Wednesday, May 25, 2011

  Nothing much exciting going on around here today.  Bubba had tummy troubles.  Poor little guy would burp but his tummy was still so tight and he just wanted to be held all day and when I could get him down Little Miss decided to act up and be sassy so she spent her fair share of time in the time out chair today.  Bug showed up unexpectedly and helped keep her happy for the morning, that was a big help....

  But at lunch time I went to get something out of the freezer and noticed that the ice cream on the top shelf was now dripping down onto the shelf below and onto the floor as I took the box out.  Turns out the whole refrigerator was dying.  Thankfully it waited to die completely until after the hubby got home from work, but he had to go out and buy a new refrigerator.  We got a decent deal.  It's smaller than my side by side that I had, but we do have a chest freezer now so the small freezer isn't such a big deal.  It did force us to do a bit of spring cleaning in the refrigerator I guess, but this is just not the way that I had planned to spend my evening!

  So yeah, it's pretty much been one of those days that if it could go wrong it did, and I was ready to go back to bed by about 8 am, when my work day starts at 7!  Thinking it's a good day to head off to bed early!

  Hope you all had a better day than me! :)

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Beautiful flowers out our backdoor.  The red building is our neighbor's workshop in his backyard.  He is a very talented wood worker!

The neighbor' workshop and the flowers again.  I loved the lighting on these that day.

The same neighbor's front porch.  He is quite a decorator!

The bald eagle's nest from the famous eagle cam check them out we've been watching since they were first laid as little eggs.  They have been mentioned on many news channels including CNN and people from all over the world are watching them.  They are about 20 minutes away from me.  If you look carefully/enlarge this picture you can see one of the parent eagles heads.

This little owl crashed into my front window.  Flew right into it, we don't know if something was chasing him or if he just didn't see it.  It was around noon or one in the afternoon.  He sat on my porch for about 45 minutes collecting himself and let me open the front door just a bit to stick the camera out and get some pictures.

This picture is to show his size.  We found later that he was a full size adult.  He is a saw whet owl.  After sitting there for the 45 minutes or so he pooped on the porch and flew away!

I love the "wink" here!

I won a facebook contest with Canvas People with one of his pictures. 


Hope everyone is having a great day!

Monday, May 23, 2011

  Yes, once again I have been a bad blogger, very bad blogger.  I knew it had been a while since I had blogged but I didn't realize that it had been March when I last blogged!  

  Lots of things have been changing around here.  The most fun being that Little Miss now has a baby brother...Bubba...and he has been coming full time now and he really takes a lot more of my time and really, who can resist a chubby, snuggly, smiley baby?!  Not me!  And of course Little Miss has regressed a little bit needing a bit more of my time (including smacking me in the face this morning resulting in a time out for her!).  Fun fun.

  I've been busy with pictures.  I finished senior pictures and a graduation slideshow.  I am working on pictures for a website, editing pictures for a baby dedication and two sets of family pictures that I took on Easter as well as our fun "family" pictures on Easter.

  The Awana year is over, two of our BIG projects came right at the end of the year and RIGHT before Easter causing me lots of stress.  Hubby is in charge of our Awana Grand Prix, the kids get a block of wood, similar to the Boy Scouts Pinewood Derby cars, and they build their cars with their family, have time trials and weights and measuring on the Wednesday night before the race during game time, and then on Saturday (the Saturday before Easter fun fun) we have the big race in the morning from 9 - 12.  Lots of time spent decorating and getting helpers sorted, races lined up, hubby had two actual race cars parked out front, and then of course you have clean up afterwards.  Our Pastor had a reporter come from our local paper and our Awana Iowa missionary came to be our speaker and help to present the race awards.  It was a lot of fun but a lot of stress and work around our house.  And you know I was there taking pictures!

  And then there was our closing program where I have taken all the pictures I have gotten throughout the year and put them into a slideshow with music for a video to show the parents/families what the kids have done through the year.  We try to make sure that everyone shows up in the video at least once.  With 70 some kids, some who I don't know or recognize by name especially in Sparks, that gets a little interesting!


