Ahhh, Spring.

Beautiful day today, it was only 60* but nice enough to be outside working in the yard without a coat.  Emma got home about 10:30 and then we all hit the yard work.  Freshly mowed grass, weeds pulled, new spring planters filled with chartreuse and purple.  Here's a shot of our deck, we're going to grill blue cheese burgers tonight. Yum. 

Here's a close-up of my new planters, aren't the colors just gorgeous together? The center purple budded flower is called Heliotrope.  It will grow almost 18" tall in the center of my planter, and it smells like vanilla.... delicious.  We are also starting seeds today for a planter herb garden.  Kennedy just arrived, so she and Emma and I are going to go start those.  More pictures to follow, I'm sure.

Goodbye play set... Hello fire pit!

Let's see, we got probably 6-7 years of use out of this thing?  And we got it free way back then... well, we bought the family $50 worth of Red Robin gift cards.  Today a happy family picked it up free of charge compliments of Craigslist.  Free ad and no haul-away for us, awesome!  Now we are left with the bordered gravel area, so we will be getting some outdoor furniture and possibly a pergola with a fire pit underneath.  Looking forward to summer already.  Emma's headed for a birthday sleepover tonight, Carl and I are going to dinner with a $50 gift certificate from our auction win a few months back, and then vegetable garden planning tomorrow.  Great weekend ahead of us.

If only fetching were an Olympic sport...

Coopie would have a gold!  This is not the best shot of his stretch, but he flies off that deck with his body completely stretched wider than the best splits of a gymnast - amazing!  And he adds flair with leaps and bounds like a bunny rabbit, all in the pursuit of a squeaky fabric bone.  

The saddest conversation I have ever had...

occurred on Thursday, April 16th.  We were getting ready for school and work that morning, and about 5 minutes before we needed to leave, Emma comes into the den.

"Why is there an Aeropostale receipt on the counter?  And everything on it was in my Easter basket?"

"Um...(thinking quickly in about 1.5 seconds) maybe the Easter bunny wanted to leave it in case you needed to return something...????"

"Mom (getting more serious, I can tell I'm sinking quickly) I checked that basket completely and there was no receipt there (eyes are getting misty)"

"Um... I don't know...???"

"Mom (considerably more serious than the last question and a tear in her eye) Is the Easter bunny a real person???"

"Um... yes, just not the person you think it is"

very loooooooooooong pause...

and now puddles in her eyes just getting ready to blink to big, giant, heavy tears:

"And Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy???!!!!!???"

Heavvvvvvvvy sigh.  Tears from me.  Hugs in the kitchen. 

I almost called work and school to tell them we'd be late - but we had a carpooler to pick up.

If you know Emma, you know that she is bound by an incredibly strong moral compass - and lying is just NOT an option - even in the most well-intentioned circumstances or joking around.  I just could not do it, I don't think she'd forgive me after she asked me so directly (she had never done so before, there was always an out for me).

So my sweet baby knows the truth, but still believes in the magic that surrounds all of these people, and I told her one of the greatest joys of parenthood is getting to create that magic - and she understood.

She didn't know I drove to her school at lunch to check on her - I was still feeling bad, wondering if she was in a little funk, but I found her deeply entrenched in a Capture the Flag competition and I quickly turned before she saw me.  

We're okay.

Easter fun

We went to our annual potluck/egg hunt at Brian and Tracy's today - fun as always.  There were probably 30 people there, lots of kids of all ages.  As usual, it was raining today, but a bit harder than in years past - so the egg hunt was affected.  We usually stuff hundreds of plastic eggs with candy (all the Moms stuff, the Dads hide them), but the kids were all over 10 this year so we did something different.  We stuffed all the eggs with raffle tickets - some eggs had 1, some had up to 10 - and then we had a live auction for different types of items.  Since it was so rainy we had to divvy up the eggs inside.  We put all the kids at the dining room table and then they took turns rolling a die, and got to take that many eggs from the bag for each turn until the eggs were gone.  Very smart idea Tracy!  The auction was a lot of fun - a 14yo boy got a glitter wand, Emma got a nerf football, and lots of fun stuff in between.  We all had a blast, and came home with very full tummies.  And the wontons were a HIT!

