What's Going On...

Hi,

Wanted to pop back in for a little update. I feel like I could write a book about April, May and June, but I will be as brief as possible.

April started out with a bang. Elijah flushed a toy down our main toilet and some plumber wanted my arm, leg and Elijah as payment to fix it. I told him no and it has yet to be fixed. After that, Easter was good, the kids got Easter baskets and did an egg hunt (well Elijah hunted, Caleb didn't want to participate).

On one of the warmer days we went to Sandy Point State Park for the afternoon. Kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand and on the playground. Joe and I had fun going to the outlet mall afterward, haha. Later in April we got together with some friends we'd been trying to get together with since November. Thankfully it worked out and everyone had a great time.


In May we did some more fun stuff. I went to a thing at my church called Gab 'N Grow. My sister-in-laws came along and brought one of their friends. It was a nice evening of playing "In a Pickle" and we took a half an hour to go to a "seminar" about what serving in the church looks like at different stages of life. Lots of good stuff to think about. The next weekend I took Elijah roller skating again and this time he actually roller skated on the carpet, by himself. He was very proud of himself.


Mothers Day was a nice. Joe tried to take care of the boys to let me relax. My mother-in-law had the boys both make something for me.

 What Elijah made

What Caleb made

Later on in May we were actually running early to get to Charlotte's birthday party and needed a place to go to kill a few hours. Since we were near the airport we decided to spend the whopping $4 for parking and hang out there. Elijah had a blast and Caleb was amused. (Post, with pictures, coming soon) At the very end of May Joe was forced to resign from his job. We were upset, but believe that what goes around comes around. We were worried that he wouldn't be able to collect unemployment, but thank the Lord, He provided a way (without going into too much detail) for Joe to get it. We are very grateful.

A lot of June was spent indoors doing free/cheap things. We got a lot better at eating what we planned for dinner instead of going out or ordering in. We enjoyed the boys a lot and actually had a few family fun nights again. One night we let Elijah stay up and we all (except Caleb) watched Ratatouille until he fell asleep on the sofa. Lots of those types of things. In the middle of June Caleb started crawling (heaven help us all) and wreaking havoc on everything. Thank god for playpens... 

Also in the middle of the month I had my dance show. It went off without a hitch.

Let me know if you can't see it. I'm pretty sure I have it set on public. I'm the blob that comes on the stage from the left side (when you are facing it). I'm one of the first 3 people out on stage... If that helps at all.

After the dress rehearsal I just threw on whatever to go home. I am a wife and mother and really don't care what I look like, but Joe was highly amused and took this picture.

I bet if I was rich and famous this look would be all the rage right now. ;-)

The most recent thing that went on was on Father's Day when we went down my in-laws for the day to hang out and swim and eat. Very entertaining.

That about sums up the past few months in the Raymond household. Hope to be back to at least semi full time posting soon. I have a few idea for posts I can do on certain days, but I'm not ready to take the plunge just yet. July will be filled with birthday party preparations, so I'm pretty sure my original return month, August, will be when I come back. Hope everyone is enjoying life and having fun.

Until next time...

Bits & Pieces Swap...

A while back a blogging friend, Joyce at Scrap for Joy, had posted about a decorated canvas she made for a friend. It was an 8x8 board with nine squares on it. The squares were all different, but made up a theme of some sort. She asked if anyone was interested and it looked so fun I jumped at the chance. She picked the general theme... it was Spring, but within that theme we could do whatever theme(s) we wanted.

We got assigned swap partners. I got Laurie at Laurie Star as my partner. It was nice to email back and forth to get to know each other. After a few weeks of creating, we mailed off our packages and this is what I received:

It looks awesome. I love that is has a bunch of dog pictures. They are so cute! Flowers and bunting round out the thoughtful canvas. There are so many little details to look at. My favorite is the J right in the middle. I plan to hang it in my craft room when I am finished reorganizing it.

I was so glad to have committed to this swap before my hiatus, as it helped keep my sanity in the middle of everything. I'm still along for the ride of my crazy life and many things have changed since I started this break. They have actually been good changes, so I will be back soon with some posts about life, places to visit, birthday parties, books and the like.

