Wish You Were Here

School's out!

2009-05-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday David had his last day of school. It seems every year goes by even faster than the last. What a blessing his school, teacher and class has been. He has done very well with his peers and in his school work. We have seen him grow and mature so much this year. He's a pretty neat kid with a great caring heart. I snapped the traditional last day of school photo with his teacher as I came to pick him up. We will miss her, but thankfully she will be just down the hall next year!

In May we had the privilege of a visit from my cousin Crystal. She lives in California and we haven't seen her since our visit to San Francisco over a year ago. She was a frequent visitor when we lived in Colton as she lived only an hour away. She got to stay almost a week with us here and we had fun showing her around our unique area. We went to Shipshewana and learned more about the Amish and Mennonite people and their history. We ate lots of chicken and noodles over mashed potatoes and pie, pie, pie! She toured the RV Hall of Fame museum with Mark and Luke and she drove to Ohio to visit some of her friends that live there. We made her earn her keep by working her my mom's garden (ok, she wanted to. We tried to tell her she didn't have to do any work!). She sweated and huffed trying to break up the hard ground with the cultivator. Here she is taking break with the kids.

The garden is coming along nicely. The plants are almost all planted and there are already strawberries growing on the kids strawberry plants!

While Crystal was in Chicago, she picked up these t-shirts for the kids from the Field Museum. They absolutely love them and want to wear them all the time. Here are my little fierce dinosaurs and their new favorite shirts. Thanks Cyrstal! They had a great time with her and just loved having her here.

Hannah got a bonnet from Yoder's Department Store in Shipshewana. I think she looks like Holly Hobby! She loves it! No outfit is complete without a pink satin purse and some sparkly pink flip flops.

We are finally getting some warm, sunny weather. Perfect weather for sprinklers! The kids had a great time! If you can believe it, we had to come inside about 1/2 hour after I took these photos. The dark clouds rolled in fast and we had a thunderstorm that lasted all evening.

I haven't figured out where Hannah learned to pose like this. She did this the second before I snapped the picture!

Probably the biggest change we have had this month is that my mom moved out of our house on the 26th. I was so sad to see her move out, but love that she has a place of her own now. She needed the space. Her remodels are coming along slowly, but she is getting settled and unpacked. Can't wait till everything is finished. It's going to be beautiful!

Time for a quick update

2009-05-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

Life has been busy around here lately. Spring has finally sprung with no sign of snow in the forecast. We've been busy watching our bulbs grow, planting new plants, weeding, and enjoying the wonderful weather. David has started his first year in Little League with his first game last Saturday. The kids have less than one month of school left till summer vacation.

We've been enjoying our first spring here in Bristol. It is so amazing to watch the woods come back to life. The trees are just now getting their leaves back and the underbrush is getting thick. I went out to the woods to plant a few baby trees yesterday and got thoroughly scraped up by the black raspberry branches. Luckily the poison ivy has not returned yet. Our pink magnolia is in full bloom and the trees are a flush with white and pink blooms all over town. I am continually amazed at the changing landscape. You truly haven't experienced spring until you've lived in the midwest. We went from a barren, snow covered landscape to an alive, flowering and green one. It is like in the Chronicles of Narnia movie when the snow starts melting and spring appears, except it is taking a lot longer!

Change is in the air all around us. My mom has bought a house here in our subdivision and is in the process of moving her things in. She is planning on doing some remodel changes to the house like re-carpeting, painting, and landscaping. She will be moved completely in a few weeks when the carpet gets done. I'm happy for her that she finally has a place of her own, but we miss her already. She has been living with us since September and it has worked out really well. She has become a seamless part of our household. The kids are always asking where Grandma is. "She's at her house" I say. Luckily her house is in walking distance and the kids get to go over frequently to "help" her.

We've hosted several family get-togethers since my last post. Our house seems the perfect place to be for the 20+ gatherings. Just this past weekend we had the family over plus some old friends from Marion, IN for a surprise party the celebrate the 70th birthday of Mark's dad. He was pretty surprised! He was delighted to see some of their good friends from his old church family. It was a beautiful and special day.

Tomorrow is Luke's 5th birthday! I am bringing cupcakes to class today and Luke is so excited! As usual, I can't believe how old he is! I remember the day he was born. My tiny little peaceful baby with the white tipped blond hair. He is constantly talking and is nonstop action. He loves to play with David and Hannah and test all his boundaries with me. I can't wait to see what this next year with bring!

David's 8!

2009-03-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

Wow does time fly! I can hardly believe that my little tiny baby is now a big 8 year old boy. For some reason when you have a baby you are just not prepared for that day to come. This year David requested a "cousin party" because he was the only one that hadn't had one yet. Each of the previous years we celebrated his birthday with our friends and their kids, and some of my family members. Last year he had a classmates party.

Thankfully the day of his party was a warm 60 degrees. We had a fun day with 2 of Mark's sisters and their families, Mark's parents, my mom, and Mark's cousin from Ohio, his wife and 2 kids. We had 12 kids all together ranging from age 2 to 17. Most of the day was spent outside on the playground, the sandbox, playing badminton in the back yard and basketball on the driveway. Our official party activities included painting small wooden race cars and racing them down the track Mark and the kids built and painted.

We did the usual present opening, pizza and cake eating, and general socializing. The kids had a blast playing together. The adults enjoyed conversation and a few great laughs. We really enjoyed the day and our extended family. Luke's observation at the end of the day kind of summed it all up. He said, "Mom, that was a great day, wasn't it?"

Long, cold winter

2009-03-02T09:43:00.000-08:00

Welcome to March! It's almost spring and we are still way below freezing here. We woke up to -4 wind chills this morning and it's currently 17 degrees out there. You'd never know it for the sun is shining and it looks like you could just go for a walk without gloves, hats and winter coats. We spent the rest of January, and all of February (save a week of warm temps) playing in the snow, shoveling snow, driving on snow covered roads, and generally freezing. We did take a short vacation over winter break to an indoor water park just north of Chicago. It was so nice to forget about the weather outside and swim, waterslide and have fun with the kids. We didn't leave the water resort for 2 1/2 days. It was a shocker when we left the last day and it had snowed the night before.

I took some more photos of our land and the surrounding on the 22nd of February, the last time we had significant snow. We got about 4-5 inches and it was gorgeous outside.

I enhanced these in photoshop to bring out the color a bit and brighten them.

I also got a shot of Luke helping us shovel the driveway. He's wearing the new "Igor" hat that my mom brought back from her trip to California.

The kids have been good. Hannah is almost 2 1/2 years old. We started potty training her last week. She's doing well, but we are still not completely there yet. She is growing up so fast and starting to look like a toddler and not a baby. Although she still has that innocence and softness that babies have. I wish she would stay this way forever sometimes. She is talking a lot now. She is speaking in sentences more and more and is even saying prayers with the boys at night. Her's go something like this "Waterpark, Jesus, Mommy, Daddy, David, Luke, Church, Amen".

David started playing basketball through the Upward program here. He is doing great and is learning a lot. I am enjoying his games. They are fun to watch and sometimes really entertaining. First and second grade boys are a hoot. We are so thankful for the program they run here. All of David's games are at his school and he gets to play with and against some kids in his class.

Here are the silly kids who would not pose for a photo yesterday before church. Try as I might, this is the best that I could do.

Signs of spring are just around the corner despite the temps. Mom just bought a cold-frame to start her garden and the seeds got planted today in cell packs. Hannah was her little "helper". She took her job very seriously. Tomatoes, chili peppers and brussel sprouts were started. We should be able to transfer them to the ground in 6-8 weeks. Hopefully the frost will be gone by then!

Lots of photos

2009-01-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

Here are a few photos from this week. We have LOTS of snow. About a foot and a half on the ground and we are expecting more this week. We have been shoveling non-stop! Today was unbelievable. It was coming down so fast and thick. This is our back yard as of about 1/2 hour ago.

This is the snow bank on the side of our driveway by our garage door. It's higher now that Mark just shoveled off 2 more inches about 10 minutes ago.

This is the woods behind our house. We have cut a path through to the meadow and there is a bird feeder on the right side.

Here is a shot of our patio table on our deck.

On Sunday we went sledding in our front yard with the boys. David has mastered the snow board sled pretty good!

Luke can snowboard as well, but loves the tube sled too.

Hannah comes out to sled too, but she was napping during this sledding session. Here she is sporting her pig tails. She only allows them to stay in for a few minutes before she rips them out.

Back into the swing of things

2009-01-06T05:00:00.000-08:00

December always seems to fly by so fast. Those 2 weeks vacation were wonderful, but over too fast. We had lots of activity this year in our house. We had good friends from Chicago, David and Tekla Moller, come stay with us the weekend before Christmas. We had a great time sledding, playing with the kids and catching up. We hadn't spent significant time with them in years and we had never met their 3 year old daughter. We are planning a get together with them in Chicago the end of this month.

Mark's sister Julie and her family also came for a visit from Iowa and stayed at our house for a few days, just after the Moller's left. They have 3 daughters and a infant son. It was so good to host them and to meet Isaac for the first time. He is the spitting image of his father Pat. It was uncanny. He is a happy, alert, and delightful 5 month old baby.

For Christmas day we had Mark's parents and grandmother over for the day. We had a quiet morning (after the wrapping paper melee of course) with the kids to enjoy their presents and then we had a relaxed afternoon visiting with our guests. I cooked a 20 lb. turkey that day for dinner and to prepare for the 27 people I needed to feed on Saturday. It turned out perfect thanks to my mom who suggested that we cut off the dark meat when the breast was done to perfection. We popped the dark meat back in the oven to cook some more while the white meat rested in on the counter. Thanks mom or doing all that carving.

The entire family came over on Saturday to do our group Christmas get together and present sharing. We usually do a name draw and each cousin gets one present. Now there are 14 cousins so that event is quite chaotic. At first we went from youngest to oldest for the present opening order and by the time we got to David all order had gone out the window. We shared 2 meals together, played with toys, ran around the house (it was raining that day, unfortunately), and the Paffs brought their Wii to play on our large theater screen. My boys are in love and have been begging for a Wii ever since. I just tell them that they can play it with the Paffs, but we are not a video game family so we can't get one. "Awe Mom! Why can't we be a video game family???"

School has started up again and the boys are back into a routine. David started Upwards basketball last night as well.

I cast on for a new sweater yesterday made with Cascade 220 heathers wool (excited about it :), I've stepped down from my design team position with Coordinates Collections (ending 3 years with this wonderful company), I'm fighting a sinus infection (blah), and I can't wait to see what 2009 will bring!

Crazy beautiful weather

2008-12-21T11:48:00.001-08:00

Since my last post we have had snow on the ground almost every day. Most of the time it covers the lawn completely or partially and only a few days it has melted completely. A few days ago we got about 4-5 inches of snow and then we had an ice storm. It wasn't particularly bad. We got about 1/4 inch of ice and we didn't lose power thankfully. No tree branches broke either. We just got a beautiful layer of sparkling ice on everything. I spent about 1/2 hour yesterday taking photos with my macro lense.

This is the Japanese maple by our front door. I think this is my favorite photo.

I got some great photos in the woods too.

and here is one of my mom's bird feeders.

Today we got a strong wind storm from the arctic and our temps are down around 0 degrees F. The wind chill temp is -24! We went sledding yesterday, but today we are spending the day in our warm house. Hoping again that our power stays on. The lights have been flickering all day.

Mark has Christmas day off this year, but has to work the day after. We are getting together with all of his family at our house on the 27th. We are going to meet our newest nephew this week as well. Mark's sister Julie and her family are driving from Iowa to spend Christmas here and we get to meet Isaac for the first time. He is about 5 months old and we can't wait to see him!

How does that song go?

2008-11-17T08:07:00.000-08:00

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!

