Happy Halloween!!

1. The Great Halloween Parrot, 2. Happy Halloween 2007, 3. Happy Halloween! ... porque haberlas, haylas ..., 4. Halloween, 5. oooOooOoo...Happy Halloween!, 6. Halloween 2005, 7. Dining room mantel Halloween style., 8. Happy Halloween!, 9. Happy Halloween '07, 10. Happy Halloween!, 11. Halloween magic is in the air....., 12. halloween bokeh, 13. Fairy Tale Creatures : Kawasaki-Halloween 2006, 14. Happy Halloween!!, 15. shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen...voices whisper in the trees, "Tonight is Halloween!", 16. Have yourself a spookylicious Halloween, 17. Happy Halloween!, 18. Halloween Witch (detail), 19. this is halloween!!, 20. Happy Halloween!!

I didn't have any Halloween pictures of my own to share so I did a mosaic instead. Found some great stuff on Flickr. I know I say this every time I do one of these but I LOVE Flickr!

Owen still hasn't decided on a costume! I wrestled him into his Elmo costume yesterday but he wiggled out quickly saying "no mama!". So he may just go as a toddler! I may use Maggie's stand by costume too. A shirt with a red, yellow and green spot on it for a stop light! She's so clever!

We also haven't carved O's pumpkin yet. Maybe he and I will do that today.

CKC was fun. It wasn't as big as I had expected or as busy. Not being busy was nice. Not so many people to deal with. That's my least favorite thing about those events. All the crazy scrappers! I got some Rusty Pickle papers and rub-ons. All 50% off. Some Scenic Route arrows for 20% off. I love those arrows. And a couple of SEI albums for $5 each. There was this cool new book binding system called the Unibind that I would like to have gotten but I didn't want to part with the money.

Tomorrow I'm scrapping again. A friend of Lisa's is a CM consultant and she's hosting a 9am-12am Photopalooza! Morgan said to me last night, "I think you should go for the whole time and get it out of your system. See if you can make it the whole 15 hours!" I guess I've been scrapping a lot lately!

I printed some pictures for tomorrow. I've got 21 pictures to put on 2 layouts. Rather ambitious for me. BJ has gotten good at getting a ton of pictures on a layout so I'm going to give it a go. One layout is from our visit to the apple orchard and the other is of Owen's baking adventures. Then I've got a bunch of other layouts and projects to work on. Should be fun.

I'm being told it's time to be done by Owen! He's getting kind of pushy lately! Hope everyone has a great Friday and a Happy Halloween!

Saturday...

Off to CKC this morning with my friend Lisa!! Scrapbook shopping without Owen! What could be better! Especially since he's in rare form this morning. I told Morgan last night that if I don't come home today I'll be at my mom's but not to tell O. He's all about right now and Owen do it, which gets to be a little trying day after day.

Hope your weekend is a good one.

7 facts...

Janet tagged me for this challenge.

RULES:

• Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
• Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
• Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

(You can be my facts can be random and or weird!)

1. I love to learn. And the scope of what I like to learn about is vast. I love to take things apart and figure things out. I'm mostly a hands-on and visual learner. My favorite segments of Mr. Rogers was always the part where he went to see how something was made. I still love that.
2. I like my bed made. Neat and tight. And it has to be made before I go to bed. Which irritates Morgan because sometimes I don't get around to making it until it's time to go to bed. And then he's already in it. So I shift him around and cover him up until I get the covers just right. We have one set of sheets that is my favorite too. I'll use the other sets but a lot of the time I'll just strip the bed, was that set, and put them back on. They are just super soft.
   
3. I don't like messiness. People told me this would ease after I had children. For me it has gotten worse because I stay home and I notice it more. So I spend more time thinking about it and wandering from room to room tidying things up. Our house it by no means immaculate but I would like it to be!
4. I love chocolate. Candy, cake, ice cream. Milk chocolate, a little dark chocolate. Hot chocolate, chocolate milk. Chocolate covered donuts. If it's chocolate, I'll probably eat it.
5. I also love potatoes. I've not had a potato made in a way that I don't like. Baked, mashed, fried, augratin, hash browns, twice baked. I love potatoes.
   
