Some good old fashioned fun

L spent the evening "crafting". First, she was in my craft room and used glue and glitter and then painted with my good paints. Then we headed to the living room to paint with her paints. She had a great time...she mixed colors and drew cats and smiley faces.
Then she decided it would be fun to finger paint so she dipped her fingers and painted away! Those are some messy hands!

Fish Fry

As Terry put it, "I have never had a fish fry in a blizzard". That was the setting for our fish fry. It started snowing an hour before the party. But despite the snow, it was one of the best parties we've hosted. The guys hung out in the garage while T fried veggies and fish. They smoked stogies, drank beers and talked shop. The girls stayed inside and talked about everything, including how much we dislike whiners and home owner associations.
Maria, Joe and Melissa enjoy the meal. The groceries were delicious. We had two kinds of slaw , salsa, red beans and rice and broccoli cheesy rice casserole. And homemade bread and cake.
After eating, the kids played with toys and had fun with the birthday party kit. We watched KSU lose to Baylor.
After the game was over, Rock Band made an appearance. Two and a half hours later, we called it a night! Everyone loved Rock Band and we took turns singing, drumming and playing guitar. The kids loved the drums. L had a blast.

Hanging out

Last night we ate dinner at Johnny Carino's (which was excellent). We hung out at the house afterwards. Ditto had a blast playing tug of war with L. That's the most exercise that dog has had in awhile. I think both of them were worn out.
Kam didn't come for dinner, but he visited us at our house later. He's six months now and such a cutie. He can sit by himself and he had fun playing with his toys and L's Mr. Potato Head.

I'm sorry mom...

...for all the times you tried to teach me something new and I sobbed and screamed when it got difficult. As we were sitting at the table last night teaching L to use scissors and glue and she kept getting angry, I had flashbacks of this when I was little. I. am. so. sorry.
Okay, so it wasn't that bad. But it was really funny when she was mad. She did learn how to use the scissors and glue and had a good time. Way to go L!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We celebrated Valentine's Day yesterday (Jeff taught tonight) and we had heart pizza from Papa Murphy's and a heart Valentine's cake. Both were delicious. L had fun opening everyone's gifts. I got a beautiful necklace and bracelet. L loved her new books and candy.

So my dad told me the real story about the flowers. When I was a teen, I told him one year I was too old for flowers. When he went to buy my mom flowers, he thought and said "nope, I'll buy Kathryn flowers anyway". So he put them in my room. I got home from school and found my mom's flowers and was so sad I didn't get any that I started to cry. So to make matters worse, my mom said "go to your room" so she wouldn't have to listen to me. I got upstairs and there were my flowers.

Sadly...when he told me this story, I do remember it!

Aww....

Ever since I was 13, my dad has bought my mom and I flowers for Valentine's day. I think one of my teenage years, I wasn't grateful and I didn't get flowers the next year. I was sooo sad, that my dad hasn't missed a year since then. After L was born, she also got a bouquet of flowers. This year, L got some pretty yellow roses (3 since she'll be 3 next month). I received a gorgeous bouquet of pink flowers. I forgot my camera at home, so I'll take a picture tomorrow.

Thank you dad!! L was so excited to get roses from grandpa.

It's clean up time

Tonight I put all my scrapbook supplies away. This took a good hour to complete. I rearranged things a little. L kept singing the clean up song while I was working...very helpful. I was so happy to have this task done.

Here's what 80 pages looks like. 20 of them were from before Cropaganza. I just hadn't put them away. That's my next project.
I got L a cute tshirt that says "Scrapbook Model". She loves it! She wore it last night and today. Too funny.

She and I are both fighting colds. I think I'm going to head off to bed early tonight. Hopefully I'll be much better tomorrow.

Cropaganza is officially over.

Jill and I made it through 48 hours of cropping. I had so much fun!! We met some new friends and I saw 4 people I know in the outside world that I had no idea scrapbooked. That way cool.

My official count of work was 60 12x12 scrapbook pages and 2 minibooks. Not bad for me :)
A glimpse of my desk. I tried to make it similar to home although a few things were backwards. I was very proud that I didn't misplace items and have to spend precious time searching for stuff.
I had several favorite pages and the giraffes and this "S" pages are included in that group.
Here's Jill celebrating it up a little. Don't worry...it's the only alcoholic drink we had. We were pretty much jacked up on coffee, Diet DP and good music. Speaking of good music, check out Jill's blog for some great video footage.

Staying up late!!

