Late on the Program

I keep telling myself that I am going to try to participate in Project 365. So far this year, I have taken one picture and then take a few days off. Well I have taken pictures for the last three days and I think that is a great start to completing the project. By doing this project, I am hoping to take more pictures of who we are as a family, but also improve my picture taking skills at the same time. In the process, I will blog more often. At least that is how the plan is supposed to happen.

So now to my first three days of Project 365:

Day 1/365: February 26, 2010 - Melodye performed in her school's 4th grade musical, The Nightingale. (She is in the silver and blue dress.)

 

I had to include a close up picture of Melodye. Look at those eyelashes. They are amazing. She is blessed with my eyes and her daddy's eyelashes.

Day 2/365: February 27, 2010 - Maddy stayed the night with the girls. Melodye was reading to Maddy and Brooke. I love when I find them doing this. I need to learn the controls of the camera so I can take this kind of picture without them knowing that I am doing it.

Day 3/365: February 28, 2010 - You know there are girls in the household when you find My Little Pony's in the medicine cabinet.

Good Girls and Boy

We must have been good in this household. Santa treated all of us well. The girls were cuter than ever with their hair all curly.

Christmas Eve was a busy night. We had fun at Aunt Pat and Uncle Dave's house. Although, we did have to leave after a rousing game of Farkle. then we went to Aunt Pynki and Mike's house. We arrived after a lot of people had already left for the night. But we did get a family photo together.

Then we came home and went to sleep. During that time Santa was busy leaving us all of those presents.

And of course you cannot go wrong with SpongeBob Legos in this household.

Labor Day Pipe Dreams

I don't know about other teachers. But for me, Labor Day is viewed as a chance to get things done at home and for my classroom that I do not normally have time for. Oh picnics are nice and wonderful, but I dream of whole days getting things done because everyone else has plans and then use Monday as a day to do stuff at home that I enjoy. Now this pipe dream never comes completely into fruition. But I can always hope and dream because that always makes my day better if I keep hope alive.

Here are some example of things I would like to accomplish:

• I would like to go through Brooke's closet and dresser to pull out all of the clothes that she has completely outgrown which is most of them. She has outgrown clothes that were bought at the beginning of summer. GRRRRR stop growing so fast!!!!! (You are supposed to be my baby not my amazon girl.)
• Clean Brooke's room so that she has no excuse as to why she can't keep it clean.
• Go through Melodye's closet and dresser. Give Brooke any clothes that will fit her that Melodye still hasn't worn and has tags on it. Get any skorts that are too short for her out of her room. She thinks if there is still room in the waist they fit. But she is so skinny they never fit in the waist, her butt hangs out instead and no just because there are shorts under there does not make it okay.
• Organize Mel's room so that there is no reason why she can't keep it clean.
• Go through my clothes.
• Transfer all pictures off the cameras (I have to find the little one first). Label and order all of these pictures. Back up the pictures.
• Cut and file coupons. (I am so behind it is not funny.)
• Go through organize and label boxes for school. I had help packing last year and all of the boxes didn't get labeled.

Now that was just home stuff. For school, I would like to:

• Get Tommy to make dividers for my big book rack. The ones I have will not hold up the books.
• The boxes for school also need to be listed here.
• Make homework packets.
• Redo my lesson plan form.
• Set up my grade book.
  
• Update my grade book.
• Get some decorative things for classroom done.
• Make some center for next week. (I need to start looking further ahead to see what I need.)
• Some other stuff in my bag that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Once I get necessary stuff done. I would like to:

• Scrapbook
• Read
• Sew
• Just enjoy myself
• Go to Lopez family picnic on Sunday.
• Watch the first disc of Veronica Mars Season 1.

Of course, I won't get all of this done, but I do like to have those pipe dreams and hope that I can become a super hero and finish all of this. I also would like to start blogging again. I am missing it.

Living Room Redo

We have been super busy around the house. Here is a list of things we have been doing;

• Both girls are taking tumbling.
• Melodye is volunteering at the library.
• Melodye and Brooke attends two different summer reading program.
• We have been to Six Flags a few times.
• The living room, hallway, and foyer have been painted.
• We tore up carpet in the living room and hallway.
• We replaced the carpet with bamboo (It is gorgeous!!)
• We bought new living room furniture.
• Brooke is obsessed with Super Heroes like Batman, X-Men, Robin, Spiderman, etc.

