Our Family is kinda "Artsy"

We just had the County Fair over here. Matt put in three photographs. Charlotte put in several home arts pieces and a collage in Home Arts. Henry put in a poem and a watercolor. I put in two scrapbook pages and two types of cookies. As a whole we didn't "fair" too badly. (Har har.) In fact we ribboned in pretty much everything we competed in this year! Matt got second place for this picture:

This was his first time entering the fair and that particular amatuer category had tons of entries. So I was really really impressed and proud that he got that place. I guess that's where reading the manual and learning from the top magazines will get ya!

Henry got third place in both his picture and his poem! He had a poetry reading on Saturday. Lily won first place for her poem! I've included the videos in this post. They are both so darn cute! Siobhan, Cindy's friend took it on her digital camera! Thanks Siobhan!

There are a couple of things that Shioban missed getting. First, when Henry went up to the microphone, he tapped the mic loudly and said "Is this thing on?"- which made everyone laugh and after he finished reading he gave a triumphant "woohoo" and held up his ribbon and poetry book. And when he sat down, Sammy went "Good Job Henry!" and hi-fived him! Very cute!

As for me, I won First Place for this layout. I won Second Place for another layout and my Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies and Pistachio Cranberry Biscotti won both placed second. Cindy, placed 3rd in the two categories she entered in. My only beef with the fair this year (and I'm not talking about the bovine exhibit) was that there is no distinction whatsoever between Mini Albums and regular Scrapbook Albums. Cindy went up against and lost to two mini albums that clearly did not take half as much time to make as Cindy's large 12x12 scrapbook. I think next year they should split the Scrapbook category into two. Because quite frankly she was robbed.

Of course not to be outdone by any of us. My little sister, Charlotte placed First in four out of the five categories she entered in, including her Fine Arts collage pictured here. She ribboned in everything. She is very talented. I am so proud of our family and friends. Seeing our stuff at the Fair just makes the whole experience even more sweeter.

Fall already.

Wow. Can't get over how quickly 2007 has gone by. I mean seriously. It's September people! The boys have been in school for a couple weeks now and things are going very well. Henry's new teacher, Becky is great. And I'm not just saying that because I was on the committee that hired her. She's very easy going and welcoming. The kids and parents just love her. Discovery room has become a real lively community. They have really gotten into writing and reading already. They have penpals in a school in Florida and they take language on Friday. Henry is having fun learning sign language.(PS. One of Henry's front teeth fell out right before school started. Isn't he a cutie!!)

Sam is adjusting to going preschool three times a week now. Because this is pre-kindergarten things are more focused, so he's had to deal with that. Not to mention the usual problem with food. If he doesn't like snack - he refuses to eat any of it. He wouldn't even get near the table at first. I have taken to bringing him nutrition shakes so that he gets some nutrition before lunch. So at least now he will sit with the group and dring his shake. Otherwise, he just loses it with hunger. He's going through a real emotional time right now. He's been crying a lot over the littlest things. The world has just become to look so big to him now. Teacher Debbie has told me that all of this is normal. He's working through negotiating this reality, learning rules and learning about himself. That's a lot for a little four year old to learn!

I will leave you now with a few pictures of our Labor Day weekend. We went to New Brighton Beach on the Sunday. We had a sunset picnic with the Hoffmans, Murakamis and Sterns from school. It was freezing but, the kids all managed to get soaked still! And then Gilroy Gardens on the Monday. The boys always have wonderful time communing with nature.

Look at the big brains on Brad!!!

I am so happy to announce the new arrival of our dear friends Mila and Chas' new baby boy Bradley Alan. Isn't he a cutie! There is just something so terribly cool about a new born baby. They are simply amazing. Our super biggest congratulations to the happy couple.

“A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for”.

Have you ordered your copy yet??

Look!!! I made that layout on that page. That's Sam - isn't he just adorable!! Come on! You know you wanna order a copy. Go to Scrapbook Dimensions. Pre-order your copy and then go here and join the Scrapbook Dimensions Yahoo Group. We will be doing layouts and creating general mayhem!! Come on! You know you wanna join me. :)

My Baby is Four and Bobo's head is a "Potato"!

Wow. Can't believe it's already August. Summer has flown by at break neck speed! And my little guy Sam has suddenly turned FOUR! It's amazing how quickly they grow. It was like yesterday he was just this little guy. Now he's chatty and stubborn and truly himself. This picture of him and our friend Hernan, says it all. We visted them in Santa Monica and he was fascinated by Hernan's head. What he said about Hernan could have been seen as insulting but, he's so cute you can't help but laugh.

