Still around

just busy with, you know, life.

Potpourri for $200 please Alex

Kudos to you if you get that :)

This is a this and that sort of post.

Today I have to make cupcakes for PJ to take to the monthly staff meeting. Cupcakes were requested again by a certain Plumber Business Agent who has the BIGGEST sweet tooth I have ever seen. I was told that last time he ate three cupcakes before 9am! So I am going to go with my standby Martha Stewart choc. cupcake recipe and I'm going to try this Choco-Marshmallow Peanut Butter frosting. Don't worry I have plenty of butter and powder sugar on back up if I need to whip up a plain buttercream.

I'm also making some Cinnamon-Apple Chex Mix for snacks at Maggie's preschool tomorrow. It's my first time being the snack helper and actually bringing the snack. Llast time I was that position the teacher actually brought the snack but it was so chaotic. We had a parent helper not show up so we were short staffed to begin with. I was actually covering two jobs in one of the big activity rooms including the "painting center". Added bonus the kids were doing an apple stamping activity which consisted of them stamping halved apples with popsicle sticks in them into a pizza pan that had red paint just poured out onto it then on their papers. If you think that sounds kind of messy, you would be right. The snack that the teacher brought was called apple burritos and had like a millions steps and components for me to set up and prep. Hence the easy chex mix snacks. Each kid gets a dixie cup full and viola, done!

I went to a three hour "getting started" workshop on starting a Girl Scout Troop. It's looking more and more like I'm going to be helping Co-Lead a troop. I'm a bit apprehensive because it seems like quite a time investment and I was already told the Auburn area troop leaders are "a bit more passionate than most", "have a tendency to make new leaders feel inept" and "have their own watch dog group". Great......

Those who know me know I don't buy myself new clothes very often. I've also fallen into the bad habit of jeans and some sort of variation of a sweatshirt almost everyday. As a result I have practically nothing to wear on our week long business trip to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida that meets the general swankiness of where we are staying, the 70-80 temps and the actual "business" part of the trip. I've been wanting to try ordering some clothes from Land's End new Canvas line. The clothes remind me of J. Crew back in the day when they were known for more of a classic preppy look with lots of closet staples (rather than the more trendy stuff in stores now). So when I saw that Canvas was having a huge sale and offering free shipping on orders over $50 I was thrilled. Then when I found out I could use my Sears card and return anything ordered at my local Sears store it was decided. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some of these pieces will work, I haven't had a whole lot of luck online/magazine clothes ordering in the past. Some things I ordered:

Pattern lawn skirt in Grey Gull Circles


Fit and Flare dress


Pocket dress in Navy


Heritage Cardigan in Soft Fern and Orange Spice


Boyfriend V-neck Sweater in Orange Spice and Seaport


Washed Cotton Coat in sand


Slub Knit Scarf in kiwi stripe and heather gray

and some ribbed tanks and pocket tee's. You might wonder about the sweaters when it's supposed to be sunny and warm but it will still get chilly at night and I tend to freeze in places with AC. I'm just not used to it. I still need to find some nice jeans, slacks and possibly a cocktail dress.

Go Team Nee Nee!

We had a great turnout for the Walk of Hope on Sunday. Overall it went well but unfortunately the girls had a bit of a hard time. Bridget woke up with a sore throat and a dry cough, but no fever. I debated over taking her but she really, really wanted to go so I gave in. When we got there Maggie actually was the one to start acting up. I think the crowd was overwhelming her and she wanted to be carried all the time. Then she started crying that she wanted to go to the party (we all had a family Birthday Party to go to afterward). Then we tried to take a family picture since Maggie is supposed to take a picture to school of her family and we don't have any other than the on etaken at Shannon's wedding last March. As you can see by the pics, it didn't go well. Bridget started freaking out over getting her picture taken and was thrashing around screaming for Grammy and Maggie wouldn't look at the camera.

Then when we had Grammy in the pic she still wouldn't calm down. Like the fake smiles here?

