Just When You Thought You Had Enough Board Games...

I think the end of daycare is starting to sink in for Connor, because now he's driving me crazy with his boredom. He's playing less trains (an individual sport), and turned to board games, where I think he's figured out it takes two to play, which is what he's after. We probably have nearly 20 board games on top of the shelves in our tv room, but they are all geared towards older kids. I dug out this Blues Clues Memory game for him. Aaah, Memory, a classic game. It was probably my favorite when I was little.

For once, I turned the camera over to someone else, so I could be in a picture. Dani was playing with us, so she took the pics.
Connor was so excited to find matches, although most of the time we pointed them out for him. He kept screaming to get another match, and by the end of the game his eyes were bugged out, his face was red, and he was jumping up and down.

Can you recommend some games for 3-year olds? All I can think of is Hungry Hungry Hippos and Candyland.

End Post #14, 2009

Watch Out World

Emma's just bookin' it these days. She'll be walking in the next month or two. Here she is on the stairs tonight, the first time she managed to climb up all the stairs by herself.




Emma found the other binky tonight and was playing with it, so I clipped it to her. She kept switching back and forth between the two. I thought it was funny. She's been "self-medicating" for a while now. Two binkies - I'd say she has plenty of "meds."

End Post #13, 2009

Little Cookie Chef

Yesterday, I promised pics of Connor helping me make cookies for VT. Here's the chef:

This is Connor's standard picture smile, no normal pics for this kid. There's kind of a goofy streak in our family, unless we're trying to kill each other. I guess drama abounds, in one form or another.



End Post #12, 2009

Current To-Do List

Everybody has a list of things going on in the back of their head they'd like to get done. Here's mine, in no particular order:

1. Finish inventorying my craft junk, including the new stuff.
2. Get the website up and running, at least have a home page.
3. Get a final design for all my store pages on eBay.
4. Make sure to add sales, incentives, contest links to store page design.
5. Look into a store on Amazon.com
6. Design and get pricing on the mini page protectors.
7. Design mini-scrapbook covers for Accucut dies, make them "convertible", square, heart, circle, with "pins"?.
8. Design and get pricing on the lunchbox tins
9. Group and photograph all the punches and Sizzix dies to sell on eBay
10. Finish blankets for Project Linus, Relief Society service project
11. Do the daycare & craft business expense/income reports for taxes
12. Will I do my own taxes with a $79 software program, or pay someone $250 to do them?
13. Freaking sell this stuff in my craft room on eBay!!!!!!
14. Start making cards again
15. Card kits on eBay
16. Sometime in the spring, clean out and organize the garage again.
17. Build the modular boxes for my craftroom (really looking forward to having these done. I need them badly!)
18. Hang pictures on wall
19. More film developing & organizing old pictures.
20. Blog pictures from the past three months.
21. Drive stuff to Sue's house.
22. Design Mother's Day and Father's Day mini albums
23. Design RSHS scrapbook album
24. Once store is really up and running, and mini albums are in, advertise in the paper again, and on message boards at rec center & grocery stores.

I'm sure there are tons more, but that's what came out of my brain, impromptu.

Here's my log for today

6:45 am - woke up, exercised, showered, dressed
8:10 am - fed Emma, cleaned the kitchen
9:15 am - made cookies for visiting teaching, got me & the kids out the door
10:00 am - visiting teaching appt. to Irene Weber
10:35 am - back home, finished baking the rest of the cookie dough (Connor helped, I took pics, will post them tomorrow), washed dishes
11:35 am - get on the internet, check out party themes and cake recipes for Sue
11:50 am - work on my blog post for the day
12:05 to 3:20 pm - feed kids lunch, work on inventory, eat my lunch, play games with Connor, do laundry (oh, joy), fold laundry, give myself a pedicure (this means smoothing out my rough feet)
3:20 to 5:10 pm - help baby, do laundry, talk to kids
5:10 to 7:30 pm - shop at Smith's, cook dinner, eat dinner, feed Emma
7:30 to 9:10 pm - Emma's bath & put her to bed, looking for karaoke machine parts for Sue, some inventorying, more laundry
9:10 pm - scriptures with kids
9:30 to 10:45 pm - inventorying
10:45 pm - finish blog post, switch laundry, watch a little tv, go to bed

End Post #11, 2009

Time Log - Monday

I'm working on a blog post about the importance of follow-through, but I'm saving that for the end of the week, after I crack the whip on myself and give this week my best, to see what I can accomplish. I'm going to try to keep a journal of my time each day, to see how I'm spending my time, and where I need to change my habits. So, here goes today:

5:30 am - alarm went off
6:00 am - finally dragged myself out of bed
6:25 am - got out the front door, went to the rec center to swim
6:35 to 7:00 am - swam 1/2 mile in 25 min., 1 lap on my back, 15 laps freestyle
7:00 to 7:30 am - shower, dress, and get back home
7:30 to 8:00 am - eat breakfast (healthy cooked cereal with frozen fruit)
8:00 to 8:25 am - kids wake up, fix bottle, change clothes, pick up toys
8:25 to 9:00 am - eBay paperwork, invoicing
9:00 to 9:30 am - change diaper, back to invoicing
9:30 to 10:00 am - feed Emma, Connor
10:00 to 11:00 am - clearing out email, eBay messages, etc., change diapers, put Emma down for nap
11:00 am to 2:00 pm - clean out Dani's closet & storage space under the stairs
2:00 to 5:20 pm - ate lunch, watched a few episodes of my new guilty pleasure, Supernatural, and took a nap (in my defense, I didn't fall asleep until 12:30am/1am last night.)
5:20 to 11:00 pm - helped Dani make meatball spaghetti (she did a good job, made the meatballs by herself with lots of hovering from me, and darn it, I should have taken pictures!), played with Emma, gave her a bath & put her to bed, nagged kids, inventoried lots of my scrapbook stuff I ordered back in December, tried not to kill Connor who was bored and kept interrupting me, read scriptures with kids, more inventory-ing.
11:00 pm - now I'm going to bed, and will probably finish one of my episodes. Hope I get more sleep tonight!