Easter Eve Festivities

Tonight we made a side dish and dessert that we will be taking to the Robo's tomorrow, here is my sous chef Carl C. Cole - making strawberry cream cheese wontons!  He was the perfect eggwhite-glue sticker-edge crimper for these creations.  The centers are a mixture of cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon, with diced strawberries, and then sandwiched between two wontons.  They are then deep fried for a minute or two and then drizzled with chocolate syrup and a dollop of whipped cream.  Can't wait to try them!

Emma loves to decorate eggs for the Easter Bunny - we only did about 14, used every color in the rainbow, and Emma used the same colors for her very personal note to Mr. Bunny himself.  I know he will get a big kick out of the last sentiment - you rock! (p.s. Mom, you can click on the photos to get an enlarged view - I just know that's been bugging you.)

What the peacock ?$%*@!?

So Emma and I are driving home from soccer practice tonight, in a regular ol' neighborhood, and look over at a corner near a crosswalk and see these guys pecking away... what the ?*@?!  How cool is that? Are they someone's pets? Do they live in the wild? I've never seen peacocks in the wild, only at the zoo, but I guess it's possible. I mean, if you had them as pets, would you let them roam the road - especially with me driving by with Britney Spears blaring and trying to take pictures all at once?!?!?

Cute, huh?

Notice the clock on the wall - about 4:55. It's what happens when I'm all caught up with my files, I start taking pictures of myself in sassy poses. And my co-workers roll their eyes and say "oh, there she goes again".  

Goodbye post-toddler pre-age-10 room

Cause we're moving on to pre-teen. I've done some nice work in this room: the first round was Hey Diddle Diddle with hand painted murals (bright sunny blue and yellow and wallpaper border around the middle); second was this soft pink and yellow, flowers and butterflies, border as seen; and now we're going with pale aqua (a bit brighter than we thought, but Emma loves it), all one color, no border. NO MORE BORDERS!  I thought this last one was gonna kill me. I guess I do a great job putting them up, because they are hell to remove. But I digress. It's over now.  Emma helped me so much with removing the border, priming the walls, painting the inside corners - she was awesome. We are waiting for a few final details before we reveal pictures of the completed room... stay tuned!

School friends and skate night

Today was Emma's teacher's birthday, and a few parents and I planned a surprise mini-celebration for her.  I brought her favorite lunch, stayed with the kids so she could enjoy her lunch hour, and then we had cake.  A few of Emma's friends helped me get the table ready and decorate a bit:

The school then kicked off spring break with skate night at the local roller rink (ahhh, memories for me) and this was the only decent picture I got.  Emma is a bit smitten with a boy in her class.  They were selected as partners for an oral interview/book report today, and then when I arrived to pick her up from skating he was skating with her most of the time, making conversation :)

I dare you...

just try and tell me this is not the cutest face in the world.  Sure, he needs his facial hair trimmed, especially around his eyes, but isn't he just adorable?  When we talk to him he cocks his face to the side like this, as if to say "yes, I'm listening.. "  Just love him.

Happy Belated Birthday Tracy - and fun at work

Last night we went to a tepanyaki style restaurant where they cook for you at a table for 10, for Tracy's birthday.  It was the first time we have brought Emma with us, she liked it pretty well, but she's not a big fan of asian style cooking.  Anyway, I was very pleased to find out that Tracy is creeping her way to 40 - she's 38 this year! - although she quickly reminded me that the closer she is to 40, the closer I am to 50.  For crying out loud.  BUT... here's the fun part... both Carl and I got carded at the restaurant last night!!!!  And not only did I get carded after Carl, but the cute little, young, kimono-clad waitress actually giggled when she read my birthday and said "you look so young!" :) :) :)  I'm sure this restaurant probably got raided by ATF recently and was cited for serving underage drinkers, but hey, I'll take the compliment anyway.

