Saturday Snapshots (7/30)

A very very late edition, but hey, it is still Saturday for a little over two hours technically so… neh.


and while you're here...

Inspired by Pinterest

When I first joined Pinterest one of my friends pinned this idea that just had me going “Holy heck Batman! I can do that! I have to do that! Ryan would flip and be in heaven if I did that!”

So… I finally did it. ((yay me!))

Here’s the original: (directions in some language that I absolutely can’t read here)

Isn’t that so freaking cool??? And I mean almost every single pair of Ryan’s jeans have holes, my boy is tough on his pants. Last night I took the following pair of pants, and then gather up some felt, and some bleached and stained khakis.

After about 2 hours (I was also making dinner during this time) and several stabbed fingers and a lot of cussing, I ended up with these!

Lastly, a close up.

Ryan absolutely LOVES them. He can’t wait for the weather to cool down so that he can actually wear them.

Dance-y, dance time with Belly

Pictures courtesy of Ryan.

Please forgive the cruddiness I exemplify today. lol

Life

Life is kind of on the crazy side right now. Things are all upside-down, sideways, and twisted around.

But we’re adjusting.

Yesterday I was going crazy from the chaos of all three kiddos. The boys were home and in one heck of a mood. Thus, as always, putting Belly in a wild mood as well. 

attempting any sort of housework that didn't involve following behind my three monsters kids was pointless, attempting to fold my massive pile of laundry on the couch - double pointless

Belly and Ryan had several epic battles of who would control the crayons, I'm still finding crayons scattered all over the house

The only things I will mention about naptime yesterday are that a. DISASTER. and b. For some reason Belly decided it would be a good time to strip completely butt naked and utterly destroy her room. And I do mean destroy.

My mother had pity on me and all three kiddos ended up sleeping over at her house last night. The boys are off with her on some church day of fun and outings thing. Belly is spending the day chilling out with her Aunty Hammy. Which leaves me in a house so quiet it’s almost creepy. lol I should be taking advantage of this time to clean, clean, clean. Instead I’ve just been being lazy. I think the most I feel like doing is finally tackling the pile of clothes on the couch… and that’s mainly just so I can stretch out on it and watch some Netflix.

And on a parting note, I would like to share that I found out today on the Mom Blogs site (it’s basically a directory of mom-based blogs broken down by topics) I’m listed in the top 10 blogs under scrapbooking. Yay me!

Sunday Scrapbooking (7/24)

Just two this week.

made with mle Card's Lovebots and Simple Print Stamped Alpha
Layout of the Week over at Scrap Orchard: http://scraporchard.com/forum/showthread.php?33237-LOTW-July-22-Brotherly-Love-by-MommaTrish

made with Valorie Wibbens and Emily Merrit's Platform 9 and 3/4 and Lauren Reid's Aurora Alpha

Saturday Snapshots (7/23)

1, 2, 3… CHEESE!

well, Belly's being cute...

OK... this time, nobody look

Hey, it's an airplane!

"Wyan, Zachy wick me!"

"Mom just take the picture!"

Elbow in the forehead meet foot on the hand.

Harry Potter 7.2

 picture from here

So I’m a Harry Potter junkie.

That makes me better than silly Twilight junkies, because, hello, Harry Potter is way better than Twilight. lol

I started reading the Harry Potter books when I got the first one when I was in 7th grade. I got it for like Christmas (or maybe my birthday – they’re close enough to get the presents mixed up when remembering lol) from my grandparents. Even then I loved reading and I loved reading books that had to do with magic. (For example the first chapter book I ever read was The Worst Witch) So Harry Potter was a perfect fit for me. I instantly loved the books and as the movies came out I instantly loved them too. To be completely honest, I still love the book and the movies. lol I was like silly excited when the last book came out… even though I was like 21 or 22. John even got me a box set of the books for my birthday this year. Before that my sister and I had the whole set broken up between us that we passed back and forth. By the time I got my box set (she got a box set also for Christmas) the books we had were pretty raggedy from years and years of reading.

As the final movie drew near I went back and forth between excited about seeing it, to being sad about it being the last. I wasn’t one of those weird super-depressed fans, but yeah, I am sad that there won’t be any new movies. It's been a tradition for my sister and I to go to the midnight premiers of them, and that wasn’t about to change this time. We almost weren’t able to, and we were both crushed, but John pulled through so we were able to go. Our theater had 5 screens open for the midnight premier, and all 5 were definitely needed. The first to we tried to find seats in were already packed. We ended up waiting in line for a seat in one of the rooms that another movie was finishing up on.

