In Search of Myself

Busy Busy Busy Busy Busy . . .

Well first of all -- here is what Leslie said I could share with you!

"So it’s true..I am due July 20th but will have my c-section at least a week or so before that..I have been feeling pretty yucky but am hoping to turn the corner soon..We have seen the blob twice on u/s and told our families over Thanksgiving..Ella is adamant that it is a sister but who knows."

So hoo-ray!  Although since she, like Sue, has officially dropped out of my "one-child only" club, I guess all I have left is Rach and Kate.  Priscilla left me in the dust long ago . . . (she's finally starting to "show"!  So's so cute when she's pregnant -- just 3 or 4 months left!  wow!!!)

Now Digi-world stuff:

I've had on-line chat meetings with a girl who is helping me with my website 3 times in the last week -- I have literally spent over 10 hours in the last week just talking with people about where we're going from here.  AAUGH.  Not to mention the TONS of hours I've just plugged away, writing and researching and planning.  My Digiscrap blog/jenstrange.com will be expanding.  It's very exciting, but stressful, too. 

And in the middle of this I'm trying to plan a piano recital (Dec. 18th) for my girls, spend time with Jake, not completely ignore Priscilla, play with my new camera, get ready for Christmas, and get some SLEEP now and again.  I still haven't made the Christmas present I want to make for my dad (digital scrapbook stuff . . . maybe that should be my goal for the rest of the day?  screw work stuff!  LOL.)  If I don't do it soon, I won't have time to have it printed in time for Christmas!!!

anyway, I love you all (seriously) and I hope you'll hang in there with me!!!

Conversation.

Ok, first of all: LESLIE, DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL US?

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Moving on.

Ok, Jake TOTALLY cracks me up.  (I say that a lot, I know.)

When he wants to talk about something, he says "Mom.  We just have take a talk."
Then half the time he asks a leading question -- so instead of TELLING me what he wants to talk about, he find a way for ME to bring it up.  ;o)
So last night we were laying down, trying to get Jake to sleep, and he said "What daddy buy?"
I said "I don't know what daddy bought.  What DID he buy?"
He said "He buy cat food."
(this was like 3 weeks ago.)
I said "Oh, he did?"
Jake said "But we not have a cat here!"
I said "No, daddy has a cat at work."  (Lou has "adopted" a stray cat that hangs around campus and it keeps him amused at work.)
Jake said "What its name?  Milo?"
"Fatty MgGee."
Then he tried several times to say it, failing miserably each time (but it had me laughing.)
Then he TRIED to ask a question but couldn't get it right. "What he have, too?  What he have, also?"
"Do you mean "What ELSE does he have?"
"Yeah."
"That's all, just the cat.  Daddy doesn't have any other pets at work."
"You want cat."
"Oh, I do?"
"You want cat HERE."
"Well, yeah.  someday.  When you're five, maybe."
"Maybe when I eight, I have dog?"
"Maybe."

My favorite Christmas decoration

In December 2002, Jake was 3 months old.  Lou's Aunt Julie came and borrowed him for an afternoon, and came back with a box for me to open.  She said "For Christmas, Jacob wanted to have his picture taken for you."  She had taken him to get his picture taken, bought this picture and this fun frame.  It was such a WONDERFUL, sweet gift (and my introduction to the Picture People, LOL) and every year I get a huge smile on my face when I take this out with all the other Christmas decorations.

Wait, and here's my SECOND favorite decoration.  For Jake's 2nd Christmas (at 15 months), I bought like 5 photo frame ornaments from the seasonal store in the mall.  This one literally makes me laugh EVERY TIME I look at it!!!  SO CUTE.  he was ONE MONTH OLD in the picture!

*edited* LOL -- here's how big of a dork I am -- I figured as long as I already had the pictures picked out and the journaling written, I'd just go ahead and make a scrapbook page!!!  I'd actaully promised a really sweet designer I would use her kit to make a page, so it worked out well for everyone.  The kit is Tracy Ann Robinson's great "Celebrate" kit!  Click on page to view bigger.

Present for Becca

Ok, so if you've been to Becca's blog this week, you've seen the BEAUTIFUL pictures of Rachael!  What a cutie!  I couldn't help myself -- I HAD to make a scrapbook page with them!  She said I could post the page here to show you.  Click on each picture to view larger.

Consider yourself Christmas carded

So I'm not sending out Christmas cards this year (ironic, I know, since I'm designing 4 people's cards and I have two entries on my DigiScrap blog with all the information you'll ever need on digitally designed Christmas cards.)  I just can't handle the time/stress/cost this year, and everyone I care about, I can show them pictures on-line.  So NO ONE is allowed to take it personally.  My mom, though, IS sending out cards, and she loved these two pictures that Sheri took so much, she asked me to throw something together as an insert for her cards.  It's just a 4x6 image printed like a regular photo.

I made something cool!

click below to see.

Hee hee.

thank you, Melany Violette, for creating such a rockin' digi-kit!!!  (Dude, right now it's only THREE DOLLARS!!!!!  You should go buy it.  heh.)

Random.

Crazy Sister.

(well, and by sister, I mean bestest-sista-friend.)

Andrea sent me this e-mail yesterday:

 

We celebrated our 1st anniversary on the 15th of Nov.!!!  It's crazy how fast that year went by!  Andy had a couple of suprises for me on our special day!  First, my present from him was a full 8-peice set of Noritake china!!!  It is beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!  I love it!!  We didn't really get any "wedding presents" when we got married (cause, hey, nobody really knew what we were doing at the time, right!!), so that was a wonderful suprise!!  The second suprise was how we celebrated our anniversary.  He decided that we would celebrate by jumping out of a perfectly good airplane!!!  Yep, we went sky diving for our anniversary!!  I've been wanting to do it for ages, so I was thrilled!!  It was awesome and the view was amazing on the way down!!  We got a DVD made of my flight down and took some pics from it, so I'll send ya a couple!!!  You should seriously try it sometime!!  It is an amazing thrill!!!

Sweetie, that is something I'm NEVER going to try, but I admire YOU for doing it.  Crazy girl.