Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Well, hello again. I just saw this very interesting article on MSN. The headline reads, "Giant Blob Under Nevada." Nice. You can read it here. You just gotta love living in Nevada! LOL
Anyway, we finished off Memorial Day weekend with a day at the reservoir. We fished and roasted weenies. This time DH was the only one to catch a fish. But it was a pretty large carp. He let Big R reel it in and MoMo helped out by manning the net.
The kids have been in the pool almost every day. They just love it. They are like little fish. I bet by the end of summer they will have gills!
Our garden is doing well so far. It look as if our cucumbers are about to blossom! Yay! The (many) sunflowers are getting very big! And my lilies are blossoming!
Well, that's what's happening in our neck of the woods (or desert!). Later!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Hello, hello! Well, we just got back from a lovely little expedition. We had planned on going to the reservoir to fish and spend the day but this morning it was pretty windy and the other family we were going to go with decided they'd rather go to the indoor pool so we scrapped that plan. Big R wasn't too keen on going to the reservoir, anyway. That kid's got GOLD FEVER! He wanted to go look for gold instead. LOL So, we went to the Truckee River with our gold pan, metal detector and our fishing poles. Unfortunately our gold pan and metal detector didn't find us any gold and our fishing poles didn't get us any fish, except for one. And I was the one who caught it! Ha! Ha! But it was too small to be a keeper. It was a trout, though. Cutthroat. And, sadly enough we didn't think to get a pic before we turned it loose. BUT we did catch something in the river.
That is a crayfish, AKA crawdad AKA crawfish. We saw them crawling up near the edge of the water and we started swooping them up with a net. We had a lot of fun, searching for the little critters, trying to sneak up on them and get them in the net. We caught 11 of them, not counting a few that slipped through the net before we could get them into the bucket. And, no, we didn't have a crawfish feast and suck all their brains out. We actually let them all loose before we left.

Here are a few more pics from our outing.
Yeah, so that was day 1 of out Memorial Day weekend. Hope yours was as good!

P.S. Oh, and I just wanted to add that I also saw a river otter while I was sitting there fishing! It just swam right past me. Pretty cool to see one in the wild.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Hello again and happy Frog Jumping Jubilee day! Got your frogs ready to jump? LOL Anyhoo, we've had some company the last few days. My in-laws came to visit. We spent some time showing them our favorite rock hunting spots one day. It was pretty hot out there, though. They bought the kids a big pool to keep cool in.
I imagine they'll spend a lot of time in there this summer. My MIL and I took the kids (while the men folk were setting up the pool in the hot sun) to the antiques block party they had here. We found some treasures. Little MoMo found a trinket box she "had" to have and also a couple of Christmas mouse ceramic figurines. Here she is showing them off.
Big R first saw a truck that he fancied. I guess it used to have booze in it. It was a decanter, apparently. But then he found a Darth Vader voice changer mask and got that instead. I got some blue and white patterned plates and also these 3 plates. The sales lady assured us that she could get $100 a plate in Arizona since "everyone in Arizona knows who De Grazia is!" (Is that true? I didn't really believe her) Anyway, I didn't pay $100 per plate, just so you know. I don't know anything about the artist but I did like the plates.
Yesterday was DH's birthday so his parents got him a new BBQ and we BBQ'd steaks to try it out. They were very yummy. We rounded those out with corn on the cob and baked potatoes. Stuffed ourselves and it was quite awhile before anyone wanted cake and ice cream. I made his chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. That's what he ALWAYS has. I decorated it to look like the boombox from Yo Gabba Gabba. (A kid's show on tv) Partly because he likes Yo Gabba Gabba but also because he wanted some ridiculously expensive boombox for his birthday and I didn't get it for him. He got a cake boombox instead. LOL I just realized that I don't have any pics of the cake lighting part of it but here are a couple of him opening gifts.
Big R really liked the card that DH got from his parents. It plays Star Wars music. Kaos is going to be very sad, I think, when they leave. They brought their dog, Yoda, with them and they are best buddies. Kaos has always wanted a buddy.
Well, anyway, that's what's been happening here. Talk to ya later, gators!

P.S. Ok, so I Googled this de Grazia and perhaps the lady was right. I bet Mom's sister knows who he is. Apparently he lived in Morenci and graduated from the high school there. I guess he is somewhat well known and on the website for his gallery (thought he is dead now) one of the plates I bought sells there for $130 and one of the others I got sells for $250! I paid $10 for each plate so I guess we got a bargain! :0D

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Hello all and happy Dance Like a Chicken Day! Hope you all got to celebrate this one. LOL Anyway, I did NOT dance like a chicken today. I've been sick all week with a cold. Blah. But we did EAT chicken for dinner. Too bad I couldn't really taste it. I hear it was really good.
And in other bad news...my Photoshop Elements program, which I use to scrap, is not working properly. All of the sudden I can't start the program. I keep getting error messages. I tried uninstalling and then reinstalling it but that didn't fix it. I can't figure out why I still have the same problem after that. SIGH So, I haven't been able to scrap any more pages. Though I do have one new one to post. But I made it before I started having problems with my program.
You know, if anyone feels a need to buy me the full version of Photoshop I probably could live with that. LOL
Well, that's about all I have for now. Later!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Just wanted to add a couple of new layouts I did.









