Sad Boy and Happy Boy

I felt so bad! This evening, Paul was playing on the floor while Katie was eating dinner, Aaron was cleaning the kitchen, and I was eating a pudding cup (desserts are way less fun when you're dieting!). Suddenly, Paul just started to sob hysterically. It was close to bedtime, so I figured he had just had it. I held him, and that didn't console him, so I gave him a few bites of my pudding. He seemed to enjoy it, but he kept spitting it out, so I figured that wasn't what he wanted. After that, I decided to just give him a bottle and put him to bed, even though it was about 15 minutes early. However, instead of settling down in bed like usual, he kept screaming. I wasn't able to just sit there and listen to him, so I decided to rock him for a while before putting him down again. He still wouldn't settle down, and I noticed that he was drooling a ton. I forced open his mouth, and I found one of those prickly burrs (we always called them "stickers") inside of his mouth! He must have found one on the floor that fell off after our walk yesterday and, like any self-respecting 10-month-old, into the mouth it went. I was so glad that I didn't just let him cry it out! Even though our baby was so sad this evening, he's usually very jolly. Today I put together a page using some pictures that were taken when Aaron's family were down to help us put in the yard. The journaling reads: "Paul, you are one of the happiest babies I've ever seen. You always have a grin ready for whoever will give you some of their attention. You loved it when the whole family came down to help us put in the backyard. You were the center of attention, and why shouldn't you have been? You're so darn cute!" Full Credits HERE

Trip Part 2

We arrived in Scotland by train--it was great! No security hassles, no huge crowds, no long delays. We got there in just 4 1/2 hours, which is incredibly fast, considering how far we traveled. The cottage we stayed at was just outside of Stirling (about 40 mins from Edinburgh). It was so picturesque: There was a trampoline on the property, which kept Kiera occupied for hours on end (and gave us some exercise when it was our turn to entertain her). It really was the perfect place to stay. It was centrally located between the two major cities, yet it was in the country so you got that nostalgic feeling. It was roomy enough for all of us to live together for a week comfortably. I would definitely return there in a heartbeat. On Monday we visited Stirling Castle, which was only about 15 minutes away from where we were staying. It is quite different from most of the castles I've been to. Most of the site is in very good repair, and they are working on restoring the castle to how it would have been in the time of Jacob XI. They also have on-site weavers at the castle, who are creating copies of the "Hunt of the Unicorn" tapestry series to decorate the great hall. By far the best part of the castle was the tour guide. He took us on an hour-long tour of the castle that was free with admission. He was so entertaining! I could have listened to him for hours. The journaling on my page reads: "Stirling Castle is built high on volcanic rock at the lowest crossing of the River Forth, which was of great strategic importance. It was the coronation site of several Scottish kings and queens, including the infant Mary Queen of Scots. Our tour guide loved theatrics, demonstrating how heads were chopped off on the closest tourist (usually a young Indian boy, who was completely delighted)." Full Credits HERE

The Weary Travelers Return!

We arrived home Sunday evening after 2 horrendous days of flights (wrong airports, late bus connections, delayed flights, missed flights, you name it). I can't even go into details now because I get so irritated, and I would hate to start my morning off in a mood. Suffice it to say that I will never fly RyanAir again. NEVER. We had an amazing trip, though. We were able to spend a day and a half in London. I have always loved London; I think it's one of the most fascinating cities in the world. As Samuel Johnson so aptly said, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." Aaron had never been there before, so I loved being able to show him around. We saw the musical Wicked, which is just brilliant. It's up there in my top 3 favorite musicals. I had listened to the CD a million times before, so I couldn't wait to see it. The songs are some of the most fun songs in a musical and the sets were amazing! I very highly recommend it (in case you couldn't tell). The following day (Friday) we took the Original Bus Tour around London. We knew that we wouldn't be able to visit everything we wanted to in just one day, so we decided to take the tour as an overview of the city and then visit places the next time we came to London. The tour is 2 hours long, unless you do what we did and get on at the wrong stop and have to take part of the tour over again! It takes you around both the city of London and the city of Westminster. You get to see all the famous buildings, and you can get on and off at any of their designated points so that you can explore at your leisure. Our tour guide was great and told all sorts of interesting stories that you would never learn otherwise. We were able to meet up with my friends Stephen and Kiri and have dinner with them. It was so nice, since we hadn't really spent any time together since their wedding, which was over 3 years ago. We had a great dinner at Covent Garden Grill, and we were able to get an excellent deal on it through lastminute.com. We were able to save a ton of money by booking through them, and the restaurant even gave Steve and Kiri our price. The following day we took the train up to Scotland where we joined the rest of my family. I won't go into detail about that segment of the trip in this post, but I will leave you with a page I've created of our days in London. Full Credits HERE

Jane Austen Heroine

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This one's for you, Dad!

