January 31st (31/365)

Okay so remember yesterday's post about procrastinating and how I or we waiting until the last minute to buy the decorations for Ethan's party... Well the invitations were emailed (which worked out pretty good) and well his party was today and his actual birthday was on January 12th! (oops just a little procrastination...for the record it is just soo soon after Christmas) =)

Of course today's photo I had to choose one from the party!

(To add I think he was laughing so hard because the football candles were dripping brown candle wax and well he is six now you can only imagine what his little brain was thinking about!)

Some fun tidbits about the party

• Only one parent stayed for a while (a good freind & her daughter hung out w/ us while her mom had a meeting)
• Met some great parents (so nice to finally meet the parents to the kids Ethan talks about all the time)
• Boys and Girls were invited, can you say lots of door slamming and OMG lots of giggling and screaming on everyone's part!
• The "quiet game" worked wonders at the start of dessert LOL
• 2hrs was just about perfect length for the party
• Todd and I both took a nap after the party while the 3 kids played
• The pin the tail on the donkey that he just had to get, wasn't even touched!
• I took a photo of Ethan with each of his friends and I plan on printing them and using them as the thank you cards

Another year and another party in the books!

January 30th (30/365)

So if you know me then you know I'm a procrastinator (okay a big time procrastinator). So guess we were doing tonight...Yup Ethan and I hit the party store. Now I was a bit surprised that they didn't have more options to choose from and it was a little hard to keep Ethan on task. Lets just say he loved looking and touching every tiny party toy they had! I was happy Ethan agreed that he liked the football theme...it worked perfect with the superbowl being the day after his party!

The party bags are all ready, everything is set up and now to just finish cleaning up tomorrow and have a great 6th birthday party!

January 29th (29/365)

Today was pajama day at school. Since Ethan goes to school everyday it has been nice that he hasn't missed the fun events like he did last year! I thought it was only fitting that he got new pj's for the special day. (I picked up a couple pairs on clearance--Bumblebee & Mario Bros)


I was even able to get a scrapbook page done with today's photo of the day. I loved that I had the perfect kit for it. See the layout credits here!

January 28th (28/365)

Ahh February is almost here! Today's photo of the day was a pretty easy one! Our checkbook!

I am pretty sure it is NOT ready for the new month to be here, it wil be getting a work out!

• House Payment
• Daycare
• School Tuition
• normal expenses (gas, water, electricity)
• Truck insurance
• Car insurance
• Monster Truck Tickets
• Down payment on Summer Vacation House
• School Auction (no I don't have to have the huge painted canvas w/ handprints on it, but would really love it)
• Car needs new brakes
• Washer is on the fritz
• oh and I'm now only working 32hrs a week!

Gotta love a short month!

January 27th (27/365)

It was TWIN DAY at school. We scrambled for an idea on Sunday and thanks to Dana's quick thinking she came up with this idea! The principal liked it soo much that she asked if it was okay to send their picture to Creighton University's admissions office.


Ethan loves her sweatshirt...we may have a hard time getting him to give it back to her! =)

January 26th (26/365)

Hmmm some mornings can go smoother than others. Some mornings we have tantrums, some mornings both kids get up, get dressed, eat breakfast with out a fuss at all. . . sometimes I give in a little (I know shocker) and let Bella go in her pajamas, basically whatever gets her out the door in a timely manner and without screaming and crying!

Today this is how she went! She went her black leotard, black tights/nylons, her "high heels" as she calls them AND her pink ballet skirt! Gotta love how a 3.5yr olds mind works. (I did send other clothes with her to change into later!)

P.S. Don't you just love the two pig tails in the back! She requested them and requested they be in the low back, not on the side! Opinionated little thing!

January 25th (25/365)

Happy Baptism Day Little Stuart!!!!

We have been blessed with such great freinds...Their girls are the same age as our two and then there is adorable little Stuart! He is right about 6 months old and just the happiest lil guy you have ever seen! He didn't even fuss at baptism, smiled and was happy the whole time. OMG you should have seen his little tiny white suit!! It was great, he was great and we are blessed with great freinds!

Now speaking of babies... Check out this Baby's room! Some of you may know that I just love Ali Edwards, well she is getting ready to have a baby girl and I just love the mixture of stuff she has in her babies room! I could get soo much inspiration from the pictures! Maybe someday my kids rooms will actually be decorated and not just a mix/match of things!

