Confessions Of A Scrapaholic

One Doggone Cute Movie

Time for another Family Movie Night post. I've got to say, I have been having so much fun planning our F.M.N.'s. Thoughts of movies and possible props/treats are constantly running though my head. I'm sure I could be putting my brain power to better use, but it is what it is. :) Zoë and Kelly are really enjoying themselves too. Zoë talks all week about Family Movie Night. These regular family dates have become a highlight of our week. In case you couldn't guess from the title of the post, we watched 101 Dalmatians this week.

I had not seen this movie since I was little (neither had Kelly) so we were all eager to see this one. All I could really remember about the movie was that there were lots of dogs (duh) and that Cruella Deville wanted to make them into a coat. The treats were easy enough. Cookies shaped like dog biscuits, served in a doggie dish. Hehehe. The props were a bit of a challenge. Fur coats would have been lovely, especially considering the snow we've been having...but come on now, where am I going to find little fur coats? And what would I do with them after we watched the movie? Instead we went with character masks and coloring pages. (I taped popsicle sticks to the back of the character masks so that Zoë can play with them like puppets since having the eyes cut out kind of creeped us all out.)

So did anyone else have Family Movie Night this week? I would love to see what you did. Make sure and post a comment with a link to your blog so that I can check it out. :)

I'm Sorry, I Must Be Hallucinating.

I just emerged from the office for a quick bite to eat, only to find that it is SNOWING outside.

In Seattle.

In March (almost April.)

I have laid off the drugs ever since I got pregnant (ha!) so I don't think I am hallucinating right now. What the heck is going on!?!? I bet Kelly is really glad he drove to work today instead of riding his bike.

I am expecting a mocking phone call from my mother at any moment.

Alright, back to work for me. Quicken calls.

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes + A Freebie

I was trying to come up with a catchy title for my blog post and now I have that stupid Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes song stuck in my head. The worst part is, those are pretty much the only words I know to the song. I don't even know who sings it. Ack!

So, things are changing around here. (Body shape aside. Although let me just say, the red licorice I received from the Easter bunny has not been helping matters. But dang is it good!) Kelly moved his home office into an actual office office last week. He was able to find a building that met his needs and is only about 2.5 miles from home, so he rides his bike everyday. I am very proud of him! That is pretty much the only positive thing I can say about his office right now. I liked having him at home! Not that I saw him much, but he would eat breakfast and lunch with us and I could tell him when dinner was ready. He would take a coffee break and come upstairs for five minutes or so throughout the day... Now he gets home around 5:30ish and spends about an hour and a half with Zoë before bedtime. I shouldn't complain. Really, we have been spoiled having him home with us for these last three years, but I do not like the fact that he is spending so little time with Zoë. I know this is the norm for most households, but I think the norm sucks. I am trying to keep a positive attitude, but I am not pleased about this at all.

On a happier note, Zoë got accepted to The Little School. I told you about this school last year. They have a Progressive Education Philosophy which I think Zoë will thrive in. It sounds very much like a school Kelly would have enjoyed as a child. What is progressive education? Here are some of their key tenets:

• We see humans as natural learners. Human beings are born with abundant curiosity and an innate desire to find out about the world they inhabit. A key responsibility of the progressive educator is to nurture, support and fuel this desire to learn.
• We emphasize the child's role in the learning process. Children construct knowledge by acting in the real world and reflecting on those actions in a supportive environment. We pay as much attention to the process of learning as it its product, because doing so provides valuable insight into a child's thinking.
• We believe that school communities are important arenas for experiencing democracy and we seek ways to integrate democratic decision-making into all areas of institutional operation. We foster critical thinking and encourage students to have a voice and to speak their mind. We support their developing social conscience and sense of social responsibility.

One of the reasons we decided to go the private route is because The Little School offers a full day 4 year old program (Monday-Friday.) Things are going to be getting pretty hectic and crazy around here come September, and I would love for Zoë to be learning with friends during the week while we adjust to having a new baby in the house. I will admit, Kelly and I both had a bit of sticker shock when we saw what tuition is going to be, but I think it will be worth it. That being said, the Bellevue school district is one of the top in the country so we want to transition her to public school in first grade.

Now have you have stuck around for this loooong post you deserve a freebie! I received my Hawaii Album from Shutterfly the other day and it turned out beautifully. I was most impressed with the custom cover. It is beautiful and vibrant without being over saturated, and it looks like it will hold up to little fingers. The layouts themselves are also beautiful. The only bummer is that the photos on the inner edges are partially bound into the gutter of the book. The Shutterfly preview showed it printing perfectly and I spent hours adjusting it according to the preview. Ugh. It doesn't bother me enough to spend hours readjusting everything and having Shutterfly reprint it though.