Happy Mother's Day! I hope all the moms are having a wonderful day. I know I got the sweetest gifts from my kids. I even got a CAR!!! Here's a pic...
LOL This is from my little MoMo. I had asked her a couple of days ago what she was getting her mom for Mother's Day. She replied, "A car." So, she drew me this car, complete with a window glued on. It's hard to see here but that part directly over the right wheel is the window. How cute is that!? And Big R has been excited all week. One day he asked me if his dad was going to be off work on Sunday. I told him that he was and he said he had a surprise for me. He was even counting down the days! ("4 more days until Mother's Day!") He made me some artwork as well. He came in a woke me up this morning. (No breakfast in bed LOL) and said, "Mama, there's something for you on the table." He was so excited.
This last one is my favorite, though. Big R wrote about his mom...

If you can't read it, it says, "My mom makes me feel happy. My mom is small with brown hair. My mom likes to read a lot. My mom is very nice. I like it when we go to the park. I love her." I will treasure it forever. I also got a rose from each of the kids that they picked out for me. Plus some candy, Almond Roca and Turtles, and a new game for my DS, Cooking Mama. I think that last one was picked out because MoMo really wanted it for herself! But I played it and it is pretty fun. I can even send a demo of the game to the kids' units and they can play, too!

So, it's been a very nice day here. I think that's about all I have for now. If I think of anything else I'll just add it here. Alrighty, then, I'll talk to you all later!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Happy Wednesday all! I'm pretty excited because I'm getting some GREAT deals this week and saving money! I do love a bargain! I got my coupons for 4 FREE KFC meals (2 pieces of chicken, 2 sides and a biscuit!). If you want some go to UnthinkKFC.com. But hurry because you have to print them today. By 10:59pm, I think. Check the fine print on the site to be sure. But you don't have to use them today. You have until May 19th, I believe, excluding Mother's Day. So what are you waiting for? Go get some free KFC! LOL
Also, I got some fantastic deals at Walgreens this week. (thanks to CouponCravings.com) By combining coupons and regiter rewards, I'm getting lots of free and very cheap stuff--ThermaCare heatwraps, Swiffer refills, Swiffer dusters, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. I just love that!
Anyway, enough about that. All of our butterflies came out and we enjoyed them in their house for a few days but some members of our household weren't very nice toward them. Those members were not of the human variety but the feline. The cats couldn't resist trying to chase the butterflies when they fluttered about the butterfly house. And that's not a fair fight when the butterflies can't get out of their house to escape. I was waiting for the weather to warm a little before we released the butterflies outside. So, yesterday was the big day. We let them out to fly in the big, wide world. Watching butterflies begin as caterpillars and change into butterflies is an amazing process and we still love to watch it even though we have done this for about 4 years in a row. It's become a spring tradition for us.
Today I cut DD's hair. It had gotten pretty long and unmanageable. She wanted long hair but the tangling was too much for us. She hated getting the tangles combed out, I hated combing them out. Plus, she didn't like me putting it in a ponytail or braids or anything. I don't have a picture, yet, but it turned out pretty cute. It's a little longer than shoulder length and I tried to angle it around her face. It looks pretty cute. And she likes it quite a lot, even though she wanted to keep her long hair. I tried to talk her into a Dora cut (just kidding) but she wasn't having it. She loves Dora but didn't want to look like her.
Anyway, I guess that's about it today. Big R just got home from school and I have to figure out what I'm making for dinner. Then we have a T Ball game after dinner. So, I'll talk atcha later!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Happy Be Kind to Smelly People Day and {inter} National Scrapbook Day! Perhaps you might guess that I'm much more excited about the second one! It's actually almost like torture to me today, being online. Every digital scrapbooking store online is having a celebration ( read SALE) in honor of {i}NSD. I want to buy sooooo many things! Mostly things are from 30 to 60% off so I think, Wow, this is only $2 or $3 or whatever, I could just get a couple of things here. But then I would see an ad for a sale at another store that has things 50% off and I'm tempted to just pick up a couple of more things (It's only $3). And then there's ANOTHER store with a sale and what harm would buying a couple things here do? Until it really starts adding up. Besides, I have A LOT of scrapping kits already. (sigh) So, I'm trying to be good and not get sucked into it. It's very difficult, though. But I did get a number of freebies, in honor of the occasion. Yay! I LOVE FREEBIES!!! But, after I post this I'm vowing to stay offline so I won't give in to the temptation.
Oh, some of our chrysalises have released their butterlies! One came out yesterday and another this morning. The kids named the first one Speedy. DD already told me, "I LOVE Speedy!" She's so cute.
And our garden is doing very well. he snow and freezing weather didn't kill it off. I think everything we planted is coming up and some of it is already getting quite big. Like the cucumber plants. And last year DH took DD out and let her plant sunflower seeds. So basically she seeded everything in the backyard. And this year we have tons of sunflower plants growing all over. That's one thing that grows well in this area. They actually grow wild here.
Well, I have a couple of layouts that I made so I'll leave you with those and then try to occupy myself with something other than shopping for digital scrapbooking supplies!