What About Me

It was nice and sunny today, not too warm, but at least it was sunny. My favorite part about days like this is that my scrapbooking room is so bright and warm. I love it! It turns out I'm not the only one though.

That's Coco Bear sitting in my chair and in a few minutes more, Caramel will probably be joining her. I'm always getting out of my chair to use the paper trimmer or to get different supplies and the cats try to nab my chair as soon as they get the chance. Hmmph, doesn't leave much room for me, does it?

Well I did finish up with one layout today before the cats took over my room. I don't know how well it looks on the computer, the colors look better to me in person. The background and plain teal paper are from the Basic Grey Urban Prairie line, the rest are scraps I was trying to use up. I used my new upper crest border punch for that white strip above the pictures and I even embossed the white flower/swirl using my ancient scrapboss.

It was also our bowling day today so we went and played another two games. Rick has been researching proper bowling techniques on the Internet, so today he was "Mr. Expert Bowler Man". Whatever. I was not in the mood to hear any tips and my first game was pretty sad and sorry...I only scored a 72. Rick on the other hand bowled a 112, not to be outdone by his second game where he bowled a 131, his best score yet. I improved on my second game and scored a 112. Tyler bowled a 68 for both of his games.

This weekend is the winter carnival at the White Pass ski resort, you know the one with the giant snow castle and sledding. Well, we all have snow suits this year, so we are looking forward to a slightly warmer experience this time. It should be fun.

One Handsome Boy

This weekend I finally replaced our old Vidal Sassoon hair trimmer with a nice Wahl trimmer. The difference is huge, the new trimmer is less noisy and it cuts much cleaner. That makes Tyler happy, he was really starting to complain a lot about how the old trimmer was hurting his hair. I was also excited that the new trimmer came with a blending tool, because that is one of the hardest parts for me, blending the long top layer of hair with the shorter hair on the back and sides of the head.

Here is Tyler after his haircut last night. Now I certainly won't be opening a salon anytime...ever, but at least I can continue saving a little money by cutting Tyler's hair at home, that is until he gets big enough to have a say in the matter.

With such a handsome boy on my hands, there was only one thing left to do. Get out and enjoy National Pancake Day with some free pancakes at IHOP.

Yum, a free short stack of pancakes for every customer. I was expecting a line out the door, like they had at Denny's for the free Grand Slam last month. We didn't go to that one, but I saw pictures in the newspaper the next day. Anyway, the restaurant wasn't crowded at all, and we were seated right away.

With such a huge plate of pancakes, Tyler and I were able to sample all of the flavored syrups. I liked the boysenberry and butterpecan, while Tyler thought strawberry was the best. Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm!

Although donations were completely optional, IHOP had an ulterior motive behind giving away free pancakes, which was to raise money for the Miracle Children's Network. With such a happy, full belly, I was more than willing to oblige and left a small donation on our way out the door.

Red Beans and Rice

For dinner tonight I made a recipe for Red Beans and Rice that I saw while watching the Food Network. I thought it was crazy delicious. I mean it actually boggled my mind how good it was. Apparently, it's not the real deal from New Orleans, using canned beans and all, but it was certainly better than any Red Beans and Rice I've ever cooked before.

Yummy, doesn't it look so good? Even Rick the big onion-phobe ate it without a single complaint. Tyler said it was too spicy, but he still ate every bite. The recipe is here.

Then for dessert I made a cookie recipe right off the back of a bag of Hershey's Cinnamon Chips, called Oatmeal Cinnamon Chips Cookies. I was paranoid about the cookies spreading, so I ended up making the bar cookie variation. They turned out very tasty indeed.

On my way to the grocery store today, I stopped at The Craft Warehouse for a single sheet of cardstock. Well that's all I needed anyway, but somehow I stumbled across the clearance section and ended up with a couple of seriously good deals. All of the VersaMagic ink pads were marked down to $2, which is a great price for a full sized ink pad, so I got a handful of those. Then I found a K&Co tin of words, phrases and tags that was marked from $12 down to $3. I also found a few acrylic stamps that were marked down to $1 and some Cropper Hopper storage folders for $2. But all of my great finds were almost for naught because the cashier accidentally rung up a $10 item that I wasn't even buying. They have a list of barcodes by the register and instead of scanning the one for the cardstock, she scanned the one for some braided bamboo. Good thing I caught that one!

