Blah, blah, blog!

12/12 January....Bonus delivery on the 25th!

I love these Twelve On Twelve inspired posts.  Someday I plan to print my pretty grids and create a scrapbook or something.  Until then, they are fun little snippets of everyday and I think they are important to capture.  If you want to get in the game, here's how:

1- On the 12th day of the month (or you can freelance it and just grab 12 photos throughout the month) take some pictures!

2- Upload your photos to a Flickr and create a Photostream.  I name my photostreams "12/12 Jan 2010" for example to keep them organized.

3- After you create your Photostream on Flickr, copy the URL of your Photostream

4- Open a new window and go to the Mosaic Maker on Big Huge Labs.  Paste in the URL of your Photostream from Flickr and let the magic happen!

5- You will have the option so save the mosaic, post it to your Facebook page, print and order it or just stand back and admire your hard work.

For complete (and much better) advice, be sure to read the master of the Twelve by Twelve Challenge, Susan Keuter on her famous blog and sign up to get her fab reminders.  You'll be glad you did!


....and now...here's my run down of my 12/12 left to right top to bottom: 
1- Football food made, Vikings up in first quarter, the men in my life happy
2 - 4 MLK Day + no school + rain required craft intervention.  My girls spent hours creating shrink art jewelry.  Miss D went to work designing her bling.
5- Bella Boo warm and enjoying her sweater fireside
6- Got to love the rare sight of rain drops on the window with palm trees swaying in the wind
7- More detailed design work, broken up with hot cocoa breaks
8- Toasty blue toes by the fire
9- I loved the rainy days so much, I Facebooked two girlfriends and invited them to Corner Bakery to sit in the window and have coffee to "Play Oregon" for the morning.
10- Between Miss P and I we are tearing through the Pioneer Woman's cookbook.  We have cooked rib eyes in whiskey cream sauce, buttermilk biscuits, chicken parmesan, egg's in the hole (Jack had required 2 a day since mid December), PW lasagna, sour cream pancakes, OMG.....no wonder my New Year's resolutions aren't working!
11- School Pep Rally.  I'm ready for summer vacation.
12- Bella's butt.  Figures.
  
Now go do yours.

12/12 August...It's Been Awhile...

I miss these things...
From the top left to right:
- Miss P pausing from her Club Penguin igloo dance party to give me a smile - - Todd attacked our kitchen for the mid-year cupboard purge (I'm such a lucky girl to have a husband who just can't take it anymore and tosses the expired boxed goods for me!)
- Baby D sporting her Disco Diva hot pink sequined newsboy cap and matching gloves--she's my fashion girl. 

Next row:
- Our family control center with back-to-school notices and STAR test results (yes we are smiling big this week!)
- Fashion girl shot #2
- Did I mention Todd was cleaning the pantry today??

Third row:
- Definitely not an introvert
- Fresh tomatoes from our HUGE backyard garden (acres of growing grounds, I tell you)
- Our entry way table

Fourth row:
- Savoring that Kona blend...
- My never ending quest to get it together
- Jack's birthday gift waiting to get wrapped just in time to get unwrapped for  his birthday dinner party Sunday afternoon.

And those are twelve shots from today.  Four days late...but done!

12/12 weekend in July edition

This month's 12 on 12 upload covers this weekend's activities:

From top left:  (1) P washing Sergent after her lesson, (2) scrubbing the dirt well, (3) the girls selling lemonade at the Brighton store as a fund raiser do dig wells for clean water in Africa, (4) P enjoying her green tea Pinkberry frozen yogurt after her lemonade shift, (5) a stretch of the bike path along PCH in Huntington Beach where we rode Sunday afternoon,  (6, 7, 8 & 9) photos from the beach bike ride with Steve and Gina, (10) carne asada tacos we ate after our beach bike ride (11) Skinny Bitch & Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: funny books I picked up at Borders while browsing Saturday night, (12) T an I had a date night Saturday!  Sushi and Borders.  Do you see any conflict among #10, 11, & 12?  It was a very full, very busy, and very fun weekend!

Schoooooool's out for SUMMER!

We have a little "end-of-school-year" tradition around here.  On the last day of school my kids are allowed to take scissors to their grimy, torn, worn out backpacks they have come to hate.  I let them rip, shred, cut, and even kick the packs they have lugged around for the past 180 days of school.  It must be very cathartic for them, as they really love doing this.  Those backpacks are usually pretty cooked by mid-March anyway.  My kids complain and ask for new packs, but I buy them off with the promise of getting to "tear them up" in June if they just make it to the end of the school year.  P did impressive work on hers and left a pile of nylon in our driveway Wednesday night.

I feel like I'm coming off a solid week of kid parties.  I'm having a hard time remembering what day it is, because it has felt like Friday for three days now.  We started with J's baseball team party last Saturday and kept it going with 2nd grade water day on Tuesday, 4th grade field day Wednesday, last day of school pool party on Wednesday, and three parties yesterday alone.  Wait, what day is it again?

