Lame blogger

Okay, I haven't posted in almost a month. Lame, lame, lamety, lame. And I can't blame it all on "life getting in the way." Oh, I've had plenty of life the last month, it feels like it's been crazy, but I've had plenty of time to sit down for 15 minutes and post a blog. Laziness is a real downfall to my personality and I suppose my reality. After we get Maylee down to sleep, I just feel like totally vegging out on the couch and catching up on some TV on my DVR. So, sorry to the 4 people who read my blog. BTW, if you don't use Google Reader to read the blogs you subscribe to, I highly recommend it. I used to just keep up with the blogs using the Google dashboard that I have since I have a blog, but the Reader is so much better. You see the whole post and it's easy to visit the actual blog if you wanna leave a comment and such. Just a little suggestion.
So let's see. What's been happening? Hot weather. So we got Maylee's little inflatable pool out. The water was really cold, but Brandon and I put our feet in and enjoyed the sun on our faces and our feet in a nice cool kiddie pool. Maylee like splashing in it, but wasn't really interested in actually getting in. She put her feet in with us though:

Maylee is talking up a storm now and pretty much can communicate anything she wants with us. There are a few times during the day that I just don't know what she's saying and she'll get really mad and I'll feel really badly, but all in all she's doing so great. She's in that "terrible twos" stage, but I'd say she's a good girl 92% of the time. She doesn't always wake up in a great mood, but she usually breaks out of that funk pretty quickly. She watches entirely too much TV, but I do have to say that the TV's on, but she's playing with her toys or we're playing together and she doesn't always just sit on her tooshie watching TV. But if Yo-Gabba-Gabba comes on, her but is planted and she's enthralled. Of course when they get up to dance or something she's right there with them!
I mentioned before about catching up on TV on my DVR after Maylee goes to sleep. We actually still have some season finales we haven't watched yet. We haven't gotten to House or Chuck yet, but I hope to soon. My mom has been on us to watch the House finale, cause it's apparently really good. We LOVED the season finale of Grey's Anatomy, well as much as you can love a shooter coming in and trying to kill everyone, but the drama of it had us so anxious and sweaty. It was a couple of hours of really intense TV. One of our favorite TV shows, Burn Notice, has started for the summer. We love that show, great story lines and character, and it doesn't hurt that the main character, Michael Weston, is SO HOT. Wowza, he's a good-looking man!
My mom picked up a book at the library bookstore the other day, and I knew it would be a quick fun read, so I read it. It was the first Charlie Bone book, Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo. Well, it's the first in a series of 8 books (so far) and I've read the first 6 of them in one week. They're such easy fun reads, and pretty good stories. They're obviously for 10+ ages, but I'm not a book snob. I can read books for younger readers; I quite often do actually. Anyway, they're pretty good books and I've enjoyed reading them. At work, I'm listening to Blue Heaven by C.J. Box. This is not my usual kind of reading. First and foremost, it's a mystery. I don't read many mysteries at all. Not my thing really. But I read some really good reviews on this book, so I decided to give it a try. It's his first stand-alone book, all his others are in a series featuring a character. It's definitely keeping me engaged and I look forward to going to work to finish it. When I really get into listening to a book at work, I have to stop myself from checking out the book and just finishing it when I get home, but I try not to, because listening to a book at work makes the day go so much quicker!
Now onto scrapping. I'll just post a few thing I've done and be done with the huge post. That's what happens when you only post once a month! Sorry!

I'm so bad about not posting the kits I used for these pages. I've actually got to go to work now, so I'll try to edit this post later with the kits I used. If anyone needs to know right now, just e-mail me and I'll be glad to share.

Rain, rain, go away

    Hey everyone. I hope I don't have to start every blog post apologizing for not posting lately, but I'm sorry! I'm sure you all know how life gets in the way. Oh, and Facebook. That gets in the way big time for me, cause I'm addicted. I love seeing glances into people's lives and it's such a good keep-in-toucher. I love living in the era of technology. Just think what it's going to be like in 50 years. I personally don't think robots will have taken over the world or we'll be traveling by jet packs, but I think the technology will probably be pretty impressive.

    Things with me have been good. Maylee recently turned two. I'm so happy and sad and proud and amazed and a whole bunch of other adjectives. You parents know how it is. She really does amaze me. She is talking so well and can express herself. Oh can she express herself! She has (unfortunately) discovered the words "no" and "mine." Uuugghh. The "mine" really, really got to me when it first started. We had lots of talks about sharing and whose turn it was and such, but right now we're trying the "ignore it and maybe it won't be such a big deal" way. We'll see how it goes.