Now for the freebie. You can download the 24x12 template I created for my Hawaii Album here. I wouldn't use this with a Shutterfly album, but it will look fantastic in a traditional post bound album. (I created my layouts as one 24x12, then cropped each side of the layout to 8x8.)

An Enchanting Movie Night

I have been waiting semi-patiently for Enchanted to come out on DVD ever since Zoë and I went to see it in the theater. It is an absolutely darling movie and I was dying to see how it ended. Why? Because about 45 minutes into the movie Zoë decided that she was bored and wanted to go home. Ack! I agreed because really, it would have just been unpleasant if I had forced her to stay in the theater. I was wondering if she would make it all the way through. She is more of a cartoon kind of girl. That being said, ever since we saw part of Enchanted in the theater Zoë has loved Giselle. She saved up her gold coins (she earns them for good behavior) to buy a Giselle doll, and has played with her everyday. I took that as a good sign.

Nana was here from Spokane and got to participate in movie night with us. Accessories were easy this time around. We have crowns and dress-up clothes galore and our house, although I did buy Kel and manly crown. No sense making him wear a tiara. He is a good sport and all, but come on now. That's just mean.

For treats we had Apple Dumplings which were fantastic. I got the recipe from a friend of mine and not only are they yummy they are super easy to make. Zoë rolled the apples up in the crescent roll dough all by herself. Here is the recipe. We give it two thumbs way up.

APPLE DUMPLINGS

2 Granny Smith apples
2 cans Pillsbury crescent rolls
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla
cinnamon
1 small can Mountain Dew

1.  Peel and core apples. Cut apples into 8 slices each.

2.  Roll each apple slice in a crescent roll. Place in a 9 x 13 buttered pan.

3.  Melt butter, then add sugar and barely stir. Add vanilla, stir, and pour over apples. Pour Mountain Dew around the edges of the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

We also enjoyed Virgin Appletinis, otherwise known as apple juice in sugar rimmed glasses. :) A note to parents of toddlers: They will get this everywhere. We switched Zoë to a princess sippy cup after she spilled apple juice everywhere. Oops.

Kelly and I really enjoyed the movie. Zoë, not so much. She told us she wanted to go to bed at the exact same spot she wanted to leave the movie theater. Ugh. Kelly was able to coax her into staying a bit longer with a hotdog but that only kept her there for about another twenty minutes and then she said she wanted to go to bed. All the while Nana was sleeping on the couch. Nice. So, like I said, Kelly and I liked the movie, but that was about it. Don't let that deter you though, it really is so cute. Zoë just prefers cartoons. I was going to try this movie for movie night next week, but I think instead I will go with this one.

Please Unsubscribe Me.

This is two weeks worth of mail, with 99% of the junk mail filtered out. What the heck? Now, you may be thinking that this looks like a normal amount of mail for two weeks but keep in mind that most of our bills are sent to Paytrust. And we don't get many catalogs anymore because of Green Dimes. This is what remains. Ugh.

I hired a nanny to come watch Zoë today while I spent the day in the office getting caught up on book work. I still haven't gotten our tax information to the accountant. Bad Maegan! I normally have everything to them by the end of January, but not this year. Now that my morning sickness is gone, I can work on getting everything caught back up. I got the Quickbook files for our companies up to date, but our personal finances need some work. I am one of those crazy people that documents everything. I can tell you how we spent every single penny last year. Seriously. What can I say, I wanted to be an accountant when I was little. Everybody's got to have a dream, right?

As it turns out, I am spending most of today getting ready for Kelly's grandma Millie to arrive (or Nana as we call her.) Since we canceled our Easter trip to Spokane we decided to fly her over. For a woman who can barely see she sure has a knack for finding the single speck of dirt in a house. Of course, now that I live four hours away, I am better able to handle her little, shall we say "quirks." That being said I am still cleaning like a mad woman. Zoë's room is done, but the rest of the house needs some sprucing. Thus far I have washed five loads of laundry, loaded and run the dishwasher, and touched up the paint on the lower stair case and first floor. (All without caffeine mind you.)

I think my bookwork is going to be bumped to next Friday when yet another nanny will be coming over to play with Zoë. I need a good eight hour chunk to get everything sorted, entered, and filed. Breaking it up into little hour or two chunks in the evening (after I am already tired) just has not been happening. On the plus side, Zoë loves having a nanny come over. Technically they are just babysitters, but 75% of Zoë's little friends have nannies, so that is what she calls them. No kidding. When I drop her off at preschool at least half of the women there are nannies. It is a interesting phenomenon in Bellevue. The fact that we live about ten minutes from Microsoft could have something to do with that. I do like that we are trying nannies out right now though. After baby #2 arrives we will have a full time nanny for at least the first six weeks while I am recovering from my c-section. With Kelly traveling like crazy and working out of the house now (I'll post more about that later) I will definitely need the help.