I’ve loved all of the movies, and except for some big changes in the last few, I thought they stayed pretty true to the books. With this last movie I was totally looking forward to the big fight scenes… and then I saw them… and then I got pretty pissed. They took away parts, and added parts to the fight. I mean they changed it up a lot and it really didn’t need any changes. The fight between Harry and Voldermort… stupid. I hate what they did with it. They also left out the part where Aberforth explained about what really happened with him, Dumbledore, his sister, and Grindlewald. They left out the death scene of Fred. They completely changed up the way Neville killed the snake. I just thought the changes were nowhere near as good as what actually happened in the book.

That being said, I still did love the movie, but as John said, I would have loved it almost no matter what, seeing as how it was Harry Potter. The truth is, even though the changes did disappoint me, the movie didn’t. I know a LOT of people just go see the movies and never bother reading the books, and if you’re one of those people you won’t be disappointed at all. If you’re one of the book lovers like me, well, you’ll probably be a little disappointed, but if you’re anything like me, that won’t keep you from liking the movie.

Sunday Scrapbooking (7/17)

If it wasn’t for the fact that I had 2 pages that I couldn’t share last week I’d only have one page to share this week. On top of that, they’re all only creative team pages. Computers have not been my friends these past couple of days. I’ve been battling some killer headaches. They make it feel like my brain is pushing against my skull and I can also feel it pulsing in time to my heartbeats. Smells make it worse. Light makes it worse. Noise (of course) makes it worse. Moving makes it worse. Belly and I are spending most of our days in the dark living room laying on the couch watching tv on a very low volume. Plus I feel pretty sick too. So, sitting at the computer just isn’t happening. lol

Anyway…. here are the pages!

Like I said all of this week’s pages are creative team pages… and yes… I am finally on a full time team! Both of these kits were released this week in Studio Rosey Posey’s store over at Scrapbook Graphics.

made with Studio Rosey Posey's Amazing Artist NEW at Scrapbook Graphics

Both of these pages were made with the same kit:


made with Studio Rosey Posey's Shabby Sun and Fun NEW at Scrapbook Graphics

Saturday Snapshot (7/16)

So we got a cute little inflatable pool… my mom and step-dad went and got a real above ground pool. lol (sigh) We are no longer the kids’ favorite place to be. For one short while we actually were, but real pool trumps inflatable pool. Here are some cell phone pictures from when John and I went over to drop Belly off, pick up my sister, and eat dinner there on Thursday.

John swimming with Belly. Yes, she's naked.

Ryan. He's very proud that he can now swim, and hold his breath under water for 13 seconds.

Zach sitting on his best friend's shoulders. (Jared is a very tall 10 year old)

That night John and I took my sister to the midnight Harry Potter premier, I won’t tell you about the movie yet, I’m waiting until Monday that way even if I accidentally post a spoiler at least I’ve given y’all some time to go see it first.

Oh yeah, now I remember. (Scarf Post #1)

So a few months go I decided I would make my sister a scarf for her birthday. She’s one of those weirdos (like Zach) who actually like scarfs. Me, I can’t stand them. Anything I wear that sits to close to my neck makes me feel like I’m choking, or gives my throat that tight feeling like I’m about to throw up. I kept putting off starting, thinking “Oh her birthday isn’t for X months/weeks. I have time.” Then it was two days before her birthday and not only had I not started, I hadn’t even picked out a design or gotten any yarn for it. Then it took me forever to do those, trying to find the perfect matches that would be best for her. Last week I finally got the yarn, and finally decided on a pattern… only a week after her birthday. I got right on to making it, but had to start over a few times since the design of it was something still sort of new to me.

Now it’s a week later and I already feel like I’ve been working on this scarf forever. In reality I’ve only gotten 6 of the 50 inches needed done. Since I’ve gotten the design down it’s finally moving a little faster, but even then I’m only averaging to get 1 repeat done an hour. Each repeat only equals about 2 – 2 1/2 inches, thus it’s going to take me about 20ish repeats to finish it. I’ve been working on it for an hour each afternoon, but if I ever want to finish this I’m going to need to try to squeeze in an hour at night also.

