Sunday Snapshot ~ Disneyland. Yes, again.

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I vow to make next week’s Snapshot of my Gracie girl since this week’s Snapshot is yet again of Addison Rose. That being said, I have to make this my most favorite shot of the week.

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We spent a lovely day at Disney with Addie’s friend EJ for her birthday, and I love this shot because it is a glimpse into our day. I love all of the motion and movement around the girls, yet they are just stopped in their own little world, in the midst of it all. Definitely my favorite snap of the week. Taken again…with my iPhone, but I’m snapping! How about you?

Good Intentions.

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Didn’t I title one of my posts that not so long ago? This was another one of those weeks, I guess. A very hard, long week.

I started the week on a cleaning binge and had intended on cleaning out a closet a day, and a definite full day devoted to the playroom. Well…that lasted about um, two days. But on a bright note, I got two closets cleaned.  I also ended up making a really, really good soup. It was apparently so good that Addie ate three bowls of it for dinner one night…on top of her grilled cheese sandwich.

We needed some good chicken noodle soup around here because poor Em is still sick. Fever and cough all last week, just cough this week…but that hard-keep-you-up-all-night cough. So we are all a little tired. And now it appears that J. has it too. Poor kids. We are going to leave the two of them home on either sides of the sofa tomorrow while Addie and I take one of her friends to Disney for her birthday.

J. and Em need to get all rested up because we are going to see Wicked on Sunday! Woot! I can’t wait to take the girls, they have been singing the songs for years, it is going to be a treat to just sit and watch their reaction to the show.

I sure do love these two monkeys. They make getting through the very long, hard weeks so very much worth it.

Crafty Tuesday

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Yeah! I have a few possible joiners for our Snapshot Sunday! So now we know Sundays and Tuesdays, at the very least, you can count on something being up here.

Although this week, we are grasping a little bit in the crafty department again. I completed another set of Princesses for a birthday and am working on 2 more sets and…a boy version, so stay tuned for that.

I finally got the calendar back from the printer and mailed them the last week of December, so I think most people got them on January 2nd…not too late. If you would like, you can see the whole year by clicking on the cover below.

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And Birdie #2 was kind enough to snap these photos of the signs I made (I totally forgot to snap photos of these before the handoff.) for her studio area, which by the way, when she gets her area straightened back up, I so need to go take photos of it. She turned her garage into the coolest crafting area, ever!

This has become our mantra since I found it on Pinterest many moons ago. We tell each other “We can do hard things” at least once a week.

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And I just saw this, (I think on Pinterest too!) and loved it – so she got 2 signs.

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I followed Young House Love‘s subway art tutorial, sort of.  J. cut the plywood for me and I painted it white; designed the signs in Illustrator and cut them out; used my distressing kit from back in my scrapbooking days to roughen the paper up a little; and then just modge-podged it on to the plywood. I think next time I might use the matte modge podge, since this has a little more shine than I’d like and not apply it so thick. But of course, last-minute Betty over here didn’t have time to go back and fix the glitches. Literally, I was wishing it dry so I could wrap it up to take it over to our New Year’s Party!

I’m actually off to the fabric store right now – I have some super capes to whip up and a totebag for Ad’s classroom. So I will have honest-to-goodness crafts for next week. See you then.

Snapshot Sunday

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One of my goals this year is to pick up my camera more and find a favorite, best shot for the week. I think I’ll post them on Sundays. For those of you who have been around here awhile, it is kinda like reincarnating the Best Shot Monday…just on Sunday, the end of the week!

So I present our first Snapshot Sunday of 2012.

Although technically I took this with my iPhone, not my real camera, it really makes me smile. Since we didn’t get date night on Friday, we took the girls out for a little Sunday afternoon sushi. Addie loves the sushi, (Em not so much) but finds the chopsticks a little cumbersome…fingers work just as well!

Please join in on Snapshot Sunday with me if you are feeling so inclined!

Enough Already.

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If you asked me earlier in the week I would have refused to even think about tomorrow, or the very idea of vacation ending.

‘Lo what a difference a few days makes.

Today is just the end of a long, frustrating week, and I think that it is really just time for everyone to head on back to school, or work, or wherever it is they belong.

On Monday I finally convinced J. to traverse out to the Lamps Plus Outlet & Warehouse. Since we need lighting in virtually every single room in our house, we really need to go on a bit of a lighting spree. This outlet is supposed to be pretty great…lots of open box stuff and discontinued stuff for cheap. Notice how I said “supposed to be?” Yeah, I called to get the hours and make sure they were open (it was Jan. 2nd, mind you, the day after New Year’s) and the phone message and website said nothing about being closed. You can so see where this is going, right? Fifty miles later, we pulled into an empty parking lot and J. just said, “oh, baby.” And Addie pipes up with “we came all the way here for nothing?”

Grrr. Yes, for nothing. Although J. did say “I will not be coming out here again, you can just get whatever you want.” That kinda sounds like carte blanche to buy whatever I find, doesn’t it? So he can’t complain when he doesn’t like it, right?

Tuesday we headed to Disney for a little mini-vacation. We planned on staying at the Grand Californian so we could hang and see the nighttime festivities that we don’t usually get to see. And then, Gracie got really sick. Early in the afternoon she started to get that glassy-eyed, feverish look. So J. took her back to the hotel and they ended up hanging there. On the plus side, I got to spend an afternoon with just Addie. We rode whatever she wanted to, and it was a nice chance for some one-on-one time with her.  We grabbed a little dinner and then J. took Addie out and they had some time, while I hung with Em in the hotel room. She went to bed around 6:30 and pretty much slept til 8 am the next morning.