Alrighty, that is enough stalling for me. Time to make some lunch and get back to cleaning. Have a wonderful Easter!

It's Here! It's Really Here! (Spring, that is)

It's spring! It's spring! (Picture me singing and dancing around while you read that.)  Now try again.

It's spring! It's spring!

This morning I refused to wear a coat when I dropped Zoë off at preschool. It is spring now after all, and I froze my ass off it was still really cold! I was going to stop by the local nursery and pick up some flowers for our front flower beds, but I really wasn't motivated to go walk around outside and browse the flower section. Maybe this afternoon when it warms up a bit. And no, I still don't plan on wearing a coat. I'm done with winter. It's dead to me. It is now spring. I don't care what the weather man says.

I finished up the Library of Memories, Lesson Two last night. Can I just tell you how weird it is having homework again? Granted, it is scrapbooking homework, but still! Anyhoo, I was reading my weekly handout and came across my new favorite scrapbooking quote:

"I believe there is a difference between scrapbooking pictures and scrapbooking memories. When you scrapbook your pictures you may or may not be preserving your most important memories. When you learn to scrapbook memories (with pictures) you begin to truly document your life and you set out on an amazing journey of awareness and gratitude that changes your outlook." -Stacy Julian

Isn't that fantastic?! That quote has changed the way I will scrapbook forever. I am going through my "To Scrapbook" photos this week and purging all of the photos that I have kept there just because I felt I had to scrapbook them. They don't necessarily tell a story (except for maybe a family event)  and that is not what I want to focus on. My early layouts/journaling focused mainly on who, what, when, where and why. Frankly, that is barely interesting. I want to document the stories.

I finished this layout on Wednesday (before I did my Lesson 2 assignment). It is not a terribly noteworthy memory, but it was a fun family event. I scrapped them because of Dani Mogstad's new kit Bowl-A-Rama. I just love her work. She is one of my very favorite designers. I have had these bowling pictures lying around for years and couldn't really find anything to coordinate with them. Well, now I do. So expect a couple more bowling layouts in the near future. Not that I go bowling often, but I have three two trips to the bowling alley that have been waiting for this kit. Oh, I used on of Heather Ann's new templates for this layout (also love her stuff) and I finished this layout in an hour. That is unheard of for me. Look how little Zoë is! Awwww.

Side note: Do you know what my least scrapped subject is? My dear sweet husband. I had no idea he had been so neglected. Sure, there are layouts with him in it, but none about just him. (Followed closely by me, there are three.) Expect some hubby layouts soon as well. I'm going to be an organizing/scrapbooking machine.

Speaking of which, I need to go purge/organize Zoë's closet while she is in preschool. Wish me luck!

Family Movie Night

A few months ago my friend Heather started Family Movie Night at her house. Not just regular movie night with popcorn, mind you. Movie night complete with coordinating treats and accessories. Well, that is right up my creative alley. Last Friday we jumped on the Family Movie Night band wagon and boy was it a hit!

Can you guess what we watched? If you said The Bee Movie the you would be correct. I thought this would be an easy movie since it had just been released, but do you think I could find a single bee related item anywhere? Um, no. That is OK though, I improvised. I bought some St. Patrick's Day antenna and chopped off the green shamrocks, strung some yellow ribbon through the wire, then super glued some black puff balls on the top. Viola! Instant bee antenna. We also had treats of honey sticks (also harder to find than I imagined...for anyone looking I found mine at Teavana) and Honey Nut Cheerios which we snacked on and strung on yellow ribbon to make necklaces.

It was a very fun night. One we will be repeating this Friday, probably with this movie. Now I just need to think of some fun coordinating treats. Hmmmm. What a fun new tradition. I see a themed scrapbook in my future...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This morning Zoë woke up to 25 green balloons filling her room. She then followed a trail of glittery green shamrocks through the house to find chocolate gold coins. Those sneaky leprechauns! We started the silly leprechaun tradition this year and I think it is a hit. The leprechauns are also planning to turn her breakfast of eggs and pancakes green as well. Oh, and let's not forget the green toilet water. Hehehe.

