Ten on Tuesday

1. The Twins Day festival was this past weekend, and we headed down to the parade Saturday morning. Here's the beginning of the parade. I actually zoomed in pretty far to get this, it's a pretty long parade route, it lasts about an hour and a half.


2. This is Emma's shy face. If someone talks to her she's not sure about, she does this and whispers, "I'm shy." She's not.


3. We have an Army Reserve base here and men and women from their unit marched in the parade. We were clapping and cheering and I told Emma to yell "thank you!" as loud as she could to them because they serve our country and it's important to thank them. Well, one man walking by heard her and came over and said "You're welcome." Guess what she did, the shy face from above. He smiled and laughed and I shook his hand and told him thank you again and then got that funny feeling I get inside whenever I see someone in the military. That feeling of awe and respect and admiration and the need to tell them I'm proud of them even though I don't know them. Sometimes it comes out (like a few weeks ago when we were out to eat and I told two older veterans thank you and shook their hands when really I wanted to hug them.) and sometimes even I get shy and don't say anything. Okay. Sorry. Got a little sidetracked there.

4. This is the Rocket Ship car. It used to be a ride at the old Euclid Beach Park. They also have a car made out of a roller coaster train. You can rent it for rides by the hour. Last summer our neighbors rented it for their son's birthday party and took his friends on a ride. Side note - later that evening, we saw the rocket ship pulled over. Can you even speed in that thing?


5. Some of the twins and their costumes. The theme was "Twins Days Rock!", aka 50's rock n roll. It's funny, because you'll see twins stop and pose often for people to take pictures of them. There were over 1800 registered sets of twins this year, from all over the world.






(So I don't really know what clowns on a golf cart have to do with the theme, but they're fun.)

6. Mackenzie enjoyed waving at everyone.


7. When she wasn't hiding behind me or the nice woman sitting next to us. For the record, she's not a fan of the marching band but the church band was okay. Also not a fan of loud sirens, costumed characters such as a lion (Lions club), leaf (Metroparks) or cow (Chick-Fil-A).

8. Emma, however, was a fan of the marching band as you can see in this video. She's got quite the dance skills. Keep an eye out for Mackenzie, you'll see her, but definitely not dancing with Emma.


9. Emma. Loving the parade. And the candy.


10. Have you ever seen a bike like this before? I hadn't. Different. Kind of cool. I wanted to try it.
I want to be the girl riding backwards. Kind of like when station wagons used to have the seat in the back that faced backwards, so you could make faces at the cars behind you when stopped in traffic.

One picture says it all.

I had to laugh when I saw this picture. (I had no idea Michael took this until I loaded the pictures.) It sums up the last week and a half or so. This is me picking Mackenzie up at the pool today. She's been laying on the floor crying, getting mad either when she doesn't get her way or for no reason at all (see above), fussing, unhappy, moody, clinging, screaming "no" (although I'm starting to think she might just be saying it because she likes it, maybe it's her new favorite word) over and over. Distract her, feed her, give her a nap and she'll be back to normal for a bit. Then, sometimes for no apparent reason, it'll start again. And during the night? Ugh. It's nuts. It's annoying. I wish I could fix it. I wish she could talk more to tell me what's wrong. I wish I could make my sweet baby girl happy. I'm going to start adjusting nap time. Giving her more snacks throughout the day and see if it helps.

At the pool today, I spent most of the time chasing her around. She would get out of the pool and run toward the deep end because she wanted "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" who was down there with Emma and Bree. I was scared to death she was going to jump in without anyone to catch her. I took her out of the pool into time out multiple times. She just wouldn't listen. She'd fight me. Deliberately disobey. If she wasn't mine, it would've been funny. Okay, so it was still funny hen she'd get out of the pool, look at me with that sneaky look, then run away. It was like she was saying "Come on Mommy! I dare you! Come catch me!"

I'm hoping she's teething. Or having some weird growth spurt that's causing this and it's just temporary. Please don't let this be a sign of the terrible twos that will be coming November 1st!

Catching up.

I haven't blogged much lately, it's mostly been scrapbooking. Which means I've got a lot of pictures to post and stories to tell.



My mom, sister, niece and aunt came over yesterday and we headed to the outlets to get Emma some fall clothes. I got some great deals at Carter's and Osh Kosh as well as the perfect, fitting, so her, shirt for Emma. If you know her, you've probably guessed it has something to do with talking. And you're right.

The girls (especially Emma) love the outlets because of the ducks, the playground and being able to run. I love this picture of the two of them walking back to meet my mom and aunt. They're getting so big. And Emma's got some long hair.



After only going to the pool once or so in July due to sickness and crappy weather, we've been then twice so far this month.

