Reece Celebrates 40!

Since this year has ended on a high note with Reece being back to work, we wanted to invite our friends over to celebrate the holidays and Reece's 40th birthday. It was a great day, spent with friends and family and we got to see some people we haven't seen in a very long time. There were kids running around the house, playing and laughing; good food; lots to drink; and of course the tombstone cake! Yes, the cake was shaped like a tombstone. I started making it for friends' 40th birthdays years ago and Reece asked me to make it for him.

Other than JD's birthdays, we haven't had many parties in the last two years. When you have money to pay the bills and not much else, extras such as parties go on the back burner. Plus, we just really didn't feel like having parties or that we had much to share or celebrate (except JD's birthday, which we would have had if I had nothing to serve but chips, Kool-Aid and cake). We are very blessed though...I have a job that allowed us to pay our bills with Reece's unemployment...I have my parents and my brother and his girlfriend, Amy...I have wonderful in-laws...we have great friends...we have a roof over our head, food to eat, heat to keep us warm and the things we need...and I have my wonderful family - Reece, JD and Bobo kitty.

Hope you enjoy these photos from our celebration! The last two photos are of the boys playing with the gift JD gave to Reece...an RC helicopter.

Vegas Scrapbooks...

I can finally post these photos now that my friends have gotten their gifts. I printed the pictures I had taken in Las Vegas when we went for our 40th birthdays and scanned a ticket to the CSI Experience to make a little scrapbook. And when I say little, I mean it. LOL The whole thing started with a deck of cards, perfect for the Vegas theme. I used 2 queens from each pack to make the front and back covers and then accordion folded black and red paper to make the pages. I attached photos, the scanned ticket, stickers, and a little note on Vegas theme paper, with a handwritten note, inside each one. I found chipboard poker chip stickers and put 2, back to back and attached it to the box flap and used Velcro dots on the back of that and the box to make the closure. I figured it would be easier than trying to keep tucking the flap back into the box everytime they looked at it. Here is the result below. I had fun making them and giving them.

Crafty, Crafty

Today, while perusing the aisles at Hallmark, I told a friend from work that I was going to have JD (with my help) make some ornaments for my brother's girlfriend. Then I thought, if I don't stop making things I'm never gonna be ready for Christmas. I still have cookies to make for a cookie exchange this weekend, not to mention wrapping all the gifts. The last few nights I've been working hard to get projects done. I put the final touches on a gift for one of my good friends (which I'll post pics of later...she may read this) and finished the gift card tins for JD's teachers. I wanted a creative way to give them...I think we made paper holders last year. Altoid tins are the prefect size for gift cards so I started looking on line and then decided that since we'll be giving Dunkin Donuts gift cards, the cup of cocoa stamp my mother in-law has would be prefect. She's the best and not only did she stamp them for me, she colored them and Stickled them. I cut paper to fit the shape on the lit and attached the finished cup and added a ribbon around the edges so you can't see the writing on it. Here are the gift card tins.

 

Of course I was on the Martha Stewart site and saw these cute candy cane mice made from felt and had to make them for JD's classmates. I have to say cutting the felt was no fun, but sharper scissors might have helped. LOL They turned out so cute. The only thing I might change is the candy canes...get the fruit flavored ones. Not sure how well 4 and 5 year olds like peppermint. JD does, that I know.

There's a chance we might get those ornaments done, but we'll see. LOL Christmas is only 10 days away. Yikes!! Better get moving.

Our Elf, Scooby, Returns

Last year we welcomed an Elf (On a Shelf) into our house. JD decided to name him Scooby. It was fun to see where he landed each day after his trips to the north pole to report to Santa or whatever else he was getting into. This year, JD is super excited to look for him everyday...he's really in to it. I told JD that Scooby's probably more comfortable in the house this year, since he was with us last year, and he might find some new places to hang out.