6. Before my digital camera I wasn't too interested in taking pictures. I wanted to learn but I figured it was too much work, too expensive, and too difficult for me to do. Then my mom gave us a digital camera for Christmas three years ago and I was off!
   
7. I love art and crafts and doing all kinds of crafty things but art was my least favorite thing to teach when I was a classroom teacher. It was difficult and messy and I didn't like the hassle. I'm learning to overcome this with Owen. I want him to try all kinds of creative things. So we paint and color and bake. And I do it in a way that I can handle but that is still enjoyable for both of us. Morgan cooks and bakes with Owen too and his style is far different from mine (Tazmanian Devil of the Kitchen) so Owen is exposed to more than one method!

Okay, 7 people to tag, Noelia, Lynn, Lily, my Sister, Alli, Emily and I can't think of anyone else at the moment that hasn't been tagged so if you want to participate please do!

More layouts to share...

Here are the last of the layouts I've finished up this week. The butterfly one has been sitting on my table for 2 months. It was waiting for the labels and the stitching on the top. I never did figure out what the black and white one is on the second page, top middle.

I'm really happy with how this one turned out. I did the journaling on clear sticker paper and then adhered it to the layout. I didn't want any more paper to distract from the photos.

This is my least favorite layout that I've done recently. I love the paper and the pictures but I just don't like how the layout came together. It's very disjointed to me. But I've decided to let it go. I can't love all the layouts I do. Sometimes I'm just off.

I took this picture the other day. Owen is actually dressed! Those are his jammies though. Which means he didn't get dressed until later in the day. I wanted a picture of the disaster he had made in the living room. He decided it would be fun to get out all the toys! And when I tried to start picking them up he wanted to play with whatever I wanted to put away. Eventually I talked him into helping me though. He wanted to play something else so I told him we need to clean up all the other stuff first.
Today (Wednesday) was a long day. It was raining and wet most of the day so we couldn't play outside. Owen was rather disagreeable and wanted to throw things and hit me today. This never works out for either of us.

Oh, and speaking of getting hit. Knocked down in this case. Owen likes to give tackle hugs. Which is fine, when you know they are coming. Here is a little video of Owen and his tackle hug.

Meet squishy bear...

Squishy bear came home with Morgan one day. He was in the pocket of an ape that is an award in Morgan's Toast Masters club. The ape was passed on to the next person but squishy bear stayed here with us. Owen was attached. He named him squishy bear. Or fwishy bear, when Owen says it. Squishy bear likes to go places and see things and have his picture taken. This was him on the ladder at the apple orchard this weekend. You can see more pictures of squishy bear in his Adventures of Squishy Bear album on Facebook.

Layouts to share...

Friday night I spent the evening and night scrapping with BJ. I actually got quite a bit done in the 7 hours we were there! I always have bits to finish up at home but I don't mind that. Here are the completed (except for one) layouts.

This picture doesn't do the layout justice. The pattern paper is very pretty and shimmery. And the colors are better in person! There are also green stickles on some of the leaves on the tree.

A layout of Owen's first Halloween. I love these pictures.

This is the layout that isn't done. I have journaling that goes with it but I've not decided where to put it yet. The zig zag around the edge is variegated thread.

A layout about the Cozy Coupe. This one needs the date. The stitching at the top is dark blue floss that I did using the new Bazzil stitch guides.

This word needs and apostrophe. So glad I'm married to an English major! The letters have some foil stuff on them.

O's first baseball game.

Our trip to the state fiar this year.

I don't seem to be able to take real good pictures of my larger layouts. I wish I could scan them but it's difficult to scan and stitch and get them to look right. I've not been using a lot of embellishments on my layouts lately. I think some of them are busy enough with the paper and pictures. And I think I'm okay with that. I'm also a keep it simple and clean sort of scrapper so it shouldn't be a surprise to me that I'm not cluttering my pages up with stuff! I'm just not good at making that look nice.

What day is it!????

Oh yeah, Thursday. I thought yesterday was Thursday because I worked last night rather than working tonight.