Here are some pictures showing these things.

 

Bamboo flooring is from Costco, wall color is Classic Taupe by Behr from Home Depot, furniture is from Harlem Furniture. I love how it came together. 

Next on our list includes the flooring for the three bedroom, painting the kitchen, and putting in a backsplash in the kitchen. time and energy consuming projects, but will be worth it when we are finished.

Really Not Enough Time In My Day, Week, or Month

I am not in hiding. I have been busy with school ending and needing to completely pack up my classroom due to being laid off and the school also closing. We also had Melodye's 9th birthday and party which meant a lot of time cleaning to get ready for the party. Tommy graduated and asked for season passes to Six Flags. We have already been to six flags three times. I discovered Sorority Life game on Facebook. Whoa Boy is that a time sucker, but fun. The girls' are doing tumbling and storytime programs every week. Those are about two hours each time. Melodye is also volunteering at the library during Brooke's story time. We also painted the living room, foyer, and hallway. Needless to say we have been busy so far this summer and somehow this blog got pushed to the wayside. But I have found time to read, as you will see below this.

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I could not put this book down. I had it finished in less than one day. The characters were easy to relate to.


View all my reviews.

The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a wonderful series!!! I wish number three was out already.


View all my reviews.

Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am definitely a Sookie Stackhouse fan! I keep going back and forth between who Sookie should be with. There are so many good male choices....Sam, Quinn, Eric.


View all my reviews.

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Definite tense situations in this book. What else can happen?


View all my reviews.

The Passerby by Thomas Ray Crowel

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
The style of this book is not one that I am used to reading. but at the same time I had to keep reading. I needed to know what happened to the little girl Trudie. I put off reading this book, because I can not stand when children are hurt. But this book did not focus on the actual details of the murder. It focused on the cover up and final investigation.


View all my reviews.

I missed Brooke and Melodye's first two soccer games a couple of weekends ago. These were the first games I have missed since they started playing 6 years ago. The first weekend was because of the Girl Scout Weekend at the Dude Ranch. The second weekend was for a Scrapbooking Event that was a fundraiser for Relay for Life.

This was the first time I had been to a scrapbooking crop in over 9 years. It felt wonderful to go and so nice to accomplish so much in a 12 hour period. For the first time, I made myself little kits for each layout. I wanted to limit myself so that I wouldn't have too many decisions to make. I also decided to scrapbook soccer team photos and school pictures. I normally put off scrapbooking these because they really aren't the first thing I would pick to do. There is always something a little more fun. But I did finish them.

When I took these pictures, I realized that I really have not posted any scrapbook pages. So here they are, even though the pictures aren't the greatest.

This is Brooke's School and Class Photo from last year. I took the class photo which had the photos spread out over the 8X10 and cut them apart to put on one page with her class photo.

 

For every Christmas, I take the cards that we get and punch a square out of each one. The square from each card and the photos we receive go onto one layout. This way I am saving the memories, but not needing to take up a lot of room. This is from 2008.

This is Melodye's current school picture for third grade. She did not like the frame being crooked around her picture. Oh, well!

This is Melodye's soccer pictures from Spring 2008. I really need to make sure that I get the 5x7 team photo and 3 1/2 x 5 individual pictures. They really fit well on a page together.

Melodye's second grade picture. I originally made a mistake and put her first grade picture on here. But it was easily fixed.

Melodye's first grade picture. I love this paper since it was already done, I only added a border sticker to the top and traced words that were in the background. This is also one of my favorite school pictures of Melodye.

Brooke's Spring 2008 soccer pictures. The post it note is there until I can find out a couple of names. This way the names are there to hold a spot until I can find out who is missing.

Brooke and Melodye's Buddy photos. We get a photo at soccer pictures of the two girls together each season.

Melodye's Soccer pictures from Fall 2007.

Brooke's Soccer Pictures from Fall 2008.

 

Brooke's Soccer Pictures from Fall 2007

Miss Cuteness Melodye at 7 years old. I love how this photo just shows her personality so well. The pink background paper is glitter paper.

