Tagged!

So, I've been tagged like 3-4 times and have never done it because every time I start, I just think that I would much rather be talking about my kids or husband than about boring me. But, my friend Heather talked me into filling out the following questionnaire for a YW spotlight. So, hopefully this is close enough!

Were you named after someone, or is there a unique story behind your name? Hmmm… no story really, but my twin brother Randy and I were named with “R” names so that we would share that in common. (FYI my little bro and sis are twins too and they share “S” names.) However, growing up there seemed to be some confusion on my part about Randy’s name. I have been told that on several occasions that I told people that his name was “Randy, no-no”. I guess I had heard it a few times from my mom. So, Randy and I have always had a tie. Maybe it was the “R” name or maybe it was being dressed alike in our bright green over-alls that we both had (you’ve got to love the 70’s)—hard to say. But he has always been a great friend! His wife (who is really cool and so nice-- a big relief) is expecting a baby boy in the spring and I can’t wait to see a Randy JR.

Favorite color: Sage green. I have it on my kitchen walls, half my wardrobe is green, I have a green couch in my bedroom and I drive a green car. (Hmm.. I never realized I had so much green in my life!)

Favorite food: Chinese (The Mandarin). I highly recommend it. It’s in Bountiful. Beware, there is always a wait and people actually line up everyday of the week that they’re open to get in at opening at 5pm. I think General Tsou’s is my new favorite dish! And there’s just something fun about fortune cookies. I just recently learned how to make huge fortune cookies (about 4” across). They look just like the little ones and they’re tasty too.

Favorite candy/treat: Twix—always good at the check-out line after a long, exhausting Wal-mart excursion.

Favorite ice cream flavor: Heath Bar Toffee Ice Cream (Breyer’s)Mmmm…!

Favorite school subject: Human Anatomy—actually the cadaver lab (studying bodies donated to science). It’s what convinced me to change from Dietetics to Nursing. Sounds strange, so I’ll just leave you wondering about that one.

Favorite book: Children of the Promise series.

Favorite movie: Swing Kids (I loved watching them swing dance and the “out” that dance gave them during WWII) I love to swing dance. I belonged to a “Swing Kids Club” at BYU. I had some random partner that would go with me to the dances every Saturday night. Oh… so much fun. I just wish that I could remember some of that now.

Favorite article of clothing: Shade shirts!! Great invention.

Talents (any): I asked this question about me to Justin and he just said hmmm….” Besides modern dance that I did in high school, which I did more because I loved it than because I was good at it, I don’t really have many “conventional” talents (e.g. sports, music etc), but I think that I would be considered a caring and compassionate person. My new favorite quote is by Mother Teresa “Do small things with great love.” Life is busy and there is not always time to do great big acts of service, but small things with great love I think can make just as big of difference! (To be honest I wanted to leave this part out of the “blog version”, but oh well what the heck. I may not be wonderful at this kind of stuff, but I would like to be and I'll keep trying.)
Favorite vacation you have taken & why: Trip to the Philippines with my hubby. I loved it because I went with just my adventurous hubby and no kids and all we had were our hiking packs and were free to explore and do what ever we wanted! And the Philippines is my “home” and it’s absolutely amazing!

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be?
India—I would love to explore somewhere really far away and really different from my culture. I had several friends in high school from India and their culture was always very intriguing to me. There are some amazing sites too. What would you do with the money if you won $1000?
A new fancy camera and lens and sign up for some photography classes. (I'm currently looking at the Nikon D80 below. Any suggestions photographers?) After nursing, I think I would choose photography as a career. Growing up I always wanted to be a photographer and travel the world with National Geographic.Name one of your heroes & why you admire them:
Ruth from the bible. I love the story how she went to the king, despite putting her life in danger, to save her people, the Jews, from being killed. She did what she and only she could do. She was extremely courageous and stood up for righteousness.

What would you do if you had 2 hours to yourself?
Spend it digital scrapbooking!!! (Surprised?) Here's my current project-- a desk calendar.

What do you want to do/be when you “grow up?”
Maybe a nurse-practitioner? Or refer to $1000 question.