Yay! We got our first real snow last night! And it's still snowing! We have had probably 3 inches and it's supposed to snow all day today and tonight. As soon as everyone was dressed and fed this morning we took the kids out. Too bad David had to go to school (although I sent him with his snow stuff for recess) and Mark had to go to work. There isn't quite enough to go sledding, but we were able to go slogging through it and throw some snow balls. It is just a bit too cold for snowman building though.

This was Hannah's second time in the snow. Last year I put her out in it once, but she was so young she didn't last long. I got her a snowsuit and boots this year, but I still can't find waterproof gloves that fit her tiny hands. She really enjoyed being out there (except the wet, cold fingers).

It is magical outside. All the trees are white and it's so quiet. Here are a few shots of the house my mom took.

This is the house from the back, behind the woods.

This is one of the birch trees in our front yard.

Finally, Hannah and Luke playing in the snow.

Oops

2008-11-13T07:49:00.000-08:00

I just realized that I didn't post any halloween photos. Mark has a facebook account and I put some photos up there and I guess in my mind I thought I had covered it. So here are the kids. David was the only one I had to buy a costume for. I love having a past costume stash. Hannah fit the frog costume that both David and Luke have worn and Luke fit the Spiderman costume that David wore. David choose a knight costume. The boys were very excited about theirs, but Hannah protested a bit. Once we got her outside she was more comfortable and didn't seem to mind as much.

Our neighborhood had a party in our cul-de-sac that night. One of our neighbors has a "mule" (a 4 wheel vehicle that tows a small trailer). He filled his trailer with hay and hauled all the neighborhood kids from house to house to trick-or-treat. We rode along with them and had a lot of fun! After the hay ride we had a Famous Dave's catered dinner and the kids played. We ended the night at another neighbors house for a bonfire. All in all it was a fun time.

Autumn in Indiana

2008-10-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

So last year was officially our first year in Indiana (well, mine and the kids). But since we lived in the city and didn't have a yard, the kids didn't have the opportunity for any seasonal fun. Now that we have almost 2 acres and lots of trees we got out the rakes and made big leaf piles! It was the boys first time playing in a leaf pile and boy did Luke have fun. David was a little more reluctant to get in the wet and messy pile of leaves. I finally did convince him to lie down in it and I was able to get ONE photo of him looking like he was having fun. Then Luke tackled him and he looked like he actually was having fun!

After the leaf pile fun our neighbor Madison came over and the kids had some ice cream in the back of Mark's truck. Silly kids! Why can't I even get a "normal" photo of the boys? Luke got his first bee sting while playing in the woods. Why the bee chose to sting him is beyond me. He got it right on his ear lobe (thus the white thing on his ear). He was a trooper and the ice cream made him feel much better.

I finished my third sweater project this week as well. Just in time for fall weather. This is the February Lady Sweater pattern. I knit it with Malabrigo Merino Worsted yarn in the colorway "Sealing Wax". It is so soft, warm and squishy. I altered it a bit by adding tie closures instead of buttons and it is a little more fitted than the original pattern.

Finally, I took some photos of the trees in our back yard. They maples are just starting to turn color. It's so beautiful here!

Someone just turned two!

2008-10-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it, but my baby girl is two years old. How the time flies. It seems like just yesterday she was a tiny baby and now she is running around with her brothers, talking and growing up before my eyes.

We had a birthday party for her last weekend. The Bogles, Mark's parents and our friends the Stayton family came for pumpkin carving, presents, dinner and cake. It was so great to share this special occasion with our friends and family. Last year on Hannah's birthday it was just Mark, me, David and Luke. It's so nice to be close to family!

Here are some shots of the kids with their pumkins. Luke carved his almost all by himself. He needed just a little bit of help with the mouth.

This is their cousin Grace who was so proud of her pumkin.

We decided to let Hannah go at it with the Sharpies. She had a great time and she was so focused!

This is our friend Fred Stayton and his daughter Sarah. Mark has known Fred since high school. They live just a few minutes from us.

Here is the spread. We had a lot of fun!

Since our house is full of cars, trains, tracks, and more cars, Hannah has grown and affinity for these toys. The baby dolls seem to just sit in a box most of the time. We though we would help encourage the girly toys so we got her the Fisher Price Loving Family doll house and most all of the furniture and figures that go with it. It was a hit and she played with it non-stop for almost 3 days. She also received 4 pairs of dress-up shoes that she LOVES to wear, some sparkly necklaces and bracelets and which she loves as well.

I made her butterfly cake that she was delighted with. It was actually pretty easy. I just made 2 9x11 sheet cakes and stacked them. Then I used a bread knife to cut triangle pieces away at the sides to create a butterfly shape. I used all store bought frostings to draw and color a butterfly based on the butterfly illustrations on her plates.

Oh, on a note about what a small world it is; Mark's sister's husband went to high school with Fred's wife Cheryl. They figured that out after about 1/2 hour of meeting. What a small world!

Labor Day family reunion

2008-09-08T05:52:00.000-07:00

This past Labor Day we had 21 people at our house. Mark's parents, grandmother, his cousin Susan and her son Michael, and two of his sisters and their families. Mark's youngest sister Julie and her family were unfortunately not able to be here. They moved to Iowa this summer and also have a new baby. We really missed them.

What a blessing it was to have a house and yard big enough for the 11 kids to play in and a kitchen and dining area to feed everyone. Cooking for that many people was a snap and serving from our huge island was great. We easily fit everyone in and we didn't have to eat in shifts.

Here are David and Michael (who met for the first time this weekend) playing soccer.

Jeanne and Susan relaxing on our porch.

Hannah and Luke fascinated by Michael's pet hampster

We were also able to get some family shots with my tripod and camera timer. I did the set up for the photos and then pushed the button and ran to my seat! Here we all are:

I don't remember who's idea this was but I think it turned out fun!

We are SO looking forward to Christmas break when we can have everyone here again. We picked up two more sleds from the school garage sale this weekend and we'll be hoping for lots of snow for our hills!

All moved in

2008-08-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

We've been in the new house for over a month now and things are starting to settle down. The move went smoothly and we had a nice couple of weeks off before Mark started the new job. David has been in school for about 2 weeks and he loves it. Luke starts preschool next week.

We had the entire interior of the house repainted over the last couple of weeks. We changed all the brown colors (including the ceilings!) to a light French blue and a pale golden cream. It accentuates the arches and windows in the house and it is so much brighter.

We also had the chance to see some of our cousins at a couple of get-togethers last month. This is Hannah with her cousin Rebekah.

and with her other cousin, Rebekah's sister Emma.

Luke just being silly.

David at Mark's aunt's pool party.

and on his first day of 1st grade.

and last a silly one of Hannah out on our back porch.

I just wanted to share some photos of the house and the kids and to let you all know that we are doing well!

Some fun new photos

2008-07-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

We finally lost a top tooth! My baby is growing up!

Here is Luke pretending to be a superhero. I love these!

Here are some photos of some finished knitting projects.
The first is a dress I made for Hannah in size 18 months. It came out a little bit bigger than I though. She should be able to wear it this fall. It's from the Debbie Bliss Baby Knits for Beginners book. I knit it with a cotton/alpaca blend and it's so soft!

This is called "Fetching". Pattern is available on knitty.com. My first foray into cables and it wasn't that hard. I made them with a wool/cashmere/microfiber blend yarn (just happened to have the same yarn recommended in the pattern). Can't wait to wear them this winter.

I can see the promised land

2008-07-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

2 1/2 more weeks! I am in the midst of boxes, packing tape, and lots of messes. Stacks of boxes line my walls and our stuff is slowly disappearing from view. Packing seems a lot easier than last year. I don't have a garage full of stuff to sort through and organize and lots of things are already in plastic storage boxes. We also are not having to purge stuff as we didn't aquire that much stuff this year (other than yarn and toys, he he).

Here are some things I am looking forward to in our new house:

Having my refrigerator and freezer door open all the way (yep, right now they don't. My kitchen is very narrow)

Letting the boys out to play in the yard by themselves

Having only a couple neighbors instead of 50 or so

Hearing the birds chirp and listening to the wind through the trees and not much else

Getting Hannah out of our room and into her own room, and a crib to sleep in!

Containing most of the toy mess in the upstairs playroom

Storage space

A Garage to park in

Laundry on the same floor as the bedrooms

Some other things I can think of that will make life a little easier:

Mark's parents will only be a 35 minute drive

Mark will have every Tuesday off, weekday call once every 2 weeks and weekend call once every 2 months

A pool a few blocks away as well as lots of opportunities for organized sports activities

We are heading up to the house this weekend one more time for a visit (we'll also be attending the wedding of our friend Tricia in Michigan). My mom comes to Indy on the 16th and then we move out on the 18th and move into our house on the 19th. Mark will be staying with one of the other fellows for one week and then he comes up to join us on the 25th. Keep us in your thoughts as we go through this stressful process again! Thanks!

new photos and a wet, empty basement

2008-05-25T04:58:00.000-07:00

Greetings! We have been busy little bees lately. We have have had my mom here or a visit for the last 2 weeks, we went up to Mark's parents house for the weekend last week, we worked on our new house (weeding, taking down tin ceiling tiles, ect.), we had a birthday party for Luke with his cousins and extended family, we have had a flood in our basement, and we have moved some stuff up to the house due to said flood. In all this commotion I have been slacking in posting those photos I promised. Here are a few recent ones of the kids.

Here is Luke out front. He just turned 4!

I got Hannah to laugh and smile by having my mom pretending to sneeze behind me.

Here is David posing for me before his crazy hair day at school a few weeks ago.

The boys chasing a bubble out in our grass area in front of our apartment.

Hannah on our staircase looking more and more like a little girl and less like a baby.

So, in case you were wondering what happened to our basement here is the whole story:

We live in a 3 story apt. with a finished basement and over the weekend when we were out of town a strong storm came through (Friday night). Our drain on the patio (basement level) clogged and all the water rose out there until it came in to the house. We came home Sunday night and the whole basement carpet was soaked. It smelled bad too.

We had to get all the furniture out so we boxed up all the stuff that was down there and rented a uhaul truck. That evening DH and a few guys loaded up with the contents of the basement and he drove the 3 hours to our new house. He unloaded and then drove home. He got home at 2:30 am. We don't officially move into our new house till the end of July, but we didn't want to put the stuff back into the basement in case it flooded again.

The extraction company came and sucked the water out and left a fan. Last night we had another series of strong storms and the drain clogged again. Yep, more water. We are soaked again. Luckily all we had were a few book boxes left down there and we were able to move them in time (at 2 am no less). So, now I am waiting for the apartment people to unclog my drain and the carpet guy to come extract the water. We are supposed to get more storms this after noon and all week. The only good thing is that we don't have to pay for the clean up once the carpet is dry the kids will have a huge vacant room to play in for 2 months!

Moving right along

2008-05-06T19:36:00.000-07:00

Yep, spring is getting going. May is here! It's actually warm outside! Luke is 4! We are 2.5 months away from moving into our new house! Yes! We got a house. We close on the 14th of this month, but can't move until Mark is done with his fellowship at the end of July. Everyone keeps joking that the kids and I will be moving up to the house as soon as school is out, but I wouldn't do that to Mark. LOL! Our house is just outside Elkhart in a new wooded subdivision. It's about 12 minutes to David's school and 7 minutes to Luke's school. It's a great location. The house itself is not anything we would have ever built, or ever pictured ourselves living in, but we love it. Here is the front view.

It sits on a small hill (perfect for sledding!) and has 3 flowering dogwood trees in front. The back yard has a large deck with a big grass area and a play structure. We would like to put in a hot tub and a fire pit sometime in the future.

For now we are slogging it out in Indy. Funny how knowing where you will be moving to (and that it's so much better than where you live) makes the wait even harder. Mark is working insane hours again and will be for the rest of May. It seem he is on call all the time. The kids really miss him and I need a vacation. My mom comes to visit for a few weeks the end of the month and I am so looking forward to having her here.

