New Wheels-On the Move

OK, I always enjoy finding new ways to use a stamp set and if I can harass a nephew in the process, well the merrier! So the fact I needed a birthday card for a 'too cool for kiddie cards' nephew getting ready to get his learner permit gave me just the free license I needed to create this card. Funny, I know, that I didn't use the car stamp, but if you knew about all the shenanigans with Papaw's John Deere, you'd have a new level of appreciation for my inspiration for the card. It isn't super fancy, but it served it's purpose as a money holding device for a fifteen year old nephew just fine! And the family got a kick out of my idea for his new wheels.

I also wanted to report that I have my first EVER stamping injury. Yesterday I was having a great time working on Father's Day cards and picture holders, while the kids ransacked their rooms dragging every toy they've ever owned out into the hallway to play there in the middle of the hall next to the laundry room (probably because their rooms had become so cluttered they couldn't find a place to sit or walk or stand ANYWHERE). I somehow managed to launch the top (of course the inked side) of a stamp pad across the desk yesterday and scratched/cut into the meat of my hand below my thumb. This is a tricky spot because it is not band-aid worthy and yet every time I move my hand I re-open this cut. It feels extra nice when I stick it in soapy water too, which you'd think I'd get smart enough not to do...but so far no luck ;o)

Children Say the Darndest Things!

The other day I was grocery shopping with the whole family and my DS realized that every kind of food item in the store suddenly had Spiderman plastered all over the boxes. So now he wanted everything...the cheese crackers, cereals, everything! After the hundredth question of "can we get this?", I finally stopped and took the box down for him to study it. I showed him that it was the same box we had at home, but now there was a fancy picture of Spiderman on the front. Then we flipped it over and saw that there was no toy hidden inside, no special shapes---just a picture on the box. Then we hit the dairy case and he saw more fancy pictures and he said (I swear), "Momma, it's not nice of them to make me want all these things just b/c Spiderman's picture is on the box."

Now as a mother I think advertisers should be required to put their fancy pictures on an equal number of vegetables and fruits as useless snack foods. Wouldn't that be new? I can see it now...tantrums in the aisles as kids beg 'please let me have the radishes Mommy!!!' Farmers are always needing subsidies so why don't we make the most prolific advertising agencies take on some farms pro-bono? I know why---b/c then the useless crap on the cookie/candy/chip aisles would get stale and moldy and big business would get a tad upset.

In the same mode, yesterday my DD pulled a bag of diapers off the counter in excitement b/c I had finally bought a pair with Dora the Explorer on them. I thought the pictures might entice her to move on to the pull-up kind and boy did it! She raced me upstairs to get them on her little hynie. She even flashed them to her Daddy when he got home later.

Anyway so this thought led me to a new one, unrelated to food (imagine that). I have challenged myself to start taking a hard look at our buying impulses. How often do I fall for a pretty package when what is inside the box is exactly the same as what I already have at home? I bet I will be surprised. So if you come across a good example in your life, let me know so I won't feel so alone ;o)

What a hoot!

Ok, I know a 1 yr old has no idea what is going on half the time really, but I have to brag that my DD just put little fisher price baby Jesus from the Nativity set into her much larger scale grocery buggy to give Jesus a ride. She unloaded the whole buggy just to give him a stroll around the house all by himself. Maybe this mother is delirious but I'd like to believe Sunday School is really making a big impact already!

And in our family tradition my DS is already pouring over the latest learning toy catalog circling everything he'd like for his birthday this year. I have such fond memories of my little brother pouring over the Sears Christmas catalog for months refining his list. He was methodical about it at a very young age. He'd spend months weighing the positive and negatives of each possibility. So while I don't worry about DS's list until about two weeks before his birthday, I like to take note of the few items that always make the cut.

Yesterday I also talked to DS about getting rid of some stamp sets so we would have more room for some new sets. It took some talking out for him to understand completely but after a few minutes, he was ready to give up all MY sets to ensure he will be able to get all the new sets he's coveting. So nice of him, right?

The Laundry Monster Strikes Again

Does anyone know how to get rid of the laundry monster or have the number of a good exterminator? I have been going round and round with this terror for more than a month and I just now feel like I'm starting to get the upper hand! Embarrassing, I know.

It probably doesn't help that DD's diapers seem to be exploding/overflowing multiple times a day (creating vast quantities of time sensitive laundry) and DH's softball uniform has to be washed twice a week. Or maybe the real problem is DD likes to drag clothes out of the hamper and "spread the wealth", so after 10 minutes of hunting for the stupid red jersey we finally found it in DD's hamper in her room under a lovely pile of "time sensitive" laundry. The last place we'd thought to look may well become my first spot from now on. I've also caught her trying to cram a sheet and her own socks into DS's crowded underwear drawer (probably b/c it is the only one she can actually pull out.)

