2 Girls 2 Dogs 2 Cats . . .

Dear Aunt Flo.....

2009-11-08T17:45:00.002-05:00

Dearest Aunt Flo,

I am not sure what is delaying your visit, but would you hurry up and get here already! We are anxious to get Try #12 started, but we can't do so without your presence. Of course, once you do finally come for your visit, please let it be the last one for the next 10 months. That would make us the happiest!

Sincerely,

Carrie and MJ

First Saturday Quilt Blocks

2009-11-07T22:39:00.000-05:00

It wouldn't be the first Saturday of the month if I didn't share our quilt blocks from this month. We have already decided that we are definitely going to do this again next year as it has been both fun and a great learning experience. We also signed up to do a monthly wall hanging next year, so that will be something to look forward to. We decided to skip our scrapbooking club this month because we didn't really like the kit, and our friends weren't going this month either. I'm not sure we'll do that again next year as we haven't been real excited about the kits and it is an hour drive to get there.

So, without further adieu, here is our fabric from this month.

And the lovely quilt blocks:

The funniest thing just happened - as I was getting ready to publish this post, I JUST noticed that I messed up on one of the squares - can you tell what the problem is???

Celebrity Day

2009-11-06T18:10:00.003-05:00

Friday is my day each week to feel like a celebrity. I work in one school Mon - Thur and in a different school on Friday. My Friday school is smack dab in the middle of one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. Lots of alcohol and drug abuse on the part of the parents, high poverty level, abuse, neglect, etc. It is a small school of only 70 kids who are all very needy.

Well, when I go there on Fridays, I always say that it is my day to feel like a celebrity. When I pull up and I'm unloading my car, there are always about 20 kids screaming my name. They fight over who gets to hold the door open for me. Walking up the sidewalk is like walking the red carpet. When the kids see me as they are all walking into morning meeting, they are waving and calling my name. They are so excited to see me each week.

Mostly they love it because we have fun - I take each class for 30 minutes on the computer in the morning, and then for 40 minutes in the afternoon for Science. I'm lucky - just the nature of my job equals fun to the kids - I don't have to try real hard! I don't have to worry about the reading and math, and all of that other day to day stuff.

So, I enjoy my celebrity day each Friday, but I also leave every Friday counting my blessings. Working in a place like that where the kids have such hard lives really makes me thankful for the wonderful life I have. I can't imagine living like they do. I am so thankful for all that I have!

Teachers make mistakes too.....

2009-11-05T18:19:00.002-05:00

MJ was telling her 4th graders the difference between nouns and pronouns today.

What she intended to say was: "Pronouns are words like he, she, it, they...."

Instead she said: "Pronouns are words like he, SHIT, they..."

OOPS!

Many boughts of laughter and giggles ensued amongst the 9 and 10 year olds.

Do you ever remember a teacher of yours doing something like that??

Gay Marriage

2009-11-04T19:59:00.002-05:00

So, I'm sad for the same sex couples of Maine - sad that their right to marry was granted over the summer and then denied by the voters yesterday. Serioulsy, isn't it 2009 people - it isn't going to hurt anyone if you let same sex couples get married. People honestly don't realize how many rights we are denied when we can't marry.

Thankfully there has been NO hullabaloo here in NH since our law passed. It goes into effect Jan 1. I can't wait to be able to say that I am MARRIED to the love of my life.

To add insult to injury some idiot wrote a letter to the editor in our local paper saying that the reason that we had an abnormally rainy summer was because God wasn't allowing the sun to shine here because gay marriage is legal.

Are you kidding me?!?!

The Naughty Dog Strikes Again...

2009-11-03T11:12:00.000-05:00

One day last week, I just couldn't help myself and I got into the trash in the living room:

Then, I enjoyed a package of what was supposed to be my mom's birthday cake:

But I made sure I took my time out on the stairs when my mama came home:

At least I make my mom's laugh - it's a good thing they love me!

Halloween at School

2009-11-02T11:08:00.000-05:00

On Friday at school, MJ's team all dressed up as Sn.ow Whi.te and the S.even D.warfs. They also won the school wide door decorating contest for being drug free! Last year they did a Wiz.ard of O.z theme and won as well. Now they have set a precedent and will have to come up with something even bigger and better next year!

Here is the beginning of their part of the hallway:

and here are the doors:

And here is the whole team decked out in all of their glory - I think they look great! Mj is the third dwarf from the left (green hat, orange top). Apparently this pic is going to be in the newspaper!

