Round Up

I follow a ladies blog that does a lot of scrapbooking.  One thing she does each month that I find particularly intriguing is what she calls a Round Up.  Basically it is a few things she does at the end of each month to tie up loose ends.  She begins by answering a few questions, and then does some computer archiving.  I thought I would give it ago this month.

1.  What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

• Undaunted by Gerald Lund 
• PARENTS 
• American Baby 
• Country Woman 
• Southern Living 
• Friend 
• Scrapbook Etc.
• Scrapbook Trends

2.  What movies, television shows, plays, etc. did I watch this month?

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 
• Avatar 
• Transformers II 
• Star Trek 2009 
• Frog Princess  
• Biggest Loser 
• Glee 
• Desperate Housewives {Don't judge me too harshly please!} 
• Food Network 
• HGTV

 
3.  What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends? 

• Mommy daughter date with Lily
• FHE activities with the family

4.  What gifts did I give and/or receive? 

• Calendar for my brother

5.  What special or unusual purchases did I make?
      I bought for calendars this month.  I kept none of these calendars.  All them went to family
      members.  I hope everyone enjoyed them.  


6.  What illnesses or health concerns did I have? 

• Sinus infection
• Ear infection 
• Cold

7.  What were my accomplishments this month? 

• Having FHE 3 out of the 4 weeks in January.  A new record for us!
• Began journaling again

8.  What were my disappointments this month? 

• Finding composure in my life, then having it dashed when I got sick.  Still seeking to get the composure back. 
• Getting house, losing a house, getting a house, losing a house....

9.  How did I do on my goals for the month? (Or any current short or long term goals) 

• I accomplished a few of my goals.  My planner is back in use, and I make to-do lists most nights before going to bed. FHE has become a ritual in our lives. I didn't do so well on my scrapbooking goal.  I should have done, eight layouts but I only did 2.  My house is still where it started out at the beginning of the month, disorganized.

10.  Anything else noteworthy to include? 

• I've really enjoyed having Russ home most of this month.  It has been awhile since we've been together as a family.  I look forward to his travelling going down in April. {Cross fingers that this holds to be true} 

How did your month go?

FHE: Week 4

Didn't happen.  Lily decided to add on another level to our sickness.  At 2:00 in the morning she wandered into my room complaining her feet were cold.  What?!  I was sweating because I was too freaked out to have the window open or the fan on.  {Irrational fears I have when Russ is out of town, enough said}  So I have her crawl in bed with me thinking maybe her feet had not been covered by her blanket.

As I drifted off to sleep Lily begged for me to snuggle with her.  Reluctantly I woke up, rolled over, and stuck out my arm.  She rolled over onto my arm and I was instantly awake like I had been burned.  She was flaming hot!  Comes to find out that she had a temperature of 103, and had the chills from it.  I of course had thrown my expired children's Tylenol right before Christmas and hadn't replaced it yet.  Normally I would send Russ to Walmart to get some, but he's in California.  Crapola!

I spent the rest of the night waking up every 15 min to readjust the cool rag on her head, or to fight with Lily that "YES she had to keep it on her head!!!"  I slept very little.  With me still feeling like someone put a branding iron up my nose, and having got no sleep I just didn't have the energy to pull FHE together.  Frustrating.

I'm going to try for tomorrow, because as of right now {10:47 CST} I am feeling significantly better. Like 98% pain free. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but hopefully it is a productive day ending with FHE.

{PS...sorry about all the sickness posts, but I'm trying to keep Russ updated on just how much FUN he is missing while he is away}

FHE: Week 3

Even with the girls sick we were able to pull off FHE.  I enjoyed teaching this lesson, because it mainly consisted of me asking questions to Lily and her answering.  The theme for this lesson, was that every family member has specific place and specific duties in the family.  I was surprised and pleased that Lily could explain most of the duties/place of each family member with very little prompting from me and Russ.  We must be teaching her a few good things :)  She did stumble a little with the fact that daddy's have the priesthood.  But that is okay, we'll work on that one.

It was suggested for the lesson to create pictures of your family and compare them.  I have wanted to get the girls watercolors for awhile now, and this was the perfect excuse to do that! 

Here we are hard at work....

 

 

See if you can figure out which picture belongs to who.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibit D

Now if you couldn't guess...