He really drives me crazy sometimes but, I just adore him. We took our usual trip to Felton to ride on Thomas for his birthday weekend. It wasn't as busy as years past and it really wasn't too hot either. Sam was disappointed because they didn't have the giant Lego Thomas set up like last year. By far his favorite part (next to riding on Thomas) was the large railway set up. Unfortunately, some kid was manning the thing and it was roped off from other kids playing with it. It was kinda funny watching all these 3-5 year old trying to give him direction. Sam would have stood there all day, if we let him, watching Thomas go back and forth around that track. And of course no day at Thomas would have been complete without purchasing t-shirts and toys. The merchandising at these events is phenomenal. That little blue engine is a capitalist juggernaut!!

We had a pretty mellow day on his actually birthday. We went over to the Hoffmans and had pizza, ice cream cake, and broke a pinata. The Hoffmans have been housing some Italian exchange students for the last couple of weeks and I'm sure they found the whole toddler party thing interesting. And yes, you heard right when I said we had pizza with rea Italians present. And they thought it was pretty good. Atleast I didn't feed them Dominoes! Unlike the day before, it was all about Cars and Lightning McQueen. He loves the little race track his grandma and granddad bought him. It's a good sign that he's still playing with these things after having received them over a week ago.

I'm Published Again - Yay!!

Just a quick note to tell all that a couple of my layouts will be featured in this calendar going on sale as early as next month! The calendar is being published through Scrapbook Dimensions Magazine which specializes in hybrid scrapbooking and hybrid scrap techniques. My super talented friend Julie Ann invited me to be part of this last year and I am so grateful. It looks amazing! Now I know it's not like the last Harry Potter book or anything but, if you are at all remotely interested in my craft please go pre-order a copy now!!! Go to Scrapbook Dimensions to reserve your copy!!! At least go to Scrapbook Dimensions and check out the blog about it, please. I am so excited! Yay!

So- Cal Adventure

We're back! Betcha didn't even know we left!! We just got back from our whirlwind trip of Southern California. We were in Valencia, Anaheim, Carlsbad, San Dimas, Santa Monica and Newport Beach. We went to Disneyland and Legoland and visited some of our longtime friends from college. We rode a ton of rides, ate in Goofy's kitchen and at the Pirates of Carribean, saw many fireworks, swam in various pools, met up with people we hadn't seen in years, and took lots and lots of pictures.
We stayed overnight in Valencia at a Hilton there just before Magic Mountain. We swam in the pool and had dinner at a Denny's nearby. Then on Sunday we made our way down to Anaheim and the Disneyland Resort. We checked in went into the pool right away. Then we had dinner at Goofy's Kitchen and took a walk along Downtown Disney before we went to bed. We needed to go relatively early because we wanted to take advantage of "Early Entry" into the park at 7 a.m.

Monday in the park was awesome because it wasn't too hot and it wasn't at all busy. We rode most of the rides we wanted to ride that day. We loved used the Parent Swap option for the rides. Because Sam was too short to ride some of the rides, I would get a Parent Swap card and as soon as Matt and Henry were done with the ride, I was allowed to cut in the front of the line and ride. Sam was scared of pretty much anything that was involved a tunnell and was dark. He actually believed that Henry, Matt and I were traveling in Space when we went on Space Mountain. I rode it once, and he made me promise not to go again for fear that he would lose me in space! Henry got to ride twice this way, which he truly enjoyed. We ate a late lunch at the Blue Bayou restaraunt which overlooks the Pirates of the Carribbean ride. It was really cool even though Sam said it was too dark and refused to eat anything except bread and lemonade. The rest of us enjoyed our meal anyway. Because it wasn't really busy we even got to catch the parade in the afternoon and the fireworks at the end of the night. Needless to say the boys were exhausted.

