can I tell you something...?

That is a phrase that I have heard a million times a day from R - ever since he first began talking in sentences ages ago.

Since moving, R now says "Can I tell ya' something...? Seriously, maybe it is just me, but every time he says it, he makes me giggle.

Where did the ya' come from? Is this an eastern thing? Has he picked up a new dialect and I am still speaking western speak???

It is so funny. He NEVER says 'you' anymore...in any sentence. It is ya',ya', ya' all day long...

That's my boy!

hmmm...what is in THIS box...???

It's kinda heavy...and wiggly...

Oh...THAT'S where they put the boy. I thought it was kinda quiet around here!

That box is R's new favorite toy - he climbs in, asks me to tape it shut and then he plays in it. I love this game. My goal is to get him to stay in there a little longer each time...

And you can see the pirate costume is still a big hit with R. This is one of the best things my parents have given R - he's had the costume for over a year now, and almost every day at some point he puts it on and becomes a pirate.

Ahoy matey!

last year around this time...

this was happening...


A big boy birthday party with lots of friends...

and family...

This year...not so much.

This week we will have a small birthday celebration for R with just us four, and my dad, who is in town visiting us. (For those of you back home that were wondering and were worried about him...my dad arrived here safely yesterday with our trailer after driving for 4 solid days + one day of being snowed in at a hotel).

I went and ordered a small cake today - this year R would like a football party. R's Great-Grandpa wants to give him a new bike for his birthday...so my dad and I took the kids to Toys R Us today and this is what R picked out. And he just called my mom on the phone to tell her he picked out "a humming bike, and it has training wheels, and a bell". I have been trying to tell R it is a Hummer bike, like the truck - but he thinks it is like the bird...

Anyway, R does not care what size party he has, so we will have fun no matter what! And by next year he should have loads of new friends here to invite to a party...

this is us today...

There are real life Bob-the-Builders all over the place. Here are Scoop and Muck and my little Bob (in pj's with jam still on his face)...

Too bad it just started raining...we are going to have some muck around here today!

i am taking a break

from all the unpacking to update my blog. Our house is looking pretty good actually. I have most of the rooms mostly set up...mostly. We have been taking the kiddies to the nearby park and keeping them busy outside since the weather here has been great. Our street here in suburbia is full of little kids, so that is nice. R was very excited to see that our neighbors have a basketball hoop and hockey nets on their driveway - he wants to get to know them asap! DH and R walked to get an ice cream yesterday to a place that they thought was nearby...but it ended up taking them an hour to get there! And then of course, they had to stop to play at every park on the way home... R showed up at the front door with a handful of dandelions and said "I brought you some flowers Mommy"...awww! They are now sitting in a vase on the kitchen table (good thing R told me he only picked the ones that didn't have the bugs on them).

And just because I want to include a photo...

Here is R enjoying the plane ride out here. He multi-tasks like his mama...he's plugged into the plane's Treehouse TV station on his earphones (or ear muffs as he kept calling them when they fell off and he needed me to put them back on every 2 minutes during the entire flight...), he's got Bear, his big boy video game that Grandma bought him, his sister's blankie...and that other little person would be Paul, the infamous peeing BOY baby that Santa had such a hard time finding...

Have a good night, I'm going back to my boxes!

this is NOT a beach...

it is a pile of dirty sand in front of our house that has no grass, that my kids think is a beach for some reason... So they pulled all their beach toys out of the garage and started playing amongst the sand, mud and trash that is our front yard. When Kevin got Miss S dressed this morning he obviously did not realize she would be playing in dirt all day...guess I should find her some more appropriate play clothes (that was for my mom who I know is reading this and freaking out right now)!

i'm back...

from Nashville and the Scrap Etc Event. It was as great as I thought it would be! Who knew it would be so therapeutic though...? Scrapbooking is good for my soul. It was so perfect to be around all these creative women that share a common interest (or obsession!), especially during such a crazy time in my life. The instructors were not only creative, but inspirational - Heidi Swapp gave a speech that was so motivating and heartfelt. She is an amazing woman - who knows how she does it all, and with 5 kids!!! I felt guilty leaving my kids, but I had just finished packing up our house and our lives back home and I really did need a break. And being at an event like this one and hearing every one's story makes you recognize how important it is to live your life everyday the way you really want, to be present, to create... I really enjoyed meeting some great women at the event (Hi Shana if you are reading this)!!