  I am still teaching Sunday School, although this too brings some change.  Sunday will be my last week teaching the Jr. High class.  I have been the "lead teacher" and helping to prepare a new teacher to teach on his own.  It has worked well as I have had to "sneak out" of class a few times for different reasons.  But now our 1 - 3 grade teacher has requested a break so I will be sitting in on one last class for our new teacher in the Jr. High class and the next week I will begin teaching the 1 - 3 grades with the start of the new quarter.  I am looking forward to it, although I do have to admit being a bit sad and thinking about how I will miss teaching the Jr. High kids!


  Vacation Bible School is coming up in July and the sign up sheet for teachers and other help has gone up on the bulletin board.  One teacher had signed up, for the fourth grade class so I wanted to decide which class I wanted quickly so I could have my choice.  I went and signed up tonight when I was doing a couple other errands and I chose the 2nd grade.  I'm excited!  It will give me a chance to get to know some of my class a little better, and be a different age group than I have had the last few years in Sunday School and VBS.  The last two years I have taught 5th grade and then 6th grade.  I figure I might as well embrace the change, right?!


  The high school baseball season officially starts tomorrow and I will be going to as many games as possible to get some pictures for some friends' son's pictures, he will be a senior next year.  And I need to be working on senior pictures for him as well as pictures to send to his aunt for his graduation scrapbook.  Never a dull moment.  I'll be slowly starting to take some of his senior pictures over the summer and school year too.  Our schedules are both so busy with work and other activities it looks like we'll have quite a few "mini" photoshoots to get them all in.


  Anywhoooooo that's what's going on around here.  I am going to try my best to write more often and I am thankful for those of you who have kept in touch with me and prodded me to blog and post pictures while I've been away.  Rebecca Jo I'm praying for you and your family!  And Brandi you have the most adorable family!  Great to see pictures of them and the projects you've been up to!


  I'll post some more pics soon!


 

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

  I finally finished typing the files in the main folder that I was given and was able to return that back to it's owner!  SO glad to have that done!  Now I have another small envelope (with 9 files) and then a couple short ones in another folder.  I should be able to get it done pretty quickly! 

  I got pictures from Amanda to scan and put in a video for her graduation too.  She has to get me a list of music yet, but this way I can get a start!  I should have more time to get these projects done now that basketball season is over. 

  It's Dr. Seuss' birthday!  I'm looking for some crafty/coloring things for the kids to do now.  PBS has a marathon of The Cat in the Hat Knows alot about That today. 

  The emergency altert system just came on with a monthly test and the kids panicked...Bug looked at me and said I don't know what happened...where's the movie...what happened.  I think he was afraid that he was going to be in trouble haha!  Wow, PBS just did another test...both Bug and Little Miss looked at me and asked what happened in chorus!

  Well, I'd better keep moving and get some things printed off for the kids.  Hope you all have a great day!

 

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

  Wow!  I have to much to tell you!  It was definately a crazy and busy weekend!

  Thursday our boys basketball team was playing in a town about an hour and fifteen minutes away to advance to the next level for the state tournament.  Our plan was as soon as Little Miss left we were going to pick up the three boys Dad and head for the game.  He called later and asked if we had room for another friend...we did and I believe the plan was for us to pick him up at his office which is on the way.

  Well, he went to pick the boys up from the after school program and they couldn't find Bug.  He called to say he was running late, we all thought he was in the bathroom or being a stinker and hiding.  So we waited a bit, I cleaned up a little more around the house and we soon headed out to their house.  Their Dad pulled up to the house ran out of the car to the house and I saw the boys start to open the door and head out too.  K and I were talking and not paying much attention when their Dad came up to the car and said that Bug was still missing!  Panic!

  He left the oldest at home in case someone called and he took off in one direction, we went another, and a man who lives next door to the school and heard what was going on went in a different direction.  We came back by the house to see if he had made his way here somehow and not seeing him we headed for PM and C's house (Bug's Grandparents).  No Bug.  We started driving sidestreets and alleys around their house looking for a little head bobbing down the sidewalk (the snowbanks are so high it is hard to see some of the kiddos even if you are in a car) and thought we had found him for a second only to find that it was someone else.  We joke that we tried to add kidnapping charges trying to grab some innocent little guy!  Can't tell you how hard we were praying that we would find him, and quickly!

