Jeremy's New Hobby

It's been a while since I've done any digital scrapbooking. Since I had half the day off today, I had a little bit of time between work and celebrating Jeremy's birthday. We had a nice day today. We went out to Tex Wasabi's for lunch and then to the mall to look for a birthday present. He still doesn't know what he wants. Anyway, a few months ago we had a conversation about how I go out and scrapbook once a month or every other month and he doesn't go out to do anything but work. I encouraged him to find something to do, so he decided to start fishing with his friend Jeremy G. Jeremy G has a really cool family, and for this trip he took his kids. I believe JD was in Stockton for this trip, but Sariah and Becca got to go along.

I wanted Jeremy to take pictures, but the kids ended up with the camera instead. Regardless, I think some of the pictures turned out cute. I actually kind of like the crooked one of Becca.

They had fun, but unfortunately all Jeremy caught was a sock and some seaweed (or whatever they call what grows in the river). There were a lot of people around in canoes. There were also some ducks. I think the kids' favorite part was the doughnuts Jeremy bought for breakfast. Anyway, I'm glad he's having fun. Eventually maybe he'll even catch something.

Costumes Part III, Stockton

This font is called Australian Sunrise. I thought you would like to know. We’ll see how it looks on the blog. Anyway, for the last part of our Halloween weekend, we decided to go to Stockton so that Jeremy’s family could see the kids in their costumes. Tonight Becca decided to be Pocahontas. By now the hated wig looks like a big, black haystack. I pulled it back in an attempt to tame it a little bit.

Daniel and Justin were Thing 1 and Thing 2. I love the blue hair. Daniel was very excited to show me the spray bottle and looked about ready to apply it himself while he was still in his Sunday clothes.

They went to see Grandma and Pop, Grammi and Pop, and Daniel and Julia. Jeremy didn’t get any pictures of Grammi’s house, but apparently she had a talking tombstone that Sariah didn’t like very much. It was supposed to be someone buried alive that said “Help, get me out of here!, It’s dark in here!, I’m not dead!” and it had little moving hands poking up that would scratch the tombstone.

The girls like to play computer games with Grandma.

Here are all the kids in front of Grandma’s house. I love JD’s smile.

I got a kick out of Brian and Julia’s pumpkin throwing up.

So Brian was Thing 1 and Julia and Tyler were What thing 1? and What thing 2? They had red hair and blue clothes instead of blue hair and red clothes.

Brian and Becca have a special connection. Maybe it’s because they can both be punks sometimes.

Trunk or Treat

This is JD and his friend Daegan. I love Daegan and I love his mom, they are really good people. JD and his buddies are so cute together, I'm glad that he's had such an easy time making friends. This is at the ward Trunk or Treat. I didn't take a lot of pictures. Sadly, my Canon broke and is currently in for repairs. I don't like hauling the Nikon everywhere. All of the pics from the last few days were taken by the loaner from Fry's. It was a Fujifilm Finepix. The camera had a lot of cool features, but the shutter delay was awful. Many of my pics turned out fuzzy and eventually I gave up. I miss my Canon.

Jeremy handed out candy at the party. Here he is trying to get JD to say "trick or treat". He wasn't cooperating.

Here are Daegan, JD, and Cody. Love those boys. JD told us this morning that he likes the name Jason better than JD. I think it's because they make him write Jason at school. I like calling him JD though.

These two below are from the parade of costumes.

Costumes Part II, The Carnival

There is a charter school in our neighborhood called Creative Connections Arts Academy. Most of the kids in our ward go there. Somehow we missed the bulletin that this school is the place to be. Now there is a waiting list. Anyway, we went to their carnival with some friends. The kids had a lot of fun playing games. I came home $20 poorer with a grocery bag full of stuffed animals. I told my friend Joanie that I see a trip to the DI in my future.

In this game they were supposed to fish a duck out of the "pond" with a net. If there is a black sticker on the bottom, you win! Even if there is no sticker, you still get candy.