Tuesday and Wednesday was definately busier. We went into California Adventure on Tuesday and got to do pretty much all the stuff we wanted to do except Henry was heartbroken when he realized he wasn't tall enough for the California Screamin roller coaster. We spent about half a day in California A and then went back to Disneyland in the evening to take advantage of the lull in the lines that happens during the fireworks. On Wednesday, the first thing we did was ride the Newest Attraction at DLand - "Finding Nemo Adventure". We got there when the park opened and still waited in line for an hour and a half to ride that ride. That was by far the longest line we had to wait in during the entire trip. It was a cute ride overall and at least now we can say we rode it. But, we met up with an Australian family while in line to see Mickey and they asked us our opinion about it and whether they should stand in the now 2 hour line for it and we were honest with them. I mean these people have the actual Barrier Reef - they don't need to see one with fake talking fish... Some other highlights about Weds. are that Henry got to take part in the Jedi Academy a show in Tomorrowland where kids get to train as Jedi and actually fight with Darth Vader or Darth Maul. We also got to see Fantasia on Wednesday which was a nice way to end the whole fun time we had there.

We left Disneyland on Thursday and made our way towards Carlsbad where Legoland is. We stayed at a rather nice Hilton directly across from the beach. We went to Legoland on Friday morning and spent the day there. It was really fun. The rides are pretty tame in comparison to Disney but, there was lots of stuff for the boys to do. Their most favorite thing was this "Build and Test" area where you could build your own Lego race car then race them. They spent a real long time there. There was also a relatively big Water Play area at Legoland and the boys got soaking wet there, which was good because it really was a hot day.

On Saturday we got to meet up with our longtime friends from U.C.S.C. We went up to San Dimas where Eric, Christina and family are situated. We got to meet Clark's wife Lisa and child Owen for the first time. Brandon and his wife Carrie came by and showed us pictures of the film he's making. And we were even received a surprise visit from Bobo and Casey who were on their way from Santa Monica to Silverlake to catch a Rentalsconcert. I was so happy to see all of them that I completely forgot to take photos but, take my word for it they were all there. Seriously. I could hit myself for not grabbing the camera that was sitting at the table. It has been so long since I'd seen everyone! Everyone seems to be doing well and are happy. My only concern is Brandon's health which is under suspicion. He's either to afraid or too stubborn to go to the doctor or both. It's probably nothing...but I really wish he'd see a doctor soon. (Hopefully he reads this.)

After talking to the wee hours of the morning we stayed overnight at the Burgess house then headed to Newport Beach on Sunday. For Matt, unfortuately, the vacation was over and he had to get back to work. He had to attend a Sales Conference for Smith Micro at the Hyatt Resort where we stayed till Thursday. I was basically on my own with the boys. I took then to the mall nearby. They had a small train ride next to Macy's which the boys rode and we walked up and down the place looking at overpriced brand name stuff. I also took the boys to a couple nearby scrapbook stores and Chuck E. Cheese. About midday we'd go to the pool or watch movie in the hotel room. By Thursday, we were all ready to take the long drive back to Watsonville our car full of dirty clothes, expensive souveniers and happy summer memories...

Big News! Small Packages...

First off. Like my new look? I was getting tired of the dots.

Anyway, after much serious inactivity in the scrap world I managed to crank out a layout that just won a contest! If you go to Scrapbooker Online you will see my layout on the home page for the entire month. I had no idea I had won, until Cindy told me the other day. It was announced in the Newsletter which I hadn't read yet. I got a gift certificate to use in their store!

I go through fits and spurts when it comes to scrapbooking. I know I should network more, but, I don't. This hobby can be pretty consuming, if all I do is think and work in the hopes of being published again. I have a family to tend to, you know.

Actually, Charlotte and I have been working more on Artistic Trading Cards. They are mini art cards, you stamp on them, paint them, draw, whatever. Anyway, we have a group in Salinas that we've been trading with the last couple of months. The first one, I did in November, is at the top of this post and this is the second one I did. Funny, these don't look half as good as the ones Charlotte or some of the other ladies at Stamp Bug did. They are fun to make and trade but, it's hard for me to work on such a small canvas! I'm long winded. I'm a big girl. I need lost of room!

I have a hard enough time working on greeting cards! I made a couple of regular greeting cards that I thought were alright. I had fun making them anyway. This one is for Cindy's mom Ruth.

Cindy just had a milestone birthday and we were lucky enough to celebrate it with her. We went to Cilantros for dinner. We got pitchers of margaritas. Henry and Sam actually did really well. (I brought some chicken nuggets for a cerrtain picky boy but, Henry actually ate his Quesadilla quite happily). We came back home for cake from The Buttery afterwards. Yum o rific!! The cake was raspberry poppyseed. Anyway, Ruth was kind enough to pay for the entire dinner, so I made the card.

