Obsessive ....

So why is it that I can be obsessed about certain things, and then other things not so much? First case in point ... scrapbooking. You all know. I can do that every single day, if I have the time. And usually, I just make the time. I'm not gonna lie. (Again, it's a rough life!) And then there's reading. Love it. Of course, that goes more in spurts. I don't read books every single day, although when I get on a roll, I really get on a roll. Take for example, this summer. I have read (are you ready?) five books! That seems/feels like a lot to me. One of my new favorite authors is Jodi Picoult. Four of the five books are by her: My Sister's Keeper (very good, it made me cry), The Pact (very good, also made me cry), Picture Perfect (pretty decent) and Harvesting the Heart (my least favorite of hers so far, but still good). My most recent book was Twilight. I know. I'm a tad behind the times. I'm pretty sure most of you have already read it. I know Mom has, and I believe Darcy and Alexa, possibly even Makayla? Austen finished it pretty quickly and was actually asking for the 2nd book in the series before he was even finished. I started it yesterday around 6pm and I'm already finished with it (all 500 pages of it!). Yes, I had a lot of free time on my hands today (apparently), but really, honestly, I couldn't put it down. I went to bed last night, about 11, completely exhausted. And got up today ready to read more. But it was really, really good! And I'm excited to start the next one.


Bailey has been reading a lot lately, too. (This picture was actually taken last year in July, reading one of our all-time favorite little books. I read this one to Austen and to Kale, and then to Bailey. It's wonderful). She has been enjoying reading her books out loud to me. She has finished a few Goosebumps books and is reading a story called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Toulane. It's a sweet book about a china rabbit (stuffed animal) that gets lost along the way. Not sure how it turns out, but so far it's been good.

So, my frustration with this whole obsessive side of me. Why is it that I can be obsessed with reading or scrapbooking, but exercise ... not so much? I sure wish I could get obsessed over that. And what about watching what I eat? Come on. It just shouldn't have to be so darn difficult!

Have you read any good books lately? I'd love to hear about them.
Love,
Kristen

Kale's 30 Random Memories ...

Still doing lots of scrapbooking around here. It's a rough life! I wanted to share Kale's 30 Random Memories page. (Didn't want anyone to think that Kale didn't get equal attention in his books). I've also gotten tons of pages done for our SoCal Vacation album. I'm pretty happy about that. I will take some pictures of my favorite pages and post those. I promise I won't bore you with the entire book!

Mom will appreciate this ...

How cool is this? Shawn decided that he wanted to plant some tomato plants, so he did just that. This is right outside our back door, to the right. Just two little, tiny tomato plants have grown into this monster! There were also two pepper plants. They're hidden in there somewhere. Haha. Not sure if they'll make it. But it's been cool to see this thing take shape. And wow, if you could see all the cute yellow flowers on it. Once those babies turn into tomatoes, we are going to be set. (Note to self (I mean, Shawn): Tomato plants should probably be put in a much less conspicuous place. Right outside the backdoor may not be the best choice.)

Hi Laurie!

So, I got an email from my cousin, Laurie, after I sent out an email letting family know about the blog and giving the link, of course. She wondered where I was in all of this. Haha. Apparently, there isn't a single photo of me on here yet. So, here you go ... there's Alexa, me, Darcy and Mom!

Organizing Tips for Alexa

Hi Lex! Here's those pictures that I promised you.

This is my patterned paper. It is sorted in these great paper holders, some by Manufacturer and some by Theme (like above). I would suggest that you sort everything by Theme. When there really isn't a theme, sort by color. That way, if you're looking for a theme or particular color, it's easy to find. Your cardstock could be filed by color, too.
These are my embellishments (the cute stuff). These are sorted in to drawers, also by theme. It makes it so easy to find just what you're looking for. Since you don't have the quantity that I have (yet), I would suggest grouping your themes together. One drawer might include girl, boy, and friends (where I have a drawer for each). Another drawer might have summer, vacation, travel, outdoors, camping, patriotic. Another might be school and sports combined. You get the idea, I'm sure.
In addition to my themed embellishment drawers, I have a drawer designated for each color, so if an item doesn't really have a theme, it can go in its color drawer.
This is my pink embellishment drawer. I actually have two drawers for pink, green, blue, black and white. I must really like those colors! I would again suggest that you combine colors for now. You might just have one drawer for now that holds all of your "color" embellishments.
This is how I store my ribbon. I take the ribbon right off the spool (or however it comes) and hang it with a slip knot on plastic hangers. I have a hanger for each color. I then cover the hanger with a drycleaner bag. It looks crappy, but helps keep it nice and clean. Again, you could probably start with one hanger for all of your ribbon. It's so nice to see it all hanging there. You're more likely to use it that way.