(Emma and Bree jumping in to Michael and Tim)

Lots of playground trips. Trying to hit all the parks in our area.

Emma fell Monday night at the park. It was very traumatic for both her and I, even though she wasn't really hurt, more scared with a sore bottom. To soothe her (and Mommy) we got some ice cream. We kept pushing Coldstone on her, but she was insistent on a chocolate cone with sprinkles from DQ.

This summer brought the girls their first treats from the ice cream truck, which also happened to be Mackenzie's first popsicle. Mackenzie and I got junior bomb pops, Emma had a Dora ice cream pop and I can't remember what Michael had. I'll ask tomorrow.

Mackenize ate her's shirtless and it's a good thing since she had blue all down her chest/stomach. She ate a little more than half of it, decided she was done so I threw it away, then proceeded to eat the rest of mine.

I babysat Caroline and Jack last month, always fun for the girls, especially Emma. She loves having Caroline over.

Celebrated my sister's birthday.

Tomorrow we're going to Deer Park, Emma is excited to see lots of deers, hee hee. This weekend is Twins Days and we're going to the parade Saturday morning. We haven't been to the actual festival yet but if the weather holds up we might check it out. There are fireworks Saturday night I'm hoping we can see them from our house because that would be great.

Still to come (I hate playing catch - up!) - the zoo, camping, our family reunion, the work we've done outside around the house this summer and a bunch of other stuff I've got to get down before I forget. :)

In Any Given Week I...

It's All About Me week over at the American Crafts blog and I've got a mini-album up today. Here's a peek at one of the pages:



The rest is up on the blog, as well as some other great ideas for scrapbooking about ourselves. I know I tend to scrap mostly my girls and leave myself (and Michael) out. I'm trying to make an effort, starting with this album, to include more pages about me in our albums.

Scrapbook Sunday

Nothing new for this week because I was busy working on a mini album that I can't share quite yet. Once I get that mess cleaned up, hopefully tomorrow, I can't start some new pages. These layouts are from last month.

From the July Write. Click. Scrapbook. gallery:

(Basic Grey papers, American Crafts Thickers, Fiskars punches)

From the American Crafts blog last month:

(Everything is American Crafts)

Remembering my Dad

This afternoon I was showing Emma some pictures of me when I was a child. Being 3, she has a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact that I was once little like her. She thought it was so funny to see me looking like her. And really cracked up when I showed her a picture from when I first came home from the hospital. It's a family picture, with my sister holding me. She couldn't believe that was Aunt Tara.

Some of the pictures I showed her were these - me with my Dad.


(May 1977)


(No date, I'm thinking 1977 or 1978)


(July 1979)

In doing so, I had to explain to her who exactly this man was in the pictures with me, because she had no idea who he was.

Six years ago today, my Dad died.

Which means Emma has never met her Grandpa McIntyre. She has no idea she had another Grandpa or that I had a Dad, really. While I gave her a quick explanation, it wasn't something she lingered on or asked any questions about. I don't think it's something her young mind can really understand. We quickly moved on to some other pictures and she giggled some more. And then she was bored. It was time to do something else. Because, as you probably know, three-year-olds don't have the longest attention spans.

But I've been thinking about the pictures. Thinking about my dad. The good and the bad. Missing him. Wishing he could meet his granddaughters. Wishing I could hear him laugh. I love you, Dad.

I realize this is way more serious that any post I ever write. I'll be back to my regularly scheduled posts containing amusing (at least to me) stories about my daughters and scrapbook layouts tomorrow. And one of these days, a menu plan. :)

Scrapbook Sunday

These are three older pages because I haven't yet scanned some new ones. And it's late and I'm tired and just plain too lazy to do it tonight. :)


(My favorite pink cardstock from Hobby Lobby; American Crafts Thickers, butterfly, can't remember the first paper, but the last three are Basic Grey. Tomorrow I'll look for the first paper and see if I can find the manufacturer.)


(White/pink paper is KI Memories, yellow is...I'm not sure; border stickers are KI, I think; pretty sure those are Heidi Swapp letters. This is the problem with posting pages months and months after you complete them - you forget.)


(KI Memories pink paper, Basic Grey floral - I love love love this paper, the whole Urban Prarie line actually; AC Thickers; My Minds Eye bird.)