January 24th (24/365)

Ahh Saturday is here! I had been looking forward to today for a while... Can you say girls night out! A freind was having a Lia Sofia party and there was going to be wine, desserts and lot of girl talk! Kelly (my freind) is going to start selling or well she is ... that was her start up party and I booked a party for me for late February! I will link you up to her site as soon as she gets it!

I had a great time, lots of fun to just get away and lots of chit chatting... I was having such a good time! I think we hope to try to do it at least once a quarter! I say lets put it on the calendar NOW! LOL ...

P.S. I got the necklace, bracelet, earring combo on the right side of the page! I can't wait to wear them!

January 23rd (23/365)

Being the all around office girl at work, well you hear things and sometimes know things before others... Today was the case! I knew C. was losing his job (laid off indefinately) and we lost our part time office helper TG. I don't know if or when she will be back...

While knowing this it made me feel bad for them and yet made me appreciate my job that much more and felt that today's photo was so very appropriate! MY DESK AT WORK!

Monday morning everyone in our "shop" has a meeting to learn more about how the company is doing and how we will all be doing our part .... I think we may be going down to 32 hours a week. No Friday, off early every day... I guess only time will tell!

January 22nd (22/365)

Ethan had his 3rd dentist appointment this afternoon and did the whole sha-bang, x-rays and all. Todd said he did great and Ethan said the x-rays were uncomfortable, but didn't hurt! Good!

So since I didn't remind Todd and he didn't take the camera to get the "action" shots at the dentist... I choose to spotlight his pearly whites!

Here we are a few weeks into my 365 photo project and I'm proud of myself... I haven't missed a day yet, been close a couple times, but I haven't missed yet! Also if you couldn't tell I haven't stuck to just one photo a day... so on that note I have to include one of Ethan reading to us!

P.S... Next time Bella gets to go to the dentist too! (She was actually quite upset this morning that she couldn't go with Dad too).

January 21st (21/365

My PEACEMAKER! Every month they have a theme at then at one of the weekly masses each teacher passes out certificates/awards to the students from their class that they feel most exemplify that trait. This months' theme was PEACEMAKER and the librarian chose Ethan as one of her peacemakers!

I don't think it was planned this way, but with the presidential inaguaration yesterday I think it is very fitting that this month was for Peacemakers!

Since yesterday was also Todd's birthday I didn't talk about all the hoopla! I love the history part of it. I love being able to say I saw that, I heard that years from now. Not just for political or famous people, but for sports and everyday things.

So in honor of my peacemaker I wanted to link you up to a few different items:

• President Obama's Speech
• President Obama's Letter to his daughters
• Jenna & Barbara Bush's letter to Sasha & Malia

May we all be PEACEMAKERS!

January 20th (20/365)

Happy Birthday Todd. It is a big one...your 40th! I wanted to do something big and special, but you said you didn't want a party! I listened and since it was in the middle of a week and shortly after Christmas I didn't push for anything. We actually spent a quiet night at home (not that your time at work wasn't good and Ethan threw a horrible kicking, screaming, yelling tantrum when you got home from school... I am so sorry it didn't go better for you...

Here you are on your 40th birthday...Here is to many more years!

A collection of photos from your Birthday night!

You can see credits HERE.

January 19th (19/365)

Today was Martin Luther King Jr day and that means Ethan didn't have school, so the kids spent the day with grammy & Papa R.... They brought them home to us and brought us these cookies!!! Yummy!

How cute they spelled out our names!

January 18th (18/365)

AHHH to be organized! I registered online a couple weeks ago and finally my new IKEA 2009 catalog arrived. I used to look at their website all of the time and dream about buying, but we didn't have a local store and they wouldn't ship all the way to me! Now guess what... it is an hour away! I have meant to go for a couple months now, but seriously in the near future I am going ... heck I don't care if I have to go by myself!

Months ago we converted our dining room into a playroom. We never used the space as a dining room and well besides the fact that you can see the room (aka mess) when you walk in the front door... I love having the kids playing soo close. It allows us to keep a closer eye on them! Curtains will be the next purchase (so I can have some division between the front living room and the "play room".

This is the storage system I have my eye on is called the trofast system.

I have been looking at this one:

or two of these slid together at their high points:

The next big decision will be what color of totes to buy! LOL

January 17th (17/365)

First of all I want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY mom! Nope won't say how old she is!

