One week to go...

Or so the boys tell me. ;) Things here are mixed...part of the time I feel like I'm finally nearing the end of the holiday craziness and part of the time I feel utterly behind. I'm sure you understand.

In light of that...here are some random and completely unrelated tidbits:

Apparently, you get to be an Autobot until you turn 30, at which point you become a Decepticon. This is what the boys were explaining to Uncle Zach (who's 28) when he was trying to figure out why Nathan and I have to be Decepticons. See? It really is worse after 30. Bwaahaahaa!

Micah was so sweet this morning...making us all wear our "ho ho hat" (yes, we each have a red and white Santa hat). Every time I'd take mine off, he'd bring it right back to me with such a happy little grin that I ended up with hat hair all day.

Noah played in his music school's piano recital Sunday. He did a great job. Asher was invited to play but declined this year.

For a week or two now, Micah's been exclaiming that there's a ghost in our master bathroom. He would peek through the door, shout "ghost! ghost!" and run away giggling. I could not figure out why this was...until yesterday, when he finally pointed out the actual "ghost."  In the cabinet above the toilet, we have a refill for one of those shower cleaner things. It's by the Scrubbing Bubbles people. Did you know that those scrubbing bubbles look an awful lot like ghosts? ;) What a cutie!

I had a meeting tonight and Uncle Zach got to officially babysit the boys. Micah didn't even blink when I left, just turned to me and said "bye, bye" and went back to playing (to date, he's often cried when left with non-parents). When I got home, this is what I found:
 

Yes, Uncle Zach was shooting the boys with dart guns...and they were lovin' it. :) You should have seen their happy faces. Heck, they even convinced Uncle Zach to make cookies with them (admittedly, just the store bought cookie dough stuff, but still). All in all, good nephew-uncle bonding was had.  

Okay, back to crossing things off the ol' "to do" list now...hope your holiday season is going well! 

Who lives longer?

As heard earlier today...

Noah was talking about average life expectancies, guessing that it was around 83 years. Nathan commented that it's different for men and women. We asked the boys at this point if they knew who lives longer (on average). Asher piped up right away..."men do." 

Of course, I asked him why he believed that. His answer? (which came promptly and with confidence)

"Because men have less hair."

I don't really know what to make of that. :) 

Just out of curiosity...

I take what to some might be considered a LOT of pictures. (I'm sure that to others, it's just a drop in the bucket.) I was curious the other day about how many I do take, though. I didn't feel like actually counting. But. As I take pictures, I sort through them and save the ones I think I might potentially want to a new folder...one for each month. That way, I can just open the monthly folder to see the "good" pictures, without having to wade through all the others that didn't make the cut.

So. I took an average of my month folders over the past four years. (Egad. Has it really been more than four years that I've been taking digi photos?!) Know what I discovered? October is apparently the month my camera gets the most work...or maybe the pictures just turn out better so I save more of them. I know that "big" events may skew these results (though really big things tend to get their own folder). Regardless, October far and away averaged the most saved photos at 241.5. (Yes, I really did the math.) The summer months were next...in the 130-170 range. The winter months, particularly January and February, were embarrassingly low. Only 39.25 average photos saved in Februarys. Maybe now that I have my new flash this will improve. Maybe.

What does any of this have to do with anything? I dunno. ;) Just thought I'd share. What month do you take the most pictures in? The fewest?

12 more days till Christmas!

So. Here are 12 random things about Christmas around here:

1. Micah is darn cute. Okay, that's not really about Christmas, but if you could see his face light up when he sees *any* Santa or Christmas lights, you'd understand. He shouts "Ho Ho!" whenever he sees anything related to Christmas and has taken to singing "Jingle Bells" but using only "ho ho ho" as the words.

2. We made our own version of the popular button trees today:

 

From left to right, there's Asher's, Micah's and Noah's. Wrapped the styrofoam cone in patterned paper for the older two boys but not Micah's. (I actually hadn't planned for Micah to participate but the bugger woke up early from his nap and I had to improvise.) I tried to convince the boys to cover their trees in buttons, like Micah and I did, but they insisted that was wrong. After all, they said, we don't put ornaments *all* over our real tree. Who can argue with logic like that? Micah, by the way, was adorable working on his. He would select and place the button and I stuck the pins in...every couple buttons he'd hold up his tree for his brothers to admire, saying "Look! Look! Mine."