Wednesday morning she popped up and claimed to be feeling “much better.” So our friends came down to join us and we made it through lunch and a few rides when the fever hit yet again. J. ended up taking Gracie home, and the rest of us stayed for a few more hours and tried to make it worthwhile for our friends. It ended up being fine, but it was just not how we had planned it going down.

Thursday we spent a quiet day at home mostly hoping to get Em all back to normal for Friday. Friday the girls were having a sleepover at Uncle Jeff and Aunt JBs and Mommy and Daddy were having a much needed date night! Yeah, well Friday afternoon Em took a 3-hour nap and it was pretty clear that we couldn’t pawn her off on poor Jeff and JB. Sooo…no sushi and movie for Mom and Dad.

I know it isn’t Gracie’s fault she was sick, but her “8-going-on-16” attitude lately is her fault, and enough to drive me over the edge. In retrospect, none of these frustrations are very large in the greater scheme of things, I mean boo hoo hoo, right? But, it is just enough already. I’ve possibly never said this before but…I’m excited for Monday.

12 for 2012.

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Ok, I’ve received a few little helpful resolution suggestions and I think – now that we are a week into 2012 – I’m ready to put my resolution/to-do list out here, so you all can help keep me honest as the year flies by.

I was sent an article, from my wise Aunt Vicki, that encouraged everyone to come up with three words for the year, instead of resolutions. Once you decide your words for 2012, it would make your goals much easier to write.  So after much searching, I have come up with my three words:

  • Connect
  • Focus

  • Improve

And the following 12 goals for 2012:

1. Spend some time catching up with old friends. I have really enjoyed re-connecting with my high school friends this past year and have many other old friends who deserve at the very least a phone call or email this year. (Connect)

2. Schedule a one-on-one date with Emma and Addie and Daddy at least once a month so I can really focus on each of them and give them their own time. (Connect and Focus)

3. Run more. Sign up for a half-marathon in May (and maybe a 2nd in October) which will force me to train. (Focus and Improve)

4. Up my yoga to 2-3 days a week, mostly to combat the increase in running on my joints & muscles, but also to help find my happy place. (Focus and Improve)

5. Try a new recipe/cooking technique once a week. I was going to say healthy but – that might not always be a goal that I can follow. (Improve)

6. Picking up my camera and taking an “OMG, this is my fave photo of the week!” photo every single week. – (Improve)

7. Organize the sewing/craft/spare bedroom so I can make some time for some creating. (Focus and Improve)

8. Paint our kitchen cabinets and blinds. (IMPROVE)

9. Read (and blog about) one book each month for the year. (Improve)

10. Turn 40 gracefully. (Hmmm…Improve, I guess?)

11. Take a cruise with my family and r-e-l-a-x during a massage on the beach. (Connect)

and

12. Ask myself “Does this help me connect, focus or improve myself or my family?” before I say yes to ANY volunteer activities this year.

Any goals for 2012 for you?

Crafty Tuesday

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Ok, I get it. You are all chickens! Nobody wants to suggest any resolutions for me? Fine. I’m working on a 2012 To-Do List – not quite resolutions, but I am going to make a list of things I’d like to accomplish this year. It is a’ brewing up in my little brain. Stay tuned.

I have a few Christmas projects that I did manage to get out the door this week. Yes, it was the week after Christmas, thankfully we didn’t celebrate with friends until New Year’s Eve.

I whipped out the ol’ stationery and made some custom cards for everyone. Colored paper from Paper Source, designed in Illustrator and printed out on our trusty inkjet printer.

MC – our superstar soccer playing babysitter…

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Yvette – Who just went en pointe this year and therefore is Addie’s ballet idol…

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Charile – Our lil’ guy who always entertains his little harem of women…

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Diane – my dear friend and hair stylist extraordinaire…

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and Jamie – we decided her “logo” needed to be a beehive with her family of busy bees, so this is what I came up with…

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Then for Audrey (and I made one for Sasserella Ella for her birthday that was this week, too!) I finally got to make one of these Box O’ Princesses. I’ve been dying to make one of these – I love that it is all the Disney princesses but homemade…no manufactured in China plastic here.

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I won’t detail out the process, since you can see it for yourself at her site, but it is so fun to do – if you have a princess-lovin’ girl in your world you should try this out.

That’s it for us around here. I also made some signs for Birdie #2, but totally forgot to take pics of them! I’ll get some pics and let you know how we did them next week. In the meantime, I’m enjoying have J. home this week. We are knocking some great projects off around the house and heading to Disneyland today, so we’ll be back soon.

Resolutions.

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It is that time again…to look back at the last year while we make plans for a promising new one.

2011 was a pretty great year around the Voris household. We officially have a “household” of our own since we got to buy our house;  J. continued to enjoy working for Uncle Walt, we continued to enjoy the perks of him working there including a fun trip to Orlando; the girls continued to thrive turning 8 and 6 and blossoming into social little butterflies, and we have all had a very healthy and happy year. I’m not quite sure how we can top that, but we are certainly going to try.

As far as resolutions go…bah. Do I ever really follow through on them? I always have good intentions, but usually fall short. Then yesterday I was listening to NPR and they had, what I thought was a brilliant idea – have someone else make your resolutions for you! I tried to get J. to make some for me since he knows me best, but his response was – “so this is what we are doing this year? Fighting?” And then he continued on with some sort of “you don’t need to resolve to do anything better…” blah, blah, blah. He is such a kiss-butt!

So, since J. doesn’t want to make any resolutions for me, anyone else want to give it a shot? You guys know me pretty well, what do you think I should work on this year? Remember just because you resolve something for me doesn’t mean that I’m going to actually follow through on it, but I might. Especially if you are watching…

Have a safe and happy New Year! We’ll see you in 2012!!