Exhibit A -- Lily

Exhibit B -- Russ

Exhibit C -- Allie

Exhibit D -- ME

Lily's takes a little explaining.  See the dark red lines on it?  That is my "editing" of the picture.  The lines are drawn around each person.  The colors outside of the lines is our house.  Creative little one huh?

We barely finished in time for the girls to have half a cupcake for bed.  As usual Allie enjoyed hers, and wanted more.  In the photo she is pointing to Lily's uneaten cupcake asking for more.  {PS sorry about the dark picture, I'm trying to learn how to take pictures without my flash.  It isn't going to well....}

Everybody loved these cupcakes except me.  They were a new recipe I tried.  For some reason I wasn't diggin them.  Maybe it's my cold?  I made Russ take the 20 cupcakes left to work on Tuesday and Wednesday.  They were gone in a matter of minutes.  I hem and hawed about giving the recipe, but because so many people liked them I decided to share it. Oh and I got this recipe from the Picky Palate.

Chocolate Fudge Jr Mint Centered Cupcakes

1 box Pillsbury Devils Food Cake Mix
4 eggs
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
1/2 Cup water
1 small box instant chocolate pudding mix
1/2 Cup sour cream
1 Cup chocolate chips
3 4 oz boxes Jr Mints (look for them on sale, I found them for $1.00)
Favorite Vanilla or Cream Cheese Frosting

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a stand or electric mixer, add the cake mix, eggs, oil, water, pudding mix, sour cream and chocolate chips.  Mix on medium for 2 minutes or until well combined and somewhat thick.  Scoop into 24 paper lined muffin cups.  Press 3 JR mints into the center of each cupcake center.  Bake for 22-25 minutes or until toothpick comes mostly clean from center.  Let cool completely and frost with your favorite vanilla or cream cheese frosting.

I used this recipe for the frosting that I snagged from my friend.  She is an amazing cook!  She made a wedding cake recently!  And get this....she never had formal training, she just taught herself.

Cream Cheese Icing

By Mindy Whipple

16 Oz soft cream cheese
1/2 C soft butter
1 t  Almond Flavoring 

2 C powdered sugar (measured & then sifted)

Beat the cream cheese & butter until completely smooth. Add the remaining ingredients & beat again until completely smooth.

I would suggest cutting that recipe in half if you use it.  I had WAY too much.  Let me know if you make this recipe and how it turned out.  

More Crud...

Argh!  Things have gotten worse, MUCH worse.  Monday morning Lily woke up and her eye seemed to be doing okay.  I made a "lets save some money" decision and decided to just keep doing the eye drops.  As the day progressed her other eye started to get pink.  Then right before bed time she looked like this...

What that isn't close enough to see? Okay how bout this?

Swollen eye, big purple bruise-looking skin, and one big wopping piece of CRUD!  Russ started calling her Igor because her eye was almost popping out of her head.  He's so mean!  That night Lily came into our multiple times.  Each time she was crying because her eye had crusted shut and she couldn't get it open.  Poor thing was is so much pain as I cleaned it all out.

Tuesday I started her on more eyedrops.  I spent the whole day on the couch withering in pain.  If I tried to move from the couch I got all tipsy and felt like my head was rolling around on the floor instead of firmly planted on my neck.  Apparently I had caught the girls cold, and for some reason didn't realize I had a migraine on top of it.  You would think after having migraines since I was NINE I would recognize the symptoms of one and take medicine for it.  But noooooooo.....I chose to think that it was part of the "cold"  Anyway that night as I crawled into bed I realized what was going on and took some medicine.  30 mins later I was blissfully sleeping painfree.  Gotta love heavy duty medicine.

Wednesday and Thursday passed with me and the girls having the sniffles.  The girls seemed to be on the mend.  Eye goopiness was gone, runny noses slowing, and coughs....well they were still there.  I on the other hand was slowly but surely going downhill.  First my migraine never quite went away.  I persistently had a sore head.  Then my throat started hurting.

Friday I woke up feeling better.  I managed to go to walking group.  Shortly after that though my ear started hurting.  Just a dull throb.  I kept wondering should I go to the doctors?  Nah it is just a cold....and maybe allergies.  Then this morning I decided to take a nice long shower to feel better.  Showers always make you feel better, right?!  I got in and stood there for about 10 secs and then my ear flared up with such intense pain my eyes teared up and things went a little tipsy on me again.  I was miserable!

Russ convinced me to go the Urgent care 20 mins away.  I'm glad I did.  After a few of the doctors normal "hmmms, oh that's different.  Ahhhh!" I was diagnosed with an ear infection and a sinus infection.  No wonder I've been so loopy all week!

