Lazy Days and Lazy Nights

It's hot and I'm tired. (long whine) I let Anthony's Pizza cook dinner tonight! I did do a couple of loads of laundry... well actually Haven did most of the work because she's trying to earn money for the fest on Friday. What can I say? It's hot and I'm tired!


But I'm really proud of this layout. Rob and I worked on it together for the last two hours. It's going to be an information poster for his ski retreat in January. (They have to start advertising now so people can plan.) Anyway, Rob just has to add the details. But for this I learned how to adjust the shadows where I want them, and where the light is coming from, and I learned how to fade the edge of the photo into the background. And I used an effect on the snowflake paper to make it look grungy. I'm so proud!

Dang

Well Brandon... Spain won.

Hancock

We just got to see this movie three days before it's official opening for FREE sponsored by Sony... I think. It was a little unclear who sponsored the viewing but they were giving away Sony products before it started. Anyway, this was some kind of special thing they worked out for the military movie theaters. So, cool!

The movie was pretty clever. Drunken superhero befriends publicist... Jason Bateman again... Is he making a comeback? The story is clever, it was well acted, and the script was entertaining. My only complaint was that I would have liked them to handle the "why's" a little more in depth. Can we say sequel?

Death by children's play!

Ok, maybe "death" is a little overdramatic...

Haven just finished two weeks of Theatre Camp at the theatre on base. She has such a good time! Their group did a play called "Circus 4 Us Kids" and they were so cute! There were little little ones through ten year olds. You could tell the director (in the middle) was really great with the kids and they loved her. My favorite part of the play was when Haven played the "Mysterious Miss Madeline."

Haven: Om....

Ring Master: I want my palm read.

Haven: You want your palm red?

Ring Master: Yes I want my palm read.

Haven: Are you SURE you want your palm red?

Ring Master: YES, I'm sure I want my palm read.

Haven: Hey, what's that? (smearing red paint on the ring master's hand)

Your palm is now red.

European Cup update

Hey Brandon (Margaret W's hubby), your team is gonna be battling my team Sunday night! They just beat Russia 0-3!

Good game guys!

Well, Germany won last night, but I think what's cooler is to see two countries come together and actually support each other. I don't know how widespread it is, if it's only here in the south, or if it's as real as it looks... but this car says it all. (Turkish flag left, German flag right)

It's so funny...

Man, I have laughed so hard today. Corinnea told this HISTERICAL story about her animals and their interesting personalities, Jenny P had a great story about Emily's inquisitive nature, and one of the other blogs I read posted about her kids understanding of time. So, in the spirit of "funny stories about our kids day"... here's how our day ended:

Me: Let's say our prayers.
Ethan: God can't hear me.
Me: Yes he can.
Ethan: But I can't hear him. He doesn't talk to me with his mouth.
Me: When Jesus lives in your heart (yeah, trying to explain that to a kid... challenging) you learn to hear him.
Ethan: (alarmed) Jesus can't live in my heart! He'll break it! He's too big!
Me: But He sends the Holy Spirit to live in your heart and he talks to you in your mind. (Treading on dangerously complicated topics here)
Ethan: He can't talk to me in my head! He'll make my head bleed!

Oh my. I eventually convinced him that life with Jesus was a GOOD thing, but wow it was tricky there for a few minutes! Now he's decided to try to fly to Heaven in an airplane, which actually dissolved into a whine about going on the airplane to see PawPaw. So cute!

I actually do care...

Ok, Spain just won against Italy. There's only three games left... Spain vs. Russia... Turkey vs. Germany... and the final! It's so tense!

What's Better than Duct Tape?

A full sheet of "Cars" stickers. Thank you Mary!

A BIG bite of cake!

This one is for Margaret W... just in case you decide to try to avoid the duct tape route! :)

Ceramic Bowl

Friday night was Ladies Night Out pottery painting and this bowl was calling for me! I decided to do an embossed design. So I did white dimensional glaze for the flower design and then painted black glaze over the top.

The inside is the opposite. White glaze with a black dimensional glaze on top.

Sorry about the cereal debris. I forgot to take a photo before I ate out of it, and I was too lazy to go rinse it out!

Look what I can do!

Last week I used a template to create an altered cd tin layout I gave to Rob for Father's Day. This week I realized just how much I love using the templates and how easy they are to make. So I started going through the scrapbooking magazines looking for good layouts to turn into templates. This was practice, and is actually borrowed from the pagemaps layouts. Here it is as a grayscale template.

And here it is turned into a two-page layout. These are photos from last year's 4th of July fest on base.

Lizy, if you're interested I can show you how to do this and you can use it as an intermediate digital scrapbooking course. Of course, you can probably figure this out on your own! Oh, and Rob found the drop shadows effect, so if you haven't found that yet I'll show you.