See, I've been checking out some sites, through Pinterest, for things to do with the Elf on a Shelf. There are some pretty great ideas out there. Here are a few of the places I got some of my ideas:

Pinterest Elf Ideas
15 Fun Ideas for Your Elf on the Shelf
101 Elf on the Shelf Ideas

So far this year, this is where we've found our elf, Scooby (I'll keep adding as we go along, some days he stayed in the same spot overnight) :

1. On the top of the small Chirstmas tree in JD's room (the morning he arrived)
2. Peeking out of JD's bag of halloween candy with an armful of candy
3. Peeking out of JD's Christmas stocking
4. Sitting on top of the TV
5. In the pocket of the Letters to Santa pillow after delivering JD's letter to the North Pole
6. In JD's room, reading a book
7. Sitting on the wreath by the front door
8. On the pantry shelf with the snowman he made out of marshmallows and toothpicks (and Scooby left the marshmallow bag open!)
9. On the bookshelf in the living room with a tiny bowl of popcorn, ready for TV or a movie
10. Hanging on the christmas tree advent calendar with one of the ornaments for it in his hand
11. On the christmas tree, with his arm around the santa ornament
12. On the dining room table, making a "snow" angel
13. On the bookshelf the day of our holiday party, with drink glass in hand
14. On JD's dresser
15. On the cabinet in the dining room, candy kiss in hand
16. Resting comfortably in the garland around the dining room light (guess he thinks it's a hamock)
17. Sitting in the basket of pointsettas at the top of the steps
18. In the bathroom with toilet paper wrapped around him and the top of the closet on the wall
19. In JD's room, sitting on the desk with a paintbrush and watercolors
20. Sitting on the light up train decoration (2 nights in a row)
21. Scooby followed us to mom-mom and pop-pop's in NJ and showed up in our room
22. Peeking out of JD's Christmas stocking on Christmas Eve
23. JD asked Scooby to stay one more day so he watched us open gifts from the Chistmas tree with a candy cane in his lap.

Scooby left us, until next year, on Christmas night. He left the candy cane he had and a note for JD: "See you next year JD. Remember to be good! Thanks you for taking care of me. Love, Scooby"

JD was sad to see him go, but who knows, Scooby may make a mid-year visit to make sure things are going okay and he will be back next year. 

Pinterest...Organizing On the Web

So, how many times have you found something online and then couldn't remember where you saw it later or bookmarked it and then couldn't find the bookmark in your huge list of them? My mother in-law told me about a site called Pinterest, where you create boards to store your ideas. You can use the catagories the give you or you can make your own. It connects with Facebook so you can find friends to follow and they can follow you. I've got boards for recipes, crafts, parties, family, the house, travel, clever products and just clever idaes and a board of just things I like (fashion, jewelry, etc.). I've told several friends about this already and they seem to love it like I do.

Check it out:
http://pinterest.com/

More fun nail polish...

Just had to share again. We had my company's holiday dinner Saturday night. Got a new dress...NOT black, believe it or not. It's red...bright red and I love it! I found the Sally Hanson Salon Effects for the Christmas season about a month ago and they couldn't have matched better.

After dinner we went out to Cancun Cantina to meet some friends and celebrate December birthdays. The rest of the weekend was pretty much cleaning, laundry, errands and making lists so I don't forget anything before next weekend. Been chipping away on the Christmas gift list and found that some of the gifts won't be given until after the new year, which helps alot. I've got the next two Sundays and most of next Saturday to get wrapping and get anything else I need. I so want to share my latest project, but I'm going to hold off in case the people receiving these gifts check out the blog.

Last Friday I took JD to his school for the Santa Shoppe, where the kids can shop for family / friends and not spend lots of money. Most gifts were $1 to $4 and there were older kids (elves) to help the little ones do their shopping. The little boy JD had was so sweet and very helpful. I had filled out the list on the money envelope with the names he wanted to buy for and hoped for the best. When we left, I told him I'd help him wrap the gifts in bags he could decorate, in a way that I wouldn't be able to see what he bought (there was a gift for me in there). So he proceeds to tell me, "Mommy, I got you a ring." So I said, "Buddy, you're not supposed to tell me...it's a surprise." He says, in a whisper (I guess the volume of his voice made him feel like he was still keeping a secret)  "I'm just going to tell you...I got you a star ring becsaue you're my star." Aawwwwwww! Love that little man. When we get home, he tells me he wants to play with his plane and daddy can help him put it together. Me: "What plane?" JD: "The one I bought at the Santa shop." LOL He didn't forget himself. So, daddy snapped the tail on the plane and JD flew it around the rest of the night.

