IT's here!

the october it kit! here are my projects. be sure to check out the gallery - everyone's projects are amazing!

troy bolton jr.

it's the most wonderful time of the year...

have you ever seen that commercial when the mom is shopping for school supplies and that song is playing in the background? ella starts school tomorrow! woohoo! we have enjoyed some really special one on one times these past few weeks while anna's been in school. but she is ready to play with someone other than boring ol' mom for a change. lol! and wilson and i are looking forward to getting a big coffee (well NOT for wilson!) and having some bonding time over grocery shopping, bagel wednesdays, and maybe a few friday morning trips to von maur. :) now i should say i am a bit worried that all will not go as planned since wilson HATES shopping. and he especially hates von maur! i'm not sure how that can be - how can anyone not like von maur?! but i'm sure we'll love our time just the two of us.

another reason why this is such a fun time - the hawkeyes, bears and cubbies are all playing at the same time. and the cubs are actually still in it! although they haven't been doing so hot lately. and well da bears weren't so hot today either. but the hawkeyes are 2-0! and it definitely feels like fall football weather is here to stay. i love it!

it's also flea market season! well at least a few of my favorites are this month. i had to miss out on the venice flea market this weekend. i was so disappointed! but becky, kelly and i got to hit a great estate sale on friday and i bought an adorable pink table and chairs for the girls. i can't wait for the girls to see it - they are going to flip! it will work perfectly for tea parties and disney princess monopoly. the chairs are a much more accommodating size for me and kurt, and even anna who is growing out of the little one. in october my mom and i usually go to the what cheer flea market in iowa. it's held 3 times a year, but we haven't gotten to go in a long time. i just love going shopping to find bargains and treasures. but mostly i love junking so much for the experience. i love getting to spend time my friends and my mom. i love seeing their faces light up when they've found the perfect thing. i'm always so inspired by their ideas and insight. i had such a great time with kelly and becky on friday - thanks, girls!

even though it's still early, the girls are already looking forward to halloween. so far we've decided anna is going to be a cowgirl (since our neighbors gave us some adorable boots they have outgrown). ella says she's going to wear her stephanie from lazy town outfit again. wouldn't that be great to not have to buy a new costume?! we'll see, though. something tells me that might change a few 100 times. ;) wilson got the monkey costume from old navy last week, so he will be going as george. i need to do a page about wilson and his love of george. i think when i do i'll use for inspiration this adorable one that denise did about her curious sam. i love it! wilson comes down in the morning pointing to the tv and saying "george." and when george is over he finds his curious george book and carries it everywhere. i'm a little afraid george is giving wilson way too many ideas! but it's so sweet to see how excited he gets every time he catches a glimpse of his favorite little monkey. so when i saw that monkey suit from old navy i knew wilson had to have it. he even has a little "nanana" in his pocket. how cute is that? :)

ps - i hate posting without a picture but i haven't done any editing lately. maybe i'll get a chance to do some tonight. although it's not likely - wilson's teething has been really bad this week. he's been up for at least an hour for all but two nights since the friday before last. so 7 nights without sleep. keep your fingers crossed that those things pop through and we can all get back to normal!

pps - as i linked to denise's blog i forgot i wanted to mention that she has opened and etsy shop. she does the most beautiful watercolor paintings and has used them on some tags and cards. check them out here: Denise L designs.

blue manchu...

this little monkey man LOVES popsicles and bananas and anything that is super dirty and messy. and lately he's into trying to climb onto anything he possibly can. including the coffee table, the desk in the kitchen and the kitchen table. he's too much! and as i get him down from the table he usually gives me big hugs and loves. yep. i'm in trouble!

i've been tagged...

becky tagged me - so here are 8 random facts about me...

1. i secretly love most of the disney channel movies the girls are so into now: high school musical, the princess diaries, even (or especially) the made for tv ones like ice princess and right on track. and oh! princess diaries 2 (on now) was written by shonda rhimes! of grey's! so it can't be all bad, right? :D and speaking of really bad movies i love, the cutting edge is on that list too. :) i do love a few good movies too!
*eta - matilda is on tonight and the sound of music is on all labor day weekend. woohoo! :D

2. i love to read even more than watching movies. this summer i discovered goodreads.com. i haven't gotten to read nearly as much as i've wanted to, but i love getting to see what others like.

