The One Where I Dye My Hair Orange

I have never been good at New Years Resolutions, so bad, I haven't even made them for the last couple of years. So, this year I decided to try something different. (Don't worry I'll be getting to the good part soon.) This year I decided that each month I would choose some thing to work on.

One thing, 31 days, max. I can do that, right? They say it takes 27 days to form a habit, so, maybe I will form a couple of good habits out of this experiment.

January's goal: Not to spend any unnecessary money.

I could buy groceries and gas and I had a Sonic budget (of course, I'm not totally insane). Every day I write down every penny I spend, where it was spent, and if it was cash/check/VISA. 31 days with out spending unnecessary money. In retrospect what I really should have kept track of was everything that I wanted to buy, that I really needed, but didn't. That would take an entire notebook. But I digress, lets get to the fun part. . .

I decided to color my hair, it's been a while, a long while. But remember, not spending money, so I did it myself. I've colored my hair at home before and it's turned out pretty good. This time not so much. The dye had too much red and my hair had too much blonde. Mixed together they make a very nice shade of orange. Pooh Bear thinks "it would be perfect for Halloween, the orange and the black together."

So, because I am not spending money and color correction costs money, my hair is orange. I don't know, it's kinda growing on me. . .

The One Where Drama, Pooh Bear, The Boss and Cousins Go Sledding

January 2, 2010

We went to visit Grandma Tina and Grandpa Phil for New Years and when there is snow at Grandmas there is always sledding at Grandma's. Grandpa and Mark take them and I stay home with the baby because I won the coin toss and mysteriously forgot to bring my winter coat.

Grandpa Phil is so awesome. I love to go sledding with him!

Maybe not so much. . .

Cousin love

 Too much fun

Heading home for Hot Chocolate.

The One Where The Boss Disappears into a Cupboard

Did you ever watch "Friends"? I did. Loved it. All of their episodes were named "the one where .....[insert whatever wackiness ensued on that episode]" Well this is the blog post in which The Boss disappears into a cupboard.

December 31, 2009

Hmmm. I wonder what it would feel like to squeeze into this fun spot?

Going

Going

Gone

And, Ta Da!

Aria 6 Month Checkup

She's already six months old. I can't believe it. I'm in denial. We went in for her six month well baby checkup this morning. She is happy and healthy. Here are her stats:

Age: 6 months
Date: 1/19/2010
Length: 26 3/4 in (90%)
Weight: 18 lbs 5 oz (90%)
Head Circ: 41.6 cm (25%)

She received her vaccinations, including the seasonal flu and H1N1. The doc said that he has seen an uptick in colds and RSV, so we will be staying home from group gatherings for another little while. She has lost her voice a few times these last couple of months (it makes her cry sound really sad) so I talked to him about that. I thought it might have something to do with all the smog we have had this year. The doc said that it might be due to acid reflux irritating her voice box? Good news there is that she is starting to sit up more and will eventually spend a lot more time vertical which will help the situation. It doesn't seem to bother her so it's really nothing to worry about.

Milestones for this visit:

• We can sit up for a good bit of time before toppling over.
• Drooling, not so much a milestone as a fact of life.
• Gets seriously insulted when you don't give her some of the food you are eating.
• Moves toys from hand to hand, all with the singular goal of getting whatever she's holding into her mouth.
• Babbles, laughs and does this weird screechy thing.
• Just happy to be a part of the action.
  

Too All My Family Born in November and December;

What were your parents trying to do to me, really?! I was doing so well last year sending out birthday cards in a relatively close proximity to actual birth dates and then came November. . . and, you know, stuff happens. Namely, my kitchen happened. So I kinda, OK really, dropped the ball and just plain missed all ya-all's birthdays.

But I want you to know that I really did think about you and you have been on my conscience this whole time (seriously, it's been bothering me). So, to make myself feel better, I mailed out November's birthday cards today and December's will go out in tomorrows mail. Shew (as the Boss would say) I am feeling better about myself already. So when you get a (really) late birthday card in the mail from us, don't be mad (please, please), just take it as a reason to celebrate in January. And maybe this year your card will be on time, or at least in the right month!

Happy Birthday!

**This photo was taken at my awesome doctor brother's graduation. This "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" thing is something we started doing a long time ago, so it's sorta a tradition. Also, I have no idea what I am doing with my mouth.**

More of The Boss

Here are a couple more good pics from this morning. When the Boss cooperates it's amazing how much one can accomplish!

She played with my camera for most of the time. Like I said before, she would rather be the one taking the pictures than the subject.

The Boss Cooperates for . . . Long Enough

It took a little bit, but I finally got the Boss to cooperate with the camera.

She has such a great personality. It's just hard to catch it with a camera because it is physically impossible for her to be still.

I just had to find something for her to sit in...

Or lay in...

The Hazards of Locamotion

Getting stuck under the bed . . . Again.


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Almost As Good

as JCPenny? You be the judge.
For Christmas my big gift was a photography studio in a bag. Mark gave me lights, tripods, backdrops and a couple of things I haven't figured out and it all fits in one huge duffel bag.

We had become frustrated with the quality of our JCPenny portraits, especially after the Boss decided that her max time limit between arriving at the studio and major melt down was about 10 minutes. Having my own studio will let me take portraits on the Boss' schedule, which so far, she would rather pretend to take the picture than to be in the picture, but we're working on it. Poor Aria has been my test subject. She really has no choice. I plop her down and snap/adjust and snap/adjust and snap/adjust times infinity and she just keeps smiling for the camera. And since I started with really no working knowledge of shutter speed and apprature, it's taken a lot of trial and error and a lot of web searching but I think we might be getting somewhere.
My original intent was to be able to put up the equipment take some fabulous photos and take it all down within minutes. Reality never quite works out the way I intended it too. I put up all the equipment the day after Christmas and it's been up ever since. So, while I experiment my living room is a portrait studio indefinitely. And I think it will all be worth it in the end.

