Parker Picasso

How cool is this "Parker" picture? Parker's art teacher drew it for him today for being the quietest kid in class. I will definitely be framing this!

The other cool thing today was Emma's first day bringing cold lunch. She had a big grin when she carried in her metal Thomas the Tank Engine lunchbox.

I had typed a huge post, but I lost it...so this is all you're getting today!

Toot!

No, not the smelly kind. In scrapbook talk this means that you had a scrap item picked up for publication. I am a competitive person by nature, so I decided to see if anyone would ever want to publish any of my stuff earlier this year. Submitting is a time consuming process and it's also easy to get your feelings hurt if your stuff isn't picked. You have to keep track of deadlines for calls/submissions requests and also take the time to scan and size your items. Plus put in the fact that I work full time, my kids are in a bunch of activities and the fact that in general I'm pretty lazy - sometimes I get things made, sometimes I don't. I haven't been able to seem to do any pages I've liked lately, plus the fact I'm too lazy to go print any new pics out, I've mostly been making cards and altered items for submissions this last month or two. What's nice about cards is that if you are on a roll, you can crank out 5-6 cards in the time it might take to do a layout. Plus with submitting the more items you have to submit, the better your chances are just because of the numbers. Some magazines pay $, some pay with product and some pay with some copies of the magazine or book you will be in. I'm happy with any of these!

I found out today that a baby card I made will be in the March issue of Paper Crafts. http://www.papercraftsmag.com/ (Sorry I'm too lazy to remember how to do the hyperlink....do you see a pattern with the laziness?) Magazines tend to work about 6 months in advance so this weekend I'm planning to make some Valentine's Day cards. Earlier this month after the State Fair hated all of my submissions (ok hate is probably a strong word - they didn't love them - no ribbons/prizes), but the altered picture frame I entered got picked up by Giftmaker magazine (http://www.giftmakermagazine.com/) a couple days after I found out I didn't win at the fair...so there :-) Giftmaker has also picked up a few of my cards earlier this year. The first month I'll be in is December. Last weekend the idea book "Memory Mania Masterpieces" http://www.memorymaniac.com/ that a Halloween layout I did of the kids is in, arrived at my doorstep. That was my first layout pub. I also have a Thanksgiving layout of Emma that will be in the Nov/Dec issues of Memory Makers magazine http://www.memorymakersmagazine.com/. My first pub (card) with Paper Trends magazine (http://www.papertrendsmag.com/) will be in the Dec/Jan issue and I also have a card in the 4th quarter issue of the Hobby Lobby www.hobbylobby.com scrap magazine. I'm sorry I really dont' mean to sound like I'm bragging. I'm just excited that some of my stuff is being given some love and if anyone happens to see these mags in the store they can take a peek. And the fact that I haven't blogged for a year and a half I have to catch up on my pub posts! I can't post these layouts/card here yet because the magazines aren't out yet. I had a card in the summer issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today and their magazine is available in hard copy or online so you can view it here. I can't remember which page I'm on but I think I'm in the second part of the download. www.scrapandcards.com There are still some other magazines I love that I'm still trying to break into. Scrapbookers are nuts if you haven't noticed...

As for the kids - P had a soccer game and then I had to race off for a meeting at church about Sunday School. We have a fairly quiet 3 day weekend planned. We usually do the picnic thing on Monday, but nothing else on the calendar - yes!!! Emma is finding preschool less "boring" :-) The little girl still cries every morning (it was day six today) but now E just ignores her.

Variety of Pics

Here's a variety including the first day of preschool! I think I figured out my posting problem. I wasn't letting it load all the way and got too impatient :-)

When the Cat's Away the Mice Will Play!

Since Daddy was gone tonight, it was a free-for-all for supper tonight. The kids ate in the front of the TV with the usual grub - chicken nuggets, cheese, carrots and fruit snacks. Popcorn for dessert and a Tom and Jerry movie on the tube.

Emma was happy for school this morning, but did get upset that we couldn't stay at Lauri's to play after school. She had on a short little mini skirt and looked way older than 4. I can't believe Steve let her wear that!

I emailed Parker's teacher today just to see how he was doing. They are testing his reading and some other stuff next week to see what level he's at. In kindergarten it was at 2nd grade so we'll see where he's at this year. She also said he has a great personality.... can't believe how social he has become!

Not much else to report. Crop season (not corn and beans but scrapbooking) is getting back into full swing and I'm trying to figure out which ones I just can't miss. I'd love to go to every one of them, but I'd better see the family sometimes instead!

Going to try to post some pics again. I probably won't be successful....

School is Boring Because Everyone is Crying....

