Four Product Challenge

I've got a layout up at the American Crafts Studio blog for the four product challenge. Here's a little sneak peek of my page:




I know I haven't been blogging much. I've Menu Plan Monday on hold for awhile. It's baseball season, which means Michael isn't home much and when we attend games we usually eat out. Plus, with the lovely weather in Ohio, games get cancelled and rescheduled often enough that menu planning right now just doesn't work. I'd end up ignoring it. It'll be back once baseball's over though.

And I guess I just haven't been in much of a blogging mood. Some days I have ideas for posts but then don't get around to posting them, other days I've got nothing to say. Then I wonder if I even want to keep the blog going. Maybe I should take a break. But I won't. I need to keep blogging if only so I have things recorded for scrapbooking. I just pulled up a post from March for a layout last night. :) And if you're one of the three people who read Erin Hates Running, you'll see I haven't posted there in a few weeks. I will get back to it, and this one, on a more regular basis soon.

She really liked the slide.

And the swing, too.

Meet Daphne

My sister's cat. My Mom is watching her while my sister's in Florida. (Where it's warm and sunny and 84 degrees, unlike here where it's cool and rainy and in the 50's.) Daphne, or Daph-a-nee as Emma calls her, just might've been the highlight of Emma's stay at Grandma's. She was fascinated by the cat. And it's not like this was the first time she's met her, but this time was different. She followed Daphne around, needed to know where she was at all times, and, of course, kept trying to grab her tail. Because a moving tail is hard to resist to a 3-year-old. Poor Daphne. I have a feeling she was very relieved when we left yesterday!

(I didn't crop the picture because it makes me laugh. My mom is trying to hold Daphne still, Daphne's trying to escape, Mackenzie's climbing because, well, that's just what she does and Emma is so happy to have Daphne in her lap that she's oblivious to it all.)

Ten in pictures

1. Sunday we celebrated Easter with Michael's family since he'll be in Florida and we'll be at my mom's. The best family picture we could get. Better than nothing, I suppose!


2. Emma showing off her eggs...in the Christmas basket.


3. Mackenzie only found a few. She was more interested in just running around.


4. Checking out the candy.

5. Looking in the Easter basket bag.

6. Trying to jump rope. It was pretty funny.

7. Falling off the motorcycle...

and a serious (or grumpy?) face.

8. This might be one of the funniest pictures I've ever taken. Anna (top row) and Claire (bottom) wanted nothing to do with the picture taking. Emma kept clapping and in later pictures Mackenzie was laughing. Ben kept a smile on his face while Malachi wasn't sure what the heck was going on. And Rachel kept trying to calm Anna down. I love it.

9. Emma on the phone with Aunt Tara last week, telling her all about ballet.

10. Riding the train at the mall last week.

Mackenzie got excited every time Emma came by.

Ballet

Today was Emma's first ballet class at Missy's studio. So, so cute. She loved it. And didn't want to leave when it was over. Which, by the way, seems to be a phase she's in right now.



(Please excuse the not-so-good pictures, they were the best I could get with my small camera, I forgot the other one.)

Ten on Tuesday

1. Missy and Felicia came over to scrapbook Friday night. Lots of fun. I didn't even finish one page though.


2. This is what happens when 1., you let your 3-year-old have at the craft closet to make a "surprise" for Daddy and 2., your 16-month-old dumps out the box of foam shapes/pipe cleaners/beads all over the floor. I'm pretty sure she ate a bead.


3.My mom's cake. Aren't the polka dots cool?!


4. I found a babysitter. Yay!

5. They're now limiting the number of people who take Zumba to 30. Not yay. The Tuesday night Zumba class averages 40 - 45 and one night had 65 people in the class. I can't show up an hour early to guarantee a spot. It's going to be annoying if I get there and it's full.