3. my first car was a 1969 camaro that has been in our family since it was new. i could beat everyone off the line at the red lights back then, except for the other guy in school who also drove a '69 camaro. i think he only beat me because his was an ss. ;)

4. in college i lived with 3 guys. but not like that! i was an electrical engineering student, and there were only 3 girls in my class, and one was married. we tried to have one of the other ones as a roommate for 1 year, but it ended badly. my roommates were great guys - very protective of me, almost as much as my 3 brothers are. we had TONS of fun too! :D

5. i still have 3 more? :P what else?... hee! well i'll default to the one everyone pretty much knows. i HATE birds!!! that's really on my mind today, because the zoo aviary has some new really pretty HUGE pink ones that ella just HAD to go in and see. half of those pink birds were perched on the exit doorway and the other ones were swooping at us! ok - well probably not swooping at us, but i was still freaked. lol! i think i hid my fear pretty well from the kids, but i did kind of race out the door fast. :)

6. back to tv. :) i watch soap operas. hee! my grandma and mom have always followed all of the shows on cbs. i am only keeping up with the young and the restless right now - they do take up a lot of time! it's fun to at least be able to talk about that one with my mom. i can usually imagine what gram would be thinking as i watch.

7. i can't cook. at all. i'm trying to learn, and i am finally learning how to cook a few rachel ray recipes, but for every one i succeed at i think i have at least 3 goofs. thank goodness for take out! :D

8. i was a ballerina. hee! i studied ballet, tap and jazz until i graduated from high school. i'm so excited that anna is going to start ballet and tap this year! i think there are so many benefits. I learned so much about discipline, confidence and grace from ballet. Not that I have that much grace, but imagine how much worse I'd be!

ok, so now i get to tag other people, right? ok! i tag:

kelly p

denise

becca

bridgette

tall anna

gabby

( you're all welcome! ;) )

just in case...

you've been wondering what ella's been up to while anna's at school.
she didn't know anyone was watching.
this concert when on for at least 15 or 20 minutes.
it was quite the song too!
i love her. :D

i took these pictures through our dirty window with the screen on.
so some of them are pretty grainy and dirty.
they were awful sooc, but i used one of mindy bush's actions on them.
and what a HUGE difference!
they just make editing pictures so much faster and easier.
i love her photo borders too!

first day of school...

you can tell anna was SO much more relaxed this year, can't you?! what a difference a year makes! i am SO proud of her!

play it forward...

it's the 15th, which means the it kit studio has posted next month's kit! i had SO much fun with IT again this month! the stamp designed by denise is SO versatile! it breaks into 3 pieces too. i love that! i love how she used it in combination with the journaling stamp from the august kit on her project here. there are so many amazing projects in the gallery. check it out! here are the projects i made with the kit. i had a lot of fun with the hambly transparency and the little labels. it was hard to photograph, though! all of the little buttons and round paper pieces on the calendar are attached to magnets so everything can be moved around and changed. i got a little button magnet happy! before long our whole fridge will be covered with button magnets. lol! a little psa if you ever want to make your own magnets -- buy the ones in the craft area at walmart. there are 2 different packs that i found work really well. they are pre-cut as circles and are in 3/4" and 1/2" sizes. i'm sure there are other good places to buy magnets than just walmart, but the magnets on the roll that you cut off and the magnets by the sheet from hobby lobby did not hold well at all for me. hee! ok! i think that's all! thanks, kelly, for another amazing kit! :D

hellooooooo....

ella is standing right next to me (she hasn't been much more than a few feet from me for the whole week). and she looked up at me and said, "hellloooooooo! i'm boooored!" yep. it's definitely time for school to start. 4 more days for anna. but e still has a whole month of summer left. heeeelp! :D

lots of random stuff...