End Post #10, 2009

My Spelling Bee Girl

About a week ago, Dani won the spelling bee for all the sixth graders in Rock Springs. She was so excited! The $50 bill they laid on her wasn't hurting, either. It started burning a hole in her pocket right away.

Then, this Friday, she went up to Western Wyoming Community College, along with other students from her school, to participate in the county spelling bee. Poor Dani didn't make it past the first round, where they administered a written test to all the kids. She was really upset, even though she studied this week. The irony is, I chewed her out/nagged her for not studying the previous week for her school spelling bee, which she wound up winning, but she didn't do so well when she did study for this one. I find the universe not cooperating with my parental concept of the rewards of hard work. Sigh... But Connor and Emma had lots of fun hanging out at the Atrium inside of the college while we waited for Dani.

The perspective on this picture makes it look small here, but the Atrium is a really cool place to hang out. They sometimes have various kinds of community concerts in there. There is also a cafe, and the cafeteria is connected to the atrium. I found myself wishing I could go to college there. Sometimes I miss the college days, that first feeling of being on your own, and actually being good at it. Plus, I was good at school, so that helped the ego. Now, I have a job where I manage drama queens, settle conflict, wipe butts, clean up other people's messes, and half the time they treat me like an idiot. Ahhhh, good times, good times...

Food for thought - if you could go back to college, what would you study? Me, it would probably be computers and something in the art department, like jewelry or pottery.

WWCC has wonderful displays of dinosaur fossils. Yes, the perspective on this picture is deliberate. Check out Foofie on the floor to get an idea of how big this dinosaur really is.
Another awesome pic! I should blow it up and stick it on the wall. "Ahhhh, don't eat me, don't eat me!!!!"
Foofie loves to crawl up to things and stand up. This is her standard photo face, sticking her tongue out at the camera. She's a spunky one!
I love the metal sculptures they have placed around the dinosaur bones. I'd love to have some in a garden someday.
I love this one, too. The great thing about these dinosaur exhibits is that they are placed around the halls of the main college building. No fees required.
Sometimes a girl just needs to take a few minutes and cry her eyes out.
Dani let me take this pic. I loved the way her eyes looked in the bright daylight. She has the most beautiful color of eyes, sometimes jade, sometimes aqua.
My troops.

End Post #9, 2009

New Hobby

Okay, seriously gotta redo my blog design layout, but that's for another day, or I'll never get a post done tonight! I pulled up my blog, and for some reason the background wasn't working. Well, I tried to fix it, to no avail, so I went with a generic template for now. I'll fix it later.

On to my post.

I've found a new hobby, jewelry making. Like, no way! (Yes, I have the tendency to collect projects, it's one of my weaknesses.) But, hey, I have at least finished my first project! I think it all started when Dani and I were in Roberts last fall, scoping out craft supplies, and we found ourselves in the jewelry-making section. I was captivated by all the beautifully-shaped beads and fantastic colors. I'm a sucker for color. So, Dani and I indulged in some pretty beads, and then they sat in my craftroom for a while (no surprise there.) I also gifted myself a jewelry-making book at Christmas. Enter the cute little binky chain clip Lora gave me when Connor was born. Alas, Connor refused the binky, but this time, with Emma, she was hooked! So, I brought out the binky clip, and it's been a wonderful way to keep track of the binky.

I temporarily lost the binky clip about two weeks ago (Connor hid it inside one of his toys.) I emailed the maker of the binky clip, sweetbabyboutiques.com or sweetbabybeads.com, to buy a new one and asked them to make it longer, but they refused to on the grounds that it's a choking hazard. I thought, "Whatever! The chain is so short on her now, that whenever she turns her head, it pops out of her mouth." Connor returned the clip ("Look, Mom, it was in the Pig!", part of a stacking farm animals set), but it broke a week ago, and I thought, "I want this thing to be longer anyway, so I bet I can fix it myself!" When we were in Salt Lake this weekend, I bought some more supplies, and lo and behold, I finished my first project this morning! It was so fast and easy, now I'm hooked, and I can't wait to make more! I may have to learn everyone's taste in jewelry, so I can start giving jewelry gifts!

Here's the original binky clip, measuring 6-1/2" from the clip to the end of the beaded loop. You can see where the wire wore out, and broke away from the clip.

My completed project! All I did was add little rainbow glass spacer beads between each of the original beads, and the new length is 8-1/2" from the clip to the end of the beaded loop.

I put a barrel clasp on the end of the chain, so I could make a variety of binky chains for the clip. You can see here, that it is detachable, so I can attach any cute chain I make. Unfortunately, today I discovered that the barrel clasp is a bad idea. I keeps twisting open, with this active baby! I'll have to restring it with a different type of clasp, but the detachable concept will remain the same.

End Post #8, 2009