If you were a dessert, what would you be?
Cheesecake, simple yet so delicious. =) No pic necessary, I think we all know what cheesecake looks like.

Blogging just got better!

Thanks to some awesome fellow bloggers I have a few tips to share on blogging:

1. Blog Reader (Thanks Suz!)

This is a site that allows you to link to all of your blogs that you read in one place and tells you at a glance if any of these blogs have new posts, (huge time saver!). and you can read the posts and view the pictures all on this site. Click here to check it out!

2. Blog Printing (Thanks Kysha!)

I was VERY excited to hear about this. Kysha found a place to print our blogs. It has a free program to download that extracts the posts from your blog into this program and lets you edit the text and pictures. I tried it out last night and it's super easy and fun. If I wasn't an obsessed digital scrapbooker I would solely print my blog instead, but I guess I'll do both. It prints your pages into a bound book and the pricing is very reasonable. The site is called Blurb and here is example of a blog book:

3. Blog trivia:

The term "BLOG" was created from the words weB LOG. (maybe I was the only one who didn't know this!)

4. Create one!

If you still haven't created a blog yet-- YOU SHOULD! It's so fun and easy. And with my friend's cute sense of humor and great wisdom, Angie put it nicely: "we've finally figured out that blogging is an essential part of parenting. One is simply not a good parent until one has posted photos of their child for all to admire." To start just click on the "Create a blog" on the upper right hand corner of my blog. It will walk you through it. Lastly-- let me know when you've got one and I'll add you my blog's list of "my favorite people".

I Couldn't Wait...

I wasn't going to post my Christmas photo card because Justin thought it was weird to post it and then send it out, but I just couldn't wait. I had so much fun doing it and I figure only a few of you will actually get it because most of you are neighbors that read my blog and you're on the "neighbor gift list" instead. I still haven't decided if I am going to print an actual card that opens up or just the "postcard" style. Hmmm.....

Family Picture Day!

Luckily for a long fall and a photographer willing to make last minute appointments, we were able to sneek in some family pics before the winter arrived. My adorable counsin, Ann with Anniemations Photography took the pics (Thanks Ann!!) and I can't wait to digi scrap a few, make a Christmas photo card and hang them on the wall!!

A quick note, if you're planning on making your own photo Christmas cards, hurry and do it because Winkflash is having some great sales for orders placed before Nov 21st. 5x7 photo cards, with envelops are 23 cent, with a flat rate of $1 to ship them all. ( regular 5x7's usually run 27 cents each)

"Autumn Again" again

I know that I already posted a post about autumn, but I wanted to share my latest layout. Suzanne is on a roll with her templates, and I'm loving it. Even though she has opened shop- Purple Tulip Deisigns, she is offering her templates for FREE for now. Here's the layout! Thanks for sharing Suz!

Halloween Fun....

Instead of just posting some pics, I decided to throw a quick layout together. We had a really fun Halloween.... a ward party, a party with Grandma/Grandpa (all of the food was yummy and very festive-- witch fingers, spider breadsticks, and spider hotdogs!), pumpkin carving with the neighbors, and chilli and donuts with the fam halloween night before some trick or treating. This year Andrew was Captain Jack Sparrow, with a very "terrifying" Arrr and Ashlee was a pink fuzzy poodle!

"To every thing there is a season..." Ecl 3:1

The year does not seem complete without a trip to see the autumn leaves (looking at everyone elses blogs and their "outings to see the leaves" I think you would all agree). Even though everything is dying, for some reason it feels like a fresh start as school starts and the winter holidays begin. I love having four seasons because it reminds me that time is passing and that I need to not take for granted the good times that I am having with my family right now. I won't ramble more, but enjoy some pics of me and my fam!

My crazy kids!

Ashlee trying to figure out how to get ALL of the leaves in her mouth

Me and my baby girl!

Top 10 signs that your hubby is a pilot

When Ashlee's third word learned was "jet" I decided that there are quite a few quirky things that come with your hubby being a pilot. So, I decided to jot a few of them down.