Let me know if you have any questions! Love, Auntie

Another 30 random memories.

This page was for Bailey's 30 random memories. If you click on the picture(s) within my blog, they will enlarge. Note: Bailey's forehead looks funny in the enlarged photo. Not sure why. It's not that way in person.

I will have to take a picture of Kale's page. His was finished quite a while ago.

Weekend visit

We had a very nice visit with Mom and Dad Butler, along with the Bamert Family (minus Zack, who is in Mexico building homes right now) on Saturday. We took a trip to the new Roseville "Fountains" shopping area. It's a beautiful, high-end shopping center. I happened to have Bailey's little digital camera with me. So glad I did. We did some window shopping, but let's be real. I'd rather take pictures than "window shop" any day. Now, Joan and Tiffany. Those gals can shop! I try to keep up, but I pale in comparison. Ha. All the while, Austen and Kale were scheming a plan that involved seeing The Dark Knight. That actually sounded like a good idea to me. So, Austen, Kale, Bailey, Quinn and I went to see it. Everyone else hung out a bit longer, stopped by Big Spoon (a yogurt shop), and then headed to RC Willey and Home Depot.

The movie was quite long, but very good. The boys have decided it is their new, favorite movie of all time.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Kristen

Pizza Mummies.

Bailey finished her cooking class on Friday. She sure had a great time. She spent two hours each day making various things. These adorable Pizza Mummies were something she made during class and then came home and made them for herself on a different day. Yesterday she made Applesauce Muffins for Grandma and Grandpa Butler, and the Bamert family to try (they came for a visit). I'll post more about that later.

Scrapbooking ...

I've been trying to do lots of scrapboooking lately. I still love it. I thought it would be fun to post some of the pages I work on here. I know Alexa is also spending a lot of time scrapbooking (love that too) and thought if nothing else she would get a kick out of seeing what I'm working on.

In about March 2007 I asked the kids to all write down 30 totally random memories (kind of funny to see what they think up), and I'm finally getting around to doing the actual scrapbook pages. I just took a somewhat recent photo to go with the 30 random memories. Kind of cool.

I love JibJab!

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Shawn and I took a dance class ...

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Apparently ...

one dollar can still buy a bit of happiness. Who knew? We took a trip to the Dollar Tree a few weeks ago. Actually, it was for Bailey, who thought it would be great to get her end-of-school-year-way-to-go-on-the-grades prize from there. As a mom, I truly love this concept. I spend $20 bucks and she feels like she's hit the jackpot. Of course, I don't know how long that concept will hold true for her, but for now it works. And in the meantime, the boys entertain us down several aisles, pretending to be knights in shining armour (okay, foam and plastic.) So, Bailey's happy, I'm happy and the boys are hilarious. Good stuff.

Happy 14th Birthday Kale!

It's official! Kale is 14. I just want to know ... where has the time gone? Seriously. It seems like only yesterday we were hanging out in the back of Shawn's truck, watching fireworks in Temecula (see picture above). This was the year that little Brandon was severely freaked out about the fireworks. Do you member? You member (those of you that have seen George Lopez's hilarious comedy routine on DVD will get that ... ha.)

I wanted to mention that Kale went to a basketball practice with Austen last night. I know, I know. I should have warned you in advance so you could sit down. Yes ... I said BASKETBALL. It was totally for fun. To see what he thought. And it just might be something else he'll be interested in. Both of Austen's coaches were giving him a hard time at Sunday's games, and it seems that Coach Page (the new Freshman coach) actually told him that he'd love to have him play on the team, thus the decision to go and give it a try. Wouldn't that be something?

So, this morning Kale is over at football conditioning. I'm baking him a yummy, all-chocolate layer cake (his choice). He liked Shawn's, so we're going for the same, but I'll be making it a bit taller. I asked if there was something special he'd like for dinner. You know ... something delicious that I make here at home that he'd love for his birthday dinner. He decided, quite quickly, that he'd like to go OUT to dinner. What the heck is he thinking? Ha. So I guess we'll be going out to dinner tonight. And I'm hoping Shawn might sneak away from work early so we might be able to see a movie together as a family, too.

Kale: Happy Birthday Mr. Biggens! We love you! Mom, Dad, Austen and Bailey

Edited 7/20/08: Yes, we ended up going to see Hancock in the early afternoon. Shawn couldn't make it due to work, but met up with us later for dinner at Red Robin.