Of course I couldn't get the prescription filled until 4:00, the precise time Russ and I were supposed to be on our way to see Avatar.  After I bit of speeding, hurriedly medicating myself, and rushing the concessions guy Russ and I plopped into the last two seats of the packed theater. All was going good until the guns started going off towards the end of the movie.  I don't know if the loudness of it all hurt my tender ear or the dry popcorn had scratched my throat, but everytime I swallowed a horrible shooting pain went down my throat and up into my ear.  Then it throbbed in pain until I swallowed again, and started the process all over.  I was in tears by the end of the movie, and barely able to walk from the severity of the pain.

Russ ushered me to our car, and headed home.  While he took the babysitter home I rested on the couch with the girls jumping on me.  I realized that yet again I'm going to be sick while he is gone.  Yep, he is leaving for California tomorrow.  My tears turned from pain to frustration for a few seconds, but I quickly got over it.  I chided myself and said "you'll get through this.  This isn't the worst thing to have happened while he's been gone."  That cheered me up {weird, I know!} and I waited for him to come home.  My sweetie took the girls and put them to bed, and sent me off to bed. 

Here I am laying in bed and typing sideways so my ear feels better, which it does....at least a little bit.  I'm so sick of CRUD and all it's varrying forms!  But on a funny note, I e-mailed a friend about my sickness and she replied with, "Get better, and don't breathe on your e-mails!"  ROFL!  So, in return, I promise not breathe on this blog post so all of you won't get the crud passed on to you! 

Uh-Oh

Allie loves the word uh-oh. It is a toss up of whether her first word was "uh-oh" or dadda. Allie uses uh-oh for many different things. If something falls down, if she's in trouble, if she can't get something she wants, etc. My favorite is when she is in trouble. She'll throw her chubby little hands up on her ears and say, "uh-oh"{I giggle so hard because she looks like she doesn't want to hear about what she has done wrong}

While cleaning up the Little People toys today I saw that face. The girls had brought me all the LP toys, but I wanted to organize them to my liking. I sent them off to play since they had done "their" part. Lily went to do a puzzle while Allie went to play with her letter fridge game. Both activities I deem suitable for "unsupervised" playing. They were within five feet of me anyway. What could go wrong?

About half way through my LP organizing Lily declared, "uh-oh mamma"

ME: "what's uh-oh"

Lily: "Allie's in B-I-I-I-I-G trouble"

ME {Still not concerned at this point}: Why's that sweetie?

Lily: She's drawing on the fridge with a marker

Me: What?! Allie!!!!

Allie: Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh {with hands over ears}

Allie kept repeating uh-oh the whole time it took for me to find my camera, and take a few pictures. She knew she was in BIG trouble. I missed a lot of the try-and-keep-a-straight-face-while child-should-be-punished-but-child-is-too-cute.  Yet she did show off what she did.


The good news?  She had actually used a pen that I use for an erasable calendar.  All it took to get it off was to a wipie. BUT I didn't know this until I actually tried to get off.  We also keep a Sharpie marker right next to the erasable one.  Major uh-oh averted.

Crud....

I've been soooo careful with Allie's eye infection.  I've washed my hands, I've washed her hands, no wash clothes being dragged around the house, no sharing food, etc.  With that said imagine my dissapoint when getting ready for church I see crud all over Lily's left cheek.  At first I figured she had made a mess with her pb sandwich.  But on closer inspection I see the tell-tale signs.  Swollen bloodshot eye with crud coming out the corner.  We tried giving her some of Allie's eyedrops, because of how obvious it is that she has same thing.  They aren't working, so it appears I will be going to the doctor tomorrow {If they're open, it's a holiday ya know!}

Seriously?! Again?!

Allie is a happy baby.  I get told this over and over, and truthfully I agree.  However, when she is sick she is terribly fussy.  {Just ask my in-laws, Allie was fussy all Christmas because she was sick} On Wednesday I noticed Allie was a little whiny. On Thursday she was a little more whiny and had a cough.  Friday everything went downhill.  Her cough had become that scary wet sound that makes you worry about things like RSV, pneumonia, and severe cases of croup.  Of course by the time it really manifested itself it was 4:00 and the doctors close at 5:00.  There was no way we were getting in.  I decided to hope for the best that she could make it through the weekend, and I could get an appointment early Monday morning. 