6. Okay, so being friends with Michael W. Smith on Facebook is awesome. He posts pictures all the time. And last night, a clip from the opening of his concert that night. when he started singing I got chills. He'll be here Wednesday night. I wish I could go see him. He puts on amazing concerts.

7.Have you watched the new show Castle? Love it. I think if you like Bones, you'll like Castle.

8. Have you ever hit send and then wished you could take it back? I've done this, usually when I hit reply all and didn't mean to or vice-versa. If you have Gmail, you can now do this! If you go to Labs you can see all the things Google is trying out and you can use them. One of them is the undo. Once you send an email, you have 5 seconds to hit undo and the email comes back as a draft. How cool is that?!

9. I have my mom's homemade spaghetti and meatballs cooking and it smells really really good.

10. Emma is taking ballet at my friend Missy's studio. It starts Thursday. She looks so stinkin' cute in her "ballet dress" as she calls it. I'm very excited, hopefully she'll listen better than she does at swim lessons. Mis, do you do timeouts? lol! Because Mandy, her swim instructor, does! :)

Menu Plan Monday

http://orgjunkie.com

Monday - mac and cheese (swim lesson night)

Tuesday - homemade spaghetti and meatballs

Wednesday - leftovers

Thursday - grilled chicken, wild rice, broccoli

Friday - pork chops, mashed potatoes, corn or green beans.

Saturday - Michael has a double header so we'll probably eat out or get pizza

Sunday - dinner at my in-laws

The Vampire Diaries

Anyone else read these?


(Amazon link)

I so loved these books. I was a freshman when the first one came out in 1991 and I still have all four. These were way before Twilight, but it looks like due to Twilight's success, they're making the books into a TV series. And, in what I think is fantastic casting, Boone from Lost will be playing Damon. Perfect. Seriously. I planned on watching anyway when I first heard about it. But this makes it even better.

And with a little Googling, I just saw they're releasing three more books in the series. Looks like the first of the new books is already out, I'll have to see if my library has it. :)

Barbie Makeup

My friend/neighbor Beth and I trade babysitting often - haircuts, dinner, running errands alone. We've also got something going I call the switcheroo. Once a week (as long as we're both up to it and have healthy kids) we pull a switcheroo (not sure why I call it this) where she'll bring Jack and Caroline over, I'll watch them while she works out, then she'll come back to my house and stay with the kids while I work out. The next week, we'll go to her house. It works out really well. We both have a class we like take in the evenings, the times work out where there's no overlapping, and the kids love playing together. And Emma, well she loves it even more because Caroline has a Barbie make-up kit.

Beautiful. :)

PS, notice the Christmas dress? She saw it in the tub of clothes I keep in her closet, when she outgrows something or it's out of season, I toss it in there. Once she saw it, she had to wear it. I'm pretty sure she work her snow boots with her PJs that night, too.

Ten on Tuesday

1. It was my Mom's birthday Saturday and we went out to dinner. Since we were meeting in the middle there instead of going to her house, Tara brought along the cake. There were polka dots airbrushed along the sides of it. So cool. I took a picture. But my camera is upstairs so I'm not posting it just yet. I will later today though.

2. I'm on a search for a local babysitter. We have great girls that can babysit for us from Michael's school. It's just not that convenient when all I need is someone for an hour and a half, like for Zumba. But my neighbor found me a girl who lives down the street, it's one of her son's friends. I'm going to call today, hopefully it'll work out.

3. I just read, for the first time, Where The Wild Things Are. I got it at the library for Emma. How is it I never read this book? It's pretty cute. Did you see they're making it into a movie?

4. Speaking of the library, I have to call or stop in there soon. Two books I returned are still showing up on my account. I know I returned them. And I'm sure they're there. A CD I turned in the same time as the books didn't come off my account either and I found it on the shelf.

5. So I started a new blog. Not to replace this on though. It's going to be my workout/eat better/lose weight/I'm dreaming blog. There's a link over on the right.

