A Blog Giveaway!

Hello & Happy Monday.

I ran across this new blog (well, new to me!) by Moralia, and she is having a crafty giveaway! You can enter by simply visting her blog here: Blog Candy Giveaway and leaving a comment (Scroll all the way down). To get an extra entry, you can post a link on your own blog, like I have. :)

These are the goodies you **could** win:

Just think of all the fun things you could make!

Good Luck!

We are off to a play date with some friends we never see anymore due to conflicting school schedules. Yeah for President's Day! :)

Bye for now~
Linda

Bryon ~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is my brother Bryon's birthday!!

Here is the man of the day:

Name: Bryon J. B_________

Birthday: Feb. 15th 196_

Factoids: Father of 4, Olympia WA Firefighter and my big brother!

We all hope you have a super happy day!

Love,

Linda & Fam

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello!
This is just a quick little hi to wish you all the best Valentine's Day ever.

Here is Ella saying hello - and she's wearing her new Valentine's bib from this cute little shop:

Little Bit Funky.

Here is Alex sending his wishes:

And one more of Ella:

Sending lots of Love your way~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:) Linda

A Much Needed Break.............Saturday Night Fever BABY!!

After a couple of rough days with the kids........I thought I'd post something fun! I just saw this on another blog tonight, and thought it was perfect. It has always been my favorite scene from Saturday Night Fever.

Make it *full screen* for maximum disco enjoyment!

**EDITED: Apparently you can't make it full screen on the blog.**

Cheers~
Linda

Motherhood............Ugh!

This sounds like such a fun and uplifting post - doesn't is? Lately I am feeling the "one step forward, two steps back" motto was made for me. So..................this may be a little "rant-esque", and I apologize in advance. I'm hoping I'm not the only one - I doubt it, but sometimes I feel like I am the "out of control" Mom. Where do I begin? My kids are having sleeping issues, well, mainly Alex, who is almost 3. His new "thing" is to sneak around at night time. Last night it was TWO HOURS from the time I put him to bed, until the time he actually fell asleep. In that time he had taken his pajamas off several times, went p@@P (in his pull up), spilled water in his room, played in Malia's room (and made a huge mess - she was asleep), snuck downstairs about 4 times, then......the final straw was when at almost 10pm I heard a funny vibrating noise coming from upstairs. I tore upstairs and could not find him anywhere.................and finally found him in the master bathroom, on a little stool, with shaving cream smeared ALL over his hair, on his chin and Rourke's razor laying on the counter covered in shaving cream and some HAIR! If I wasn't so mad at that point I would have taken a picture - because it was actually funny. (The vibrating sound was a pair of massage slippers that he had turned on and hid under all my clothes in the closet. Thankfully he turned those on, otherwise he would have been up there in silence - probably bald and bleeding. Ugh).



Then......this morning I wake up to my #1 daughter at my bedside telling me she went potty. Half alseep, I thought, "great, but you don't need to tell me".......then I realized she meant IN THE BED. (and all over the bathroom floor). Ugh again. This is very rare ---------------- but I was still irritated. I tried not to show it...........but couldn't help it when I saw that she used the brand new Pottery Barn birdie towel to clean herself up!! A splurge that doesn't usually happen these days..........Pottery Barn shopping. It's not like we don't have 10 other towels in the cupboard that are old or from Target or NOT POTTERY BARN! :)

These 2 events in an 9 hour span have made my patience a little thin. I feel like our house is never **really** clean. Too many toys, kids outgrowing clothes right and left, "artwork" and papers from Pre-K (how long do I have to keep things???? ---I do have a box for the "keepers" - but everything else???), laundry, blankets, cups, food spills, CALGON take me away.

Okay, I sound like a total loon. I'm really not, just needing to vent. And I am getting so tired of "stuff". I really need to purge. That's something I have a very hard time with. I need a 12 step program for that.



Well, I need to go. Today is our snack day and before school a tumbling class for Malia.

Have a great day. Thanks for listening to me complain. ;)


~Linda



p.s. I thought I'd leave you with 2 photos. The first one is Alex from a week or so ago.......he had put on mascara. His shirt isn't dirty.......that's my face powder that is spilled all over.



The second picture is just Sweet Baby Ella..............loving her bath in the kitchen sink! Happy times. :)

Feeling Posh.............Well, I Mean

CRAFTY!

Here are a few cards & tags I have been working on for the good ol' ETSY SHOP .