Moving Right Along

Well, I can cross a few things off my "To Do List", which makes me feel better. I've purchased some Christmas gifts and decided on others. I've got a package ready to go out in the mail tomorrow. We had out family pictures done (story to come) and I got to work on a scrapbooking project for Christmas that I had pretty much given up on even starting. I have my mother in-law and Betsy to thank for that, because they came to my house yesterday and we all worked on projects together. If they weren't there I would have found a million other things to do.

Thanksgiving is 2 days away and I actually have less to do now that previously planned. Carolyn and Dean are bringing a bunch of food, so all we have to do is fry the turkey, make some rolls and 2 sides. I'm also going to make an apple pie, with my homemade pie dough (for the first time!) and possibly an apple cream cheese bundt cake. JD is looking forward to Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop's visit and has been marking off the days on the calendar for the last week. He also drew a picture of himself with Pop-Pop on his mini magna-doodle on the fridge. Dad's gonna love that!! 

We finally had our family photos done a few weeks ago. We went to Portrait Innovations, who we used last time, but we went to their new location in Frederick. JD was NOT happy about doing this and told us "I'm gonna stay in the car and you and daddy can get your picture taken." Yeah, right. So, let's just say the girl who was taking our photos earned her money that day. The first bunch of have JD's squinty-eye, closed-mouth, cheesy smile. He warmed up after a while...after she told him she'd give him a lollipop if he was good for the pictures. LOL One of the best things for me was that the place was in the same shopping center as the new Wegmans and we went over there to grab lunch and look around while waiting for our prints to be done. Of course we didn't escape without jalapeno cheese bread, cookies, cupcakes, ice cream, cheese, and K-Cups.

Hope you enjoy our new photos!

JD Gems...

Last night JD and I went to the grocery store and to Kohl's. Kohl's was a last minute decision after JD decided he wanted to go too. The purpose of this trip was to find a sweater for family photos we're having done on Saturday. After looking around a bit and explaining to JD that we weren't buying toys because Christmas was coming soon, he said he had to use the bathroom. So off we run to the restrooms (which curiously smelled like a movie theater and I think it was because it's near the employee break room where someone made popcorn - still, it was weird). JD tells me that the water in the toilet is blue, so I say don't worry about it, it's just cleaner. So he starts going and I hear him say "And now it's turning green!!" So I said "well son, here's your first color theory lesson...yellow and blue make green." I wonder how the other people in the restroom didn't laugh out loud after hearing our conversation. You just never know what's going to happen.

Another time, when we were in Costco, he was riding in the cart and says "mommy, look, a genie!" So I'm looking around and realize he's talking about a woman in a traditional African outfit with the head wrap.  LOL

It's the most wonderful time of the year....ALREADY?!

JD's been saying to me that it's Christmastime. I keep telling him we have Thanksgiving first, but I'm afraid to take him into the stores now or he'll be sure I'm wrong. The night before last we took the summer decorations - yes, summer; we forgot to put the halloween ones on - off the small tree in his room. We decorate it for Valentine's day, Easter, summer, halloween and Christmas and use it as his night light. He put the Chirstmas decorations on...by himself (Note to self, take a picture for him). He was really proud of the job he did! Last night he wanted to put up Thanksgiving decorations, like window clings and I had to explain the people don't really decorate for Thanksgiving like they do for Halloween and Christmas. Maybe if they did we wouldn't skip from ghost and ghouls to Santa and Roudolph.

I think this is the most disorganized I've felt with the holidays approaching. I've tried to make lists, which usually helps get me focused and feel better, but so far, no dice. The weeks seem to go by faster with each one that passes. The next two months are shaping up to be a marathon of run here, run there, bake, cook, decorate, clean, shop and try not to lose my mind. So far my to do list is looking like this:

• family holiday photo
• show in Baltimore (Straight No Chaser - can't wait!!)
• clean for Thanksgiving and plan dinner - our house this year :-)
• BLACK FIRDAY!!! (Luckily Kohls and Walmart are right up the street)
• an IEP meeting for JD
• my company Chirstmas party
• clean and prepare for open house
• lunch with Santa? - we'll see
• christmas cards
• gift shopping (after I figure out what to get...gift cards are lookin' mighty fine this year)
• bake cookies/cookie exchange
• get anything that needs to be shipped, wrapped and to the post office
• get all our stuff ready to go to NJ for Christmas

Throw in a possible girls night dinner and scrapbooking day and several birthdays and you have a recipe for mayhem. Somehow it all gets done, but this year it's causing me some stress. Could be that we're also trying to refinance the house during all this too. Well, I'll keep making my lists of food, chores, and events. Hoping your race to the holidays is filled with as little stress as possible, good deals on Christmas gifts, and all the cookie dough you can eat before you put the pans in the oven! Oh yeah, wine too...yeah, wine would be good. LOL 

Spooky Luminaries

Here they are...my pickle jar creations. A little tissue paper, a little gauze and a lot of Modge Podge. Saw something like this in Martha Stewart Living, but it was done with paint. I think Southern Living may have done ones with tissue paper in their October issue, but they don't have a spoooooky mummy. Hope you like them.

The Bod Pod

Last night I met my friend Betsy at her gym so we could visit the Bod Pod. It's a Body Composition Tracking System Analysis that looks like a big egg with a window in front. A pod. Your DOB, height, and gender are put into the computer and then you are weighed on a scale attached to the computer. After that you sit in the pod for two 50-second intervals. When you're done, the computer gives you a read out of your fat %, fat free%, both those numbers in pounds and it tells you your resting metabolic rate (RMR). This is the minimum energy your body needs to support its basic physiological functions (i.e., heartbeat, breathing, maintaining body temp, etc.). You also find out additional enegy expenditures for sedentary, low active, active and very active days. I was a little nervous to find out my body fat % since the last time I had it done was before I had JD and I used to spend 3 weeknights in the gym. It was not as bad as I thought and as Matt (the guy who ran the test) said, right now it's all about your RMR and how you can use that to change the numbers for your body composition. The Bod Pod will be back on January 24, 2012 - fantastic, right after three eating/party holidays, four including halloween! My goal is to try and change those body comp numbers with this info I now have. We'll see. If you want to find out more about the Bod Pod, check out the link:

http://www.befittest.com/

Cool nails...

I just had to share this cool find. If you haven't tried Sally Hanson Salon Effects yet, I think they are fabulous. I got them for the first time when I went to Vegas in April. They were the blue glitter nail strips and they went on easily and lasted a long time. I found some Halloween ones and had to have them. I used the skull and crossbones this weekend and I also got ones with black and orange ghosts.

Today I walked down to CVS and what to my wondering eyes should appear...Christmas Nail Effects!!! Of course I had to get some because I didn't want to take a chance and have them be sold out when I needed them for the holidays. LOL They had white ones with red snowflakes, red candy striped ones, black and white argyle, black with blue and silver sparkles and the ones I got. Ready for the holidays! Well, at least my nails will be. :-)

Arrrrgh!

