Ten on Tuesday

1. I've really got to get back on track with the whole blogging thing.

2. And the scrapbooking thing.

3. Especially since I'm hosting the Write.Click.Scrapbook. blog again in a couple weeks.

4. Mackenzie at Emma's soccer game Saturday.


5. Emma at her game. She really loves soccer.


6. Michael leaves soon for his spring break baseball trip. Should be an interesting week with just me and the kids at home.

7. She makes me smile when she does this.


8. And this.

9. They're quite the fashionistas. I've been trying to take pictures of all their outfits lately. I see a mini-album in my crafting future.

10. He makes me happy.

Ten on Tuesday

1. I've got a lot of blog catching up to do. I'd like to say I'm going to post every day until I catch up. But probably not.

2. The girls put the Nativity scene together for me this year. Once it was complete, Emma promptly hid the baby Jesus. Because apparently that's what you do. (And as I'm typing this, I feel as if I've already shared that.)

(12/2/10)

3. The fitness center held their annual Winter Wonderland earlier this month. (Again, feeling like I'm repeating myself. Which I do often, by the way.) Attempted a picture of the girls and Ryan with our neighbors and friends, Caroline and Jack. Mackenzie was being grumpy and didn't want in it.

(12/5/10)

3.5 But then she did. See her face? Grumpy. And blocking Jack.


4. Then Jack made Ryan smile and it was cute.

5. Please let me show you the football hold. Our kids have always liked this.

6. We did some Christmas shopping with my mom. Six hours the girls walked the mall - and with no meltdowns! I was so impressed we had Auntie Ann's pretzels before leaving.

6.5They rode the train. It drives them all around the mall. They loved it.

(12/9/10)

7. Six hours of shopping meant six hours of bags. Which meant Ryan got held towards the end...

8. And the bags went in the stroller.

9. The nicest man sat in front of us at our church's Christmas concert. He was so kind to the girls, chatting with them, not getting annoyed at their frequent moving and talking. Emma even shared her Twizzler with him. When it was over, he offered to take a picture for us. We're missing Grandpa Sweeney and Ryan was in the nursery.

(12/10/10)

10. But here he is. Snoozing. With the program. Because I'm still taking pictures of him with things on his lap. It's still amusing me.

Ten on Tuesday

1. When will the snow stop? Depending on who is reporting it we either have 19.5 inches, 20 inches or 2 feet. Or, to put it simply, a lot. And it was still snowing tonight, albeit lightly. Thankfully, Michael fixed the snowblower that broke when I was using it last week. I took this picture Monday morning. Lots of snow. Lots of wind. And it just kept coming.


2. Saturday was Breakfast with Santa. I don't think we'll get a family picture with all of us looking at the camera until Mackenzie outgrows the put-my-fingers-in-my-mouth phase. But I still like it.

3. Snow days are still fun. Michael has had two so far this week.

4. I took Christmas card photos after church Sunday. Not bad for only 10 minutes worth of pictures. It'll work. Ryan's not smiling. It was too much work keeping Mackenzie in place and making sure Emma wasn't dropping him or strangling him to try and get him to smile. Of course, I could've done it when Michael wasn't outside snowblowing and had him try and get Ryan to smile but I wanted to get it over with.

5. And tonight I picked up my cards. Now to address them all.

6. I love The Sing-Off. But Nicole is the Paula of this show. I want to fast-forward when she comes on.

7. One benefit to living on a hill? You can make your sidewalk into a toboggan chute. Michael and the girls were sliding down the sidewalk yesterday. I didn't get any pictures because the wind was blowing the snow everywhere, but I did watch them go down once.

8. Christmas shopping is done except for two presents. One I know just have to pick up. The other I'm stumped.

9. The girls are really in to Charlie Brown right now. Tonight we watched "All I want for Christmas is a dog, Charlie Brown." They giggled a lot and shouted Snoopy! when he came on the screen. I laughed at Rerun in the bicycle seat that was over the rear tire, yet three feet behind his mother, ya know, so you only hear her, rather than see her. I wish I knew how to type out how the Charlie Brown adults sound.