My washer even seems to be complaining these days as it does a jig in the laundry room much more often than usual. So should I feel guilty that we obviously have enough clothing to cause such a commotion or should I start a "might be sort of dirty pile" since my DS has taken to changing outfits several times a day? I can't tell you how many pairs of corduroys I washed just the other day, so obviously we aren't sticking to the season at hand.

I washed the same pile of laundry at least twice the other day AFTER I realized that DD likes to helpfully unload a basket full of folded laundry into the floor so she can sit inside the basket. She even managed to shut herself in our dark laundry room the other morning. She wasn't screaming or scared, but I heard this weird scratching noise and went to investigate. She was scratching around searching for the door knob that was lost in the dark. When I opened the door (which she had blocked by standing in a basket) there she was calmly riding her hamper pony.

So if you have the name of a laundry monster exterminator or even a hamper pony rustler, please let me know. I'm getting desperate!

Scrap Maps or Page Maps

Ok, ladies after a successful scrapbooking blitz for National Scrapbooking Month, I hope everyone is feeling a little less overwhelmed by their pile of pictures. I personally found having a multitude of pages available very refreshing and believe I am going to start building pages in multiple sets from now on, just to alleviate any backlog I may create in the future. (Now that DH has a new camera (read: toy), I can see the future backlog already coming my way.)

As promised I have loaded all 6 sets of pages above so you can check them out to finish any last details. I am really excited about everyone becoming comfortable with the concept of Scrap Maps or Page Maps b/c the new Fall/Winter SU catalog is going to offer sets of papers that are a great mix of patterns but all one color (Certainly Celery for example) so you could VERY easily build an entire scrapbook without worrying if your colors "work". Also don't forget to use the Scraptitude Color Combo link when you get stuck on a color scheme. The creator (who's name has completely escaped me at the moment) is a genius! How thoughtful of them to share with all of us.

The Page Maps I used to start this blitz had big circles but I chose to use the Doodle This stamp set b/c I love it!! I could have just as easily used a large punch or placed my favorite SU image there instead. Pick your favorites and feel free to use every maps as a guide to spark your creative juices!

Good with Scissors!

On Mother’s Day, I woke up to discover that my DD’s diaper had EXPLODED during the night. If you have never dealt with the bits of wet fluff that burst out when a diaper finally reaches its breaking point, I hope you never will. It is like trying to wipe up fluffy boogers. What you wipe off, you immediately wipe back on with the next swipe. I can’t for the life of me figure out how it happened, but my DH woke up to a sight that at first made him concerned she had thrown up in the middle of the night. So while drippy wet from my shower, I got to suck up the fluff balls into our dust buster and try to clean off the slats from her crib. And then for that extra treat, two days later I realized I had not immediately cleaned out of the canister in my morning haze, and now I have a mini-vac that smells of perpetual pee. Lucky me, the Mother’s Day gift that keeps on giving!

But later that day I did get the best round-about compliment. During Sunday school my DS’s class was using stencils and when we arrived, DS was the only one left at the table still working. DS had decided to cut out each stenciled dinosaur to give to his cousins later that day, and he was diligently still working on cutting around several dinos. So while DH and I waited a minute before rounding up all his papers, his teacher told me he was very good at maneuvering the scissors. Now for some parents this would not seem like much of a compliment but this particular lady is the director of our preschool (saint that she is for volunteering her free time to children’s church too), so coming from her I felt this was a BIG compliment (not only to DS but for myself as well). After all wouldn’t it be a shame if I was unable to pass only my love of art to my own children? So while the rest of Mother’s Day was a basic blur of family activities and fluffy boogers, this tiny exchange was my one shining moment where I could say, “Yes! I did that!”

So for all you mothers out there who spent a harried Mother’s Day carting children to and fro for supposedly “fun” activities…remember to savor those moments when even the tiniest exchange reminds you that yes, I did that. Parenting is so very important and yet we are all so often left feeling ill-prepared for the daily struggles of child rearing.

Remember that even the little things you do matter, and hopefully you will be smarter than me and IMMEDIATELY flush out the fluffy diaper boogers from your mini-vac!

Easy Masking Reminder

Don't forget that post-it notes are great tools to use for masking when you are stamping. Stamp onto the post-it note where the sticky part is directly underneath your stamped image. Then trim away all parts except the part of the image you do not want a second stamp to overlap. Now you are ready to overlap the post-it mask onto your stamped images to add detail without covering up your original stamped image. Now don't throw away that mask. Stick it to the inside cover of your stamp box and it will ready for use the next time you need it.