After having this pattern for a few years, I finally set out to make Reece's pirate coat for rennfest. I started in August, knowing that rennfest opening weekend is the weekend before Labor day. Luckily, rennfest runs for 13 weeks. Sitll, it was probably poor timing considering the fact that the last thing I'd sewn (other than pillow cases or things with straight seams) was about 7 years ago and I did that at my mother in-law's house, with her guidance. Luckily she was just a phone call away when I had a question about instructions or fabric...but I was determined to do this on my own. Once I got started, it came back to me how much I dislike having to do all the little tedious things that make everything turn out just right, such as ironing the pattern piece before pinning and marking dots and notches (on like every side of the fabric). But again, doing these little things, especially when you don't sew alot, helps in the end. I was doing really well until I got to the facing, which stopped me for a little while. Then I had to clean off my dining room table (aka, the craft table) for a few days because we had company over. Not long after that Reece asked if he was going to have his coat to wear this year, so I pulled everything back out and got to work again. I put together the cuffs and of course I put the interfacing on the wrong fabric (we wanted the silver part out and I put it on the black linen), but mom figured out how to turn them around. I was really nervous about easing in the sleeves, because mom did that for me last time, but it went very easily. Pinning the hem, another one of my favorite things (HA!) took forever and then I decided to hand sew it so you wouldn't see a seam on the outside. Reece said he didn't care, but I did. If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it so it looks good. I worked right up until we got ready to go to rennfest this past Sunday...the last day of the season...sewing on buttons and then giving it a final press. I have to say, I'm really proud of how it turned out and when Reece added the pins he's collected from faire, it looked even better. I was also pretty happy that he made it a point to tell everyone at faire yesterday that I made the coat for him. :-) I think I'll start looking at some other patterns for next year, maybe a few new skirts for me, some pirate pants for JD and Reece. Whatever it is, I plan to start working on them early next year...like January or February. LOL I posted some pictures below of the coat just after I put the sleeves in and then 2 of it after it was finished.

Finished coat

Close up of sleeve and pocket flap

Fall fun...

A few weeks ago we went to Sharps at Waterford Farm with our neighbors, the Brooks family. JD and Connor are great buddys and we wanted to try and get their picture again this year while pumpkin picking. Unfortunately, JD wasn't so cooperative. Here's the classic family photo we got from that weekend. Great, right?! LOL

Last weekend we decided to head out to Cunningham Falls State Park in Thurmont, MD to see some of the changes leaves and hit the orchard for apples. We got much better photos this time, although, not a family one. We picked up a half bushel of apples at Proctor's Orchard and we've already made applesauce. JD insisted on doing this right away...he likes using the apple peeler/corer/sliser we have. I pulled 12 apples from the bag and he did all of them except one, when he wanted to watch how the peeling part worked. Next up will be some apple pie filling and more apple sauce to pack away in the freezer.

Frustration

As some of you know, JD attends the early childhood special needs program in Carroll County. We had him tested in November of 2009 at the suggestion of his pediatrician. He wasn't talking and had virtually no communication skills. The testing showed his communication and verbal skill were at an 18 month level, but his understanding/cognitive (I think that's what it was called) were at a 48 month level. Since he started school in March of 2010, he's made great strides. In fact his speech teacher started off the her part of the last IEP meeting with "Wow! Just wow!" A few goals were changed and one of the things JD is working on in his IEP now is to follow through on difficult tasks. He gets extremely frustrated when he can't do something the first time or he doesn't like how he's done something. In the last few weeks, this frustration has come out as crying and I mean CRYING! He gets all worked up and starts coughing and it's hard to calm him down, so it goes on for 10, 15, 20 minutes. I have a feeling it may be due in part to the schedule change now that Reece is back to work. I now drop him off at grand mom's everyday on my way to work and she takes him to school. Another possibility is that he's really tired after he comes home from school and that makes things worse.

At home and in school, the message we're trying to get across is:
1) No one knows all the answers, so we do things like got to school and read books to learn.
2) It's okay to ask for help; everyone needs help now and then.
3) You need to try things more than once.

We've also been working on getting back to using the house rules that we came up with when Reece and I were taking the parenting workshop through Carrol County schools. We were doing really well, but have really fallen away from it. In addition to this, we've put a limit on the amount of time he can play on the Wii.

These are the rules:
1) Listen and answer
2) When you are done playing but your toys or books back where they came from.
3) When you are finished eating, plates and cups go on the kitchen counter and trash goes in the trashcan.
4) Use "excuse me" (i.e., if we're on the phone and he wants our attention)
5) Be a good friend to Bobo kitty

We've been telling him that if you break rules or misbehave, there are consequences. He got to see an example of breaking rules/consequences in the adult world on Monday...which provides me with another JD Gem to share. I got home and he says "Daddy broke a rule today!" I was thinking he was referring to the rules at school (they call them the cardinal rules, after the school mascot and his teacher said the kids might bust us parents for not following them at home). So I asked what rule and he says "The speeding one. That's what the policeman said." Reece walks in and JD goes "I toooold her. I told mommy." I laughed so hard. Luckily Reece only got a warning, but it sure provided a huge laugh for the day.

