a few more house picts...

only wilson could make that paneling look cute!

:)

i have taken pictures of the kids' rooms, but i can't get on the big computer long enough to even get them off of my camera card. when does school start again? lol! we still have until after labor day!!! in the meantime, this picture by "GundamPanda" had me laughing hysterically. the full article is here -
23 Movie Plots That Could Have Been Solved in Minutes

one more entryway pict...

hopefully i can shoot wilson and the girls' rooms tomorrow.

 

getting there...

 
 
 
 

here are a few pictures from the entry way of new house. it's about the only completed room of the house so far. kurt put up a few pictures and mirrors on saturday and that helped a lot! but things are just not as "just so" as i'd like them to be. we're getting close, though! i just have to hang a few butterflies and get a sunny day and the girls' room for be ready for photos. wilson's room is done for now. he'll be getting a big boy bed soon so i don't want to commit to too much in his room. our room has the most ackwardly placed windows! i think if i could figure that part out our room would be done. we have 2 things to hang in the duckie bathroom and that will be done too. oh - well - and maybe find a shower curtain? that might be nice! lol! we just have a liner for now. i have kind of a grand plan for one wall in the family room, but i'm still struggling with the shelving and the paneling. then there's the basement. ay yi yi. i am not good at moving!

ps - i should say that i never really feel like any room is ever completely done. once it's done i look at things and constantly rearrange and try to update the look. yes i do drive poor kurt crazy. lol!

shuttercal.com

JDRF

As many of you know, my sweet, wonderful, amazing friend Becca suffers from diabetes. Her passion and dedication to the JDRF is undescribable. She's such an inspiration. I pray ever day that she works herself out of a job. Please read her blog here http://becauseineedacure.blogspot.com/ Here is the link for my walk fundraising page - http://walk.jdrf.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=extranet.personalpage&confirmid=87385227 Please consider donating. Every dollar helps get us closer to a MUCH needed cure.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Holly Koenigsfeld is walking with Team Smith-Sutton on August 1, 2009 in Omaha, NE.

Hello! This year, I'll be taking part in JDRF's Walk to Cure Diabetes, along with one-half million other walkers across the country, as we try to reach our goal of raising $105 million.

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

There is some good news, though. For the first time, scientists are predicting that we CAN expect to see a cure well within our lifetime!

Now, more than ever, you can make a crucial difference. Won't you please give to JDRF as generously as possible? Together, we can make the cure a reality!

blogging?

what is that again? i've thought of SO many blog posts in my head, but by the time i check my email and play a game or two on facebook it's time for me to run and do something else. we're trying to get settled into our new home in dc. kurt started his job yesterday and they made him jump in with both feet! he didn't get home until 6:00, and his head was swimming with all of the new information he needs to soak up. welcome back to the real world, mr. koenigsfeld! lol! i have to admit it was a bit hard for me to get back to the real world too. we all got so used to have kurt home at 3 pm. i found my patience running thin around that time, and we still had 3 hours to go. help! lol!

today is ella's birthday! i can't believe our princess ella sparkle is turning 6! i think she's having a pretty fun day. we've already made friends with some new neighbors - a boy ella's age and a girl anna's age. of course ella is taking awhile to warm up to the boy, but the three girls seem to be having a great time together. ella's decorations were hannah montana themed. not exactly my first choice, but oh well! lol! i've taken a few pictures, but i haven't had a chance to upload any yet. maybe someday i'll catch up!

speaking of catching up, i still have a few more pictures from mandy and charley's wedding to upload too. we had such a great time! everything was so beautiful!


my birthday was 10 days ago and i was surprised by the most beautiful bouquet from my bagel girls. they are just the most thoughtful and wonderful friends! i miss them so much!

ok - i'm being asked to take pictures at the fashion show the girls are putting on now, so i better run. i know i always end with this, but hopefully i won't take so long to post again next time! lol!

crazy!

i keep meaning to try to update my blog, but things around here are just nuts! between birthday parties, dance rehearsals and recital, first communion, field trips... i'm usually just wiped by the time i can get on the computer at night. i'll have to try to sneak more time in during the day. willsie's still as busy as ever, so i know i won't get long.

i'll be uploading recital pictures to my flickr account as i can. i need to get my camera cards cleared before we leave in the morning for chuck and mandy's wedding and our hard drive is running low on space, so hopefully that will give me the incentive to get them done. in between laundry and packing and trying to start to organize for the move. lol! i have a few first communion pictures there as well. :)

happy earth day!

anna got to do an earth day project for school and she decided to decorate an empty bottle to use as a vase. she decided to use the straws, and we punched and cut out shapes and pictures from the justice catalog we got in the mail. ella and i wanted to get in on the act too, so we made some too. wilson didn't get to make one, but he had a fun bath.

