Scrappy Thursday!

Or happy Thursday, for you non-scrapbookers. 

Scrapbooking is on my mind because it's what I've been up to for the past week... with this lovely lady:

(Tricia says please excuse her sweats, comfort comes first when scrapping!)

Meet Tricia, my sister-in-law and partner in crime when it comes to banishing our children to all other realms of the house as long as it's not the beloved scrap room. 

Besides our love of scrapbooking, being stay-at-home moms, and chocolate (among other things), we also share a common bond in that our husband are brothers; both of whom have many similar traits like their ability to romance us (even after a decade of marriage), make us laugh, and be the life of the party, and their addiction to sports and inability to find objects right in front of their eyeballs.

We always have a lot to talk about. 

Erik and Russ in Disneyland, circa 2007. This would be both of their fake smiles. Toon town isn't for everyone I guess.

After spending 4 of the past 7 days together, Tricia and I covered everything from discipline issues and spiritual truths, to our acne trouble zones and whether Jennifer Aniston flew to Mexico to adopt a child or not.

We like to cover all our bases.

While Tricia worked on her family album, I was making double page layouts for our upcoming Scrap Around the Clock event held at our church (click here to read about last Fall's event). The layouts are for hourly giveaways and I go back and forth between trying to be creative so someone will love what they win, and wanting to put minimal effort into the layout because I don't get to keep it, and who's going to know I made it anyway?

I think I pretty much come to a draw each time. Here's what I ended up with:

#1 - Pink

#2 - Grow

Please excuse the slight creases on the arrow... I had some adhesive issues.

 #3 - Girly Girl

#4 - Spring

And then these last two, which were not my favorites.

#5 - Our family

#6 - Play

They're not going to win any awards but I finished them a whole week and a half before the event, and actually I should get an award for that... because usually I'm up past midnight the night before, working feverishly to finish them.

And I think you'll all notice that I'm pretty much the most awesome title creator you've ever met. I mean, c'mon, Play, Spring, Grow, Pink... who comes up with stuff like that?

Three things about me

1. I'm a sucker for Costco's sample tables. Odds are, 7 times out of 10, I'll leave the store buying one new thing because I liked it at the sample table. 

Well played, Costco, well played.

If I don't buy it I either refuse to make eye contact, or I pretend I'm interested before beelining it away from the table because I don't want to disappoint the sales person. How silly is that? Like they don't know everyone in the store just wants the free snack. 

It's called "conflict avoidance" and I'm it's Queen.

2. I didn't know that PMS-induced acne would ignore the fact that I am now in my thirties and would continue to treat me as though I'm 15. I find this very rude and would avoid no conflict at all if only there was a way to give it a piece of my mind. 

In other words, I'm suffering a few "spots". Lame. 

3. I'm STILL working on potty-training this guy. 

Rockin' the Buzz Lightyear briefs

I don't know why it's been so difficult this time around, Kendall and Cooper were both trained well before now by this age. All I can tell myself is that he will get it eventually. And that every time he gets a candy for a success on the potty I might as well have one too, you know, for all my effort ;)

(I make sure to keep stocked with the good stuff. That would be chocolate.)

Monday confessional

I have a new addiction: kindle scrabble. 

It was a .99 cent download from Amazon.com and it has taken over my life. I HAVE to win. 

Except that I can't, because the game pits you against the computer and the computer cheats and uses words like "xi" and "qi" and "ukase" and "tibiae" and "mu" and... hey, why didn't spellcheck underline any of those words as I typed them?!! 

Whatever, computer. I know you're totally making up words, and in cahoots with spellchecker too!

We had a nice and slowish weekend, hanging out with friends and playing games on Friday and Saturday night, but staying at home during the day on Saturday and on Sunday after church. I had great plans to do a little spring deep-cleaning, but somehow one scrabble game turned into two, and two turned into ten and before I knew it I was googling words on the internet, trying to take the computer DOWN. 

Project FAIL. 

And yet I continue trying. Unable to give in. Refusing to give up. Resorting to wineverygame.com (which is a handy site let me tell you - but a lie, because I haven't won a game yet, let alone every game) in my effort to succeed.

And in the meantime, I'm happy to say that I've learned a new word or two to add to my vocabulary. You know, because a word like "sanies" is very helpful if I want to describe "a watery foul discharge from wounds or sores". Very helpful indeed.

An uncanny resemblance

At Cooper and Blake's birthday party last weekend Kendall opened her "hair solon" for business. 

Her first customers were cousins Mark and Drew and buddy Kyle.

Next up was Uncle Tim - what a trooper.

After she gave him his "faux hawk" we thought he looked like someone kinda familiar... 

So my mother-in-law put her reading glasses on him. 

Umm, weird.

Hello Sam Adams, mayor of Portland!

Alright so they're not identical, but we still all got a big kick out of it.

That Kendall has talent I tell ya!

Welcoming spring

We celebrated the beginning of spring and the glory of daylight savings hours with our first outdoor dinner the other night. 

(Those are the plates after dinner was finished. I do not feed my family chicken bones and potato skins, I promise.) 

After we ate, the kids showed off their sweet moves on the trampoline.

They performed a few flips...

And even Blake got in on the action. 

It was so fun to enjoy the outdoors again. Without a torrential downpour.

I love my family and I love the start of a new season.

The 3 party weekend (Part Two)

To recap the 2nd and 3rd parties of the weekend (see yesterday's post for party #1) I'm going to let the pictures do the talking... because there are a lot of them. 

A LOT. 

Party #2: our friend Marcy-Jo's 40th birthday bash: "Murder at Mystery Mansion" (Saturday)

Meet Neal the chauffer and Katherine, middle daughter of the late millionaire Mr. Rochester

This was the first murder mystery dinner that we'd ever participated in and we highly enjoyed it. I was able to borrow a driving hat and bow-tie for Russ and my entire outfit, head to foot, was loaned from my friend Jessica. No money spent on costumes made it even more fun!

(Although I could have sprung for a higher neckline because, hellooo cleavage! Yikes.)

Someone even brought an extra Mink stole - and just like that I became the rich snob I'd always dreamed of ;)

Best dressed winners of the night were Joyce the maid (with her husband the butler) and my father! Who played the deceased's best friend (well done Mum for the costume). I've never seen someone embrace their part more enthusiastically. Dad was AWE.SOME.

The dinner was amazing (with Erik and Tricia and friends Tom and Nicole)

and the dessert buffet was out of this world. Every single dessert was made by the birthday girl herself!

Happy birthday Marcy-Jo - fabulous at 40!

After the mystery was solved (Russell did it!) MarcyJo danced with her husband before the floor was opened up and a full on dance party began. DJ and all, people. We weren't expecting this but decided to let loose and live it up, as witnessed in the following pictures...

In case you can't tell, we had a jolly good time. Thank you MarcyJo and Randy for the STELLAR party.

Party #3: Family party with my side of the fam celebrating all the March birthdays - Kelly, Dave, Cooper, Blake, and friend "Grandma" Tracy (Sunday)

Happy birthday guys!

We stuffed ourselves on an awesome dinner and dessert spread before the birthday peeps opened their gifts:

Including the most popular gifts of the event: The socker boppers. 

And they haven't stopped being played with since. 

Seriously, I need protection. (Especially from my husband, who LOVES them! HELP!)

And thus concludes the party weekend of 2011. It was GRAND.

The 3 party weekend - a rundown (Part One)

I slept in past 9:00 am this morning... hello, heavenly Spring Break! Man, did the weekend's festivities wear me out! They also wrecked havoc on my home, even though not one of the three parties was held here. Don't ask me how that works, I just know that presents and packaging and candy and dirty laundry have scattered to the four winds and I have my work cut out for me. 

Party #1: Cooper and Blake's family party with Russ's side of the family (Friday)

We had the party at Erik and Tricia's because their house is big and our house is small. Really small. The plan was for me to go over there to set up as soon as Russ got home from work at 3 pm, head back to my house at 5 pm to pick up my family, and return right away to be ready for the party to begin at 6:00 pm.

Of course things never go as planned. Russ decided he needed new tires on his way home from work and didn't get home until after 4:00 pm. In the meantime, I decided at 3:00 pm that I wanted to make a pennant banner, which I'd never done before, and headed to town for ribbon, a hot glue gun and glue sticks, and a Cadbury cream egg. All necessary components for crafting. 

On the way out of town I called Tricia to apprise her of the slight change in plans and as I was talking, passed two motorcycle cops. I immediately dropped my cell phone on my lap, mid-sentence, and yelled "cops!", hoping Tricia would hear me (it's illegal in Oregon to talk on a cell while driving without a blue-tooth earpiece. Which I don't own). Unfortunately one cop pulled out behind me and I began to sweat heavily. Then the flashing lights came on and I was ready to be swallowed into the ground of humiliation. 

Turns out it had nothing to do with the phone though, I had expired tags. "Oh", I laughed guiltily, "I had those renewed on time, I just forgot to put the new stickers on". LAST DECEMBER. A frantic search through the car left me empty handed, I had no idea where the stickers might have ran off to. I was left with instructions to find them or go buy replacement ones and drove home sighing in relief that I didn't get a ticket.

Kendall, Cooper and I joined forces and whipped out a 36 foot banner in no time. In fact, we had so many cut out triangles left over and I was having so much fun with the glue gun that I scavenged through my scrapbooking ribbon and made a 2nd 12 foot banner as well. By 4:40 pm I was packed up and ready to leave, but Blake, who I'd laid down for a late but much needed nap, was still sleeping so I took Kendall and Cooper with me and gave Russ instructions to wake Blake up at 5 pm and head over. As I was pulling out of the driveway and Russ was standing on the front porch I flashed my hand open and shut three times to signify he had 15 more minutes and he nodded in understanding. 

Or so I thought until he had still not shown up at 5:45 pm and I was calling him frantically. 

"Babe, where are you?!!" I asked.

"I thought you said to be there at fi.... OH MY GOSH!!" he exclaimed as he looked at the clock. 

Apparently he thought I was telling him he had 55 minutes instead of 15 and was enjoying his college basketball playoff game so much that he read the time wrong when he checked it.

Men. That is all I have to say about that. 

Luckily the party went off without a hitch, the boys had a great time opening presents and playing with all their cousins, and I received enough kudos on my cake to make me feel like a superstar.

And there you have a very brief recap of the actual party and a lengthy account of the prep beforehand that went into much greater detail than I'm sure you cared for. 

So to save you from yawn-dom I think I'll cover the other two parties tomorrow. And I promise I'll be more brief and to the point. 

P.S. No, I still haven't found my missing tags.