A few hours later I noticed her eyes were bright red and goop was pouring out of them.  "Oh great!  We've got pink eye in both eyes, and pneumonia" kept running through my mind.  Russ and I dug out our humidifier that doesn't work and got in running.  Coincidentally I don't know if humidifiers work down here, because it is already humid. Anyway, we decided to go to an urgent care first thing Saturday morning.

After wasting all morning finding one that was open Russ talk Allie to the doctors while I took Lily to ballet.  Russ called me as soon as he got out.  Diagnosis:  one major EAR infection causing drainage in all areas connected to the ear canal {aka lungs, eyes, and nose} Seriously?!  Again?!  Just last Thursday while at her well baby check the doctor was telling me how wonderful her ears looked.  In a one year period she has had SIX ear infections.  In the end we've got Allie doped up on a relative to amoxicillian and some pink eye eyedrops {apparently she might have that too, but it is unclear}.  Allie screamed when we put in the eyedrops and I felt so bad for her.  She gave me that, "Why do you torture me" look while clinging to Russ after I was finished giving them to her.  Mom's always get the crappy jobs.

Now I we get to wait until Monday to report this to our "real" doctor.  Since Allie's infection number keeps going up they've wanted her to be "watched'.  Cross some fingers and toes for her that this is the last ear infection for awhile.  I REALLY don't want her to have to get tubes put in.

Making your Blogbook Shine

A friend asked how I did the double page layout in my blog book, and how to make your own templates as well. I thought about just giving the link to the tutorial on blurb for how I did that double page, but then I remembered that I sat through 40 minutes of a tutorial to learn how to do a 2 minute page.  I'll spare you the extra 38 mins and explain it here.  But in case you want to see it visually THIS is the link. {I'm 98% sure that is the right link, I apologize if it isn't}  So, here's what you do:

1. In BookSmart pick your two pages that you want to add this type of layout to.  Make sure the left hand page is active.  {There will be a blue outline around it to indicate active.  The blue arrows on the picture below are pointing to that}

   2.  Go to the upper left hand corner where it says "apply page layout".  On the drop down menu choose picture layout, then choose full bleed.  Drag your picture to the page if it isn't already there.

  3.  Active the right hand page.  Go back up to picture layouts and select one that has a full bleed picture {top to bottom, and all the way to the edge} for the part of the page. There are several that you can use, they just all have different text box options.  It doesn't matter which one you choose, it just needs to have a full bleed picture on the left.  Now drag the same picture you used on the left hand side and drop it into the right hand side.

 

   4.  Now comes the hardest part.  Take the picture on the left hand page, and zoom in until it is large enough that some of the right hand sideof the picture is not visible anymore.  {Check the picture above to see how much I've zoomed in.}

5.   Take the picture on the right hand page, and zoom in until the right hand picture matches up in size with the left hand picture.  Also, move the picture on the right hand until it matches up with where the left hand page stopped.  You may need to resize both sides of your picture to get them to line up.  It really is something that you just need to play around with until the sizing is right.  Here is what mine looked like after completing it.

Be sure and send me a screen shot of your completed double pagers!  I can't wait to see them.
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Making templates is quite a bit easier.  Here's how you do it....

1. I always started with one of the provided templates in BookSmart.  But if you pick one of the blank text ones, you can create your own from scratch.  Activate the page you want to make your template on.
2. Go to the upper left hand corner of BookSmart {Just to the right of Apply Page layout} and click "Edit layout"  
3. Once in Edit mode create your template however you want.  
4. Save it
5. To access this layout later on go to the drop down "Apply Page Layout" menu.  Click on it to allow it to show the hidden items.  Then click on My Layouts.  There is your layouts!

I must warn you creating your own layouts becomes addicting.  I created 30+ in my last book.  Those are all lost since I am now using my laptop to create my book and had to reload the software.  I'm sure I'll make more of my own layouts this time around too :)

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Last thing, I don't know enough yet about how to make your blogbook using the pdf's.  Once I experiment enough and find out if it is worth my time, I'll let you all know!  Oh, and if you need clarification on any of the steps above, feel free to ask or go watch the 40 min video!

Mary or Marry?

Lily: Allie you want to play marry?

Allie: Nods head

Lily: You wear this.  No THIS one.  That one is mine!

Allie: Screams, throws herself on floor.

Lily {in soothing tones}:  Its alright sweetie. 