i have lots of blog catching up to do - i have tons of pictures from easter and anna's birthday. but we're still busy frantically house hunting. hopefully i'll have a few relaxing weeks before uncle charley and mandy's wedding. we'll be moving shortly after that. i have a feeling this is going to be a wild couple of months!

etsy favorites

spring break 2009

mimi and papa flew down to spend spring break with us here in alabama this year. we had such a great time! mimi and i got to do a little antiquing, we played skip bo, had tea parties, went exploring and ate lots of great food, mostly cooked by papa and mimi. we miss them so much already! wilson keeps asking where they are and if we can fly to their house today. i wish!!!

one more thing...

i forgot to mention that uppercase living is having a great sale right now ! they are offering buy one get one free on everything, including custom orders http://mileyjohnson.uppercaseliving.net

hi!

so! i've been a terrible blogger (but not as bad as miley!). :) becca tagged me a week ago and i still haven't done the challenge. ack! these days there is a constant battle for computer time. we're all hooked on webkinz still, and now we've also added poptropica to our favorites.



wilson would play on the computer all day if we let him. thankfully now the weather is great and we can drag him away from it to play outside. he cracks us up non-stop. he's developed a southern draw, which is funny because most of our friends are not from here. his new favorite phrases are: "that's rude!"; "what am i talking about?"; "i have no idea!"; "what's that all about?"; "i just LOVE that!"; and the one that we're not sure if we love or hate: "oh no you di-n't". lol! he sings the alphabet song non-stop. we are still doing our singing before bed too. we have to sing "lullaby," "twinkle star," "row your boat," "abcd," and "mcdonalds" ("old mcdonald") every night. during old mcdonald i have to stop after singing "on that farm he had a" and he shouts the animal (usually he changes it 3 times first). and at the end he sings an extra oooooooo. if we hear someone else sing "mcdonalds" he gets kind of mad when they don't sing the oooo at the end too. he's quite the character! unless we're at the computer i don't get to sit down for a minute during the day. we have great fun, though!



the girls are both busy and enjoying school. they've both been on field trips and had special activities and parties almost every week since Christmas. anna has had a lot of homework to do too, including an 8 page report on george washington. in second grade! fortunately the report could have a lot of pictures, but unfortunately they all had to be hand drawn. of course at first we thought we had to write 7 full pages for the report, so we took way more notes than we needed to. but in the end it was fine. anna did a wonderful job on the paper and the presentation and got 100% on both. now we just have to practice our 5 minute 100 question addition and subraction test and we'll be home free. i hope, anyway! anna's also decided to take up tennis. so far kurt and i have been the only ones to give her instruction. i'm a little nervous that i'm not teaching her good technique, but we'll see if she's serious about it before we invest too much. she changes her mind a lot these days! (i guess she always has.)



last week the whole school participated in a book character parade. ella went as "fancy nancy" and anna went as annie from "the magic treehouse." this is what ella wore. we picked out a boa and jewelry to wear too, but i think she was too shy to wear them. i didn't get very good pictures of anna in her costume. i'll have to edit the ones i did get and post them later. since i can't seem to get to the computer i've been doing a terrible job of keeping up with picture editing. i have some great ones from Christmas that i've barely looked at yet (sorry tall! i'll get the noah pictures done as soon as i can!). ella is doing great - she is really improving her reading and she's becoming much more outgoing. she's growing up way too fast!



i haven't had much time to scrap as much as i'd like to lately either. i seem to only make time for it if i'm making presents or have an assignment. i made these towels for the bagel girls for Christmas this year and never posted them. i had so much fun making them! i used digital scrapbooking kits from all different sites to make the designs. then i printed the designs on iron on t-shirt paper and ironed them onto tea towels. sounds simple, right?! it really is! i had to make it hard, though, of course. i took forever to pick kits and design the towels. so long so that i didn't get them printed before we left for iowa. i thought i would be fine - i could just print them there. well, my mom's older printer didn't print them well, i broke my brother's computer so i couldn't use his, and no print shops were able to print on the special paper. so they were mailed from alabama back to omaha weeks later. i still feel terrible about that!



kelly purkey asked doris and i to do layouts for her awesome sketch class at two peas. i used the princess pink kit by kate teague from two peas. what a perfect kit for ella!

i don't think too much else is going on around here. we're just anxiously awaiting orders or some kind of paper work that tells us where we're going this summer. we're pretty sure it will be washington, d.c., but you never know for sure until your papers are in hand (and even then it can change).