A layout about my grandparents' house. I think I am going to add something at the top, but I am not sure what. Maybe, journalling?

This is one of very few photos that has my parents with me and all of my siblings. There are very few times when all of my siblings are all together.

I don't know if I am finished with this page about Brooke. I just love this photo since it also shows Brooke's crazy personality.

I also make Mother's Day Cards last night. The color is off because this was taken at 10:00 at night. The paper is from Heidi Grace and is already striped like that. Super easy.

Belated Dude Ranch Highlights

Things have been as crazy as usual. But I am finally getting around to giving some of the highlights from the Girl Scout Trip to the Dude Ranch. There aren't that many pictures due to other girls being in the pictures and we have to keep everyone safe.

Two of the vehicles arrived at the ranch 3 1/2 hours after we left. Our vehicle did not. We arrived 5 1/2 after we left. We traveled quite a bit in the country by accident. We had the GPS and Mapquest. The problem was that I was trying to read Mapquest while driving. I skipped a direction. So I was looking for the wrong highway. After we missed that highway, we got off at the next exit. Tried to follow the GPS and get back on, but the next two exits were closed for construction. When we did find an open exit, it was for the next highway. We got on even thought the GPS said to go south, we went north because that is waht the Mapquest said to do. What we didn't know is that we were already too far north. Yes, you read that right. Then we ended up in the middle of nowhere going through two toll booths that are unmanned. Finally we get to one that has a toll attendant and find out what way to take. This include backtracking 15 miles in sitting still traffic and going through the country on a one lane road. But we did make it and had lots of fun talking, singing, and laughing. We sat in a lot of traffic, saw two horrific accidents, and made it safely. We had late dinner, it was saved for us. Then we went to a horsemanship class, a hayride, and hanging out in the dorm until lights out at 11:00.

 

This is Melodye with one of her best friends, Caitie before bed. The two of them are so much alike it is scary. They know exactly what the other one is thinking without one word being said.

The next morning we were up early, but not by choice. A couple of teenage girls set their alarms for five o'clock in the morning. They didn't get up and take a shower. No they spent the net two hours hogging the only sink and mirror doing their hair and make up. At that point they crawled back in bed. Let me tell you there were some unhappy campers at this point. We went down to see the horses being brought down to be fed. The horses were really beautiful.

 

Some helped each other scratch their itches.

  

The girls were obsessed with the steaming poop from the horses, especially the girls from my van. they had talked about farting and poop the whole 5 1/2 hours. You would think it was a bunch of boys in the van instead of girls. (When I told the girls I had made copies of the pictures for each of the girls, the first thing they asked was if the steaming poop was on there.)

 

This was the sight all weekend of Caitie and Melodye walking together ahead of me. Most times they were holding hands. It was just too cute!!

 

The girls then had a class on fossil hunting in the quarry. They were all sad that they didn't find anything.

 

We posed the girls for some shots together, but I think my favorite is this one with all of their feet. Of course, Melodye just thinks I am crazy for taking it.

The girls took some more classes that I didn't get pictures of. They learned about Illinois plants and animals, completed a scavenger hunt, fed animals, went on a horseback ride, went on a hike, played fun active games with their parents, ate dinner, learned line dancing, went on a hayride, played bingo, played air hockey, and stayed up late again.

The next morning we went on a hike before brunch. It ended up raining while on our hour long hike.We had brunch and the girls played some more air hockey. We weren't able to take any more classes because of how our last horseback ride was scheduled. I took a nap during this time. I was up most of the night because a girl from another troop was up coughing most of the night. I ended up going to find out where the girl was to see if she needed water. the mom was there but hadn't taken her to the bathroom. After I went over there, they went to the bathroom because the girl had thrown up all over herself in her sleep. This had gone on for over three hours. So I slept good during my nap. I needed that nap so I could drive home. We then went on our horseback ride and it rained during the ride. So we were all scrambling to pull what ever we could pull out of our suitcases in the van, whether that was dirty jeans or pajama pants.

 

Then we went home and made it in record time, especially when you compare our original time. I slept good Sunday night. The weekend was so much fun, but tiring. I would definitely go again if we have the chance again. There were eight girls and seven moms that went. Every girl had their mom their which made it easy on all of us. Plus it was a really fun bunch of girls and moms.