NaBloPoMo

2009-11-01T10:53:00.004-05:00

So, I have decided to join in on National Blog Posting Month. I have been terrible about posting lately, so I figure this may be the kick in the pants that I need to get better about it! I can't promise that I will be really good about posting EVERY day, but I sure will try and we'll see how it goes!

We have both been pretty sick for the past week, so nothing really exciting has been going on around here! We did get out yesterday to have some stamping and scrapping fun. I'll share some pics later!

Here's to writing more this month - anyone care to join me?!?!

Happy Birthday, Baby!

2009-10-28T15:57:00.001-04:00

Today is MJ's birthday!! We had a wonderful time celebrating with my family this weekend which is a good thing because we are both sick today!

I had so much fun shopping for her this year - I just had so many ideas!

I even made a fun scrapbook project and included pictures of our trip to the Cape a couple of weekends ago!

I let MJ open a few presents early, and the rest were saved for this morning!

I had lots of fun making the cake too.....

Mello Weekend

2009-10-18T16:25:00.004-04:00

After a couple of crazy weekends - it was nice to just chill this weekend! In bulleted form - here is what we did:

*Went to the scrapbooking store and bought some fun stuff to make Hall.oween Cards

*Ran errands- groceries, etc

*Went for a walk with the dogs

*Caught up on TV from last week

*Slept late on Sunday

*Made our picks for the football pool at work

*Went for a walk by ourselves!

*Made the yummiest turkey/swiss sandwiches with homemade guacamole

*Watched the Minn.esota Vi.kings win by the skin of their teeth

*Won an auction on E.b.ay

*Had a cup of tea and watched the snow fall outside (seriously - snow already?!?! I think we are in for it this winter!)

*Watching the Pat.riots (in their throwback jerseys - boy does that confuse me) and hoping they will win

*Getting ready to make those fun Hallow.een cards.

It was an awesome weekend!

Today

2009-10-15T19:36:00.002-04:00

October 15 is Infant and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Day.

We are especially missing our Chicklet as we should be nearing the end of our pregnancy.

To all of you out there who have an angel in heaven - know that we are thinking of you today.

The Cape Day Two

2009-10-14T21:29:00.002-04:00

There is no better way to start of a Sunday on the Cape, but at this place:

They have the BEST breakfast buffet!

Once our bellies were full, headed into P.town and did plenty of shopping! We hit all of our favorite stores and just enjoyed roaming the streets with all of the other women in town!

The weather was picture perfect, so we decided to buy a kite and take it to the beach. We had lots of fun!

We headed to the beach again for the sunset - but we just had to go to this beach:

The name is a bit funny we think!

Again, the sunset was absolutely stunning!

What a perfect long weekend!

The Cape Day One

2009-10-13T21:28:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, the morning was a bit dreary, so we headed out in search of a scrapbook store that we had never been to before. Let's just say it was AWESOME!! We had lots of fun looking around, taking pics for ideas, and buying some stuff. After that, we meandered along Rt. 28 to see what we could find. Our first stop was at an outdoor festival/craft fair. This woman was pretty funny in her juggling attire!

Then we hit our favorite T/Sweatshirt store. They have the best tees and sweats for CHEAP, but they are great quality - they wash and wear well, and are super comfy!

On the way back, the timing was perfect for sunset, so we headed to the beach. We had fun taking some pics of the two of us - even without the tripod :). We managed to find things to prop the camera on. It was SOOOO windy - you can probably tell by our wonderful hairdos in the pics.

Here are some of my faves of the two of us:

The beach was just gorgeous and we were treated with a rainbow while we were there.

The sunset was even more stunning as you can see in the pics below:

Coming tomorrow...Day 2!

Perfect Weekend

2009-10-12T21:26:00.002-04:00

We are back from a blissfully perfect weekend We enjoyed sleeping late, flying kites on the beach, shopping, celebrating Wom.en's W.eek in Pro.vincetown, and watching the stunning sunset each night.

I'll be back tomorrow for a full update with pics and everything.

A Long Weekend

2009-10-08T21:28:00.004-04:00

Ahh, I love a long weekend - especially this one. It is the beginning of W.omen's W.eek in Provinc.etown and we will be there to celebrate their 25th Ann.iversary!!! We love going to the C.ape, we love going to P-t.own, and we love it even more when we can be there with a whole bunch of women!!!!