I will never buy a wig from Wal-Mart again. I didn't want to spray Sariah's hair because someone told me that the stuff stains blonde hair. I didn't want to find out if they were right or not. This wig didn't look right from the second I took it out of the package. Sariah was a good sport though. This is especially true since she wanted to be a vampire but she was afraid that they wouldn't want her to dress up as that at the church Trunk or Treat. That is partially the reason that we bought her the kitty costume. I really appreciated that she didn't complain about Pocahontas.

I tried to get a good group picture. My kids had other ideas. These are my kids with the Grover kids and a friend of theirs whose name I don't remember. She might actually be a cousin or something, I'm not sure. Anyway, this hearse was parked in front of the school. They had a fog machine and scary music going, along with a person on the ground doing a very believable impression of a corpse.

I think everyone had a lot of fun and I am glad I went. I'm sure Joanie could have done without her kid eating the spaghetti from the Funhouse that was being used for the "guess what kind of gross thing this is" game. The kids didn't like the haunted house very much. They were excited at first but then once people started jumping out at them, they got scared. Becca started crying and I literally had to push them through (they froze up) as I was cracking up at how hysterical my kids were. I probably shouldn't have laughed but it was really too funny. I don't remember being scared of the neighborhood haunted houses as a kid. Maybe my mom can enlighten me.

Halloween Costumes Part I

JD loves Iron Man. He will run down the street yelling "I am Iron Man!" He sings the song and pretends that he has a blaster on his hand. There was never any question that he would be Iron Man for Halloween. He's also the only child in the family that actually stuck to one costume this year.

This is Becca as Jasmine. She was Jasmine on Friday at the carnival and at the church Trunk or Treat/Chili contest. I think she was happy with it, even though the wig was itchy. Dora was nice enough to give us some of the costumes her grandkids used to wear and have since grown out of.

If you are thinking that Sariah looks a little bit grumpy in this picture, that's because she is. She couldn't find her favorite sweat pants (the ones that are actually an appropriate length for her) and it was cold outside. She was going to wear a black skirt and leggings. She looked really cute, but I thought the trunk or treat was going to be outside and I didn't want her to get cold. This is costume #2 for Sariah. We found it for half off a Claire's. She was Pocahontas on Friday.

At work they make me dress up every year. This year the theme was the circus. I was a circus tiger, but people kept calling me Tigger or Catwoman. People need to get their comics straight. Catwoman was not striped and she didn't have a tail. Sariah really liked that she had a costume similar to mine. I liked that it allowed me to wear sweatpants to work.

Making the Bear

I was a little nervous about having JD make a bear for Sariah because I figured he would want to keep it. I really wanted her to have the bear though, I just knew she would love it when I got the email from Build a Bear. This is him giving it a hug before it was stuffed.

He thought the process of stuffing the bear was pretty cool. Notice the sunglasses on the back of his head, just like his dad.

Here he is checking the bear to make sure it has just the right amount of stuffing.

Now he is rubbing the bear's heart on his ear so it could hear. He also rubbed it on his nose so it could smell, and on his elbow so it has a sense of humor.
Here, he is making a wish. See how hard he is wishing?Last, he needed to give the bear a bath to make sure it was clean.

He did tell Sariah that he made her a bear when she got home from school , but she didn't understand what he was talking about. When she asked him where it was, he said he didn't know what Daddy did with it. I was very proud of him. He was so excited to make a bear, he didn't even care that it wasn't for him.

Sariah's birthday

Last year Sariah was sick on her birthday. I ended up having her shop at Toys R Us website while I was at the store on my phone so I could get her a present. I also brought her home a balloon. We did have a party a week later when she was baptized and all the family came to town, but she still talks about being sick that day. This year, I wanted her to have a really good day. Her friend Jacquelyn spent the night Friday and we went to John's Incredible Pizza on Saturday. We really like to go there. The food is pretty good and the kids always seem to win a lot of tickets when they play the games.