I would love to post some photos of the projects we made but right now they are somewhere in one of the big pile of boxes I have yet to unpack at my new home. Heidi Swapp had a photo on her blog of the project we did with her - it is a mini book made with a mirror cover (not yet released anywhere, we got the first look at it). The book is made with some of her new paper, lots of ghost shapes and transparencies (the big butterfly is awesome)...but the idea behind the book is what makes it so cool. It is full of inspirational quotes and ideas to motivate women, with the title being 'to your heart be true'... I also loved the projects we made with Wilna, Angelia, Jenni Bowlin and the Creative Cafe girls (Danelle Johnson and Kristi Sikora-Blankenship)... I will post photos as soon as I can!

After getting home from Nashville on the 21st and spending the next day and night at my parents house with the kids, we flew to our new city...and we are now in the process of getting settled. I can tell right now...it is going to be a long process! Our house here is great - nicer than I thought actually (I couldn't really remember a lot about it until we got here - we bought it in all of five minutes on our last day of a house hunting trip in January)! Now I am just trying to get things unpacked, rooms set up, etc. I still don't have an email address - this is my first chance to even get on the computer - I am going to beg Kevin tonight to hook me up!!! I am in computer withdrawal!

Anyway, here are some photos from the beautiful Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Centre where the Scrap Etc Event was held. It was a beautiful hotel and I was lucky to be upgraded to a room with a balcony overlooking an inside atrium (at no extra charge). This was the view from my room...

Here are some other shots of the hotel...

Anyway, more later on projects from Nashville.

And here are some photos of the kiddies just for those of you back home that are missing them. This is from one of our last nights at Grandma's house when we had a birthday dinner for Grandma and Auntie M...

And these are from one of our last days playing at the park near Grandma's...

More later...

I'm going to be MIA...

for a little while. I've almost made it though the moving mania, and I'm off to Nashville. It seemed sketchy there for a while, I thought it wouldn't happen (what with all the moving confusion and then airline drama), but I am going to the Scrap Etc Event - yeah!!!

I've got my bags packed (that's right, bags with an 's' - they are mostly empty to make more room for the projects and shopping that I come home with!), my passport in hand and I am SO ready.

I'm sure I'll have lots to post when I get back...

packing up and saying good-byes...

I haven't been posting lately because my computer is somewhere in here...

Can you believe all those boxes came from one tiny little scraproom? There's no denying it now...I have a huge paper addiction!

Friday my house was packed up, Saturday AND Sunday (due to some logistical problems, fun, fun) the moving truck was loaded up...and now I am living at my parent's house with the kids until I leave for the new city.

Saturday night after a long two days of moving I got to enjoy a night with my girlfriends! They were so great to throw me a going away party...and I haven't been out that late in ages! Get a bunch of mommies away from their kids for a night of good wine, good food and good laughs and you lose track of time. I felt like a teenager again sneaking back into my parents house in the wee hours - LOL! Thanks again girls, I'm going to miss you so much - I'm not sure if I will find another group like you! I will fly home for a girls weekend and group camping trips (that's right dear hubby - are you reading this).

That picture makes me laugh! Next time we should master the camera's timer before we start drinking...

more mini books...

I am so nervous that my scrapbooks and my scrapbooking stash will not make it to our new city! I hope the movers handle it with care :) - everything else can be replaced, but not my children's baby photos - oh the stress of moving!

Here are some more photos from projects I was packing up...

These are My Minds' Eye memory blocks (not the best photos but you get the idea). I made a set for my Grandpa, one for my Aunt & Uncle and kept a set for me. I ordered 6x6 photos to fit the size of the blocks - but if I could do it again I would order 8x10 and crop them, because in one photo S's face is right at the intersection of the blocks (oops!) and then I could avoid that...

I covered 3 sides of the cubes with photos of my kiddies and 3 sides with paper.


And here is a mini book I made, (no photos in it yet) using the Cricut to cut the letters...

I really need to get photos in some of these books!

mini book mania continued...

This is a mini book I made for K for this past Father's Day. I totally scraplifted it from Ali Edwards 'cause she's the greatest. The stickers and binder are 7Gypsies.

Thanks for looking!