  We looked for a half hour to 45 minutes and I FINALLY got the phone call that he had been found.  The little stink pot had gotten bored or something at the after school program and put on his boots, hat, mittens, coat, and backpack and decided to walk to his other Grandparents' house!!!!!  We don't know which route he took but it's at least 1.1 miles for him to walk!  K drove a couple routes after we got back to town from the game and dropped everyone off!

  What bugs me is that when we had gotten the call he had just arrived at the Grandparents' house.  And like I said it is a little over a mile that he had to walk....so how long was he missing and no one noticed.  How did they not notice that he was gone while his two older brothers were still there??

  I am SO thankful that when we walk to the park a couple blocks away I stress that we have to stop at corners and look both ways not once but twice so I know he knows that!  He's never had to walk like that before so we really have no idea what made him decide to do it that day!

  I am MOST THANKFUL that we found him and that he was fine!  He was a very tired little boy though, and was asleep before his Mommy got home from work that night!

  We finally met the boys' Dad and the other friend at the boys' house and headed for the game.  The oldest came along with us too.  He was so sweet, when we were talking about it a bit he said "Dad, when you were out looking, I got down on my knees and prayed!"  Brought tears to my eyes!

  Wednesday night we had two clubbers receive Christ as their Savior!  One of the boys had been talking about it on his ride home with a friend to a neighboring town and the friend's Mom asked if he wanted her to pray with him.  He said no, he wanted to pray with his Awana leader!  That leader is PM and C's son.  I was SO excited and happy for him as well.  I had just been telling C the week before how impressed and proud I was with him as he had given up his men's league basketball with his oldest brother to be an Awana leader.  And basketball is one of his favorite sports, and to play with the men was a big thing for him!  This guy also says that he wants to be a missionary and has gone to Brazil twice now!  He is like a little brother to me (even though he is quite a bit taller than me lol) and I can't help but "brag" about him!  I can't wait to see how the Lord continues to use him!

  Then this morning, I go to check my facebook and find that another little guy, the younger brother of Amanda, who I took senior pictures for, accepted Christ as his Savior this morning!  On Amanda's 18th birthday too!  Wow!

  Friday I didn't have any kiddos so I worked on my file typing for most of the day.  When K came home from work we headed to the church and worked with PM  on a mudding and painting project in the main hallway of the church.  It went alot faster than we thought it would and instead of breaking the painting up into two days like we planned we kept at it and finished up around midnight or 12:30 Saturday morning.  We had some clean up left to do on Saturday but nothing like we thought we would have!  The only problem was one of the tarps we used had a hole and as careful as we thought we had been and cleaning up the spots we found on the carpet as we went along we found a big spot that had dried Saturday afternoon while picking up the tarps.  Most of it came up, but it's still somewhat noticable.  They do want to get new carpet to match the rest of the entryway in there though, so I guess it's not terrible.  It was actually alot of fun, and alot of work, and we definately have some memories after that lol.  Lots of things get quite a bit funnier when it's that late and you are that tired!

  Soo....yesterday  honestly I was dragging a bit and had Bug mostly ready to go to school when the bus came early and she didn't wait long.  When I had gotten Bug all set and got to the door we saw the back of the bus going down the road!  UGH!  So I called his Mom, hated to wake her up, she was sleeping after working the night shift, but she came to get him and took him to school. 

  Hopefully today is a nice quiet day the rest of the day and I can get some more typing done!  Four more things to type and I can get this file folder back to be put in the files again!

  Have a great day everyone!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

  Despite a terrible headache afterwards it was a great night at Awana last night!  It was friend night for double friend points and we had lots of friends out.  We had two clubbers accept Christ as their Savior last night too!  I was so excited, our best friends' son C was the one to lead them to the Lord!  He is a junior in high school and has given up his men's league basketball nights to come and be a leader for Awana!  I love that kid and I'm so proud of him!

  No church on Sunday means that I have all my typing and Sunday School preparation done.  I've been doing some typing for some files now...I'm really feeling off this week without my typing and things to do!  It does sound like we plan to get together to go over the PowerPoint again just to make sure we're all on the same page before Sunday.