10. Your little boy's room has an "airplane" theme

9. You sleep almost better alone then with your spouse in bed with you (who's that stranger? j/k Justin)

8. Your little 15 mo old girl prefers to play with planes over dolls and perfectly makes the "jet noise"

7. Your pantry is full of "airplane snacks" brought from work

6. Your husband also owns a remote control airplane and a computer flight simulator game to fly on days off

5. Your child's 3rd word learned was "jet" (Ashlee)

4. Remote friends call out of the blue needing buddy passes (it's ok if that's you one day =))

3. Once having kids, you fly less frequently than your "non-airline" friends because non-reving sticks, especially with kids. It's just a little too hard to pass up the price of free!

2. You know what it means to "non-rev" and have many major airline tele #'s memorized

1. 3 or 4 days out of 7-- mac and cheese or similar is a perfectly fine dinner! (When the hubby is gone of course!)

One more-- you have your little boy's picture taken in daddy's uniform (Andew 1 year old)

A sigh of relief!

It's finally over-- YWIE! If you know what that means, then you have probably been busy too (or have in the past) It's Young Women in Excellence. We had a "you reap what you sow" theme. I think it went well, the only problem was the down pour of rain while we were trying to load the cars with the decorations when cleaning up. Once we were drenched, the rain didn't bother us much! I was helping with the decorations and invitations- fun but a little time consuming. We did a fall/Harvest theme, so it wasn't hard coming up with decorations. I tried a little of my digital scrappin skills for the invitations. It was a good trial on cards for future invitations and for christmas cards coming up-- yikes. (My sister already bought her neighbor gifts today.) Here's a look at the invite (printed as a 4x6 photo at Sam's):


Well, I was going to add some other pics of things we've being doing lately, but right now blogspot won't let me. It just says error and that "they are aware of the problem". Hmmm, are they really? Or does every error message say that? I'll try again another day.

12x12 it is!

Here's my latest page. I've finally decided to change to 12x12, so time to get scrapping. I'm excited to use my sister Suzanne's templates. This page is a revision of one of Suzie's 2 page layout. Thanks Suz!

I Need Your Help!

Help!! My digital scrapbooking has been on hold because I have been scrapbooking 8 1/2 x 11 (Letter) pages since the beginning of my paper days, but now I am thinking about changing over to 12x12. So, I need your help in deciding. Here are the advantages of each one that I thought of, please add any to help me decide!

Letter:

*Cheaper: pages, sheet covers, albums
*I already have a large box of sheet covers this size

12x12:

*I get to use my sister's and others' awesome templates (there are more out there for 12x12)
*I don't have to crop 12x12 papers
*I like the square look of 12x12's
*You can fit more photos on the page (potentially spending less on additional pages)-- do you think that this is true????
*There's more room on the page to play with the layout
*There are more ideas on the web for layouts

Here is a comparison:

12x12:

Letter:

As you can see from my list, I am leaning towards 12x12, but that darn $$ thing. So, since most or all of you that read my blog scrap 12x12-- help sway me!

Digital Scrapbook Class Info!!

Just a reminder that the district digital scrapbooking class is coming up next week. A few things to note if you're intersted in taking the class:

--It is Sept 28th, 8:15am-3:45pm. They will provide a sack lunch. There is a $25 registration fee.

--You MUST be basically familiar with photoshop elements (PSE). If you complete the shabbyshoppe Tutorial, you will know enough for the class.

--If you don't have PSE yet, download a 30 day free trial on adobe's website and then do the tutorial mentioned above.

--If anyone is interested, I would be happy to walk you through making your first page. I thought that if anyone is interested, they can come to my house maybe next Wednesday evening, 9/26 around 8:30pm (after the kiddies are in bed). Let me know if you're interested!

--Registration opens only the day before the class to non-district employees. So, if you will let me know for sure by Wednesday night (9/26) that you are for sure interested in taking the class, then I will register as many as spots are available (I will probably draw out of a hat if there is limited space). The instructor thought that there would be plenty of room (only 2 of 15 spots were taken as of a week ago).

Let me know if you are interested, have any questions or would like to come to my "prep" night next Wednesday.

Beware you may need an soft seat and a snack ready when starting this post!

