Carly moment to remember
Okay, I'm blogging this so in 10 years we can remind Carly of this conversation. She was looking at one of our wedding photos albums and she sees a photo of her Grandpa Alan and ex-wife #7 who was at our wedding. Carly sees Grandpa and says "Where Marie?" (wife #8) I laughed and yet didn't quite know how to explain this to her. See, your grandfather has been married 6 times, although two relationships have lasted longer than any of the marriages, thus we call Marie #8, etc. Do you think an almost 3 year old will understand that? Probably not. So I just wanted to remember the moment so when we actually explain to Carly how wacky her Grandfather is, she will have already experienced it from an early age. But hopefully, Marie is the final one. She's really a terrific and nice lady and Carly loves her. Don't mess this one up Alan.
What an insane day
And it's only 5:30P. We got up this morning and met Charlie and her mom at Starbucks at Las Virgines. Then we went to the nearby park for about 45 minutes (after the chocolate milk that we bought at "The Coffee Store"). Then we had to go sign the papers for Gail's condo. Carly fell asleep on the way home for about 40 minutes. Then we went to ballet, ate a sandwich and grapes sittting outside the JCC. Then we ran to the bank to make the money transfer to complete the down payment on the condo. Of course, I got there 10 minutes past the deadline for wire transfers so let's just all cross our fingers that it'll go through tomorrow. We've got to move Gail on Saturday or Sunday the latest because Gregg is totally not available on Monday or Tuesday next week. Came home, ate lunch, made letter cookies with Carly which she decorated with the colored sugars and M&M's. Played outside for a little bit and now Carly is playing on the computer with the JoJo's Circus game. Okay, she's really getting big and smart. She can work the mouse, she can type her name on the computer when you have to enter your name and she's playing a game that you have to click the letter that starts the name of the word. For example, the word is "bag", the letter options are M, T, and B. She has to click the right letter sound. She's actually getting a bunch of them right. Oh yeah, she's moving the mouse to the right letters. Ay yi yi! She's a smartie pants. Okay, again it might not be interesting but it's been a crazy day.
Now, I have a dog barking at me, Carly whining because she wants to play with her Hanukkiah's and I need to actually practice my flute. What a concept. Let's see if Carly will let me play something for more than 30 seconds without interrupting me saying she wants to play. Ay yi yi. No wonder you get nothing done with a 3 year old in the house...
Life's been boring
Nothing much out of the ordinary has been going on. Carly had a bit of the sniffles yesterday but was fine today. Still a little stuffed but not runny so we went to school. Gregg's been working on "American Idol" so he's been busy. We're trying to close on the condo for Gail and move her on Friday but it might be Saturday now. It's coming down to the wire. I actually got a call for work today that I'm trying to work out. It would be nice to get a little money but I've got 2 things that week that might conflict. I can work around the signups for CKU but I can't miss my flute concert so that might ace me out of the week which would kind of suck. I'm desperate to get a haircut and color but with Gregg's work schedule that's nearly impossible for another week or two. Yuck. I did manage to get a pedicure today, that was a good thing.
Oh, Lisa, Kari, Paula, Melissa and I went to the Orange County Scrapbook Expo last Friday. We took 3 classes that were all really good. One by Quick Quotes and got a 1 page and 2 page LO done. Slap the photos on and we're good. Gotta love those. A mini-album thing in a jar by Rusty Pickle. I see the potential for baby gifts in the future on that one. And an SEI album in a box where we have a completed friendship album. Again, slap the photos and we're done. Gotta love that. Plus the shopping. I managed to spend too much money, as usual. But I did get the new SEI paper packs and some cardstock to go with the new Basic Grey which hopefully we'll get soon in our grubby little hands. And then bought a few other page kits, brads, and who knows what else. LOL. We also stopped at Scrapbook Oasis where I only managed to spend $15 which is good. Lisa and I are going there in a few weeks for a class with Teresa Collins which I'm really looking forward to. I love Teresa and her classes are always fabulous. Now, if I only would get off the computer and do some scrapping, I'd be good to go. Remember? That was one of my new year's goals and I'm not doing so well on that one. But I have to do 2 baby albums for Renee and Mollie who's babies are due in April. I better get going on that.
See? Told you it's been boring lately.
Terrible Twos
Now that we're 2 months away from Carly's 3rd birthday, shouldn't be getting over the trantrums? I guess we've been lucky but it's all come crashing down in the past few days. Carly's had utter meltdowns, won't share, goed immediately to tears when she doesn't get what she wants. I call it her Lucy Ricardo impression when she goes "WWWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" right on cue. But the worse? The whining!! Ay yi yi! Winge here, winge there and immediate tears. She's been impossible so we just stop talking to her until she can talk to us in a normal tone of voice. Yeah, you try reasoning with an almost 3 year old.
Oy, I'm a horrible Mom
Last night, Gregg and I were in the office dorking around on our computers, as usual. At about midnight, I thought I heard Carly crying so I ran upstairs. There she was, sitting on our bed, legs hanging over the edge and crying hysterically. Oh, it was so sad, my heart was breaking. I felt so horrible that we hadn't heard her although usually she will go to the stairs and yell for us. I have no idea how long she was sitting there crying but I'm thinking it was a few minutes. It was awful. She calmed right down but the guilt is still getting to me. She's been going through the periodic bad sleep phase and is having nightmares which I understand is very age appropriate. But it's heartbreaking when my almost 3 year old wakes up crying.
