Phew!

We are in Los Angeles! We arrived yesterday, after a looong flight. A flight not entirely without incidents. At our hotel (in Philly) yesterday morning, my middlest thought it would be the best to be spun around in the office chair after he had consumed a strawberry frappuccino. His brothers spun him around and around, and he giggled and giggled. Then he got off, and mentioned that he wasn't feeling too good. Uh, no surprise there, buddy! (See where I'm going with this story?) We catch a cab to the airport, and as soon as we get there (a 20 minute ride), middlest tumbles out of the car, and wants me to rush him to a bathroom because he's about to barf. We barely enter the terminal, when he turns to me, and throws up. All over me. Then he just keeps going. I drag him to a trash can but he's chosen to barf all over the floor and himself instead. Some people come over to offer paper towels and a seltzer. Thank you City of Brotherly Love! I was just thankful this happened before we checked in our luggage. So I pulled out some clean clothing for him and for me, dragged him to the bathroom, told him to wash his hands, face, hair, anything that was covered in yuckyness. Then I tried to clean myself up as good as possible. But for the rest of the flight, my hair smelled barfy.  The only saving grace for me was sitting in first class by myself while Bryan hung out with the kids in the back.

Yes, he's an awesome husband! Yes, middlest barfed again. Yes, first class can be very relaxing, especially in a 6 hour flight.

But all is well that ends well. We had some In-N-Out (by then that barfy kid was no longer barfy, of course!) drove to our new house, which is not as terrible as I feared (hubby rented the house, I have never seen it until last night). The kids love the house, the yard, the street.

Our plans for the rest of the week include exploring our new surroundings and relaxing. We'll go see movies, buy some warm weather clothing, and eat out. Maybe meet some neighbors, drive the kids past their new school, hit the beach. We might go hiking, and meet up some scrappy friends.

I don't have any photos to share yet, and I'll make sure to post some this weekend.

I'll leave you with a layout that I haven't shared here. I created this one for Lily Bee's CHA booth. I love this layout. Not only does it have tiny photos (which is my favorite thing to scrap with right now), but it also features photos of food! I don't know if you've noticed (har har), but I love food. I love buying, prepping, cooking, and eating food. And I love the This & That line of papers. The colors and patterns are fab, and it's a really easy to use line. This layout uses my favorite go to scrappy design, the grid. And this week's Lily Bee challenge is to scrap using a grid!

Alrighty. Off to get our new adventure started. We are happy, excited, and scared. But a little scared is good! It makes me feel alive. I'll report back later this week with some photos.

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Ohmigosh

I'm so stressed out. But it's all my own doing. I've known about my move since, uh, last November. And did I start de-cluttering then? Or a month ago? Or last week? Or today? Uh, yeah. I've said it before, I'll admit to it, I'm a major procrastinator! I deal with big stresses by taking naps. But I don't think that's an option this time.

So you won't be seeing much posting from me the next week or two. More like two. We move next week, and then we'll have to hole up in a hotel for a week or so until our furniture shows up. Not conducive to anything that takes effort. But my children tell me that it would be good for going to the beach and Legoland. Since next week is their Spring Break, I'm going to agree with their wise assessment and do their bidding.

However, I thought I'd share a layout before my crazy cross-country trip. This is quite appropriate because it's about the food my husband and I ate when we drove from here to Los Angeles back in February. Usually we eat a lot of McD's and junk like that. But this time, we made a point of doing a little interwebbing before hitting each city, and finding a good local place to nosh at. We also got lucky, and drove past places we love, like Taco Cabana (brings back sweet memories of college) and Rudy's (love me some Texas bbq).

A few things about this layout. One, the road-esque washi tape is actually plain tape stamped with a journaling stamp. The title made up of tags ("YUM") is actually punched out of an October Afternoon paper. And the B&W paper at the bottom is my favorite Lily Bee from this season's release (Teacup from the This & That line).

OK. I reeeeally need to go pack. No more naps! I'll do that at the beach next week. It better not be raining in LA when I get there.

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This is exciting stuff!

I must confess that I fell for, at least, three pranks yesterday. I'm a sad fool.

My news aren't as exciting as Lisa's, but then what is? (Do I have to mention that I fell for that one too? I know, I know, a fool!)

Exciting news #1:

Exciting news #2:
We have sold our house. I'm so glad to have that big stress off our shoulders. I'm planning to not clean it at all until our moving date. Now that is exciting news.

Exciting news #3:
Going to see Keisha and Cindy later today. Pizza and cupcakes are in our future. Nothing like carbloading with my girlfriends. I'll have photos to share, don't worry.

That's probably enough excitement for me for one weekend. I'm off to eat some carbs. You know, gotta train for later today.

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And there goes another week!

I can't believe that two weeks into it, my kids are still feeling draggy due to Daylight Saving! Can someone stop the madness? Please?

My life has been the usual excitement! Laundry, vacuuming, cooking, Pinteresting, procrastinating about the basement, trying to figure out 7th grade Math, Angry Birding (the Rio version.) Good stuff.

I did go out to lunch with some of my local friends. We went to this amazing little restaurant that we all love. Ordered our food, and started yapping. We haven't seen each other for a while, but we've known each other for almost 9 years. Halfway through the meal, we notice the restaurant is filling up with smoke. Then the manager shows up to apologize that they have no electricity. OK, I can eat with just the sun shining through the windows, but why is the restaurant smoky? My guess is that their exhaust fans were down, and they just kept on cooking with their wood burning grill. We try to keep on chatting and noshing. Pretty soon, we are chatting, noshing, and coughing. Add some eye rubbing. It was nuts! But we stuck to it because it was my goodbye lunch. I left smelling like I had worked all day in a smokehouse. Later when I picked up the kids, my middlest hugged me and said I smelled like bacon. Which I guess is not a bad thing altogether. As long as there aren't any lions around. I hear they like bacon.