10. I wish I could have all my house clean at the same time, all the time. Yet what usually happens is I get the basement, kitchen and upstairs cleaned and the family room becomes a mess. Clean that, and the girls room is a disaster zone. And so on and so forth.

Ten on Tuesday

1. We have snow. Lots of snow. I took these this morning, and we got plenty more afterwards. Lots of snow means snow days though, which Michael and Emma had on Monday.



2. Emma had her Christmas concert/Happy Birthday Baby Jesus program tonight. It was unbelievably cute. I didn't get any good pictures from where I was sitting, but you can see her in this one.


3. Purple Heart picked up two bags of donated clothes today while I was out snowblowing. I was just cleaning out the laundry room and now have four more bags for them. Wish I would've done this last night.

4. While I haven't started putting together my Dec. Daily yet, I am up-to-date on the journaling and tonight downloaded Ali Edwards' 6x8 overlays. I'm getting there.

5. Ryan is still cute. Starting to grow out of his 0-3 month sleepers.

6. Mackenzie is still a stinker. Oh my is this going to an interesting winter. I'm praying for patience daily. Really. I am.

7. Emma still talks a lot. And questions everything. We'll be lucky if she still believes in Santa next year. She's already wondering why there are so many Santas and if they're the real Santa or not.

8. We cut down our tree Saturday (pictures to come) and afterwards you can go in their barn and get hot chocolate, make s'mores, roast hot dogs. It's the best hot chocolate ever. And the woman who owns the farm was nice enough to share the recipe with me. It makes a lot. I mean a lot of hot chocolate mix, you only need 1/3 cup per serving.



9. Have you checked out Write.Click.Scrapbook. lately? December brings WCS for the Holidays, a month of holiday-related posts, projects, layouts, mini-albums and more. I have two new mini-albums that will be posted later this month.

10. I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping. Thursday I'm going to the mall with my mom (first trip with all three kiddos) and will finish my sister and mom that day. I'll then just need to get my brother-in-law's present, some stocking stuffers and I'll be done. Very excited by this.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Tonight I was watching CMT's countdown of the top 40 country songs of the decade. I was doing this while rocking Ryan. Watching country music videos while holding your still-new baby boy means there will be tears. Just saying.


2. Have I mentioned I think he's cute? I do.


3. The above picture was taken on Thanksgiving at my in-laws. We were out in my father-in-law's workshop watching the trains. The kids love it. They all got to pick out a train car from Grandpa's collection to take home. Which means the train around our tree will be three cars longer. And since our track isn't that big, there's a good chance the first car will be meeting up with the last.

4. Impressed the girls are looking without making faces and Ryan's awake.


5. Mackenzie's really into reading. And reading to Ryan.


6. All the Sweeney grandkids.


7. Sigh. I love him.


8. I mentioned the love of reading. I have a love of seeing them read books.


9. Also, I love hearing her read aloud.


10. Funny Ryan sleeping pictures.

The End.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Soccer practice was cancelled tonight because of a storm that came through. Emma was very sad. And when the storm was over, she asked if she could go to practice since it wasn't raining anymore. I had to explain again what practice being cancelled meant.

2. This picture is from the game Saturday when Emma scored a goal. Love that I actually captured her kicking it in.


3. All the girls' fall clothes are washed and put away in their closet. Very glad that's done.

4. Our fitness center has added a new fitness class - T-Bow. It's great. Versatile. Fun. The only downside is I can't do everything with it at this point. I'm still going, but doing a modified workout with it. Can't wait until I can do it full-strength.

5. Emma has mentioned trying to ride her bike without training wheels a few times this summer, so Sunday when we were at Michael's parents we gave it a try. They have a huge, flat yard so it was perfect. She used Mackenzie's bike so if she fell, it wasn't quite as far. She lost interest in it in about ten minutes, but she actually rode a few feet during that time. Please excuse my really dumb cheer at the end. Am I the only one who hates how I sound on video?