For this image I used a mask for the neck of the jar to keep the stems from laying on top of the neck of the jar and creating the look that the stems are inside the jar.

No More Paris News!

I have to say I am really tired of hearing about Paris Hilton and her latest forays into "news worthy" (which I consider debatable) legal problems. Can we not call a spade a spade anymore? If I drove on a suspended license would I not face the same sentence? If Governor Arnold dares to change her sentence, I think Congress should vote to let California officially abandon the Union for the land of lunatics or Hollywoodland or whatever name they want to call themselves. As if parents don't have enough to worry about in today's day and age, but we have to hear the vapid useless press constantly coming at us and our children about the celebrity attention starved (oxymoron that it is) debutantes and bachelors?

I don't mean to rant, but there are just some days I want to clock someone on the head like that V8 commercial I keep seeing these days. The absurd nature of many people's idea of living their lives is getting out of hand, and our press seems to create it just as much as they report on it. If the news doesn't terrify me then it infuriates me. What to do? Start a new colony somewhere? Guess I'll have to think on that one. Hmmmmm...

I deserve Mother's Day

Today was a zoo adventure with the kids and even though I am still pink and painful from my gardening/sunscreen fiasco on Monday, we had a good time. Everyone is sacked out now in exhaustion. Yeah Zoo! I have also discovered there is a RHINO ENCOUNTER at our zoo where you can actually touch them. DS will be elated. He's wanted to ride one since he first saw them four years ago. I definitely deserve Mother's Day for this one!!! DD enjoyed the beavers this time. They were easy for her to see in the kids cover and it was so cute when she said "I dunno" with disbelief when I asked her where the beaver went when it dove under the water. Our year membership is worth it's weight in gold baby!

I have also been compiling for the scrapbooking blitz this month and I am getting really excited. The colors are beautiful and I haven't found a layout I don't love yet. So there is the slight possibility I might actually catch up on all my scrapbooking this month. Granted the chance is slight but I choose to dare to dream! DH bought a new camera this week, so I expect a new influx of photos asap. Realistically my chance to catch up is probably now or never.

I have decided to commit to pre-making 12 scrapbooking pages at least every other month in prep for all the photos we constantly take of the kids. Surely being able to pop them in a page at anytime will help me get organized finally. Right?

Bottoms Up!!

After an evening of “who’s got the Benadryl?” you would think I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up this morning to find a bare pink bottom staring me in the face. (You’d think, but then you’d be wrong.) I wouldn’t even venture a guess as to what kind of diaper malfunction occurred in the wee (no pun intended) hours of the morning, but I am pretty tired of wrestling my washer this week while it spin cycles our sheets and mattress cover. But oh thank heavens for the mattress cover!

The last three weeks we have been limping along as a family trying to stay well, but just as soon as one of us perks up another takes a nose dive. If this is the outlook for Spring, I am ready for Summer! Yesterday was one LONG day of multiple doctor visits for me and the kids (and poor generous Bx2) but I have hope that the future will include full nights of sleep any day now. DH and I have been limping along with roughly 4 hours of sleep a night for well over three weeks now and I can see the impact. I am cranky. He is cranky. We just want to fall into bed and crash but every time we try, at least one child wakes up wailing. What we wouldn’t give for everyone to get a good night’s sleep.

So while we have been limping along at home, I have tried to stay organized even though my efforts seem to be driven thru a hazy fog. It is fortunate I am not asked to operate heavy machinery too often. The car alone is plenty enough for me to maneuver these days while loading the diaper bag seems almost a bit too complex some days! Right now I am obsessed with conquering the multiple calendars I keep updated around the house. Not that I expect this to truly solve anything, but in my haze it seems like a good place to start.

I will say the High Impact class appeared to go over well this past weekend. Everyone seemed to learn something new and enjoyed making new projects. It even served to reignite my excitement about May being National Scrapbooking Month. Convenient that the first Scrapbooking Blitz is planned for this month. This blitz is very exciting to me personally, as I am in just as much need of a catch-up day as anyone else. The beautiful papers have me particularly excited. So much that I’ve almost had a hard time planning the layouts for fear of missing an opportunity to use them all equally. The double sided nature can help and/or hurt with this dilemma depending on my mood (which changes more often than the wind these days).

Well I’m off to wrestle the dryer now and get more coffee. Thank goodness for coffee. It is the only thing that gets me out of bed some days!!