still plugging away

even though cz's design your life class at bigpicturescrapbooking.com is finished, i am not. i am so not. but i'm still plugging away.

this, for example, is week 8, sketch 2. it was originally a 2-page 8.5x11 spread, but i hated it. so i changed it to one 12x12 page and now i like it. oh, i would do some things differently if only i had planned ahead. the topic was emphasis. using big photos to create emphasis. but i wanted to continue my theme of using my most current photos to do the layouts and i didn't have a Christmas picture great enough to print in 8.5x11 size.

you can see, however, that i did use the design principle of repetition. red buttons (i'm not much of an embellishment user), red in the photos - and if i'd planned ahead, i would have printed the title in red, too. oh, well; live and learn. also unheard of? i included a picture of me! chubby and tired looking - yep, it's me. :)

p.s. a dirty pool board is a (most often) wooden game board handmade by the dad of the family for the kid of the family when s/he grows up and moves away. andrew got his the year before last. dirty pool is similar to wahoo and is a family tradition. we play whenever we can, but it's required on Christmas Eve and pretty much all day Christmas. this year, timmy and i basically got out the marbles, rolled the dice and counted the "steps" the marbles made. no rhyme or reason to our game. maybe next year.

p.p.s. tim's a rebel. he did not wear his Christmas jammies. stinkin' daddy!

December Twelve-of-Twelve

i'm not doing well this fall/winter with the whole blogging thing, or with the whole twelve-of-twelve thing, either! i anxiously awaited december 12th, only to have my memory erased at 11:59pm on the 11th and not think of it again until yesterday. what's up with that?! so, instead of the usual, present my december 12-of-12:

november's 12-of-12

several days late in posting my 12-of-12, but when you take into account how long it's been sincei posted at all, it doesn't seem so bad, now does it?

something so funny to me: i printed out my text to review for typos and found none. then, after i'd printed it onto the cardstock (no going back), i re-read the first sentence: "Once again, I did not beat Timmy up." lol!

what i meant to say was that i failed to wake up before timmy. but i suppose the other possible meaning is also true. i did not assault my little guy, either. once again. :)

October's 12-of-12

october's 12-of-12 was fraught with difficulties. for example, i forgot about it for an hour or two first thing in the morning. then, i forgot again mid-day. then, my camera battery went dead because i forgot to charge it.

ah, well, i improvised, and here's my layout:

quite the artist, aren't i? :)

so much to say . . .

well, this blog certainly isn't doing its job of recording all my memories. stinkin' blog. when will they come up with one that just pulls the data out of my mind and updates itself daily? that's the blog i want!

today is october 12th, which of course is twelve-of-twelve day! i remembered yesterday. and forgot by this morning. but i recovered quickly when i saw susan's email. so i'm taking pictures of my life today. my boring, house-is-not-tidy life.

also, i plan to work on my week 2 layouts for cz's design your life class. i finally finished week 1 the other day. this first one is a 12x12.

and this 8.5x11 2-page spread (and not a very good scan).

i am so insanely proud of myself! for actually finishing the first assignments, yes, but also for my newly developed ability to put all my worries and obsessiveness aside and just do it! it always takes me forever to come up with any idea and then i obsess about it and about the paper and everything else until it's just torture. not this time, baby! i am going to jump right in every week. the topics of my assignment pages almost don't matter to me. i do not need the "perfect" topic. i'm learning about design. my pages will slowly but surely become more perfect as i go along.

in other news . . . preschool. ugh. timmy is engaged in a battle over who rules timmy. thursday when i went to pick him and ethan up, i passed ms. brenae, our classroom helper, who said timmy politely told ms. abby (another helper), "i will not cooperate with you." (big sigh) as it turns out, he did eventually do what ms. abby wanted him to do. but only after he'd made it clear he was doing it on his terms. (heaving another big sigh)

oh! the weather has been so nice here lately that the boys and i drive with our windows down - especially when we go past the several blocks of street construction on the way to wal mart. they love to see which piece of equipment is working and which workers might be taking a break at that moment. aaaaaaanyway, the other day we were driving along with the windows down. timmy rested his foot up on the door's armrest and said sweetly, "look, mommy, i'm just like you - one of my leg whiskers is blowing in the wind!" God love him.

expanding vocabulary

timmy's new favorite word?

boudoir.

no kidding. it's true. "boodWAH! boodWAH!"

thank you, cash cab.

timmy's first field trip

timmy's preschool went to the zoo yesterday. because friday is not a normal preschool day for timmy and ethan, i debated whether to go. my cousin vicki, who works in a kindergarten class, warned me that field trips are very different from family outtings. she said you have to zoom through everything at top speed.

she wasn't kidding! but first, we waited. and waited. at the gate, with the zoo stuff in sight. we waited for one of the teachers, i think. finally, after about 15 minutes (an eternity to a 3yo and a 4yo), ms. brooke gave up and we got to go in. ethan and timmy had busied themselves digging in the dirt, but i called out, "smile, guys!" ethan is always ready to have his picture taken. timmy? not so much.

i could share pictures of the boys looking at elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas, giraffes, otters, meerkats (love 'em!) and many other animals. but i couldn't take many. mostly because my little guy is used to strolling through the zoo in super slow-mo, reading every placard, getting to know each animal, drinking from each water fountain (shudder) and splashing through each and every puddle. but that's not how we do things on a field trip. vicki was right - we flew through each exhibit. causing many a tear and many a tantrum.

about halfway through, during a potty break, timmy had reached his breaking point. he informed me he just needed a little break.

much to the detriment of my back's health and happiness, i carried timmy most of the rest of the way until lunch time. please keep in mind, timmy (and ethan, for that matter, although he is such a compliant child that he rarely complained all morning) is unused to going so long without food and water. i usually give them one or two snacks between breakfast and lunch. nuts, raisins, cheese, yogurt, juice. good stuff. and they are never without their water. until the zoo trip.

ah, but lunch time finally came. they were both starving! the could barely contain their excitement when ms. brooke announced we'd be heading toward the pavillion to eat. at home, we do the occasional burger king or make chili dogs, but mostly we eat a big supper-type meal.

this may be why, when ms. brooke and some helpers started passing out our turkey and cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks and and juice boxes, timmy and ethan looked like this (captions suggested by my brother, ethan's dad):