This morning Owen and I went to the Maple Maze. It's this indoor playground thing for kids. What a zoo! Me, Owen and a crap ton of other kids running around like animals. Fun stuff! Have I ever mentioned how much I don't care for other people kids out in public?? Owen was not a fan of the big maze thing so I was trying to get him out as quickly as possible down this tube that is for climbing. Not a slide. Which I was reminded by a 5 year old. Yes, thank you, I know it's not a slide. Please go back down. Now! And then another child who belonged to someone else came up! So I told him to please go back down. To which he replied "I was coming up first". I wanted to respond LIKE HELL! GET OUT DAMN IT! But I calmly responded to him with my same request. Seriously, where do these children learn to talk to adults like this?! I'm all for kids having a voice but I'm totally for kids doing what they are told by an adult if the request is not harmful to them in any way! After I extracted Owen from the big kids part we stayed in the 3 and under part except for the running around and exploring the rest of the community center. I survived about an hour and a half of this. Then I told Owen we could go look at the pool for a bit longer and then have lunch. He wanted more breakfast. I told him he could call it whatever he wanted it was just a matter or timing anyway. We went to Noodles and shared Pesto Cavatappi with chicken and a cookie.

Did I mention it's MEA weekend (Minnesota Education Association conference. Or now called Education Minnesota. (what's the diff????) Not a kid in the state is in school today or tomorrow!) EVERYONE was at the Maze and Noodles!

Anyway, I've decided today is the day to get out the electric blanket. I'm freakin cold! Morgan will be thrilled with this! His super hero name would be Mr. Radiant Heat. I'm going to put the electric blanket between the down comforter and the regular blanket both already on our bed. Then I will hide the control under my side of the bed and hopefully he won't notice for a few days. If I'm really sneaky it could go undetected for a whole week! But inevitably I will get greedy for warmth and turn it up too high and he will notice. He thinks I try to cook him in the winter with the blanket! He still hasn't realized that without him I'd have to actually get a job and work! He's worth so much more to me alive!

Oh what a day...

This weekend I picked up fabric to make Owen some pajamas. Bottoms actually. He can wear t-shirts for tops. I thought it would be cheaper than buying several new sets of jammies but in the end I think it will be a wash. I've got two pair done so far though! It takes me about 45 minutes from start to finish to do a pair of pants.

He tried one pair on this morning so I could check the elastic length. He refused to try the second pair on. I attribute this to his pants aversion rather than the pants themselves. Good thing they are just for sleeping in!

Last night I picked up some finger paints for Owen. He loves to watercolor paint so I thought he would enjoy some finger paints. He tends to stick his fingers in the watercolors anyway. We tried them out after lunch. I showed him how to do it and told him they were not for eating. I guess I didn't explain they weren't body paints either!

Now he's in the tub. With a big cup. Which I usually regret. I told him he could have it as long as he kept the water in the tub, and that mommy did not want any water on the floor. It's not even 1pm yet. What is the rest of the day going to bring! Maybe after his bath he will let me put clothes on him. Ha ha ha!

Macro Monday...

On the 2P's photography board I like to participate in the Macro Monday Post. I thought today I would post my shots here too. The daisy is from a bunch I got at Trader Joe's 2 weeks ago! The marigold is from my mom's garden and the little grass is growing in our yard.

It's a rainy day here. Which is funny because this cartoon was in the paper yesterday! Hopefully our house won't look like this by the end of the day!
It's possible though.

I gave in...

Owen's hair was getting a little out of control. Well, maybe more than a little. It was too long in the front so it was in his eyes. It was too long over his ears and it was so long in the back it was getting tangles that he would not let me comb out. So yesterday I gave in and took him for a haircut. I think it turned out nicely. He just looks a little too little boyish and not enough toddlerish!

We also got a new toilet seat yesterday! I measured the old one but we had like 50 to choose from so I hope it fits. I've not brought it in yet to see.

Now I'm going to take a nap. Owen and I had a busy morning and early afternoon with Mimi and Naunee.

6 secrets...

Emily tagged me for a fun little post to share 6 secrets about yourself. This is a difficult task for me considering I have few secrets and the ones I do have I've probably had for so long I have forgotten about them. That short attention span thing! So if these aren't surprising to you, I apologize!

1. When I was younger I was terrified of the dark. I slept with a light on for a very long time. Now I want it as dark as possible when I sleep. The new curtains help a lot. But I have to cover the display on the VCR in our room and Morgan's alarm clock is even a bit distracting!