So then we booted her out of the picture and tried to do a picture with at least the three of us but Maggie still didn't want to take a pic.

So then the walk started and everything went well till about halfway through. I had fallen back from the main group and was walking with Stephanie with her two girls in the stroller. PJ had the girls up with the main group and had been pushing Maggie in the stroller. I'm walking along and see PJ and Bridget off to the side and Bridget is having one of her colossal freak outs. She's screaming and crying for Grammy. She wanted to be with Grammy, but she wasn't wanting to walk anymore and Maggie wasn't willing to get out of the stroller. So hence the freak out. Stephanie was nice enough to offer for Bridget to ride in her double stroller with Kate since Kylie was walking but Bridget refused. So PJ and I ended up standing by the sideline until Grammy and Poppa came back around and we talked Maggie into riding in the double stroller with Kate and then Bridget could ride in our stroller with Grammy and Poppa. Of course the whole time we are standing there she's bawling and crying for Grammy and the whole all the people in the walk are going by watching and I hear some of them saying "Awwww, poor thing". Uh no, don't feel bad for her people. This is what she does.

Anyways, once we got her in a stroller the rest of the walk went fine. Later she told me her hair was all stuck together "from all the tears". We went to the Birthday party and everyone was happy. The End.


Oh wait! I forgot to mention that Shannon is currently in first place for raising funds for the walk as an individual. I think the donations are open for another month but if she holds it she wins tickets and travel to see LIVE with Regis and Kelly in New York! Yaaay Shannon!

Finished projects...

Just wanted to show you the finished secret project I was working on. I made a Super Mario Invincibility Star blanket for Bridget's friend Kaylie. I thought that she could use it when she needed a power boost. (Sidenote- I had to use my flash in this pic so that's why the red and orange look so similar, it doesn't look like that in real life.) She's continuing to do her chemo and radiation treatments. The last scan had shown the tumor had shrunk (yay!) but her mobility and muscle control had continue to decline (boo!). She's started a steroid treatment that has some rough side effects but has greatly improved her mobility. We're hoping to make another play date soon. Kaylie and her family are participating in the Run of Hope this weekend (You can still donate here http://www.firstgiving.com/kayliebergen they are so close to their goal!) So I also made a Pediatric Cancer Awareness scarf for her Mom or Kaylie to wear in the walk.


Oh yeah, Bridget wants an invincible blanket too, so that next on my list to make.

We have a busy weekend ahead of us with a family Birthday party and all of us (including PJ!) are walking in the breast cancer awareness Walk of Hope in Seattle. This is Shannon's 5th year leading a team in the cancer walk in honor of her Mom. Right now she's in first place for top individual in raising funds! Also, looks like the weather is going to be nice for it! Should be a great weekend :)

Just a quickie....

As some of you may have noticed Maggie had bangs in the pictures from the Puyallup Fair. That's because the girls decided it was a good idea for Bridget to cut Maggie's hair. Bridget essentially gave her complete bangs and cut a 3x4 inch hunk off by Maggie's ear. Maggie in turn only snipped a little of Bridget's hair which because Bridget already had layers in it was hardly noticeable. It's never boring around here....

The weather's started to turn (kind of, it's been crazy muggy and warm here) and the leaves are falling. Autumn is by far my favorite season of the year. I love everything about it. Since it has cooled off weather wise I dragged out yarn stash and found my hooks and promptly jumped back into crocheting. I love crocheting, but I'm really itching to learn how to knit and have promised myself I will learn by Christmas. I love crochet for either really big things like blankets, or really little things like amigurumi. I love the look of knit clothing (sweaters, hats, mittens and scarves), crochet clothing not so much. I'm working on a couple of different project right now both being blankets. One is a surprise for someone (who may or may not read my blog, so I'm not going to say who or what it is exactly yet) that is almost finished. It's actually kind of a pattern I've pieced together off of other patterns with an original final idea, if that makes any sense.