We are so looking forward to getting away - we are leaving right from school tomorrow afternoon. It is about a 175 mile drive, and we'll be sure to hit traffic in Bo.ston right around rush hour, but it will all be good. We are staying in a house virtually free (we just have to pay a bit for utilities), and can't be happier.

The plan for Saturday is to hit the t-shirt shop, the scrapbook store (it's one we've never been too!), and the jewelry store to use a gift certificate for new charms for our Pan.dora bracelets. On Sunday we will go to our favorite breakfast place for brunch, then spend the day in P-t.own!

We just have to survive the day tomorrow.........

First Saturday

2009-10-04T10:19:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was the first Saturday of the month, which means we had our scrapbooking and quilt block clubs. Here are our pages that we made for this month:

Here are MJ's

And here are mine:

After our clubs, we went to see T.oy Stor.y 1 and 2 double feature in 3D!! It was lots of fun and a perfect thing to do on a rainy day - an boy did it pour all day yesterday.

Here is Olivia - she came prepared with her stuffed animals

We didn't get a pic of Laura and Sue (Olivia's moms)

Here we are waiting for the movie to start:

After the movie, we ran some errands and did some fun shopping as well.

It was a great day and VERY productive as well. Today we get to hang in the basement and get some craft project done - I can't wait!

Try #11A and #11B both a bust!

2009-10-01T21:15:00.003-04:00

Well, you all know that when we TTC in August, the cycle was a bust as the meds never stimulated my ovaries enough. Well, we did try #11B this past month and it was a bust too....AF arrived today. We hadn't blogged about this most recent try as we were just trying to kind of "stay under the radar" so to speak. We are bummed - I am pretty sure our timing was off with this one.

So, we sit out a month, and try again in November - that will make Try #12 - and we should inseminate right around the time Chicklet was due. It will be a bittersweet try, I'm sure...

Pumpkin Fun....

2009-09-27T19:04:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we took Olivia to pick a pumpkin at my parent's house. My dad is awesome because he grows pumpkins just so the kids who come around (neighbors, etc) can have one, and be able to pick their own! Olivia has been getting one from him for quite a few years now and I'm not sure who looks forward to it more - the kids or my dad!

First you have to find the perfect pumpkin!

This is the right one!

Having my dad help her cut the stem because "it's prickly."

Showing off her HEAVY pumpkin!!!

And here are some fun pics of Olivia out front with the scarecrow...

Holding that heavy pumpkin again!

And one last one of the three of us (MJ, Carrie, Olivia)

What a great day!

Guess Who's Here?!?!

2009-09-26T08:44:00.003-04:00

Olivia is here again to visit us! She is only here for a short 24 hours this time though. We had tons of fun last night playing To.y Sto.ry Man.ia on the Wii - or as she likes to call it - "To.y Stor.y ManiaC" Too funny! She has seen ads for this game and was so excited that we had it! However she was quite disappointed to find out that it is now "only manufactured at the No.rth P.ole." The only way to get it is to ask Santa for it!!! Teehee!!!

Gotta hit as many bullseyes as you can!

Concentrating very hard on hitting the bullseye!

Jumping for bonus points....

Lassoing with Woody....

Of course the evening wouldn't be complete without some sort of sweet treat. MJ baked cupcakes in her little feet baking cups. They were very cute! Olivia had fun putting tons of sprinkles, etc on them!

Here she is showing off her new PJ's that we got for her to keep in her drawer of clothes that we have for her here. She was so excited about them that she "wishes they were daytime clothes."

And finally, the toothless grin as she has lost her two front teeth!

Up for today- a trip to my parent's farm to pick a pumpkin, some lunch, some errands, and then to meet Mama.

A Plus

2009-09-24T19:52:00.002-04:00

I just have to share.....

MJ is sitting here correcting homework. The assignment was to find numbers in your house/world. Write down the number and where you found it.

I think this kid deserves an A+:

"Quantity 30 - My mother's prescription bottle"

"375ml - The Jack Daniels bottle"

Let's just hope mom wasn't chasing the prescription with the JD!!!

Oh. my. gosh. If my kid turned that in, I would be a bit embarrassed - but then again, maybe those are the ONLY numbers they have in that house...

Fall Frolic Crop

2009-09-21T11:15:00.002-04:00

On Saturday we had tons of fun with our friends Laura and Sue at a 12 hour "Fall Frolic" crop. It was 12 uninterrupted hours of nonstop scrapbooking! We got ourselves all packed up - you need a lot of stuff when you are scrapbooking for that long!