  I caught up on making birthday and anniversary cards but found out that my Hallmark Christian Card Studio isn't working :( I have the regular card studio but some of the cards from the Christian Card Studio just aren't on there and it just isn't the same.  I got a deal on this one on ebay too, and now I can't find another one :(

  Kiddos are pretty quiet today, they've watched some tv and now they're coloring on the big dry erase board.  Love that thing, it's been good entertainment quite a few times now!

  The headache I had last night is finally gone, but I just feel so tired and out of it today.  Naptime for the Little Miss can't come soon enough!  Tonight is going to be another late night too!

  Don't know much more than that for now...I'll have more pictures to share once I get them downloaded to the computer!

  Hope you all are having a better day than I am!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

  Back to work today!  Sounds like it will be a busy day too!  Mr. Bug is here for the morning and will get on the bus for school just after lunch, Little Miss is here all day, and it sounds like I'll get four more girls for the afternoon.  Hopefully everyone gets along!  At least the day will pass quickly!

  Now that I've finally gotten some other things caught up with my weekend off I can focus more on pictures!  I have quite a few I want to post here to share with you all, basketball pictures for Facebook, some of my brother's wedding reception to post on Facebook, and Veteran's Banquet pictures to burn to cds.  Also it sounds like I am going to make a graduation slideshow for Amanda whose senior pictures I was taking so I will have lots of pictures to scan and put into a video.  Never a dull moment ha!

  Guess that's about all I've got for now....maybe I'll be back later this afternoon...hope you all have a great day!

 

Monday, February 21, 2011

  Wow, my week just got complicated!  The boys basketball team won their game tonight...by one point what a game!...which means they now play on Thursday...when we are supposed to have Prayer Meeting.  So we are in the midst of planning to move Prayer Meeting to tomorrow, Awana on Wednesday, basketball on Thursday!

  We didn't have church yesterday because of the ice, rain, and snow we were getting.  It's already thrown my week off!  But this also means that most of my typing and my Sunday School preparation is done so it should be a little less stressful. 

  I also had the day off today so I caught up on a few corrections that I needed to type for last weeks work and finished with all the laundry and I even got to sit down and do some reading and finally finished a book I've been reading for a while.  It was A Time to Dance by Karen Kingsbury.  It was soooo good!

  But not going to bed until 2am Sunday morning and finally catching up on some of my housework and laundry and the excitement of the basketball game is catching up with me and it's time to go snuggle with the hubby and head off to dreamland.

  Hope you all had a great day!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

  Wow!  I'm loving these warmer temps and the snow melting...puddles and all...but this fog is crazy!  School started two hours late yesterday and they just cancelled for today!  My schedule changed or I would have 3 hyper boys and a crazy Little Miss running around the house!  Now I just have Little Miss today and the three boys will come tomorrow morning.
The view out the front door this morning
They say it could be in the 50s today!  The kids have no school tomorrow...teacher's day off since we have had parent teacher conferences this week...and no school Monday either.  Quite a weekend for the kids!  Just praying everyone stays safe!

It was another good night at Awana last night  Panicking a bit, our Commander asked if I would do a Counsel Time in a couple weeks.  I told him I'd think about it, want to do a little research before I committed.  The kids brought items for our local food pantry last night.  We ended up with two big boxes full and four or five plastic grocery bags full! They are a great group of clubbers! 

Hopefully with a few final touches I should finish up with the Save the Date card I'm working up for a friend of ours.  Then I can hopefully finish up with editing and burning the Veteran's Banquet pictures to cd.  I have to mail out a few more Valentines from the youth group, print and mail the birthday and anniversary cards for the next couple of weeks, get some laundry done, some typing, and get to my parents for the hubbys birthday today!

What do you have planned for the day??

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

  Well it was a good game, but the boys lost last night.  They've had a good season, and this was the team ranked number one in our district, but it was still a tough loss.  I honestly think they could have beat them, but we were having a tough time hitting any shots, twos, threes, foul shots, we didn't let them shut us out, but it was a tough one to come back and win.

