the moments in between

happy happy halloween!!

whew.  the page is done, the card is done, the salsa is made, sam i am and i are clean and dressed...  if we can manage a quick pickup and sweep of the house we'll be in good shape.  but i may end up taking pics of sam in his candy corn onesie instead, if he ever wakes up. ;)

here is the pic i promised earlier.. 

aren't those eyes awesome??

bonus pics of sam at gymboree yesterday.

and a quick recipe for the black bean and corn salsa that i made for the party.  mmmmmmmm.  got this from one of the preschool moms last year:
1 can corn
1 can black beans
1 onion
1 red onion
2-3 tomatoes
a couple of cloves of garlic
lime juice
olive oil
salt

i will share pics of all three in costumes tomorrow. =)

this morning...

..i decided that overbooked is a state of mind.

i got up before the boys -  started a page (it needs sewing & embellishments) & updated my calendar.  they got up, i fed them, got the bigs ready and off to school, then sam and i hit the grocery store for stuff to make salsa for our blocks halloween party tonight. swung through mcd's for a diet coke and i'm ready to take on the rest of the day.  gotta finish the page, make a card, make the salsa, SHOWER (lol), pick up a bit and chase sam a lot. after school we'll have a little downtime before the party, then trick or treating, loot sorting and bedtime.  whew. and then it's on to november!!

i'll be back later w/ some pics matthew took of a house down the street...  he and ben went for a walk before bed last night to see it.  matthew tells me they do this every year, i can't believe i've never seen it...

mia

just a whole lot of everything going on. kid stuff, scrap assignments, trying to clean / organize the house... i'm kinda overbooked. i know, so what's new??  that's kind of the story every since sam came around, but he's cute, so we're keeping him. if sam believed in SLEEP, we might not have these problems.  but right now he's in my lap "reading" one of dad's heinlein novels. see?  he's got too much to do for sleep.

i'll have some projects to share in the next few days....  and here's some sam pumpkin photos to tide you over.

and i'll point you to some eyecandy here - jcasa handmade. LOVE this blog.  i found it through denise and i always get excited when it pops up in my googlereader. her sense of color and pattern always inspire me. she just posted a beautifully simple quilt project using freemotion quilting and now i am all fired up to try the technique.  aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand.  she's doing a giveaway. if i won, i think i'd want a quilt in greens, blues and oranges... you can see from the pics above that they are totally flattering colors for sam i am. ;)

well, i'd better convince my young reader that it's BEDTIME so i can finish some things up and be ready for all of the halloween fun tomorrow. =)

busy

wednesday : parent teacher conferences.  the bigs both got glowing reviews from their teachers.  happy. =)

thursday : matthew took the day off and we went to coco key.  the bigs had gotten passes in their summer reading club prizes. much fun was had.  my mom came with us, it was nice to have an extra set of hands and eyes. 

friday : we went to matthew's work to trick or treat.  the boys enjoyed it, aside from when mom tried to take their picture.

no, really, they're looking at the camera.  or so they told me.  sigh.

saturday : went to a little farm (thanks for the tip, denise) and got pumpkins. and some good pics. =)  then came home and carved pumpkins. but i haven't made it that far into the pics.

tomorrow : groceries and grandma's.  and alex needs a haircut.

the rest of the week : w/ halloween, i have a feeling it will be busy.  i need to get my scrap on, too, lots on my calendar.

almost caught up

whew.

i feel like i've been running lately...  and i don't think it's going to end soon.  funny how a week out of commission can haunt you for weeks to come.

so.  here we are.  wednesday.  it's raining.  and raining and raining.  little man is zonked on my lap.  i just emailed off a fiskars project that's due today.  parent teacher conferences after school, the bigs off tomorrow and friday.

saturday was becca's jdrf crop. i worked on some fiskars stuff and finished two pages.  that pile of stuff above became this one:

between the vendors, the garage sale and the auction i came home with a kenner road kit, a button ring, a 6x6 orange polka dot AC album, some october afternoon alpha stamps, elizabeth dillow's book (the scrapper's almanac???  is that what it's called?), and some goodies from denise's mothball charlie etsy shop.  AND.  my score of the day. a set of 24 metal card catalog drawers.  they're out in the garage now because they need some major cleaning.  but they WILL live in my dining room soon.  i'm in love.  they were leftover from a garage sale that had been held at the church the crop was at.  $50.  total score.  they all latch shut so they will be a major organizational help for kid art supplies and card games.  which are some of sam's favorite things to get into. =P  i had a wonderful day scrapping with the girls and matthew and the boys had a full day of fun stuff at home. it was good to have a little time away from the constant mama-ness of my life.

