her birthday celebrated--finally

Olivia had a fever two weeks ago when this slumber party was first planned. Plan B was last night which we stuck to, despite having had a more complicated week than anticipated.

After eating pizza, the girls decorated t-shirts.

They loved it!

Next they swam, which explains the wet hair and bathing suit in this shot.

They went inside, got pajamas on, and dressed their dolls into the skirts I had made for each of them. I bought the little shirts.

By this time, it had started to drizzle so I only got this lousy shot of them in our garage. I had visions of the dolls all posed together, wearing my designs but it was not to be :)

At 10 p, we all made homemade playdoh together. Another super fun, easy, yet BIG hit. After it was all combined, they each kneaded their own portion and then colored it to their liking. I had small ziploc containers for each girl, and they put their name on those.

Now, the rest of the night did spin out of my control in that the girls moved from basement to bedroom at about 1am. I think they fell asleep around 2ish. And from about midnight on, Skipper the Dog, barked and carried on endlessly.

Still, a success though.

Pin It

the perm

before:

After:

Ever since receiving perm rods with her newest American Girl doll, Olivia has wanted to try this out for herself. Yesterday, she convinced my mom and sister to roll her up! No solution was used so this is more of a temp, than a perm. She has the thickest hair already so those curls took hold like nobody's business. It shortened her hair by at least 2 inches.

In the top one, doesn't she look like she belongs on a greeting card, circa 1968?

Pin It

keeping my mind occupied

I am kind of at loose ends so I just sat down and made a scrapbook page. My goal is to fill in my 2009 photo book monthly pages with some special events that warrant more face time. I knew I wanted to do this but just had not started. So what was wrong with tonight, huh? I broke out the recent pics from last week since that memory is still clear in my mind. I am still using all of the same papers, elements and color schemes so in the end it will all tie together.

No doubt, there are other more productive things to be done but there's always Monday for that...

Oh, I also spray painted my thrifty chair today. I need to give it a second coat and then it will be ready for the big reveal.

Pin It

staycation plus a bit of bad news...

Dave took off Wed-Fri for us to do some fun things together as a fam. Wednesday, we visited a lake that our neighbors were staying at. Both girls went tubing even in the pouring rain. Brave little souls.

On Thursday, we went to Kings Island where both girls showed even more spirit by riding rides they have never conquered before!

Olivia on the Drop Zone.This is the Drop Zone. You go up one billion stories at least, and then the whole dang things falls in one big whoosh to the bottom. Ok, that is how it seemed to Shelby and I as we watched Dave and Olivia do this. CRAZY.Here in seat 7 are Dave and Shelby on the Runaway Reptar. Again, having Shelby out of my sight had my heart in my chest. When they finally came around the final bend, Olivia shouted: she's smiling, she's smiling!

And Friday, we headed to Coney Island for the first true sunny day, which we planned to spend swimming and riding water slides.

These pictures represent a good start to our day which very unfortunately, ended when I received a phone call that my Dad had suddenly and unexpectedly died. I raced off to the hospital and saw him one last time. The best guess is that he died of a pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot in the lung.

As I write this, it still feels very unbelievable. This week will move forward with sadness, a memorial service, and hopefully coping and healing.

Pin It

celebration: the day after

Here is the B'day girl modeling her glasses from her Goody Bag.

Shelby and her friends Gillian and Lauren, enjoying an attraction.

A picture I forced, of my two girls together.

And some of the group with Chuck E. Cheese himself.

I must say, CEC did not disappoint again this year (Shelby's choice twice). It is very low maintenance for the party parent, they take care of everything and move the party along and the kids have fun. I also think it is a good value especially if I ever tallied what I have spent on some of the themed parties I have thrown at home. This year, I had them do it all: from balloons, pizza to cake and goody bags.

Onto gifts...she got a couple of standouts last night. First, the Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center is very cool. It is well made, and well thought out. Plus, you can download many more templates online.
Right now, my girls are doing this Glitter Lava which is neat too. Less messy than glitter glue. It is described as putty, and you push into the grooves of the shapes provided to create "art". Shelby got the jewelry set and as it is a slow process, it is keeping them quite busy.

Note: Pictures are impossible at CEC, so please cut me some slack on these taken with my point and shoot!

Pin It

headed out to celebrate this girl's B'day

At the ultimate party place: Chuck E Cheese's!!

Blink; She's 5.

Pin It

a birthday thank you

Although it is hard to see, the "art" on the driveway says Thank You. Lots of the ideas for design came from my free class at Jessica Sprague.com. I highly recommend this course if it becomes available again. You learn photo editing basics and then cool stuff, like this, where you learn to use photoshop brushes and masks. I am going to mail these out as 6x4 cards.