2. I am a bit of a germaphobe. I'm sure there's another name for it but you get the idea. Whenever I'm in a public restroom or restaurant or some place like that I get a little anxious about the germs that may be lurking around and the dirty people that may not have washed their hands!

3. I decided to be a teacher because I didn't think I could make a living as a dancer and/or an artist even though those were the things I loved to do most. Now that I've been a teacher I'd still like to be an artist. But I'm older, wiser and can't go back to school.

4. I regret quitting the dance team in high school. I danced for one year and I just couldn't do it longer. I was self-conscious and felt like I was the fat girl who didn't fit in. So I didn't do it again the rest of high school even though I loved to dance. It was also very hard for me to perform in front of my peers who I felt were judging me. High school was an awful place!

5. I didn't want to have children. Then when I was 32 I changed my mind. It was the best mind change I have ever had!

6. I can't have fish. I'm afraid I will kill them. Or they will just die because I don't know when they are sick.

Lots of interesting stuff there! Owen's awake now. Hopefully he will be interested in getting dressed today so we can go to the storytime at the library and then to Lowes for a new toilet seat! It's going to be a big day around here!

Just a little post...

Owen and I played outside yesterday. He had a good time throwing leaves and sticks and pushing his bike down the steps. While he's doing his thing I like to snap pictures. This is one that I got. He's roaring.

It's another cool fall day. Partly sunny. Owen wants to "bake more" so we picked up some pumpkin yesterday to make something pumpkiny! Tonight I need to work and go to book club. Hopefully I don't have a ton of work to do!

Yesterday my friend Lisa sent me an invite to join Facebook. So I did. That is really an interesting and amazing website. One more place to spend way too much time!

Also, this is the template I created for my Week in the Life project:
I liked Ali's ideas but I didn't have her templates and didn't want to buy them so I took the idea and made it my own in PSE. Now I just need to edit and print pictures.

Yes I can!

Cook that is. And bake. But I like to bake. Cooking is another story. Today I made dinner. Ranch and onion meat loaf, mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts. I got the ingredients for snickerdoodles ready during lunch and then while Owen was napping I got most of dinner ready to go so after he woke up I could pop it in the oven and steamer. I like having dinner ready when Morgan gets home, I just don't like being the one to get it ready!

If Owen and I are going to bake together I like to have everything measured out and ready to go so all we have to do is dump, pour and mix. He's kind of impatient and wants to "do it" himself so if I'm prepared there is less chance of mishap.

He's always in charge of watching the mixer!I rolled the cookies and he did the cinnamon and sugar.

Here are pictures of dinner.

I always wear rubber gloves when I mix meat loaf. I don't like to touch meat with my bare hands. Especially ground meat. Just a little quirk I have. I also make meat loaf in a muffin pan rather than a loaf pan. So I guess they are meat muffins rather than meat loaf. I can't get it to cook in a timely manner in a regular loaf pan. I guess I make it too dense or something. But I prefer it in the muffin pan anyway. The portions are more controlled that way. Morgan doesn't like the clean up though.

I use a potato ricer when I make mashed potatoes. I steam them first and then put them through the ricer. The skins stay in the ricer and I just pick them out. Most of the time I don't have to use a hand mixer, just add milk, salt and butter and mix. Today I had to use the hand mixer because I let them cool and then reheated before mixing.

Here's the final product.

Owen was playing with Ludwig today. He covered him with his dee-dee. Owen thought this was a great time. He even sat next to Ludwig and gave him some gentle cuddles. Much better than hitting him with the wooden spoon!

Ludwig seemed to enjoy the cuddles too.

I got my Wonder Time magazine in the mail today. Look at that headline! Just what I need to read about! Now if Owen would go to sleep, I could read it! It's 9:37pm and we put him down shortly after 8pm. He keeps calling for me but I'm toughing it out.

Yes, asserting himself...

As Lee mentioned, and described very well, Owen is asserting himself. Well put Lee. I had not thought of it in this way. But it describes Owen pefectly. We've been getting a lot of "Owen do it" lately. I'm fine with Owen doing it. Whatever it is, for the most part. I'd like Owen to GO TO SLEEP! too. He is napping and we only read one book and he only hollered for me once. Which was satisfied by listening to some music. Tomato. Veggies. Which meant the Veggie Tales CD. Not my choice of napping music but whatever floats his napping boat. It must have worked because I haven't heard him in 15 minutes. I also put him down later in hopes that he would be good and tired. We've not been outside because of the rain and he is of course not dressed but he doesn't seem cold so I'm not going to fight it.