  Little Miss is in a silly mood today!  She was watching Max and Ruby and came and told me that crybaby was crying!  We were watching a YouTube video with a tiny baby and when he started crying she got upset, almost crying herself and told me that he needed a diaper and a blankie!  She's getting to be quite a talker!  Yesterday she was running around the living room and told me "Spinning round...crazy lady!"  I laughed and laughed!

  I was just checking my facebook and saw a friend had posted that there is a Kirby vaccuum cleaner salesman going around town and apparently he will just walk into your house if the doors are unlocked!  She also does daycare and said she was downstairs with the kids and heard the dog barking outside so she went upstairs and there he was standing in her living room!  Guy has guts!  I would have called the police!  That is crazy!

  Today is the funeral for an 18 year old girl, a high school senior,  from a neighboring town who was killed in a car accident over the weekend.  Her boyfriend graduated last year, he took her out to a town about an hour away and a car turned in front of them and another car, he clipped the car in front of him and crossed over the center line where he collided with a snow plow.  It was just one of those things, no alcohol involved, the roads were slick.  She died and he was sent to the hospital in critical condition.  He improved and was sent home, but I can not imagine how difficult this has to be for him!  We are praying that this may open the eyes of some of those kids around them, both in the neighboring town and in the surrounding areas, that think they are invincible and that they would be open to Christ! 

  I have had one of our Awana clubbers chat with me on facebook, she just wanted to talk a bit, wanted to tell me what they did at school and how she was feeling. 

  We had gone to a football game in the neighboring town and watched this girl be crowned Homecoming queen just a few months ago!

  Please, pray with us for comfort for these families and that the Lord would work in hearts and minds through all this!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

  We spent a quiet night at home last night...honestly I was in bed by 8:30!  We folded laundry and then just watched some tv and talked.  It was a good night!  Things have been so busy lately it was nice just to be able to relax!

  Little Miss has quite an attitude today...lots of No's an you don't tell me no followed by crying and tantrums.  Fun.  Dad said she was up early today so a nap should take care of that pretty quickly.

  The sun is shining and melting lots of snow...I just wish that we didn't have a lake to "swim" through to get to either door of the house!

 

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day! 

It's a pretty quiet day around here, but those have become very welcome lately! Yesterday we spent most of the day at church...we had Sunday School and church, and then we stuck around to help our youth group with their first YAC (Youth After Church).  We made Valentines for the elderly and shut ins of our church, made home made pizzas and cheesy breadsticks, had a short devotional and a couple of songs, and then played games and just had fun together.  We made it home for about an hour and then it was back again for the evening service!  What a day!  But it was so much fun and I'd do it again any day!

The last regular season basketball game is this week, and the hubby's birthday too!  Lots of celebrating around here this week!

Little Miss is sleeping well behind me...maybe the short time she "tried" to nap upstairs did her some good...realizing she has to sleep if she wants to keep her "crib" down here!

Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

  So I know I'm totally going to regret this, but Little Miss has been napping for an hour now!  That's twice as long as she napped yesterday...and counting!  She's such a light sleeper if I sneeze or the phone rings or someone comes to the door she is up and any hope of getting her back to sleep is gone....

  I tried putting her upstairs in the second bedroom but she started panicking a bit when she woke up like she was afraid that I left her.  Then she would wake up as soon as I put her down...and forget going back to sleep again.  UGH!  So yesterday after her half hour nap (resulting in such a "joy" of a girl) the hubby moved her bed back down here.  So far so good, I tiptoe around and hate to do much for fear of waking her, but she's sleeping and I get a little downtime to do some typing so I guess this is it.  I just hope her baby brother is a better sleeper when he makes his appearance!  Their Mom and I are afraid we are going to have our hands full when he does...definately going to be a big adjustment for Little Miss!

  Soooo after a big "fight" at naptime with her yesterday and some "round and round" discussions about Awana music, which should have been simple but for some reason got very complicated and frustrating on my part, another "lovely" cold, last minute typing, and some odd phone calls I was not in such a great mood to go to Awana last night.  Definately out of character for me!  I even told the hubby that I just wanted to crawl into bed and try to start over tomorrow.  So glad I didn't do that!