I have some fun photos of the kids I need to upload. I'll work on that this week!

Officially spring

2008-03-27T18:52:00.000-07:00

I saw leaves budding on the bushes outside our apartment today so it must be springtime. Finally! I even wore sandals for the first time yesterday. It hit the mid 50's and was sunny and beautiful out. The kids went outside with their sidewalk chalk and decorated our front walkway.

We are officially one day away from spring break and Easter was last weekend. I am so looking forward to having a vacation. We are planning on spending part of the week at Mark's parent's house, doing some house looking, and maybe spending a day in Chicago visiting some friends. Mostly I am just looking forward to spending time with Mark. He has been working so much and on-call so often that I really miss him. We are both counting the days when he starts his practice. He will be working 4 days a week and on-call only once every 2 weeks. Heaven! I almost can't imagine that kind of life. We are also really looking forward to having a yard of our own for the kids to play in.

Well, it's late and I'll leave you with some Easter photos. We spent Easter with our friends parent's house and had a fun egg hunt in the country. The kids had a great time and Hannah was quite smitten with chocolate eggs.

California Dreamin'

2008-03-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

As promised, photos of our California trip! We got a new Mac laptop to match our iMac desktop and I was able to download my Adobe Photoshop Elements program onto it. Now I can do photo editing anywhere in the house and even print photos from the laptop.

Our first day trip was to Muir Woods. This protected area is just a few miles north of San Francisco, near the coast. We had a great time exploring, looking at the tallest trees in the world, and enjoying the gorgeous weather.

Only a few miles away from Muir Woods is Muir Beach. It was so relaxing to be near the ocean again. I just love sitting on the sand listening the the waves. The kids were so content. Hannah was fascinated with the sand and enjoyed her first real foray in the Pacific.

Don't worry, the crab was quite dead.

Noelle brought her dog Opal to the beach and she loved playing with the other dogs and hiking up the trail.

The other memorable outing (besides the obligatory trip to Chuck E Cheese with Aunt Noelle) was their romp on the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the perfect day to be there. No fog!

I almost forgot, here is a photo of the kids after our Jelly Belly Factory tour. This is just before they got all sugared up!

Hit with the sickies

2008-03-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

It's in the house again. Hannah had what we think was croup last week. She is still a little runny and congested, but doing much better. Now I think I have strep. Fortunately, Mark is feeling a bit better after a short bout with a little something and the boys got away with only slight coughs.

Today happens to be Luke's field trip to the fire station with his preschool class and I had to stay at home. It is his first field trip without mommy. He even gets to ride the school bus.

We have had a busy month since I last posted. Been pretty busy with shuttling the kids to school and basketball practice. We also have been going to the indoor park at the church pretty regularly. This is David's last week of basketball so hopefully things will slow down for a little bit. I can't believe that there is only 2 1/2 more months of school left in the year! Time sure flies. We will be moving to Elkhart in only about 4 months. House hunting for real is going to start for us over spring break in a few weeks. A lot has opened up on the market since the beginning of the year and we are excited to be finally looking at some of them in person. We have narrowed it down to 2 neighborhoods we are interested in.

As for the winter, it looks like it may be over. We have had the temps in the 40's and 50's this week and it has been so nice out. I actually went to throw the trash out yesterday and didn't need a coat! This winter has been especially cold (or so I am told) with most days below freezing and a lot of days in the teens. We even got below 0 a few times. I am so ready for spring. I can't wait to see the grass turn green, the trees leaf out and I haven't seen flowers blooming for months!

Last week Mark had an orthopedic conference in San Francisco and we tagged along. We stayed at my mom's house which is about an hours drive from the city. We got a taste of the good weather and gorgeous landscape. All the local hills were as green as can be and my mom's daffodils were blooming. The kids had a good time planting some flowers in her garden, playing with Aunt Noelle and her dog Opal, visiting with my aunt, uncle and cousins, going to the beach, visiting Muir Woods, going to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, and walking on the Golden Gate bridge. Noelle took them to Chuck E Cheese one day while I went into the city with Mark to shop with my friend Cassie. We had a good time catching up and trying on lots of shoes! It is good to be home, but we long for a real house with a garden. My mom's house is so peaceful and quiet.

I have yet to edit some of the photos from our trip. I'll try to work on that this week and get them posted soon!

New projects

2008-02-07T18:20:00.001-08:00

Been busy trying to catch up on some projects for Coodinates Collections. American Crafts is the product sponsor for February and I got to play with some fun stuff. Here are a few pages I did with their paper, rub ons, chipboard letter stickers, and ribbons.

And here are a few cards. They are 5x5 size.

If you want to get your hands on some of this gorgeous stuff go here:

http://www.coordinatescollections.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=3619

I also got to make some pages just for the fun of scrapbooking last month. This is Mark's grandmother celebrating her 94th birthday.

This is a photo of my mom, sister and I reading a library book. Note the fuzzy, footed pajamas I have on and the chair that my dad built.

Here is my mom again on the day she volunteered in my Kindergarten class (that's me standing). She taught my classmates how to plant seedlings.

All three of these pages feature the K and Co. Amy Butler paper. I got a pad of it a few months ago and couldn't stop using it. It's gorgeous.

Missing things

2008-01-15T07:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, I miss my friends back in California. I miss the people at my son's old preschool. I miss my MOPS group at church. I miss the warmer weather. I miss my family members being closer. I miss my little house and our great neighbors.

But, the thing that affects me daily is the food stuff that I can't find here in the midwest. I've looked everywhere, but I can't seem to find fresh, uncooked flour tortillas. Even the Mexican market her doesn't carry them. I used to find them at my local Stater Brothers market and at our Costco. We ate these in droves. The kids loved them cooked for a few minutes on the stovetop pan, slathered with butter and rolled up. They used to request them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They were perfect for David's bag lunches for school. I used to go through a package a week. *sigh* Even I liked them.

Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce. Again, available abundantly in California. Not one store I have visited has it here. I even emailed the company asking where I can get it and I got no response. This is the BEST teriyaki sauce ever. We loved to marinate chicken thighs and then grill them on our gas grill. I also used to add it to homemade hamburger patties. I think I have tried about 5 different brands here and none of them stack up.

Knotts Berry Farm jam. There is just no comparison. Not one jam I have bought here is like it. I loved the apricot, boysenberry (seedless of course), blackberry, strawberry...ahhhhh! I just don't eat toast anymore.

Luisianne brand fish and chicken fry. I know, it seems like a little thing. I always, always had this in my pantry. I used the chicken fry to coat chicken tenders and then gently pan fry them. Then cut them up (still hot) and add them to a salad along with tomatoes, carrots, croutons, mozzarella cheese and Italian dressing. It's a meal all in itself. Even the kids liked this. Not too spicy, but really flavorful. It's also a great seasoning for breaded chicken. Yes, I've tried many other brands and none of them are quite the same. Ha, ha, they are piling up in my pantry!

Oh, and last but not least, I miss my grill. We brought it with us, but it has not gas tank now. We used to have it hooked up to the gas line back at our old house. Now it sits on the patio just off our basement (faaaarrrr away from the kitchen), covered in snow. I am using a grill pan on the stove, but it's not the same.

OK, it you Hoosiers out there know where I can find these things, please let me know!!!

December summary

2007-12-29T19:14:00.000-08:00

Wow, did this month fly by. But, December always seems to do that. I think I should do a recap of all that this month had to offer. Luckily for you, it includes photos and lots of them.

OK, lets start with the week after the first snow. My sister was visiting and we thankfully got a lot of snow while she was here. Not only snow, but lots of ice as well. I guess you could have called it an ice storm, but it wasn't too bad. This was another first for me. I have never seen one up close. Now, you are probably wondering where the photos of Noelle playing in the snow with the boys are. Well, sorry, but the photographer was inside her cozy home with the baby (a good excuse not to have to brave the freezing temps!). Besides, Noelle was borrowing my snow boots. I did manage to sneak outside for a bit to take photos by myself. I had to come in after about 10 minutes because I could no longer feel my fingers or my chin (silly me had not put on a hat or gloves). After thawing, I made another jaunt outside (this time with said hat and gloves) and got some amazing shots just around our apartment building.

This is the window in David and Luke's room. That icicle made it almost all the way to the bottom of the window in the next day or two.

This is my favorite shot. That's ice. Pretty cool!

We celebrated Christmas present opening at out house on the Saturday before Christmas day. The kids went to bed the night before and then Mark and I placed all the pretty packages under our tree.

When everyone was awake, they tore into the gifts. They had so much fun. Especially Hannah. She would give a loud "Ohhhhh" everytime a gift was presented or opened. She got 2 purses, a shape sorting box and a baby glow worm. The boys cleaned up on the Lightning McQueen stuff, thanks to Grandma! We spent the entire day playing together and enjoying our warm home.

The next day we went up to Fort Wayne to spend Christmas with Mark's family. Everyone gathered at Mary Jane and Jeff's house for food, presents and the Christmas story. We had 26 people together that day.

Hannah is enjoying a story on Aunt Jeanne's lap.

Here she is after the present mele´. I guess opening presents is hard work.

It's a tradition every year that Mark's dad read the Christmas story from the bible while the children act out the story using the plastic nativity characters. It goes all the way back when Mark and his sisters were little. In fact, this nativity set was the very set that was used when they were kids. His dad even built the stable.

When the part was read about the angel from heaven coming down to earth to tell the shepherds about the baby Jesus, Emma and Luke spontaneously started making snow angels on the fireplace hearth. Not sure which one initiated this, but it was very cute and got a lot of laughs out of the adults.

We then spent the remainder of the week at Mark's parent's house. They are the most gracious people. They put up with our "stuff" for 5 days. We spent most of our days playing and lounging around. We really didn't go anywhere. It snowed a bit 2 of the days and the boys got to go sledding. I actually read a whole book! Mark's grandmother was with us the whole week too and she just delighted in the kids. Everything Hannah did made her smile. We celebrated her 94th birthday while she was here (Jan 2 is the date). She is one amazing lady!

This week also marked 2 milestones for our family. David lost his first and second tooth. They both came out on Christmas day within minutes of each other (with a little pulling). David was so thrilled and excited! He got 2 dollars under his pillow the next day.

You can even see the new tooth growing in behind where his old tooth was. The other one has broken through as well.

The second milestone being that Hannah started sleeping all night while we were visiting! 14 1/2 months of night waking. I can finally sleep all night! Woo Hoo!

I'll leave you with a photo of David's snowdeer.

That's probably the best snowdeer I've ever seen!

Finally, a winter wonderland!

2007-12-06T18:36:00.000-08:00

It snowed! We woke up Wednesday morning and the world was covered in a quiet, white blanket. We got about 4 inches. We usually go to school after lunch, but that day was David's big field trip to the dinosaur exhibit at the children's museum. So, I had to get all the kids out the door by 7:45 am (we didn't quite make our target time), drive through the snowy streets of Indianapolis, drop David off at 8:30 am and then drive home. That was my first introduction to snow driving. First, the windshield wiper fluid froze on my windshield. It took a few minutes of panic and me squinting out the tiny area that was clear before I realized I needed to warm up the windshield with the defrost button. Problem number one solved. The streets were not too bad, but I went a lot slower than usual. Once I got to the school I pulled into the drive and started making the slow, curvy drive to the front door. Immediately my back wheels started to slide to the right. I panicked again and turned the wheel to the right. My wheels then started to slide left. I pulled the wheel to the left and miraculously I was able to straighten out the car without careening into one of the ponds on each side of the road. Whew! Heart was beating kinda fast at that point, but I successfully got David to school on time. The drive home was a lot less stressful. Unfortunately I spent the next few hours worrying as David went on his first ever school bus trip to his first ever field trip without one of his parents or grandparents traveling along. Thankfully he had a great time and arrived back at the school safe and sound.