!And here's the card I made for our friends Mila and Chaz. It's pretty self explanatory. I am so happy for them. They are gonna make great parents!

And finally since I'm catching up here, talking about parenting, and additions to family...I wanted you all to know that after much consideration and mulling over, after some real conversation and more hemming and hawing than I cared to admit (because, as much as I love my kids, I thought I was pretty much done done with having anything more to take care of...I mean, this was really mostly Matts idea. He really really wanted this. I wasn't sure if the kids were ready for this but, they all seemed to really go for the idea. Anyway, I'm stalling. Basically, Matt and I have decided to add one more addition to our family...

We adopted Bonzo, a male domestic shorthair on February 15th from the Animal Shelter here in Watsonville. Now, I am by no means a cat person. Really. I am classically allergic to cats. But, knock on wood, fingers crossed, I have had no problems. I take my claritin everyday now and I haven't had any sneezies or watery eyes and it's been well over a week.

Bonzo, so far, has been one of the sweetest cats I have ever met. He spends most of the time lounging around and sleeping. He loves to be pet on the head and under the chin. Even Sam, the whirling dervish that he is, doesn't phase him. If Sam gets crazy, Bonzo simply leaves the room. Actually, to his credit, Sam has been wonderful with the cat. He hasn't pulled his tail or tried to ride him or anything crazy like that. And Matt's taken full charge of the feeding and the kitty litter etc. The vet thinks Bonzo is about 4 or 5 years old and pretty much agreed with our assessment that although, he was put in the shelter classified as a "stray" he must have had an owner or owners at some point because he's incredibly docile.

And yes, before you even ask the question, yes I have already bought a scrapbook album for him and papers, stickers etc. There are actually some popular paper lines like Ki Memories and Flair Designs that carry scrapbooking supplies specifically for pets! And yes, this is crazy, but, I will be making pages about him too. (Some people dress their pets, I will be scrapbooking mine.) He is, after all, now part of our family!

My name is Janet, and I'm an AWFUL Blogger...

For the handful of you who even look at this, I am truly sorry. I have no excuse. Things just get real busy around here. So mea culpa mea culpa. Sorry.

As you can see, we had a great Christmas. (Christmas. When was that? Like almost 2 months ago!!) The boys got aiong great with their cousins. Joe is super sweet and Tabitha is simply amazing. That girl is a wonder. She is so beautiful and independant. She really held her own among the boys. Sammy was so smitten that when they had to go home after the first day they came to visit, he cried because she had to go. He kept calling her "Tabida, Tabida...".

Joe and Henry really bonded over Joe's computer and Henry's Nintendo DS that he brought along with him. They both got a Dr. Who Sonic Screwdriver for Christmas and they spent the majority running around in pretend play.

The weather was milder than usual, although it still rained. Louise and Keith took all of us to a place called JUMP for Tabitha's 2nd birthday. There they had all sorts of structures to climb and slide on, ball pits, and a trampoline. Henry's favorite part, by far, was being able to shoot the plastic balls from a cannon on top of the structure to us down below. If Henry had his way, he would have spent every day of our vacation there. My only beef, and this is a little one, was that the exchange rate was awful high. It was basically 2 dollars for every English Pound. Expersive. All in all, the whole trip went by awful fast but, we had a great time.

It took some time for us to get over the jet lag. Poor Matt, who had consective trips to Vegas and San Francisco right after we got back, got so sick with the cold that his boss cut his trip short and I had to pick him up in San Francisco. Not to worry though, we've all fully recovered.

School is back in full swing for both the boys. Henry has started having spelling tests every week. He's doing really well - getting a perfect score every time!

In fact, he was doing so well that on February 11th I got up at 4:30 in the morning, stood in line for 5 hours at Toys R Us in the rain to get Henry what he's been coveting since last summer...The Nintendo Wii As you can see it's a total success. We got back from getting a Monday off for Lincoln's birthday, all Henry could say at school was "We got a Wii!!"

Henry's been really good though. He has to finish all his homework, work on his math facts, or do some reading before he gets to play. It's amazing to watch, really. I can almost understand why everyone wants a console. All the games are made so that you basically have to move around the entire time. The console came with a Sports game and then I bought two other games. Even I enjoy playing it and I am by no means a game fanatic. I guess there are some problems with specific games but, the ones we have, have been great to play.

Anyway, that's it for now. Again, I'm sorry for being such a bad blogger. If there is anyone out there who still looks at this, thanks and take care. Till next time.