Trigger Happy

January 2012

I am going to try a “round up” style of record keeping this year- simplifying a little.

What reading or learning did we do this month?

- Re-read The Hunger Games Trilogy

-Listened to “Slow Burn” by Nora Roberts

- Began listening to “The Medusa Plot” with the kids

-Matt’s reading The Last Dragon Chronicles Series, Goosebumps

-Beth was all over the map re-reading stuff

*we did a big book cleanout of their rooms this month too.

-lots of Kindle Fire reading

-I did a penguin lesson study with my class.  They loved it!

-Beth had “walk through California”- her word was “El Camino Real”

-Matt did a cheeseburger Book Report

What fun did things did we do with family or friends?

-welcomed in 2012 over the phone with the Adams’

-Kennedy Space Center

-Universal’s Islands of Adventure

-Benihana with the Barber Girls

-Midway Trip with Indian Guides (very shortened due to illness)

-cookie rally for Beth with girl scouts

-celebrated Beth’s birthday with family

-celebrated Gigi’s Birthday with family

-celebrated Matt’s First Reconciliation

-Twin Day at school

-I hiked in Laguna with Keeley, Elisabeth and Theresa

Gifts Given or Received?

- Beth received a Harry Potter book that she really had been wanting from Matthew for her birthday

-Mom and Dad bought her a charm bracelet and two charms to get started

- Beth also received lots of great gift cards for her 10th birthday!

- Drew went and activated the iphone he received for Christmas

Any Special or Unusual Purchases this month?

- bought slacks/nice shoes for Matt to wear for his reconciliation

-Drew bought a “fascar” for he and Matt to design for February’s Indian Guides Fascar race.

- DirectTV “whole Home” tV

-two photobooks- one from 2011, and one from our FL trip!

- two project life kits, cobalt and clementine

Were there any illness or health concerns?

-the boys both got very sick after we returned from our trip, first colds/fever followed by flu-like symptoms for Drew

-Beth followed with fever and cough

-both kids had annual checkups and were determined perfect

-I had  my annual mammogram, results normal!

- I finished the month feeling very run down and sinus-y, also quite grumpy from exhaustion

- lack of exercise has me feeling sluggish and unhealthy as well.

Accomplishments this Month-

- two photo books made!

- reviewed goals made in 2011

- set new goals for 2012: 

1. cook more/a wider variety of food, and encourage the kids to add new foods to their diet

2. slow pace again- and realize that a slow pace might not be possible during the fall, but can work well from January to August

3. pick up the activity level again, and work more running into the rotation

4. Internal Goal:  “Perspective”

-Matt made his First Reconciliation!

-Used the crockpot and made 3 new recipes for the family!

- slowed our pace way back down

- added photos to my 365 project and project life on shutterfly!

-organization projects

- helped Beth get a lot of Girl Scout Cookies sold in the first few days of the Cookie sale

 

101 pages of love

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Create your own custom photo books at Shutterfly.com.

what I am doing

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Not sure if this is the only thing I am doing, but I AM doing this for sure to keep me going along.  I have to upload a few photos to fill in the month, but it sure is easy to just fill in the week on a Sunday.  Still have two 'real' kits though....so I gotta figure out what I am doing with them still...

 

Shutterfly offers exclusive photobook layouts so you can make your book just the way you want.

Oh life

Okay, tip here for everyone doing project life, or thinking about a monthly recap, or just wanting to record the little details in a fast and easy fashion (elliptical time- not fascinating, still recordable): Ohlife.com.
They email me each night at 7p (the time I chose) to ask me how my day was. I reply to the email with a quick recap- that's it! They keep it all for me, and I can export it and print it out at the end of the month, or whatever. This morning, I sat down and copied three weeks worth of daily records into my ten year book. Ten minutes, no blank pages! I find it much easy to type a quick something than to sit down and write. Don't know about you. I could easily see sitting down with a printout and doing a months worth of journal cards in one night. Check it out!

A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On

A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On.

read this.  it's amazingly well written.

Pre pinterest

Looking around the other day my eyes came upon my old "pinterest", taking up an entire shelf in my kitchen. This, along with my "library of memories" are sucking up some valuable square footage in my tiny home! My binders are easy, I think I will go through them and see what's not already replaced by my pinterst, see if I can and bam- free shelf. My shelf full of photo albums and category boxes, needs to be boxed up. I don't think there's any way around it. I am not unpacking them from the albums again- they will be where I can grab them if I need them, but really, I haven't done a lot of grabbing in the past couple of years. I have photo yearbooks, and scrapbooks, and I mostly print so that I will have prints, or to immediately add to a scrap page or project, I am not running after baby pictures or especially pics of me from that chunk of time! Now I store my photos in a box, and they take up a lot less space and are easy to find.
Time to organize 2012!