The kids then spent the next 3 hours, yes 3 hours, out in the snow. They had the best time! The sun had come out by then and it must have warmed up to 20 or 30 degrees! I took Hannah out for a few minutes so I could get some photos of the kids. She didn't mind being in the snow. She was quite curious. She was able to walk around some and play with the boys, until she fell face first into the snow and found out just how cold it was. I took her in after that. Her poor cheeks were bright red. We still have snow on the ground today and it's supposed to snow again tonight. Fortunately I don't have to go anywhere in the morning. Oh, and I didn't have to use my ice scraper either. Someone even came and shoveled and salted my walkway. That's one nice thing about living in an apartment complex! Good thing too since I haven't bought a snow shovel yet.

I'll leave you with a few shots of the kids playing. Just remember as you put on your shorts and flip flops (that's you Noelle) what we lack in warmth, we make up for in fun and beauty!

No snow

2007-11-27T10:58:00.000-08:00

Well the weatherman was wrong. It didn't snow last night. In fact, it's bright and sunny and beautiful today. Only it's 40 degrees out there. Warm! We wore out light coats out today. LOL! Funny how warm is relative. My ice scraper is still in pristine condition.

"It's COLD out there!"

2007-11-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

Really cold. Almost freezing. In fact, it is supposed to snow tonight. I snowed a tiny bit on Thanksgiving day, but not enough to stick to the ground. Needless to say, the kids are excited! They have been asking us when it will snow since the day we moved here. I am all prepared now, the boys are supplied with boots, waterproof gloves, snow pants, parkas and hats. I had to buy all this stuff since we didn't have anything. My mother-in-law found a few of these necessities for us too. Now if we can only find a place to store it all. My coat closet is overflowing. I need a bigger coat closet. A mud room is a must in our next house.

Speaking of which. Some of you might be wondering what has become of the land we found over the summer. We have decided that it is not the place for us. We are not going to build this year and now we are house hunting. We have also decided that we want to live closer to Mark's work and the school we'd like the kids to attend. So far we like one of the houses we looked at and we'll be seeing a few more this weekend. My mom comes for her first Indiana winter visit on Wednesday so she'll get to see some of the offerings as well.

We had a nice Thanksgiving. Mark was on call all weekend so we had to stick close to home. I just baked a Turkey breast and made all the rest of the fixings, including gravy! I was quite proud of myself since I did it all in 3 hours. And the food turned out good! David was a little wary of the stuffing and Luke wouldn't touch the mashed potatoes, but Mark and I thoroughly enjoyed the meal. Next year we can hopefully have some family over.

Not much else to report from here. Oh, except that I bought my very first ice scraper and snow brush today! I'll let you know how it works tomorrow!

Another successful Halloween

2007-11-01T10:25:00.000-07:00

Yep, candy was had by all (except Hannah). We had another great night of fun this year. Thankfully all three kids wore costumes we already had so I didn't have to spend a cent. David was Lightning McQueen again, Luke wore the tiger costume (this was Mark's costume when he was a little boy), and Hannah fit into the bear costume. Now all three kids have been the bear. Hannah was particularly tickled to be all dressed up. Here is a photo of the kids before we went out to gather the goods:

Our church was hosting an event called "Trunk or Treat" where people come and set up a trick or treat station out of the trunk of their cars. We thought it was kind of strange at first, but once we got there it was really cool. It was in the parking lot in front of the church building. Most trunks were decorated with anything from Football stuff, to really intricately carved pumpkins. One car was made to look like the living room of an old lady, complete with tea pots, a rocking chair and an "old" lady in knee high stockings. Another was decorated with Christmas lights and a tree. We had a lot of fun and the kids recognized several school friends and teachers. It was kind of like bringing the close community back to this holiday. Now, to figure out what to do with all that candy we collected.

Crazy life

2007-10-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

It seems that I can't keep up with my own life, much less this blog. In case you were wondering if we are still around, here are some recent photos of the kids.

Little miss Hannah turns one tomorrow. Hard to believe that just one year ago I was at the hospital getting ready to meet her. She just got her first 4 teeth last month.

On another note, we finally got our basement flooding/rock in the pipe issue resolved. A backhoe came last week and dug up the grass in front of our apartment. They removed the rock and fixed the pipe. In it's wake is a large dirt mound. Not really attractive in our front yard to say the least, but it sure does provide hours of entertainment for the boys!

Layouts to Share

2007-08-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

Now that I have my scrapbooking space all set up in our new place, I have found the time to get a few pages done. I do design work for 2 companies. The first is Coordinates Collections. (coordinatescollections.com) It's an online scrapbooking kit club that I make page samples for. They put together 2 coordinating kits each month and I get to play with one of them. I got a really fun one for September called "Goodbye Summer".

I also do work for a cardstock company called Prism Papers. They have the most beautiful line of textured cardstock called Prismatics. I have also fallen in love with their metallic line of paper. It really fun to play with!

This page was done using Prismatics in Suede Brown Medium, Suede Brown Dark, Tawney Medium, Blush Red Dark, and Blush Red Light

This is using Prismatics Stormy Dark, Spring Willow Medium, and Wizard Light.

This one is a combination of 3 of their lines. The orange is Prismatics Papaya Puree Medium, the blue is a specialty line in Celest, and the darker greenish black is a metallic called Rusted.

Photos to share!

2007-08-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

My first love camera has been replaced. Yes, I can't believe I could love another camera more than my Canon G5, but yes, it is possible. Mark was able to buy a Canon 30D DSLR for work and I have been learning to use it when he doesn't have it. Amazing thing it is and so much fun to have more control over my photo taking. I have tons to learn still, but I have really been enjoying it. Here are a few photos from my first few practice shoots with the kids.

Impressions

2007-08-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

I bet you are wondering what it is like to move across the country to a completely different state than you have ever lived in before. What is different, what is the same, what is completely weird. LOL! Well, I have been collecting some impressions of this new home of ours. Everything from shopping to nature to cement trucks. Remember, I did say weird!

Nature: TREES! Wow, does this place have trees. We have a wonderful view of trees from our living room window. There are trees everywhere we go. They are taller than my 3 story condo. AND, it is green outside. Now remember, we did move from the semi-desert area of Southern California. Summers were very dry and brown. I love the green and the trees!

Shopping: OK, in California, Costco was always packed. I mean packed from the time they opened till closing every day, but particularly on weekends. It seemed that everyone in town had a Costco membership. We are lucky enough to live within 10 minutes of the I think only Costco in Indianapolis. It's deserted. I don't understand the concept of not having to wait in a huge line with hundreds of other people at the checkout. I can go there any time of the day and it's not crowded. No one is at the food court. Oh, and the food court is INSIDE the buidling. Weird.

Food: One word: Panera. Love Panera Bread. Fabulous food. We have only been there once since moving and that has to change really soon. Another word: Trader Joes! Yay, there is a Trader Joe's even closer than Costco. One more word: Marsh. It's a super market. Not only just a super market but a really cool, never before seen type of supermarket. I walked in and just started laughing. In all my time living in California, I have never come across a market like that. I think it might be like Whole Foods Market on steroids. They even had good music piped throughout the store AND the parking lot. My checkbook tells me I won't be shopping there very often though.

Target: has a category all its own. See, we don't have "Super Target" in California. If you can imagine making an already wonderful store even better. GROCERIES! in my Target! Yay, only have to make one stop to strap and unstrap 3 kids carseats! I don't even want to tell you how much money I have already spent at that place.

People: They are so nice here. I can't get over how nice everyone is to us. People we have never met before like the sales guy at Ace Hardware. I mean, perfect strangers at Wendy's have spent half their meal telling us about all the great things we could take our kids to in Indinapolis. Maybe it's the humidity? Whatever it is, Hoosiers are very nice people.

Recreation: I am not sure why, but people here really know how to do recreation. Maybe because they don't take the good weather they get for granted like people that live in places that the sun shines 360 days of the year. We have been to some of the most amazing parks. These are not just "parks". We visited a water park/pool facility complete with 2 water slides, spraying features, kiddie slides all in a graduated entry pool. There are also a number of regular city parks that have water features in them, along with a fishing pond, sledding hill (for the winter, of course), bike and hiking trails, nature garden and really awesome playground.

Last but not least, Cement trucks. Well, the cement spinner thingy is backwards, meaning that the skinny part that tips out the cement is above the cab where the driver sits. It is tilting up and the fat end is tilting down at the back of the truck. Everytime I see one it looks like the truck is driving backwards. I have to do a double take. As you can guess, it's the other way around in California. Just an observation.

So far, we really like Indianapolis and could see ourselves living here long term. That won't happen, but we sure will enjoy it while we are here this year. Good news on the land front. We have found our dream piece of land in Middlebury, IN. 60 acres that includes woods, wetlands, ponds, and meadow that we will be building our house on this year. We feel so blessed that the Lord has dropped this property in our laps. We hope we can use it to bless other people. We are so excited about it!

Life in Chaos

2007-07-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

If you have hung in with me this long. Thanks! I bet you are wondering what is up us since my last post. Well, we close on escrow today on our old house. We hit a few road bumps during escrow that left us praying for a sale, so we are very thankful that the deal is closing today. We are also kinda sad. We loved that house and we are not sure what will become of it when it changes hands. We left the yard a bit unkempt when we moved since our mower was broken and Mark was out of town the 4 days before our move. Hopefully the new owner will take good care of it and weed the gardens. I will miss the rose garden a lot.

We are now a Hoosier family! Yay! The move went so smoothly. Stressful for sure, but nothing went horribly wrong. We moved into our new apartment last Monday and still are not near unpacked or organized. In the time we had at my in-laws house before the truck arrived, we stumbled across some land in Middlebury, IN that we fell in love with. So, in order to secure a deal to buy it, we had to go back up to their house for a few days last week. We really haven't been home much since the move. Add to that a lots of shopping trips to the furniture stores (this place is bigger than our house was), Bed, Bath and Beyond (can we say, "no storage space"???) to get storage supplies, Target to replace all that I couldn't bring with me like cleaning supplies, and the countless trips to the nearby eateries for meals. Unpacking has been slow to say the least.

Oh, I forgot to add that the day we moved in the place had no appliances whatsoever, no upstairs toilet, the tile man was here grouting the tile, there was lots of trim work and painting touchups to be done, we had no linolium in the laundry room, we had now shower rod or curtain for the only tub in the house, and we have 3 staircases and only one gate. Over the period of 3 days all that stuff got done, but it sure was in inconvenience. It's hard to unpack when the house is not complete. Add to that the fact that I did laundry for the first time 2 nights ago and we woke up to a very wet laundry room floor and basement carpet. We found out yesterday that our water/sewer line is clogged with a ROCK! Yes, they found a huge rock in the pipe that is used as the cleanout line. I can't do laundry, run the dish washer or flush the toilet till they fix it. We cheated and flushed the toilet a few times, but my carpet is still soaked and we are running out of clothes.

LOL! OK, no joke. As I was typing this David jumped off of something in his room upstairs and a ceiling light bulb in the kitchen shattered! Yep, broken glass all over the floor. Lukily there were no kids in the kitchen and I was able to get it all cleaned up.

So, if you are reading this and feel so inclined, you can say a quick prayer for us that nothing else would break. Thanks!

Long overdue update

2007-06-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

So sorry for the long absence. As you can imagine, I have a lot of stuff to do before we move. So, here is the update of what's happened since my last post.

WE SOLD THE HOUSE!!!

Yes! We are in escrow now and close on July 12th. Our move date is July 10th. We are having everything moved for us and we are flying out to Chicago on the red-eye that night. As you can imagine, I am up to my ears in boxes and packing. My mother and father-in-law flew in last night and will be here for a week. My mom also comes in today for a few days. I am thankful to have some help with the kids while I pack up all of our stuff.