2007-06-30-2344-34

2007-07-14-2150-18

this summer has been a whirlwind. i can't believe we only have 2 weeks left! our weekends have been packed with family visits and lots of fun. in the past month we've been to charles city, ankeny, and i got to go to chicago last weekend. i have a lot of fun pictures to post from charles city and ankeny, but i haven't been organized enough to sort through them all yet. so here are just a few, but maybe more to come soon.

we had such a great time in charles city! kurt's sister and her family from washington state came, as well as his two sisters and families from des moines. 7 kids and 7 adults in one house - and 2 teenagers and 2 adults there but staying in another. at least we weren't outnumbered! :) we ate lots of great food - kurt's brother in law is a chef and i'm afraid he gets stuck with all of the cooking when we get together. he let anna help him make creme broulet (sp?). she's still talking about it! charles city is such a quaint, neat little town. they have a HUGE july 4th celebration. we didn't make it to much of that, but we did sparklers. we also chased lightning bugs, played mini golf and did the slip n slide. we also enjoyed a lot of toga's special jungle juice (what did we call that again?). some of us enjoyed it more than others (steve!). :D

we also were in town for ankeny's summerfest. uncle john and aunt tall were there and we had a great time then too! we went to the parade, the carnival, fed the ducks, and enjoyed our iowa / grimes peaches and cream sweet corn. we went to the mall and got to have chick fil a too. we don't have one of those in omaha and the girls really miss it. lol! we also just enjoyed hanging out at mimi and papa's and getting to play.

last weekend i got to go to chicago for the craft and hobby assocation's summer show. kelly brought a few of us it kit girls and we got to help her pick out stuff for her kits. we had SO much fun! thanks SOOO much again, kelly, for taking us with you! the booths were full of gorgeous layouts and projects - so much inspiration there. and seeing all of the latest products all in one place - it was overwhelming and so fun at the same time. it was so great to get to meet people face to face that i know online and friends of friends. except i was sooooo sad that i gave kp the wrong cell phone number! :( i am just a mess! we'll meet next time for sure!!!

this weekend was pretty quiet. i finished up the last harry potter and we did some school shopping. i spent quite a bit of time on this fun website - goodreads. now i have a huge list of books i want to read. i'm not sure my family will be very excited about that - i tend to get really engrossed and they get neglected. lol!

ok - now that i've written a book of my own! lol! have a great week!

jdrf

as many of you know, my dear friend becca NEEDS a cure for diabetes. she does amazing work for this cause. this year i get to participate with her during the walk for the cure. here is a letter i'll be sending out to a few of you. if you can, please help by clicking on the link and donating. thank you!!! here is the letter:

Greetings!

I'm writing to you to ask for your support in a very special cause.

This year, I'll be taking part in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk to Cure Diabetes along with a half-million other walkers across the country. Our goal: To raise $90 million to help fund research for a cure for type 1 diabetes and its complications.

Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating, often deadly disease that affects millions of people--a large and growing percentage of them children.

Many people think type 1 diabetes can be controlled by insulin. While insulin does keep people with type 1 diabetes alive, it is NOT a cure. Aside from the daily challenges of living with type 1 diabetes, there are many severe, often fatal, complications caused by the disease.

That's the bad news... and yes, it's pretty bad.

The good news, though, is that a cure for type 1 diabetes is within reach. In fact, JDRF funding and leadership is associated with most major scientific breakthroughs in type 1 diabetes research to date. And JDRF funds a major portion of all type 1 diabetes research worldwide, more than any other charity.

I'm writing to ask for your support because now more than ever, EACH of us can be a part of bringing about a cure. Each of us can make a real difference

Won't you please give to JDRF as generously as you're able?

Together, we can make the cure a reality.

Thank you,

Holly Koenigsfeld

Please visit my Walk Web page if you would like to donate online or see how close I am to reaching my personal goal:

http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=86714219

poor ella!

it was HOT today! and yesterday. and both girls were exhausted from being out in it. so i'm thinking that was a little bit of the reason behind this story. but it could just be ella's amazing imagination. the girls were playing with the neighbor kids in the backyard. they had hoses going and there were little mud puddles everywhere. ella came running into the house in frantic tears. i was sure she had slipped and fallen. but then she started telling me that she thought her friends and anna were really turning into frogs. and she was hysterical and SO serious! she told me they all had eaten frog eggs and then crawled into a hole in the mud. and when they came out their feet were covered in mud and they were already hopping. and she didn't think anything would be able to change them back. of course the big kids were just playing a game, and the frog eggs were just candy. but poor ella was terrified. it took me almost 20 minutes to convince her that they really weren't frogs and that everyone would be ok. bless her heart! even after i thought she was convinced i saw her standing by the window and watching them just to be sure. i felt so bad that she was so upset. but at the same time i was amazed and proud. because if her imagination would allow her to believe that someone could turn into a frog for real, i wonder what other amazing possibilties are floating around in there.

the august IT kit...

is for sale starting right now!!! everything in the kit is SO gorgeous! click here to check IT out!

happy birthday wilson!!!

i can't believe he's already one!!! here are some unedited pictures of him eating his cake. he wasn't too sure about it at first so his sisters had to show him how to do it. he dug right in after that! lol!

happy fourth!

hope you all had a great one! we grilled iowa chops for dinner and had this wonderful dessert - red, white and blueberry trifle. i somehow messed it up and had really runny filling, so i added another brick of cream cheese and a little more sugar. it turned out ok! my cooking is getting better - at least now when i mess up i know better ways to fix it. lol! tonight i'm attempting chicken tenders for the second time. the first time set off smoke alarms. so keep your fingers crossed for me. lol!



after dinner we did sparklers, snakes and smoke bombs. and watched as our neighbor boys lit off lots of big loud fireworks. anna LOVED it! she did a lot more sparklers than ella, but i didn't manage to get a picture of her because she wouldn't stand in one place long enough. she was so excited. ella did much better this year than last. she's still pretty afraid of the loud booms, though. it looked like a war zone in our street when they were all done. and amazingly wilson slept through the whole thing!

happy birthday ella!!!

i'm a few days late - it was july 1. we were at grandpa k's for the weekend. aunt lisa, aunt debbie and uncles cory and toga helped throw together a great party! she LOVED all of her presents and of course her barbie cake. everytime she opened a present she gasped with excitement. she is so cute! i can't believe she's already 4. she's growing up soooo fast!!!

chasing fireflies...

friday night we let the girls stay up late for a "special treat" (lol!) to catch fireflies. we had so much fun! as i'm sure you can tell, ella was a tad freaked. when one touched her she shrieked so loudly! we all were laughing so hard. anna wasn't a bit afraid, though. she kept them in the jar next to her bed for a night and fed them grass. it really took me back to the days of being a kid. we let them go tonight. but they can't wait to go out and get more. :)

eta: candi asked about how i managed to get this picture -
i took it with my rebel on manual with my 50 mm 1.8 lens (i wish i had the 1.4 - especially for this!)
the iso was 1600, the fstop was 1.8, and the shutter speed was 1/40. that's why it's quite a bit blurry. well and the girls are blurry because only the lid of the jar was picking up enough light to be able to get the camera to click into focus. i tried manual focus on a few pictures. that didn't work so well with my moving subjects! lol! a tripod would have been good - but there was that moving subjects problem with that too. ;) i took a TON of pictures but only managed to get a few with the fireflies lights actually glowing. i am glad i got lucky on a few! :) ooh - i also shoot in raw. that way i was able to more easily adjust the exposure after the picture was taken. straight out of the camera it was really dark. i also adjusted the levels and the brightness and contrast. i used neat image to remove some of the grain. it was quite a bit grainy, though, so a lot is still there.

the play IT forward july IT kit...

is SOOO fun! and gorgeous! this is the project i made with IT. becky novacek posted on her blog about keeping a gratitude journal. i just think it's a wonderful idea! the july IT kit also includes custom word stamps that are the CUTEST font and they fit perfectly into the 7 gypsies oval scroll stamp. i love them! i think i'll just post the cover here. the rest is in the IT kit gallery and also in my 2 peas gallery if you want to check it out. the IT kit gallery is filled with other AMAZING projects and pages!!! be sure to check IT out! :)

walnut!!!

the antique show in walnut, iowa was today. i met mimi there and we shopped until we dropped! it was HOT and crowded, but we had SO much fun!!! we got there right around 8. we made a beeline to our new favorite vendor - thanks to becky for reminding us about her. we sat and watched the vendors unload the truck. people were snatching things up as they came off! we ate lunch right across the street from their booth, and there weren't a lot of things left at all! in fact after lunch we felt like a lot of the booths were picked over. but we were sooo tired and hot that maybe our opinions were skewed. it was a FUN day for sure!!!

first popsicle...

his expression seemed to say he wasn't too sure about it, but he sure snarfed it down! :)

fred astaire in training?

a willsie funny...

this story is from kurt. as he was putting wilson to bed tonight wilson grabbed his binkie out of his mouth, threw it as hard as he could - hard enough to hit the wall across the room, laughed, waved, and said, "bye, bye." stinker!!! kurt had to put his face in wilson's blanket to hide his laughter. wilson just said his first really clear bye, bye today. guess he had to practice. lol!

pictures....

i just learned how to use screen and soft light overlays on my pictures in photoshop. (yes, i'm behind the times. hee!) i've had a ball playing with the ones i took today. i swear i did not pose that picture of wilson reading kurt's espn magazine. he looked at country living first. now that would have been a picture! lol! anna took the one of wilson and i. she's getting good!!!

a few funnies from today

anna was ready for dinner early tonight and kurt is late as usual, so she was going on about how she was staaaaaaaarving (i did feed her a HUGE lunch and a snack!). ella came along and started offering to feed her - only with wilson's baby food. lol! ella was giving her the options - pears, bananas, chicken and rice, and anna would reply back, "no thank you, madamoiselle." those two are tooooo much! they have been playing with the neighbors, outside for the most part, for the whole week. i am glad they are having so much fun. but sometimes wilson and i get lonely without them! :( we are enjoying each other a lot, though. when we aren't interrupted by them coming in and out 50 times. i can hear my mom's voice when i yell at them, "in or out!" and "don't slam the door!" lol!

one more...

and apparently rosadita's dad lets HER sleep with her backpack on.

tonight's ella comment...

kurt was trying to help her pick up the pace and head up to bed and she said,
"you are NOT the boss!!! the real boss is God and Jesus and Santa!"
well...she has a point.
lol!!!!!

look out world...

wilson's walking! he took his first steps last week and he's up to 6 or 7 now. i'm sure it won't be long until he's off and running!

the last day of school...

...was yesterday. anna is officially a first grader. how can that be? i'm sure it sounds like such a cliche to say they are growing up too fast. but my goodness - it's waaaay too fast. denise inspired me to do first day / last day pictures side by side. and if i had known then how much of a difference 9 months was going to make. well, i probably would have just cried even harder on that first day. lol! i am soooo proud of what an amazing young lady anna has become. she's gained so much confidence in herself and she's so much more independent in a good way. i'm so glad, though, that she still likes me to snuggle with her at night and she still likes spending time with me. i'm sure those days are numbered. i'm going to try to remember that this summer when i'm sure there will be times when i've had more than enough of them. like today, for example. lol! just kidding! but it was a little crazy. there are 8 girls in our neighborhood including my girls, and 2 friends visiting, and they were all out playing together for most of the day. they range in ages from 11 down to little miss e who is 3. going on 11. ;) our neighbors have a trampoline and princess ella sparkle (as she likes me to call her) got to jump today for a "special treat." it should be a fun summer! :D

(ps - i over filtered the pictures of e a tad. whoops! i'll have to fix those! the storyboard frames are from katie pertiet at designer digitals.)

field day!

anna's school had a field day today. oooh my goodness, i think it was about the most fun we've had in along time. we could only stay for 3 events - the pirate game, follow the leader, and the water relay. they soaked sponges in water, ran across the field then squeezed them into buckets. they were so cute and funny! it was a little chaotic - poor mrs. kloke - i bet she's going to be exhausted at the end of the day! i was tired after only an hour! we know for sure the kids also got to do a jump rope station and a parachute station. i was really sad we couldn't stay for the parachutes - i wanted to play - er, i mean get pictures. ;) i can't post any pictures here because there were so many kids in all of them. they were such hams when they saw the camera on them! lol! i wish could have stayed and taken pictures all day. it was so fun to see them all together having so much fun. :)

quotes from ella...

"this outfit is SOOO comfy! i don't know why, but it really is!"
(it really was, because she was wearing leggings and a tshirt instead of her usual sundress. hee!)