We are staying up LATE!! Sugar and caffeine are a girl's best friend. I've created 45 pages and 1 mini book. Jill's made 14 scrapbook tags and 20 pages. We had to take a little drinking break (pics tomorrow). Jill played 80's trivia and almost won. Good night to all!

Live from Cropaganza!!

We are live from Park City and having a wonderful time. I don't have as many pictures as Jill to show you. That's because I've been CROPPING!! 29 pages done baby!! And it's only 4 pm (24 hours until Cropaganza is over...so sad). We're having fun. The temperature and the lighting are poor, but the fellow scrappers make up for it. I saw three other people I know that I had no clue scrapbooked. And we've met a few new friends.
Jill's happy just to get her pages together. She's also making scrapbook tags to sell.
A glimpse of my scrapping gear (a small portion). I'm trying to keep my piles neat so I'm not digging thru everything.

More later!

I love food and books

So tonight was grocery night at Target (don't worry Maria, this isn't about my list). As many of you know, I love new food gimmicks. Jeff says if they package and re-label a product, I'd buy it. And he's pretty much right. But today's trip was unique because I found several new products that looked delicious.

Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry Chocolate. If you like cherry chocolate flavor (and I do), this soda is wonderful. Zero calories.

Sun Chips makes cinnamon flavored chips. Yum! 100 calorie Nutter Butter bars..looked good. So did the Quaker mini rice cakes in Cinnamon Streusel.

Food I've bought recently that I love? Skinny cow (ice cream cones or sandwiches...both too good to be true) and the frozen paninis. A great sandwich for less than 300 calories. Oh! and South Beach Cherry Almond Granola. A little messy, but tasty.

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I love to read. This month's book club book is U.S. for Arugula. I voted for this book and was excited to read it. While it's not a bad book, I'm not feeling the love. I will finish it, but anyone have a good book suggestion? I want fiction and something I can get lost in. The last book I read like that was 1000 Splendid Suns.

I'll be posting on location from Cropaganza this weekend. Look for some blog highjacking of Jill's blog!

Again???

I have lost count as to how many snowfalls we've had this year. It snowed about 3-4 inches last night. Not enough to close school, but it was a little slow going this morning. By mid afternoon, the sun had melted some of it off. Looking forward to the 50's this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, in less than 48 hours, Jill and I will be at Cropaganza!! Two days of scrapping!! I am so excited!! I have so much to do. We'll be posting on location this weekend.

Pei Wei Rocks!

After having an incredibly looooong day, Jeff and L cheered me up by taking me out to dinner. I first said nothing sounds good, but when Jeff listed off 30 restaurants, Pei Wei sounded good. And it didn't disappoint. The lettuce wraps were yummy and my shrimp coconut curry was divine. Jeff loved his dan dan noodles and L's lo mein was good. We pretty felt like we were at PF Chang's, but it was quicker and toned down a little. I'm a little envious it's out west, but with the bypass the travel time goes quickly. Definitely worth a second trip. My day is getting better.

Super Bowl Sunday

The Giants won (good) and the Patriots lost (better). Jeff and T won some money (best). Other than the commercials, there wasn't much exciting about the game (we're not a fan of either team).

The best commercials? Here's our picks. T: Daddy.com (Danica Patrick)...go to the web site. Funny commercial. Jeff and Kurt: T Mobile's "Hi Chuck". Mine? Sobe's lizard and girl dancing to Thriller. I also liked the Bud Light commercials.

Hope you enjoyed the game.

Just in Time

It has snowed several times this winter here, and yet I have not taken any snow pictures. We had a really nice snow this week (see Thurs. post). I was worried because it was nice yesterday and today. But luckily life waited for us to run our errands this morning and we spent some time outside this afternoon. Jeff and L made a beautiful snowman and we found parts to make him complete. The snow was perfect for snowballs. Although, you needed to be careful...too much packing would make them ice daggers.

L has been wanting to make snow angels for weeks. Two seconds out the door and she was on the ground. Go L!!

So now, I'm sitting in the warm house sipping coffee while L sleeps away. I need to go to Kraft Foods to get my dinner recipe. We're having Parmesan Chicken Bundles. Hope they are good!

Laura's Spicy Tortas

Tonight we ate at Laura's Super Tortas (the real name of the place) for dinner. It was good, but I wished I had been warned better about how spicy the red sauce was. I had to drink two Coke's because it was HOT!!!! Aside from the warmth, it was very good. Jeff's burrito was not spicy which was good.

I doubt we'll be back there anytime soon. We were the only gringos there. We definitely felt a little out of place.