Until then...

Hiatus

Hello all,

Even though I've been gone long enough to assume that I'm on hiatus, I'm here to say I officially am. Things have gone insane at work. Too much work, too little time. Hardly any time to take a break (even a lunch break sometimes). I stayed after work today to write this... And while it would be nice for me to do this every day, it's just not possible. I hope to be back soon. Hopefully in August things will calm down all around and I can get back into the groove again.

Until then...

OLW - Check in for March

One Little Word didn't really happen this month, because everyone (except Joe) decided to get sick. With having two sick children and being sick myself I feel like I have lost three weeks of my life. I hardly took any pictures, we only went out of the house, as a family, a few times... Except for making a trip to the hospital and several trips to various doctors. I'm trying to get my world back in order... and the house back in order. Yesterday and the day before have been the first full days that we had been able to really tackle cleaning and organizing. We made some progress, so at least it's a step in the right direction.

On the "enjoy" side of life, the first week and a half of the month was pretty good. Our friends Linz and Matt came to visit from Harrisburg. Linz is one of my best friends... We met online about 13 years ago and have kept in touch all this time. She used to live in Pittsburgh, so we would only be able to see her maybe every other year, if we were lucky, but since she and her boyfriend moved to Harrisburg we have had the luxury of seeing them 2 to 3 times a year now. And, of course, it's always fun when we can get together.

Also this month, The Gma (Joe's grandma) came to visit. She's so fun to talk to. I love when we all get to see her. The whole family got together over the weekend while she was visiting, so there was plenty of board games, Rock Band and eating going on.

Picture courtesy of Jacqi

Also during the get-together photo shoot Jacqi took a nice picture of the four of us

I think I might get it framed

This past weekend things finally felt like they were getting back to normal, in every sort of way. We went grocery shopping, we cleaned, did laundry and dishes. We also drove to a local farm and let Elijah feed the goats and the ducks:

And we hit up Toys R Us because Elijah had a gift card and some birthday money left. He decided on a Little Tykes BBQ food set and a Blue Angry Bird kite. Looks like he's ready for Spring and Summer. While we were there we also took a look at the bikes and the motorized cars aisle (Elijah's favorite). The boys really liked these cars.

Too bad they were too much for my wallet. Maybe for Christmas... Or Caleb for his birthday... Who knows.

Let's hope April fares better than March, in every sort of way. This lack of blog postings is really depressing. :-)

Until next time...

Fall and Winter Fun List - The Outcome

With the official start of Spring being a week away (You have no idea how excited I am, even though we didn't really have a winter, at all), I thought I would recap the Fall and Winter with a review of our Fun List. It seems like eons ago that we made it.

Here's the end result:

• Host a Trunk and participate in Trunk or Treat - We didn't get to host a trunk, we planned on it, but when they had to reschedule because of the weather, we couldn't do it. But we did go and had a lot of fun.
• Go to the Johnny Appleseed Festival - Yup, Elijah had his first experience picking apples
• Pick out pumpkins - We did this at the festival
• Take some fun Fall pictures - Fun... Challenging... What's the difference?
• Carve and/or paint pumpkin(s) - Ended up painting, cause it was more kid friendly
• Pick out and cut down our Christmas tree - We did and Katie, Charlotte and Mark came along to take pictures of the whole process

• Have a snowball fight - Maybe if we had snow this would have been plausable
• Take some nice Christmas pictures - Azalea didn't get to come along because it would have been too much going on (maybe next year), but we did do this while we were hunting for Christmas trees

• Decorate "tree" advent calendar - With Elijah's help - By the time I went to buy the advent calendar I wanted, they were sold out and not restocking it. I couldn't find a suitable replacement, so we did a countdown on Elijah's chalkboard instead
• Celebrate Birthdays and Anniversaries - Some were celebrated late, but we did celebrate them.

This is us on my birthday...

