Greetings from Disneyland

We've had an exciting week, a lot of travel, and our trip is coming to a close.  Matthew has really enjoyed his week long birthday celebration, and in light of recent events in his life, he really deserves to have a really happy birthday. And Sofia has benefited by association, and has been living it up at Disneyland; she's already stated very firmly that Sleeping Beauty's Castle is hers!!

It's been a really fun weekend, the time just flew too fast.  I got to spend a lot of time with friends, scrapping and relaxing. John got to spend some time in Sac with an old friend and his family, and spent some quality time with Sof. Matty spent Saturday playing with Patti's kids while we moms scrapped the day away.  We are an exhausted bunch tonight!!

I love this picture of Patti and Diana working diligently during the Relaunch Party, with trusty Vaughn by their side. The poor guy just desperately wanted to go to bed!

I have the best time scrapping with The Girls, and everyone on the Scrap For A Cure forum is so kind and encouraging, it makes for a great group scrap with.  Here's the layout I did for my challenge, I've been wanting to scrap these pictures for awhile now, and I was thrilled to get a chance to share them with everyone by creating a challenge with them for the Relaunch Party!

Thanks Girls :)

And now that we're winding down from the weekend to start a new week, Sofia is as usual still running at full speed. While trying to get Matty ready for bed, I found Sof adding dress-up stuff to her ensemble instead of getting ready for her bath. I had to take a picture, she was just so thrilled with her pretty princess gloves, etc. 

Our countdown to Matthew's birthday trip to Disneyland is winding down, and I can't wait to see the look on his face when we get there. Have a great week everyone!

I didn't realize until today that my last post was in November!!  I knew I'd been procrastinating about posting again, but this is ridiculous!!  

We had a great holiday season, and I'm almost recovered.  A week after Thanksgiving I was finally and officially diagnosed with hypothyroidism, and I'm so relieved to have a reason for feeling so exhausted and run down all the time. The treatment will take a minimum of three months before I feel much difference, but after a few weeks I'm already noticing some minor improvements; and just knowing things will get better makes me happy.

One of my goals this year is to continue to take photos of the ordinary things in my life, and this is an example of one of those things. 

Sofia has developed a very strong opinion about her wardrobe, and what she's willing to wear at any given moment (this changes frequently throughout the day). The sweat pants were a compromise, since it is January, and she only seemed to think I was being mildly unreasonable.

This week

After reading my last post I've resolved to never update my blog after 10:00 PM ever again!  I apparently get rambly and punchy at about 1:00 AM!

This week I'm resolved to stick with two goals : 1. getting my artistic to-do's caught up; 2. and more importantly, make progress with potty-training.  Since the second goal pretty much dictates that me and Sofia stay close to home, I'm hoping the first goal will be more easily accomplished. 

Later this week I'm going to start a new project, and I hope anyone reading this will play along. Look for an update Tuesday or latest Wednesday for the post. And be sure to check the SFAC forum!

A Not So Wasted Day

It's amazing how, even though the goal of staying home for the last few weeks was (for the most part) achieved, not much was actually accomplished!  Today I celebrated the act of not doing much by spending it watching Patti and Diana work toward building their business. Some definite progress was made, and it was actually another remarkably relaxing day.

John will be back to work this week, and Sofie will start preschool "full" time, and my hope is that I will be more productive in the coming weeks. My friend Diana just wrote about how there never seems to be enough time in the day for all the things she want to do, and yet there are people who seem to conquer the world on a near daily basis. My dream for this week is I become more like these "world conquering" people!  The first goal : potty-training.

Sofie has already had some potty success (could Election Barbie be forgotten!), but now it's the time to hunker down and get serious. My plan to conquer the potty? Stay home for anything but school, and spend the bulk of our time sitting on the potty reading books and singing every song we know. Grandma has already offered a fabulous bribe....a family trip to Disneyland if Sof can be trained within the next month!  Sofie is already addicted to watching the Haunted Mansion intro (scary!), and singing along with the birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room on the Disney website.  Anything to keep her motivated!!

Fingers crossed we'll have success!!   And advice is always welcome.

What a week!

Just when you think you've seen just about everything, something new appears. This is Election 2008 Barbie, and Sofia picked her out all by herself; Sofia earned a treat for going potty at Les Schwab, her first public potty success (it was the cleanest public restroom I've ever seen!).  She insisted she wanted a Barbie, and I relented. I offered Bridal Barbie or Fairy Barbie, but once Sofia saw Election Barbie it was the only one she would consider.  Election Barbie comes with a cell phone, computer, and an Inaugural gown. We're not sure of Barbie's political leanings, but she makes Sofia happy.

It should be a very hectic week, between John's surgery and the onset of the cold season; Matthew's been home for most of the week with a fever, and I seem to be falling victim to it as well.  I've decided, however, that unless it's critical, no one is leaving the house! We have enough groceries and household items, and Netflix and Kindle continue to provide entertainment, so as a family we have no excuse to not relax after the chaos that has gone on since spring. As John likes to joke, we need to "stop and take it all in."

It seems this election has been going on for years, and when you do the math, it almost has! I heard somewhere today, that this election process has been going on for the last 20 months, which is about two thirds of Sofia's lifetime! While I'm excited about the prospect of change, I'm just as thrilled at the idea of no longer having to listen to the mud slinging and political rhetoric of a campaign.  To that end, I wanted to do something to celebrate this event, and have decided to treat the day as a "new years" of sorts; and besides, because John as surgery on Election Day, we've already voted via absentee ballot, so now all that's left to do is sit back and enjoy the democratic process in action.

I've decided to spend the next two days working through my current creative to-do list (shown above), while watching one of my favorite documentaries, the History Channel's "The Presidents" series. I find it strangely addictive! And whenever I work on a huge project, such as painting a room or finishing a lengthy to-do list, I turn this on; since it lasts 6 hours it gives me a fun and easy way to gauge my progress. 

I will be posting pictures of some of my completed projects, and the kids in their Halloween costumes later this week!