put him under a bush out front. Jason said he'd just suffer and die out there but I couldn't bring myself to kill it or to let the cats continue to torment it.
This bird is the only play thing they've brought in that didn't totally gross me out. Just so long as it stays out of my bed! Then just this morning I found these little dead treasures in the downstairs hall....
In case you can't tell, those are lizards. I actually stepped on one of the little corpses before I was aware they were there.

I was hoping someone could put me in touch with the Kitty Whisperer so she can tell my cats that they need to play with their friends outside only. My schedule is pretty flexible so any time she can meet with them is good.

You're kidding, right?

2008-09-11T20:57:00.003-07:00

So I'm cruising the blogs out there and I see that the funny lady who sold her kids Pokemon cards on EBay (Because I Said So) has a great blog where she reviews products and gives her opinion about them. Well, here is a REAL product that I laughed out loud when I saw the web site

Yup, it's real folks! I haven't seen a commercial THIS good in a long time. Click this link (Batter Blaster) and watch the video demo! Well, apparently, these make GREAT pancakes and waffles. Dawn from the blog review said that it would be great to take when you go camping or just want to fix yourself something for a late night snack with no extra clean-up.

I've GOT to find this stuff and try it for myself!

I WON!!

2008-09-10T22:46:00.002-07:00

OK, so this is just a bit of old news, but I had this screen shot from when I actually won something! If you look closely, you can see my name on the top right.

I played along with the Weeds & Wildflowers digital scavenger hunt last month and figured that I probably had some of the clues wrong. Turns out that I got them all, just not the first one to submit them. Then they randomly selected 3 people who got them all right and handed out some digital freebies.

If you want to see the original posting, just click on the link.

Would you want them for neighbors?

2008-09-09T09:22:00.005-07:00

I just want to vent today about our next door neighbors. At first glance they seem to be nice people. This family sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers to our house on the day of our wedding when only that very morning they learned we were to get married and they always say "Hi" when they see us. The gripe I have is that they ALWAYS park right in front of our house. ALWAYS. There will be nobody parked in front of their own house, but they don't seem to want to park there. They have 4 vehicles for a family of 4. They could easily park the 2 extra vehicle in front of their own house. The neighbor on the opposite side of them has their driveway on the far side so the space of their 2 yards makes a large area. On the other hand, WE have only the space of our own yard between their driveway and ours.

I know it seems like it's not such a big deal, but it is annoying to us. Imagine that every time you look out your front window you see a car right in front of your house. Many times it is their company so the first thought when I see a strange car outside my house is "who is coming to see us?" Well, last night when I went out to look for Elvis (my cat) this is what I saw...

And, NO the car isn't running, that brake light just looks like that from my camera flash. There is about 5 feet of space between the Honda Element and the neighbor's truck. Here's a big surprise... there was NOBODY parked in front of ANY other house including the neighbor where this car's owner was visiting. So I ask you, Would you want them to be your neighbor? Let's not even discuss how they let their little rat dog come right up to our front door to bark at us and then take a pee right on the bushes by our front door, or how their son (who just graduated high school) and his friends have been caught jumping on our trampoline in the middle of the night. No, lets save that for another day.

Way to go Grizzlies!

2008-09-07T17:45:00.004-07:00

Last night my hubby's Montana Grizzlies won their season opener again Cal Poly 30-28. UM's passing game pretty much sucked so it was a good thing they can run the ball. We were at Dukes watching the game with friends of ours and other Montana fans. Right up to the end I wasn't sure they would pull it off. The last 38 seconds remaining of the game had Cal Poly attempting a 27 yard field goal that would have won them the game. Luck was with the Griz because the kick went wide left! WOOHOO!!

It was fun but I think I'd have had more fun if I wouldn't have been ready to come down with something. I've had terrible sinus congestion and today have run a fever. My sweet Jason has been feeling the pain of sinus, too. Let's hope we are on the mend...

It all happened on Friday

2008-08-30T18:12:00.006-07:00

Yesterday was quite a day! It was the day after a HUGE storm ripped through the greater Phoenix area Thursday night. This storm brought lightening, wind, rain and hail larger than peas. And as we saw the next day, lots of trees ripped out of the ground by their roots and many more with huge limbs snapped off. It came in two waves (that I know of). The first one was before our kids went to bed. Of course we had to go outside because we are true Arizonans and we actually think a good storm is like a show. "But Crissie, isn't it dangerous to be outside while there is an electrical storm?" Of course it's dangerous but at least here at my house we are willing to risk the odds on being struck by lightening.

Round two of the storm came after Jason was sleeping. I was in the kitchen and I heard something hit the house (I'm still not sure what it was). I went to the back door and saw the rain in the glow of a streetlight blowing sideways. This was one powerful storm! I went to bed and during the VERY early hours between 2 and 3 a.m. I was awakened by Jason tossing a cat out of our bed. He said that Elvis had been digging under my extra sheet I use to keep me warmer. He had been awakened earlier by the cats wrestling around in the bathroom over something. So he tosses my extra sheet back and I can tell there is something in the bed. I remember thinking to myself, "Please don't let that be a turd". So Jason goes over to the light switch and asks me if I'm ready. On goes the light and this is what is in bed with us....

OMG! It's a dead bird!