If in the digital scrapbooking world there are "mega-kits" to download and are very enjoyable to have, then this is the "mega-post" and hopefully this is enjoyable also. Somehow life got busy and eventually I had to catch-up on missing sleep, so it's been a while since I last posted. And, since I really do want to eventually print this thing and call it a journal, I am going to go back and catch up. (By the way, if anyone has any info on printing blogs, please send it my way.) So, beware you may need an soft seat and a snack ready when starting this post!

1 CUT, 4 STITCHES, 1 FRAZZLED MOM (AND CHILD)

Well I knew that the day would come when I had to make the trip to the ER without Justin for stitches for one of the kids. One little fall off the bar stool at dinner made for quite the eventful night. Just as we were finishing up dinner trying to get the kids ready to go to a babysitters so I could go to young women's Andrew took a dive off the bar stool and cut his chin really deep. Thank goodness for family, my sister was eager to take Ashlee off my hands so we get get Andrew's chin stitched up. Andrew did amazingly well!! (Mom survived too!)

Sorry- no before the stitches shot, too gory and a little too crazy at that moment for pics

The Stitches

All better!

MY BABY GIRL IS GROWING UP!

I caught a glimpse and caught this on camera-- my babe had climbed up on to her rocking chair, plopped herself down, found a book and began to "read". She just looked so old. She's 14 1/2 months old and her personality is blossoming! She loves to snuggle, giggle until shes blue and drooling, wrestle on the floor with Dad and big brother Drew, eat fruit as fast as she can and she's always found folding her arms whenever a prayer is said. What can I say-- I love her to pieces! She brings me such joy-- there's just nothing like being a mom =)

1ST DAY OF PRESCHOOL!

Well Ashlee has been looking so grown-up to me then I put some "school clothes" and a backpack on Andrew and I almost died. Andrew was happy to pose for the camera and show off his new clothes. (He insisted on having one picture in the pose below) Without hesitation he ran right in and when I came back 2 1/2 hours later I asked if he had fun, he said "no, because I didn't get to stay very long! I think he's already for 1st grade-- staying at school all day. He also has joined a little neighborhood soccer club. Between soccer and preschool, he's in 7th heaven!

Andrew striking a pose

Andrew and his cousin Ellie at preschool

THE OLD; THE NEW!!

Well after 8 years, the good OLD Nissan FINALLY did not pass emissions and safety and despite Justin's best mechanical efforts, he was not able to fix it!! (It's about time ;)). The Nissan has served us well since back into our dating days. When dating, we enjoyed watching many sunsets in it from the mountain side. It was the truck that I learned to drive stick in. It has hauled many mountain bikes, landscaping mulch, neighbors' "stuff" and more. We love the Nissan and have been happy to enjoy car payment free days. (However, now that it's leaving, I can look more easily past the broken A/C, peeling paint, dinged up bumpers, and the radio face that has to be taped on to stay-- to name a few things)

So after much looking, negotiating, traveling the entire valley (and beyond) and getting sworn at by a mean used car salesmen we found a replacement. Justin actually found it at a dealership in Lincoln Nebraska while he had some free time on a trip. It was an awesome deal (or at least the dealer convinced us it was) and they threw in the shipping-- so we sealed the deal. So If the last truck which Justin bought as a student and was junk yard material lasted 8 years, I'm sure this one is going to stick around for a long time. Here it is (or one that looks very similar. Justin's at work so I can't take a pic of it)

The Old: The Nissan

The New: Toyota Tundra

Crypto... what?

Well the tests came back and Andrew's positive for crytosporidium. It's a giardia like parasite often passed through public swimming pools-YUCK!. The good news is that Andrew is acting like he's feeling much better and there is medication for this, so once we start it hopefully within a couple days he'll be back to normal. Fortunately it's not as severe as giardia and does not have the potential to last months or years. So I guesss we're done with Cherry Hill for the season! Thanks for everyone's concern!

Attention Digital Scrappers -or wannabes

FYI--Kami and I are working on getting a friend that teaches digital scrapbooking classes to enrichment groups to come give her presentation to anyone that is interested. We're looking at possibly the evening of September 5th-- this is still tenative, but you might want to save the date! ALSO, for the serious scrapper, or serious wannabe scrapper, Davis school district teaches a digital scrapbooking class using photoshop elements 5.0. It is sept 28th and lasts most of the day (9am -3pm?). It's $25 and includes lunch. I am going to do my best to go, if I can arrange babysitting. I have a message out to the instructor to get more details. I'll keep you posted on this too.

