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Monday, February 19, 2007

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.