The list of stuff to do before we leave is huge. Not only have I made all the move and travel arrangements, we have to get a new roof put on the house, sell Mark's motorcycle, find good homes here for our cats, Mark has to take his written board exam and we have to do all the address changes, service cancellations, etc.

Oh, and yes, the scraproom is all packed up. It took about 6 1.5 size boxes and 3 3.0 size boxes. That was including all albums, layouts, paper, magazines and photo boxes. Pretty good if you ask me. I also gave away about 30-50 lbs. of extra supplies to some friends. I am looking forward to getting set up at our new apartment. I am loosing my lovely scrap cabinets in this house, but I will have a small space in the basement family room of our new place.

We will be living in an apartment for a year, but we are looking to buy some land in the country to build a house on. I found my dream home on a home plans website. Imagine this house sitting in the middle of some woods that are surrounded by corn fields. Nice huh?

http://www.architecturaldesigns.com/craftsman-home-plan-2324jd.asp

Impromptu weekend fun

2007-05-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

Don't you love those spur of the moment weekends that end up nothing like what you thought it would be like? We had one of those this weekend and it was so much fun!

We had our second open house yesterday and instead of the mad rush, stressful preparations and frantic last minute things to do, it was really relaxed. I was able to get all the cleaning and de-cluttering done in the morning despite the fact that Mark was at work part of the time. Hannah took a nice long nap and the boys played on their own wonderfully. Our agent showed the house this time instead of someone else from his office. He is very knowledegable about our house and really easy to work with.

So, during the open house we decided to go to the Gourmet Pizza Shoppe in Redlands for lunch. Much to our surprise, there was a classic car show on State Street! They boys were so excited! We ate lunch (Luke at so fast! LOL!) and then we strolled along the street looking at all the really cool cars. Then we got to watch as all of the cars started their engines and left the show one by one. The boys had fun finding all the cars from the movie Cars. They saw a vintage fire truck that looked just like Red, a Chevy Impala that looked like Ramone, we saw 2 orange Snot Rod's, an old Woody, Flo, Fillmore, and Lizzy. After the cars left we walked down to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream.

When we got back to the house our realtor said the turnout was pretty good. He thought our house looked great and will be following up on the people who visited. Cross your fingers for an offer to come in this week!

After he left, we packed up some stuff and headed to a pool party at one of the attending's houses. They had the most awesome pool, complete with a small waterslide and hot tub. They boys enjoyed their back yard so much they didn't want to leave. We are so glad we decided to go to the party since we weren't sure if we'd make it. All in all, it was a fun day that was mostly unexpected.

New Experiences

2007-05-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how life is always changing. My dad used to always say that the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. It's funny because I find myself saying that to David from time to time. It is so true. This has been a year of many new things for us as individuals and as a family.

We are in the midst of the biggest change we have yet to face as a family. We are moving 2000 miles away to Indianapolis in 2 months. We have found a place to live for the year we will be there, we have found a new school for both David and Luke, and we have a possible offer on our house after just 2 weeks on the market. I am facing paperwork for the school, looking for a reliable and affordable way to move us across the county and the great feat of purging and packing this house of stuff.

It is all very exhausting, exciting, and stressful. So many decisions to be made.

In all of this great upheaval, the perspective of a child is a wonderful reminder of the fact that nothing will stay the same forever, and that's ok. It's inevitable. Things will fall into place. Life will go on and God will always be there to take care of us. He knows what we need before we even ask.

Yesterday, my baby girl discovered grass for the first time. She is crawling and starting to pull up on things. She started solid foods a few days ago. She's growing up before my eyes. I wish I could stop this process and keep her like this forever. But, I guess I would miss all these wonderful moments of discovery and wonder. It's amazing to watch a child grow and learn. I can't think of anything more compelling. I want to capture that and one of the only ways I know how is through photos.

Crunch time

2007-04-19T17:27:00.000-07:00

We list our house tomorrow! Yay! This is the first time we are selling a house. There is so much to do and so little time. We have to sell this place by the time we move in July. I'm feeling the stress now. We are hanging in there though.

Ok, as promised, some photos of our trip to Disneyland. This was the first time the kids have been there. My mom treated us to the day along with my sister and cousin. It was soooo nice to have so many people come with us to help with the kids. The only downfall to having such a large party were the potty breaks. We spent like 10-15 minutes each time we stopped to used the restrooms!

We really had a great time. It was so nice to escape in the Magic Kingdom. Everything was so spotless and nice. The flowers were blooming, including the gorgeous trees and the weather was perfect.

To our surprise, they boys loved the rides. They went on the Dumbo ride, the teacups, It's a Small World (which was my favorite), the Pooh ride, Autopia (that was a blast), the carousel, the train, and everyone but David and I went on the jungle cruise. Noelle and Crystal went on the Pirates of the Caribbean without the rest of us. That was the only one we really split up on. We ended up staying from 10 AM to 10 PM. It was a very long day, but so worth it. I'm so glad we got to go with the before we left California!

OK folks, break's over

2007-04-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

I'm back! Took a little blogging break to reconnect with our house. The good news is, I now have new mirrored closet doors, a new shower door and fixtures, the walls have been repaired, new landscaping in the front yard, a new front door handle, a newly stained deck, and a new iMac computer! We got most of the projects on our list done and then experienced a total computer breakdown. Yep, the dreaded crash. We were able to salvage our old files, but we had to get a new machine. Mark decided on a Mac. He was so fed up with our PC. We took the plunge and now we are climbing the learning curve to figure out how to use this thing. So far, we have gotten back most of our computer enhanced life with just a few glitches left to work on.

OK, the bad news, we found out we couldn't refinish our floors. They are not solid hardwood so therefore not sandable. So, we will leave them as is and let the new homeowner decide what to do with them. We have also decided that we don't have the time or the money to repaint our house. Our trim color is dark green and we wanted to change it to white. Apparently it would take about 3 coats of paint to accomplish this, so we decided against it. We also have a lawn/sprinkler issue in the back yard that is close to being resolved. Mark just has to find the time to work on it. In the mean time, I have a small mud pit in the backyard that the kids absolutely loved playing in. I also have a formerly white shirt worn by Luke that is not happy. It's currently soaking in a mixture of water, Shout, and OxyClean.

I promise to post to this blog a lot more this month. I have some layouts to share that I did for my new design team, Prism Papers. They make the most awesome cardstock and I have been having a fun time designing pages with it. Oh, we also went to Disneyland for the first time with the kids. I will have photos of that fun trip later on too!

I'll leave you with a shot of Luke in the mud pit:

Spring!

2007-03-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

Well, looks like it is finally spring here. It's going to be in the mid 70's this week and going up to 85 by Saturday. Mark is taking this week off to do some work on our house. We are getting ready to put it up on the market in April and have some repairs and upgrades to finish before that happens. His parents are flying in from Indiana tomorrow and will be with us for a week. We are hoping to finish the bulk of the work while they are here. We got a jump start on things yesterday. Mark fixed our shower handle, replaced a screen door, and uprooted several large bushes in front of our house. I was able to finish pruning the roses, weeding the front yard and I started planting. I still have a ton of stuff to plant. I even bought tomatoes, herbs, eggplant, peppers and lettuce to start the vegetable garden. It's hard to believe I pulled up last year's tomato plants just a few months ago, and they were still producing!

Here is what we have left on our list of things to do:

Have our wood floors refinished
Paint exterior trim
Replace shower doors
Repair interior wall damage
Replace front door handle
Install closet doors
Plant plants
Make curtains
Stain deck

I'm sure there are a million more little things we need to do. It's kind of overwhelming to think about them. Wish us luck this week that we can get as much of this stuff done. Hopefully we will be all ready to list at the first of April. We really hope we sell before we have to move in July. Mark starts his fellowship in Indianapolis the first of August and we don't want to rent this place out from that far away.

Actually, we are really sad to be leaving this house. It's the longest we've lived anwhere. It is our first time owning a house. 2 our our kids were born while we lived here. We love the things we have done to the place to make it our own. We live directly across from a park. We love our neighbors (although they are selling this spring as well). The backyard is so wonderful for the kids. We'll really miss it. I hope who ever buys it loves it as much as we do and that they take really good care of it.

2007-02-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

Where did this month go? I know it's a short one, but it seems like we skipped it altogether. Tomorrow is the start of March and that means David will be 6 in the 22nd. Hard to believe my baby boy is almost 6. How did that happen??? It seems that the older they get the faster they grow up. We will probaby have a nice back yard party for him. My mom also got us Disneyland tickets for the weekend after his birthday. We have never taken the kids there before so we are really looking forward to it. My mom, Noelle and my cousin Crystal will be coming along.

We have had a really busy February. Mark had an orthopeadic conference in San Diego a few weeks ago. Noelle came down for a few days and we took the kids to see Daddy for the weekend. We had the chance to go to Sea World for the first time (the kids first time) while we were down there and we had a great time. The boys were a little scared during the Shamu show and in the arctic exhibit, but other than that they loved it. It had been so long since Noelle and I were there. Probably since 1988 or so.

Mark and I also got to have a dinner out at a nice restaurant in LaJolla one night. We got together with one of his college classmates who was also attending the conference. On the last day we stopped in Orange County to visit with some friends of ours who live in Norway. They were in town for a wedding and had a free afternoon. It's always good to see them.

I'll leave you with some photos of our trip to Long Beach this last weekend. We went there on the spur of the moment to see the Tour of California bike race final stage. A lot of the world's best cyclists were riding in this race and we figured we wouldn't get much more chances to see riders of this caliber (a lot of Tour de France riders) again, so we packed up the kids and our friend Keith and headed out. When we got there they had a section of the parking lot where the team cars, trailers and trucks were stationed. We were suprised that they let the general public just wander though this area. We got to see some of the most famous riders up close. Here is Mark with Michael Rasmussen, a Danish rider who rides for Rabobank. He didn't look too happy to be posing, but other than that, he was nice enough.

Here is the winner of the tour, Levi Leipheimer. He just rode right in front of me while on his way to the start. I didn't even know it was him until after I had snapped the photo.

Here is Hannah holding a sign someone gave us cheering on Thor Hushovd.

Here is the peleton as it raced by us. You can see Keith in the sunglasses and Mark holding Luke below him. If you watch the race really close you can see us in the last lap right in this spot. It's kinda blurry, but it's us! We were right below the walking bridge that spans the street.

We are so glad we decided to go to this. The event was free, the crowds were not that big, we had a great view and we got to see the best cyclists in the world. We even saw the infamous Floyd Landis. He was walking the crowds with his entourage. We are not sure why, but it was interesting.

Finally brave enough

2007-02-05T16:46:00.000-08:00

I have never posted my Hall of Fame entry publically before. Not sure why. Maybe I was afraid of putting it out there for all to "judge" it and deem it worthy of winning. It's almost been a year since I sent my entry to the famed CK headquarters. The book has been out for over 4 months now. I guess it is time. Only 4 of my 10 layouts made it into the book. The other layout in the book was done as an assignment specifically for the book. Now all 10 layouts are posted in my gallery at 2peas. You can view them here: http://twopeasinabucket.kaboose.com/album_display.asp?album_id=61558

or you can click on the link to my gallery on the right side bar.

I took a photo today of Hannah wearing the sweater I knit for her before she was born. I didn't have any pants that matched so my mom picked these cute ones up at Gymboree. They are just adorable and match perfectly! This one's for you mom. Thanks for the adorable pants!

Finally, I caught Mark and Hannah sleeping on the upstairs futon together the other day. They looked so peaceful together.

New Photos to post!

2007-02-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post a few photos that I took last week. I finally got around to clearing some space off my camera card and had some fun with my camera. I need to pull it out more often and take more photos of the kids. Here is my attempt at taking a self portrait with Hannah. It sure is challenging with a squirmy baby! Actually, it is one of the few photos of me that I like, even though I have a half an eye.

