A Photo Scavenger Hunt

Do ever check out all of my favorite photogs in my blogroll? There are some very talented women & men over there and I read each of them daily. While reading Emily’s Little World the other day I was very excited to learn she was doing a photo scavenger hunt (with prizes to a random winner). Yeah a reason to take photos. I have really been wanting to participates and I finally had time to take some photos today.

The rules are we had to pick 8 of the 10 things she listed and then find something to photograph that represents our choice. They were:

1. Something you need every single day
2. Something you once lost, but finally found
3. A happy place in your home
4. Something you ate today
5. A picture of a picture
6. A favorite book
7. Something “Fall-y”
8. Your favorite color
9. Something from your childhood
10. Something from your to-do list

I had so much fun looking all around the house for these pictures and I even made J help me a little with holding a light (hee hee, poor kid). So without further ado… here are my pics.

#1 Something I Need Every Day

my coffee from Quiktrip. Love it. Have to have it. Can’t function without it.

#3 A Happy Place in My Home

A small corner of my couch. I usually sit here on my laptop with my coffee and iPhone plus the remotes (all on the windowsill). I can sit here and look out the window, watch TV, kick back…. you name it.

#5 A Picture of a Picture

Take your pick, these are a few of my favorites that sit on top of our hooks in our entryway. Love having all of my family pictures there so everyone can see them as they walk up the stairs.

#6 A Favorite Book

Picking a favorite book would be like picking which of my kids I like more. So I took a picture of my favorite section on my bookcase. I always love Sophie Kinsella but my fave of the week is Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum. This book was a-mazing!!

#7 Something “Fall-y”

What says fall more than a yellow fallen leaf in the green grass. Sigh. I love fall. This was my original pick to represent fall but then I came inside and found something else that represents fall to me….

Halloween candy. YUM! This bag is gigantic and yes it’s already been opened. L and I dug into it yesterday while doing her homework.

#8 My Favorite Color

I “heart” green. It’s my favorite color and I own a ton of green clothing. In fact I really want to go buy this coat, badly. Don’t you love the names on these markers… grasshopper green, leaf green, leprechaun green, baby lime and beetle green. I need to hurry and put these back before L realizes that I borrowed them.

#9 Something From Your Childhood

Samantha my American Girl doll. She now belongs to L. The other doll is L’s most recent American Girl addition Molly. She adores these dolls. They have stopped making Samantha as of Christmas last year. I received her when I was a little girl, much older than L but she takes really good care of her for me.

#10 Something From Your To-Do List

One fifne afternoon while I was working L decided to take all of my scrapbooking ribbon and unwind them from their spools. So now I have a huge baskets full of knotted ribbon and empty spools. This has been on my to-do list for quite a while now and I just don’t have the patience to tackle it, at least not yet.

If you want to play along just visit Emily at her Little World and take time to admire some of her photography.

F for the day, so far

The littlest things can make you feel like you fail the day. For instance it’s 12:30 and J and I are eating lunch. I got the bread down to make us each a sandwich and the bread I just bought is all moldy. How did I not realize it was moldy? So instead of sandwiches for lunch I made Ramen, chicken for him and beef for me. YUCK!!! I am so sick of Ramen. It’s J’s favorite and he’s starving. I bet Katie Holmes doesn’t let Suri eat Ramen for lunch. I can’t even finish my lunch, blech. I’m still hungry. FAIL!!!

Another quick fail…. my son needs to quit listening to my music, as of today. My brother and C are downstairs singing Holiday Road and dancing and carrying on (being silly). J says to me, while we’re sitting here eating… “I think they’re having a party in their bedroom, like on that song in the car.” OMG!!! WTH?!?! I died!!!

At least it’s only 12:33 pm, I still have time to redeem the day.

