Trigger Happy

Oh life

Okay, tip here for everyone doing project life, or thinking about a monthly recap, or just wanting to record the little details in a fast and easy fashion (elliptical time- not fascinating, still recordable): Ohlife.com.
They email me each night at 7p (the time I chose) to ask me how my day was. I reply to the email with a quick recap- that's it! They keep it all for me, and I can export it and print it out at the end of the month, or whatever. This morning, I sat down and copied three weeks worth of daily records into my ten year book. Ten minutes, no blank pages! I find it much easy to type a quick something than to sit down and write. Don't know about you. I could easily see sitting down with a printout and doing a months worth of journal cards in one night. Check it out!

A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On

A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On.

read this.  it's amazingly well written.

Pre pinterest

Looking around the other day my eyes came upon my old "pinterest", taking up an entire shelf in my kitchen. This, along with my "library of memories" are sucking up some valuable square footage in my tiny home! My binders are easy, I think I will go through them and see what's not already replaced by my pinterst, see if I can and bam- free shelf. My shelf full of photo albums and category boxes, needs to be boxed up. I don't think there's any way around it. I am not unpacking them from the albums again- they will be where I can grab them if I need them, but really, I haven't done a lot of grabbing in the past couple of years. I have photo yearbooks, and scrapbooks, and I mostly print so that I will have prints, or to immediately add to a scrap page or project, I am not running after baby pictures or especially pics of me from that chunk of time! Now I store my photos in a box, and they take up a lot less space and are easy to find.
Time to organize 2012!

12

Here are twelve things that I could have photographed today....but I didn't:

1. The clock that read 6:47 when I woke up after I turned my alarm off at 6:30. I never do that!
2. My sick boy. I did take a photo of him, actually.
3. My seat warmer that my mom got me....I am in love with a warm tush!
4. The DirectTv installer who came to install our new "whole home" service.
5. The 61 minute phone-timer count recording how long I was on the phone with tech services trying to figure out how to get the TV to "see" my computer...hint: restart after you configure everything.
6. The beautiful 76 degree day I took a 1mile walk, then 1 mile run in.
7. The volunteer shift I worked
8. My Target cart on my quick trip for milk before pickup.
9. My first purchase at Lululemon! Exchange, actually, since Drew got me a shirt from there for Christmas and I wanted a different color. I got a pullover instead.
10. The medicine I begged my kid to take because they think I am trying to kill them with ibuprofen or something.
11. The supermex burrito I had for dinner.
12. My daughter, avoiding her h.w. & making me insane, or her outfit for "Walk through CA", which I actually IRONED for tomorrow!

I can see clearly now.....

I stuck my head in a photobook the minute we came home from our trip....the 2011 book HAD to get done so I could move forward into 2012! I am happy to report, it's done! And- through the magic of coupons and discount codes, my 80 page 12 X 12 book went from $144 to $62 and some change. Love it!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly baby photo books are the perfect way to preserve your baby's precious moments.

quick preview

Click here to view this photo book larger

The new way to make a photo album: photo books by Shutterfly.

this is the book that Shutterfly made for me.....I will make another and share that too- but at least you can see some photos ;)

December 2011

I am going to try to hit this recap without my calendar in front of me. Hard! December started out fast and furious, and frustrating! We were so busy, we didn't get to do many of our usual Christmas activities, and I was bummed. Got the house decorated (drew did) but took us quite a few to get our tree decorated. We were hustling and bustling through taekwondo testing (kids earned blue belts) and school fun and didn't even get to watch Christmas TV specials for the first two weeks, since we moved bedtime back to 8 pm.
We finally had a night where we were able to decorate our tree, watch ( something?) and it felt great! Another night we watched The Polar Express, drank frozen hot chocolate (Pinterest) and decorated our Gingerbread House.
At school this month, I had fun gingerbread days with my students, and I barely worked: I was done by the 13th! The kids had a lot of fun also- Matt had a play (might have been on 11/30) and a field trip to see The Nutcracker. He also had the big Gingerbread day for second grade in the MPR. It was super fun for both the kids and moms ;)
Beth had a winter music share, a holiday party, and a field trip the the SJC Mission, which I was able to join her on.
The kids competed in an in-house TKD competition, and it was a great experience for them. Matt had a bit of nervous crying that day, but it was all well in the end. Drew worked, so I single mommed it.

Kids ended school on 12/16, so we were able to have a week's worth of fun before Christmas! Matt Had his first sleepover at Josh's, for Josh's 8th birthday. He loved it!
The kids had a joint TKD birthday party that Beth had won over the summer in a raffle wheel spin. They were joined by a lot of friends, and had a really nice time. Afterwards, the Adams' came over to hang and catch up, which was fun- it'd been quite a while since our last get together.
We spent a few days crafting Christmas gifts- the kids painted self portraits for grampa Bill and made snowmen glass blocks for all of the grandparents. I made some ornaments, and Beth and I sewed a scarf on the sewing machine!
We also took a night and went out to view Christmas lights in Fountain Valley (not as good as they used to be) and Tustin (fantastic).
Oh yeah- I forgot about my birthday! I got an iPad! My mom and Drew spoiled me, and it was a huge surprise! I also went to lunch at Gabbi's with Keeley, Elisabeth, and Janice and had a wonderful day.
In between all of that, I finished Christmas shopping, got new lenses for Beth's glasses and new glasses for Matt, dentist for all of us, got prepped for our trip, and took about a million trips to Target ;)

This year, the kids got to join Drew's family for "A Christmas Carol", and it was so cool to see it through their eyes. Late night dinner at Scott's too!

Christmas Eve, Drew worked. The kids and I spent the afternoon/evening at my moms, and when Drew got off, we opened presents! Everyone was super spoiled this year, too cool.
Christmas day, we spent the morning alone- checking out our gifts and have our usual breakfast while watching the Disney Parade- even more exciting this year!
We went to Drew's parents for awhile and exchanged gifts. Then we went to Gigi and Papa's for dinner and MORE gifts! What a year!
The next day, we woke up extra early to set off on our trip to FL!

Big Family Adventure!

We are off on a huge family adventure, to The Walt Disney Resort in FL with my dad's side of the family! Coolest thing ever- 24 of us! We are so excited, it's pure madness. We haven't ever been, so we are overwhelmed with all of the information and things we have planned and want to see.

Merry Christmas To All!

Top Moments Christmas Card

Quick and easy: Christmas photo cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

I LOVE our card this year- it has made me so happy to send them out- sharing our love with family and friends...I send it all to you also this Christmas, blog world- Merry, Merry! 

kids party '11

We weren't doing birthday parties this year, but lucky Beth changed that by winning a party from a raffle wheel at our TKD studio! 

she was so excited - and they all had a lot of fun!  We combined the party- so we had it in December, smack in the middle of the two birthdays (and actually closest to mine).

everyone had fun- Drew and I had the easiest birthday party we've ever thrown and it was a big win-win!
Now I totally see why people have birthday parties outside of their homes!