My dad called me last night to inform me that some of the links on my page were down. He also let me know that he liked the pages with lots of pictures best. Since I only have about 5 people who even look at this page, I decided it would be wise to please my adoring fans! This one was made with a kit by Manuscraps, whose guest CT I just joined. Don't you just love the many faces of Katie? She can go through all of these, plus some, in a matter of minutes (or even seconds!). Full Credits HERE

Warning: Fairly Hefty Post

Aaron's family is coming to town on Sunday and are staying for the week to help up put in our yard (thank goodness!). I will be so glad to have something other than dirt to look at while eating breakfast--it's not exactly an inspiring way to start your day. So while I'm extremely glad and grateful that they're coming, it's been fairly stressful trying to get things ready so that we can get some real work done while they're here. I have a list a mile long of things to do, but whenever I have a bunch to get done, I do the same thing: get overwhelmed, eat some chocolate, take a bubble bath, and not do much of anything. So although I have a million things yet to be crossed off of my list, I have found time to scrap several pages! I haven't been nearly as good the last few weeks about updating my blog, so this is going to be photo-rich. This afternoon (during naptime) I finished this page. The photo was taken last summer, just after we moved to ABQ. Connie and Kerry came down to visit us and we took them to Old Town to check out the shops and the free entertainment. While there, Kerry had Katie put on this darling pink cowboy hat. Fortunately we had our camera with us, so while the hat stayed put, we were able to bring the photo home. The quote reads "Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children. --Alex Haley." Full Credits HERE This next one is a photo that I've been wanting to scrap for quite some time. I love the face Katie is making here! I kept trying to make a page with it, but nothing seemed quite right, so I left it alone. Then I saw these "Beautymarks" (the glittery, swirly bits) by Two Sisters and I knew they would go perfectly. On Wednesday, I printed this page out (can't beat Costco--12x18 prints for $2.99!) and the texturing on the ribbon was amazing! It looks gorgeous! Full Credits HERE I realized that so far there isn't a single page that I've done with Aaron and me (probably because there are so few pictures of the two of us, and even fewer that I like), so I thought this one would make a fun page. The journaling on the tabs reads: "This picture seems very sweet and tender until you realize both of us are about to crack up. That makes it even more perfect. At Matt and Meg's wedding; Chelsey is 8 mos pregnant with Katie." Full Credits HERE Only 2 more! You're more than halfway done with the marathon post! I was playing around with the continuous mode on our new camera, and I managed to get Katie doing all the motions of "Popcorn Popping." She's so smart--she can do them all without help. The tags say the different lines of the song to identify the actions (a lot of them look the same to the untrained eye!). Full Credits HERE I love these photos that Connie took of Katie. The goggles are so funny, but my favorite is the expression on her face. Who would think a baby would be able to look that unimpressed? Full Credits HERE I'll be posting this week with some before and after pictures of our yard (hopefully we'll be able to make some difference!) and I should be posting soon with pictures of Katie's room. We're all finished painting; I just have to hang the curtains and hang the pictures.

Master Paul and a prize!!

I was able to get a scrapping fix for the first time in a month!! I definitely went through withdrawals...kinda scary. I started this page before I left to Utah, so it was waiting for me when I returned. There was something not quite right about it, so I wound up changing it quite a bit before I could pronounce it finished. Full Credits HERE Aaron and I also got a new prize for our trip to Scotland this summer: a new Canon Powershot S3! Isn't it beautiful? Not quite a DSLR, but as close as we could get on a whim. I can't wait to start playing around with it. It has features that I can't even pronounce; definitely will be reading the instruction manual for this one.