Project 365

I'm SO excited to start Project 365! It's a totally new way of scrapbooking. My biggest scrapbooking idol, Becky Higgins, came up with the concept - and you know I'll jump on any idea Becky has!

Project 365 is a kit that comes with an album, page protectors (8 - 4x6 slots and 8 - 3x4 slots for journaling), tons of journaling cards, weekly labels, etc. Click HERE to watch a video of the contents.

Here's the concept....Document SOMEthing every day - whether that be a photo, receipt, kids' drawing, etc - and journal about that little something. Click HERE to watch a video about putting it altogether. Click HERE for some additional concept info.

Here's what a typical weekly page would look like - this is from a random week of Becky's last year.

Christmas Day recap

Christmas Morning
Santa only brought the boys a few things this year after hearing what Grandpa/Grandma and Marissa/Jason got the boys. They were just fine with that. All Mason wanted to do was use his chapstick from his stocking anyhow! Santa could have brought a 6-pack of chapstick and Mason would have loved it. I got Mana appletini drink mix. The main character on Scrubs likes to drink Appletinis even though they're rather girly. I thought Mana would want to try them too!





Christmas late morning
We hosted Christmas with Mana's family. First we ate breakfast - I made a ham. Then, we let the kids open gifts and sent them upstairs to play while the adults exchanged. I made Mindi a tree skirt. At the end of gifts, Liz & Keith announced that they are expecting baby #2 in August!!! Wow - 5 cousins next year!





Christmas evening
Karen and Greg hosted the Kutzner Christmas. Two of my cousins have kids - so the family has really started growing. The little girl in red is Gabriella, 15 months (Brent and Erica) and the brown and green stripes is Taylor, 2, (Andrew and Kari).

Christmas Eve recap

We spend every Christmas Eve morning with my family - and my mom's parents. Everybody goes so overboard with the kids. We seriously need another room in the house to put all the new "stuff".



The kids open presents before we eat lunch, so Masey can take his nap. Then the adults open presents - and Zander plays with some of his new toys. The highlights of the kid gifts was the marble game and puzzles. The highlight for the adults was definitely the "dickie sweater" I made Jason. With all of Jason's job where he's worked form home, we always joke that he can interact with people via video conference/webcam and really only needs nice clothes from the chest up. So, we joke that we're going to get him "dickie" shirts - which I don't even know if they make anymore. So after all these years, I took one of Mana's old sweaters and turned it into a sweater dickie. It was a hit. Jason was laughing so hard that he was crying. Hysterical!

pillowcases

I made 4 pillowcases for gifts this year. I loved how they turned out - and they're not too hard to make.

Zander (stripes) & Mason (dots)


Ayden



Zaylee

Bean - so creative

Zander-Bean is so creative. He sees Mana receive tons of boxes from his WHCC deliveries, so he asked if he could use one for a "project". He grabbed a box and a pen and went downstairs to work on his secret project. When he told us to come down, this is what he had made. So cute! I love how Dennis has taught the boys to be resourceful and creative. All these fancy toys and gadgets get put aside when they work on a project like this and I love that! Good 'ol fashioned fun.

'Another Christmas' by Michael Johns

Yes, I'm still a huge fan of Michael Johns. So when he came out with a Christmas song, I bought it from iTunes the day it came out (Dec 9th). All proceeds go to ALS and the Red Cross - very cool! I love the song - not holiday-ish except for the words, so I love it. Here's the video that goes along with it.

Mason... years ahead of Zander in potty training??

On Tuesday around bedtime, Mason took off his diaper like he does most nights in preparation for a diaper change and new PJs. Only this time, he said, "I have to go potty" and ran into the bathroom. We just laughed thinking he was cute copying the actions of his big brother. When I peeked in the bathroom, he was on the step stool and putting the seat up. He then stood there for a few minutes. Every time I would come in there, he would say, "go away mama!" So, I gave him his space peeking every so often to make sure he wasn't doing anything naughty. Then, all of the sudden I heard him peeing! In the toilet! Holy crap! I ran in there (I think I scared him) and said, "good job Mason!" and gave him a big hug. I could tell that he was very proud. I was still in shock. Zander didn't even pee once in the toilet until he was 3.5! And here my 21 month old independently used the toilet. I figured it was just an isolated incident until last night - he did it again! I always knew that he would be potty-trained quicker than Zander - just a personality difference. And hopefully it will be sooner than I thought. I'm not going to push him. I'll just keep letting him try when he wants. He likes to copy everything Zander does which is where this is all coming from - I think. Regardless, I'm cool with it!

crafty gifts

Now that there have been some celebrations, I can reveal some of my crafty gifts. More to come in a future blog post.

Co-worker gifts

"Holiday Hellos card keeper": I made these for the three co-workers on my team - Brenda, Joe and Crystal. I also made these last year for several family members.




I made sets of cards for some other co-workers..



Family Gifts

Marissa and Jason were the recipients of this super cute photo book. I got the kit at a scrapbook show a few years back and knew it would be perfect for pics of the puppies. It's actually a box with pages inside. The front cover props up like a frame. Super cute!

christmas prep

Quick post to say that I've been a crazy mad woman trying to "make" so many christmas presents. I can't say too much until after Christmas - photos to come.

Over the last few weeks, I entered a series of contests with MommyCast podcast.... and won 5 things! This is the same contest that I entered last year and won the grand prize - an ipod nano. The grand prize this year was an Amazon Kindle - which my friend Stacy won!

holding hands

The other day on the way home from daycare, I looked in the backseat and my boys were holding hands. I wish I had a camera. They held hands the whole way home - it was so cute. Totally Zander's doing - I didn't ask him to do it. I will have to remind them of that moment in a few years when they're fighting like brothers do.

jozin z bazin

My 3 boys are addicted to this video and song.

FAME, FAME, FAME - he's really dragging this out...

Mana put together a montage of his conjunction photos and TV clip...with music and everything.

Santa meltdown?

Today was the Medtronic Children's Holiday party. We were expecting total meltdown from Zander - and possibly Mason...but it actually went okay. We went into it knowing that we were going to do a family photo with Santa - and that's just what we did. And that's okay. After the photo, Santa asked Zander what he wanted and he actually talked to Santa. He told him he wants a "marble thing". I got a photo during this discussion.
Later today, we were talking about our visit to Santa and Zander commented, "Mom, I didn't even cry - when we were taking the picture AND when Santa asked what I wanted."

Christmas flashback from the 80's

How many mullets can you count in this video?



...which also makes me think of this video - back when Michael Jackson was normal. Weakest link = Bob Dylan. I remember as a kid, playing this video and shouting out the singers without looking.

More fame

Mana wanted to make sure I did another post to mention that he's part of Chikage Windler's Chik's Pics Blog. Check out THIS link. His 26 seconds of fame has now turned into a full 15 minutes.

26 seconds of fame... AGAIN

The following clip was on the Channel 5 news Monday night at 10pm (and Tuesday morning too). This is the 6th time he's had a photo published on the news. Apparently he's got an "in" with Dave Dahl, Rob Koch and Chikage Windler.

He actually wasn't going to send it in until his brother (and then a few others) called and told him to go take pictures and send one in.