When we arrived, there was a cute little goodie bag with a candy bar, pretzles, and bottle of water for us:

Here we are taking break for a quick pic:

Here is Laura and Sue:

A couple more pics of us working away and our table:

We had so much fun and accomplished A LOT!!! MJ and I got 18 pages done each - that really put a huge dent in our album making! This store has also started giving a 20% discount to teachers, so that was a bonus for the day as well! While we were there, we also signed up for "Crop instead of Shop" which is another crop being held on Bla,ck Fri.day! We are already looking forward to that!

I'll take a few pics of our favorite layouts that we completed and post them in a couple of days!

My Honey is the BEST!

2009-09-20T11:24:00.002-04:00

I had a great birthday last week - MJ made it really special! On Sunday, she let me open some of my presents one day early! Here is the stack of things.....

Opening some fun school supplies! I got pens, notebook, folder, and lots of other fun stuff. (I know I am a total nerd for getting excited about school supplies - but Stap.les is one of my absolute favorite stores!

This may seem kind of silly, but I keep saying that I want a shredder - so I got one for my bday!

Of course, I had to find lots of things to shred just to try it out!

On Monday, my actual birthday, she continued to make my day special. We work in the same school, and all day long, I found little presents in my mailbox with cute little cards. She even snuck a card and a gift into my lunch box! When we got home, there was a beautiful bouquet of sunflowers waiting for me as well!

When we got home on Tuesday - waiting in the doorway was my final prize - the JUST RELEASED Toy St.ory Man.ia game for W.ii - we had so much fun playing it! For any of you have been on the new To.y Sto.ry ride at Holly.wood St.udios in FL - the game is JUST LIKE the ride - tons of fun!

It's so great to share those special days with someone you love!

I can tell we're back to work!

2009-09-13T19:25:00.002-04:00

I can tell we are back to work because it has been a whole week since I posted. There just isn't as much time to keep up with things! We had a good week at school - in many ways it seems like we never left. MJ has a pretty decent class this year which is a major blessing compared to the class from hell that she had last year! I am in the midst of fall testing for the entire school, so I don't get outside of my room very often. That takes the whole month of September and then I get to start my "real" teaching.

We had a great weekend this weekend. Yesterday we spent a large part of the day with my parents celebrating my birthday (it's Monday the 14th). They bought me some new shoes for work, a Li.fe is Go.od shirt and drink glasses, and took us out to lunch. It was great to spend time with them! We also stopped at a jewelry store while we were out and MJ got me a new charm for my Pan.dora bracelet.

Today we did a major organizing of the scrapbooking room - we went through all of our stuff and we have three bags of paper and stickers that we are bringing to work tomorrow to give away. It is stuff that we will never use - some of it we looked at and wondered why in the world we even bought it! We also got all packed up for the 12 hour crop we are going to next Saturday.

So, a nice mellow weekend being productive and celebrating my birthday - can't ask for anything better!

Fabulous Weekend!

2009-09-07T18:17:00.002-04:00

We had such a great long weekend! Three day weekends just can't be beat! We went to our scrapbooking and quilt clubs on Saturday and then when we got home my mom called and needed us to help them put up hay. So, we grabbed the dogs and off we went - we ended up putting about 350 bales of hay in the barn with help from the neighbors as well.

On Sunday we took a trip to Jo.Ann's Fab.rics to check out their La.bor D.ay Sale - we had a little too much fun. Let's just say that our receipt was 90 inches long! Here is the pic to prove how long it was:

Sunday night and Monday we had lots of fun sewing. We did our quilt blocks for September so that those are all done and ready for next month. Here they are, however, we are not real excited about the pink fabric in them. I don't know what the person was thinking when they picked that!

We also got a pattern for these adorable little wallets. We made a couple of those on Sunday night too.

Here is MJ's:

And here is the one I made:

On Sunday afternoon MJ made herself a sewing maching cover and I worked on making a tree skirt for our Christ.mas Tree. I have ALWAYS wanted to make my own tree skirt, and finally found a pattern that I liked, so we picked out the fabric for it!

Here is the fabric we picked (you'll have to wait until I finish it to see the whole thing!

Summer Quilt Blocks

2009-09-04T18:27:00.000-04:00

In addition to our Scrapbook monthly club, we also do our Quilt Block club on the first Saturday. So, today we'll share our quilt blocks from the summer time. We got both of them done last week so that we are all caught up and ready for the September block. We have been really enjoying doing this!

Here are our July Quilt Blocks:

And, here are our August Blocks: