Sunday, October 05, 2008
Well, I’m completely finished! With my grandparents’ Christmas gifts, that is. I got an email from Shutterfly Thursday or Friday saying they were offering 30% additional photo books and free shipping on orders of $25 through October 8th, and I just had to jump on that. Every year I like to compile a volume of my favorite Mia layouts over the past year to give to her three sets of grandparents. I hate having to figure out what to give who, so photo books are really the perfect solution for the grandparents, especially since we don’t live near any of them and they don’t get to see her much. It’s a good way to share with them how she’s grown over the past year.
Yesterday, I decided I’d better sit down and get the books done before I missed the offer completely. The challenge was that I haven’t scrapped very much at all since the spring, and there were huge gaping chronological holes in between layouts. I did some quick scrapping to fill in the blanks (results below), and got 4 books ordered (one for each set of grandparents, and a master copy for us to keep). Yep. So, yay! That’s pretty much the biggest part of my Christmas shopping, finished. Which is awesome, because I really hate shopping. Ick. I think my shopping gene was accidentally replaced with a video game/computer nerd gene. Oh, well. 
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Been a while since I posted here! That is because it has been a busy summer, and sometimes it seems like it’s hard to stop and catch my breath! What have I been up to? Let’s see if I can sum it up:
The end of June we attended a weekend family regional meeting for Bobby’s work, which was a lot of fun. It was neat to meet other spouses who have been through the tough times of building a business with their husbands (or wives). Talking with them was encouraging, and I got to learn a little more about how the company Bobby works for runs things. We even got to get away as a family one afternoon and go tubing down the Chatahoochee River (did I mention this was in N. Georgia?)!
Then we went straight from there to my parents’ house in Michigan, where we spent the week of the 4th of July. Hotdogs and fireworks were had at my uncle’s house on the lake, and we saw the whole fam (well, my dad’s side anyways)!
Then, the BIG news of the summer: we moved! I know I mentioned moving in a previous post, and I am happy to report that we got all moved in smoothly. The spiders were pretty determined to hang onto the place, but Bobby finally went out and got whatever insecticide takes care of spiders, and doused the basement, and we’ve been relatively spider-free ever since. Also, my sister moved down from Michigan to rent a room in our basement, so it’s nice to have her here. Of course, she got here just in time for the basement to be torn up. There was some pretty serious water seepage in the basement, and our landlord decided to have a drainage system installed and then have that wall waterproofed (thankfully). So the guys came to rip out that wall and in the process, they discovered rotting wood and termites, which prolonged the work. We’re still waiting for the stairs to be replaced.
My web design business has been pretty steady this summer as well, which I’m thankful for. I love designing and developing websites, and the extra source of income is definitely welcome. I also built myself a new blog called Genevieve Says. It’s more editorial than this one, and less scrapbooking-focused. I still plan on posting updates on my life in general and any new scrapbooking layouts, but if you want to read more you can find me over there, too. Of course, all the web designing means I haven’t had as much time for digi-designing or digiscrapping, but I plan on reorganizing my time here shortly so I can get back to those things again.
I have scrapped three layouts this summer, and here they are:
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Last Friday before our weekend trip to Chattanooga, we got Mia’s hair cut for the first time. It seemed like a shame to do it; she was born with a full head of hair as a baby, and didn’t lose any of it like most babies do, so it was unusually long for a little girl her age--nearly to the middle of her back. But the tangles were becoming unmanageable, especially because her hair was constantly getting in her food, and on top of that, she never wanted to sit still long enough for me to comb her hair out and put it in pigtails (even though she looks SO stinkin’ cute with pigtails). The next concern in cutting her hair was, as I just mentioned, would she even sit still and not fidget long enough for the stylist to cut it? But Friday we’d had enough with the tangles, and the general unruliness of her hair. We bit the bullet and took her for her very first haircut.