Today was pretty much the usual, clean clean clean and throw in a little playing. Todd wasn't overly excited about it, but I convinced him that bowling tonight with Kathleen and Madyson would be fun! He worked a lot of overtime this week and was pretty tired. We had a lot of fun, though I think Ethan was pretty disappointed that he didn't do better. You see he is used to playing the Wii bowling and getting high scores. OMG his high score the other night was 195 (on the Wii). I do look forward to bowling again soon, not sure about everyone else, but I really enjoy it!

I apologize now for the amount of photos... Needless to say I was very very pleasantly surprised at what great lighting there was at the Bowling alley (at least until they turned off the lights and everything white glowed!) Thank goodness I got my pictures in early!

Again I apologize for soo many photos... for the next couple of days I will only have one or two photo... I know too much!

Can you believe that I even got a scrapbook page done with these photos!

January 16th (16/365)

Dinner at the in-laws! Who can complain about that! Ethan had a 1/2 day of school today and they were nice enough to pick him (and Bella) up from school and take them back to their place. We headed out to pick them up (and get the old doors from their remodel for our new attic).Over the course of the last couple of weeks I've kind of thought about what our photo of the day should be and it was easily decided tonight when I saw Helen's pans on her stove! Loving her new flat top stove and well I didn't have to cook dinner (and did very little dishes) Sorry Helen!

January 15th (15/365)

I swear all the cable companies want to do is charge you more and more money every time you turn around. So not sure about everyone, but we had to convert all of our TV's (except the big screen because it has own digital cable card). So with out these handy dandy little boxes, cables and plug ins we can't get past channel 38.... Okay for some but I would miss my CMT, VH-1, E channel... you know that late night great tv!Plus a little slice of every day life in my car.... my large purse, sweatshirt both in the passenger seat. The pop and sandwhich and then there is the garbage in the door (that Todd hates).

Welcome to Lucy!

January 14th (14/365)

Every month the school principal takes all of the kids that have birthday's in that month to McDonald's for lunch. Well Ethan was pretty excited to go this year (last year the whole preschool class went together at the end of the year). To top things off he is the only kindergartener with a January birthday, he was sure to point that out to us numerous times. I switched my lunches around and was able to go with Ethan. It was fun and you sure forget how much kids have to talk about. =)



Since the school is only a couple blocks away they walk every month... Since I was the only parent that came along Ethan and I took up the rear of the line! I couldn't get to my camera fast enough.





We took the same photo last year and thankfully the principal, like me doesn't mind taking photos... Love having the capital in the background of the photo!
You know I was fully prepared to just stick to these two photos today ...was so excited had the photo of the day planned out ahead of time and no pressure for the evening etc...

But then I come home to this:

Our sweet little Bella throwing a screaming, coughing, gagging tantrum because we won't let her put on a dress (which by the way has to always twirl). Her room was messy before but then she proceeded to dump the whole box of stuffed animals...

I don't think I can even count the number of clothing items on her floor or the number of times she changes her clothes each day...

P.S... If she ever asks, "Can I play in my room?" Just say NO! That is her code for I'm going to ask if I can play, but as soon as I get in my room I'm going to change my clothes. I just don't know what we are going to do with her.. Do I take all her clothes and put them out of reach, let them pile on the floor, please tell me she will grow out of this phase and fast!

January 13th (13/365)

So far all of the photos of the day have come pretty easy. I either had a really good idea of what I wanted to take a photo of things just happened and the opportunity was there! Today I wasn't too sure and then Ethan was walking Dad out the door for work and wal-la...my photo op!

Ethan has always been such a Daddy's boy and I get such a kick out of watching them do all of the "boy stuff" ....dirt, trucks, legos, you know the list!

January 12th (12/365)

Happy Birthday Ethan! It is soo hard to believe he is already 6! Where in the world did the time go...Seriously just seems like yesterday we were holding him for the first time! It is truely amazing how quickly the time has passed. You are in kindergarten this year and as smart as a whip! You amaze us everyday and we couldn't be more blessed to have you in our lives!!

We took brownie muffins to school for your class for snack, you got to where the birthday crown. All of the kids wrote in a birthday book for you! That will definately be a keeper for your school album (Thank you Becky Higgins sorry it was a monthly kit no longer available).

Grandma & Papa H came in and we had pizza delivered and then played some Wii (golf & new Mario Kart)

So of course I couldn't just pick one picture today... there are a few!

Ethan did the tie to school thing all on his own. I actually picked out a red and blue polo (yup he has to wear a uniform) and he kept saying no the white one...there wasn't a white one and I finally realized he was talking about the button up shirt so he could wear a tie. Of course he got lots of oohs and ahhs when he walked into the school and his classroom!