     It's been raining a lot in my neck of the woods. And humid. Man, I hate humidity. Makes my skin so clammy and chilly, but I'm burning up at the same time, you know? Today it's rainy and chilly, and it seems a little late in the year for that. I personally don't mind rain, as long as I don't have to go anywhere in it and I LOVE a good storm, but the tornado warning and stuff take on a whole new meaning when you have a little one to keep safe. For us, rain also means a muddy front yard, which in turns means Maylee can't play outside, even if it's a nice day, if it rained the day before. We have an area in front of our front deck that won't grow any grass because it doesn't get hardly any direct sunlight. So if we're outside and the rest of the yard is perfect, Maylee will be drawn to that patch of mud, of course. I guess we need to plant some bushes there or something. I'll have to give it some thought.

     Okay, I hear my girl waking, so I'll post some quick scrap pages I've done and be gone. Don't have any of her birthday done yet; I'll get there eventually!

                                  My usual monthly page, done with elements from Cuddlebeez.

    This page was done with the Mother's Day kit from Summer Driggs. This is such an awesome site I recently discovered.

  This page was done with the Mel Hains kit Chicolate.

And one more, done with the Lovely kit from Delicious Scraps.

Quick post

  Just a quick post before I go to work today because I haven't posted in a while and that makes me a BAD blogger! Things have been hectic but routine around here. I really do love my job, but I'm so happy to come home to Maylee. She's (usually) so happy to see me when I get home. She waits at the window for me to drive up and then starts jumping up and down and yelling "Mommy!" It's one of the most wonderful things in the world!
   So most of you who know me know that I'm a singer and in high school was in all the choirs, theater and stuff. I also did it for my first two years of college and tried a little community choir after that, but wasn't really into it. I miss singing with other people. Anyway, I mention this because I've been listening to a podcast called Mouth Off all about contemporary a cappella music. I never knew how prevalent it was in America. They have turned me on to such amazing music, and if you listen to it, it's all done by the human voice. That might not blow you away just reading this, but if you listened to it, you'd be amazed. We're talking drums, bass, guitars...the works. Check it out if you want...it's amazing. And the two guys who host the podcast are fuuuuunnnnny, too.
  Pictures with Maylee went okay the other weekend. Could have been better, could have been worse. She's just a typical (almost) 2-year-old and if we're outside, she wants to be PLAYING, not posing and smiling. Val got some beautiful shots and we were even able to get a few of Brandon and me that we really like. We got two family shots that are pretty good.
  We have a family reunion I'm looking forward to this weekend. It's always fun to see the family I only see once a year. Thanks to the wonder of Facebook, I've been able to talk to a lot of them much more often now, and I feel like I actually know them a little better. That's wonderful, I think. I know it'd be better if we actually saw each other more, but Facebook is better than nothing!
  Maylee's birthday party is coming up and I'm trying to plan it. It's going to be a small affair, but I guess that's okay. A lot of people aren't going to be able to make it which is a bummer. I try not to let my feelings be hurt, but ultimately I just want Maylee to have a fun day. Here's the invitation I made for her party:

If we were inviting a child, we also included a burned CD (I know, I'm illegal and going to children's song jail) of Maylee's favorite band, The Laurie Berkner Band. I made a little CD cover to put in the CD sleeves that looked like this:

If I didn't think people were thinking I invited them to just get presents (that's not it AT ALL!!!) I would invite so many more people. I just want people to celebrate with me! My child is two. Isn't that amazing to everyone in the whole universe??? It's not? Just to us? Oh, fine.

Does that make me crazy???

  I'm starting to lose it a little already this morning, and it's only 6:15! We're having our pictures done today by Val, and I'm starting to freak out a little. I guess mainly what I worry about is that Maylee won't cooperate. She's been VERY strong-willed lately...you know, testing her limits and all. And I really want a family photo this time, so I hope it goes well.
   I'm trying to anticipate what I'll need today and try to bring some stuff to distract Maylee, but nothing's really coming to mind. And I have a HUGE zit, courtesy of some meds I recently started and stopped because they broke me out so badly! Yep, I'm losing it!!!
  Wish me luck. Well, wish all of us luck. It'll be fine. I'll be fine. Maylee will be fine. It's fine.

Just a random aside, here's what it looks like off my back deck now. Welcome Spring!!

This is what it looks like off my back deck in my fantasy scrap world:

I put this together in like 5 minutes, so it's not great, but it's cute. And yes, that's a turtle with an umbrella. All my friends know how much I LOVE turtles!

Springtime!