Again, notice the complete lack of interest on Kenton's face - seriously, what is it with this kid lately?  He wanted no part of me and my camera - again.
So at my job, we use these colored tabs for lots of things in the files:  blue = judgement/sentence, green = bail posted, and red = a no contact order filed.  But when we close out files, we "recycle" these tabs because my boss thinks we can't afford to buy new packages. Or new file folders. Or more than one box of copy paper at one time. But I'm off topic now.  Anyway... so as we save them, my co-worker Shannon starts to get creative to how she lines them up - she starts out strong with her patterns, and then gets lazy.  Notice to the left how she created a smiley face for Jon as a surprise one day.  Well, yesterday I told her I was disappointed in how she let the lower half go, and to clean that mess up dammit! :)  I told her I wanted to see an improvement by the time I got there the next morning (she starts at 6:30, I get there at 8:30). 
This is what I arrived to this morning - isn't she just the best??? :)

It was a nice relaxing weekend - punctuated with Taco Night!

We had a lazy, rainy weekend. Soccer practice both days - Emma came in first on the run, she was very proud of herself. We made a gigantic donation to Goodwill yesterday (and cleaned up the upstairs landing) and I cleaned the dining room table from all of the scrapbooking "stuff" to set it for a Sunday dinner. Actually, I just moved the "stuff" aka "crap" to the buffet - but shhhhh... Carl didn't notice. I put it in a bunch of baskets and now it looks organized :)

I love homemade tacos.  Although they weren't really homemade. They were Ortega stand-n-stuff shells, but I did cook the meat. And I baked some El Monterey taquitos. But I did bake them. And I did cut up the lettuce and tomatoes, so that's technically culinary skills. And doesn't Kenton look overjoyed? I didn't poison him, truly I didn't. Oh and we ate on my new tablecloth from Target - love it! 

We had a busy week... and a sick one too.

Remember that spring clean-up we did? A few days later we had snow. Quite a bit of it actually. Enough to make me laugh that we spent time doing it to have another hard freeze.

Also took Emma to the doctor (yes Carl, I know you were right, it wasn't pneumonia or a kidney infection or a deathly strain of ebola) but I was worried. My baby has only had 2 fevers in her life and she just wasn't breaking through. She is giving me that look of "really? a picture on the examining table?" Really!  I'm a scrapbooker!  Emma was out of school Weds-Fri and Carl is now showings signs of something.  He's double-dosing with Nyquil, his drug of choice, so hopefully he's nipping it in the bud.

Last night we went to Emma's school's dinner auction and had a great time.  We brought Brian and Tracy with us, and then had 2 other couples join us - Brad and Bev (I work with Brad) and Matt & Kissi - their son carpools with us every day.  Thank you all for your generosity in supporting our school.  A little mix-up in the silent auction times though, it said registration started at 5:00 and the next thing listed was the dessert auction at 6:30 - so we all arrived about 5:56.  Well the first tables closed at 6:00!  Krissi, Bev and I scurried around that room so fast trying to find something we wanted.  I did get a Starbucks basket I forgot that I had snuck a bid on (until later and I found out I won!), and then we moved on to the 6:15 tables.  The picture below is from my MAJOR SCORE of my item!  Krissi did the honors of capturing my fist pump in the photo :)  We got a stadium/sports package that included a 9x9 pop up tent thing on wheels (good for soccer in the summer heat and rain in the fall), stadium folding seats for bleachers - very cool, stadium blankets, giant umbrellas, Marmot raincoats, a coffee mug/thermos set, rolling soft sided cooler, and more!  It was a MAJOR SCORE I tell you!  I left the evening $517 poorer than when I arrived, but I'm happy to support the school and they were funding the track/fields this year.  All in time for when Emma arrives to Jr. High in a few years.

