big girl

This is my daughter, who pee-d in the potty not once today, but twice. She went up the the bathroom door and said "Go. Potty." I asked her if she wanted to go potty and she said 'yeah'. So she sat on the seat, and did her business right away. We called daddy to tell him. She told me "Good JOb!!!" Then we had supper and she said "go potty" again and went right up and did it. I gave her a starburst the second time. She's quite proud of herself. I am not expecting much though, Eli took years to potty train, so I'll just let her do this on her own!

broken dollhouses

So excited this morning, in fact, I already called Lori about it! (at 7:30am, sorry Lori!) I had gotten up early to deal with the trash. It's been extremely windy here lately and yesterday the church's (ie ours) trash can blew away in the storm and we have been unable to locate it since! So I was up dealing with the yucky task of dragging broken bags of trash and making sure it was all 'pick-up-able'. I had just finished up and was walking back to the house when I noticed a dollhouse in the neighbor's trash. I looked a little closer and it seemed to be in good shape, dated with a little bit of damage, but totally repairable. I went in and asked Rob if he thought it would be ok to take it from the trash and he thought yes, but I still didn't have the guts to do it myself. So he (love this man!) got dressed at 7am and went digging through the neighbor's trash to bring home a dollhouse for my daughter. I am going to - after I finish our house - paint it and remodle the indside and start collecting furniture (I've really seen it at Big Lots and the $ store for next to nothing) to give it to Sarah for Christmas this year. She'll be almost two and a half. I'm so excited!! I had a dollhouse when I was little, Mom and I spent hours and hours and hours working on it. Can't wait to see Sarah's face when she sees a big bow on it under the tree! I may 'decorate' the inside like our house, wouldn't that be fun??? So excited!

PS- I just went downstairs to take a picture of it and my battery that I bought in Versialles for 19 euros just died. I think I got my money's worth!!!

Amazing Christmas Moments

Finished this bad boy a couple days ago, I've had a lot of pages in progress lately, but not a lot of finishing. Looking forward to doing some page planning tonight at scrabooking group so hopefully I can accomplish a lot when Kim and Lori are here this weekend. Really looking forward to some time with my girlfriends. So thankful for both of them.

Back to the page at hand. Used some crazy paper, and off the wall colors. Red, green and orange? Who does that? But I thought it was fun, and since CK doesn't like my stuff anyway, I may as well do things that I like! Learned a new stitch here - the blanket stitch. I found directions on the internet. Mom's probably holding her sides at the thought that I'm finally learning to sew, only it's on paper, completely useless probably.

(at the beginning) With You

This page was inspired by a Lisa Loeb song from about ten years ago. (man, that makes me feel old) It was popular when Rob and I were dating. I thought it was totally appropriate for this picture, which got scratched in the process, but it actually doesn't bug me as much as I anticipated. It has a worn look to it, just like us now. :) Love the thought that we used to be strangers and now we are so known, it's like breathing. I can't imagine life without him.

This page incorporates some new techniques for me - the giant circular picture is totally out of my box. I love the jewels - from Making Memories. Used some older rub-ons, mixed with some new. Really love the paper, a random mix of old Scrapworks (Ethan & Kate line) and new Scenic Route thrown in with a bit of MOD, just for kicks. Yummy.

Things are really good here right now. I'm just walking through a state of gratefulness, even though my daughter's being a big jerk. But Rob is amazing me, he's on fire at work and it's just fun to sit back and watch. Youth was awesome last night, I feel like we are starting to get somewhere with our kids. Rob and I were talking about it today, over lunch - how we have something unique to offer them - a real relationship with their youth pastor (and wife). It's a luxury that only a small youth group can afford, and we have it. I'm so excited about our future here.

Crying Jag

Thankfully the day is almost over. It seemed longer than usual, which is humorous when you think about the fact we lost an hour.

Sarah is crying up in her room. After I laid her down for the night I realized she probably spent about two hours crying today - and all of the sudden it jolted me back to Eli at this stage, I can recall saying the same thing about him. That is a reassuring thought, because right now I really don't like the person she is. Please keep in mind that I love her, I adore her, but she's been a royal pain in the seat the last month or so, hitting the terrific twos early. Remembering that single thought w/ Eli gives me so much hope for the future because he's a great kid now. We'll get through this. In the meantime I'm not getting much done, blogging or otherewise!

Pamper Yourself

This is just a fun and crazy layout of my time with Char last October. I like the hand painted "diva" and the orange chipboard letters. I really felt myself stretching with each layout, and I think my recent work shows all the effort of HOF. Again, I'm so glad I did it, even just for me. I love scrapbooking, it fills a void in my life. Can't wait to play now, maybe later tonight!