This is David's favorite place. That sandbox is such a wonderful thing for the kids. It's no wonder he asks us if we can take it with us when we move. Sorry buddy, it's kinda built in. Both David and Luke will spend hours in it by themselves or with each other. Occasionally they will fight over "territory", but for the most part they get along. On this day, David was having fun burying his garden boot.

This is wild hair Hannah. Not sure how I am supposed to control that hair of hers. It has gotten pretty thinned out lately. She is also blessed with "fine" hair like me. I might have to take some Frizz-ease to it.

Here she is looking sooooo cute! I just love it when she smiles. She melts our hearts with that huge grin. I can't believe she is going to be 4 months old this month. Only 2 more months till we start baby food! Wow! It's going by way too fast. I want to just stop the clock and keep her this small forever.

Finally, a photo of her at CHA. I took her with me to the scrapbooking trade show in Anaheim and she loved it! She had a great time looking at all the lights, colors and the smiling faces of the people who stopped to talk to her along the way. She gave almost every person a smile. She was not the only baby their either. They is just so portable at this age. To tell you the truth, I loved having her with me. She really was the best thing about the show for me. Even a huge convention center full of scrapbooking supplies (heaven, I know) didn't even come close to making me happier than her smile. This photo was taken by my friend and fellow "hummer" Katja Kroman and her very nice camera. Thanks Katja!

Puerto Rico photos

2007-01-22T16:03:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long absence. It's been busy here since Mark got back from Puerto Rico. Lots to catch up on, especially with the boys. They missed Daddy so much. Unfortunately we were all sick when he was gone. Everyone is feeling better now and things have slowed down a bit.
I wanted to share a few photos of Mark's trip. Most of them are scenery shots, but there are a few that are really great.

As you can see, he worked VERY hard while on this business trip:

He stayed in a little shack on the beach:

And he was cooped up in the conference room the whole time:

OK, not all of that is true. He did present his reasearch paper and attend many seminars and presentations. They also got to spend some time at the beach, go ocean kyaking, snorkeling near a smaller island, and to top it off, swimming and kyaking on a bioluminescent bay. Now, it you don't know what that is, just google "bioluminescent bay" and you'll see some amazing photos. Unfortunately, none of them are of Mark.

We on the other hand spend the weekend in freezing cold (literally) Fresno. Meanwhile, the day after we left Colton, it snowed here. Really! David missed a day of school and wouldn't you know it, it was the first day it snowed at school in at least 20 years. The kids were literally throwing snow balls during recess; in their pajamas no less (it was pajama day). I didn't have the heart to tell him about it. He would have been crushed.

One last note. I am heading to the Craft and Hobby Association's Winter trade show in Anaheim next week. I am planning on being there for 2 half days, partly to make the rounds with Coordinates Collections and partly as an independent designer. This will be the second show I get to attend. This time though, I will be toting Hannah around with me. I know I will have a sore back after carrying her in the Baby Bjorn carrier the whole time! I am looking forward to seeing freinds I rarely get to see (love the internet!) and checking out all the latest and greatest scrapbooking products first hand!

Things never seem to slow down

2007-01-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

We always just seem to go, go, go these days. Getting used to this 5 days a week school thing is hard. I drive David to school every morning (20 minutes each way) and pick him up at 11:30 each day. It seems like I am always in the car. Today was his first day back since vacation. He had a great day and his school is wonderful so it's all worth it. I just wish it were closer!

Mark left this morning for Puerto Rico for a week. He is presenting his research paper at a conference. They are staying at a really nice beach resort and they will have this coming weekend to relax and have some fun. I wish we were going with him to enjoy the sunshine and beaches, but the plane tickets would have cost way too much. Not to mention the fact that traveling all day with 3 kids is not fun. We are going to drive up to my sisters house on Thursday and stay for the weekend. My mom is coming to stay as well so we should have lots of fun with the kids. It's about a 4 1/2 hour drive so wish us luck!

I started working on Hannah's baby book this week. I have completed 2 2-page layouts so far that chronicle her birth story. I have made a vow to work on mostly just this project for a while so I will not fall behind. I still feel guilty that Luke's book is not done yet. I just got sidetracked with other things and I never finished it. I am going to try to finish his book after I get the most important things done in Hannah's book. I don't want Luke to look back at his book and ask me why it is so small!

I was able to get some great shots of Hannah the other day. The floor in front of our bedroom window is a great place for a morning photo shoot. I love these photos!

Happy New Year

2007-01-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

We're back! We just spent a week in the cold (but not too cold) midwest. We went back to Indiana to spend the week with Mark's family. There are 13 grandkids this year and we all spent 3 days together in a big meeting hall not too far from Mom and Dad Schramm's house. Despite the runny noses and occasional toddler fight, we had a great time. The kids had lots of toys to play with, cousins to run around with and much needed family time. The rest of the week it was just us at the house. Our boys had a blast watching videos, reading books, playing cars and going to the park. They love having Grammy and Granddaddy all to themselves. Hannah of course was the star baby. She didn't escape anyone's arms. She charmed everyone with her smiles and cooing.

Back to reality here. Mark luckily had the day off more or less and he was able to get some important paperwork done. We had a good day together. Today, I am drowning in laudry. David still has a lingering caugh, but other than that we are doing well. He starts up with school next week. Wishing everyone a happy new year!

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-17T21:26:00.000-08:00

I know, it's a little early. But if feels like Christmas is already over for us. We had my mom visiting this weekend and decided to let the kids open presents on Saturday morning since she wouldn't be with us on Christmas day. She brought lots of presents for the kids and, combined with the ones we got them, they had a field day. The big hit of this Christmas were "car movie" cars (that's what the boys call the movie "Cars"), especially "Mac". He's Lightning McQueen's big rig trailer. Mac's trailer opens up to feature a big screen TV, car wash station, toothbrushing wash basin, weight lifting station, and kitchen, complete with a mini refrigerator stocked with oil cans. It's really cute! The little matchbox size Lightning fits inside perfectly. The only problem is that there was only one Mac under the tree (translate: the boys fight over him constantly). Here they are before the paper tearing fun began.

We also had a major milestone reached this weekend by David. He had his Christmas program at his school on Saturday afternoon. After the program they had a cookie reception in the fellowship hall complete with the opportunity to sit on Santa's lap. In the past David has wanted to sit as far away as possible from the big guy in red. We haven't pushed it with him as he has been scared of most costumed characters (hence the reason we have never taken them to Disneyland). So, I asked Luke if he wanted to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas. He didn't hesitate with his "Yes" answer. When Luke said yes, David asked him "Are you sure Lukey?" He seemed concerned for Luke's safety! Ha Ha! Mark took Luke over to wait in the line and after about 5 minutes David said to me that he wanted to go to. I was so suprised. I told him that Santa was a nice guy and I guess he decided to trust me. Maybe seeing that his brother wasn't scared helped too. So, the boys sat on Santa's lap for the very first time! I was so proud of both of them. I only wish I could have heard what they told Santa because they spent a lot of time talking to him! I wasn't able to get the classic "smiling at the camera" shot, but here is the one I did get. It's really priceless!

I'll leave you with the Christmas gift my mom got from me. It's an 18x24 size canvas. I used acrylic paint, Basic Grey and My Mind's Eye patterned paper, Heidi Swapp flower and hearts, Li'l Davis wood frame, Doodlebug posies, Maya Road chipboard letters and some rhinestones. I love doing these. They are so much fun to work on. She is planning on hanging it in her office. I hope it brightens up her space.

Keeping Up!

2006-12-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's hard keep the blog updated with 3 kids to take care of! Mark has been working like a dog lately too. Most nights he is home by 7 or 8. Just enough time for the kids to see him before they go to bed. Some nights they don't see him at all. We are getting pretty tired of this schedule and can't wait for Christmas vacation!

Luke had his first dentist appointment on Monday. He had x-rays taken of his front teeth (the side teeth x-ray films didn't fit in his mouth!), his teeth polished and an exam by the dentist. He did great! I was so proud of him. He cooperated, he wasn't scared and he had a grand old time chating it up with everyone. He's such a character.

After the exam the dentist informed us that one of his front teeth was turning grey and pushed forward a bit. Probably from some sort of trauma to it (although we can't figure out when that happened). The other front tooth is a normal color, but it is pushed back a bit. As a result of that pushed back tooth, Luke doesn't have an overbite. So, when he closes his teeth, the top tooth rests on top of the bottom tooth. That means that his molars don't touch when he chews. Ding, ding, ding! Yep, that's why Luke takes forever to eat anything. He has to shift his jaw to chew properly. We go back in 3 months for another evaluation. I'm not sure what they want to do about this problem. We do know that if his grey tooth gets any greyer, gets loose or infected, they want to do a root canal on him. Ugh. Let's hope that we can avoid that.

On a happier note, Hannah is sleeping about 8 hours almost every night. It's so nice to feel somewhat rested during the day. Her reflux seems to be getting better too. She's not spitting up as much and has been nursing just fine. She goes in on the 21st for her 2 month well baby check.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-22T21:40:00.000-08:00

Yes, tomorrow is the big day! I foolishly passed up Mark's offer to buy Thanksgiving dinner from a local restaurant and decided to cook it instead. What was I thinking??? OK, it's not that big a deal. My sister and mom will be here to help cook. How long does an 18 pound turkey take to cook anyways? Also, buying the dinner felt a little like cheating. After all is eaten and cleaned up, I am sure we will be grateful for the time spent together.

Before the frenzy of tomorrow starts, I'll leave you all with a photo of Hannah taken a few days ago. I can't believe she is already one month old. Next thing I know, I'll be sending her off to college. Oh, she has started giving us her first smiles. They are so cute! Hopefully I'll be able to capture one on film soon.

Isn't she beautiful? (I know, I am biased)

Time flies

2006-11-20T13:04:00.000-08:00

We got David's very first school photo last week.

I cannot believe how grown up he looks. I also can't believe that he will be 6 in just 4 short months. Wasn't it just yesterday that we had his 5th birthday party? He is getting so big too. He hardly fits on my lap anymore and don't even talk to me about carrying him.

Maybe he seems so big because Hannah is so small. I remember when David used to sleep on my chest when he was a baby. Now, Hannah is the one sleeping on my chest. Just that tiny, warm and snuggly little package. I really love the baby stage. I guess I have to let them grow up. Sometimes I just wish they would stay small forever.

On another note, all is well with the world and it's going to be a good year. In case you didn't know, this Saturday, Ohio State won their big rivalry game against Michigan (or as Mark says, "that state up north"). Yes, the biggest and most important game of the season. The one where my husband paces the living room, worries to no end, and has to watch the game with no sound. OK, he did do a great job of containing the stress and interacting with his family during the game. I am just glad they won, because if they didn't, well, the weekend wouldn't have been as good as it was.

Speaking of, I was able to get some much needed gardening done. Our poor garden was suffering from neglect. I had barely touched it this summer because of the heat (that and my ever growing pregnant belly). If you can believe it, it was almost 90 degrees yesterday and my tomato plants are still producing good tomatoes! In fact, they are taking over the garden. I spent some time cutting them back a bit and pruning the herbs and the perennials. David helped me plant some new plants and do some weeding. I still have to clear out the green beans and plant some cool weather vegetables like peas and lettuce, if we ever get any cool weather!

Mark spent most of the day yesterday cleaning out the side yard. We hosed down the stuff that was piling up back there including the slip-n-slides, inflatable pool and the plastic ride on toys. David had a great time helping rinse down the cement. We had a good time together as a family. Then we had a bunch of friends over for a BBQ. Gotta love that warm weather. Makes up for not having any "seasons". Ha Ha!

Busy, busy, busy!

2006-11-13T17:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. Things have been sorta busy around here. My sister was staying with us last week and was a huge help. She picked up David from school for me, played with Luke, helped get meals together, and took both boys to Chuck E Cheese one morning.

