Feelin' scrappy!

I got *2* whole scrapbook pages done this afternoon! That may not sound like much, but considering I had to sort 135 pictures and get the pages laid out, in addition to learning how to use all of my friend Kami's neato Creative Memories tools, it isn't a bad start. Can you say "Christmas list"? I will be making one very soon!! Now I have great incentive to get the "someday" craft room in the basement cleaned up so I can work in there. Kami and I are going to schedule another work day soon.

We got our tree up tonight and all the ornaments put on. I have a feeling we will need 2 trees soon. We are running out of room. We get anywhere from 6-10 new ornaments a year; with the minimum number, we are looking at another 60 ornaments in 1o years; my youngest will only be 14 then!

Funny of the day: My 4-year-old was eating a hamburger at the dining room table this afternoon while I was in here talking on the phone and reading email (nothing like multi-tasking!). He came in and told me, "You need to ground Campbell (our fox terrier) from his presents because he ate my hamburger!" Joel had left it at the edge of the table and gone into the family room to look at something on TV. The presents he is referring to are the toys I mentioned buying the dog at PetSmart yesterday. Whaddya think? Will it make a difference if I tell Campbell Santa won't bring him any toys this year??

Whittling away at my list

Managed to get most of the things on my list taken care of yesterday. Got the dog food at PetSmart and also found him a couple of toys for his stocking. He is hard to buy for; every toy he gets is usually in shreds within the first day. We have stuffing all over the house from his various stuffed animals (needless to say, I'm not getting any more of those!). I also looked for some boots for him. Now that the snowy season has started, I do not want to be dealing with having to clean and dry his paws every time he comes inside. I didn't find what I want, so I will probably end up ordering some Neo-Paws online.

The 3 youngest kids went to taekwondo last night. The 4 and 6 year-old are in a class called Tiny Tigers; their teacher is a 4th-degree black belt who loves working with the littlest ones. They have a great time while learning their forms. These 2 are both 2nd level Tiny Tigers; they are learning the form called Mil'es 9, which is the white belt form (1st belt) for the older kids. It has 18 moves in it. My soon-to-be 9-year-old is a new orange belt (belt immediately following white). My eldest is also taking taekwondo, but did not go last night. She is a new yellow belt (belt following orange). The kids started classes in August and I am really happy with how they are progressing. I love the head instructor, Mr. Ray, and most of the other instructors are great with the kids, too.

Plans today are to take the kids shopping for their new Christmas ornaments. The kids always get to pick a new ornament each year. We'll go to the BX for this, cuz we can get Hallmark ornaments there at a discount! Emily (the oldest) and Noah (#2) have choir rehearsal this afternoon. I think hubby is taking them so I can go meet up with my friend and work on my scrapbooking. I am supposed to be at her house between 1:30 and 2. I hope I can get a lot done! I need to put something in the crockpot for dinner so I don't have to worry about cooking when I get home. Then after dinner we will put up the Christmas tree. (Nope, didn't do that last night.)

Too much stuff to do

After all the hubbub this weekend, there is so much to get done today. The dog is almost out of dog food, so I have to go to PetSmart for that. And I have to get school done with the kids... Somewhere in all that I need to get laundry folded and put away. Then the kids have taekwondo tonight. I haven't figured out what's for dinner yet, so that is also a must. Hopefully my husband will actually be home to eat it. He is on call at the hospital tonight (he's a nurse anesthetist) so there is no telling when or if he will be home. If he does come home tonight, the kids will want to put up the tree. I don't know if he'll want to do that before he fixes the messed up spot near the ceiling; that spot isn't near where the tree will be, so hopefully he will go for decorating the tree and save the paint spot for Tuesday.

I don't even want to think about the rest of the week. The kids have a choir concert Friday night. They have their usual Tuesday afternoon rehearsal plus an additional one on Thursday afternoon. Sandwiched in between that, my almost 9yo and my 6yo have bowling Wednesday afternoon. Thursday evening is Cub Scouts; dh is my 9yo's den leader and I am the pack committee chairman. It is pack rechartering time and I will be handing in the charter this week (ACCKK... I just realized I don't have the check to pay our recharter fees! Note to self: Need to call the pack treasurer about that.) I also need to try to work in some scrapbooking time with my Creative Memories consultant on Tuesday. I finally uploaded 135 digital photos from my hard drive to Sam's Photo Club and got them printed out late last week so I can get our cruise vacation from last December scrapbooked. It will be the first scrapbooking I have done since just putting my oldest's baby pictures in an album with notecard captions underneath almost 13 years ago. I need to do this!

Last, but not least, there is the perpetual uncluttering to do. It is so hard with 4 kids here all the time. I get one thing taken care of and move on to the next, and then turn around and the first thing is undone again. I keep telling my husband we will have to farm the kids out if we want to get the house in showing condition and keep it that way. Breathe in, breathe out.... OK, no stress here.

Time to accomplish something around here!

Finally!

It took a lot longer to get the room done today than we thought it would. To top it off, we have one 18" long section up at the ceiling line where the paint came off when my husband took the tape off the ceiling. He will have to reprime it and repaint it tomorrow (after going back to the store for more paint). Trading Spaces makes it look so easy. It's not! This is why I like to hire people to do this kind of stuff.

We did get the furniture all put back into place and with any luck will be able to get the tree up and decorated tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then Tuesday. Hubby has the day off of work that day.

Oh, the white stuff is still coming down. Now "they" say we could have up to 8 inches by tomorrow. I'm not sure how much is out there now; I doubt more than 4 or so inches. Plenty for the kids and the dog to have fun in.

White stuff

Our first snowfall of the season has begun....  We're supposed to get 3-6 inches by tomorrow morning.  Personally, I really could live without the stuff.  It is pretty to look at, but I hate driving in it!  Oh well, this will be our last snowy season for at least 4 years.  Could be longer if we settle down in the South after hubby retires. Guess I should plan on taking lots of pictures of the kids and dog playing in it this winter so we'll have lots of photographic memories of it.

 

A work in progress

Yep, the painting isn't done yet. It's getting there, though. Just a bit to do over the fireplace and some touchups around the room. My husband won't be able to get to it until this afternoon, though. We have church this morning. It will be good to get it over with. There won't be enough time to get the room put back together before we head back out for small groups tonight, though. So that will have to wait till later tonight. Which means we won't be getting the tree up until one other night this week (which one will depend on how late he is getting home from work).

I've gotta go start waking up the rest of the house so we can be out of here on time this morning.

Home improvement

OK, so we have to sell our house in about 6 months, right? One thing we have to do before moving is paint. I'm talking just about every room in the house (which is almost 3500 finished square feet). We know a painter who will do it and will probably even be able to get to it some time in December. Problem: we want to put up the Christmas tree soon (say, yesterday). So my husband decides we will paint the room where the Christmas tree goes. Did I mention I don't enjoy painting? It has turned into an all-day affair. So far, the taping has been done, as has the cutting in, plus maybe a 4 ft. section of wall. Makes me so glad we aren't doing the whole house ourselves. I would need to just take the kids and go visit someone while my husband did it himself.

Know anyone moving to Omaha in about 6 months who needs a big house?

Shopping anyone?

So did anyone else hit the stores today?? My oldest and I were out of the house by 5am and met friends at Target for the 6am opening. We all found some good deals there, then hit Kohls and Panera Bread before going to the mall. We didn't get home until after 2pm. I can't believe I am actually still awake!

A little bit more...

A little bit more about what is going on here in my little corner of the world.... We found out a couple of weeks ago that we will be moving next June. We will only have been here a little over 2 years. Not an ideal situation to be in when selling a house, but real estate prices have gone up and we have a good chance of walking out of this with a little bit of money in our pocket. Anyhow, the military has seen fit to reward my husband's hard work with a new position out in California, so we will be heading to northern California early next summer. It is a little frightening (although that might be too strong a word) to think about going out there... The cost of living is so high and we have a large family by today's standards. But God has given me such peace over it all. I am beginning to think of all the good things about it (Tahoe, Yosemite, Disneyland, military hops to Hawaii...) and am actually looking forward to it. Finding a house we can afford will be a big hurdle to overcome, but I know that will happen.

The worst thing about moving??? Leaving behind friends. My 13yo daughter is not looking forward to the move at all because of this. I think this will be her hardest move yet. My 9yo son is also dreading leaving behind his best friend. This is the first time it has really been an issue for him. My younger two (6yo girl and 4yo boy) aren't too worried. They make friends very easily, so I am pretty confident they will handle the move well. I think my older ones will as well; they will just have to overcome their own attitudes in order to make it work.

Starting Over

I had a blog eons ago on Xanga... but that place just got too weird for me. I've missed writing stuff down, so thought I'd give it another go. Hope my ramblings aren't too boring.