3.  I've officially decided that I will no longer send Christmas cards. Instead, we will send "year in review" cards, which will arrive any time after Christmas and before St. Patrick's Day. :) That's not wrong, right? Or. I may change my mind next year...just depends on how far behind I am. This year, we're going the "year in review" route.

4.  So...we were decorating the tree and I was trying to convince everyone to play this new game of "freeze" so that I could take some pictures (ha...you try getting a 2 year old to hold still so you can take a picture without blur!). That very night, Nathan bought me an early Christmas gift...a dedicated flash for my camera (a Canon Speedlite 430EX for those who know what that means). Yay! It means I've actually been able to take more pictures this winter! I've always found it difficult because we're not outside as much and indoor pictures of three young boys are, um, tough to get without a flash...but the built in flash so blows out photos, ya know? So, Nathan gave it to me early so I can actually get some holiday prep pictures. Yup, he's a keeper. ;)

5. Does anyone know when the snow will melt? I was told we'd have a mild winter given our rather large amount of snow last year (where we didn't see our yard or street from December till late February). Yet, it snowed a week ago and has only continued snowing intermittently, no melting. Course, I do enjoy white Christmases. Hmmm...

6. I'm *this* close to seeing the floor in my office! Making significant progress in the reorganizing and purging. It's to a point, finally, where I can actually scrap again...yay! (What does this have to do with Christmas, you ask? Well, it would explain why I'm behind on my Christmas projects and gifts, wouldn't it?) :)

7. On a related note, I now need to reorganize the upstairs office that I've taken over in my efforts to reorganize my main floor scrap space. The upstairs office is going to be primarily for storage but right now I can't even walk in there. Ties in to Christmas because my plan is to tackle this during the week after Christmas while Nathan's parents are here...John & Nancy, fair warning. Gonna add some shelves/bookcases and I'll need assistance with the hauling and assembling and distraction of boys. ;)

8. Are you done with your Christmas shopping? We're in the home stretch, I think. Now just need to wrap and ship heaps of stuff in the very near future. Once upon a time (before kids) I was really good about being completely done by now...

9. I bought myself a little something yesterday at this cool Etsy store...gonna get them tomorrow (local pick up) and am stoked to use them...already have a couple layouts in mind.  Okay, that one's really not about Christmas at all. But, if you buy stuff from there and give it to your scrappy friends, then it would count, right?

10. Noah and Asher have been enjoying piano classes more lately...practicing Christmas songs is apparently much more fun than otherwise. :) Noah will play his piece at their annual Christmas recital at the local mall this weekend. Asher opted not to but is still enjoying the practicing.

11. It felt like Christmas here the other day when my latest box of Prism papers arrived! Some fun new colors (totally loving one in particular) and, well, I just plain love cardstock. I'm simple like that. :) If you haven't tried Prism papers, you don't know what you're missing. Seriously.

12.  I must remember to go rent "Miracle on 34th Street" soon! It's just not Christmas without watching it. What Christmas movies are a must for you?

Okay, that's 12. No. I will not do 11 random things tomorrow. ;) 

OUT ON A LIMB, week 5...

Dude. It’s Thursday again already! Okay, if you're on the west coast, it's not technically Thursday yet, but I'm up and figured I'd mark this off my to do list early. Also, I’m gonna be up front here and state that it is highly probable that I will not post any more layouts until the new year…too many holiday projects vying for my attention. I was hopeful but it’s come to the point where I have to be realistic *laugh*. Sorry! (And if I do manage to find time to post some, it’ll just be that much sweeter, right?)

But. I still have challenges for those of you who actually got your “schtuff” done in advance. (One day I aspire to be like you.) Or, if you’re like me, challenges for you to simply ponder during this holiday time and come back to later. :) This week’s challenge…create a layout about your loved one using a poem…one that touches you, one that makes you think of your loved one, one that your loved one particularly enjoyed, one that you wrote, etc.

As an alternative (if you don’t want to work on a layout focusing on a loved one), simply challenge yourself to use a poem…any poem…on your layout. I know, for myself, I often notice little poems or quotes and think to myself that they’re so appropriate but then inevitably neglect to include them on my work. I even have a spot where I jot these down for future use, just haven’t actually *used* them.

Okay, off to get some of these projects tackled...meanwhile, stay warm and have fun!