Sneaky, Sneaky

Melodye is a little stinker. Tomorrow night is the 3rd Grade Musical at her school. Of course she is participating in the musical. It is required as part of their grade. Last night Melodye told Tommy that she is upset that she has been staying in for a short time at recess to pick out a poem to read at the musical. She became upset that he had told me. When I asked her why, Melodye said it was because she wanted the poem to be a surprise. Luckily we did find out early so that both sets of grandparents will be able to make it to the musical. I don't think she realizes how exciting this is to be invited to read the poem. All I know is that I am extremely proud of her and she hasn't even gotten up there yet.

Driving Me Crazy

I tell you computers can really drive a person CRAZY!!!!!! I thought they were supposed to make our lives easier. Our desktop computer crashed. It had an external hard drive that was set up to automatically back up files. But it hasn't made a back up since September!!!!!! Which means all of our Itunes information is GONE! Messing around with Itunes, I discover that we have two accounts. How in the world did we end up with two accounts? So I am trying to recover what I can, but it is killing me. I do not want this headache or responsibility. I have emailed Apple. I am waiting for the emailed response, but I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to go to a dude ranch with Melodye and the Girl Scouts. So I may still be resolving this issue next week, Frustrating I tell you.

The computer problems means that I did not take the pictures I planned. Hopefully I will remember to take the pictures and post them in between packing for our trip tomorrow.

Cumberland Falls Part 3

Boy did I take a lot of pictures on this trip. I have tried to narrow them pictures down and post in increment, but it will still be picture heavy. So be prepared.

 

We drove 41 miles to Cumberland Gap. There was an area that the kids could dress up as pioneer girls or boys. Melodye didn't want to do it, but Brooke did. Brooke decided to be a pioneer boy. Go figure. She was not happy at this point because another family had joined us at this point. But she still is cute.

Of course, I had to include a close up picture of such a cute girl.

 

We then drove up to the Pinnacle and hiked a couple of short trails. Melodye was so excited because we were in a cloud.

 

Everyone walked right on by and didn't realize that they had gone into another state. So I took a picture of my big feet standing in Kentucky and Virginia.

 

When we cam back through the girls had fun being in two states at the same time.

Then we were bad parents and left a girl in each state. Sorry I had to make that joke. It was either that or make the joke that they were grounded to different states.

 

I took a picture of Melodye and me, but it wasn't the greatest because we were cold from being in the cloud.

 

This is where we stayed at the Dupont Lodge. The lodge was very conveniently located to the falls. The staff there were amazingly friendly. I would definitely recommend staying there if you are going to Cumberland Falls. I don't know if I would call the Wi-fi high speed, but it worked for what we needed. Tommy says I am just spoiled and that I used to be happy with that speed.

 

We then went back to the falls and explored a little and took some pictures.

 

These are taken on some rocks before the falls. Let me tell you it was hard to get a good picture of Brooke.

 

While I took pictures Tommy skipped rocks and the girls watched.

 

We made Melodye take pictures of us. She wasn't happy to do that because she had better things to do. But she didn't do too bad.

 

Tommy and the girls at the falls again with Brooke being crazy.

 

Me with the girls. As you can tell Brooke still did not want any pictures taken of her.

 

We hiked further and found an area that the girls played in the sand and tried to make sand castles.

 

I kept trying for a cute sister picture, but this was the closest I go. Although I should be happy with it because it does show their personalities.

 

I then wrote our name and 2009 in the sand. My family thought I was crazy when I told them to put their feet in the shot, but I like how it turned out.

 

We tried to see the moonbow, but gave up at about 11:45pm. The girls were tired and it was COLD. We did see the start of the arch, but there wasn't any color to the arch yet. The moon hadn't risen high enough yet. Plus I don't know if I would even have gotten any pictures since I don't know the controls on my camera. I really should learn that someday.

So this was Saturday and we still have Sunday to show. I forgot after we left Cumberland Gap, we went for a drive and ended up in Tennessee and Virginia. The landscape was just gorgeous in Virginia, so green. I wish we could have stopped to take pictures, but not a safe thing to do on the side of a highway or byway as I saw a sign say. Maybe some other time.