A Scrap of Life

This is my favorite phrase of today. Brian said that to me and we both looked up at the beautiful blue sky and smiled. It is a good day to be alive. It's a good day to spend with Brian and the kids and his parents. It's a good day to enjoy the warmth of the spring sunshine. It's a good day to BBQ. It's a good day to relax. It's a good day to just be .

1. We're all going to see Brian this evening. We're meeting at Red Robin where I'll get one of my favorite foods - Whisky River BBQ Chicken Wrap... YUM and raspberry lemonade. And we'll get to spend several hours together just chatting and hanging out. 2. The discount book fair at the kids school today. I spent $34.00 (hope Brian isn't reading this! LOL). For that I got 20 good books, 2 Leapster games, one computer game and a robotic t-rex you assemble. Awesome deals! 3. Scrapbooking. I know, I've been avoiding the schoolwork that I should be doing right now, but I'm having fun playing with all the new kits at ScrapAddict. Here's a little sneaky of my favorite layout from an upcoming kit. 4. Money. It's payday. Nuff said. 5. Meet the Robinsons. I'm still happy after that movie. It's one of the few animated flicks that I've truly, truly enjoyed. And the "Little Wonders" song by Rob Thomas from the movie makes me happy too. 6. Bab...

Chase has been working hard at spelling this year. He's the only one in his class who gets advanced spelling words and he does a great job of learning the spelling of the 10 to 13 letter words on his list. His hard work has now paid off. His teacher announced that he will be representing his class in the school spelling bee! Way to go Chase. We're proud of you!

So this is week #6 of 16. Not only is Brian gone but it's baseball season for both Carissa and Tristan and I've also added a new job to the mix. Here's what I've realized in the last 6 weeks: It is harder than I thought it would be. 15 minutes of uninterrupted time is heavenly. Maybe I shouldn't volunteer so much. I can watch girly movies and "The Bachelor" without grumbling. Staying up until 1am is not good when you have to work the next morning. I should cook a decent dinner for myself sometimes. Mowing the back yard sucks. TGIF has never been so true. Homework can take hours. Even a sanity device (i.e. MP3) doesn't always bring much sanity. A king size bed is too big for only one person. I miss Brian more than I thought I would. When you're the only adult, you have to kill all the bees and big fat spiders around. *shudder* Doing it all on your own is exhausting. I will survive.

Brian's parents have lived in Woodburn for 10 years now. And in each of those 10 years we have seen the signs for the yearly tulip festival. Yet we'd never visited - until now. Let me tell you, that place was a photographers heaven. Acres and acres of beatiful tulips just waiting to be photographed. And it didn't hurt that mother nature did us a favor and brought out the beautiful, clear blue spring sky for us. It was all just perfect. The kids liked the tulips and all but could have left within about 15 minutes. I, no the other hand, stayed an hour and a half but could have stayed 1 or 2 hours more just to have fun playing with my new camera and seeing what sort of shots I could get. But in the 90 minutes I was there I was able to capture 86 images, most of which were fairly good. Here's a few of my faves. Now I also tryed to get the kids interested by having them choose their favorite tulip to be photographed with. Carissa chose the beautiful pink ones and T...

Just a quick post to shout out congrats to Chase. Today he landed the role of Wilbur in his classroom production of Charlotte's Web. Way to go buddy! You rock! Now the real fun begins. 16 pages worth of dialogue to memorize before May 1. FUN!!!

This week has been such a blur for me. The kids had so many activities this week both in and out of school - sports and scouts and music programs and "living museum" showings ... it's been utter chaos. In the midst of it all comes a phone call from Theresa at Tinkertime Preschool. She's Carissa's old preschool teacher and she's looking for a teachers aid for the remainder of the school year and she wants to know if I'm interested. Ummmm ... YES!!! So all of the sudden I find myself employed. EMPLOYED. ME! I haven't had a real job in nearly 11 years. But this is a real job - a job that pays. A job that I can have and enjoy. A job that doesn't require nights, weekends or summers. A job that ensures that we carry through on the decision Brian & I made 11 years ago to always be there for our children and to not put them in daycare. A job that ensures that my children will not be latch-key kids, coming home from school alone and doing who...

