bathroom improving

David re-grouted our bathtub today and it looks great. He is putting on a tile and grout seal tommorow, so I hope that it keeps it looking good. He is going to paint the bathroom tommorow as well and then we are on to just cleaning up, de-cluttering, moving furniture and planting some flowers to get the house ready to go on sale, hopefully, next week.
I went to look at our favorite house today with the realetor, but there was a deadbolt incident, so we were not able to get in. I was able to look around the yard and look in the windows. The backyard is perfect for us. The current owners have a dog, so it is not trashed, but it is not the gardens of Monticello either. There is a perfect place for the hen house and a chicken run. The front yard is huge. Hopefully we will take a look inside on Friday.


I did a couple of layouts using Party Paradise & Forever Family by Pyralis Designs

Enounter at the library and layouts

Here are some layouts I did over the last couple of days. New Friends and Popcorn Adventures use Cause I love Green & Hallowillie by Baers Garten Designs (You can click on the layout to go to store) I also used Shine on Alpha by Jannylyn
I used product by Laura Mcgee designs for Kelp Adventures.
David called a handy man to come over and fix our bathroom tiles today. The damage was not very extensive, so, for the handyman, it was a quick fix. Christian was still at school when they were doing the repairs, but I told David I would take Liam out for a while and then pick up Christian and do something with them for an hour or so. The library is right down the street from the preschool, so I decided to walk down there with the boys. When we go to the library, to boys take a bee-line to the computers. I do not let them use our computer, so it is a special treat for them. Christian and Liam were playing the same game, and I walked over to check on them and almost passed-out. Someone went in and on a list of names typed a four letter word. I have never been so thankful that my kids do not know how to read yet. I ran over and told the librarian and she cleaned the computers up (in more then one way). After the computers were fixed, Christian enjoyed listening to Cat in the Hat and Liam enjoyed pushing all the buttons and messing up the computer.

Our Vacation a photo essay

We just returned this afternoon from our vacation to the Redwoods and South Oregon Coast. We stayed at Harris Beach, which is a beautiful beach. It was never very crowded with people and has some of the most beautiful landscapes I have scene. There is an island offshore that is a bird sactuary, we were able to see birds other then seagulls. The seagulls and California Grey Squirels were very smart and hung out strategically where they knew people gathered. We also saw lots of Stellar blue jays and bunnies.
On our first day we went through the Redwoods and stopped at Jedediah Smith State park and the boys played on the river bank for a while

We went on to the Trees of Mystery. I went there once when I was 12, it is kind of tacky inthe 1950's sort of way, but it is a nice, easily accesible way to see the forest with kids and they also have an aerial tram that takes visitors up the mountain. David and the boys enjoyed it, I am terrified of heights, so I endured.

I am glad I packed the Bob the Builder toys. They gave the boys, especially Liam hours of fun and enjoyement.

I brought the popcorn popper. I had to run to town and buy an extension cord so I could pop to popcorn on the porch. We will keep it with our camping supplies for future trips.

I used my telephoto lens to get this picture of sea birds. There were many varieties. We also saw a sea lion swimming in the kelp.

Liam is running on the beach. He had another cut on his toe, so he had to keep his socks on all the time for a couple of days to let it heal.

Here is a forced pose on the picnic table above the beach we spent most of time at. There was one beach we could hike to, but it was a long walk and Liam did not want to walk too much with his sore foot. This beach only took about two minutes to drive to, so we could easily get the toys to the beach and there was a bathroom close by.

Christain and Liam enjoyed climbing around the rocks on the beach.


Here is a family photo. Christian's preschool teacher asked us to provide a family photo for the first day of class. We do not have a recent one. I was ready to do something on Photoshop to make a family photo, but I still wanted to try to get one while on vacation. We will probably use this photo for our Christmas card photo as well.

going on vacation

We are leaving early tommorow morning to drive down to the Redwoods and then stay at a yurt on the South Oregon Coast. The car is packed except for our pillows, blankets and the food that has to stay cold.
I plan to come back with lots of great pictures, so stay tuned for some new layouts in about a week.

busy weekend

We spent the weekend painting the boys room and our room. I will try to take pics and post them tommorow. The rooms look so much better. The color I chose for my room is almost the same color I chose for my room in 1986. I guess some things never change.
We have more painting to do, but we will wait until we get back from vacation.

I used falling leaf overlay edges, Digital Designs by Jannylyn &


I went to do my bi-weekly shopping today. A few weeks ago, I was shopping at Costco and this man in a large car stopped me to tell me he saw that I had a couple of dents in my minivan and he could fix them. On that day, I was having a bad day, I was in a huge hurry to get home and to top it off...I had PMS. I was ticked off that he wasted my time with a solicitation and let him know that I can get my car fixed if I want to. The lady loading the car next to me looked at me like I was the rudest person ever.
Today, I was in the same part of town at a different establishment and the same man and some woman drove up, honked at me and tried to give me the same speil. I told them again, not very nicely, that I will get my car fixed if I want and told them to leave me alone. The woman in the car seemed shocked that I would be ticked off.
I figure that their business is probably a scam, whether they are honest or not, I want to be left alone.
We plan to drive the van until it cannot run anymore and dents do not affect the car or how it runs, so for the record, we have no intentions of fixing the dents. They are like my Amish Quilt. They remind me daily of my flawed driving and now of my challenged temper.

one more layout

I was able to complete one more layout tonight. These are some more photos I took in Seattle on Saturday.