And of course, I can't possibly sign off without a photo or a layout. How about both? I know! You get so much for your money here. Yes, I do know how to please a crowd. You are welcome! Have a good weekend!

Pre-smoked. Love those girls (and should probably tell them I posted their photo online. Oops. You don't want to be my friend. This could happen to you.) BTW, do you see those super cool dog profiles cut out of canvas on the upper left? I think I'm going to make something like that. Minus the dogs. You've been forewarned.

I love this layout about the walks the littlest and I used to take before he started going to school daily. Sigh. I miss that. As seen in the March/April 2011 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

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Incredibly Random Monday

Happy Valentine's Day!

I finally uploaded all the photos from my cell phone and from my (terrible) point-and-shoot. Phew. I usually do it everyday (if I took photos that day), but lately I've been slacking off. But I did find some great photos I had forgotten about. So bear with me for I'm sharing some of my faves with you. (Beware people pictured here in this post, I did NOT photoshop anything due to acute laziness. But y'all look really cute, so it's all good!)

Here we go.

My oldest at his monthly ballroom dancing and manners class. Here, he's doing a cha cha. The boys have to wear suit and tie. The cutest thing ever.

CK peoples. First day of CHA. Can you tell by how well-rested and non-wrinkled we are?

With Wendy Smedley at her book signing. She's got a great new book for beginner scrapbookers. Wendy signed mine: "From your #1 fan!" Go me!

My normally crappy camera took this very cool photo. But I'm going to credit my mad photog skillz instead. Because see what happened when Suzy tried to do the same thing, below. (Suzy Plantamura and Kim Watson.)

Yea, it was totally my amazing talent as a photographer, and not a freak accident. Yup. (Laura Vegas and me.)

A recipe I have to share because it was so ridiculously easy and yummy, and everyone loved it.

And one layout. Because this is supposed to be a scrapbooking blog. Ha!

For the Lily Bee blog, featuring that awesome new line Stationery. And because you are going to ask, that border punch is from Martha Stewart Crafts. That Martha, good recipes AND good punches.

Thanks for hanging out, and indulging me on this very random Monday. Now, I await for the moving company to come and give us an estimate. You know the kind of day I'm going to have, in which I wait anywhere between 9AM and 5PM. And if I happen to go pick up my child for 15 minutes, they will show up then and blame me for not waiting around. You know what I'm talking about. Uh-huh.

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Bring It On, Halloween!

This was my day.

Parade #1 for Preschool Monkey.

 Followed by cafe au soy break with the Mr.

Followed by parade #2 for Charlie Brown Ghost (Preschool Monkey called it a Swiss Cheese Ghost.)

And now I'm home hanging out with the Preschool Monkey again.

Not a bad way to end the week. Have a great weekend and Happy Halloween. (We are hoping for a visit from the Great Pumpkin!)

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Talking About Food

Something I like a lot: food. I'm writing about quiche today at the Mosh Posh blog.

This quiche in particular. Broccoli, peas, and pesto. Yum.

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Weekend in Photos: The Hair Edition

My parents were here. Visiting from afar. We did stuff. But what really defined this weekend was this:

See that missing chunk of hair in front? Just to refresh your memories, this is what his hair used to look like:

I tried to save his cute little cut,  but alas it needed professional help. And now we have this:

There he is. Looking angelic, smiling at Nai-Nai, like nothing happened. Personally, I think he still looks pretty darn cute. But not quite like a little boy anymore. He's happy because he thinks he looks like Matt Bellamy. Is that a good thing?

ps: there is still time to enter and win Creating Keepsakes' 101+ Creative Ways To Use Your Scrapbook Supplies (phew,  that is a long title!). Go here.

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Weekend in Photos

I usually can't remember to bring a camera with me everywhere (I know, huh, so much for being a scrapbooker...) So I decided to shoot this weekend in photos with my iPhone, using ShakeItPhoto. Love that app.

What did we do. Not much. We spent part of Saturday at one of our local farmers' market. Actually we chose that one on purpose. Because, you see, Renaissance Sausage Truck was going to be there. Pretty great chow. Then we walked around, looked at all the great Fall-ish goods, and bought some pies. There was also trip to the library, resulting in me trying to read outside, but damn, it was (is) wet. And crazy leafy, not because it's Fall (too early for leaf peeping around here), but because it's been crazy windy and stormy. There was also Mexican food, Trader Joe's, some scrapbooking, organizing my stamp stash, and lots of napping.

Not the most productive weekend, but pretty good overall. And that is what counts, right?

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Weekend in Review

And another weekend went by. Fast. But this time, I actually have something to show for. I spent half of  Saturday wrapping mandus (Korean dumplings) and wontons to be squirreled away. Love having food in the freezer for those nights I can't face going out again, but can't quite muster enough energy to create a whole meal.

I also finished my Mosh Posh projects which I'll post tomorrow (see them here right now). Got the gerbil cage cleaned (well, I got the kids to do it. But surely I can claim that as an accomplishment in itself.) And found a clarinet for my middlest.

Today is the oldest's birthday. TWELVE! Holy cripes, when did I get old enough to be the mom of a twelve year old? One more year, I'll have a teen in my hands (more like slipping through my hands?) Meanwhile, I'll enjoy his still-sweet personality. His choice for dinner? Cracker Barrel! Apparently, I haven't taught this kid well.

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