   It's an absolutely gorgeous day here. It has been the best weekend! Last weekend, which was Easter weekend, was so gorgeous, too! I just hope we don't skip right from Winter to Summer. I like chilly mornings and nice afternoons. I know I haven't posted in a while. I thought about posting all the time, and was just too lazy to do it. I've been doing a lot of scrapping and have been having fun hunting down freebies. I just can't say enough how much I love Digital Daisy's website. She does all the work of hunting them down and puts them all on one blog. How convenient is that?! Inevitably, I find a site she has posted that has all kinds of other freebies, so I have to delve into that new site. It's like treasure hunting!
   We're having our pictures done by a photographer friend of mine next Saturday (yes, that's my baby under recent work on her website!). We do this about every six months with her. It's nice to have connections! I just love how relaxed it is...we usually just play outside and Val takes out pictures, and they turn out wonderfully! I just hope Maylee cooperates and lets us take a family picture this time. Last time she was TOO busy to let us hold her and take pictures. Here's a layout I did of that photoshoot. I used the freebie kit "Promise" from the Shabby Princess. This is actually the first digiscrap layout I ever did!

  Maylee and I are both getting over infections; ear for her and sinus for me. This sinus infection has held onto me for almost a month now. And of course, allergy season is starting, so I'm coughing and snotty for another reason, now! She and Daddy are at the park right now, and my house is actually clean, so I have a little time to myself. I'm doing my usual...sitting at the computer. I'll leave you with one of the Easter layouts I did. We had 2 get-togethers, one for each side of the family, and I only have one done. I used the Sunrise Sorbet blog train for this one. It's hard to credit these kinds of things, because so many scrappers contributed!

I also finished the March layout. As usual, I used the 365 kit from CuddleBeez.

Oh, and one more:

Midnight ramblings

   I actually went to bed early tonight. But you-know-what happens, you know? I've been fighting Maylee's runny nose all day, and seriously, all of the sudden, like one second it didn't and the next it did, my throat started hurting. Then got progressively worse very quickly, so I went to bed early. Except my poor baby's waking up every hour crying. So I got up and gave her some Motrin, hoping it'll help. She's still not the age where she can tell me what hurts. I know she doesn't feel well generally, and she doesn't have a fever as of now, but what if her throat hurts or she has a headache and can't tell me? I figure Motrin just in case doesn't hurt anything, even if absolutely nothing's wrong (even though Mommy knows SOMETHING is).
   We had a pretty icky day today. Daddy was out fishing with a friend all day (lucky dog), so it was just me and Maylee today. I didn't want to just stay inside all day, so we went to the park to play. It was much colder than I first thought and very windy, so we didn't stay long, which made Maylee very angry! We played on the playground a little and then ran around in a field, kicking a ball. I figure it was her first soccer game, you know? There were a whole bunch of kids in the next field over practicing baseball, and she kept saying "baseball" and trying to run over there. Girl after my own heart, but I told her she had to let the big kids practice and she didn't like that at all!
  I think I made the decision tonight to join a gym or class of some kind. I am very overweight and really want to be healthy for my girl. I actually enjoy exercise, but some of it is very difficult for me because of the size of...well, my chest! And certain exercises hurt my back, which I have constant problems with, but I do actually enjoy exercising, though one would NEVER guess that by looking at me. But I have to do something while I'm still relatively young. Maybe if I put it on my blog, I'll become sort of...responsible for my actions to my "readers." You know, all 3 of you. So many of my Facebook friends post about how they love Zumba or Hip Hop Aerobics and stuff like that, so I haven't decided if I'll do something like that or actually invest in a couple personal training sessions at a gym. The former sounds more fun, but the latter sounds more structured and more like what I need.
   I did find time to do a little scrapping this morning. Maylee's turning 2 in about 5 weeks and I've tried to scrap her 1st birthday many times and have never been very happy with what I've come up with. I got this really cute birthday kit from Modern June Designs. For free! I'm finally really pleased with how it turned out!

I like the little cake-topper Maylee. Cute! I also did this next one a few days ago. I learned how to use a new design element in digiscrap called photo masks. They're great and make things really easy!

I made this last one a few days ago as well. I have so few pictures of Maylee and me together that I actually like, so when I get one (or a couple) I like to make a really cute page out of it! This one is from a kit called "Fresh" from the Delicious Scraps Shoppe. I love the little birdies!

I'm gonna try to go to bed now. Have a great rest of the weekend!

Little monster

  Only a mommy who is completely and utterly confident in her child's beauty would make a scrap page out of a picture like this! I think it's incredibly cute, myself! I love when I click the button and the picture is hilarious!