Ready, Set, Crop

This is for the ten picture challenge. This was a fun layout to do. I like the juxtaposition of the brown paper bag against the bright colors.

Talk

This was my photography page. This picture KILLS me, because of Eli's little double jointed fingers. Silly kid! And he went through this horrible stage where he talked constantly without breath, run on sentences. Agh. So glad that's over!

Goodbye Iowa

A simple page about how we finally realized we'd never call Iowa home again. This was for the journaling assignment. I like the colors, they were a bit edgy for me back then.

Fall

This was my new technique assignment. It's the scratch art thing we all did in elementary school, only applied to scrapbooking. Love the colors with these pictures, I remember the day we took them. So glad I entered, it was such a great personal challenge. Plus it really filled the days while we waited to move!

examining my purpose

This is probably my favorite HOF layout. I really poured my heart and soul into it, the assignment asking us to share a piece of ourselves. This page is a culmination after reading "Purpose Driven Life" four times and realizing it was time to write my purpose down on paper. Love the result. I have felt a lot more focused since then and it makes it easier to say no to things that don't fall in line with my purpose.

go play

Another fun random page, lots of color, my theme this year I think. I look at this and think how much both kids have grown, it's crazy!!

YOU

A very simple page, but I love the picture. It's so Eli. Man, this is making me want to scrapbook!

you&me

This page still tugs at my heart, my little munchkins not killing each other for once. This started out as my photography page, but I wound up using it as one of my four instead. The "&" is UTEE behind the stickers. This was the beginning of my orange & star kick, yet to work itself out of my system.

[Just a couple of CRAZY kids]

Probably one of my favorite submissions, for the four pages you love. Had a lot of fun with my signo pen on this, and the MM ribbon sliding up the side. Love this ancient photo of Rob & I. (memories...)

HOF not-so-much
Just realized I hadn't shared that I had been 'overlooked' for HOF. I knew before I left for Paris, but was still hoping for an honorable mention. Glad I did it, just the same, I worked super-hard on my layouts and grew a ton in the process. I feel like I've really embraced my style since then and I'll probably enter again next year and just find some valium or something during call week! :) But the fun part is that now I am free to share my layouts here on my blog. They are months old, so keep that in mind! TFL!

My (nearly) finished kitchen.

An alarming shade of red, I know, but it really works, especially with the dining room. It's no secret that I love color I guess! It's very warm and friendly, makes me want to cook. I'll be cooking quite a bit this week, starting with my Missionettes group tonight. Then this weekend we are having our monthly leadership meeting here, making my fettucini alfredo, I think. Love having a beautiful kitchen to work in, it's been a long time coming!

kitchen before pictures

I know, it's atrocious. You can see why I was reluctant to have anyone over. I honestly can't believe how much work this room has been, scraping every inch of that horrid wallpaper off by hand. Five coats of red paint. I still have a tiny bit of finishing touches to wind it up, just some touching up on the woodwork and scraping the window panes back off. But it's 1 million times better than before!

gaining ground... maybe.

Having some interesting thoughts on being home today. Lots of jet-lag, fogging my vision a bit. I slept 11 hours last night (unheard of for me!) and took a two hour nap this afternoon and still I'm ready for bed right now. I didn't sleep well the whole time I was in France, so I guess I am making up for it now.

Working on my Winkflash order, it's 185 pictures. So excited to hold them in my hands, and then plan and scrap them. woohoo.

Never have I been so thankful to be home as I am right now. Rob and I were watching news clips on Foxnews.com and the city is in an uproar. All major transportation means are down, meaning if I was still there, we'd be stuck, unable to leave the city. The metro, the RER, the buses and even the airlines are at a standstill. They are setting fire to things in the streets. I am so thankful to be back in my tiny town where things are safe and sound. The picture I'm sharing here is one of many from the news, but this one especially tugs at my heart because I'm so fond of the tower. So sad to see such a beautiful city in such terrible unrest.

Trying to adjust back to life and central standard time, but it's been way harder than I anticipated. Wish I could just sleep for a couple days and then try it again. :)

I will resume posting my journal when I'm feeling a little better. Right now I'm concentrating on recovering.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

I will be posting in real time, meaning that my posts from Paris will pop up in their chronological order, so you'll have to look back to read them, but please feel free too. I'm doing this so that my journal will look accurate and it will be easier to read in the long run. I will post the title and the date, so it will come up in the 'recent posts' side bar. Continue to check it, as I have lots of posts to enter! Merci!