  It started out a little frustrating, our Counsel Time speaker walking in at the last minute, one of the kids getting sick just after walking in the door, discussions of changes that need to be made on another photo project I am working on...which normally I don't mind at all but with my mindset you know how that goes sometimes...

  But sitting and listening to our Counsel Time on Daniel I have to admit my heart started to soften a bit.  Then a good conversation with one of the best friends about her trip taking her son back to the airport as he heads back to Afghanistan after his two week break home.  Then off to the Spark's Counsel Time (it was backwards night so the Sparks could get into the Valentine's store first....so for one store they aren't getting all the "left overs"...) to put the words up on screen for one of their songs and finally down for handbook time.

  All the record keeping had been done when I got down there and I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed when my clubber told me that she didn't have any sections ready.  But then she told me she wanted to talk...she was worried about a family that attends her church occasionally and her 4 - H club.  This is the Father's second marriage and it's not a great relationship, the kids are told they don't have to obey, they have horrible language and social skills and she just wants to show them a different way, the right way.  Wow.

  I was humbled.

  I said a quick prayer of thanks, thanks that she trusted me enough to talk about this, that she treasured my advice, that she had such a heart for others and wanted to see them come to know the Lord....and we talked about how prayer was the best and biggest thing she could do.  And how that if she saw them don't avoid them but make it a point to say hi, how are you...they don't have to be your "best friend" but "physically" show them that you are different, show them that agape love, and how they probably aren't going to "drop everything and run to you" that second, but I'm sure sometime in the future they are going to come to a place that they stop and wonder why you did that.  Why you didn't just look down on them and judge them like everyone else.

  I told her of a personal experience of mine, where one of my classmates...who readily admits that she was not one of the nicest girls in school, contacted me on facebook and said that she had been thinking about me and how I stopped and helped her when she was having trouble with her asthma while running the mile in PE.  Why hadn't I just kept going and ignored her like everyone else??  Come to find out she had become a Christian and wanted to thank me.  Wow.  By the way, I really have no recollection of this event!

  After our talk we spent some time in prayer not only for this family but for my clubber as well, that the Lord would give her the words and the actions to show them His love.  I also told her how proud I was of her, that she had such a sensitive heart for others and was looking for a way to help when so many others judge and move on and promised to continue pray for her, and them. 

  After we were dismissed and everyone was milling around waiting for rides home I found her again and told her she could email or whatever she needed anytime, that I was here for her.  She smiled and thanked me for doing this for her and I got teary all over again!

  It's so easy to get caught up in the negatives and day to day things just like I had yesterday and this fifth grade girl gave me the "shake" I needed to pull myself out of it and put my focus back onto Him and others where it needs to be!  I only wish that the kids from my Sunday School class and youth group could have been there....this is EXACTLY what we have been talking about!!!

  After there were just a few of us left I noticed another leader sitting cross legged on the floor with a couple of clubbers and after getting a picture of the three of them sitting there the leader shared a sweet story about why these two clubbers were so special to him.  I don't know how much of this story he wants out, as it is a bit personal but I will say that I had goosebumps and tears all over again!

  All the kids had gone and there were just a handful of leaders left, I went to our Commander and I said "I'm sorry but I don't think Awana was for the clubbers tonight, it was for me!"  I explained to him and he nodded his head and said yes, that's the way it happens sometimes that we definately get more of a blessing than the clubbers some nights!

  I can't wait to go back next week!   

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Ahhh it's definately been one of those days!  Little Miss is not liking to nap, I moved her playpen upstairs and she's sleeping less than the little she was sleeping when she was napping down here....she's such a light sleeper if I sneeze she wakes up and is done napping for the day.  Trying to convince her that napping is a good thing and she'll be much happier if she does isn't going so well though.

Had a little fun with the kiddos and Elements this morning...I won't show you the kiddos, but I will show you a little something I made for the hubby...just don't tell him lol! 
That's a picture we took this summer on one of our little drives where he likes to get lost and I take pictures along the way.

We bought a few little things for the kids for their Valentines last night on the way home from the basketball game...they're getting heart straws, candy hearts, bubbles, and I think I have some cute little stuffed animals with little loops on them to hang on their backpacks or something around here somewhere.
 