"i don't like any boys, except wilson."

every morning when anna gets out of the car to go to school she says, "goodbye anna, i love you." and today i said, "ella, that's so nice that you love your sister." and she said, "i DO NOT!!!"

gotta love little miss e. ;)

so lucky!

it's that time of year! everyone has something going on. so far every day this week there's been some event. monday was anna's year end open house. the teachers put together a slide show and set it to some of the sadest music i had ever heard - about how fast they grow and to hold on to now. oh dear - i'm crying again trying to write about it. i just love her teachers and her school so much. we are so lucky!

tuesday i got to have dinner with a few bagels - stef, becca, kelly and becky. it was so nice to get to go to dinner friday, again on tuesday and then to bagels today. so lucky!

kurt is getting to visit his brother and see his nephew graduate this weekend. mimi and papa are coming for support. thank goodness! we are so lucky to live near them!

and with yet more luck i got a free starbucks for breakfast yesterday and then a coupon for another free one at hyvee. woohoo! :D

hope all of you feel lucky too!

addicted to pink and green..

i am! paper and digi! i've been wanting to scrap these pictures for a LONG time. there were sooo many of them from that day that i couldn't chose which ones to use. and they were some of the last pictures that i took before i got my digital rebel. the focus is off and the colors were so dark. i used the color action from scrapping pro on them as well as quite a few levels and brightness/contrast adjustments. and i find i am using the trick of using an overlay layer and using a high pass filter on it to sharpen things all of the time. a lot of the time i have to erase parts of that layer because it becomes way to grainy, but it's really great for making the eyes pop. and for adding a bit of sharpening to not so clear pictures. i'm having problems getting my shadows to work - i didn't want them to be that dark and big. in photoshop they look normal but when i save it as a jpg they get HUGE! not sure what that's all about! i used a rhonna kit from two peas. everything is recolored, because that's this week's 2ps2sday challenge. i'm also addicted to using the fling font and every font made by kelly purkey. you can buy and download kelly's fonts from scrapsupply.com. and there's even one named for wilson! :D thanks, kp! :D

ladies' man....

my willsie is. he has them all wrapped around his teeny fingers. and from the look on his face i know the feeling is mutual. :) and can i say again how lucky i am to have this group of friends? they are always so supportive in so many ways. they were such lifesavers especially at lunch that day - poor wilson is having the hardest time with his teeth and it was sooo relaxing to have someone else hold him for just a little while. they have lifted me up so many times. thanks, girls! i love you!!!

more scrapbooking...

for you digital and hybrid scrapbookers, katja kromann posted a new kit in her shop - "happiness is..." the kit has turquoise and reds and browns - gorgeous colors - combined with beautiful textures and patterns. and for all scrappers she has a great set of tags perfect for printing and journaling on. just go to her website and click on the word "shop" on the left. she also has a gorgeous free kit in her shop a little down on the page if you want to give digi a try. i made this page with her new kit for the 2ps2sday digi chat.

and in it kit studio news - as of 11 am there were only 13 kits left!
eta: now they are sold out!!!! i'm so happy for and proud of kelly! way to go, friend!!!

this is IT!...

today is the day the IT Kit website goes live! IT's amazing! the kit is so gorgeous. the IT girls are all sooooo amazingly talented! be sure to check it out and order FAST before the kits sell out!!! i have been doing more digital scrapping lately but this gorgeous kit has inspired me to pull out my paper more often. i LOVE IT!!!

a little horn tootin'...

the sweet ladies at disc talk radio chose to feature my quote book mini album on their weekly radio webcast. i am blushing at all of the sweet things they said! thanks shanah and deann!!!

happy national scrapbook day!...

...one day late. lol! i was too busy partying to remember to blog. hee! i was asked, along with about 180 other scrapbookers, to have a layout displayed in the 2 peas user inspiration gallery. i was SO honored! the gallery is FULL of AMAZING pages! here's a link - Two Peas User Inspiration Gallery.

i wanted to do something different for my page, but i had the hardest time thinking of something. of course i always find it harder to think of something when i am putting the pressure on myself to make something great. hee! i remembered seeing a contest on two peas a few months ago for doing a page about why you scrapbook. of course this contest has been over for awhile now, you know me - always late, but i thought it was a FABULOUS idea! and i'm hoping kurt will see it and understand why our house is so messy and we eat a lot of macaroni and cheese. so that was a great starting out point for me. since this was a page specifically for 2 peas i wanted to showcase all of my favorite 2 peas products and designers. but, well, of course i couldn't chose just one digi designer so i thought how fun to use one from each! so here is my page... if you are a scrapper and would like to see which elements are from whom the supplies are listed on the page in my 2 peas gallery and the journaling is typed out there too, if it's too hard to read.