All of our helpers have now left. We had houseguests for almost 6 weeks! Things are going pretty smoothly now. I have managed to get David to school every morning so far! The baby is sleeping almost all night and is not too fussy. The Tagamet she has for her reflux seems to be working pretty well and I seem to be able to eat most anything without if affecting her. She is just a sweetheart. We are all enjoying having her to look at and hold. I took this photo of her sleeping on Mark's chest.

I have even completed my first scrapbooking related project since Hannah was born. I was totally inspired by Jen Olsen's canvas clock in the December issue of Creating Keepsakes. What a brilliant idea! I wish I would have thought of that! Thanks Jen for the inspiration! Here is my take on the clock. I gave it to Mark for his birthday. He absolutely loved it! By the way, it's also the first time I have ever captured a photo of my boys BOTH smiling naturally AND looking at the camera at the same time! What a feat! LOL!

Little fingers, Little toes

2006-11-01T13:45:00.000-08:00

I just love my camera. Maybe the thing I love most about it is its ability to take super close-up photos of things. I had always envied those close up shots of small baby parts. Who can resist??? I'm so excited that I can take photos like this! Here are Hannah's tiny fingers after her first fingernail trimming.

Here are her toes. I can't believe how small her little toe bones must be. Amazing!

We had her 2 week check up on Monday. She was 7 lbs., 10 oz. Gained back to her birth weight and more. Everything looked good except that she was diagnosed with GERD, or what we call acid reflux. We had suspected it. Both the boys had this as infants. She started showing symptoms such as difficulty sleeping and crying while eating. We got some meds for her and we are hoping and praying that they work, otherwise, nursing a reflux baby is really hard!

On another note, we took the boys to our church's Halloween carnival last night. They got to play games, win candy and do the bounce house and super slide (well, David did at least). They really had a good time. This year David was Lightning McQueen and Luke was the frog. They were both very happy with their costumes and just delighted in wearing them around the house. I managed a shot of them before we left the house.

Baby Hannah May Schramm

2006-10-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Baby Hannah was born on Monday, October 16th at 7:40 PM. She weighed 7 lbs., 8 oz. (Yay! under 8 lbs!!!) and was 18 1/2 inches long. We got home on Wednesday to a house full of chaos. Let me just say that having new carpet installed in your house the 3 days after you have a new baby is NOT a good idea.

Talk about exhausting! Thank goodness my mom and Mark's parents were here to help pack things up and move furniture. We also had the help of a few friends to move things. We fit almost the entire contents of our house in our garage!

OK, so back to the baby! She is an angel. She didn't sleep too well in the hospital, but once we got home and she started nursing well she is sleeping about 5 hours straight at night and then 2 or 3 more! We are truely amazed. Neither David nor Luke were good sleepers as infants (and sometimes aren't now!). She has been blessing us with some relatively peaceful nights and sweet days. She is pretty easy going and doesn't cry except when she has to have her diaper or clothes changed and when she is hungry. She is making those sweet newborn baby noises and likes to stare at things and make funny faces.

The boys just love her and want to get as close to her as possible. Unfortunately, they are both still a little sick and we have only let them hold her once. They always want to look at her and touch her head. We found David staring at her in the bassinet yesterday while she slept. It was so sweet.

Things are starting to settle down here. Mark's parents left for home today and my mom is staying with me this week. Mark went back to work today. David will go back to school tomorrow. The "stuff" in the garage is slowly making it's way back into the house. I am looking forward to getting some kind of schedule back into our lives soon and feeling better.

Here are a few photos of our newest Schramm:
Hannah, about 5 days old

After her first bath at home

Mark's mom holding her

Sickies in the house

2006-10-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Just when we thought David was over his fever, he came down with a nasty cough. Yep, last night he started coughing. His fever came back and he actually, voluntarily laid down for a nap at 5:30 PM. If you know David, he never does this. I can count on one hand how many times he voluntarily napped in his lifetime. We let him sleep an hour, fed him dinner and he he went to bed at 9. We were awoken at 3 AM with a boy with really raspy breathing and a croupy cough. We ran the shower to do the steam treatment for him, gave him some advil and he slept in our bed till 8. Unfortunately, croup (if that is what he has) is contagious via the air, so I went to sleep on the couch in the living room for the rest of the night. Not the most comfortable night. I am just praying that I don't catch what he has. I can't imagine being sick and in labor. Not to mention the danger to the baby.

She still has not made any progress. I'm still having those contractions, they are just not very close. I am planning on doing some extensive walking today to try to get things started. Yesterday I did my best to keep active. I gave David a haircut, weeded the garden for about an hour, cleaned the bathroom, and baked. By the end of the day my feet were really swollen. Why isn't this baby cooperating?

On another note, we ordered new carpet for our house and it is scheduled to be installed on Thursday. Yay! So excited about it. We were hoping that the installation would happen while Mark's parents were here so they could help with the packing and the kids. So, that is a relief!

Contractions, haircuts, fevers and sweaters

2006-10-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

Contractions: I'm having them, but they are far apart. I have actually been having them for a few days now. They range anywhere from 1 hour apart to 10 minutes. Last night they were very consistent 10-15 minute contractions and then I went to bed and they stopped. I woke up this morning with 30-60 minute contractions and they haven't really gotten closer. Only time will tell what happens the rest of the day, but I am not banking on meeting this baby today. My mom was all prepared to fly down tonight, but she cancelled her flight this morning. I even offered to mow the lawn if that would get things started, but nobody else thought that was a good idea. Maybe I will vacuum and mop the floors again like I did yesterday.

Haircuts: Luke had a haircut the other day. I just have to show you the before and after shots. I just got around to photographing him today because the camera has been packed away in my hosptial bag for a week. And, I had a cooperative subject. Yay!

Here he is last week blowing bubbles on the playground in our back yard:

And here he is today in front of our window in the living room:

Fevers: David unfortunately woke up this morning with a fever. No school for him. Not sure what is going on since that is his only symptom. I called the school to make sure that they knew that he was sick and I was still pregnant. We are going to attempt to take him to his school's open house tonight. We hope he is feeling better by then.

Sweaters: I'm done! Finally! I started working on this baby sweater about a month ago on a trip up to Mammoth Lakes. I finally finished it yesterday. It is knit with size 2 and 3 needles using a super soft blend of wool, cashmere, and microfiber yarn. Machine washable too! I used peach because I couldn't find the dusty rose color that pattern book featured. It took me a little while to get used to the small needles and the thin yarn, but it was so soft to knit with. During this project I learned how to make tiny button holes and how to pick up stitches (to make the collar). All in all, it was a great project and I love how it turned out. I will leave you with a few photos of the sweater. It is size 3-6 months.

Still no baby

2006-10-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

But, my in-laws arrive tonight to help with the kids when she does decide to arrive. I was worried about what we would do if I went into labor before they got here. Our neighbors offered to watch the kids for us, but then they left for the weekend yesterday! We are looking forward to our visit with them. I'm still hanging in there. Mark is working this weekend, so he requested that I have the baby on Monday! I'll try honey!

Not much else going on here. I managed a big grocery trip today as well as a trip to Joann's weekend sale and to Home Depot to pick up a kitchen faucet. I think I will spend the rest of the day knitting. I am almost done with the last piece of a baby cardigan I am making. After ripping out the first sleeve twice, I finally figured out what the instructions were saying. I just have the other sleeve to make, and then to sew all the pieces together. I'd love to finish it before baby arrives.

Oh, I said I might post some un-pub'd HOF entry layouts. Here are 2 from my entry that didn't get picked up for the book or any other publications.

This was my personal statement assignment:

This one was a freebie page:

I got it! I got it!

2006-10-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

Finally got my hands on the 2006 Hall of Fame special issue! Yay! Picked it up at my local scrapbook store 2 days ago and I can't put it down. They changed the format this year and I must say that I really like the way they laid it all out. It is divided into chapters based on things like Photography, Design, etc. I am featured in the design section. They gave me a whole 2 page spread with some questions I answered a while back and one full page featured layout. It looks so good! And, I am so glad I don't sound dumb with my answers! LOL! Oh, and I wanted to let you know that the layouts they chose for each section were not necessarily the ones I did specifically for them. For example, they used my best candid photo assignment layout in the product usage section, and my product usage assignment went into the journaling section. Maybe I will post the layouts that didn't make it into the book in my next blog entry. I still haven't shared them publically.

As far as the rest of the book goes, I have been reading everything in there and I feel like I know all the ladies so much better now. What amazint talents and wonderful women. It has been a pleasure to get to know them over the last 6 months. I feel so thankful for the chance to be in this book with them. It is really just frosting on the cake! Oh, and don't miss the HM layouts either. I bet we will see some of these ladies win HOF next year.

Well, my plan to tuck this book into my hospital bag is no more. I just had to read it cover to cover right away and I am afraid I have been through it twice already. So, I got Elsie Flannigan's 52 Scrapbooking Challenges for the hospital and it is tucked all safe and sound in the suitcase. I promise I only peeked at a few of the challenges! I am restraining myself so I can at least have something to read during quiet times.

Still a "lady in waiting"

2006-09-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

Yep, baby is still in there. No signs of wanting to make her entrance yet. I have hit the 37 week mark and hope to only get to 38 weeks. Mark's parents arrive here on the 7th to help with the kids. Ideally, it would be best to wait to have this baby till after they arrive, but I am getting impatient. At least my sinus infection is somewhat cleared up and I am feeling better.

Can you believe it is still 90 degrees here? What is going on? I never want to be pregnant over the summer again.

OK, rant over. Back to fun topics. The 2006 Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame book is now in some people's hands. Not my hands yet, but I have heard that some stores are just getting it in and a few of my fellow HOF winners have copies. I called my scrapbook store and asked if they would call me to let me know when it arrives and the girl I talked to said no! LOL! She said it was an automatic order from CK and they don't track those. I told her I was one of the winners and asked if they could set a copy aside for me and then call when it arrived. She reluctantly said that was a possibility and would put a note on their bulletin board.

So, eagerly waiting for my copy. I will definately be rushing over there when they call. Can't wait to see how the new format looks and to check out everyones layouts. I am planning on packing a copy away in my hospital bag to peruse when still-un-named baby girl is sleeping peacefully in the hospital room.

Oh Baby!

2006-09-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

So, on Wednesday, I went in for a routine ultrasound to check the baby's size. I'm 36 weeks along now. Everything looked fine on the scan according to the doc. I asked her how big she thought the baby was and she said "Oh, about 7 lbs.". WHAT!!!! 7 lbs.??? I have never had a 7 lb. baby! Really, both boys were under 7 lbs. and they were both early. Kinda freaking out here. She predicted that the baby would be born at around 38 weeks (when David was born). So that means in 2 weeks I might be having an 8 pounder. An 8 pounder, folks. Here's to hoping the ultrasound was wrong and this baby will be nice and small like her brothers. Oh, and in case you didn't already know, I'd like her to be born tomorrow. I can dream can't I?

Check her out!

2006-09-20T14:58:00.000-07:00

OK, I have to post this layout here for all to see what a stylin' mom I had when I was toddler. Don't you love those glasses??? This page was made with stuff from October's kit from Coordinates Collections. I love these colors together. I had fun with the freestyle cutting and the buttons.

On another note, cold season has started. I have made a huge investment in Airborne products at Costco to try to combat the inevitable. Yes, since David has started school he has successfully brought home a cold, given it to me (which has turned into a sinus infection, as usual) and then given it to Luke. Lucky Mark has escaped the sickies, probably because he was on-call 4 nights in a row the week. Hopefully my doc will give me some preggie friendly antibiotics today so I can kick this thing.