Emma's attempt to ride without training wheels from Erin Sweeney on Vimeo.

6. I've got this giant to-do list I'm working on (which I might have mentioned before) and now have 3 weeks to get it all done. Today I was able to cross some things off it. One of them being the mess of cords under the computer desk. Now why it seemed like a good idea to sit under said desk three weeks before having a baby, I don't know. But having the cords all neat and wrapped up makes me happy.

7. I hate doing laundry. And each time I do it now, I think about how I will have even more with a fifth person in our family.

8. My girls are going to think this is the best week ever because they're having play dates three days this week. Yesterday and today here and Friday at Kelly's. This week is orientation at the preschool and so we're swapping childcare for those not going to orientation. I love my friends.

9. Last week I got my hair cut and colored and brows waxed and it's amazing how much better that makes one feel.

10. My scrapbook area is all cleaned and organized (check that off my list!) and now I'm feeling crafty.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Yesterday Lisa, Kelly and I took our kids to the one of the Metroparks to play in the river and have a picnic. Kelly had been there before but this was new to me and Lisa. The kids all loved it. Finding rocks, walking in the river, trying to catch tiny fish - it was a perfect way to spend a couple hours. It was a good thing we'd brought extra clothes because they were soaked by the time we left!

2. Before:


3. After:


4. I have an ultrasound tomorrow afternoon. Very excited to see how big this baby boy has gotten. Also, to make sure he's still a boy.

5. I'm over the 90+ degree heat. Especially since the pool is closed during the week now.

6. This is Mackenzie right after the first time she fell in the river yesterday. Notice I had said first. She fell at least two more times.


7. I started washing the girls' fall clothes yesterday and the last load is finally in the dryer. I like to wash them after they've been in plastic tubs for two years. Well, Mac's have been since they were Emma's. We also have some things from Emma from my friend/neighbor Beth. Now I have to put them all away tomorrow. Fun times.

8. Speaking of friend/neighbor Beth, here's Emma after her game Saturday with Caroline, her friend and Beth's daughter.


9. There's a park near us that has an old-school merry-go-round. How awesome is that?

(Emma, Graham who is hidden, Titus, Mackenzie)

10. I ordered pictures last week from Shutterfly because they sent me an email coupon code for 101 free prints - I hadn't ordered since March 2009. Now I'm working on my free 8x8 photo book. Maybe I should go a year and half between orders more often.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Malachi turned 3 and his party was Sunday. He likes horses. There was a pinata which was very fun and funny, too.


2. Had friends over yesterday. Stefanie and her girls, Julia and Frankie, went with us to the pool and then came over for some playtime.


3. The garage sale was a success. We had a lot of strollers for sale. No, we weren't selling all our baby gear - we were multiple times why we were selling everything. My friends Beth and Lisa put stuff in it (the majority of the baby stuff) as well as my mom and Michael's mom.

4. Speaking of the strollers, the girls wanted to go for rides.


5. Lemonade was sold.


6. Scrapbook supplies were sold. This was the table Friday morning. I think I ended up selling about 1/2 to 2/3 of the product. I should've taken an after photo. Regardless, I was pleased.

7. One of the girls favorite summer activities has been squirting daddy with water guns when he mows.

8. Friday night we went to Chipotle. Where while walking out Mackenzie kept sing-songing "It won't hurt. It won't hurt," as she was pulling on Michael's hand/leaning over the curb/jumping. Then she fell. And it hurt. A lot.

9.Tomorrow is Michael's last day home with us. He goes back to school Thursday. The girls are sad. I'm sad. Thinking he's sad, too. The end of summer always stinks.

10. But that means Emma will go back to school soon and she can't wait. She's very excited. And it also means we'll have a baby soon. Six weeks and counting...