6. Sunday I took the girls to my sister's for a Pampered Chef party. Michael stayed home, not sure when the last time was he had the house to himself. But he surprised me - when I got home he'd cleaned the house! The toys were all picked up, dishes washed, it was so awesome. Thank you husband!

7. So I need to finish my December Daily album. I scrapbooked some this weekend, got a couple pages done. But now I've decided nothing else until the album is done. So either, it'll get finished, or I'm done scrapping for a good while. :)

8. I need highlights. It is spring, ya know.

9. I'm friends with Michael W. Smith on Facebook. Okay, okay, so he totally doesn't know who I am. Still, it's pretty cool to see what he's up to. (For the record, on his website they had links to his profiles on FB, My Space, etc for people to be his "friend")

10. 24 was really getting annoying. But last night ending made it a little less annoying. At least until next week. When I'll get annoyed all over again. Jack just needs to wear a sign around his neck that says "I'm Jack Bauer. Super Hero. Loyal to the United States. Regardless of what happens, I'm not a bad guy, not a traitor, and what I'm doing always works out on the end. Just trust me. PS, I know some of you around me are bad guys acting as good guys and I'll figure out who you are so just quit now." Then, I wouldn't have to be annoyed at all the spies, people blaming things on him he didn't do, etc.

Menu Plan Monday

 

(Get more great menu plans at orgjunkie.com)

Monday - Have no idea what we're doing tonight. I'll decide when we get home from swim lessons

Tuesday - fajitas

Wednesday - baked potato soup, although Emma doesn't like it so she'll probably just have some potatoes and green beans. The girl would be completely happy with just a can or two of green beans for her dinner every night.

Thursday - leftovers

Friday - Swanson Pan Sauteed Chicken with Vegetables and Herbs

Saturday - Whole-Grain Rotini with Asparagus and Snap Peas (new recipe out of Good Housekeeping)

Sunday - Lasagna (I forgot we were going to my sisters yesterday and wouldn't be home for dinner when I put Lasagna on last weeks menu, so we'll have it this Sunday instead)

Tagged by Angie

I was scrapbooking and decided to take a break and read some blogs. After seeing this picture, I'm thinking I should've skipped the blog reading and kept on scrapping! I was tagged by Angie:

1. Take a picture of yourself right now. No primping or preparing. Just snap a picture.
2. Load the picture onto your blog.
3. Tag three people to play. Remember, if you are tagged on another blog, we will all be heading to yours to see if you played along.

Here ya go:

I would like to point out my lovely hair style. I call it the "ponytail for short hair," AKA two barrettes to keep the hair out of my face, which I do every night and while working out. It's oh so flattering to my giant forehead. Oh, and I'm not down here in the dark, it's actually a well-lit basement, darn camera flash.

I'm tagging my friend Darcy, fellow former Simple Gal Melanie, and she-who-spent-her-last-day-here-in-the-waiting-room-with-me, Rebekah.

Snap away, girls!

(So I just realized that instead of ponytail, I typed pony tale. Idiot. It's fixed now. 3/21 2:07 pm)

Emma in the Big City

Yesterday we drove downtown to have lunch with Janet. (Janet was my boss when I worked in Cleveland as a social worker. Pre-baby days when I still had my LSW. One of the (many, of course, Janet) things I love about her is that no matter how long it has between us talking, we always pick right up where we left off. It's like I'm sitting in her office chatting and laughing and making jokes rather than working all over again.) This was the view when we got downtown, same view I saw everyday when I drove to work. Seeing it though Emma's eyes though, was hysterical.

"Mom! Look at the big city! It's beautiful!" Yep, gorgeous. And as we continued driving, "Mom, I like the work city."


We met up with Janet and walked to the Winking Lizard for lunch (Memo to Janet and myself, do not go to the Winking Lizard at lunchtime again unless we want to wait forever and get only lukewarm food.) Emma had a great time, like maybe the highlight of the day good time, walking downtown. She loved every minute of it. Here she is with Janet, although I couldn't get her to look at me because she was too busy watching all the cars. She was saying cheese, though!