What do I do so we all survive this "assertiveness" training!?!

Random thoughts for Tuesday...

Yes, another random post. I don't have any specific things to write about today. Or this week probably. Just a random bunch of thoughts running through my head.

Going sugar free was a bad idea for me. I had terrible headaches every afternoon/evening all of early last week. Then finally on Thursday I decided to have a few cinnamon graham crackers after lunch and then NO HEADACHE! I'm trying a moderation approach instead. Sugar+moderation don't generally work for me but perhaps I need to put forth a little more effort.

Owen has been throwing some major fits lately when he doesn't get his way. Last night he wanted to play downstairs rather than take a bath or get ready for bed. I didn't put him down until 9pm and he didn't fall asleep until 10ish and then woke up again at about 3am. He wanted me to sleep with him but I convinced him to stay in his bed with 2 bears, Elmo and George.

Morgan got a video at the library called Elmo's Magic Cookbook. Owen loves it. He watches it everyday. Sometimes multiple times. We watched a little bit of it last night after tubtime. It was how I convinced him to stop bawling and get out of the tub. He wanted to go to the store with Morgan and then he wanted to stay in the tub with the water running. Since he couldn't do either he ended up throwing a huge crying fit. It just seems to be harder and harder to get him settled down in the evening so he can go to bed. We've started doing some family yoga to wind down together.

Yesterday we spent most of the day at Mimi's. She isn't working this week. I asked Owen if he wanted to go to Mimi's as he was getting ready to unload the baking pans cabinet and he said "Okay, Owen ready." Which is amazing because he's rarely "ready" to go anywhere! He was actually dressed and had on a clean diaper! But I of course was not ready. So by the time I was ready and asked him if he was he said "no". Fortunately it's not hard to convince Owen to go to Mimi's house. We had a good time at Mimi's. Went out for lunch and then a leisurely trip through Wal-Mart for jeans for me, a light bulb for Owen's lamp (which he was obsessed about) and a few other things. My sister found some good jeans for $16 at Wal-Mart. A little stretch but not too much and a good fit for our curvy butts. And since I only spent $16 on them I won't feel bad when they get dirty!

Today is cool and rainy. Just the right kind of day for baking. I've been thinking of making some snickerdoodles and some pumpkin bread or muffins. I love pumpkin anything in the fall. Or anytime of year actually but it seems like I always make it in the fall.

Not much else on our schedule for the day. I've been working on an ABC book for Owen of Animals using a couple cricut cartridges. I also need to add a few touches to the layouts I worked on on Saturday. I didn't think it was possible for me to scrap any slower but I did. I finished up one layout I worked on the previous Saturday and then did one more 12x12 double layout and one single one. In TEN hours! That is some serious slowness! I've got to work on my efficiency!

2 layouts + my weinermobile bedroom...

Here are two of the layouts I worked on last Saturday and then finished up this week. The first is Owen wearing my sunglasses and doing some dancing. The second is a variation of the 28 things blog post I did.

The hedgehog paper is by Sasafrass Lass. I love their new papers. It was a lot of pink so I cut it up to suit this layout.

Here are photos of our bedroom. Affectionately known as the weinermobile room because of the wall color. After we finished painting it occurred to me the colors were almost exactly the same as the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile! The first pictures are with the curtains closed. I should have taken a close up. They are embroidered with small dragon flies that have the orange and gold of the paint colors. They only looked striped because of the light shining through them on the threads of the embroidery.

This is with the windows open and the afternoon light coming in.

I have a trio of cross stitch projects to hang up and we had intended for the ceiling to have crown moulding but that will have to wait until we can afford to fork out the money for oak crown moulding. Our study needs it too so it would be nice to do it all at one time.

Owen is off to Mimi's house for the day. I am off to scrap the day and night away. And Morgan is free to do whatever he wants with the day. Within reason that is! Hopefully the kitchen will survive!