Cooling off

2006-09-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's finally cooling off here! Can summer finally be over??? I hope so. I have had enough of 100 degrees. Right now it is 60 outside! It feels like autumn has arrived. David has just completed his first week of school, MOPS has started back up, and this baby is anywere from 3-5 weeks from making her arrival in this world.

David is loving being at school 5 days a week. He gets so excited in the morning when it's a school day and grumpy on the weekends when he doesn't get to go. He is learning the names of his classmates (he has a Luke in his class), loves his new teacher (and so do we) and gets to see his little "girlfriend" Dharma 3 days a week.

In addition, Luke is loving having the house all to himself in the mornings. He has free reign on all the toys and Mommy's full attention (although, not for long). The first day David was at school Luke was humming little songs and talking to his toys. I ask him what he wants to play with at home and he says "David's airplane!".

This time with Luke is something new for us. Last year David was in preschool in the afternoons when Luke would nap. We have never really had one-on-one time together and he's always had to share toys. I don't know if David knew how good he had it before Luke was born!

That's this week's update! Other than getting used to having a schedule every morning, I am trying to prepare for the coming of this, as of yet, nameless baby girl! I'll leave you with a few photos of my big school boy.

Mark is famous!

2006-08-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

Recently had the chance to participate in an on-line article at creatingkeepsakes.com. Well, it's up now! Mark is now famous in the scrapbooking world (but certainly not his first time in one of my published pages.) Check it out!

"Follow-up" Article

Childhood photos

2006-08-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

I have been scrapping a lot of my own childhood photos lately. It's really fun to take them and restore the color in my photo editing program. It's like they have new life. I need to go through my mom's stash of photos again and scan a bunch more.

Scrapbooking my photos and memories has been really fun. I have so many memories of growing up that I figured I should write them all down before I forget them one day. It's all still very vivid in my mind. Maybe it's because we moved away when I was 11 and all the growing up years were "fossilized" in my mind, connected to the place we lived and played. I hope my kids appreciate these memories and find them entertaining one day. Oh, and thank you to my parents for taking so many wonderful photos of us! Here are a few of the pages I have completed.

These are 3 of the 5 different houses I lived in before going away to college.

This is the field behind our house in Petaluma. We used to feed the horses that lived there.

This is my mom, sister and I on our bikes. It's the story that I heard over and over again about how my little horsey started rolling down our hill and all I could do was stand there and cry until my dad went and got it for me.

This is me when I was about 9 months I think. Wasn't I cute?

Weekend getaway

2006-08-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday and Sunday, my sister Noelle treated us to a weekend away and a night off for our 10th wedding anniversary. We spent the night in Oxnard and then spent Sunday in Santa Barbara. We had a great time with the kids. We took them to the beach, went out to eat by ourselves, went to Stearns Wharf, looked at art along the boardwalk, and went to State Street to window shop.

Along the way, we discovered Jamba Juice. Mark had never had it before and I think the last time I did was when I was in college. Noelle introduced us to it and we all loved it, especially the kids. We split a small one for them and a large one for us. It was almost better than going out for ice cream, almost.

We also discovered something about Luke that I guess we should have already known. On the street there were some people who were draping snakes on peoples shoulders and asking for donations for their snake rescue program in the area. We passed by a few times and one of the snake handlers walked up to Noelle and just put it on her shoulders. Luke was fascinated. He kept petting it, feeling it's body and trying to look it in the face. When they took the snake off her shoulders, Luke said, "Want snake on my neck!" So, I asked one the handlers to put a small one on his shoulders. He was BEAMING! He was absolutely delighted to have that snake on him. We were so suprised, but I guess we shouldn't have been. He loves to touch living creatures. Oh, by the way, David wouldn't get out of the stroller. But, he did manage work up the courage to touch the snake on Mark's shoulders with the tip of his finger! Just so you know, I declined to be draped with a snake as well! Here are a few photos of our adventure.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, Santa Barbara is just gorgeous! Mark has decided that he wants to live there. Unfortunately an average size 3 bedroom home runs about, oh, a million dollars. Maybe we could live in a tent on the beach instead.

Summer Vacation Photos!

2006-08-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

All the kids with their Great-Grandma Arnold

Great-Grandma Arnold with the youngest member of the family, her great-granddaughter Anna

David's first catch

The two birthday girls, Sarah and Grace, in their birthday princess outfits.

David and his cousin Rebekah

It's summer vacation time...

2006-08-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

and I have come back with loads of pictures!

We just returned from a week in Indiana with Mark's family. An annual summer vacation tradition for us. Sadly, this will probably be our last weeklong summer vacation with the entire family. Next summer we will be moving to Indianapolis and we will see our family much more often then we do now.

Each year there is usually another baby (or 2) to add to the mix. This summer there were 12 kids, from age 14 all the way down to age 4 months. Not to mention Mark's grandmother, age 92, his parents, my mom (her first trip to Indiana), Mark's three sisters and of course, Mark and I. Yes, that's 21 people. Luckily, the neighbors offered us their cottages so we were split into 3 houses. That helped the sleeping situation a lot. The kids had a lot of room to play and we had 2 kitchens to work out of. Feeding that many people 3 times a day is hard! We took turns making meals and cleaning up this time and that helped a lot.

So, what do we do the whole week? We went to the Aunt Nancy's annual Luau pool party, we went to the beach and swam in the lake, we played at the park, we pulled out the kiddie pool and sprinkler, we had a birthday party for 2 of the girls, we played lots of cars, we built forts from blankets, we fed the ducks, we went fishing for the first time, we had a baby dedication cememony for Emma, we shopped, we watched movies together, we basically had fun as a family. We also changed a lot of diapers, we wiped a lot of noses, we cleaned up lots of messes, we gave each other our colds and fevers, we mediated lots of toddler "disagreements", and we spent a lot of time holding babies.

I really can't believe how much the kids have grown since we last saw them. I'ts been 8 months since our last visit. Baby Emma is now 9 months old, we met baby Anna for the first time, Grace turned 3, Sarah is turning 4, Cate and Luke are both 2, Rebekah turns 5 next month, David is 5, Michael is 7, Joshua is turning 10 this October, Mark is 12 and John David is 15! For those of you who remember our wedding, John David was our ring bearer. Yes, that cute 5 year old is now 15! I can't believe how fast time flies.

It's good to be home, but we sure will miss all those kids and the rest of the family. Hopefully when we move closer they won't grow up so fast.

I'm having trouble uploading images. I'll try again tomorrow.

Hot, Hot, Hot

2006-07-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

OK, for you all that don't live in the Southern California desert, let me give you a little update on how our weather has been lately.

Friday it was 105 F, Saturday was 104 F, and Sunday was 98 F. Currently today, Monday, it is 101 F. Now for you metric people, that is 41 C, 40 C, 37 C and 38 C . In case you don't understand, it's HOT here. So hot in fact that it drove us out of our little town for the weekend. We drove to Malibu on Saturday and enjoyed a perfect day at Malibu beach. The surf was great so we got to see lots of great surfing. The sand was cool and the kids loved digging in it. I enjoyed watching all the interesting people go by. No, we didn't see any celebrities. We did stay the entire afternoon and then had a nice dinner at a sidewalk deli in Pacific Palisades. Now that would be a nice place to live. Quaint, quiet, clean, and cool. Unfortunately, the "normal" looking houses probably cost over a million. It was fun to dream for an evening.

As we were driving home, we got a call from some friends of ours that live in Norway. They were in Orange County on vacation and wanted to know if we could come down on Sunday to swim with them. Of course, knowing it would be another HOT day stuck in the house, we jumped at the chance. We had a great day with Stole, Christine and their three children. We swam at the local community pool, went to the amazing Barber park in Irvine and shared 2 meals together. Their kids have grown so much since we last saw them. In fact, this was the first time our kids actually played "together". In the past, they seemed to not bond so well. Maybe David is just more outgoing this year. It was fun to see them interact. In fact, David grew quite attached to their 9 year old boy, Lucas. It will probably be several years till we see them again. We wish we lived closer. We just seem to have so much in common with them.

All in all, it was a great weekend enjoying the cool weather. Back to the grind here in the hot Inland Empire today.

Our swimmer boy!

2006-07-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

We enrolled David in swimming lessons for the first time this summer at the university pool complex. We have been swimming there since David was a year old, so he is pretty familiar with the water. But, he has always been a bit scared of letting go of us and actually swimming. He was starting to get the hand of letting go and trying to swim when we went on our cruise back in April. Well, now he was so ready to swim. This class was 45 minutes long, 4 days a week, for 2 weeks. He just loved it! He had no fears whatsoever in the water. He did all that the instructors asked of him. He started learning the freestyle stroke, he learned how to swim to the bottom of the pool to retrieve things, and he learned how to float. I think he spent more time underwater than above! He was the best student in the class. He should move up to the level 2 class in July. We are so proud of him!
This is his swim instructor, by the way.

Amazing technology

2006-06-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

Many of you know this already. But, many of you don't. So, I am so excited to share this next photo with you.

Yep! W'ere pregnant! I am about 22 weeks along. This photo was taken when I was 18 weeks. I was lucky enough to get the one 4D ultrasound machine at Loma Linda that morning. The tech took some amazing photos of the baby. Isn't SHE cute!

We are still trying to adjust to the thought of having a girl. We are so in tuned to the boys and what they are like that I am not sure I will know what to do with a girl. One thing is for sure, she will have an awesome wardrobe (thanks to my 2 sisters-in-law, who have 6 girls between them), and she will be one spoiled little girl! My mom has already started knitting some pink little girl things!

David and Luke are very excited about their baby sister. David has said that he wants to name her "Flower" ever since we found out we were pregnant. Now Luke has joined the bandwagon and wants her to be Flower too! It's too cute. We haven't picked out a name yet and we'll probably will take a long time to decided on one.

My official due date is October 18th, but both the boys were early so we are hoping for an October 5th birthday. See, each of us was either born on the 5th or the 22nd. I was May 22nd, David was March 22, Mark was November 5th and Luke was May 5th. So, we have to continue the trend right? And since my babies have been early by one and two weeks, we figure we can't have an October 22nd baby. So, there you have it, our due date prediction. If you have a due date prediction, leave it in the comments. Maybe there will be a little prize for the person who guesses right!

Home Improvements

2006-06-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

So, many family members have been asking just what do Mark's parents do when they are out here in California visiting us. We'll, I decided to show a little slide show on one of the major projects we did this year. This project started in October of last year and was finished in June of this year. Mark worked on it in spurts, when he had some time off from his usual crazy schedule (i.e. light research rotations).

Here goes!

Pic #1: what our back yard used to look like: Note, the lack of fence and lots of grass weeds invading the garden. Where Mark and our neighbor are standing will be a new sand box soon.

Pic #2: The new sand box frame, a retaining wall made of railroad ties

Pic #3: Everything covered with weed barrier fabric.

Pic #4: The first part of the deck framed.

Pic #5: Floor boards going on!

Pic #6: Fast forward 6 months - second part of the deck (on the other side of the sand box) dug out and covered with weed barrier.

Pic #7: 2 months later and the deck is framed, floorboards are down, the steps are done and the railing is complete!

Pic #8: Here is the view of the first deck (from the second deck)

So there you have it! Our little backyard oasis! Do you think the next owner of this house will appreciate how much hard work, sweat, and time went into this project? We will be sad to leave here in a year.

2006-06-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo of the boys. I caught them sneaking apples in the rocking chair in our bedroom! Sneaky boys. At least it wasn't candy.

And here is a layout I did of our Mother's day trip to San Diego for the "Gator by the Bay" Zydeco, Blues and Crawfish festival. What a fun day that was.

My First Blog Post!

2006-06-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

Yep, I finally did it. I started a blog. What a great way to keep my family and friends updated on our comings and goings. Hopefully I can keep up to date with photos of the kids, recent scrapbook pages, family news and what we are up to. Please feel free to leave comments when you want to and give suggestions on how I can make this a great way to communicate with you!