Signs of Spring

I've seen a robin in my yard the past couple days.

The snow is almost gone. There are a couple small piles in our yard, but almost none.

Mom has a blooming crocus in her garden.

And the first Yankees game of the season is in 3 days 20 hours and 2 minutes (as of this post). But who's counting?? I MISS MY BASEBALL!!!

Trying my hand at something very new

This is a style I never thought I could (or necessarily even wanted to) attempt. But it turns out, it's a lot of fun!!

My Clock

I started this project back in January, intending it to be for the Mini-book requirement for the Hall of Fame contest I was trying for. But I decided against entering the contest, and this book ended up being a ton more work than I'd anticipated.
So, after much time and effort on Josh's part as well as my own (he's my printer and "how-does-this-look" responder), it's finished! I finished tying up the ribbons about 30 minutes ago. The girls love it, which means I succeeded!

So the second picture-heavy layout today :)






And the back:

Here's what the finished clock looks like:

(sorry the sizes are so inconsistent. They're all the same size in real life :) )

Oona, dose, mouse

Jasmine likes to count things in "Spanish," thanks to Sesame Street. It comes out "oona, dose, mouse." Not exactly sure how tres sounds like mouse!

We're healthy now, enjoying the beautiful sunshine in spite of the large piles of yucky snow. Looking at the weather page, it doesn't look like spring is coming in the next two weeks, no matter what the calendar says. (I remember when spring actually came in late March, when I lived in Istanbul!)

Time for some layouts. I've gotten really behind on this!

What a week

This week started with an ice storm, is predicted to end with a blizzard, and has a stomach virus in the middle.

I won't go into details. :)
Josh and Jasmine are better, I'm getting there, and hopefully Bekah is too.

We'd love prayers that we'll all be better and the "blizzard" isn't too bad. My brother Phillip's 20th birthday is Sunday and we're hoping to make it out to my family's house for it, but we'll have to see how we're doing and how the travel is.

Yuck. A week I can't wait to have behind me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to SorrySuaSore

This is Jasmine's newest thing. She picks up anything that looks like a microphone and says: "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to SorrySuaSore." We have no idea what it is she's welcoming us to. Sometimes she says "50 dollars" after all that, sometimes other things. But we feel very welcome there!

My poor sweetie is sick today. Hopefully she's feeling better now...praying it's just something she ate and not a tummy bug.

Bekah started signing "happy" this morning. I love it! She's learning new words every day, just with her hands instead of her mouth. She did say "more" yesterday, so she's adding that as well.

I've been sadly amiss at posting layouts lately, and I have big news that I completely missed writing here!
I was asked to join another Creative Team. Her name is Krista and her stuff is just beautiful. She puts out kits so fast...thankfully she doesn't ask that we use them all because I could never keep up! I love what I've done so far though. Here are the layouts I've made with her things (one of them I think I posted once, but I'll post it again so all her kits are all together :) )

New Word, and New Bed

Bekah started imitating my signs today. She signed "more" and "please." Here's her interpretation of "more":

For those who don't know sign language, this is pretty close to the real thing :)

And their bed came today. It's their big birthday present from Josh's parents, and is presently set up as a toddler bed size, but when they get bigger it can become a twin. We're nervous about this whole moving-them-out-of-our-bed, mostly because all transitions take some time to adjust to. Hopefully this will go well and we'll soon be sleeping, safe and sound, in our own beds. I think it will help Bekah sleep more soundly, not having her favorite 24-hour milk bar available, which means I'll be sleeping much more restfully too!

Here's the bed and what the room looks like now.



This dresser was given to us over the weekend by a friend of Josh's grandma's. We'd been talking about needing one for her since she's outgrowing the chifferobe, so this was a huge blessing!


The dresser in the corner is Jasmine's now. It was mine, given to me when I was 7. And the spring horse is identical to the one we had when I was little, which is fun!

Memories

In a couple hours, my high school band director and his wife are coming over.

And I am soooo excited.

See, he's the reason I went to school for music. It was his passion, the influence he had on us, that made me realize that's what I wanted to do, too. (I'm not blaming him for the fact that I only taught two years; I'm sure I would have taught longer if I'd had a band in an established program etc etc etc) Every time I had to write a paper (or scrapbook page) about someone who impacted my life, I'd pull out yet more stories about "MC."

It's been fun reminiscing more this week, remembering fun stories about high school band. He worked us hard, and really turned the music program around. We started marching (I got my varsity letter in marching band!) We performed difficult music, and performed it well. And we learned a lot about discipline in life. 95% of my high school memories are band. And the other 5% are things I'd rather forget (why is it we only remember tests we didn't study for, classes that put us to sleep and missing the bus??)

I'm working right now on a layout about marching band, which I'll post here when it's done :) In the meantime, hope everyone's having a fantastic weekend!