We had a coupon for a free hour of rides and non-ticket games. This mean that they go to go on all the rides that we don't normally do because usually they are focused on getting more tickets for a prize.


They love the Incredible Express. I rode it once a while back. I hated it, never again.

JD made this bear for Sariah at Build a Bear about a week before her birthday. He was very excited for her to get it.

A year ago or so (I don't remember how long) Sariah left the bear my parents bought for her when she was born at a school play. Someone found it and decided to take it home with them. It was Halloween colors and she took it everywhere. We bought her what was supposed to be a replacement bear, but she's never been quite happy with it. She really loves this one.

A New Do

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. I’ve been really busy with school and work. Mostly I spend so much time at a computer for things that I have to do, I don’t want to be at the computer to do the things I want to do. Consequently, I haven’t blogged in several months and I probably have 1000 pictures to go through and edit.

I decided to spoil myself about a week and a half ago, and got my hair done. Here is the before:

 

This picture was taken in June at Wheeler farm when we went to Utah. It was during family portraits. As you can see, JD didn’t want any more to do with it.

Here is the after:

Darker, shorter and just a little bit of red. I’m really happy with it. I didn’t really need to color my hair, but I thought it would be fun. I just wish some idiot hadn’t set fire to the mall last week. The salon I went to was inside JC Penney. The fire was started very close to there and from what I hear, that part of the mall will be closed for a year while they fix it.  You’ll have to forgive the glare on the picture. It’s been pretty rainy here the past few days.

This came in the mail for me a few days ago:

 

Now, I know I still have two years left of school and this is only an Associate’s degree. These days it’s barely better than high school. Still, it was kind of exciting to open up the envelope and see my diploma. Now I just need to figure out where I am going to display it. It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be.

Sutter's Mill

My family came to visit us Memorial day weekend. We went to Sutter's Mill since Jeremy and I had never been there. We had a good time. It was a nice drive and the kids liked playing outside. The museum had some cool artifacts from the gold hunting days, like little Chinese shoes that looked like they should have gone on a doll but people actually wore. The kids' favorite part was playing outside where they had some picnic tables, some big boulders perfect for climbing, and some teepees. They also had fun with their uncle Brad, KC was up in Yuba city with some friends.

JD has been really cheesy about smiling lately. It's kind of cute.

The funniest part of the whole trip was when Brad decided he was going to jump off the boulder and fell flat on his butt. Then he got up and decided to to it second time and landed on his feet. Luckily Jeremy was up there to make sure that the kids did not decide to follow suit. I still laugh looking at these pictures. Brad was a really good sport about it.

My mom has a thing for lizards and squirrels. We can't go anywhere outside without her getting a picture of at least one of them. This little guy was sitting on the mill. We also walked down to the river so Dad could take pictures and we could show the kids where the mill really used to be. As you can see, the river is very full and fast this year. The bridge there is the tallest in California. I thought the picture my dad took was nice. I also think the old stagecoach is cool.

Busy Times

I handed in my finals for my World Literature and Algebra classes yesterday. I don’t think I have ever been so glad for a set of classes to end. The World Literature class was supposed to be one that I would enjoy, but nothing that I handed in was ever good enough for the instructor. If he didn’t agree with my interpretation of the reading assignment, I lost points. If I forgot to add an apostrophe to a word, I lost points. Usually I can figure out what a teacher wants and do it. With this guy it was impossible.

We just got back from Utah on the 27th and celebrated our 10th anniversary on the 30th. We had a nice visit with family and friends. There were some stressful spots, like when the car broke down on the way to Manti, but overall it was a good trip. I even came home with a Cricut Expression.  I can’t wait to start making cards with my Wild Card cartridge. The small Cricut I have didn’t cut big enough to use all the templates.