Organizing by color

My scrapbooking embellishments, that is. Anyone else do this? Have pictures of your storage? Right now, I've got them organized by color in baskets. But I've combined more than one color per basket, putting items in Ziploc baggies. I also have a metal and clear category. Oh, and I have two baskets for theme products: Halloween, Christmas, baby, other holidays, sports. Here's what I'm worried about - finding what I need easily. Obviously, I can just pull the basket/baggie with the color item I need, but everything is just thrown in the bags. So I'll have to dump everything out to find what I need. Which could be annoying, plus a pain to clean up. I need to figure out a way to sort within color, but still keep things in the baskets, but again, make it easy to find. I don't want to buy anything, since I just bought all the baskets last year. They're cute little IKEA baskets that fit perfectly on my shelf.

I did the same with my ribbon tonight. I went through all my AC ribbon, purging some of it, with the rest going in to these categories: by color, ribbon with words, striped ribbon, patterned, Christmas, polka dot. I never use ribbon and I think it's because I'm just overwhelmed with the whole drawer full of American Crafts ribbon packs. I think this will inspire me to use it more often since I can now find what I'm looking for easier.

I haven't tackled the rest of AC product yet. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do. I know there are plenty of House items I would use more often if I knew they were there, but I'm not sure about mixing them all up and taking them out of their cans/boxes. I also need to go through my AC Thickers Accents. My Thicker alphabets are already sorted by color.

I'm trying to do a major purge because I know I have product I'm not going to use anymore. I just have a hard time getting rid of things. But I'd like to sell what I'm not using at a garage sale, so I think I need to get ruthless.

So that's it. Still a work in progress. I might have to change some things around after I've scrapped with it for a while.

Anyone have any tips? Pictures to share? Regrets after switching to organizing by color? ;)

Scrapbook Sunday

I know I missed last week. I'd just gotten home from Cheryl's wedding and didnt' get around to posting them. Okay. That and the fact that I hadn't scrapbooked that week.


(Everything is American Crafts)


(Love, Elsie, Basic Grey and Creative Imaginations papers; 7 Gypsies stickers strip; American Crafts Thickers, accent, letter stickers)


(You can't really tell, but the strip hanging off the left side is scalloped. I'm not sure who made the blue paper, but the other two strips of paper are SEI; American Crafts Thickers and accent)

If anyone else has been posting layouts on their blog, let me know - I'd love to check them out!

Challenge on AC blog

I meant to post this last week, but I sort of forget. Better late than never! Get out your AC baby paper, make a layout using at least two of them and post it. Then link back over here, the AC blog for your chance to win a complete set of Baby Collection papers, Thickers and clear stamps, and you can check out cute little Mackenzie at 3-days-old while you're at it. :) But hurry! You've got to get it done by Midnight PST tonight!

In need of a makeover.

My blog, that is. But last time I attempted it, I spent hours and hours trying to get free Blogger templates to work and they wouldn't. And it was annoying. But I don't know a lot of HTML. So I sort of need to find a cool and fun and colorful template that will work with Blogger and is easy to do. I'm tired of the way the blog looks. It's boring. Plus, it's a bit outdated. So, if you happen to be on in the next few days and notice some weird things, remember it's a work in progress. Or there could be no change at all because I get frustrated and give up. ;)

Another picture Rebekah took on Sunday. Emma was squeezing me so tight, trying to get her face as close to mine as possible, that is smooshed her cheek. You can't really tell in the picture, but she's gotten a lot more freckles over the last month. Quite a few on her nose. So cute.
 

Rebekah was here...

...and now I have these wonderful, awesome and fantastic photos. They make me happy.





I actually took the first and third pictures, but used Rebekah's amazing camera. I now have camera envy. Cheryl's wedding was great, I'll post those pictures once she's posted some on her own blog. Loved getting to see her, meet some new friends, spend time with Rebekah. It was a great weekend.

More pictures to come...

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday, I swabbed my cheek for the bone marrow registry. Seriously. It's that easy. Swab your cheeks in four different places, wrap the labels around them and send them in. You can Be A Match, too. :)


Today, Michael and Emma played school. Emma's idea. My math teacher husband decided today's lesson would be math with Kix. Emma kept asking if she could eat one.


Tomorrow I'll be picking Rebekah up at the airport around 1 pm and then we're driving to Cheryl's for her wedding on Saturday. See you soon, C!

Happy 4th on the 6th

Scrapbook Sunday

This page is from the June gallery at Write. Click. Scrapbook. If you haven't yet checked out the new Write. Click. Scrapbook. blog, take a minute to go look around. There's great inspiration in the monthly galleries, awesome blog posts and a Flickr gallery to post your layouts. :)

(Bazzill cardstock; 7 Gypsies word sticker strip; Making Memories tiny alphas; American Crafts Thickers; SEI, Chatterbox, Love, Elsie papers.)


This layout was posted on the American Crafts blog a while back.

(Everything is American Crafts)


Another layout from the AC blog.

(Everything is AC)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!