Thursday, April 26, 2007

pizza making magic

so tuesday night we watched our neighbors kids so they could go out and celebrate her birthday. what do you serve for dinner thats fun and exciting?? pizza! homemade pizza that you can put your own toppings on....yum! they thought it was so very cool to do that. it turned out so deliciously. i made the dough. first time at that at a high altitude. some adjustments will need to be made next time, but it was yummy nonetheless. what did i put on mine? mozzarella, fresh minced garlic, fresh basil, tomatoes, pineapple, and fresh grated parmesean. oh so scrumptious.

despite my best efforts, i couldn't get a picture with ben making a "normal" face. alas, that is him. always the comical one...never with a straight face. :)


and i threw this one in for kicks. i went to take some pics the other night and discovered that my husband and noah had a little photo shoot of their own at some point. there are some great pics! it was a nice little present.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

whew!

i have been so incredibly busy lately..i seriously don't know if i'm coming or going! however, i have managed to find a minute here and there to scrapbook a bit. just a tinsey bit. way less than i would like to! and i think my insane life has somehow translated onto my pages...in reverse. they are much simpler than usual. a subliminal message to myself perhaps? mmm....maybe... and the photos i have scrapped are of my kids losing themselves in something so simple and pure. just enjoying life. no worries. yes, definitely my subconscious is telling me something. i really should pay attention!


Monday, April 16, 2007

life friend

i can't remember if i have done an 'ode' to my best friend, terri, but if i can't remember then it's been too long! i am a girl with few, very few, close people in my life. i'm not really sure why that is. i'm not exactly shy, but i don't go out of my way either. also, i never return phone calls...a terrible habit which i get persecuted for almost daily. ahem.
so when i met terri oh, like 5 or 6 years ago through a mutual friend i liked her right away. she was just one of those people you not only click with, but is incredibly easy to be around. i love that! and she gets my jokes. and jokes with me in turn. and is a girly girl...like yours truly. and she blends so well with my family. a must for a best friend. i just feel so lucky to have her as a friend. lucky me...indeed!! a very cool thing we do is write to each other. sometimes it's fun postcards. sometimes really cool cards we come across. but we've done this for awhile now, and it's a tradition i adore. writing (actually getting out a pen and paper and using them together!!) is such a lost art. why is this???? she asks as she is blogging...ironic, right. well, i like to dabble in both arts. technology and tangible. anyhow, this could be a whole other post in and of itself. back to terri....here is a card i made to send her - just cause! love ya girl!!

Sunday, April 15, 2007

"mommy, look! it's Jesus...right here!!"

seeing Jesus, right there, in the middle of a local souvenier shop made noah very happy! he just had to get a picture with Him. okay, many pictures with Him.
where, you may ask, was "here"? why in...



okay, so i need to talk about something that i take very seriously and is VERY important to me....ice cream. no, i'm not usually an ice cream junkie. but if i am in the springs, and we are near THE place, well, i just have to have some!!!! josh & john's easily has the very best ice cream in the whole entire world! hands down. easy. i haven't been outside the U.S., but i've been to quite a few states here in the good 'ol U.S. and it's my favorite so far. i always order the same thing. always. colorado cookies and cream. dude. it freakin' rocks my world....oh yes, it rocks my world.



we just had to leave our mark. i would like to think it is still there. but the reality is that they probably erased it at the end of the night. oh well. at least it's documented on my camera!




and for some reason this statue of the virgin mary was so totally beautiful to me. so much so that i had to have this picture, and i think i will get it enlarged. it just speaks to me, you know!

Friday, April 13, 2007

more sharing

so i know i have mentioned my art journal before. (i still only have the one, and i add to it randomly) here are a few pages from that. i so love the freedom of this journal. no mistakes. no fear. no judgements. it's all just me and no restrictions! if i "mess up", so what! it's all part of the art and soul of it. those inperfections make it mine, and mine alone. i think this line of thinking is spilling over onto my scrap pages, and i love that! it has helped me start to define and discover my style. it has also helped me be a bit braver about the things i scrap. more feeling and truth goes into my pages, and years from now that is what will matter most. not the cute embellishments, or clever placement of things onto the page. the emotion conveyed and the honesty which it is conveyed is what will be golden. not only to me, but to my children and posterity. that is why i do this.