Saturday Roundup

Rick got home from Los Angeles late...late on Thursday night, well technically Friday morning. It was all thanks to another missed flight, but to be honest, I kinda saw this one coming. He had been working overnight the night before and then came back to the hotel to try and sneak in a few hours of sleep before his flight. Well you can see where I'm going with this....he slept in a little too late.

On the phone he said he was coming bearing gifts, so I tore into his luggage before he even had a chance to wake up. He bought a really cool top set at a toy store in the Santa Monica promenade as well as a few summer clothes for him and Tyler. He also cashed in my coupon for a free perfume at Sephora. I ended up choosing LaVanila, because out of my favorites, it was the best value. I really wanted Euphoria too though, maybe next time.

Here Tyler is playing with his new tops. The set comes with a handheld device that you can use to wind up and release the tops, it kind of makes getting a good "spin" foolproof.

Yesterday was our bowling day and we cranked out our usual two games. Tyler had I had the same scores for both games...him a 73 and mine was 110. Rick improved from a 96 on his first game to a 116 on his second game. Our scores are decent enough, but Rick and I are trying to work on our consistency. I'm trying to figure out how to aim better, because half the time I have no idea where my ball is going to end up once it leaves my hand.

We also stopped by the fitness store yesterday and took a look at some PowerBlock dumbbells. They have a set of adjustable dumbbells that goes from 5 lbs to 55 lbs in 2.5 lb increments....just what I'm looking for. The local store sells the PowerBlock for the same price you would find online, but with the additon of sales tax instead of shipping, it comes out to a lower total cost. I tried to wheel and deal directly with the PowerBlock company, I asked if they would match Bowflex's current offer, which is a free stand with any dumbbell purchase. Well, they said no to that, and now they are "out of stock" of the dumbbells I was looking at. Grrrr, I'm just trying to get a good deal!

I'm Not Seeing This....

....again! I know she knows better, I know she does! Of course that is Caramel who likes to sit on top of Max's cage, the more pesky of our two cats. Max doesn't seem to mind all that much though, he never even says anything about it. Maybe they are friends?!?

All Quiet

We dropped Rick off at the airport yesterday, so it's going to be a little bit more quiet around here this week. I say this as Tyler is running around the office bouncing a balloon in the air and shouting nonsense the whole time, maybe not so quiet after all! Anyway, Rick is helping out with the switch to the digital signal at the Los Angeles facility, where they are keeping with the original date of Februrary 17th. So he'll be back in a quick few days if everything goes as planned.

It's been raining for the last few days, which for once, I actually don't mind. It's a light rain, so it hasn't really stopped me from going out and getting my errands done. Today Tyler and I hit the stores to check out the President's Day Sales...the craft stores that is, The Craft Warehouse and Joann's.

I picked up these border punches at Joann's. They were 40% off and I had an additional 10% off coupon, so they were a good deal. I was deciding between these and some basic shape Sizzix dies, like hearts and stars, that I could use to cut felt embellishments for my scrapbooking pages.

Speaking of scrapbooking, this is my latest layout. I used a Page Map by Becky Fleck for the layout design. The title font is from the Cuttin' Up Cricit Cartridge and the bookplate is from the Fabulous Finds cartridge.

Valentine's Day

We went to Lowe's this morning for the Build and Grow Clinic, but we got there way too late and they had already run out of kits. It's too bad too, because it was a jewelry box and I was actually looking forward to that one. Oh well, next time Tyler and I will leave "Mr. Sleepy Head" at home so that we won't be late.

Surprisingly, Tyler didn't mind too much about missing the craft. But then again, he did have much bigger plans on his mind. We had tickets to see the PlayHouse Disney Live Show in Kennewick. It's the perfect show for him too, because he loves watching PlayHouse Disney cartoons. The funny thing is that is was originally a one day only, one show event. The first time we tried to get tickets to the show, they were already sold out. There must have been a lot of interest though, because they finally added a second show and that's the one we were able to get tickets for....but not just any tickets, front row seats!

Here we are in Kennewick, standing in front of the river for our annual Valentine picture.

We have taken Tyler to see the Live Diego show, Sesame Street Live and now PlayHouse Disney, and this was by far my favorite of the three. It incorporated all the main characters from the Little Einsteins, My Friends Tigger and Pooh, Handy Manny, and of course, Mickey Mouse ClubHouse.

Intermission Time! Tyler was checking out the little baby girl that was sitting next to us, who happened to be a major Little Einsteins fan.