I love ...

... that these two can still be silly!

So.....

Austen jammin' with Jordan
Jordan

where has the time gone? This week completely flew by. We've just been so super busy!



To Brandon: We all wish you a very happy, very-belated birthday! Sorry we missed it. Hope it was great.



Bailey finished up her basketball camp. She went the entire week (9am-3:30pm everyday, except Friday camp ended at 12:30pm). That's a lot of basketball! She really loved it. Kale's continuing on with football conditioning. I can't say that he loves it, but he's feeling pretty darn proud of himself for sticking with it. Go Kale! Austen had his friend Jordan over to jam. They seem to be on a band kick again. I love this, of course. And they are amazingly good. Sure wish I could videotape them so you could hear. We keep telling Kale he needs to sing for them! Austen has also been busy with basketball. A game last Monday and Wednesday nights and this weekend a tournament (3 games on Saturday and 2 today!) Now, that's a lot of basketball! Bailey got lucky and spent the night at her friend, Lauren's Friday night, so she was able to miss the Saturday games. We all went as a family today, though. Afterwards we tried P.F. Chang's for late lunch/early dinner. We have never eaten there (always hear how wonderful it is, so thought we'd give it a shot). It was pretty good. Shawn and Bailey had a game of basketball in the back yard this evening. She won 15-13.



A pretty darn good (tiring) week! Love, Kristen

Silly Austen ... basketball's for girls.

This is what 6 1/2 hours of basketball camp looks like on a 9 year old girl. Pretty cool, huh? Bailey started her week-long camp today. It starts at 9am and goes all the way until 3:30pm! I got tired just thinking about it. Ha. She did great and she is really enjoying it. (Roxy was happy to have her home!)

Good times ...

Yesterday was good ... good friends, food, weather, and fireworks (well, like Bailey said, "Mom they all look the same"). Yeah, that's kind of true. But, still good. The boys got to light some of the fireworks (with lots of supervision from Shawn). I think they liked that. They both spent the night at Tom and Amanda's. They had to be picked up fairly early this morning. Austen was off to his friend, Wade's, 16th birthday party. Where does the time go? They met in 3rd grade! And I swear some days it feels like only yesterday. The rest of us are home chillin', as the kids would say. It's another good day.

Happy Independence Day!

We are off to Tom and Amanda's house for swimming, bbq and fireworks. Should be a grand 'ole time! Hope your day is safe and filled with good memories.

Love, Kristen

Knock, Knock, Knock ...

Is this thing on? Just thought I'd check. I don't have a single comment anywhere. I'm really getting a complex.

Happy Birthday Dear ....

Superman! No ... not really. Well, my superman and well, Bailey's, too, as she thought the gift bag would fit her dad perfectly. Ha. Cute. The boy's decided on a Power Rangers bag, but the picture was blurry. I think Shawn had a good day, aside from having to work. We bought him a few little gifts (2 t-shirts, some Starbucks Chai Tea Truffles, a pack of Skittles, and Captain Morgan's Tattoo Rum ... hey, might as well kill two birds with one stone. You know he'll want to buy some for the 4th of July.) Baked him a cake that had to be "layered". Shawn has decided the next cake should have at least three layers. Two just seems too small. Funny, as Bailey mentioned the same thing, saying the cake looked really small. I thought it was quite sufficient, but what do I know? For dinner I made him Beef Stroganoff (the real kind). Not the cheap, easy version I usually whip up made with ground beef. No, this had the real stuff ... sirloin steak. He was a happy little camper. Bailey promptly let me know that she really does prefer the cheap stuff. Ha. The boys had Fruity Pebbles. They are not fans of either kind of Stroganoff. So, all in all a pretty good day for Shawn (I hope). Thanks to those who called him with well wishes!

Austen had a basketball game tonight. A really great basketball game! They lost by about 20, but they played super hard and had fun. That makes me happy. And he was definitely happy. He walked away feeling just fine about losing this one. Monday's game they did win, and by quite a large margin, so I guess it all balances out.

I'm off to bed now.

Love, Kristen

It has begun.

Kale has officially started weight training, and speed/agility training at the high school for football. Although you can't tell from the picture (keep in mind it was 6:30-ish on a summer morning), he seems pretty happy about the whole thing. Now, I'm sure he'll see some decent results, and probably pretty quickly. I just hope his head stays a decent size. Know what I'm saying?

Hope your day was great.

Love,

Kristen