I really love the yarn I picked for the scarf. The scarf I made her for Christmas was made from a yarn that lightly faded back and forth from a really pale pink to a sort of dusty rose color. I wanted this one to be more colorful, plus I wanted it made of a lighter yarn since we have way more hot months than cold, and she will wear light scarfs in the warm months too. I decided on a self-stripping sock yarn, but was rather worried about it at first. I was afraid that the stripes would end up all out of whack and it would just look splotchy. However, the stripes are coming out really well so far. I’m glad I decided on self-stripping instead of doing them on my own, because I think doing color changes would be sort of awkward with this pattern.

Well here it is so far. The tape measurer is out as long as the scarf will be.

And a close up of the design.

The design should show up a little better when I finish the actual knitting and then block it.

Conversations with Ryan

How old are you?
(hold up 5 fingers) Five. When I’m 8 I’ll be big. Because I wish I was 8. Because I wish older. Because I um want to be big and not be bad.

Tell me about what you were like as a baby.
Uh when I was a baby I had brown hair and I was white and I was bald. Wait no, I mean I just had brown hair. And I could not crawl. I liked to swing, and fly, and play in the sprinkler and get in the pool. I was a bad baby. Wait no, a good baby. I was good because I didn’t want to be bad so I did good stuff.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
I want to be a army man, because I like army men, because they get to use tanks and guns, and those are awesome. And I want to be a firefighter, because I like firefighters and armies. I wanted to be a shark, cause I like sharks, but you made me a person not a shark.

What do you think school will be like next year?
I don’t know. Uh, maybe normal. I’ll go in an older grade. I’ll get lots and lots of homework and learn more. I’ll be good and not move my clip. I promise I won’t hit or bite anyone.

If you could have one super power what would it be?
I’d go through walls and have a bat lair like Batman, only with a boomerang and can walk through walls. Or be Nightrider. I’d save people from bad guys, like Joker or Penguin or Cat Woman or Mr. Freeze or Clay Face. But my name would be Batman, because I’m going to be Batman, Batman’s not going to be Batman.

Sunday Scrapbooking (7/10)

I actually got 5 pages done this week, BUT can only share 3. So let’s get right to them!

made with Nanie's Designs' Sassy Starters Strips Vol. 1 and Lauren Grier's All I Was Meant to Be andFaith True's Water Color Alpha and Emily Merrit's Whale of a Tale Alpha

made with Bears Garten's Here Comes the Sun, Penny Springmann's All Worn Out Photo and Paper Overlays, and Libby Pritchett's Border Basics - Rounded Corners font - CK To Do List photo action - Toy Camera by On the Spot Studio from the Simple Sweetness set

made with Erica Zane's Bluebird font - CK Elizabeth

Saturday Snapshot (7/8)

All I want…

All I want for Christmas summer is my two front teeth.

Ryan has now lost TWO teeth. He lost one on June 26th and then lost the other one on Monday the 4th. His is very happy with his impressive hole in his smile. lol

Backyard summer fun

OK, this is the post I said I was going to put up Monday but never got around to. lol Friday after work John got an inflatable pool for our backyard. It was a surprise to all of us since he hadn’t mentioned this to anyone. The boys and Belly went out and got in it Saturday and Sunday. They all loved it. By Sunday even Belly was really playing it it. Splashing and getting all of her wet. The downside was that it was so hot. Like arm pits sweating even though you’re sitting in really cold water hot. John ended up getting the sprinkler and angling it so that it would spray over the pool and cool the top of them off also.

As always I have a gazillion pictures to show off from them in the pool Saturday, but I am going to try to greatly narrow it down for you.

 

Fireworks at the park

As always we went to the city park last night for fireworks. Seeing as how last year I got so many cute pictures, and the boys had so much fun, when I let the boys do the picture taking I decided to take both of our cameras last night. That way I was guaranteed to get at least more than 20 usable pictures this year, plus, like I said, the boys could take their own pictures also. BUT since we did take two cameras I now have 76 usable pictures so I’m going to greatly narrow it down for ones to post with this post.

We walked to the park (as always – we live close enough to walk, and the walk is hugely better than the hassle of trying to park). Once we got there we met up with my step-dad and sister (and my younger brother for a very brief moment lol), then we all went over and sat with Ryan’s best friend Zada and her mom and dad and cousin, Terrik. The boys had a ton of fun running around and playing with Terrik and Zada.

Belly LOVED the fireworks. I thought she enjoyed them last year, but oh man, that was nothing compared to this year. She was yelling “Whoa!!,” and covering her eyes and mouth, and screaming and clapping in delight.

Now, PICTURES!