*Almost* Four

Today we celebrated Cali's birthday... just a couple of days early. She made the party planning easy on me since she knew exactly what she wanted down to the last details... strawberry cake, with strawberry frosting, and real strawberries on top to stick the candles in, and four pink balloons tied to her chair, and other balloons to play with on the floor... I'm telling you she is a natural-born party planner! She was indulged with plenty of fabulous gifts like princess accessories, a fairy costume, 3 different Fancy Nancy books, a Snow White doll & kitchen, several My Little Ponies, a new baby doll (her name is Zoey) and a pink 2-wheel scooter! She went to bed one very happy *almost* 4-year-old.

29 of 52

Toward the end of the Arts Fest and already an hour past naptime and an hour away from home we sat down to snack and wait for a puppet show. There was a first aid station manned by doctors from a local hospital right next to us and I asked the Psychologist on duty at the time to take this pic for us.

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Are you the Mom who's always taking pictures and look back only to realize you aren't IN any of them? Do your kids look through photo albums and ask "Where were you Mommy?" Well, Carin over at Forever in Blue Jeans decided to change all that and challenges any one who's interested to do the same. So hand over the camera, or at least figure out the self-timer and get on the other side of the lens more often. Post your photos of you enjoying time with your family every Thursday and share the link with other Mom's by posting it on Carin's blog. You can start any time with week 1 of 52, don't worry about being "behind" just jump on in.

Favorite Things In My House

Inspired by an old challenge I found at Two Peas and also my friend Alexandra's "Where's Home?" inquiry...

Definitely my whole scrap space and all the love my husband put into building the different shelves for me.
Everyone loves their own bed right?

Love the great big walk-in pantry and thankful I am able to keep my shelves well stocked.

Love this shower curtain and the color scheme in the kids' bathroom. Never got around to painting it but kept picturing a nice creamy orange sherbet color.

I am in love with this blanket from Ikea. Adds a great splash of color to my brown couches and tan walls and is so snuggly but not too thick.

Love watching the hummingbirds out my dining room window at every meal.

My favorite houseplant, I've had one ever since 2002.


I've had this radio in 3 houses now, I always walk straight to it and press ON every time I walk into the kitchen.

Doing this challenge made me realize just how few nice, decorative touches I have around my house. Its mostly toys and practical furniture. I think I'll start looking around for more items to love. Any suggestions on good, affordable places to browse?

I'd love to see your favorite things too, post your photos and leave your link in the messages.

D's Baby Book

Each of my kids have a pregnancy/ultrasound book and a first year book. After D came along I had to figure out what to do with all our family adventure photos so I started my mixed size 3-ring binders as inspired by Ali Edwards. Well, somewhere along the way I skipped a few pages around the middle of D's first year baby book so I did a few pages for that this week.

Inspired by "Gelato" layout in Scrapbooks Etc. July 2009, page 49

Inspired by Pagemaps September 09 "Beach Sand" layout

Arts Fest

I just happened to spot a billboard advertising this art fest as I was driving yesterday. Good thing I Googled it right away because it was this weekend. It was a really nice event, friendly people, very well organized and planned, so many different projects for the kids, live music, puppet shows, give-aways... The weather was nice, just a little on the hot side. If Cali could have described her perfect day I think this was it: an entire day devoted to doing arts and crafts! I know she is always choosing the art station or painting easel at school and her teacher commented the other day how much she loves doing art. Even when Diego got too tired and lost interest in doing any more projects she'd just go ahead and do his project for him too. I highly recommend this event to families next year!

We ended up staying 4 hours straight (no naptime!!) and they did all of the following: ate cotton candy, painted at easels, painted a giant caterpillar, painted w/ various sponges, made play-doh, made puppets, decorated hand fans, made crazy paper hats, made & painted a wood sculpture, made koi fish kites, played at the percussion "petting zoo", had lunch, watched a puppet show, made bean art... and I

Statue

She loves this statue...

and now so does he...

Love Nest

I don't know if all shaved ice places have these, but you should go find out. Its called a Love Nest and its a shaved ice with a scoop of real ice cream in the middle. They are the BEST! On this day I had Strawberry Mango Ice w/ a scoop of Mango ice cream. The kids discussed what flavor they'd have as we drove there (I haven't told them about Love Nests so they just get ice) and decided on Cherry for Cali and Coconut for D. They scarfed down all the ice then were off to play at the park out back.

Fall Garden Update

We finally got some much needed rain after a long, hot summer. Remember the same plants from just one week ago?


And, I finally got over to the local nursery today and picked up plants for the 3rd bed: broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.

28 of 52

My first attempt at self-portraits since my Maggie Holmes' photography workshop, love the exposure and color... still need to work on focus and in this case on framing the shot, but I still love the smiles I captured. They had grabbed me away from cooking dinner to play dress-up for a few minutes.

*************************************************************************************
Are you the Mom who's always taking pictures and look back only to realize you aren't IN any of them? Do your kids look through photo albums and ask "Where were you Mommy?" Well, Carin over at Forever in Blue Jeans decided to change all that and challenges any one who's interested to do the same. So hand over the camera, or at least figure out the self-timer and get on the other side of the lens more often. Post your photos of you enjoying time with your family every Thursday and share the link with other Mom's by posting it on Carin's blog. You can start any time with week 1 of 52, don't worry about being "behind" just jump on in.

#151

Inspired by scrapsketch #151, but you'll see some differences. To start, my photos didn't fit the way they had them. It all worked out in the end. It's rare I do a sketch without kids in it and I've never used a crown before but this one fit so well!

Tea Party

Instead of napping, she had a "tea party" for all her babies. I think she told me they were all eating ice cream. Notice how she raided my discard pile of old sippy cups and bottles. Although the Minnie Mouse one was a gift from Grandma specifically for her babies.

My Lil' Posse

From my newest sketch source find... http://www.scrapsketch.com/

Rainy Day Fun

Cali told me later this was a "wacky" idea, and also that it was her favorite part of the day.

D was out there too, he just happened to strip down to his b-day suit within the first 5 minutes so I don't have any "decent" pictures of him. This was the first time Cali got to wear her "new" rain coat I scored for $3 at Goodwill several months ago.

Ice Cube Painting

It is finally raining here! A good, long, steady rain. It's a nice change from bright, sunny 90 degree days and defnitely a good thing for our garden. I always love doing projects on rainy days so I consulted my Toddler's Busy Book... actually Cali flipped it open and said "let's do that one!"

You will need:
box, tray, or cookie sheet with a rim
powdered drink mixes
ice cubes
paper

Put paper in the tray, sprinkle with drink powder, use ice cubes to swirl the powder around. The book suggested just moving the box/tray around but we're a more hands-on bunch... note the serious potential for stained clothes and hands!

Fall Garden

Started on my fall garden several weeks ago. Vanessa & I attended a gardening workshop at our local library put on by Master Gardeners from our area and I learned quite a few things. First of all, I needed to amend my soil. So I got in with my shovel, pitchfork and hoe and worked in some perlite (to hold moisture) and compost to add nutrients (among other benefits). This was the first batch of compost out of our new bin and I was pleasantly surprised how it turned out. For now I have two beds all worked up so I planted gourds, yard-long beans, peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce, red onions, and yellow onions. I still need to work up the third bed and plant at least some broccoli & cauliflower.. not sure what else.