• Play catch in the backyard - We didn't play it in the backyard, but we did have random games of catch  in the house
• Make Christmas cards - With the kids help - We sent out Christmas cards, but not the ones I was planning on when I made this list. Maybe I will do the homemade ones next year.
• Help at church - In some way (because volunteering should be fun) - We didn't do it as a family, since we didn't host a trunk, but Joe volunteered as an usher and on the chair team.
• Go sledding - No snow = No sledding
• Put together a 100 piece puzzle - With Elijah's help - We had some ups and downs with the process, but he had fun, in the end.
• Attend the Ladies Christmas Tea (Meanwhile the guys will have a guys day out) - Was planning on going until we found out how much the price of the tickets were. Instead my mom, my sister and I went out to eat. It was the first time in approx 18 years that we haven't attended the tea, so it was sad, but we couldn't justify the cost with what was provided.
• Have a Christmas songs sing-along night - It wasn't a whole night, but songs were sung and a good time was had.
• Play in the leaves - Yes, there was plenty of that going on.
• Visit friends in Pennsylvania - I am actually shocked that this didn't happen. I have no idea why either...

• Go see Santa Clause - This almost didn't happen too, but we went to see him at the last minute. We got the extra enjoyment of a little tour of the firehouse too.

Not too shabby. We also did random fun things, not on this list, like roller skating, get togethers with Joe's side of the family, going to a Harvest Party and attending Winterfest, to name a few.

I don't think I will be making a fun list for the Spring... We seem to have no problem finding fun things to do in the Spring and Summer. We actually have to make sure we don't commit ourselves to too much. However, even though there isn't a list, I plan on updating about the fun we will be having in the coming months. So be sure to come back and take a look!

OLW - Check in for February

This will be a rather short post as I only took a couple pictures relating to this post. Still enjoying my family more than anything and organizing when I feel like it.

Organization:

We flipped around some furniture in the master bedroom and are in the process of decluttering and deep cleaning. The rest of the project will continue with putting up curtains and maybe moving around some more furniture. I'm holding out on photos until the whole thing is done... or done enough to my satisfaction.

We brought the computer desk, turned craft desk, into the second bedroom. It is where it is staying and I have already unpacked and put away some of the craft stuffs that I have, but there's tons more I haven't even looked at yet. This is going to be an ongoing process... I can already see it.

Other than that, we have been trying to clean up the play room every evening, so we don't have to take an hour to do it on the weekend. And dinners at home have been touch and go. We lost the dry erase marker that we used to write the menu (thanks to a certain 4-year-old), so this week has been less than successful. Overall, though, we haven't done too badly this month.


Enjoy:

It has still been ridiculously warm this month, so we took plenty of trips to the park and into the back yard. We hit up a few malls on some nights, just to get out of the house. The first weekend of the month Joe and I went on a "date", thanks to my MIL. She watched both boys for a few hours, so we could go to a movie and eat lunch. We saw "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and then went to Lonestar Steakhouse for lunch. It was a nice afternoon outing.

The next week, we went on a "scavenger hunt" for Joe's birthday ending with Joe and I going out to eat at Kobe's, since my mom watched the boys for a little while.

The next day we also went out to eat with my family, to celebrate. We went to Red Robin. My mom's birthday was the next week, so we went to Red Brick Station then came home and watched a couple episodes of the Dick Van Dyke show.

This past weekend my sister, her husband, Elijah and I attended a thing called Winterfest, where I used to go to college (my sis still attends there for grad school). Elijah had so much fun. I hope to do a full post about it in the coming weeks. Until then, I'll leave you with a taste of what the night entailed

Those were the highlights of our month, in general.

I don't know about you, but February feels like it just started and we even got an extra day this month. Crazyness...

How did your month go?

Project SCRAP Layouts...

Remember how excited I was to start creating things again? Well, it really came through this month. With the help of Joe taking care of Caleb more than he usually does and Elijah being independent... to a certain point, it has given me some extra time to be creative.

Project SCRAP is in full swing, so with my "resolution" to keep up. I did some pages... Four pages, to be exact. *The kits used are Maria LaFrance - Buddy Boy, Shabby Princess - Bounce, and DC Designs - Pitter Patter

Every month I plan on recapping the "milestones" of both boys, no matter how small.