here is a card i made for my sister-in-law's birthday. the little "fortune" says happy birthday, and it is nestled into the tinsiest, most adorable little envelope you will likely ever see! in fact, the envelope is easily my favorite part of the card. easily! the scan is a bit crooked. i swear that it is straight in real life. and, also, there is red stitching on the one side that got cut off. picture it's fabulous cuteness in your minds eye. can you see it? it's adorable, no? ;)



Tuesday, April 10, 2007

just thought i'd share

some of my favorite snaps. most of them, in fact all of them, were taken during our time living in CA. we would jaunt off to the beach, the woods, japanese gardens...it was all so enchanting. not to mention it yielded some great shots. great backdrop for great times. not to say we aren't creating great times here in CO too..cause we are. i was just looking through some of my back files and thought i would post a few good ones :)






















Monday, April 09, 2007

a saturday morning ride

so saturday morning my husband hopped onto his trainer to go for a ride (it was snowing outside, hence the reason for the trainer) and my littelest lance armstrong decided he needed to go for one too. he put on one of stephan's hats (backwards) and pulled his lawnmower out right by daddy, after doing the appropriate stretches, of course! he kept yelling, faster, faster! apparently he is in training right now. the tour de france is coming sooner than we thought!! :)

man, riding is hard work!


then there's teddy bear with his "flashlight" on. don't let his smile fool you...he is not a happy camper when he is wearing it. he either plops onto the floor with a loud 'hmph', or bangs excessively on anything and everything he walks by. he can see, walk, drink, eat, pee and poop just fine with the cone on but he wants us all to think it is a huge handicap. i'm not fooled, teddy. nope, i'm on to your ploy.



easter morning this is what we woke up to in the springs.........



then dyed some eggs later in the day. of course. wouldn't be easter without 'em!!

life is good

we spent easter weekend in the springs, eating WAAAY too much. it rivaled thankgiving. much food. it was teddy's first time in the springs, and let me tell ya, it made for a very crowded house. but that's the way i like it. lots of family, including dogs. :) teddy is doing wonderfully after his surgery. the only issue is lots of wanting to lick those stitches away. i don't blame him, but we can't have that, so he has to wear his "flashlight" it's a large cone that goes over their head. he runs into walls, people, anything that is in his path. it's kind of pathetic, but a necessary reality for him right now. i have lots of pics. to post, but they are still held captive in my camera. i plan to release them later today. :)
in the meantime here are a few layouts i've completed recently....

***EDITED*** yes, i have graduated from high school. spelling was actually one of my strong suits, belive it or not. i think i just get really excited and ahead of myself when i'm scrapping, which must explain why i had a momentary lapse in judgement when spelling out
S E R I O U S L Y!!! :)






Thursday, April 05, 2007

stolen manhood...

today is the day that our new dog, Teddy, becomes...well...not a man. his manhood will be removed. that means a much less aggressive Teddy bear. he isn't aggressive with us, or even with our dog Sam. he has been aggressive with other male dogs though. and his..."junk" is very infected. when the vet tried to examine him there yesterday he snapped and was promptly put into a harness. then it took stephan and the vet to basically sit on him for the vet to be able to put ointment on him. he is a big boy after all. poor fellow. so we opted to do the surgery sooner rather than later. sam was neutered right after we got him, and he was still a puppy. it just makes for a better household. calmer. not a lot of macho leg lifting and such.
so, hopefully when i pick up my teddy bear later he'll be okay. and maybe he wont have to lay on the kitchen floor like this in order to soothe his soar "junk".

Monday, April 02, 2007

Zoolander has nothing on him!

i mean really...could he be anymore "sears jr. catalog" model?? and i swear, really and truly swear, that i didn't tell him to pose. in fact, i tried to get him to stand there and smile for me. to even look at the camera. but he just held this pose until he heard the shutter click. my mom sent him this awesomely cute shirt and i wanted to get a few pics of him wearing it. i just love it. it's a Paul Frank shirt (you know, the monkey??). love it! i love it even more with him posing like a male model. he isn't ready to reveal "magnum" yet, but it's going to blow us all away!!





then there's this "little" cutie....he's ours!!! yes, ours!! his name is Teddy. how fitting is that? he is four years old and just as cuddly as he appears. very much a gentle giant. we adore him and are so enormously happy that he has come to live with us. :) :)


now i'm really "boy trapped" as my eight year old son, Kyle would say. Teddy is a boy dog too!! oh well, i'm woman enough to handle all the testosterone that is pumping through this household. ;)