The show ended around 6:00 p.m, so we stopped to eat before heading back home to Yakima. Our new groovy GPS system showed us all the restaurants nearby and we decided to eat at Applebee's. When we put our name on the list, we were told that it would be an hour wait, but we were actually seated in about 10 minutes. I had the Quesadilla burger and fries and Rick had the Margherita Chicken. Not Bad. Tyler had the normal junk from the kid's menu...Blegh.

Bowling Day

We have made Fridays our regular bowling day and have gone consistently for the last 4 or 5 weeks. None of us are terrific players, but we still have a great time and look forward to the next "match". I don't know that our scores have improved that much over the weeks (even with the use of bumpers), but Rick and I sure have improved out technique. That is to say, if we didn't have to play with bumpers, Rick and I would be throwing a few less, what would otherwise be gutter balls. Here are our scores from our two games today....

Tyler 89, Me 99, Rick 90....that's right, I kicked butt (well, kind of).

Rick won the second game with a score of 104, but he totally cheated a couple of times, bouncing his ball off the bumpers. But hey, I guess we were all guilty of that one! I came in second with a score of 93 and Tyler came in third with 88 points.

I'm all ready to go back next week...apparently, Rick informed me today that I was holding the ball the wrong way. I was using my thumb, index, and middle fingers instead of my thumb, middle, and ring fingers. I'm such a geek! We'll see if correcting my fingers makes any change in my score.

A Little Afternoon Fun

It was lightly snowing for the majority of the day yesterday, so I took Tyler out in the backyard to try and "catch" snowflakes.

Let me tell you, if he caught any snowflakes in those little fists of his....I don't think they're going anywhere, anytime soon!

These are the cookies I was making yesterday, the Cran-Orange Icebox Cookies...they are in the Country Woman Christmas 2008 Annual Cookbook. Cranberry isn't the first thought that comes to mind when trying to come up with a good Valentine dessert, but I thought they looked kind of festive, being pink and all.

Here is how they turned out...not bad, huh? The whole time I was making these I was remembering the last time I made butter cookies that came out of the oven like thin crispy wafers...not a good thing. I don't know if it was the weather, random luck, or maybe the fact that I used my kitchenaid mixer, but these cookies came out like a dream. And they taste great too. The recipe makes 4 dozen cookies, so I sent a couple dozen with to work with Rick. If he comes back tonight with an empty dish, I'll know they went over well.

Three New Pages

Here are the latest scrapbook pages I've been working on...

I found the idea for this layout in a Creating Keepsakes magazine. I wasn't too sure about it as I was working on it, but I think it came out nice. I like the idea of using seasonal photos...it's almost like a mini year in review.

Here is my Halloween layout...I didn't get that many great photos of the big event, so that's why there's only one photo on the page.

And finally, my Thanksgiving page. I used some gold rub-on "stitching", but I really wish I had just pulled out the sewing machine and stitched for real....it probably would have looked a little better.

It's snowing outside right now, not that heavy, it's more of a wet snow. I couldn't have planned it more perfectly for tonight's dinner, though. With a temperature of 33 degrees outside, it's perfect weather for a nice hot bowl of soup. Mmmm, I'm making Ham and Bean soup tonight....it's going to be good!

Then after dinner Tyler and I'll be making some cookies. They are Cran-Orange Icebox Cookies and the dough is getting nice and hard in the fridge as we speak. The butter content is fairly high, so I'll be crossing my fingers with these cookies. Usually buttery cookies end up nice and flat, like crepes, when I'm baking them...so we'll see how they turn out this time.

Just the Highlights

Yesterday was the first Saturday of the month, so I took Tyler over to Ace Hardware to do the craft project. This time the craft was Valentine Key Chains. The kids chose which color cord and which charm they wanted to use. Then they simply threaded as many beads on the cord as possible and then tied the charm on at the very end.

Tyler finished his craft in a flash, and since we were in the neighborhood, I had to stop and take a look in Joann's. They have a few new DCWV paper stacks in stock and I was looking at the border punches that were on sale....I almost made it out of there with nothing, but then I saw the stamps! Some new Inkadinkado $1 stamps....I couldn't resist, so I brought a few home.

When Tyler and I got home from our trip to Ace and Joann's, the mailman had already been by and dropped off a few packages. Rick thinks I need some new furnishings in my scrapbooking room that will help me organize my supplies a little bit better. To start things off, he surprised me with a Clip it Up. It's a two tiered table top unit with rotating arms that you can hang supplies on. Tyler did a great job helping with the set up, hanging up all those little clips.