I also figured out how to make things look like they have a layer of glossy accents, or a page pebble on top. But that was the last thing I did tonight and I don't have anything to sample it yet.

Germany Won

Here's what I know about soccer:

1. Kick the ball into the other guy's net.
2. Don't touch it with your hands. (unless you're the one wearing the Mickey Mouse gloves)
3. Don't get that thing they call "offsides."
4. Don't pretend to be hurt when you aren't. You look like a wuss.

But seriously... it's kinda fun to be in Germany right now. The German team is going to the semi-finals (this is the European Championship) for the first time since 1996. (Which I didn't just happen to know that... I read it when I was looking up the picture above.) Anyway, I knew Germany had won last night (they beat Portugal) when the entire Hauptstrasse was flooded with cars honking and people setting off firecrackers. Everyone is waving a German flag out their car windows. It's pretty fun.

Tonight Turkey played and won against Croatia... so another night of horns honking and people cheering in the street. We cheer for them just as much as Germany since so many of our neighbors and some of our church members are from Turkey. Oh, just realized the next game is Turkey vs. Germany...

Oh my... it's 2am

Ok, I didn't JUST make scrapbooking pages today. I learned how to do shadows, use the magic eraser (it IS magic), and I found a new blog for a lady who makes digital templates. You can see it here if you're interested.

I also ordered the party supplies for Ethan's 4th birthday. Jennifer, Mary, and Miyoung, start getting ready. We're doing a super heros theme. Got costumes? If not, we have extra if you don't mind dressing your kids up as yoda, a nija, batman, or superman. Jennifer, I almost ordered a Princess Leia costume for Ava... and then I decided you might not WANT her to wear a PL costume... and it was expensive. :)

Fun Day

A day out at the PX. Haven likes to do physics experiments with her straws. Today it was getting it to suction to her lip.

Ethan finally got brave enough to turn on the blow dryer. (Up to this point he had been afraid of it.) Now there's no stopping him! (This is that face I was trying to demonstrate the other day! How did I do?)

Another one from the archives

This is a post from MySpace when I had a page last year. I loved this game so much I saved the photo.

75 BANDS

The photo above graphically represents 75 bands. See if you can find them all! Post a comment with the bands you guess. Read through the other comments so you don't duplicate one someone else saw first! I'll give you a hint: in the near center of the photo is a metallic looking shape. Did you guess it? "Iron Maiden"

Ethan's "artwork"

Adrienne sent this funny email around with pictures of kids doing silly things, which reminded me of last year when Ethan decorated the kitchen. This was pre-blogging so I thought I would dig out the pic and relive the trauma!

One morning I came down to find that Ethan was already up and was helping himself to the food coloring and candy sprinkles in the cabinet. He wasn't alone in his mischeif. The kitty cohort had tracked through the food coloring and decorated the kitchen with little turquoise kitty paw prints!

I was horrified when I found the kitchen and started screaming. In order to not KILL Ethan I put him out in the hall and shut the door. Rob came down and asked Ethan what was going on. He said, "I make a mess..." Ya think! Rob came in and just died laughing! Not fair! I still wanted to be mad! Oh well, why bother. We both stood there laughing histerically and I had the presence of mind to take a photo before we cleaned the mess.

Didn't think to get Ethan or the kitty IN the photo...

Can't be stopped...

Ok, we're past obsession and bordering on compulsive disorder... I loaded our family photos on the new computer, plus two new digital scrapbooking cds... and if I don't sleep I think my husband may kill me. But now I'm getting good. I look back at my earlier works (those really old ones from Saturday) and I think, pfff. How young and silly I was. Today I did this!

The story is, one day Ethan was banging on the door while I was in the shower insisting on coming in. I ignored him and eventually he got quiet. Silly me, thinking he had gone to play I continued what I was doing and took my time. When I opened the door to leave the bathroom I found Ethan standing at the door with a drill. He was attempting to unscrew the door handle and break in! Praise God, the drill didn't have the power pack inserted!

This photo is not from that day, but is Ethan with the drill. He definately has a fascination with power tools!

More Digital Scrapbooking

Ok, I'm obsessed. I have made nine layouts now and I don't even have pictures yet! (All my pics are on an external drive and I haven't taken the time to transfer them to the new computer.) But I did put pictures in this layout today. It's so much fun I think I will be better about taking photos. I might even print out some of the pages and actually put them in a scrapbook! I used another page map from here and the Collection 2 cd from the store.

Date Night

Yesterday was so much fun! Rob and I went downtown for his first tattoo appointment. That's right, tattoo! He designed a really cool one. I didn't think to take any pictures at the studio, so I'll have to post a pic later. He just got the outline yesterday. He goes back for the fill in a month.

Then we went to the Japanese place at Rohtebuhlplatz (Marienstr) that does the all you can eat sushi bar. Oh man that place is good. We paid the weekend price for the buffet and ate every penny's worth.