Time is what you might call "limited" these days, but I figure a little bit here & there is better than not at all...right?? Alex is hit & miss on naps these days AND he is having a really hard time GETTING to sleep at night (sneaking out of his bed, playing in Malia's room, sneaking downstairs into the computer room, etc. ) Some nights it's almost 2 hours later, and he's still awake. Sometimes I don't even know he is lurking around, then he scares the p@@p out of me when he pops up. I could go on. But I won't.

Well, I'm off to start dinner and get some paper goodies in the POSH PAISLEY Shop.

Have a good night.

~Linda

A "Perfect Day" --- Scrapbooking Anyone?

Hello!

Hope all is well in your world. This weekend we had a Close to My Heart meeting and it was my turn to be "project leader"....so I decided to do a little 6x6 scrapbook layout. I don't usually scrapbook this size (heck, I haven't had much time to scrapbook at all lately....but that's a whole different story). It's such a cute little size that I think I might have to do a little more of it here and there. It would be fun to make one for each of the kids to highlight special events, holidays, birthdays etc.

Here is a close up of the left side:

I used the "Perfect Day" paper kit, some twill ribbon, and a couple of rub ons.

And the right side: (a little more simple-no sewing around the edge)

And if you haven't seen the new catalog, and want to - just let me know. Here is a sneak peek:

Have a great day. I'm off to get snacks ready for preschool. Fun stuff.

Bye for now.
~Linda

A Quick Hello from Ella

This is just a quick & simple "HELLO" from little Ella. She is excited to tell you that she is now 7 months old (as of Monday 1/19)! How time flies. She likes to sit up and play, give kisses and pat her Mommy.....okay, and other people too. :)

She hopes you are having a wonderful day!

XO

Happy Belated Birthday to My SISTER!!!

Okay, so this is REALLY late. I have been super behind on everything lately......blogging is one of those things.


Monday was my sister Kathy''s birthday. We went out to lunch with our mom to PANERA. It was my first time there (I don't get out much these days!), and it was really good. We all ended up having the potato soup - I had mine in a bread bowl. Yum!



So - here is my special post for my sister!! (I don't think she really reads our blog......but I feel bad anyway)..




Name: Kathy


Relationship: My one & only SISTER!


Factoids: OSU Beaver Believer & she loves Heath Blizzards from DQ








Hope it was SPECTACULAR! :)





Love -


Linda

Finally.....Some ETSY Love!

Hello! How is everyone? We have all been a little sick this past week, but are now feeling better. I had a rough day the other day......you know you're sick when **any** sound makes your head throb a little harder and **any** sight of food, real life, on a commercial, etc. makes you gag. Ugh. Getting the mail was a chore.........not to mention trying to take care of 3 kids. Thank God that day is over! It makes you really appreciate your good health ! :)

Now that Christmas is over (well, almost......we are doing another "make up" Christmas today with 1/2 of the in-laws)........I have been working on some Valentine treats for my ETSY SHOP! I love hearts, polka dots, red & pink........so I am hoping to get lots of things made and out of my system before it's too late.

Have a great Saturday. I've got to run. Last minute clean up and stuff to do before our guests arrive.

~Linda

Goodbye 2008

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope 2009 has started off well for you. :) It's been very low key for us so far. Before we get too far into the new year, I figured I should share a few pictures from December. The month flew by, and I posted so little. I have TONS of pictures though. I had a great plan of completing a "December Daily Album" like this:

but haven't finished it yet. I am still planning on it......I guess it's okay to still be working on it (okay, it's barely started to be honest!!). I'm determined to get it done because I think they are so cute & fun! No rules. Anything goes. (These are not my pictures.) You can find more info here: December Daily Album

December started off with getting our tree at a new Christmas tree farm. We liked it.....but it didn't have the horses & hay ride. I was fine with that this year. Maybe next year when Ella is a little bigger.

I was so happy it was not raining...and the ground wasn't too muddy!

We went to Zoolights in the freezing weather and waited forEVER to ride the train. It was fun, but next time I think we'll skip the train. Malia missed the last week of school before Christmas break due to snow...which was followed by tons more snow.

Even the trains are covered in lights.

I loved this little hot chocolate stand that was covered in lights.

Here is Ella enjoying her first snowfall:

My birthday came and we were pretty much snowed in. My sister, her family & my mom made it over with their new studded snow tires and we had a spur of the moment birthday get together.......which was so nice after being cooped up for so long.

Our house in the snow:

We had some Santa gift drama with the snow and bad weather...which delayed one gift in particular....Biscuit the dog. After much stress and looking, Good ol' Santa did come through. Thank goodness...........it was all she wanted for Christmas! (Se Christmas morning pictures below!)