First day of school

Picture from our hike at Tyron Creek last week. I used a template from the September Candy by by Baers Garten Designs


Here are some pictures of Christian and I in front of the Space Needle. I was wanting to get a couple of pictures, but I did not know how I would get one where we would be large enough and still get the space needle. The photographer had to lay down on the ground inside the Pacific Science Center to get the angle. We had a fun day up there. We dropped a friend and her husband off at the airport, visited a friend went to the science center and took the monorail downtown to go to Pike Street Market. I used Funktabulous from Elemental Scraps for this layout.

Yesturday was Christian's first day back to school. It is his second year at the same school, so it was a new class and teacher, but still quite familiar. He made a friend who he enjoyed playing trains and racing on tricyles.
After school, mommy had a very sore back and did not feel good. I put in Michael Palin's Himalaya Dvd and laid down with Liam. We both fell asleep and Christian says he took a nap too and played with trains.

open house, blood and pens gone wild

Today was Christian's preschool open house. We went and he met his teacher and saw his classroom. He spent some time playing with some of the toys. He was happy that there is a train set in his room. Liam was supposed to play on the playground with David, but Liam took David's hand and led him into the building. They did not even know where Christian's room was, but Liam still found it. He must of heard my voice. Liam painted for a few minutes then found the train set and took a train away from one of the girls in Christian's class and this made her cry. Christian's teacher came over and worked with Liam to help him resolve the conflict. When she asked him to give the train back he said "no". We let her just work with him, since everything we do seems to fail and after about five minutes he gave her the train back and we grabbed him and ran.


Liam fell down and cut his hand at the zoo yesturday and he cut his foot at the playground. He fell down again after the open house and re-opened the wound on his hand. I cleaned it up and put a bandaid on. We went to Omsi and I saw something red in the sandbox and I checked his hand, but forgot about his foot. After a while we realized that his toe was bleeding again. We cleaned that up and put a bandaid on and they cleaned the sandbox up. I guess blood in the sandbox goes with all the poop he has left in the pools around Portland. He wanted to play in the sandbox, but I did not want him to get sand in his sore, so we rigged up this glove action.


I do not give my kids enough time to color and I always feel guilty about it, but as you can see from this picture, I am not lazy, I am scared.

mission accomplished

I worked this morning and I was so tired. I resented customers for even coming in because, I just wanted to sleep, and not deal with people nice or not nice. When I came home, I rested a bit then we took the boys to the zoo.
My original plan was to take them to the zoo and then the children's musuem and keep them going until we got close to bedtime.
Around 1:30-2:00 Liam and I were both on the verge of a meltdown. I did not throw myself on the ground and scream as much as he did and it was getting close to the time that David had to go to work and I was dreading it. Liam even cut his hand after throwing himself down one time.
David left and we wrapped up at the zoo and walked over to the children's museum, which is closed this week. It was right at the time that I did not want Liam to fall asleep.
We went to the car and I put on Mahna Mahna from Sesame street and played it over several times while I drove to a large playground a few minutes from the zoo and Liam remained awake.
They had fun running around the playground and playing the sandbox for about an hour and a half. Liam had a cut on his toe and when I cleaned it up he had a meltdown and then Chrisitan fell and had a meltdown, so I had a easy time taking them back to the car. I gave Liam his stuffed bald eagle to love on the way home, put a favorite podcast, Sattelite Sisters, and headed home. I took a slightly longer route, just to make sure they fell asleep and they were both out after about 10 minutes.
Liam stayed asleep, but Christian woke back up and it took a while for him to go to bed and stay in his room, but it happened.

smiles & bedtime nightmares

We went hiking yesturday and I tried to get some cute pictures of the boys. Liam wanted to smile and say cheese. Christian is showing off his latest smile when he is asked to smile for a camera.

Sometimes at bedtime I need to look at pictures of Liam when he is feeling sweet. I had to go to the preschool parents night tonight and did not put them to bed until I got home. Liam fell asleep in the car earlier and between the late nap and the schedule change we had a bedtime disaster. He first started with screaming like he was being boiled in hot water then he moved on to escape artist.

I always begin these episodes very philosophical about employing the latest parenting techiques I have read about and after a while it digresses to anger, frustration and denial where I want to nail the bedroom door shut and take all my parenting books out back to the barbeque and burn them. After a very firm door closing. Liam finally got the hint and stayed in his room. I have to work early tommorow, but maybe he will sleep in for David.

If anyone has books about parenting/sleep you can give me the titles, but warning, they may end up in my barbeque.

I celebrated labor day by working this morning. At least is was time and a half. We were wanting to go swimming one more time at the outdoor pool, but I guess yesturday was the last day they were opened, so we did the cheap substitute and filled our backyard pool for the boys.

We were going to barbeque hamburgers, but I fell asleep for a while this afternoon and I decided to just make Italian meatloaf. I took the sauce I made last week and used it. Yum. I need to get out to another farm and but a ton of tomatos and make more of that rockin' sauce and freeze it.

Off to the dump

I did a layout today from our trip to Gold Beach in June. Liam is in only a diaper because he vommited all over the place about 15 minutes before we got to the dinosaurer place and I forgot to put a change of clothes in the van. The song I used in my journaling is "We are the dinosaurers" by Laurie Berkner. It is a fun song and the boys love it. Check it out on iTunes.

We parents came over and we rented a U-Haul and hauled all our scrapwood, a skanky old wheelbarrow and several other things to the dump today. We are not moving very fast it getting the house ready, but we made a ton of progress on the yard.

lots of layouts

I did several layouts for the September first releases at Baers Garten Desings at Elemental Scraps. The Orange, Blue & Pink color kits are 50% off.

Christian & Liam finished swimming lessons yesturday. Christian passed his class and on Liam's 3rd birthday he will get moved up. Liam gets to skip the next class, Goldfish, and go straight to Penguin, so when I do the next class they will be in the level and can take it together at the same time. I am so happy. I feel like I am getting the first tiny taste of freedom.