As the stylist sprayed down her hair, displaying its full length, I felt a pang of uncertainty, but Bobby was there to instruct the stylist with confidence: “Take about five inches off. We want it to be about shoulder-length.” Mia did remarkably well. Bobby helped direct Mia to look down, or straight ahead as the stylist needed, while I snapped photos in the background (I’m sure the hairdresser was thinking that I was one of those moms, but I didn’t care). Mia fussed a little when it was time to blow-dry her hair; she still can’t stand loud motor sounds (vacuums, lawn mowers, blow driers, etc.). But once her hair was dry, no regrets remained. She is possibly the cutest little girl to ever wear a shoulder-length bob (besides me; I was adorable with a bob when I was little).
So here’s my layout of Mia’s first haircut:
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And here’s another one I did today of Mia and her friend Ashley chasing butterflies in the butterfly aviary at the Tennessee Aquarium:
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Last week was my first clue.
It was a little before 3 in the afternoon--last Thursday, I think--when Mia came running into the office to jabber something at me. I looked at the clock and told her, “Mia, it’s nap time. Go and get your blanky and your babies and put them in your bed.” She ran out of the room (presumably to get her blanky and babies), and I went back to finishing up what I was working on, which took me about ten minutes. When I got up to put Mia in bed, it was really quiet and I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep on the living room floor; she’s been doing that a lot lately. But I couldn’t find her in any of her usual hiding places out in the living room. So, I went into her room, and there she was, asleep in her crib! I couldn’t believe it--that she had put herself to bed, or that she had somehow managed to get into her crib without my help. Brief concern flashed through my head at that point, but I managed to tell myself that even if she could somehow get into her crib (probably by standing on her little scooter car), certainly she could not get out. Wrong.
Last night, we put Mia to bed, and ten minutes later, she was knocking on her bedroom door from the inside going, “Daddy! Daddy!” in her sing-song, come-play-with-me voice. Incredulous, we opened the door to find her, indeed, out of her crib. We told her to get back into her crib and stood there and watched--with our mouths hanging open--as she climbed up the stroller we had folded and propped up against the wall to one side of her crib. It was something akin to watching tight-rope walkers or trapeze artists at the circus. I removed the stroller (aka: escape accomplice) and put it in the closet, once again satisfied that surely now there was no way she could get out.
But this morning clinched it for me. After my morning devotions, I padded out to the office to check my email, tip-toeing past Mia’s room so she wouldn’t hear that I was awake just yet (because then she starts demanding, “Mommy! Get up! Get up!"--meaning that she wants to get up). I heard the usual morning sounds coming from her room: Mia chattering away to her babies, toys being tossed about (she pulls toys into bed with her from her toybox), and then all of a sudden I heard the thunk of her scooter car banging against the inside of her bedroom door. I ran to her door and opened it, and immediately she rushes past my legs, pushing her scooter car in front of her, without so much as a “Hi, Mommy!” Toys littered the floor of her bedroom as if she’d been up for quite some time playing. I admitted defeat.
It would appear that the end of the crib days is in sight. I suppose there’s not much to do now, except to get the toddler bed rails out of storage and convert her crib. *sigh* Crib days went by far too quickly.
Here’s a layout I did last night of my beautiful girl in a dress her Lolly gave her. Lolly apparently has impeccable taste in Mia clothes.
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Hello, and welcome to another episode of “Turn All Your Hard-Earned Money Over to the Government!” Yay! Whoooo! Blah. So, Bobby is trying to muddle his way through one of those do-it-yourself tax programs, and keeps getting errors about forms we never received from a certain Bank of Evil… No idea. I do know we’ve had more fun watching paint dry than we’re having right now. Drying paint doesn’t tell you it wants more money than you already gave it. Actually...drying paint doesn’t ask for any money. I like drying paint.
Other than taxes, we had a nice day. Bobby took the morning off to spend a little extra time with his girls. Sometimes it just feels like we don’t get enough time together as a family, so this morning was a treat. We went out to breakfast and then went to the mall to let Mia play in the kids’ play area, since it was too wet and rainy to play outside. It was nice to just enjoy each other, and watch our happy girl run around for a while.
Speaking of the girl, I scrapped three layouts of her this weekend:
Oh, and I can’t remember if I posted about it here or not, but I finally got the gallery portion of the site coded and functioning. From now on you’ll be able to find all my layouts there, as well as layouts from my creative team using my latest digital scrapbooking designs. Fun stuff.
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