We had a good weekend. Very productive. I always feel refreshed on Monday when I have actually accomplished something during the weekend. On Friday I got Zoë's new bed assembled and her room is 100x better. There is so much more space in there and she LOVES her new bed. Sunday I assembled her new cubicle. Now I need to fill the cubicle with books and toys (after I do some weeding out while Miss Zoë is at preschool.) Next up is the closet. That one I have been putting off. Ugh. It will definitely require some sorting and donating. We are going shopping today to buy her some new clothes because she is outgrowing everything. I will post pictures once everything is in its place.

I also ordered my Hawaii Album through Shutterfly this weekend. I created a template for the album and voila! It really did make the process easy. Honestly creating the layouts was the fastest part, followed by the journaling and resizing. (Everything is from the Mahalo kit by Dani Mogstad and Miriam Lima.) Here are a couple pages from the album.

I swear, I didn't think I was ever going to get that finished. It took me longer to resize everything for Shutterfly printing that it did to make the flipping album. It really is my fault though. As you can see, the photos all run to the edge of the pages. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal but when you have to figure in the page bleed, trimming, and the binding of the book it can be a huge headache. I *think* I did it correctly though. I will post the 8x8 Shutterfly ready template once I have my printed album and make sure that it lined up correctly.

I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

Last September we got Zoë a big girl bed, a full sized bed to be exact. You may remember me mentioning that the bed barely fit into Zoë's room. (Or did I forget to mention that embarrassing little tidbit?) You see, I didn't actually measure the bed or Zoë's room before I bought it. My bad. I admit it. Seriously though, a full sized bed is not that big! Our problem? The bed and the bookcase style headboard + foot board practically touch both walls. The bed is so big that we had to put Zoë's dresser in the closet. The end result is that Zoë's room is constantly a disaster. There isn't room for anything. You can barely play. Things are constantly falling out of the closet because the flipping dresser takes up all the space. So, like I said...

I CAN"T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

In case you haven't picked up on this from reading my blog, I am not a fan of clutter. I am not a pack rat. I fully believe that everything has it's place. If it doesn't have a place then clearly you have too much crap.

I snapped. I admit it. Yesterday I bought Zoë a new bed. I bought her a new bed with the full knowledge that her bedroom furniture is barely six months old, and I don't even care. I can't handle the clutter anymore! It is the same bed her cousin Harry has (minus the big red tent.) It is just so cute and it has a slide. You can't beat that. Slides rule. My favorite part? We are loosing almost no floor space. Zoë can play underneath it and we will have plenty of space to store toys.

Admittedly Kel is a bit miffed about the whole thing but I have a plan. He is out of town until Wednesday so I am going to have movers come tomorrow and disassemble/move Zoë's bed to the garage. I have already posted it on Craig's list and with any luck it will actually be sold by the time he gets home (although I'm not holding my breath since Craig listers are notoriously flakey.) My brother is delivering the new bed om Thursday so I am going to try and talk him into assembling it with me while Kelly is working. I figure the less he has to be involved the better (and the faster he will get over it.) Good plan, yes?

Today Zoë and I went to IKEA and bought new bedding and organizational supplies. I plan on hanging these in her closet and placing one complete outfit in each square. Let the self dressing begin!

Cautiously Optimistic

I had my twelve week ultrasound on Tuesday...the one where they measure the baby's nuchal fold (neck). A thick nuchal fold can be an indicator of Down Syndrome. I am happy to report that everything looks good. Not that we were concerned at all, but it is always nice to hear. While I was there the doctor asked if I would like him to guess on the sex of the baby. Um hello?!?! YES! I didn't think they could see any of "the goods" at twelve weeks. They are not very obvious but I guess you can see the beginnings of the bits. Well........

All signs point towards GIRL! I just about jumped off of the table and started doing a happy dance. (Don't worry, I restrained myself.) I am not getting my hopes up too high, but I take it as a good sign that the doctor didn't see the beginnings of a little winkie. (Side note: I may just have to remove the baby widget from our family blog because seriously, the umbilical cord floating around makes the baby looks like it is extremely well endowed and it kind of creeps me out.) I am relatively confident in the ultrasound results because it was actually a doctor conducting the ultrasound, an obstetric radiologist to be exact. There are only about four hundred of them in the world. He's pretty good at what he does. I'm not saying that I am painting the nursery pink just yet, but I haven't been correcting Zoë when she calls the baby "She."

On to a totally unrelated subject, I did in fact finish my Hawaii album, but I am spending tonight tweaking the sizes so that it prints correctly. I decided to give Shutterfly a try and am thus far very impressed with their software. It is very easy to use and the album preview is AWESOME. Now if I could just figure out the printing guides. It is kind of making my brain hurt. I will post the album tomorrow along with the template I created just for the project.

Have a good weekend!