Happy Birthday Lauren!

Oh, I'm a bad, bad mom - it's been nearly a month and I'm just now posting about Lauren's birthday!

She is too funny, half the time she is convinced that she is a "big kid" now, but then she gets cranky and wants to be four again. It's hard being five, there's a lot of new responsibilities and expectations. I know that she really feels some pressure being the big sister; but she will always be my baby!

I was a little dissapointed with her birthday party, but she was happy so I guess that's all that matters. Only three kids from her class came, and her two best friends from our old neighborhood, and her best friend from across the street. I had planned for a lot more, so we really had a lot of stuff left over! Lauren was thrilled to see Rachel and Elizabeth, and I was glad they were able to stay for a longer visit. The moonbounce from Jess was a huge hit, and so were the dinosaur themed goodie bags.

I won't go into the things that dissapointed me about the party, because I'm trying to let go of negative stuff like that. Lauren had a great party and now she has some special memories of her 5th birthday, so that's what's important, right?

We also had a little family party for Lauren on the actaul day of her birthday. She was really excited to be able to decorate her own cake - I think this is a new birthday tradition! She was so excited about her gifts (of course), and to my relief she loves dinosuars again. I had a few bad moments earlier in the month when she deicded dinos were to scary, after I ordered all her presents and decorations, of course! Thank goodness five year olds are not known for their consistancy!

EBB's April kit!

I'm a little behind, but here is my super-fab project that I made with the Appetizer in this month's kit:

And here's a detailed pic of the cute little flowers, I just love them!

Being part of the DT is a lot of fun, but a lot of work, too! We are busy planning a huge two-day crop for National Scrapbooking Day, and we have planned a few new monthly kit-related activities too. Earlier this month we had the kit reveal party, which was a huge sucess! I planned a new contest for kit subscribers, which you can find here : http://ebbscrapbooking.com/Forums/index.php?showtopic=9702

This is my creation for the kit contest (of course, mine doesn't count):

The other big news in my scrapbooking world is that I moved my table and all my supplies down to the closet in the spare bedroom. It's better than it sounds, it's a very big closet! And I moved a bunch of the kids' toys down there, so they can use it as a playroom while I scrap. Of course, it just isn't as convenient as having all my stuff in the living room, so I am scrapping less than I used to. But I have a ton more space in the living room! I need to start working on my NSD projects, though, so I'd better start to get motivated!

Big News!

Woo-hoo, this time I did it! Yep, I actually made a Design Team! EBB was foolish enough to make me a DT member for the next six months, bwahahahahahahaha!!!!

I'm pretty excited about it, and I hope this will help me get more visibity in the industry. And the free scrapbook supplies are pretty sweet. One of my best online pals, Jen, also made the DT, and my friends Anita and KM, so we should have a really fun time. KM cracks me up, she is so wild! And Jen is about to wear me out with her enthusiasm, and Anita isn't much better. We already have new challenges, events, and contests planned, and it's barely been two weeks! I'm not sure if I can keep this pace up! :O

I am definitely going have to cut back on the time I spend playing WoW, until I settle into some sort of routine. Hopefully this won't set back my plans to reach raiding level too far.

So anyway, in addition to the usual family stuff, I will also be posting DT-related things here. One of the first things I will be posting is a sneak peek at the latest kit contents, and my kit project. If anyone besides my sister and my friend Nick read my blog, check out EBB on the 15th for our kit reveal party!!!!

Random Stuff

OMG, I haven't blogged in forever! I have a few things to catch up on, so this is a pretty random post. First of all, Matt finished his basic training with honors! Yay!!!!!! I'm so proud of him! Here's a pic of him at the ceremony:

And here's the program page where it lists his award:

We didn't get to go to the graduation, because it was way down in North Carolina, which really sucked. Aunt Paulette said it was very dramatic nad moving. There were tanks and cannons, and Matt got escorted in by the Honor Gaurd! I'm glad Bryan was there to take pictures, so I can make an album for Matt later.

And I finally got to go up to mom's house, which means I could finally get my hair cut!!! Yahoo! That's the major drawback to having my favorite stylist in PA! So since I haven't done anything with my hair in forever, Hideko put some funky highlights in it this time. I loooove it!

And lastly, it's that time again!!! EBB is having their DT call again, and I thought, what the hell! SO I did my entries, and we'll see what happens. I just don't seem to have a style that appeals to judges, I'm not sure why. But I love the entries I made, so if nothing else I got a few projects done. There were five project categories, but I'm just going to put my fave three in here. If anyone wants to see all five, they'll have to go to EBB! ;)

This one is my take on the "All About Me" entry. I am so sick of making "about me" pages for EBB, so I did something a little different. I love that I am a dragon according to the Chinese zodiac, so I copied text from a description of the dragon's traits from a Chinese zodiac website. I think it's kind of eerie how well it describes me!!!

This one was for the Scenic Route company's project, and I just really love the way it turned out. There's actually not much Scenic Route on it, but I refused to spend a fortune on products for this call:

This last one really cracked up my friends at EBB. I've been complaining about my horrible addiction to WoW, so pretty much everyone knows what it is at this point. So I got a big response when I posted this mini-album as a place I made to put my "SH*T List" for people who piss me off while I'm playing WoW. LOL! But I'm also using it to write down codes, and stuff like that too.

Okay, that's about it for now. I'll blog again soon to catch up on kid and family stuff!

10 Steps

My little baby is getting so big!!! Just yesterday he took ten steps, all by himself. Granted, he landed smack on his bottom after step #10, but I still am so very proud of him! He has totally mastered going up, and more importantly, going down, the steps; and of course he crawls after his sisters with incedible speed. He has also become so commuinicative, pointing to what he wants, holding his arms up for daddy and (god help me) saying mama. Soon he will be another little duckling trailing behind me, quacking, "momma, momma, momma"!

The New Kitchen!!!

Oh yay, my new kitchen is finally finished!!!!!! It just needs paint on the walls, and then it is 100% done, but this is good enough until after the holidays. I can't even begin to describe how awesome it is toi have a kitchen that I designed myself, that totally meets my needs. Not that I'm a gourmet chef or anything, but the old kitchen sucked so bad that something had to be done! My favorite thing about the new kitchen is definitely the penninsula. It is sooooo convenient! Of course I love the new appliances and the new cabinets too! I'm starting to feel really spoiled! None of it would have been possible without mom & dad, and I am so very grateful!!! Thank you guys!!!!! I love you!!!!!!

Halloween Fun!

I just love living in a small town! Thursday night, Lauren's school had a family Fall Festival night. The kids dressed up in their costumes, and paraded down Mainstreet, then came back to the school for some snacks and fun activities. The kids were so cute pouring down Mainstreet with their parents, like some kind of costumed lemming flood! I worked for about two days sewing Lauren's costume, and I think it turned out great. She really loves it, and she looks like a geniune Jedi to me. She really wanted to be Anakin, but with the brown robes I think she looks more like Obi Wan. Either way, she is a very cute little Jedi!