Cool stuff to share!!
I have a wonderful family. Oh wait, you all knew that since that’s all I do is talk about them. That being said, here are two more things I want to share.
My FABULOUS DH bought me the coolest thing that was delivered yesterday. Back around Hanukkah I was whinging and feeling sorry for myself that we didn’t give each other anything for Hanukkah. Yes, we had just gone through IVF and said that that was our Hanukkah pressies and annual vacation for the next few years. But then we were watching a repeat of Oprah and her fun “My Favorite Things”. Gregg hates Oprah but he agreed that the goodies there are fun. So he went to Oprah.com and downloaded the list of gifts and bought me one of those absolutely yummy Kashwere bathrobes. Like the big O said, it’s the softest thing I’ve ever felt. Warm and oh so comfy. So I opened up the box, put it on and had Carly take a picture of me in it. She loves taking photos.
The next cool thing. Gregg’s working on the Super Bowl Halftime show again this year with Don Mischer. The Los Angeles Times went to Detroit to interview Don and obviously took a million photos of him “in action”. So the article is the front page of the Calendar section and Gregg is mentioned and quoted in the second paragraph. AND he’s in the picture on the back page of the article. Woo-Hoo! Definitely have to get a bunch of copies and scrapbook that. I’m so excited.
I've been tagged (my first one!!)
Wow, my first official tag! Thanks Wendy, I feel so honored (seriously!!)
WHAT SCRAPBOOK LINES/PRODUCTS/ETC. DO YOU DISLIKE?
There’s not one line that I can say I consistently dislike. If I don’t like it, I don’t buy it. Every style of paper works in the proper context so to single one brand out isn’t fair.
There are certain products that I don’t “get” how to use. Of course, they escape my pea brain at the moment because I don’t have them in my stash. If I can’t figure out how to use it pretty much on sight, I’m not creative enough to figure it out later (until I see how someone else uses it, then I’ll “get” it)
WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING YOU HAVE EVER HAD TO SCRAP?
I haven’t done too many tough subjects. Perhaps the hardest was a LO of my friend Wendy who passed away in October 2004 from Breast Cancer. That was hard emotionally but I was really motivated to do that LO a month after she passed because I needed to get all those emotions written and scrapped. I’ve had scrappers block a few times and haven’t been able to get a photo or papers to work so they’ve taken too long to complete.
WHAT TECHNIQUE DO OYU USE MORE THAN ANYTHING?
Inking and rubons. Love them rubons.
EVER BEEN PUBLISHED?
Once but I haven’t seen the book yet. It’s supposed to come out in the spring sometime.
WHAT'S THE SMALLEST SCRAP OF PAPER YOU SAVE?
Well, I purged a bunch recently because the little pieces were making me crazy. I keep decent size pieces. I use them for cards and some for QuicKutz. Smaller than 2-3” - out they go. I’ve got enough clutter in my life.
EVER HAD ANY SCRAPBOOKING-RELATED INJURIES?
Paper cuts. A few stabs with the piercing too, that’s about it.
FINISH THIS SENTENCE, "IF I WASN'T A SCRAPBOOKER, I WOULD SPEND MY MONEY ON..."
No brainer… shoes.
GIVE US YOUR BEST STORAGE OR ORGANIZATIONAL IDEA
LOVE my Magistical Memories ribbon wraps. I’ve got 1 1/2 ArtBins full at the moment.
I also bought an embellishment case that has 5 locking plastic boxes with 20 little compartments each which I keep all my eyelets, KI icicles, and tons of little tiny things. It’s by Craft Mates. Love it!
YOU JUST WON A WEEK LONG SCRAPBOOKING CRUISE FOR 5. WHO'S GOING WITH YOU?
Well, let’s assume that my family can stay with me so that I don’t have to be without them for 5 days. Or that Gregg and Carly wouldn’t be interested in watching me scrap for 5 days. I would bring with me Lisa, Kari, and Paula for sure. These are “my” scrapping sisters definitely. Then 2 more fun people. Hmmm, let’s see. Probably Lisa’s friend Kirsten because she’s really fun and then maybe Lisa A. in Iowa. She deserves to get away for awhile since there are no scrappers like us in Iowa.
AFTER YOU'VE ANSWERED THE QUESTIONS, TAG YOUR SCRAPBOOK BUDDIES.
Well, many of my close SB friends don't blog so they'll never see this. And only a few people regularly check this out so I'll say...
Lisa S. (Foxy)
Araxi (Foxy - can’t wait to see how you answer these)
Jean (are you reading this??)
My child is brilliant
So we're sitting at the kitchen counter and Carly starts playing with my Palm Pilot. I've got several photos tucked into the case and she's pulling them out. She pulls out this photo of me and Gregg on our honeymoon from the BridgeClimb in Sydney.
Carly says "Look Mom! It's the Opera House. It's the Sydney Opera House. It's in Australia." Yup, from "The Little Einsteins" or "Finding Nemo", Carly knew that it was the Sydney Opera House in the background. We talk about Auntie Caz and Auntie Chapin living in Australia all the time, but we've never specifically pointed out the Opera House as a landmark and yet she knew what and where it was. "Little Einsteins" has other major landmarks on their show like the Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Taj Mahal and Carly knows all of them. But the Opera House is not one of their main title landmarks and there's only just a new episode (that premiered on Australia Day last week) that features Australia.
Again, Carly is brilliant. And she's basically potty trained. (woo-hoo!)