Allie:  Peeks up at her

Lily: You can were this one and be marry.  Mommy look we're marry.

Now from this converesation alone I would guess that Lily has come up with a game of "lets get married"  But when I look at how they are dressed up, I lean toward them being Mary, Jesus's mother.  What do you think? Is it Mary or marry?

I updated my pictures of the game we did for FHE.  Scroll down two posts to see

Don't we all feel like this sometimes?

Russ loves to read the comics.  Every now and again he will show me a comic that he thinks I might enjoy. He recently brought me this one recently, and knew I had to share it.

FHE: Week 2

Wahoo!  We made it two weeks in a row, barely.  I printed the lesson off from the website I've been using, and handed it to Russ as he walked in the door yesterday.  He looked it over and provided us with a great lesson. The lesson was a little difficult for the girls to focus on because right in the middle we received an important phone call that had to be taken.  After a few minutes of refocusing the girls,  we finished learning about immediate and extended families.  This was a difficult concept for Lily, since she doesn't see our extended family on a regular basis.  We really are working on the concept that her cousins are family not friends.  Allie primarily wandered around this week and played.  But when we were pointing out family members on a picture she found particular joy in pointing out daddy. :)

I adjusted the activity a little bit from the lesson plan, mainly because we already have a photo album similar to the one suggested.  But I still wanted to do an extended family activity.  So this is what I came up with....I've had a family recognition game in the works since Lily was about 18 mo. old.  It has slowly been worked on, but never finished.  It consists of a box that I decorated with scrapbook paper.  The box has a slit in the top wide enough for a metal juice can lid to slip through.  Then I have TONS of juice can lids.  On one side of the lids is a piece of scrapbook paper with a family members name on it.  On the other side I've placed a picture of that person.

Up until last night  I only had ONE picture completed.  Everything else was complete.  Since we were focusing on extended family, I thought this would be a good craft to work on  as a family.  I hurriedly sent some pictures to Walmart, and got them pack just in time for FHE.  I cut out the pictures, gave them to Lily, who waited patiently as daddy put sticky stuff on the juice lids.  Lily was then able to  put the pictures on the juice lids.  She in turn  handed it to Allie who dropped it in the box.

It was fun to work on this project as a family.  We of course didn't finish all the lids.  I just don't have pictures of all 60 or so family members.  We did get 20 or so done, which is enough for the kids to play with and start learning some more of the cousins names.  The girls have loved this game too.  Since making it last night it has been in the possession of one of the girls at all times.  It has never set idle.

 

These FHE's are really getting me excited because they are so easy and fun to do.  How are ya'll doing with your FHE? 

Three Cheers for Lily!

Three cheers are in order for Lily!  NO CAVITIES at her check up today.  What a relief after her last checkup!

Family Pictures

These got taken back October.  It took a little while for me to get a disc of them.  Then Christmas got me all frazzled.  Finally I've had time to sit down and blog about what I want, including these pictures!  These are a few of my favorites.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

18 Months

Over the past few visits to the doctors Allie has displayed how much she loathes them.  Doesn't matter whether it is a man or woman, old or young, she strongly dislikes them.  Imagine my surprise when today things were relatively calm when we went in.  I could actually hear what the doctor was telling me, instead of reading his lips between wails from Allie.  Don't fool yourself into thinking that it was perfectly peaceful though.  Oh no, Allie let us know that she didn't like the stethoscope, or the light/magnifying thing the doctor uses.  That produced some pretty good sobs and thrashing, but the usual gusto wasn't there.  It was as if she was grudgingly admitting that the doctors wasn't TOO bad, but that she wasn't a 100% convinced yet.

Allie's stats were quite interesting today.  I was fully prepared to hear that I have a tall thin baby, considering everyone and their dog has been telling me how tall Allie is.  Alas, that wasn't to be....

Height: 31" {30%}

Weight: 23 lbs {60%}

Head:  46 1/2 cm

What?!  She's short?  Hmmm...she must be surrounded by EXTRA short friends/family then because she is taller than all of them! LOL!  Isn't it funny how these percentages change with each doctors appointment?  Yet our doctor insists that she is doing well, and following her own growth curve.  That is all that matters to me!

Allie also got two shots.  We got the "not so nice" shot nurse.  This lady has absolutely no compassion for the kids.  How I miss our nurse in Idaho who would talk the kids through it so that they hardly even noticed they were getting a shot.  Guess you can't get everything you want.