E gave me some resistance when trying to go to school today. I asked why and she said it's boring because the crying is very loud. We got to school (after a variety of negative comments in the van) and who do we run into...one of the criers! She didn't want to go in the room and was being a "bit" dramatic. She wasn't throwing a fit or anything, just the usual 'tude. I knew she'd be fine when I left. The teachers said that on Friday there were 4 different kids that cried off and on all day. With 23 kids in her class, that noise has to be annoying! She had her first baton and tumbling classes tonight for the new dance year. Of course she said it was boring too! Then later tonight she was suddenly out of her funk (shocking!) and then proceded to tell me all about school. It could also be due to the fact that she knew it was bedtime and that I'd let her stay up later just so I could hear about school. She is the fish feeder for the week and they had gym today. They have to bring 3 items about themselves to share and she was excited about that. She likes to play with Claire, Chloe and the girl in the pink shirt. She has been on green every day, but a boy in a blue shirt shoved her so he went to red.

I had planned to post some pics, but of course my computer is not letting me upload pics thru blogger for some reason...once again shocking! I'll have to go about it another way, but don't want to deal with it tonight.

I was trying to scan some cards I made tonight to submit to a call that expires tonight (call is a scrapbooking term for magazines looking for items to publish) and suddenly Adobe kept giving me an error. That is how I crop and resize my cards now since the other program won't work with my new scanner. But whew... I restarted and we were good to go!

Not much to say about P today. He's a good boy as usual and his general topic of conversation is Pokemon and I won't bore you with those details. Plus I can't remember all the types and battles!

Steve is in KC tomorrow night so we'll be eating in front of the TV! And I will be able to watch Big Brother in peace!

Barasoap

There are a number of words that P and E have modified. The one that comes to mind lately is "barasoap." It's not soap, not a bar and not a bar of soap. And don't bother trying to correct them! They still do baths together - although with P being 4 ft tall and Emma only a couple inches behind, I'm afraid their tub together days are about over. They get all kinds of interesting stories and games going in there and there are often in there forever so it gives me some free time!

Went to Archiver's Friday night. I felt fairly productive although wasn't very happy with what I got done. I even won the big door prize again. I won it the weekend before too :-) Now if I could only be this lucky at the Winterset PTO crops! I then spent a good part of Saturday trying to get my new scanner and stitching program to cooperate with each other. I was not happy!

Took the kids to WF day at the zoo Saturday morning. We let daddy stay home and "tinker" with the yard. It of course got crazy there, but it least it hasn't been as hot as the previous weeks. I even splurged and let them go on the train ride and buy some animal food. We don't have a membership anymore, so we probably won't be there again for awhile. Today was church and then doing nothing much this afternoon, besides P's soccer practice. We are in serious need of a toy cleanup in the family room though. Last weekend when the kids were with the grandparents I spent all day Saturday - sorting and tossing toys and toy parts. It doesn't look like I did anything now! Looking back it would have been far more effective to just take a nap or scrapbook.

Off to see if I can load some pics.....

Attempting to Blog Again...Take 5!

Ok. At the start of the year I was going to blog/journal more and also go on a diet. I failed on both of those horribly. Baby steps, so I am attempting to blog again.

The day that Emma has been waiting for almost two years, finally arrived! The first day of preschool. (It's all day/every day so it's more like Pre-K). She technically could have gone last year since she'll be 5 on Sept 15 and could have done Kindergarten this year and I debated back and forth on that. It turns out that since she is old enough to be counted as being in K this year, we don't have to pay the $110 weekly tuition. Well that solved my dilemma! Plus next year they'll have the new school built so she will do all day K instead of the half day they have now. I really expected her to be up bright and early this morning, but as usual she was zonked. She did perk up and went right in and said Bye Mom and that was it. I'm a horrible mom and I didn't cry when either kid went to school. I was a little nervous when P went to preschool, but not with E. I found out she had pizza for lunch, they couldn't go on the swingsets at recess because it was muddy and Mrs. Sellers gave a couple kids the big eyes and her voice got louder when two boys wouldn't stay in line.

P's first day was back on July 11th and he is having a great time in 1st grade. He is so talkative and outgoing anymore. As far as I know he's doing great at school. No notes and after the first week or two of school no names written on the board and his car hasn't moved from the green stop light (that's good - red bad). Now that traditional has started he'll be able to do more of the AR reading classes. He's in a soccer league right now and seems to enjoy it. We were supposed to have a game tonight, but the rain stopped those plans.


Tomorrow night I am going with Roni and a couple other scrappers to Archiver's. Saturday I think we are going to the zoo because I have free tickets from work. We let our membership expire so we haven't been in awhile.

I'll try not to make the next post be two years from now!