A lot on my mind tonight

• I was thinking about my friend tonight and she called at the exact same time. Weird. We must have been in sync. We talked for a while and I hope I was a good enough friend to her as she was to me tonight. I have to remember to bitch less and listen more.
• Another friend on facebook is really sick and she found out she has H1N1, poor thing. She can hardly breathe and it started me thinking about how I am really concerned about getting it myself (not because she has it or anything, just in general). With my asthma it would be really bad because when I get my yearly respiratory infection I can barely breathe. I think I will be upping my hand sanitizer usage.
• My kids are starting colds and lord please do not let them turn into anything else.
• I loved sitting on the couch tonight after baths and cuddling with my kiddos. I’ve been working alot lately and they’ve been acting out a little more because I’m around less. To just sit and enjoy them was heaven.
• I will probably be using a host soon for a new blog, just saving the money. Then I’ll be back with pictures and such. I have some incredible pictures of J’s birthday party and really want to share them here.
• I’m in the middle of creating a book made of my first years’ blog posts. It’s a lot of work but it will be amazing to have once it’s completed. I decided to use www.blurb.com
• Here at our house we are completely in the throws of Halloween prep. We have yet to decorate but we have one costume purchased and working on the other one. We read nothing but Halloween books, watch as many Halloween dvds or show we can and always have to walk through the Halloween section.
• Someone mentioned that there are 89 days till Christmas (um don’t you just hate that when you finally see how close it really is) I’m so not ready to think about Christmas
• I love that fall is here. I wore jeans and a long sleeve shirt today and tomorrow it’s supposed to be even cooler. Love that.
• I’m thankful for my blog, I am able to get all of this off my chest.
• Oh and one more thing… we found out today that our dog has cancer. I will hopefully blog more about that tomorrow.

Goodnight all.

It’s only September 23rd

A letter I’m composing….

Dear Pottery Barn Kids,

On September 23rd I visited your website in hopes of finally being able to purchase the adorable cupcake costume you have for sale. It’s takes a normal everyday person such as myself time to put together $59 (plus tax). I was very excited tonight and ready to make my little girl a happy little girl. Imagine my surprise when your website informed me that the costume was NO LONGER AVAILABLE. Really on September 23rd? Wow that must be some sort of record especially since Halloween is still 37 days away. I understand that a mother should be prepared which is why I was purchasing her costume of choice 37 days before Halloween.

Those are strong words, NO LONGER AVAILABLE. I imagine these words to mean that you will no longer be carrying the costume this season. Correct me if I am wrong but I believe this was a new item for you. I am surprised that you wouldn’t have some of your seamstresses make a few more for the public. Although I guess if you sold out of the item and are no longer carrying the costume, there might be 100 other girls out there in the same thing. We were picking your costume to be original and I suppose it wouldn’t have been all that original after all.

I will end up saving a lot of money because a normal costume is going to cost much less and now that my brilliant mother and I have decided to make our own cupcake costume we plan on doing it right.

• We will be able to place sprinkles on her cupcake, because it’s one of her favorite toppings
• There will be a cherry atop her head instead of a strawberry, I haven’t eaten many cupcakes with strawberries on the top

There are tons of templates and ideas online and I am looking forward to passing on a homemade costume to my child. So thank you Pottery Barn Kids. Because of you I am now going to be creative and save money at the same time.

Sincerely,

Me

(If you want to see just how stinkin cute the costume would have looked on… visit Do They Have Salsa in China, she got the costume for her darling girls. She’s one of the lucky ones she says it’s totally cute on too)

Deciding what to do

I’m running out of download space on my blog. Not sure what I am going to do… either upgrade for more space or buy my own domain and start a new blog. What to do, what to do. Advice is appreciated, if you have any to offer. While I decide what I’m going to do I’ll leave you with this, I really love this picture I took today.

Who Lives in a Pineapple Under the Sea….

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!

Today was J’s birthday celebration at school. He requested cookies that look like Spongebob Squarepants. Thank you Lubeley’s. Oh my gosh were these cookies good. Sweet, but good.

Featured Family

On Friday my boss Holly took some family pictures for us. When I woke up I knew today was the day, the day we were going to be on her blog. So excited. They turned out awesome and I’m so happy to share them with you. Thanks a ton to Holly for all these wonderful pictures. Check them out here: http://hollymccaigdesigns.com/journal/2009/09/my-assistants-family/.

Also today I got a peek at my Lollipop pictures. Helping Holly shoot these pictures was so much fun. You couldn’t help but get crazy because it’s very rare you get a chance to be crazy in front of the camera. Here they are…

 

Secret talent revealed in the next one… I can touch my tongue to my nose.

 

Trying to be a rocker:

 

Finallymy Devo Whip It Pose, just for the hubs:

There you have it, my Lollipop’s. If you are interested in booking Holly to do these at your wedding or party you can contact her here.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

We took the kids to their very first ballgame last night. They were so excited they were jumping off the walls. We picked up JT and parked in his work garage. It’s just a short walk from there and the closer we got the more quiet the kids grew. They were in awe. When we finally got inside I looked at J and told him we were inside the stadium where they play baseball. He couldn’t believe it.

Here they are standing with small Brock and the small Musial statues. Quick trivia… their Papa is named after Musial.