Then it was back to Vaihingen for "Iron Man." Have you seen this movie yet? It was SO good! If you haven't seen it, or you don't know the comic book, click here for the IMDB description. Robert Downey, Jr. was SO good! It was a little stressful when they dealt with the serious war parts (nothing graphic, just stressful giving the times we live in), but I thought they did a really good job of telling the story.

So, tattoo + sushi + iron man = really fun day with my husband!

We're going to be parents!

Ok, don't get excited, I'm not pregnant. Whew! Our angel fish laid eggs! Well, the first order of business was figuring out WHAT laid the eggs. They match the description of angel fish eggs. So now we get to spend the day preparing for a billion baby angel fish. :)

Digi Scrapbooking

My new computer arrived today! (I ordered it while I was in the US and had it shipped home.) So it got here today and it is SWEET! It came with Adobe Photoshop Elements, which is a watered down version of Adobe Photoshop. Elements is what they recommend for the Digital scrapbookers. We also run it on the computers at the store (along with the FULL Adobe CS3 suite). So I made a scrapbook page tonight! Thanks Lizy for showing me how to run the software. Maybe I'll take your class! I used a page map from this website and the digital scrapbooking disk we sell in the store.

A Good Reason to Blog

It's so funny... everytime I say I'm not going to blog I end up obsessing over the blog and posting like three things! Well today I got a conversation from my Etsy shop saying one of my pieces was featured in a treasury. Yeah! Click here to see the treasury.

Then Ethan was playing outside tonight and found the BIGGEST snail I've ever seen! I'm sure they get bigger, but this is the biggest one that's ever been on MY back porch!

Oh, AND the Thomas Kinkade puzzle from you-know-where is finally finished! You know what Haven wants? Another one. You know he signs his work with a fish? This is the symbol for Christians. I believe he is one because my prayer life increased while working on this puzzle. Oh Lord, we're not done yet. Praise God I found a piece! Good Heavens, we lost one! Halleluja, it's finished! It was fun when we all worked on it together. A little family bonding there... :)

The Birthday that Never Got Blogged

*Update: My dad sent me pictures from Joe's Crab Shack. Click here to see me as an irritated seagull. :)

I worked really hard today and almost finished the Recreation Program Awards packet. Whew! Just a few numbers to look up and a synopsis to write and it will be done! So I thought I would blog about my b-day that was on 20 May. Sadly, it was my last birthday ever. That's right, I turned the big 2-9.

We were down on the Island with my family on the day of my birthday. Since it was my last birthday, and I am officially an adult now, I did what any reasonable minded adult would do. I blew some money on an expensive name-brand purse! Check it out here. It makes me giddy! I ordered it online and had it delivered to the condo. Then we went to Corpus Christi for the day. Daddy bought me a new "grown-up" MP3 player and then we had lunch at Joe's Crab Shack. They made me act like a seagull. I think my mom has pics. I didn't even get free desert! But it was still awesome seafood! Yes, even being on the island, Joe's is still an excellent choice. That's saying a lot for a franchise. Then it was a trip to JoAnn's fabric and a stop over at Krispy Kreme donuts! The last fling of the night was a midnight run to WalMart to pick up the Wii Fit. (They went on sale at 12:01 May 21st.)

Celebrating with my family was way cool. I think the last time I celebrated my birthday with them was in 2004. But I totally missed Rob. :( That's why getting his poem was so awesome!

When I got back to Germany I had a little box waiting for me on my desk. Adie gave me one of her special jewelry creations! This one is gorgeous! I want to wear green every day so I can wear it! It's green pearls, green bicone Swarovski crystals and little gold spacer beads. It's SO pretty! So here's a picture. You should be able to click to enlarge it. Thanks everyone for a fun b-day! Next year (29 part II) we'll all go out for Greek. Yum!

Why I can't blog, part II

I should admit that I fudged a bit on #5 below. The life outside of blogging that I mentioned actually just means that we bought a Wii Fit and I'm totally addicted to it.

Also, I want to offer a public apology to Adie for posting a negative comment about the new Indiana Jones movie. While I stand by my dislike for the script, the actors were good. In fact, Harrison Ford was way hot and Cate Blanchett rocked!

And yes, in fact I blogged twice today. But tomorrow I have to work and I mean it!

Why I can't blog

1. Budgets are due on Friday and I'm still not finished.
2. Our submission for the recreation program awards is due on Friday and I'm still not finished.
3. My marketing plan for the whole program is due on Friday and I'm still not finished.
4. My husband is back home from the hospital and I want to spend every flippin minute I can with him.
5. I have a life outside of blogging. It may be hard to believe, and I have to keep repeating it to myself over and over... but if I say it enough times it will become true.