A Week in the Life: Monday

A typical breakfast: cereal+applesauce for K, kashi cereal for me, cheerios for A, and we all indulged in the cantaloupe. Waiting for breakfast...seriously Mom, what's up with the camera? Get in the kitchen and get me some food:)

Coloring while she waits...I plan to scan the picture (a lizard with a fancy hat, crawling into a hole) to add in the album.

After breakfast, A watching Sesame Street, K playing on the floor, me drinking coffee and checking e-mails, blogs, etc.

I think this baby is the toy of the week.

K not taking a nap.

Finally K fell asleep, so us girls headed out to plant some seeds (jalapeno peppers and cilantro). A made the planter at the festival last Saturday, we painted it Sunday, and planted the seeds Monday.

Gardening is hard work, so we had to have some Popsicles:) Aislynn took this picture.

:)

Playing teacher Barbie.

That ball in K's right hand=his toy of the week. He crawls around holding it, takes it into the car, errands, loves it.

Lunch

Both kids took an afternoon nap (VERY rare for A and we payed for it later...she finally fell asleep around 11 p.m.), so I did some chores...

and watched Morning Joe (thank you dvr). Normally, I am drinking my 2nd cup of coffee now and Shaun is drinking his first, and we are watching this. It was especially nice today since both kids were asleep (normally K is playing and A is coloring or they are having an afternoon snack).

Dinner. Turkey sandwiches for all, but only A got this cool plate:)

Bedtime story. Although K wouldn't stop staring at the tripod. Anytime that thing was present he was wondering what it was, see lunch photo above:)

Watching Life (thank you dvr). Then we read stories and put her to bed.

Scrapping for me.

*Quotes from Today*

• After going outside for less than 1 minute, Aislynn runs back in saying she saw a bee, then: "Bees make me freak out."
• After Kieran reaching for Aislynn's apple at lunch, she told him: "Maybe someday, when you're 16 or 20, you can have an apple."
• After Shaun changed some light bulbs upstairs: "Mom, we need to have a party for Dad tomorrow because he saved the day."
• While watching Life, specifically the part about chimpanzees...Oprah kept calling them chimps, and Aislynn said, "What are they, chimpmunks?"

New Do

I took Aislynn to get her hair cut yesterday, since she had been asking me to get hers cut since I got mine cut. It looks a lot cleaner and it is much easier to comb! I think it looks adorable too...she kinda looks older? This morning we started off the day by going to Seaside and taking a walk on the beach. The water actually felt like you could swim in it, but the it was kinda rough today. A had fun splashing and running around.

I love this one below...I like the footprints:)

And a typical pose...she always wants to do one of her ballet poses in pictures now. After the beach, we hit up the Farmer's Market again (which Aislynn refuses to call the Farmer's Market-she calls it the super market-because nobody is dressed like a farmer!). Then we headed home, put Kieran down for a nap, devoured this week's treat (apple carrot cake), ate lunch when K woke up, and headed to a Spring festival at one of the big shopping centers here. Aislynn had to get her face painted again: The poor kids were SOOOOOOOOOOOOO exhausted by the end of the day (and I am too!!!) because they got up a little before 7 and it was just a long day of being in the sun, and Aislynn jumped and bounced on the inflatable jumpy things at the festival. Kieran's morning nap was around 40 minutes and he didn't take an afternoon one. Around 6:30ish, I took him upstairs for bed and by the time I got to the top of the stairs, he was passed out!! I am planning on going nite nite pretty soon too, enjoy the rest of your weekend!!

A Challenge

Yesterday she painted. I taped together 6 sheets of big white paper and let her go crazy on the back patio. I gave her paint brushes, cups, cookie cutters, and showed her how to splatter the paint. I even suggested she use her hands and feet. She kept telling me over and over what fun it was...it was so awesome watching her do this and have full creativity:D She is taking a 2 hour art class Monday and I can't wait to see what she does there!Here is the finished product:I love that she painted "Mom" at the bottom and when she was done she told me she wanted to be a painter in a museum when she grew up. But ONLY a museum with girl painters, no boy painters. Haaaaaaa ha! This guy...always wanting a snack when he is in the high chair...here he is eating pasta while I was making dinner yesterday. The onesie he is wearing was Aislynn's. I got it in NY when I was about 3 months pregnant, and I found it in a box in Kieran's closet the other day:) It says "You are my sunshine."

The 2 of them together are quite the sight. All of a sudden, their brother-sister relationship is really blossoming. If Aislynn is irritating Kieran (like getting to close to him or taking a toy from him) he lets her know. And if Kieran will try to take something from Aislynn or pull her hair or lunge for her if she isn't looking at him, she will get mad. But the sweeter and more common side of the story is watching them giggle and laugh together. Aislynn is the queen of making Kieran laugh. Sometimes they are giggling away and I don't even get what's funny:) Today they were playing in this little pool (note to self: check dimensions on box before purchasing-this was waaaaaay smaller than I thought it would be!) and Aislynn was throwing water out of that little tea pot, onto the fence, and from Kieran's laugh, you would have thought this was the funniest thing ever:) His big giggles were making Aislynn laugh so hard...it was so so so cute!