i'm sitting here trying to think what i've done this week but dishes and laundry are really the only things coming to mind.  oy. it's an exciting life, what can i say?? ;)  so i suppose i'll stop rambling and go sort photos and start planning out my next set of deadlines... i've got a few things on my desk that i'm super excited to get going on. =)

back from the dead

whew.

we're finally all over the sick.  i think.  unless alex's stuffy nose is not allergies, but i'm crossing my fingers that it is.  and it just occured to me that i forgot to give him his allergy meds before school.  DOH.

sam is taking an early nap on my lap and i'm enjoying the quiet after the hustle of getting ready and off to school early to shop at the school store.  the boys each got a pencil, a notebook and a zipper pull w/ their school name on it.  then they ran off to find their friends while sam and i left the chaos that is the school cafeteria in the morning.  dang.  that many kids in one place = LOUD.

i've been slacking my photo-a-day-ness.  i've been taking them, but i've been taking them just to take them.  not thinking about it, or what i'm trying to capture. must get back into a better habit with that.  and back into the habit of uploading them, i love to look at them all together.  here's one from a few days ago - all my boys playing a board game.

sam and i are going to be busy busy today..  gymboree, taking daddy his lunch, running a few errands...  i need to sneak some time w/ my sewing machine, too, i have a project in progress for fiskars that i'd like to finish up. i need to pack my bag for becca's jdrf crop, too. i need more hours!

chaos

when you have two sick parents, a sick baby, and two healthy kids....  you get chaos.  this is our living room yesterday, as seen through the nifty fisheye filter that i bought from KP when she bought a for real fisheye lens.  CHAOS.  lots of toys, a box from fiskars, and a cranky baby.  and a project runway season 2 marathon that we found on bravo and spent most of the day watching.  and dang...  it made me remember how much better it was back then.

after a bit. sam started pulling stuff out of the box and saying "baby IN?" so i emptied that box and plopped him and his lightsaber in there.  he was happy.  and as i sorted through all the goods i made a pile of duplicate pretties..  stuff that i already had on hand from previous assignments.  stay tuned for a giveaway. ;)

and about that cranky sick baby...  we went to the ped yesterday afternoon and he's got an ear infection.  sigh.  this is 4 bad colds, 4 bad ear infections.  not great odds.  i'll defintely be talking to his ped about it next month at his 15mo checkup (we saw someone else today since apparently our ped is allowed to go on vacation ;)  he started antibiotics last night and here's hoping he's feeling better soon!

a starting point

we finally have a plan for what we want to do furniture wise now that the piano is gone.  we started by moving this bench from where it was by the stairs to next to the front door.  There are a few pieces we need to find and purchase, and a few other things that will shift around..  but sooner or later, it will all work out.

i'm feeling better, but sam is still in pretty sad shape..  we'll be heading to the pediatrician later.  in the meantime i've spent a lot of time with him sleeping on my lap and have read the *entire* (yes, all of it) archive of the making it lovely blog. love nicole's design asthetic, and her house is of the same era and has similar bones to mine, so it's definitely inspired me.  i love our oak floors and trim, but it's sometimes hard to deal with all.that.wood when choosing colors and furniture.  it's nice to see someone else making it work (w/ apologies to tim gunn).

okay, time to get alex & ben dressed and out the door (the plague hasn't found them yet) & get a call in to the ped for an appointment..  happy wednesday!

sickieville.

yep. me + matthew + sam are all there right now.  sigh.  so i'll just share this and move along..

pp + sheet music + crepe paper from a kenner road addon + hero arts stamps (owl, flourish, alphas) + doodlebug letters + fontwerks labels + some floral trim from an oooooooooooold jenni bowlin kit + a happy becky novacek pic.  when i saw the kenner road kit i knew the colors would be perfect with this pic.

happy world card making day!!

i, alas, am not making cards today. i am resting and trying not to get the plague that matthew currently has - i think it's a lost cause, as my throat hurts and my chest is tight and cough-y.  sigh. i *did* finish up a LO that's been on my desk nearly done for a few days, so that's something.

go check out the hero arts blog - they have a rocking giveaway going AND if you order from the hero store, you get a free cupcake stamp set.

i'd better get back to drinking lots of fluids.....  just had to pop in and enable you. =)  i got my nov creating keepsakes in the mail, so i'm off to rest and read.

ps: i lied.  i cleaned up my desk after dinner and ended up making a card w/ the LO scraps and some stamps.  i'll share them both tomorrow or monday. =)