 Elijah is full of weird/funny sayings and want to remember them, not only on twitter (sharing them on my side panel), but in scrapbook form. I will probably do the same when Caleb starts talking.

This is a recap of the month from a family point of view. I also tried to include small things, like how the weather was.

Photo recap of the month.

I think I'm going to hand write a description sheet to attach to this layout. Similar to this:

1. Wearing a Flacco Fanstache, for good luck in the playoffs. It didn't work.  2. Having a sleep over with his friends.  3. Playing the Scooby Doo Game.  4. Showing off the Happy Tongue  5. Brothers!  6. Celebrating, in style  7. Also wearing the Fanstache  8. Playing in the snow/slush/ice  9. Hiding out from the paparazzi.

I'm really happy with how they turned out. I hope you enjoyed looking at them, also. Have you created any layouts recently? If so, I would love to see them.

Wire Photo Holder...

I don't really decorate for holidays. I'm entirely too lazy to, first, put things up in a timely manner and, second, to take them down in a timely manner. The first year we were married was the year I figured this out. We were in an apartment and decorated our entertainment center and had a tree and put lights in the window. It was very festive... Until probably almost February (thank goodness it was a fake tree). We finally packed most of the things away. Everything except for this:

Our card/picture holder. It never did come down... until we moved. Then it was put right back up when we moved into our new place, 6 and a half years ago. It transforms as the year progresses. It starts out with Christmas cards from the previous Christmas then will acquire some Valentines Day cards and birthday cards, then Easter cards, thinking of you cards and pictures of new babies and old babies that have new pictures taken of them.

When we run out of room it's usually because we get an updated picture of someone, so the older one gets taken off and put in a picture box for a safe keeping. They are rotated likewise. I just love watching the kids grow and people have new families. It's exciting and special. The display is so bright and cheerful, I hate to take it down. So up it will stay, at least, until we move again.

Headband Holders...

As I mentioned in a previous post I was going to make a Headband Holder for each of my nieces. I am happy to say that they were finished -before- Christmas. This is how Penelope's turned out.

I'm very happy with the result

I basically went by the tutorial. A quick overview to those who don't look at it:

• Buy an inexpensive oatmeal canister (or use your own if you have any). I bought mine from Target for about $3. 
• Measure the height and the perimeter of the canister. 
• Use those measurements in your software program to create the label.
• Print out finished product. I had to use 11x17 paper so it would be the right size.
• Attach with adhesive or glue. I used Tombo Mono on just the back where the two sides met.

*Unfortunately, I can't link up to the kit I used for the label because it has long been retired.

How Charlotte's looked in Microsoft Publisher

Penelope's finished product... With headbands displayed

I even added some goodies inside, like hairbrushes, clips, lip gloss

and a makeup brush (with no makeup included)

Just for the record, the girls loved them, so it was time well spent.

The 100 Piece Puzzle...

Way back in December (which, in reality, was only two months ago) Elijah and I worked on a Christmas present for Joe. Joe is a Star Wars freak fanatic... he has seen the movie more times than I probably even know about and he can recite the first three movies (technically the second three, if you are going timeline wise) pretty much line by line.

So for his present we decided to get him something special. It's not one of a kind, but still would be special because Elijah worked on it. It was a 100 piece Star Wars puzzle:

It took two nights to put together.

I didn't take pictures the first night because Elijah didn't get the concept of putting the border around before starting on the inside. Because of that, he threw a fit, refused to continue and screamed when I tried to take his picture. (Doesn't that sound fun?) So, we put away the puzzle for a couple weeks... that was when I finally got brave enough to attempt this endeavor again.

He was fine the second night, so I'm chalking

the first night's disaster up to tiredness.

He did a good job matching up colors and correcting himself

when he tried to put the piece in the wrong spot

If you didn't notice by now, we put it together in a box top,

to prevent the pieces from sliding off the surface

As we got closer and closer to the end,

he got more and more excited

Of course it would have made complete sense to take a picture of the finished product, but I apparently forgot. Mommy brain at it's finest...  I'm just glad Elijah enjoyed himself the second night and was super proud to give it to Joe... That night.  There is no waiting when dealing with a 3-year-old...