Here are my 12 on 12 for June, although some were taken on the 10th or 11th (forgive me, remember I'm confused):
2nd grade water day:


4th grade field day (I was at the park loading ice chests at 7:45) fun day!  Water balloon volleyball:

Would you believe me if I told you I sewed this purse for Corduroy Bear?  Well I did! Right after I hemmed Wendy's curtains last week:

Piles and pile of beach towels:

Ripped up toes from too much pool time.  Nothing like kids crying over bleeding blistered feet combined with junk food hangovers.

Come on TOMATOES!!! Not only can I not afford our produce tonnage anymore, but salmonella threats are depriving us of our beloved caprese!  Grow tomatoes.  GROW!

Cranky boy with a junk food hangover:

And what did I do to improve his mood and health?  Send him to the movies for more junk, followed by two parties back-to-back with cupcakes,pinata candy and a trampoline:

WHAT am I going to do with these three for the next three months?

Was that 12? 

Baseball closing ceremonies are all day tomorrow.  People are suggesting a pool party afterwards.  I think I'll go hide.

Twelve of Twelve Mother's Day edition

Happy belated Mother's Day!  I hope you had a wonderful day whether it was spent with your mom, with your kids, or in blissful solitude doing something that makes you happy!

I love Susan's Twelve of Twelve Challenge and wanted to participate this month. This 12 of 12 set features images of my Mother's Day:

From top left:
1.  My husband had the kids list the Top 5 Things they will do to make my life easier.  SO SWEET!  J also created a mini book for me filled with his observations and gratitudes.  These were the best gifts ever!
2.  D packed up and waiting with her gaggle of stuffed animals for Uncle to pick her up and take her to the ranch to see the new baby calves. 
3.  P looking up from her Simms game on the DS.
4.  Uncle and D, ready for trouble.
5.  Custom list pad I created for my Mom for Mother's Day from Design-Her Gals.com .  It reads: Life is  One Big To Do List! at the top and has her "gal" at the bottom. 
6. Farmer's market produce  on my counter ready to steam and puree.  I'm going to make some of those recipes from Deceptively Delicious (finally).
7.  D loving her "new bike" (J's hand-me-down Trek with 12" wheels that Uncle gave him for his third Christmas) She was trying to pop wheelies all the way to school this afternoon. She may just turn out to be my BMX rider.
8. New iPod skin I bought at the OC Marketplace Sunday morning.  Mom and I left early, hit Starbucks and shopped for treasure.
9.  J doing his dinosaur research on Enchanted Learning.com He has a diorama due on Friday.
10.  New red gingham shoes!
11.  New giraffe print with red trim purse!
12.  New red heart print luggage!

I just have to leave you with a close up of my Mom's likeness/Gal....isn't she cute?

12/12

I stumbled across a neat concept that will serve both my need to take more pictures and my desire to document the small details of our daily lives.  Cathy Zielske blogged about the Twelve of Twelve Challenge hosted by Susan.  I love this idea!  Simply put, it is a challenge to take 12 photos on the 12th day of each month and make a layout with them.  Cathy created a template for 8.5x11 pages to share and suggested a self-portrait would be a really cool thing to include to see how you might change over time.

I managed to get 12 shots on Monday.  I did not manage to pop them into the template or scrapbook them yet.  Nor did I manage to snap a self-portrait.  Maybe next month.  Oh, and I also jumped on board the 12/12 Challenge on the 17th.  It is kind of like making P and J's time capsule on their first birthdays and Baby D's on her 5th....better late than never, right?

Here goes:

First photo of the day taken about 6:30 AM--making lunches for the kids' Bentos.  I started with cooking up some peas and carrots:

Then I threw in some green food color with the rice. It was, after all, St. Patrick's Day:

Baby D and her menagerie of stuffed animals.  Where we go, they go:

Baby D's spring toes. 

Helping me with the Monday chores:

Spring strawberries are the BEST right now.  We go through about six quarts a week:

My photo storage and organizing mess:

Time to make dinner.  We bailed on the veggie panini and noshed on caprese salad instead. 

T was determined to celebrate St.Patrick's Day with his frosty mug:

P's Leprechaun trap.  She said she wanted to make it an inviting party scene to fool the Leprechaun into coming in. That bowl marked "Gold" in the middle is full of a yogurt, chocolate syrup, powdered paint and glitter mess.  We made her keep it in the garage.

J's Leprechaun Trap.  I was pretty impressed with the revolving trap door and hidden pirate coins in the bottom. He also barricaded the door to his room and placed ramps and arrows directing the Leprechaun to his trap:

This shot was technically taken the next morning, but I asked J to recreate the scene he found when he woke up. It looks like the Leprechaun avoided the trap, but managed to steal the pirate coins, bottle caps and miscellaneous gold, but he left the Irish flag and some Rollos.