A Photographic Journey

Everyone asks me who Aria looks like out of the girls. I wasn't sure so I went looking for data, [in a creepy/dreamy voice over] through the sands of time. . . .

I tried to find pictures of the girls at roughly the same age. Now you can tell me who looks like who. Or is it who looks like whom? Whatever, you be the judge.

Drama, 6 months

Pooh Bear, 7 months

The Boss, 5 months

Aria, today @ 5 months, 20 days

Side bar: If there is one thing I have learned on my journey back through my girls photographic history it's that I am a really bad photographer. The only reason I can take semi-decent photos now: digital. Digital equals 3 million photos and one maybe two good ones. But at least I got the good ones and I can delete all evidence that I am the worst photographer known to mankind.

Also a plus for digital - it took me about 3 seconds to find a picture of the boss and 30 minutes to hunt through old photo books to find Drama and Pooh Bear's. Then I had to scan them in!


Oh, and another thing - digital files tell you what day you took the photo. So if you forgot to turn on the time/date stamp on the camera you still know exactly when you took the picture. Genius.

An Almost New Kitchen

I have been hard at work on my kitchen remodel, and since I am taking a sabbatical, here is what I have done thus far.

Let's all think back to what it looked like before. Ah, pink formica and super cheap oak circa 1996. . .

And now, drum roll please.

New granite countertops, stainless steal sink and faucet, I'm in love. . .

The cabinets, to put it nicely are kicking my trash. Seriously, I knew it was going to be a project but this was a PROJECT. We;

1. Removed all the old doors.
2. Cleaned, sanded, primed, painted (3 coats) and top coated (another 3 coats) the cabinet bases.
3. Installed crown molding and base molding and bead board (around the island).
4. Had new doors, drawer fronts and drawer boxes comissioned (3 drawers had the front practically ripped off)
5. Sanded, primed, painted (3 coats on the doors that worked the first time and more on the uncooperative ones, and yes, doors can be very uncooperative if they so choose.) I will not to tell you all about the paint sprayer episode, this blog is after all PG rated. Ditched the paint sprayer and did it the old fashioned way, brushes, rollers, and lots of colorful language, tears and Diet Coke.
6. "Distressed" the edges ranomly and lightly
7. Tried to put an antiquing glaze on the distressing for a better look. Totally ruined the distressing and paint job in one gigantic swoop.
8. Went to Sonic for liquid courage.
9. Lightly sanded, repainted, redistressed and backed slowly away from the doors.
10. Clear top coated (3 coats)
11. Begged, pleaded, cried until, suckered my father into making jigs for the hinges and door handles.
12. Hung the doors with my fathers help.

13. Started working on the drawer fronts - repeated steps 5 through 10 except I didn't try the glaze this time but somehow managed to mess up a couple of drawer fronts and had to sand, repaint, redistress and back away.
14. Begged, pleaded, cried until, suckered Mark into helping me attach all the drawer fronts to the drawer boxes. Got a couple of them attached and put them back into the drawer openings only to discover that we had attached the front on center with the drawer, but that made the drawers at least 1/4 inch off from the doors. It was really obvious, so we started over.
15. Attached all the drawer pulls to the drawers.
16. Installed new "pully outy thingies" (technical term) to the fake drawers in front of the sink so I can store my scrubbies and things. This alone took over an hour and Mark will never speak of it again. But look how cool it is.

17. Backed away, packed up my supplies and tried not to think too much about the fact that I still had to do the upper cabinets.

Now that I have lived with it, I might just call this an "open design" and call it quits.

Christmas Oh - Nine

We had a wonderful Christmas in oh-nine. Grandma and Grandpa Van Horn stayed with us Christmas Eve and shared in the chaotic magic of Christmas morn. Some of the highlights include ALL the food that was consumed in the 30ish hours we where all together. Christmas Eve dinner was our "traditional Italian" feast (Italians eat a 7 fish dinner on Christmas Eve but that is 7 fish too many for me). We had melon wrapped in prosciutto and bruschetta antipasti. Dinner was homemade ragu with penne pasta, rosemary bread, Caesar salad with homemade Ceasar dressing (yummo), braciole, and a very mormon tiramisu for dessert.

The girls got everything they could ever want, Christmas morning. Drama and Pooh Bear got American Girl pets with ALL FOUR ACCESSORIES! Bless you Santa.

The Boss got a tool set. Everyone fights over loves it.

Aria got stuff that she doesn't really care about, but she's happy with everything. In fact she was asleep for most of the festivities!

For breakfast we had Mark's childhood favorite, candy cane bread with yummy fillings and frosting on top and Grandpa Van Horn's delicious (and oh so non-diet, non-heart friendly scrambled eggs.)

Christmas dinner was Ham, funeral potatoes, rolls, salad, asparagus and apple pie for dessert.

I was so tired by the end of the day. that might have had something to do wiht the marathon LEGO Rockband session we had going on (my first time playing the drums, which is really fun if you are on the super easy mode lego rockband has;))

Even though, as a mom, Christmas is way more stressful than it really should be with all the magic making going on, I finally got into the spirit just in time to have a wonderful Christmas with my wonderful family. I have thought so many times this year how very grateful I am for my family. I am so blessed to have so many people to love and that love me back.