33 years and counting. You are one amazing man and I'm so blessed to have you in my life. Happy Birthday! I love you.

So, you should all know by now that I LOVE scrapbooking. And my favorite scrapbook site ever is ScrapAddict. We have such an awesome community there, wonderful kits, all the newest products and tons of inspiration. Oh, and it's got the absolutel BEST designers every (ok, maybe I'm a little bias ... LOL). It's truly an amazing site! This winter we at SA threw a cyber-crop. I spent all my free time last week scrapping. There were tons of great challenges to get us inspired and motivated. I ended up completing 15 layouts, which is more than I usually do in a month. And I totally LOVED the layouts that I did. I won 1st place in the Ultimate Scrappers Challenge and am now enjoying the gift certificate I earned from that (OK, I guess I enjoyed it is more precise since I just bought some awesome new ScrapAddict kits with it ...). Anyways, just wanted to send my thanks out to all my friends from ScrapAddict who helped inspire me and played along. Here are some of my favorite layout...

Today was Chase's science fair. Of course, we were a bit late in getting the project done, but it was done by bedtime last night. Even let Chase use my Cricut to cut letters for his display. Here's the proud scientist with his experiment, "Are rats more active during the day or at night?" I must say that he did a great job. He wrote everything out, compiled his data, even glued all those little die cut letters on. Haven't got his grade yet but I think he deserves an A! ;)

1 day down, 108 left to go. Not sure if that number reassures me or not. 108 days is a long time. It seems like it's been a while since he left too, not just one day. But we're plogging on here. The first day and night without Dad have been a bit difficult for the kids. As soon as he left we all sat and hugged and cried just a bit. Then we picked ourselves up and got on with it. Of course, Carissa mentioned ever 7 minutes that she missed Daddy. Then she'd give me her sad face to go along with it. And today Tristan came to me and said he couldn't sleep because he was sad about Dad being gone. He's not the only one who couldn't sleep either. Carissa was up and down all night long, which is quite unlike her. She would cry in her sleep every so often and when I'd go in to see what the problem was she would say (in her sleepy, almost incomprehensive voice) that she was sad about Dad being gone. That went on for several hours and when I went to bed I ...

One Monday morning several weeks ago Tristan came up to me and said that he was wearing his Monday shirt to school. "Your Monday shirt?" I asked. "Yes. This is the shirt I wear every Monday" he said. So I've been watching him since then to see if it's true - and it is. Every Monday he finds this shirt and a pair of jeans and wears them to school. Why this shirt? I guess because it's one of his faves. He looks great in brown, loves the bright green and it has his favorite cartoon character, Sonic, on it too. Why he chose to wear it every Monday, I have no idea. He could wear it every day it's clean for all I care, but he insists that he wears it Monday. So it has gained a special status in Tristan's life. The Monday shirt ... isn't childhood wonderful?!?

I know I should update today and let you know how all is going but I don't have much wonderfulness to share today. So I'm going to leave you with some scrapbooking pages and projects instead and I'll update you after Brian has gone. Until then we're going to enjoy our last bits of family time together. Take care all.

No one believed me when I told them what Carissa wanted for her birthday... I told both grandparents to take her shopping for clothes. Of course, I think they just thought I was being the practical Mom and suggesting clothes instead of toys for her birthday. But that's not it at all. This girl LOVES her clothes. Take, for instance, this outfit: Carissa fell in love with it at first sight. It's a dress (more about her dress obsession later), it's pink, it's got sequins and sparkles on it and it's uber girly. Perfect for her. Here's how the dicussion went: Carissa: Mom, look at this dress! Me: Oh, that's cute. Carissa: Can I get this dress? Me: Not today. Carissa: But Mom, I REALLY want it. Me: You don't really need any clothes right now. Carissa: BUT MOM (said in her best whiny voice), I *** REALLY *** want this dress. Me: I know you want it but I'm not buying it for you. Carissa: Then I can buy it. Me: How are you going to buy it? (I know she d...