The last photo is of my hot husband and me - my hot, on-the-edge-of-getting-sick husband and me :) Ready to start a new week, a DUI emphasis this weekend will have a TON of tickets and people in jail for me tomorrow, getting up early for that.  Carl also decided to umpire for the Cal Ripken boys' baseball league here, so he will have more training and some games starting next weekend.  It's gonna be fuunnnnnn :)

I've got a sick baby

Emma's down with a fever and sore throat.  Sounds like we'll all be home tomorrow at some point in time, Carl in the morning and me in the afternoon.  It's not like Emma to be immobile and quiet, so you know something's up :)

Finished project

My friend Kristy and I took a knitting class in February.  It was only 2 weeks long to complete this rolled brim hat.  Seriously - we both cast on way too many stitches - I guess we can't count. Kristy's was so large it ended up looking like a beret - too funny!  We finally got together tonight with the guys for dinner and a movie, and had to take pictures of our finished projects. By the way, we saw Slumdog Millionaire - very good movie.

Honor Roll and Responsibility

Emma has made the honor roll each quarter for as long as I can remember, she made the A's & B's honor roll this quarter and is striving to make the 'all A's' roll next quarter.  However, this past quarter she was recognized for a very special award.  Her school revolves around the "three R's": respect, responsibility and relationships.  All of the subjects are taught with those principles in mind - from math, to reading, to bible study.  She was chosen to receive the Responsibility award for 4th grade - and didn't know she was going to receive it.  She was thrilled when her name was called and I was sitting with her.  She is so lovely, inside and out.

Pre-Spring Clean Up

The days have been gorgeous and clear, sunny but cold, the past week.  Rain is a-comin, so we decided to get out now while we had the chance.  We still had dead stringy fall plantings sitting in the beds!  Emma got to saw down a little diseased tree today, and we raked and pulled and buzzed the bushes.  Lookin' good! (Notice Carl's natural yarmulke? :))

Today we have our last indoor soccer game for the season (Emma is ready for that portion to be over), and then Carl is heading to a UFC fight w/the boys tonight.  That means scrapping and crafting for me!  Tomorrow is an outdoor soccer practice game with the developmental team that Emma has been practicing with, it's up in Carnation - hope it's a nice drive :)  The weekend will be over before you know it, and my week is jam-packed coming up - I have court all 5 days!  I see a few glasses of wine in my future in the coming nights :)

March's Earth Kit - Coordinates Collections

So if you aren't a scrapbooker, this video won't do much for you - except to check out my cute new hair cut :)

March Projects

Here are my projects using Coordinates Collections March Earth Kit.  They are soooo my colors, the colors of our downstairs of our house too - so it was very easy for me to work with.  Emma decided in early February that she wanted her new "look" to be long shirts, skinny jeans, and Converse tennis shoes.  So she got the shoes the day after Valentine's Day.  A little shopping excursion with she and I.  Oh my, she is growing up.

This next layout highlights her cousins Skyler & Christian that live in CA and whom we were able to visit for a weekend in late January.  They had a lot of fun playing together and although it had been 2 1/2 years since they last visited, it was like it was just yesterday.  I love those types of connections.  

This last photo is just a few cards I made with the kit.  I like having them on hand, and the papers in the kit really leaned toward elegant for me.  Something different, but I like them.

I believe that Emma played her last indoor soccer game yesterday, although someone things there is one more, but her team didn't make the playoffs.  It's okay, she's a little burned out.  Between playing for the indoor team on Saturdays, and then the ongoing practices for the select team on Sunday, she has been attending a soccer clinic on Sunday nights from 6-8 the past 4 weeks.  She is pooped!  And add softball to the mix that starts in April, she needs a little break.  Today inbetween all of the commitments she's finishing a book report and writing assignment.  She has such great organizational skills, really on top of deadlines and being prepared. 

After soccer yesterday we met up for lunch with a friend from my 911 days that I haven't seen for about 9 years.  The last time was when Emma was in a baby carrier.  Soooo good to see him, David you haven't changed at all!  Memories of the laughs and fun we had just came flooding back - let's do it again sometime soon.  Carl went to an umpire clinic for the local Cal Ripkin boys baseball league, he is VERY excited to participate this year!  He will be a little busier this spring than normal, as he is coaching Emma's softball team as well, but he has wanted to do this for a long time.  And it pays $40 a game - can't beat that :)  I finished the day off with a massage at my chiropractor's office last night - I felt like $100 bucks when I left, but man am I sore today.  Lots of icing and Advil in my future I think.  Hope you all had a great weekend!