Half office/half scrap room

We decided to turn half of the office into a scrap space for me....and sometimes Emma. ;) So we bought some shelves and rearranged and here is the finished product:

Sledding

It warmed up enough today to take the kids sledding and snowboarding. We got kind of spoiled in Ames because across from our house was a huge hill to sled on and here it took some driving around to find a place that was adequate. The hill wasn't as big as we were used to, but this kids still had some fun.

It's beginning to look a lot like.....Valentine's day?

So we missed the boat on holiday coldness/winter/snow, but we've made up for it now. Here is what my lonely mailbox looked like yesterday morning before I took Kyle to school:

We had gotten a new/used snow blower over the summer and Rob used it yesterday morning and said it was a "beast". Unfortunately it snowed some more and blew a lot after he left so Emma and I had to go back out and shovel again before we could pick up Kyle from school. I didn't know the first thing about starting the snow blower so I used the shovel and got some cardio. ;) The nice thing about being "snowed in" was that I got to use my "new" scrapbook area and did 6 pages. I've also been using the hell out of stamps and that shit ton of 12x12 white paper I have. So good job, me.

Scrapbooking

I went scrapbooking last night with some friends at our local store. I got a few things done like Emma's birthday and some leftover Halloween.


I also moved my table into my office so now I can scrapbook at home conveniently with my stuff all right here. This has made Emma want to scrapbook with me. She calls it her "project":

Martin Mull

There is this art museum in the Quad Cities that Martin Mull, yes that Martin Mull.....Roseanne's gay boss, Sabrina the teenage witch's principal, Glad zipper bags spokesman. Anyway, apparently he facies himself an artist and donated some paintings to the museum to be auctioned off. The idea was that the museum would get all the profits. Check this shit out:


Fucking stick people. Stick people that look worse than my four year old could do. And the starting bid is $2000 per piece. Keep your day job, Martin.

Hmmmm, Let's see.....

What's been going on? Ummmmm, the kids went back to school, Kyle on Thursday, Emma on Friday.
I got all of my scrapbook pages in albums. I had something like 150 finished pages just sitting on my book shelf. So it took 4 albums and 4 refill packs to get them all put away. It's a nice feeling to get that done, but it was hard using my entire Michaels gift card on just boring old albums and refills.
I watched the series premier of "Dirt" last Tuesday in my Nip/Tuck time slot and I think it's going to be a good/raunchy/fun temporary replacement while I wait for Nip/Tuck to reappear.
We tried Z/Mariks noodle cafe in Clive and it was fantastic. Inexpensive, too. The meals are only about $5 to $6 and we had a buy one get one free coupon and kids eat free on Saturdays. Needless to say, we'll be going back on a Saturday.
Last night I watched Kill Bill volume 2 on TBS. My brother and I had gone to the theater to see it and we had rented it at one point, but I haven't seen it in awhile. The first one was necessary, obviously, but I like the second one better. I like to say "wakey wakey, eggs and bakey" when I wake my kids up in the morning.;) And I especially love when the 2 amazons are fighting in the trailer and Uma snatches Daryl's eye right out of the socket...then drops it on the floor and squishes it with her giant amazon foot.
Speaking of Uma's amazon feet....we rented "My Super Ex-girlfriend" on New Year's Eve and although it's certainly not the greatest movie, it was mildly humorous. At one point another character says to her "what are you going to do, kick me with your giant feet?!". I laughed so hard.

Ice skating

We've decided that we need to make our own wintery type activities as Mother Nature is not helping us out, so I took the kids ice skating today. They opened up a new rink in downtown Des Moines and it was small and cute and really was geared towards the non-skater. There was a grab bar all the way around and it might have been because it was about 45 degrees, but the ice wasn't super hard so you kind of got your grip a little easier. Last winter I took Emma to the ISU hockey arena and we fell down constantly, but today I didn't fall once. And I know it's not because I'm getting any better. ;) So here are the customary highlight photos:

SNOW!

I didn't think we'd see any for awhile considering that in the past week it's been in the 40's and 50's, but last night we got some. The kids took advantage and were out for a couple of hours this morning before it all melts away.

Happy Feet

Today I took the kids to the science center to see Happy Feet at the IMAX theater. A friend of mine had warmed me that her daughter had thrown up a couple of times while seeing it because of the motion sickness and the huge screen, etc. So I brought a gallon sized ziploc bag in my purse for Emma, just in case. Kyle and I had been to movies there a few times before, so I wasn't worried about us...just Emma. So repeatedly I told her "if you feel yucky, close your eyes" Then when we got in there, we overheard an employee telling someone about how when they had Superman there, they had people puking left and right. Great.
So the movie started....which was a really cute movie BTW, and it was full of music. Emma then became Happy Feet. I was no longer worried about her throwing up, but she didn't sit still through the entire thing. She was a dancing fool. Bopping up and down on her seat, trying to tap dance in the aisle, twirling, you name it. It was damn adorable and now I'm guaranteed to buy it when it comes out on DVD.