The other is a multicolored granny stripe blanket for Maggie. I saw the pattern and pictures of Lucy's on her great blog Attic24 and instantly wanted to make it. So far it's a fun blanket, very easy to crochet. The hard part is making myself stripe randomly with the colors since I usually am very much a pattern person.

Going to try and resurrect this thing...

So here we are. The Summer flew by, in fact it hardly felt like we had any Summer at all. Our weather was just lousy and combined with how wet and cold our Spring was my garden fared pretty poorly. My pumpkins didn't make it nor did some of my squash. I did get some stuff like lettuce, onions, carrots, peas, some green beans and a few zucchini. My tomatoes really only started to ripen about two weeks ago. But now it's been raining so much they are splitting and rotting on the vines. On the plus side the chickens are doing great and we've started getting our first eggs. Right now it looks like Roseberry is regularly laying, Princess is just starting and still sporadically. Because of Boba and Buffy's breeds they won't start laying for a while yet. The girls just love eating their special, home grown eggs. PJ got really excited the other day when frying some up found a double yolk! Apparently double yolk eggs happen more often in home grown chickens.


Bridget is in 1st grade now and is actually in a 1st/2nd split class. So far she is loving it. It seems weird with her being gone so much but I have noticed Maggie is much calmer during the day now. Instead of dance Bridget wanted to do gymnastics. She started gymnastics about a month ago and absolutely LOVES it. She is much more enthusiastic about gymnastics than she ever was about dance and loves the balance beam the most. Maggie has just started going to preschool twice a week. She's going to a Co-Op Preschool which means a hundred times more parental involvement than there ever was at Bridget's preschool. It's a learning experience for me too, but so far it's going well for both of us.

PJ started a new job over the Summer. Basically he's gone from working in the field to working an office job. It's still a little weird to see him in dress clothes everyday instead of Carhartt's and work boots. It also means a lot more laundry and ironing for me, booo! He's working a lot and has started traveling too. Actually, in November I get to tag along on a business/convention trip to Miami/Ft.Lauderdale, Florida for 6 days! It will be our first vacation together since our Honeymoon! If you can't tell I'm pretty excited.

We went to the Puyallup Fair last week with my Mom and of course the girls had an absolute blast! Here's some pics :)

Bridget's 6th Birthday!!

It was a busy weekend around here. We had Bridget's second dance recital on Saturday. She did a lyrical ballet routine to the Micheal Jackson song "Human Nature". It was really cute and she did a great job. She was sooo tiny compared to all the other girls in her class, some of which were almost two years older then her. She's not sure if she wants to continue with dance, she want to start trying some sports and gymnastics. She's already shown that she does really well on the beam so we might look into that next.





Then on Sunday we had a MARIO PARTY. It was great, Papa dressed up as Luigi and a bunch of the adults had Mario shirts. Maggie cried when we put her in a Mario shirt so she wore a rainbow dress and we said she had gotten an invincibility star, like when Mario flashes rainbow colors in the game. Or else we said she was the Rainbow Road course from Mario Kart. Bridget got lots of Mario goodies and new reading/chapter books so she can keep working on her library minutes. We had flags and gold stars hanging everywhere with felt Mario characters that my Mom and I made. There were Mario decorations on the tables, some were candy tins from Hot Topic and red foil star table thingies from the Dollar Store. Also from the Dollar Store were also the square boxes that I painted yellow then put question marks on them like from the game. Those held the goodies for the kids (which I forgot to hand out at the end, Doh!) which were mini swirl lollipops, old fashioned candy sticks, scented bubbles and of course fake mustaches. I have a ton of the mustaches left over because I ordered 2 dozen not realizing it was 2 dozen packets with 3 mustaches to a pack! Bridget wanted vanilla/vanilla cupcakes and that's what I made, topped with sprinkles and Mario character toppers. Bridget said she had a great Birthday and wants a Mario Birthday for the rest of her life. We'll see what she says next year......

Papa as Luigi!

Blooper

Fire Flower (we also had Ice Flowers)

Bob-ombs!

Goombas

Lots o mustaches!

That's her Mario victory pose