Giardia-- TO BE, or NOT TO BE! That's the question

If I had one of those cool counters on my blog it would say day 10 of Andrew having nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, no appetite (two bites of hotdog does not constitute a meal no matter how you look at it) and just "too tired" to even walk to the couch from bed. Thankfully I didn't have the foresight that this would last sooo long. According to the pediatrician's nurse, "this is all normal" (even for 10 days) and he possibly couldn't have the giardia like parasite that's visiting public pools here in Utah because "parasites don't cause diarrhea". WHATEVER!! So, after much discussion and persistance, she finally ordered to have his stool cultured. Andrew replied after hearing the discussion on the phone "I don't need another stool mom, I have one". =) I needed a little comic relief after that phone call. So... we left a little "package" at the lab (that was a story in itself) and now were anxiously waiting for the results that should come tomorrow! Giardia or parasites like that can be very hard to get over and can take months to years to get over (in rare cases) despite taking medication-- yikes. Or, you can just take the medications prescribed and it goes right away. Sometimes it really stinks being a nurse and knowing a little more than you want to. Wish us luck!

However, today since the DR visit, he has actually ventured out and smiled a time or two. And, since I like to take pictures of my kids and it's been a long time since I have seen his sweet smile I thought I would post a pic or two from today. The one of Ashlee is of her great smile too! She's been a trooper through all of this and so far hasn't gotten sick. (I forgot to mention that I too had the same thing for 8 days, better for 4 days now, 4 sick days of which Justin was out of town and Justin is on day 8 himself, still recovering. Maybe if the test is positive, we'll be leaving a little package at the lab too =( ).

Music-- a new addition. Enjoy!

I found this great site (thanks to one of Whitney's friend's blog) that you can link to on your blog to play music videos. Its all free and easy to do. Click here to try it out! You can create a playlist from a list on this website with just one song or as many as you want and change them easily anytime. Check out the videos and my playlist at the bottom of my blog-- kinda old school songs, but I guess I'm kinda old school =)

Templates- digi scrappin just got easier!

Thanks suzie for the cute SMILE template! It was soo fun to use and super easy! I did this page last night. If your not familiar with templates, the template is the layout and all you do basically is click and drag your paper, pics and embellishments on to the page and presto-- your page is done. Click here to learn how to use templates.

My first digital scrabook pages!

A quick note because it's late-- but I'm obsessed with digital scrapbooking, so now that I have finally finished tweeking, changing, adding, and again redoing, I can hit that button to flatten the layers and call it good. I realize the pages are nothing spectacular, but it's been fun. Enjoy! (So your not confused, I do a family album and one for each kid so the first 3 pages are the first page of the layout and the last page is the second page for all 3)

A WHIRLWIND SUMMER

This summer has been crazy, but sooo fun. I think that I am somehow trying to make up for the summer last year when I was so pregnant or had a very tiny newborn. We mostly stayed home out of the heat, but this year we've had a great time.

For memorial day weekend we went went to Flaming Gorge with the Wildings. We fished, camped (in a trailer) and had some dang good dutch oven.

Here's Andrew at Lagoon

We went to the little, but very fun Idaho Fall's zoo with Grma/Grpa Hogge and the Miller's

The long awaited Bear Lake at Ideal Beach! Last year, I had Ashlee instead of going to our annual trip to the lake with the Todd Family

At Bear Lake we celebrated Ashlee's 1st birthday. She loved the chocolate cake!

In between, we've been cooling off at Cherry Hill

We didn't think it was hot enough here, so we headed down to Lake Powell. I never thought that I would enjoy being rained on while I slept.

We still have a fun reunion planned with the Hogge family at the lake Near Gma Hogge's. Can't wait. Still trying to figure out how I'm going to warm a bottle for Ashlee in the middle of the night. I'm sure some how it will work out!

Opps!

Ok, so I tried to add some photos on my last post, but some how they didn't make it. So, I'll try it again.