Photos

I have a Flickr account, but haven't added photos in a VERY long time. I need to sign up for a Pro account soon so I can display more photos. I'll be uploading photos from our trip to Lackawana State Park today and maybe some more. Here are a few links:

The House of Herrick Flickr Photostream

JD's Flickr Photo Set

Lackawanna Trip (MAC) 2011

An object in motion...

It seems like we're always on the go, trying to fit things in wherever we can. I feel like I don't know what a weekend is anymore, not to mention I can't believe it's October. There are Christmas decoration in the stores and I'm working on putting up Halloween ones. We were going to try and get out camping one more time this month, but all the campgrounds in Gettysburg are booked up. It kind of worked out though, since this is the last month for the MD Renaissance Festival; I have a scrapbooking crop I want attend; and we got a Groupon to go to a corn maze with our neighbors.

My current project: A Pirate Coat
In August I started working on this for Reece for rennfest this year. Now, I'm not the best seamstress, but I was doing really well until I ran into a problem putting in the facing. That got put to the side and then I had to move the sewing machine off the table for something else and the other day Reece asked if he'd have it for this year. Yikes! I have about 2 full weeks to finish this up and luckily my mother in-law sews very well and we're going to look at the problem tonight. Keep your fingers crossed...maybe this will get done. All I can say is I'm going to be so proud of myself when I finish this, because this is the first garment I've done mostly by myself.

My ongoing (read as, rarely worked on) project: Scrapbooks
My friend Karen is a Creative Memories consultant and hosts crops at her house every month. So far I've made it to one. I planned to go last moth, but was sidelined by a respiratory infection. No fun! It's great to go there with other people doing the same thing becasue we share ideas and I can't get this done at home. There's always something to be done or someone needs something. At the one I did make it to, I finished 6 pages of JD's baby book. That felt good! Yeah, I know, he's almost 5. I hope to have it done before he hits high school. At some point I also intend to do our wedding/honeymoon photos and our family vacations. On a side note, I could just kick myself for missing the penny prints at Snapfish. That was when I was sick...couldn't get up to get on the computer. I was going to have all the wedding and a bunch of vacation photos printed. Guess I'll just keep an eye out for next time.

So, the coming weeks will be busy and I'm sure that will carry over to November and December. Hopefully we'll have a visit over Halloween weekend from my parents to help out while Carolyn and Dean are on vacation. It's time for me to start making lists - I'm a list maker, it makes me feel better to cross things off. Let's see...a Halloween costume for JD; start thinking about Thanksgiving at our house this year; come up with a date for an open house to invite friends over; and last but not least...start buying Christmas gifts. It will be here before you know it.

And so it begins...

I've been thinking about doing this for some time now...starting a blog so that friends and family can keep up with us. It's also kind of a record/calendar of events for me, being able to write down thoughts on places we've been, things that have happened and thing to come. At some point (with all the free time I have...not!), I'll get my calendar off the wall in the kitchen and write a blog for all the past months and try to get a few of the important things from the past year.

I used to keep a blog on Windows LiveSpaces and photo albums also. I was so good about the albums and keeping them updated until mid-summer last year when things got crazy at work. If I can somehow transfer them here or to Flickr and post a link, I will. From the day JD was born, through mid-summer last year I was taking and posting a weekly photo of him. There are 3 and a half albums of weekly photos documenting how he changed from week to week. I felt so bad about not keeping up with the weekly photos and the at least monthly blogs on our family, but there was just no time with the hours I was working.

I've been reading some craft and cooking blogs lately and will probably add a few projects to my blogs here and there. The first will probably be my glass jar jack-o-lanterns made with orange tissue paper and modge podge (the best stuff ever!). I've also been reading the blogs of a few friends and they seem so witty and funny. I'm definitely not promising that here folks. I'm sure they might be with time, but right now my goal is to get on here and write the blogs. And so it begins...