I saw this blog challenge and decided to go for it. It's not like I have a lot to talk about in my life right now. So here it is: Name your all-time top five favorite movies. Notting Hill, Sweet Home Alabama, Footloose, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Dirty Dancing What’s your favorite movie line? No specific lines speak to me. It's the music from the movies that spark me and remind me of scenes and moments. *sigh* Who’s your favorite movie character? Just one? Ugh. Probably Lena from Sisterhood. Somehow I feel a little connected to her. What movie do you love that most people hate? Dirty Dancing Havana Nights. Everyone gives me such a hard time about loving this movie but I do. It has great music and it's a sappy romance. I'm such a sucker for those. What movie do you hate that most people love? The wine movie ... can't even remember the name but it got rave reviews and I HATED it. I want that 2 hours of my life back! OK, Googled it and found tha...

Nothing new to report here. We're just in that holding pattern ... trying to get every little detail taken care of before Brian leaves next week. Plus I've been fighting migraines again, which just puts me out of commission. I don't know how I will survive them when Brian is gone, but I know I will. I'm strong enough to power through the migraine and do what I have to do. But I'm not looking forward to it. I'm not looking foward to any of it without Brian, but what can I do? He needs to do this and he's really looking forward to all he gets to learn there. We both just wish he didn't have to be away to learn it all. In other news - Chase's last game is this weekend. The basketball season went very quickly this year. It's been fun for Chase though. He hasn't made a basket all season, though he doesn't seem to mind so much. The coaches are trying to encourage the other boys to pass to Chase so he can have a chance to make a bask...

Ooooo ... I love moments like this. Moments that make your heart just burst with pride. Thursday Chase had a field trip to see the "Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt" exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. Chase was so excited to go, as reading about Egypty and mummies has been an interest of his. I picked him up a bit early from school on Thursday and encountered his teacher in the hall. She just could not quit gushing about how proud she was of Chase. Apparently he just wowed his teacher and the tour guide with his knowledge of ancient Egyptian culture. He knew all about the different gods and their place within the culture. He knew about pharohs and burial chambers and all sorts of things that most 10 year old kids have no idea about. In fact, he impressed the tour guide so much that she let him tell the group all he knew about an exhibit, which was quite substantial, then she filled in any pieces he was missing. It was just so wonderful to hear that ...

Isn't he adorable!!! Yes, it's baby Randal again. I know you're going to get tired of me posting about him. I'm posting more about him that my own family right now, but he's the big news at the moment so get used to it. He's a baby and he's so adorable and I don't get to see him in real life for a while so until I do I'm going to keep posting him on here ... So Randal is a week old now and I have been eagerly awaiting more photos of him. Now I have them! Here's Jimmy and Randal. Aren't they adorable??? It's hard to imagine my little brother is a father. I tear up every time I think about it. His first baby. His son. My nephew. Wow ... life is good!

Aaahhhh ... Valentines Day. A day for love. A day for togetherness. A day for work? And gymnastics? And hosting school parties? *sigh* So much for the idea of a nice romantic day together. The good news is that we get to have some "us" time this weekend while the kids go spend it with Brian's parents. We're going to take a day trip to the beach one day and go see "Ghost Rider" another. Besides that we're just going to enjoy hanging out together. We usually don't do gifts for each other, but this year I wanted to make him something that he could take with him to Academy. Here it is: To all of our friends and family out there, Happy Valentines Day! Though we might not tell you often we love and appreciate each and every one of you.

3 weeks. That's all we have. 3 weeks from today and Brian will be leaving for Academy. And he's gone for such a long time -- 4 months. 4 months is 1/3 of the year. It's his birthday, my birthday, Easter, Mothers Day, Fathers Day and the entire baseball season. It's 4 months of missed goodnight kisses for the kids. It's 4 months of lonliness for me. Brian and I are such homebodies and we don't really have friends, except Bek and Jenn and their families, but we don't get to see each other often and they don't live nearby. I don't have anybody here in Scappoose that I hang out with. I don't have anyone here I'd even call up and talk to on the phone. I don't have anyone here to lean on when I get fed up and need a break for a while. Brian and I have always relied on each other. We've always talked to each other. We've always done everything together, from grocery shopping to taking kids to practice to deciding what to eat...