I can only assume this not so little bird was wounded in the storm and one of my cats came across him. I'm sure which ever one of them brought this thing in must have been thinking he was a total warrior! And when we went downstairs for the day, we found feathers all over the floor in the downstairs hallway and family room. Downstairs was obviously where they had the most fun with their new friend.

After getting rid of the bird and changing the sheets we caught a few more hours of sleep. Later that day we took my sister Bev out for lunch to celebrate her birthday. Here are a couple pics of the little Rolodex scrapbook I made for her. I wish I would have had more photos to use but there were none to be had.

There were a few more pages but this gives you the general idea.

Then, I went with Bev and her girlfriends Teri and Becky out for her birthday dinner to a fabulous Italian restaurant called Vincitorio's. http://vincitoriosrestaurant.com/

This was my first time there and I will tell you that it will NOT be my last. For starters, the atmosphere is lovely. But most important, the food is wonderful! And I will tell you that even though I was totally stuffed after eating almost all of my Capellini Campagnola (that tasted SO good) I still had my share of sampling the 3 desserts we ordered to share. YUMMY!! And Bev had a wonderful time. Which is the reason we chose to be gluttons for the night.

Yes, it was a VERY long day. Some great, some not so great, and all of it just another day in my life....

Am I wasting time again?

2008-08-28T12:23:00.003-07:00

So here I am taking another Blogthings quiz. I figured since I love to download great fonts that this was a good quiz for me.

What font are you?

You Are Palatino

You consider yourself to be creative and artistic.

And you'd like everyone else to know it!

You take design and aesthetics seriously.

You like everything in your life to be unique and beautiful - but never gaudy!

What Font Are You?

Oh boy!

2008-08-27T12:39:00.003-07:00

I don't know where the time goes. It's almost the end of August already. My oldest sister Bev has a birthday coming up on the 29th (also my niece Sarah) and I still haven't finished my gift to her. I think I may have to get my old pictures out and scan them so I can complete the project.

I also have a birthday coming up on the 13th of September. I hit the big 39. But at least I'll always be younger than my sisters! LOL! I have no idea what I want for my birthday. When I think about it all I can hear in my head is my mom's voice saying what she ALWAYS said when asked what she wanted for her birthday or Christmas... "A CLEAN HOUSE". Ah, yes! I finally understand how that was always her greatest wish. Of course, I think I do much more of my own house cleaning than I remember my mom doing. I'm pretty sure she and my dad had kids to do the cleaning. It's been more than 4 1/2 years since she died. I really miss her.

I used to keep my cats indoors because we seem to be helping the food chain here in our neighborhood with my last 2 cats. They both found their way out through our doggy door and soon after were never seen again. Well, I had this idea of making a cage to butt againts the house outside the doggy door and I would house their litter box in it. It worked great. Cats would go out there and do their business and do the death chant while bird watching. It was so safe. But one day Elvis and JB had reached my last nerve after they thought that walking on me at 3:30 in the morning and pawing my head was a good idea. They had been waking me and Jason up pretty regularly through the night and poor Jason has to leave by 3:30 a.m. (hence the cats assumption I should be up, too). So that morning I opened the trap door that used to keep them in the cage. I told them that there was a coyote out there somewhere needing a meal. Well, so far they haven't become coyote chow. Of course I hope they never do. I think they are pretty fun most of the time. Let me show you some photos of my brats...

JB and Elvis in the cage of safety and misery.

JB practices his "Mighty Hunter" move.

Elvis is most likely making JB laugh!

Now remember folks, my birthday is still a couple weeks away so you have time to get me something nice. LOL!!

New header!

2008-08-23T13:51:00.003-07:00

I got tired of the photos in my blog header so I redid it. I thought it would be nice to go for a girlie look. As you can see, I ended up leaving the layout like it was. In case you're wondering, I used the digital kit "Princess of Lala Land" by Sweet Shoppe Design. Such a fun kit!

You animal!

2008-08-21T08:26:00.002-07:00

I took this quiz this morning.

ANIMOLOGY: What Animal Are You? Your Result: Tan Giraffe Loner. You're a sort of a loner, but you are very brave and a quick thinker. You have a little secret: you like to help others. Soul Mate is the Red Jaguar, but you hate the Marroon Panda.
Ocre and Gray Dolphin
Silver and Red Wolf
Gold Falcon
Teal Cat
Red Jaguar
Blue Fox
Yellow Trout
ANIMOLOGY: What Animal Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I think that being a Tan Giraffe sounds cool... but who in my life is the hated Maroon Panda?

Where have you been?

2008-08-17T20:26:00.003-07:00

I have just been waiting around for something good to happen so I could blog about it, but if I keep that up I will never get around to my blog.

This month I was trying to do the "Photo a Day" to scrapbook some pages but I missed a couple days. I suppose on those days I can just say "oops". Let me tell you, finding something interesting to take a picture of every day is hard. And how bad of a mother do you have to be to not take ANY pictures of your kid on his birthday? Yup, Jacob's 15th b-day came and went and I didn't even get any pics of him on his big day. It's not like he was here all day...it was his dad's weekend and the boys didn't get home until after dinner so I'm going to use that as my excuse. Do you suppose I should make another cake and fake some pics? I'm sure Jacob would go along with it if it meant more cake!

Well, that's about it for tonight folks. I'll just leave you with this photo of my kitties...

Elvis & JB: Just showin' the love