 

We went to our seats first so the kids could see the field and what our seats would look like, you know familiarize them. Once they saw the field we went and bought some food. Hot dogs, french fries, cheeseburger, soda, beer and water. Ballpark hot dogs rock, especially when paired with a cold beer. Not that I would know since I didn’t eat or drink either of those. But I’ve been told it’s pretty awesome. 🙂

 

After we ate we still had an hour before the game started so we took the kids on a walk around the stadium, which ended at Build-A-Bear. J built a Fredbird and L built a Clydesdale horse she named Star.

 

After J built Fredbird he was on Fredbird watch all night. He was a little obsessed with the large red bird. Here he is on bird watch…

Those animals came in handy. They were used as entertainment and as pillows later in the evening. Then it was on to the next course in baseball dining. The ice cream in a baseball hat.

The game got a little exciting when bases were loaded and Pujols came up to bat. He struck out but the kids were a little more pumped during that inning. I think if it had been a more exciting game the kids wouldn’t have been in this position…

 

After cotton candy, foam fingers and two penny necklaces the kids were done and JT was done spending money. So we headed out. They did make it to the 7th inning stretch which was better than I expected. L was excited to sing “the baseball song” (take me out to the ballgame). I think everyone left happy.

Here are some other fun pics from the ballpark:

 

 

 

We let the kids play in the Citygarden after the game and they both got SOAKED. Here’s a video to prove it…

Changing of Seasons

Fall is upon us here in the Lou (well at least the weather today is fall-like). I could not be more excited. Last night I layed in bed and watched the weather lady tell me all about our fantastic upcoming weather and I got butterflies in my stomach. I heart fall. I really do. It’s my favorite season. All the sweaters and jeans, the leaves falling from the trees and crunching under your feet, cool air, pumpkins, halloween, open windows, a hot bowl of soup, football… the list could go on and on.

It makes me think though about all the things we did this summer. We had playdates, zoo trips, friends from out of town visit, swam, visited Six Flags, did fun things around the city and redecorated our backyard. Of course we did so much more but my mind isn’t in summer mode right now. It’s in Fall mode. Bring it on, I’m ready. Fire pits, apple orchards, pumpkin patches, Halloween costume shopping… HERE WE COME!!!

Top Ten Tuesday – RIP Patrick Swayze

It’s so sad that he’s gone. I didn’t know him (obviously) but I appreciated his work. Here are 10 things I loved about him or his work. (I could do a list on 10 Things I Love just about Dirty Dancing but thought this list was more poignant).

For more Top Ten Lists visit Oh Amanda.

1. Dirty Dancing. I remember where I was when I saw Dirty Dancing for the first time. I was sitting in the living room at my parents house. They were having a party and I came down because I was being nosey. My mom and dad’s friend Sylvia (since passed of lung cancer) pulled me onto her lap and we sat and watched Dirty Dancing together. She talked to me about the movie but I really can’t remember the things we talked about I just remember thinking I wanted to be like Baby.

 2. Dancing Abilities. Dude he could really shake his groove thing and he did it in a way that made every woman want to join him. My thanks to his mother for teaching him all those great moves that made us lust over him in Dirty Dancing.

3. His marriage. I love that he was married to his wife Lisa for 34 years. It just goes to show that not every marriage in Hollywood ends in divorce.

4. Ghost. I could watch the movie Ghost over and over. Him and Whoopi Goldberg made a great comedy team but the infamous pottery scene with Demi Moore will be etched in my brain for eternity.

5. Point Break. Yeah this is a cheesy as hell movie but god it’s so much fun to watch Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves run around all muscular and tan. I loved his long blond locks in this film.

6. Heartthrob. He was a bit of a heartthrob. One article describes him as a Harlequin heartthrob come to life. He did win People’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1991. To me he was sexy or “cute” depending on the role he was playing. Johnny Castle, yes please. Bodhi, oh yeah.

7. Singer. We all know the song She’s Like the Wind. It’s definitely not a favorite song but dude he at least sang a song and it’s a song that everytime you hear it you go back to the Catskills, watching Johnny drive away.

8. All around good guy. He carried himself as a good guy but everyone that is interviewed says that he made an impact on their lives. You could tell he had a good heart.

9. Strong. He was a fighter. He said to Barbara Walters earlier this year in an interview “I want to last until they find a cure… I keep my heart and soul and my spirit open to miracles.” I am sorry you lost your battle.

10. He could be funny and hilarious. Who could forget this skit on SNL…

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xu9mx_patrick-swayze-chippendale_dating

RIP Patrick Swayze!!