Can't believe Valentine's Day is coming up so quickly!

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Sorry I haven't been posting again...but I do have some good things for you!  50 free prints from Shutterfly!  Enter promo code at checkout: MRNH-DYD0-PHTT-0Y1M04

Offer ends Feb 7

and 50 free prints from Snapfish Go to this website http://www.fancyfeast.com/snapfish/?DCMP=EMC-FF-January+Snapfish+Email&HQS=Snapfish+landing and enter your email address and you’ll receive a unique promotional code to print or save. Once you get your code, visit Snapfish.com to redeem your prints. It’s that easy.


I just ordered my 50 free prints from Shutterfly and have some more to go through before I order from Snapfish.  It looks like you can get those prints through August once you get the code and add it to you account.

Friday, January 28, 2011

K's hat for Crazy Hat Night at Awana...it's a Christmas tree made out of tinsel he found at Wal Mart! We think he looks like something out of Dr. Seuss!
Now he's added a Santa hat that another clubber brought

I added this one because it showed a little more detail of the tree. That "hat" was definately a hit with the clubbers!


Sunday, January 23, 2011






One job done! Today I FINALLY finished the senior pictures for our friend! I am so happy to have that done! I found a few fun extras online to play with in Elements so I made up a couple of extras for her.






Now I have to get the Veteran's Banquet pictures edited and burned to cd and my brother's wedding reception pictures edited and posted to facebook for him and I think I'm done with my big projects!






Speaking of my brother, you probably already saw that I am going to be an aunt again! I am so excited! This will be the first grandchild for my parents and for my sister in laws parents...and I am the only aunt...so of course you know this baby will have lots of I love my aunt onesies and things haha! I will have so much fun being the favorite aunt! Now we just have to get them to move back to Iowa from the Seattle area!






This week sounds a little slower, we aren't going to make Tuesday's ballgame :(, but we do have a benefit for a friend to go to. He was diagnosed with a rare type of stomach cancer and went to Houston for treatment. They recently returned home, and we all look forward to the opportunity to help them! Wednesday is our second Talent Night at Awana and also flashlight night for gametime. Thursday's schedule is still up in the air a bit, but we hope to be able to catch at least part of the basket ball game, it will be here in town.
I haven't forgotten about posting the picture of K's hat for Crazy Hat Night at Awana either...I need to get to work putting some basketball pictures on facebook for a friend, but I will post that either later tonight or tomorrow!






Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Ahh I can't believe it's been so long since I wrote last! I know I keep saying it, but I really need to get better at this! I hate that there is such a long span of time between posts! I just have trouble fitting it all in somedays!

Little Miss is teething again, which makes her my little cling on. I don't get much of anything done when she is like this. It makes both of us a bit cranky.

I've been busy with typing, going to basketball games, Awana, and helping get music together for our new leaders for our youth group. It's been alot of fun, but takes alot of time!

I found out yesterday that I'm going to be an aunt again in September! My brother and his wife are expecting their first child! So exciting! I'm going to be the "favorite aunt"....ok so the only aunt but it works for me lol!

I'm working on pictures; the last of our friend's senior pictures, my brother's wedding reception (they renewed their vows here in Iowa over the summer so the her family and our family could be there), Awana, and the Veteran's Banquet...and some samples of save the date cards for another friend's son who just got engaged! I am loving Elements 9!

Anyway...the lack of posts isn't for not wanting to blog...and I have lots of pictures I want to share!

But now it's time to change the Little Miss' diaper so I'd better be off and running agian.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

I have sat here many times now with this screen up ready to start writing another blog post when the phone rings, or Little Miss wakes up from her nap (naptimes have not been our best friend around here lately unfortunately), or something happens...but today I'm determined to get a post up!

Basketball is in full swing and I'm sure those of you who are reading have seen my pictures up on facebook by now. I wasn't so sure about posting the pics on facebook but C and his mom asked that I would...he has a friend in Brazil (who is also on my facebook now) and wants them to be able to see them.

My typing work went crazy there for a bit...I think we are back into a more "normal" schedule again...what ever normal is!