The pool was the perfect size for just this guy though... My friend Candi challenged me to take 5 pictures without showing the subject's face, so here goes:

(1)

(2)

Love the splashing!

(3)

This was the perfect challenge to show off cute baby piggies:)

(4)

and to show off chubby, yummy baby hands:)

(5)

And now I have a challenge for my scrappy friends...make a layout based on this ad:

Here is what I came up with:

Just for fun, I thought I would post this for a challenge. I have quite a few ads I have ripped out for layout inspiration that I will post every once in awhile:)

And here is another page I whipped up tonight, it took me maybe 25 minutes? Something else I wanted to mention to my scrappy friends is about Ali Edward's "A Week in the Life" project. That is next week and I really really really would love for some of you to play along with me!!! I already talked to Shaun about it and he is going to help snap pictures and I am planning to basically leave the camera out of the bag for the whole week. I am also going to keep the tripod set up to help get some pictures too. I want to do this every year, the same week. I think it will be cool to zoom in on all the details and see how those things change from year to year. Anyways, I hope you will play along with me:) Read more on Ali's blog-link under my inspiration links to the right:)

A Special Day

All day Aislynn kept asking if it was time for ballet today because it was a special ballet day. They got their costumes today and she could not wait to get home and try it on for Shaun:) Here it is with the ballet skirt: And the tap skirt: I will have to sew the straps a little tighter...maybe I can actually use my sewing machine on something besides paper:P Yesterday we grilled for the first time this year and it was driving Kieran nuts seeing Dad and Sister out there. He kept banging on the glass door and yelling "aaaaaaaaaa," hoping to get their attention:)

Weekend Wrap-Up

I have been wanting to hit up the Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings for a couple months now and finally got the chance this weekend. You see, they close at 1 and we are usually lazy in the morning and usually don't venture out until after lunch:) It was smaller than I thought it would be, but still a REALLY cool experience. It is so neat to talk to the people that grow your food. I wish I had brought more cash with me, I could have gotten chicken, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, etc. Aislynn enjoyed all the samples...particularly strawberries and there was one stand with baked goods:) Here is what we got: Whole wheat veggie bread (Kieran really likes this, but A and Shaun aren't fans), cucumber, bell pepper, strawberries (these were soooooooo good and they looked so pretty too-the lady had just picked them the day before!), mixed bag of salad greens (that were picked that morning), a strawberry sweet onion (they plant them where the strawberries were planted-this was really good and actually smelled good), and a chocolate ganache cupcake-which was pretty much devoured after I took this picture:) Everything tasted so fresh and yummy and I can't wait to go back next week!! I just wish there was more stuff:D Afterwards, we took a walk on the beach and I was totally kicking myself for not bringing the camera, but at least I got to just enjoy the moment:)

I was taking pictures of some layouts, and the little guy was making a mess in his room:) He likes pulling everything off the shelves:)

I keep blocks in that red bucket and he dumped them out and was having the most fun banging his hands on it:) He wouldn't even let go when he was crawling around:)

She was reading. It is amazing how good she is reading now. She is paying attention to punctuation, and her sentences sound more smooth. I find her in her room with a big stack of books on her bed and she is reading. Or every time she goes potty or we leave to go somewhere, there is a book. Or when I am doing something in Kieran's room, she grabs a stack of his books to read.

Then she decided to dance. This is another "right now" thing. When there is music (or not), there is dancing. And she totally doesn't care who is watching. I love that:)Kieran some how managed to crawl underneath the crib, which didn't bother him at all..he found a book:)

Soooooooooooooooooo cute:)

And I saved the best picture for last-thanks Candi and then Shel for inspiring this shot:) I totally got lucky, most of them have Aislynn smiling and then a big K-blur. I got lazy on the rounded corners:) Oh and I don't know if I ever said here or not, but Aislynn isn't doing soccer. She decided she didn't want to do it...I think all the boys scared her:) She said she just wants to play with Dad and maybe play on a team when she is 5:)

And here are the latest scrappy creations that have been sitting on my desk:

This was a lift of an old layout of mine, wrapping up my last challenge layout!

That's all for now, hope everyone had a great weekend!!!

32

Shaun turned 32 this past Wednesday. I used it as an excuse to make a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake, which was quite yummy:) Aislynn wanted to help blow out the candles, of course:)Shaun and I are not so big on our birthdays, so it was a small thing...went out to dinner with his parents and my sister, but still fun!!! Kieran REALLY wanted a piece of cake...he just has to wait 2 months for his own!Since I got my haircut last week, I have been meaning to take a new picture for my avatar/blog, so here it is:) I really don't like pictures of myself. but my hair looks good:) When I walked in from getting it cut, Aislynn said it looked beautiful and that she wanted hers like that. She also said I look like Mika Bresinkski (or however you spell it???) from Morning Joe, which she snuggles with us when we watch it sometimes:) I have been wanting to get some portrait type shots for A at 4.5, but have just gotten around to it. Here are some of my favorites...btw, this is her new "hair do" that she wants:)

The one below is my most favorite:) Candi-Here is a link to the rounded corners action (thanks Jakki!).

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!