After lunch we went back to the non-profit I used to work for because Emma wanted to "go to Janet's work." Janet put her up in the window so she could see "the big city" again and when Emma got up there she was so excited! "Mom! Look! It's sooo busy!" That's when Janet turned to me and mouthed "No. It's dead out there." And it was. There was like one car on Euclid Ave.

Emma got to see my old cubicle (not really impressed) and darted in all the offices and chatted with everyone I used to work with. And of course, she was sad when we had to leave. As we were walking to the car she said, so very seriously, "Mom, I'm so sad. I really miss Janet. I wish Janet didn't have to stay at work."

But the doll house sitting in the front seat of our car cheered her up. Janet's girls had outgrown their doll house and moved on to the Barbie Dream House, so Emma and Mackenzie now have this:


Emma is loving it. As she told Michael last night, "We went to see my friend Janet. Janet gave me this doll house." And on and on and on. She's played with it all day today. In fact, she wouldn't even eat breakfast this morning because she didn't want to miss play time with the doll house, that's how much she loves it. Thank you, Janet!

Don't forget,

Check out American Crafts' blog this week. My layout went up Tuesday. There are a lot of great projects - this week is all about Thickers. And who doesn't love Thickers? I do. ;)

Ten on Tuesday

1. Emma's going to be a helicopter pilot when she grows up.


2. Unless she keeps doing this. Pretty sure having your eyes open is a requirement. For the record, she was doing this on purpose.


3. Those were from last Wednesday. It was cold. Today, it'll be low to mid-60's. Then maybe snow on Thursday. I love Ohio weather.

4. On the way home from the mall earlier this month.


5. Mackenzie really likes cheese. If I'm making a grilled cheese for her I have to be sneaky about it because if she sees me with a piece of cheese she'll go crazy until she gets one. She caught me this day.


6. Did you hear that Heathers is going to be a musical? "What's your damage, Heather?"

7. At tonight's swim lesson Emma once again kicked water into her eye. She then, again, just floated on her back with her hand covering her eye as her teacher pulled her in the water. Same as last week. We're going to have to work on her kicking skills.

8. This is going to be Mackenzie and me all summer: I'll be holding on to her as she tries to walk/run as fast as she can. I'll be trying to avoid a collision between her face and the sidewalk and she'll be gleefully trying to move as fast as her little legs will carry her. It's times like this I wish we didn't live on a hill and had a flat driveway and sidewalk. (pictures from march 5th)


9. When not sitting on her bike/trike/ride-on toy, she just straddles it and walks up and down the sidewalk. It's pretty funny.

10. These make me smile.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Menu Plan Monday

Check out Orgjunkie.com for more menu plans!

Monday - Leftovers (flank steak, ranch rice, asparagus)

Tuesday - dinner with Michael's parents. Happy Birthday to my Mother-in-Law

Wednesday - Pork chops, mashed potatoes, veggie (Seriously, this is what, the 3rd or 4th week I've planned pork chops and have yet to make them!)

Thursday - swiss steak and noodles, peas

Friday - chicken and dumplings, corn, biscuits

Saturday - dinner with my family. Happy Birthday, Mom!

Sunday - lasagna, garlic bread

Sorry for the lack of recipe links this week, but they're either my own or not online. If anyone would like a recipe, let me know in the comments and I'll post it.

Blog Makeover

Nope, not mine. I wish. But until I can figure out how to get Blogger to accept at least one of the 12 templates I've downloaded, it's not happening.

American Crafts, on the other hand, is have a little blog makeover. Kelly is the AC blog's new hostess, and Monday through Friday each week she'll be posting layouts, cards, altered projects, storage ideas, videos, techniques, designer spotlights, behind the scenes peeks at AC, and more.

Here's a little sneak peek at something I have going up on the blog this week.

Check it out!