Worship Team rehearsal after Awana last night...we got one of our teens to sing with us this time too! We (K, PM, and I) ended up talking with another friend/Worship Team member about some things going on after the practice and the time flew and before we knew it we were leaving the church at 11:30! Little Miss comes at 7:15, which means I'm trying to drag myself out of bed between 6 and 6:20 and she was VERY active yesterday (but mostly in a good mood thankfully!) so it was one LONG day and I was exhausted! I took a nap just after Little Miss first fell asleep and no basketball game tonight so we can go to bed early tonight to try and catch up. I feel bad for K, he was up at about 5:40 to go to work and no nap for him until about 4 if Little Miss lets him after he gets home!

Have to run now, but I will try and get pictures posted later tonight of K's hat for crazy hat night at Awana and maybe a few others. Hope you all have a great day!

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

So yesterday was nothing exciting to write about. Worked all day and mostly wrote thank you notes in the evening. I did do a little reading and posted a few pictures of Christmas on facebook but didn't do much at all.

Tonight it's back to our "normal" schedule with Awana...our Counsel time is on Solomon and it's Crazy Hat night! K bought one of those Christmas trees that's made out of tinsel and cone shaped, hollow on the inside and he may throw a few little ornaments on it and that will be his hat! I still have to put mine together.

Little Miss' mood has been up and down, she seems to be working on some top teeth. They really seemed to bother her yesterday, but she still kept us laughing! Her baby brother is due in March and she's really been talking about him lately. Yesterday she was looking for him in the cupboards with the pots and pans! We told her that he had to go to work with Mommy and that seemed to keep her happy for a bit anyway! I love the way their little minds work!

Well, I don't have much else so I guess that's it for now. Hope you all have a great day!

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

It was a pretty quiet day back to work for me yesterday, just me and the Little Miss, and she took a three hour nap! And nothing planned in the evening gave me plenty of time to catch up on some things! I did my billing through the end of December, totalled my days worked, meals served, and income for the year 2010, caught up with the laundry pile that has been staring at me in the laundry room each time we came in and out of the back door, got a couple thank you notes written, and did some reading!

I'm feeling much more organized and finally ready for the new year!

I even took advantage of a sale on Snapfish and ordered 99 prints for 99cents! I believe it goes through the 9th if anyone else wants to do it, when you check out type in the coupon code of 2011PENNY. I found a scrapbook and some Christmas scrapbook stickers I liked on sale a couple days after Christmas so I thought I would play around a little with some of my pictures. It's definately not going to be up to the caliber of scrapbooking that my sister in law does, but just something a little fun to try with my pictures. I'll put some in a "regular" photo album, but play around a bit with some others.

Not much else going on now that Christmas is over...the inlaws have gone back home, it's back to work again...although still a bit of a different schedule for the next couple weeks. This week I have Little Miss Monday through Friday and next week I will have Monday and Friday (my normal day off) with her. Can't beat a couple extra three day weekends!

Otherwise I'm still taking pictures/editing, and typing away on some things to be kept on file. Nothing too exciting!

Hope you all are having a great day!

Saturday, January 01, 2011

Happy New Year! We didn't do alot...I had some typing work to do and I redid my nails....this is what I had done for Christmas...
and this is what I did yesterday...not the greatest picture, it was taken with my phone...but they are snowflakes. Yeah I'm a big kid.
We stayed home last night and watched movies...we started watching the Tooth Fairy but neighter one of us liked it much and we switched to Alice in Wonderland...again not big fans...so we watched a bit of tv for a while and then watched Fireproof. I LOVE that movie! We saw Fireproof in 60 in the extras and the Firegoofs and pranks too! Too funny!
So far today is starting out just like yesterday...I should be working on my Sunday School lesson and looking up the hymns for church tomorrow, but I'm procrastinating! K wants to take a drive to get some pictures too...and who am I to argue with that haha!
I'm hoping to do some picture editing today too...K bought me some backgrounds, textures, and frames for Elements and I can't wait to play some more with them! Maybe I'll get to sit down and watch The Blind Side too!
I hope you all had a safe and Happy New Year's Eve and New Year's Day today and that 2011 brings you much happiness and many blessings!