I ended up picking out one of those singing cards for him. If you can't see the front it is a Star Wars Clone Wars .... I think he almost liked it better than the rest of his gifts! =)
Well of course some Legos... you can never go wrong there!
Ethan was pretty stoked to get a driving game and well even more excited to have his very own remote that no one else is suppose to use!

Last but not least the "cake and ice cream" ... so since it was just the few of us we kept it simple and used a brownie for his cake and then there was ice cream!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUD!

January 11th (11/365)

Headed to Grammy & Papa R's today. Jay and Cara (and the boys) are up! So we had a mini little birthday celebration for Ethan...his big day is tomorrow! We had a late lunch, presents and then dessert! Don't they all look like they are enjoying their homemade ice cream sandwich cake? (Bella 3.5yrs old, Ethan 6 tomorrow, and London 3 in a couple weeks).We just can't forget Dalton (@ 16 months)...Check out those big brown eyes!
and well Miss Bella! On the way to G&P's house I turned around in the car to see if she had fallen asleep yet and this is what I saw!!! Purple Bear, Pink Blankey and safety glasses! LOL I guess she was a little worried about Daddy's driving! =) For the record we made it safe and sound!

January 10th (10/365)

Today was a lazy day, very basic. A little cleaning, a little playing, a nap for Todd. Simple and nice, but as the night got later I was like what "what is our photo of the day going to be"? Todd suggested I take one of him just laying around since he felt so lazy. I was fine with that (it is a family venture and I want everyone to be a part of this....a part of the decision about our photos. It is all about taking the time to reflect a year in "OUR" life.

With that said when I grabbed my camera to start taking a few pictures of Todd laying around Ethan hurried and grabbed his too! These are the photos I captured of Ethan shooting with HIS very own camera (Christmas 2007 present from Granma Peggy &Papa Jeff).

Did you notice our little "trick"? Look at the above photo again! Now did you see it? Okay okay what we did was tape a tiny piece of wax paper over the flash! It still allows the flash to flash, but I guess you could say it dilutes it so it isn't quite as bright! I know Ethan and I looked at before and after pictures and could really tell a difference! P.S.... I even did this to my Canon Rebel XT.

Ahh seeing this picture makes me proud! LOL He is laying on the family room floor, rotated the camera trying to get "the shot" of his lego creations! Okay so I guess you could say that he has watched me take one too many photos. Gotta love it!

January 9th (9/365)

Ahh Friday is here! The weeks go by so fast and can be soo hectic with both of us working and school/daycare for the kids! Nights are stressful and we have actually moved bedtime to 7:30pm or earlier (closer to 7pm) ... I hate doing bedtimes that early! At that point we have barely seen them and 3/4 of our evenings are spent cooking dinner, doing dishes, baths every other night and very little quality time together! If we don't do bed times that early with Ethan going to school all day he is soo tired at the end of the day; it is almost a must!

That brings us to Family Night! We have been trying to do take out and going to rent movies. Doing something together as a family! This Friday night really wasn't an exception, except for the fact that we did kids meals instead of the adult version (less leftovers) and we played Wii all together instead of renting movies and having popcorn).

Quick and yummy dinner from Panda Express. We are going to have to expand our Family Night dinner choices past Panda Express and Garlic Jim's (pizza).

and the game portion.... We are soo going to have to work on Ethan's sportsmanship. If he isn't the first player or the winner we can ever so quickly have melt downs! Part being that he turns 6 in a few days and that it is now "past bedtime"...Ahh a work in progress!

Here is to many many more family nights together!

January 8th

Let me just start off by saying sorry Grammy, it looks like your eyes are closed, but the other one I took was almost all blurry...so I didn't have a choice! =) Daycare had an appt today so Grammy & Papa were nice enough to hang out with Bella today and pick up Ethan from school.

What you don't see here is Ethan throwing a tantrum because Papa wouldn't play him Wii tennis with him... Ahh the week is wearing on him!

January 7th

Yesterday's photo kind of just happened and today I kept thinking to myself "What will today's photo be?" I was worried I would forget at the end of the day, we just wouldn't get a good photo or it would be a forced thing! It turned out that Todd had to work some overtime and I tucked the kids into bed myself! Then it came to me....a Storytime photo! We did have to take a couple to get "the right angle" but it is something I've meant to document for a long time and the kids got a huge kick out of use the self timer! =)