This week was really crazy. It all started on Monday when the dryer decided not to heat up anymore. Jeremy spent the next few days reading about it and looking at it before he gave up for a couple days. Wednesday was nice. Jeremy and I were able to get a babysitter and go out to dinner. Then we went shopping and bought inexpensive anniversary gifts. It was nice to get out for a little bit without the kids. While we were out, my dad called and said my cousin Tyler was in a rock climbing accident at Scout Camp and had to be life-flighted to Primary Children’s Hospital for emergency brain surgery. Thankfully the surgery went well and appears to be recovering well. Hopefully he will recover fully without any lasting damage.

Thursday night I tried to update my phone again after Apple replaced the first one when it broke while trying to update. I ended up having the same problem all over again. In the mean time, I woke up at 1:30 am Friday morning to find out that our basset hound, Sweetie, was ill. Jeremy stayed up all night watching her. She seemed to improve and he went to bed after I went to work at 3:30 am.

Friday Jeremy took my phone in and they were able to restore it.  I tried to update a third time and had the same problem yet again.  I finally called Apple and they got the phone working, but I lost all the phone numbers that were stored on it. We discovered Friday afternoon that Sweetie was not better after all.  Jeremy had to leave work early so that we could take her to the emergency vet. She had intestinal bleeding for some unknown reason. She’d lost so much blood that it was too difficult and too expensive to even try to save her. After only having her for a few short months, we had to put her down. Then we had to tell the girls. They stayed up waiting for us.

Yesterday had its good points and bad. We were invited to a BBQ , fireworks, and a water fight with some friends in the ward. Jeremy went with the kids while I took my finals. I went afterward. Then I hit a car that was driving by when I was trying to move my car to a different spot. I just didn’t see them. It was just one more really frustrating, stupid thing to add to the ever growing list of crap that seemed to be going on.  I had a nice time visiting with friends and they were nice enough not to make fun of me too much. If you’ve ever met the Andrus family, you know that took a lot of self control on Jared’s part. I really appreciated it. I went with a couple of the ladies to go see Eclipse. I enjoyed it and it was nice to go out after having such a hard weekend.

Now the dryer is working, Lucky is without his friend, the car is a little messed up, and I’m ready to start the last set of classes before I get my Associate’s degree. I hope I can get a reprieve from trials for a while. I know that there are people out there with worse trials than I, but I feel like I’ve about reached my limit.

I’m going to post some pics of the Utah trip and the other assorted events I’ve missed over the last few months, I just have to finish going through all of them first.

Another Bodega Bay Page

I'm really having a good time with this tutorial. If you can get the image big enough, there's some text around the picture.

Digital Scrapbooking

I've been wanting to try my hand at digital scrapbooking for a while now. I've been hesitant for a couple of reasons. One is that I already have a TON of paper items, so it doesn't really seem reasonable to spend money on a different kind of scrapbooking. Also, I just really like playing with the paper, adhesive, ribbons, and my Cricut.

Jeni makes digital pages and posts them on her blog, which I think are really cute. I decided to try the website she has linked to hers, FreeDigitalScrapbooking.com. It has lots of cool free stuff, so that takes care of my excuse about spending money. And I think having pages on my blog would be cool, especially if I ever steal my friend Holly's idea about making a book out of blog posts from Blurb.com. I had actually planned on doing it for Mother's Day or something, but I'm still too far behind on my posts. Maybe I'll do something for Christmas this year.

Anyway, the other roadblock to digital scrapbooking was I had NO IDEA what to do. However, my Photoshop Elements software came with a how to CD, complete with a template (shown above), papers, and embellishments. I still don't think this has quite the same feeling as real paper and adhesive, but it makes for a cute post I think. So I know I said yesterday that I was going to scrapbook Christmas day of last year, but I want to do some digital pages and I haven't found free paper for it yet. If anyone knows of some websites where I can get free stuff, feel free to comment.

These pictures are from April Conference weekend when Mom, Dad, and KC came to visit. Mom, Dad, and I went with the kids to Bodega Bay. It was a really long car ride, but the kids had fun on the hike we took and they liked collecting shells. We also saw some deer, which was neat. There were a lot of really cool looking old farms on the ride town. I love this picture of Becca that my mom took, she looks so happy.