12

Here are twelve things that I could have photographed today....but I didn't:

1. The clock that read 6:47 when I woke up after I turned my alarm off at 6:30. I never do that!
2. My sick boy. I did take a photo of him, actually.
3. My seat warmer that my mom got me....I am in love with a warm tush!
4. The DirectTv installer who came to install our new "whole home" service.
5. The 61 minute phone-timer count recording how long I was on the phone with tech services trying to figure out how to get the TV to "see" my computer...hint: restart after you configure everything.
6. The beautiful 76 degree day I took a 1mile walk, then 1 mile run in.
7. The volunteer shift I worked
8. My Target cart on my quick trip for milk before pickup.
9. My first purchase at Lululemon! Exchange, actually, since Drew got me a shirt from there for Christmas and I wanted a different color. I got a pullover instead.
10. The medicine I begged my kid to take because they think I am trying to kill them with ibuprofen or something.
11. The supermex burrito I had for dinner.
12. My daughter, avoiding her h.w. & making me insane, or her outfit for "Walk through CA", which I actually IRONED for tomorrow!

I can see clearly now.....

I stuck my head in a photobook the minute we came home from our trip....the 2011 book HAD to get done so I could move forward into 2012! I am happy to report, it's done! And- through the magic of coupons and discount codes, my 80 page 12 X 12 book went from $144 to $62 and some change. Love it!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly baby photo books are the perfect way to preserve your baby's precious moments.

quick preview

Click here to view this photo book larger

The new way to make a photo album: photo books by Shutterfly.

this is the book that Shutterfly made for me.....I will make another and share that too- but at least you can see some photos ;)

December 2011

I am going to try to hit this recap without my calendar in front of me. Hard! December started out fast and furious, and frustrating! We were so busy, we didn't get to do many of our usual Christmas activities, and I was bummed. Got the house decorated (drew did) but took us quite a few to get our tree decorated. We were hustling and bustling through taekwondo testing (kids earned blue belts) and school fun and didn't even get to watch Christmas TV specials for the first two weeks, since we moved bedtime back to 8 pm.
We finally had a night where we were able to decorate our tree, watch ( something?) and it felt great! Another night we watched The Polar Express, drank frozen hot chocolate (Pinterest) and decorated our Gingerbread House.
At school this month, I had fun gingerbread days with my students, and I barely worked: I was done by the 13th! The kids had a lot of fun also- Matt had a play (might have been on 11/30) and a field trip to see The Nutcracker. He also had the big Gingerbread day for second grade in the MPR. It was super fun for both the kids and moms ;)
Beth had a winter music share, a holiday party, and a field trip the the SJC Mission, which I was able to join her on.
The kids competed in an in-house TKD competition, and it was a great experience for them. Matt had a bit of nervous crying that day, but it was all well in the end. Drew worked, so I single mommed it.

Kids ended school on 12/16, so we were able to have a week's worth of fun before Christmas! Matt Had his first sleepover at Josh's, for Josh's 8th birthday. He loved it!
The kids had a joint TKD birthday party that Beth had won over the summer in a raffle wheel spin. They were joined by a lot of friends, and had a really nice time. Afterwards, the Adams' came over to hang and catch up, which was fun- it'd been quite a while since our last get together.
We spent a few days crafting Christmas gifts- the kids painted self portraits for grampa Bill and made snowmen glass blocks for all of the grandparents. I made some ornaments, and Beth and I sewed a scarf on the sewing machine!
We also took a night and went out to view Christmas lights in Fountain Valley (not as good as they used to be) and Tustin (fantastic).
Oh yeah- I forgot about my birthday! I got an iPad! My mom and Drew spoiled me, and it was a huge surprise! I also went to lunch at Gabbi's with Keeley, Elisabeth, and Janice and had a wonderful day.
In between all of that, I finished Christmas shopping, got new lenses for Beth's glasses and new glasses for Matt, dentist for all of us, got prepped for our trip, and took about a million trips to Target ;)

This year, the kids got to join Drew's family for "A Christmas Carol", and it was so cool to see it through their eyes. Late night dinner at Scott's too!

Christmas Eve, Drew worked. The kids and I spent the afternoon/evening at my moms, and when Drew got off, we opened presents! Everyone was super spoiled this year, too cool.
Christmas day, we spent the morning alone- checking out our gifts and have our usual breakfast while watching the Disney Parade- even more exciting this year!
We went to Drew's parents for awhile and exchanged gifts. Then we went to Gigi and Papa's for dinner and MORE gifts! What a year!
The next day, we woke up extra early to set off on our trip to FL!