Then in the afternoon we took Tyler to the Roller Skating Rink for the first time. It didn't go over all that well. He was really emotional...one minute he was happy and excited, the next minute he was upset and crying and wanted to go home. The wheels on the small skates don't really spin at all, so instead of being able to glide on the floor, Tyler just had to take a bunch of really fast, small steps.

There was a small rectangular shaped area that was separate from the main rink that smaller kids could use to practice on. Tyler tried using that for a bit, but he never would let go of the wall. Rick and I also took him around the main rink several times, each of us holding onto one of his hands, but that was kind of slow going and he wanted to stop after each circle around the rink. We decided that maybe we should wait until he gets a little older before going back again.

Go Red

Today is the National Wear Red day, a day to spread awareness that Heart Disease is the Number 1 killer of women. So of course, to show my support, I pulled out, what happens to be, my one and only red shirt.

We took this picture in our front yard, before we headed to the bowling alley. There was some pretty thick fog today on this side of town, so that's why the background of the picture is so "white".

Following today's theme of keeping the heart healthy, I was so excited to receive my latest Cathe workouts from the UPS man. I've had this on preorder for several months now, but I've finally got it in my hot little hands. It's a 36 disc, 3 month program that focuses on increasing strength and muscle. It requires some pretty serious weights, which I have yet to obtain, but hopefully soon I'll be able to find some at a reasonable price. Rick went to Costco to try and buy some Bowflex weights, but you know how our Costco is, they were all sold out. Figures. Oh well, I have plenty of other Cathe workouts that I can do in the meantime.

I made this new recipe last night from an insert in the newspaper a few weeks ago...USA Weekend or Parade, it was in one of those. It's a Turkey Tamale Pie with ground turkey, chili powder, a can of beans, olives and cilantro. On the top is a cornmeal mush, seasoned with chili powder and salt. Cheese and cilantro is sprinkled on top of that and then it goes under the broiler just to melt the cheese. I thought it tasted great, but Tyler complained that it was too spicy. Next time we'll have to cut back slightly on the chili powder.

A Trip To The Park and Some Cupcakes Too

Yesterday Tyler was bouncing off the walls like a wild monkey, so I took him to the park to try and tire him out a little bit. It was a warm 47 degrees outside, but there weren't any other kids on the playground. That kind of bummed him out because he doesn't like playing by himself that much. He ended up playing for only about 15 minutes, we spent the rest of our time walking and watching the ducks.

The duck pond is still completely frozen over, although it is starting to get slushy around the edges. The level of the ice/water is much lower than it normally is....I guess we really didn't get much rain or snow this winter.

The ducks were up on the grass enjoying a buffet of food. Some guy came along and tossed out several boxes of cereal (Fruit Loops and Corn Flakes) and threw bread by the slice. I never thought of it before, but I guess that's one way to feed a large crowd of ducks!

This afternoon, Tyler and I were hard at work in the kitchen making some Valentine cupcakes. I kept things simple and used a box of strawberry cake mix and plain white frosting. Tyler's big job (as always) was to cover the tops with red and pink sugar sprinkles. He said that they looked good enough to eat and I think I agree!

Photo Booth Photos

I set up the tripod and used the timer on the camera to try and take some at home "Photo Booth" pictures. We took these in front of a plain wall in our dining room and sat on an ottoman so that we would both be at the same level. These are a few of the better shots....



....and that's one way to pass a little time with a preschooler who never naps!

Morning Muffins

This morning I made new muffin recipe that I found in the new Taste of Home 2009 annual, it's called Morning Muffins. They have shredded carrot, coconut, nut, and raisins. I used unsweetened coconut and after I realized my raisins were as hard as rocks, I replaced them with chopped dates.

I thought they came out super yummy, but I should ask the muffin bandit who swiped one before they were even cool, what he thought.

Yesterday we took Tyler over to Michaels for the free craft, they were making Valentine Cards. We got there towards the end of the event and they had already ran out of kits, so they just gave us an array of paper, stickers, and foam shapes to work with instead. We didn't mind though, and we still came away with several cute cards.

So what do you think? The one on the left was a family effort. Rick tore the cardstock, Tyler adhered the foam hearts and I tied on the pink ribbon.

Rick had to go into work today, making sure everything runs smoothly for the Super Bowl. Don't want to disappoint those football loving DirecTV customers. Tyler and I already got the grocery shopping done today, so now we're just lounging around without much to do. I don't plan on watching the game, so maybe I'll start reading a new book...I finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle last night. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the stack of books I received for Christmas, and this time I think I'll pick something a little more lighthearted.