ok - i need to get to bed! mimi and papa are flying down tomorrow for spring break! we're so excited! before i go, though, i wanted to give a little information about my blog banner for anyone interested in a little digi lesson. first the photo editing. i stumbled across this amazing action called "sunshine in your hand" from the phaunt actions website. if you have photoshop or photoshop elements, even if you've never used actions before you should give it try! the hardest part about using it is getting it installed, but they include a video that helps out with that. the best part is that it's free! :) i also use mindy bush's actions on almost all of my photos. my favorite right now is her "happy color" action in her "remarkable" set, but i've used different ones from all of her sets too. i love that they are easy to customize.

the template i used for my banner was also free from little dreamer designs. you do have to register to get to the freebies area, but of course registration is free too. the template contains all of the rectangle shapes and shadows. i just dragged the layers of my digital papers to the layer just above the rectangle i wanted to use, then used a clipping mask to "crop" the paper. i will admit that long ago when i first heard the term "clipping mask" i was really intimidated. until i learned that you just drag your paper layer so it's just above the layer of the shape you are wanting (the rectangles here), then hold down the control key on your keyboard and the g key. the papers i used are from the "tiny town candy set" by carina gardner from two peas. i made the buttons myself.

ok! now i really need to go to bed! hopefully next time i blog i won't wait 3 months and have so much to say! :) goodnight!

check out this stamp!

isn't it cool?! my amazing friend becca designed it, it kit studio produced it, and now you can get it for only $10! not only that, when you purchase the stamp your name will be entered into a random drawing to win a slice from making memories! 100% of the sales go directly to jdrf. i know i'm not passing this one up! go to itkitstudio.com to get it! while you're there you might want to check out their HUGE sale too. the more you spend the more times your name will be entered to win the slice too! have fun shopping! :)

the three hour Christmas card photoshoot

we had high hopes this morning of quickly snapping a picture of the kids, picking a premade card, and printing our Christmas cards. i told the kids they didn't have to dress up - they could just wear normal clothes, and that i just needed one fast picture. well, ella insisted on wanting to wear her dress. anna wanted to wear her outfit too, but then the shirt was too tight, apparently (it looks fine to me, but what do i know?). wilson's pants were too big so we got out his pants from last year, but they were on the same hanger as last year's shirt, and he insisted on wearing that too, even though it was too small. ok, we said, fine, we aren't going to argue. finally, we get them outside and these are the faces we got...



"how about a hug?," i said. and we got this:



at this point kurt was frustrated and took away computer and tv for the day. and then we got this:



"ok!" i said, let's just take individual pictures! ella was very cooperative.



except i didn't notice the bird flying out of her head. eeek!

wilson finally cooperated after a little bribery.



it took anna a little while longer, but finally she at least smiled.



i was so excited that i thought maybe we could try one more time for a group shot outside. i came soooo close! first i got this.



and just as i asked anna to brush her hair back wilson hopped down, ran around and did this.



and then went and hid in a basket.



the girls gave me a few more smiles like this.



but wilson never did cooperate. so this year's card is going to be a collage. stinkers!!!

Christmas!

well first, happy thanksgiving! we had a great day! we were invited to eat at our friends' house, so i didn't have much cooking to do. kurt cooked the turkey and i made stuffing and green bean casserole and that was all. since i'm used to hosting thanksgiving i didn't know what to do with myself! lol! so i made these pumpkin cream cheese muffins (without the pecans for the kids). yum!









wilson loved everything! :) friday i did a little shopping. i didn't get up early and face the crowds like i usually do. it just wasn't the same without mimi. i did find some great bargains at dillards and i got to buy a new christmas tree! for the past 12 years we had a very cheap tree from target. it had brown tips that were supposed to stimulate pinecones. kurt and i bought it right after we were married. we had just found out he was going to be overseas over christmas so we rushed out and got the cheapest thing we could find. it was a little hard to let go of the old tree, but we love our new one. wilson seems to love it too. almost every morning when he wakes up and sees it he shouts, "Christmas!" as you can tell the girls took their decorating jobs very seriously. ;)







sorry for the dark, grainy pictures. i'm not sure if it's my camera or my lens. or user error! lol! my 50mm lens is really dirty and just not as sharp as it used to be. i've really abused it. i would love to upgrade to the 50mm 1.4. also, my camera battery just ran out tonight, and i've started to notice that my meter doesn't work very well right before my battery runs out (and these were some of the last ones i took). also it gets dark at 4:45 practically, so i'm having to crank up my iso. i bet they wouldn't be quite so grainy if i had the canon 40d. ;) i don't think that's in the budget, but a girl can dream, right? lol!