Christmas Eve came, we made special cookies for Santa. More snow. We had to postpone our get together with Rourke's Mom who couldn't get over the mountains from the coast due to snow. We DID (barely) make it to my sister's for Christmas day. It was an adventure....which was follwed later in the day by the excitement of her Christmas tree falling over while we were opening gifts. No one was hurt -- but she did lose some of her favorite ornaments in the crash. :(

Malia with Biscuit.

Christmas Morning

My Sister, with 2 of her kids, Kelli & Ryan.......and THE TREE in the background. This is not long before it crashed!

I hope everyone had a wonderful December! Here's to a happy & healthy 2009!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

:) Linda

Something Crafty...Teacher's Gifts!

So, if you are in the NW, you are enjoying lots of snow!! (Or maybe not enjoying it....I guess it depends). This past week should have been the last week before the Christmas break, but due to "Arcitc Blast 2008" (that's what the news has named it), school was canceled all week! There were a couple of days that ended up not being bad, but they made the call early. Yesterday we got TONS of snow.....and now it **really** is "Arctic Blast 2008"!




I thought I'd share part of the gifts we were going to give to Malia's preschool teachers. We still will.............but now in January. These are tins filled with wrapped Hershey Nuggets.









Hope you are having a great day!


Are you ready for Christmas????


~Linda

Jingle Bells. Pre-K Style

Merry Christmas to you all. Enjoy the clip. Sorry it's short and cut off. My camera was almost full, so I didn't have a lot of time on it for the rest of the song. :(

Where Oh Where Did My Sweet Boy Go?

So............. last Thursday my sweet little Alex completely turned on me! Of course it was the day of Rourke's last final exam, so it was a long "Mom" day anyway, but then this started off the morning:














(Notice he even got the neck)































And his forehead (it's green, harder to see, but there. trust me).


Followed by this in the afternoon:


















Grandma Jan was over, and we both thought Alex had gone upstairs. Nope! Apparently on his way upstairs he ran across Jan's purse. Add to that the fact that he had to p@@p - we found him hiding in the computer room pooping (in his pull up -NOT ON THE FLOOR! :O) ) and rummaging through the purse. Money, credit cards, etc all over the floor and some lovely lipstick all over his face. And not to mention the lovely smell......sorry if TMI.



BUSTED!!!



















AND....it didn't end there. After dinner, while I was getting Ella bundled up so we could drive around and look at Christmas lights, (did I mention this was a very, very long MOM day??)......Alex had gotten into MY lipstick upstairs and again, had it on his face, my wall mirror, the step stool, inside the closet on the wall.............ACK!!! Needless to say I was not happy.........but, being the still-sweet boy he is, he was trying to clean it up and had a washcloth that was covered in lipstick in his hands when I caught him. (I must add that it was one of my 2 new lipsticks, which is now broken off......which makes 2 of my 2 new lipsticks that are broken off........wonder why those new ones were so appealing?? Why not the old, "that's not my color" ones???)

I didn't get pictures of the last incident.......I had pretty much had it by then, and it wasn't quite as "cute" as before.

So..............apparently he was feeling crafty and maybe Santa should bring a paint set this year?

Hope **you** had a great day!

;) Linda

The Christmas Card Photo......Anyone Else??

Okay, does anyone else have this ordeal every Christmas, or is it just me?? I'm sure it's not just me......trying to get a good Christmas card picture is sooooooooo hard. Now with 3 kids, it seems 3 times harder than last year. And why is it when you try set up the picture (holiday outfits, hair done, etc) they never work! But when you are just playing around, (kids in bed with HALLOWEEN pajamas on -in December -for example), you get a great picture!!?!?!? ACK! Anyway, I thought I'd share some outtakes with you:

I finally figured something out for the cards this year.....Whew! I can check this off the to do list for another year.

Hope you are enjoying the season. I'm hoping we get a little snow in the next couple of days. Cross your fingers. :)
TTFN~
Linda

Bellas.......Aren't They Cute?

This is just a random post to share these super cute "Bella" stamps that I have finally gotten the chance to play with. Aren't they cute? I will turn these into cards or something fun, but for now they have just been colored on some chunks of white cardstock. I need better marker colors, (I would love some COPIC markers, but they are super expensive). Not sure if you can tell, but these have been partially colored with some shimmery pens. So fun.

(I can't decide if the girl on the right's skin looks like a funny color?? what do you think?)

Well, hope you are enjoying your holiday season. I am, but am feeling like I'm going to be behind schedule soon. That always happens to me....feeling good, then BOOM, Christmas is right around the corner. I have been trying to get a good "Christmas Card" picture of the 3 kids......a nearly impossible feat. One is always doing something kooky. Oh well.

Have a great day!

~Linda