He was delicious

I heard that Gerald Ford died yesterday and here's what it made me think of:
http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=23031&where=

Post Christmas

Whew! That was quite a week. Christmases, here, there and everywhere. We made out like bandits too. My mom, Emma and I went shopping today, came home with bags of stuff and I still have 3 gift cards I haven't even touched yet. Gift cards are the greatest gift. I get to shop with someone else's money. What could be better? ;)
Here are some random pictures of us during our holiday festivities:

Busy Day

I was running around like a crazy woman today. Emma had her Christmas party at preschool, plus I had to go to the post office, library, and Target. Then back to her school for her music program. Then I realized I had forgotten my camera. Every other moment of her life is recorded on film, so I figured it was high time she actually had to use her memory for something. ;) Then I brought her home and had to got to Kyle's school for his "family tradition" presentation. I remembered my camera for that one.




Then after school Kyle had a doctor's appt. in Ames, so we had to get there in 20 minutes. We were only 2 minutes late, so we made some good time.

Dick in a Box

So when I heard Justin Timberlake was going to on SNL again, I was excited because his last time hosting was a good one. I was right, it was a funny ass show. My favorite was the SNL short "Dick in a Box", which was totally "Color Me Badd" circa 1991.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkKyn1tHpqs

They even had Jimmy Fallon back on to do another episode of the Barry Gibb talk show. It wasn't as funny as the first time around, but still humorous.
"Talkin' 'bout chest hair, talkin' 'bout crazy cool medallions."

Quick little book

We had our scrapbook group Christmas party on Sunday night and I got some stuff to do some football layouts. Kyle had requested that I make him a little book, as he's seen me make many of them for other people. ;) So I took that opportunity to use some of my new football themed items to make his book. It's just a simple spiral bound chipboard book, but I think he'll like it.

Santa and Jolly holiday lights

We took the kids to see Santa at Dahl's yesterday and then Jolly Holiday lights. It was holiday merriment galore! ;)

Years

I can't even remember the last time I was drunk enough to puke. It was years....maybe even before I was pregnant with Emma. But last night was apparently my night. We went to Rob's work Christmas party. They had it at the banquet room at the Comfort suites and had some really yummy food...plus free alcohol. So Rob kept bringing me more and I kept drinking it. Ugh. I'm a light weight anyway because I don't drink that often, and it was bad. Room spinning, puking, waking up at 4 am wondering how the hell I got in bed. The works. So I laid around all morning because my inlaws had the kids and now I'm feeling much better. Rob even went out and got me some ice cream because that was the only thing that sounded good this morning.
So the party was fun, but get this.....I was commenting on how much I liked the table centerpieces and while we were eating dinner they announced that the oldest person at the table could take the centerpiece home. Guess who that was? So cool that I got to keep it, but not cool that I only got it for being a hag.

ABC Family

I love this 25 days of Christmas that ABC Family does. I swear I get more excited about these shows than my children do. Last night was "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". You know, the one with the Burgermeister Miesterburger.



And the other night was "The year without Santa Claus", the one with Snow Miser and Heat Miser. I still knew all the words!
"I'm mister snow miser, I'm mister snow. I'm mister white Christmas, I'm mister 10 below"....you know you were singing along! ;)

Funny things my son has said

Out of context of course, because that makes them even funnier:

1. I've got a beaver and I'm not afraid to use it!

2. Spaghetti (in an Italian accent)

3. Oooo, baby....she is hot for me to kiss.

4. She's pretty like someone who isn't a mom(and I replied "actually she is a mom") Well, she's prettier than my mom, then.

5. That must be how Grandpa got his mustache, by drinking too much beer.

6. I don't want to be hit by lightening because then everyone will see my skeleton.

7. Ewwwww, you're going to poop her out?!

8. Tasfer!

9. (While driving past the local strip club) That's the place that Grandpa took me to get some coffee and talk.

10. That must be how they make soap, by melting down poisonous snakes.

Holiday stuff

Last night we had our Mom's group Christmas party. Rob was disappointed that I didn't come home more drunk and frisky...but too bad for him. ;) It was a good time. We got all gussied up, ate some awesome food, drank a little and played that game Catch Phrase for hours. It's fun when you have that many people. Plus my team won.....again!
Today we took advantage of the cold weather.....like 10 degrees....and just stayed home. Rob got us some movies. The kids watched Ice Age, the Meltdown and we watched the DaVinci Code. And I did some crafting. I decided, just today that I wanted to make an altered clip board to use as a countdown until Christmas. So I went through all my stuff and here is what I came up with:




I was pleased. Especially because it was just stuff I had on hand and nothing I bought just to use for this purpose. I get satisfaction from that. The idea is that you make cards with 24 numbers and each day the kids pull off a number so they know how many days until Santa comes. Emma couldn't have cared less, but Kyle thought it was cool.

Get this!

So when we got back from MN after Thanksgiving we had a ton of messages on our answering machine from people wanting to get estimates on roofing. We had no idea what the hell wsa up with that, but then the calls kept coming. Finally I found out from some guy that this roofing company in town had our number on their yellow pages ad. The new phone books came out last week and sure enough in bold type is our number in the ad. I looked them up under the business section and their real number is only one digit off from ours. I called them to let them know what had happened and the lady was like "you've got to be kidding?!....do you know how much we had to pay for that ad?". I didn't know what the phone company could do, but I figured these people should still call and bitch. I was not very excited about the prospect of answering all of this company's calls for the next year. So today a guy called from some law office representing "Dex"...aka, the phone book". I was thinking that the roofing company must have really given them hell if it had already been sent to litigation. Anyway, so the guy said that the phone company "is prepared to offer us $300 to change our number". Holy shit! He gave us the weekend to "think it over" so I'm going to act really put out by it and see if they'll give us more. ;)