Last night, while hiding from my family trying to return to a somewhat sane demeanor, I made one of these bag holders for my sister. And today, I made a second one for me. These directions worked perfectly. By modifying the pattern to two fabrics, I was able to make two from two fat quarters.This is my bag dispenser, hanging in the garage, readying my bags for doggy clean up.

Pin It

life 365: may

So I got a little behind but I completed May today and hope to do June this weekend which would bring my book fully up to date. Yea! This is such a fun and rewarding project. I do hope to scrap some pages to fill in between the months to highlight some of the more special events. I know for continuity sake, I should stick with all the same digital supplies but I have gotten such cool new stuff, the temptation to branch out is great. I also want to do some filler pages because when I received my "week in the life" book, I loved everything about it but wished it was fuller so I want my next printed book to include more pages.

Anyway, I am happy to have 9 pictures to represent this month and feel like they tell our story well.

Pin It

where did this week go?

The sad, but true answers:

dog surgery, dog's vet visits, dog gets new longer cone to prevent biting himself, feeding dog by hand each and every day, twice per day

child #2, sick with fever on Tuesday and Wednesday, add a huge dose of grumpiness on top

child #1 sick with fever beginning Thursday 5:30 pm, consistently 102 degree since then, it is now 5:01 Friday. Child #1 had her first ever Birthday sleepover scheduled for tonight which had to be canceled. When she feels really bad, she is accepting of this fate. When her meds are working a bit, she is sad, mad and less than nice.

Friday 3pm-ish, Dog has pooping episode that is left best un-described. Requires bath of half his body even though getting stitches wet is prohibited. The half of his body that needs the bath, is that half of his body.

Friday 4pm another vet appointment. Vet tells me to buy Bitter Apple to deter puppy from chewing his stitches and thus, allowing his cone to come off. Cone comes off for roughly 78 seconds with bitters applied, puppy will not leave well enough alone. He is back outside, sporting the cone, running in frantic circles, yelping.

Oh, puppy meals will now include canned pumpkin. Again, treading lightly around the topic of poop which after 3pm today, I am left unable to discuss due to above episode.

Just be glad I don't have pictures to accompany this post.

How was your week?! Pin It

muffin tin monday--ice cream topping edition

With the puppy' surgery, several hours spent at Kings Island, and then an extra trip back to the vet...neither lunch or dinner was served from muffin tins. However, it makes a great container for an assortment of ice cream toppings.

Shelby spooning up the syrup.

A macro shot of toppings.

A yummy face.

And Olivia adding crushed heath bars to her bowl.

Pin It

the cone head

This was very shortly after returning home and calming down. He most definitely was not feeling well at this point.

He was really OUT. Not a budge when he heard the camera click.

Then, later he started to perk up. And dang, he is still pretty cute, even with a lampshade.

And talk about spoiled, how about being hand fed your food since it is hard to reach with the cone on? A good life.

In all seriousness, I think it all went well. I hope he can rest easy tonight.

And for those who know me, I can hear you, HEAR YOU saying: has she really devoted two blog posts to her puppy?! The person who is not a dog person? And it would appear I have gone soft where this little dude is concerned.

Pin It

a water dog?

It began simply like this. On Thursday, Skipper took notice of the kids in the pool and especially the splashing. He did a lot of barking and racing around.

Yesterday, things progressed a bit to this.

And then this. By now, they are drenching him and he is loving it. And so is Olivia apparently, look at the look on her face! (Click photos to view larger).

And last, a completely soaked, shaking dog!

Say a little prayer tomorrow for my dude Skipper, he is going in for that surgery, and in his case, it is a little more involved than normal. I am dreading it on his behalf.

Pin It

a quick birthday party recap

My family came early and in order to busy ourselves during the rainy day, MaMa and PaPa gave the girls their American Girl dolls before the party began. Carissa and Julie Albright = big hits!

A little blurry, but that is my five year old receiving an "i phone" in her words. In reality, it is an ipod shuffle. Still crazy. I just loaded songs on it.

Next, Olivia holding crocs for her American Girl dolls. I found a totally cute local store with tons of doll stuff. Also, a big hit.

And the finale, my rainbow 6 inch cakes that I made for each girl. It was a surprise what was inside b/c I had them iced before the girls saw. They turned out really great. I followed ideas from here and here. The second link here, whoa!, that lady must have used an intense amount of food coloring to get such bright colors. This would be totally fun to do for a tie dye theme.

More pictures to follow including our very strange dog Skipper who has taken a big liking to the pool water, from a close perch right on the edge.

Pin It