November in Review

I've taken a ton of pictures this month but havent' had time to process them so here are some random shots.


My nephew Dara and Micah playing Dance Dance revolution on the Wii at grandma's. Micah loves repeating "Right...riiiight...DDR"


He still likes putting on his halloween horse outfit at home and running around the house..."Getty Up!"


Lam turned 35 on the 9th and my mom made hime a strawberry kiwi cake...the kids were all into blowing the candles.


We took all the kids bowling this past Saturday and Panya was telling Kenzie she has to stand there and watch her pins all fall down.


Phoma helped Micah with his ball since the thing weighed more then him.

Mini photos

This is the only page I've scrapped all month. I did it for a challenge to include a minibook on your layout. Pictures from my sister's baby shower and the little accordian book folds out to reveal 11 more photos inside. This was a scraplift of a page I lifted over 2yrs ago. I love the MM baby line.

For KP

When I'm bored at work I surf through most of the blogs listed to the right. Came about a request from one of the people that I like to visit so here it is.

crowdSPRING, hire Kelly Purkey for your new Community Marketing Manager!

Good luck to you, I hope you land the job KP!


On a family funny note: last night when i was putting the kids to bed, Kenzie said her usual Mary my Mother prayer and Micah knows half the words now. Then she stared to list out all the family members she's praying for, which started with Baba and Loom (her aunt and uncle currently at the cancer hospital)...and then all of a sudden Micah pops up from his bed on his knees and says.."um um..I pray for choo chooo train"

We put up our 10 ft xmas tree last night. I'll post pictures after it's all decked out. And if I can put Micah to sleep early tonight I'm going over a co-worker's house to scrapbook which I haven't done in months. Also on the agenda is to see Twilight at the movies tomorrow. Yeah!

Xmas list

It's mid November and I still haven't purchased one christmas gift yet. The kids have been browsing through the ads we get in the mail each day and watching all the toy commercial advertisements and everything they see, they say "I want that". So even though they would be happy with anything under the tree, here's a few hints for the auntie's doing early shopping.

Kenzie's list:
- Paints and crafts
- Dress up jewlery or play clothes
- Clothing size 5-6T, shoe size 11-12
- Her favorite tv show at the moment is iCarly

Micah's list:
- Trucks, trains, and horses... big time
- Clothing size 3T-4T, shoe size 9-10
- Balls: soccerball, basketball, baseball, etc
- Motorcycle toys

For me, I could use a day off to go scrap or a housecleaner for the day. :)

Costumes

Yeah, tomorrow marks my 12th week. I've been soooo tired and hungry during this first trimester. My bedtime has been 8pm each night so I haven't made it to my scraproom for the last 3 weeks until now. Just catching up on posting halloween pics. I did make 8 holiday cards for a swap I volunteered in a couple months ago. I don't know why I always think I have time for these things but at least i got it over with and now I can sit back and wait for the mail to arrive and I'll get a package of 7 different holiday cards back.

Kenzie made the lunch bag owl with the cupcake eyes in her preschool class and when she got home, Micah was fighting her for it so Daddy whipped up his own version of an owl.

Micah wearing some star studded glasses he got in the goodie bag at Astrid's 7th birthday party.




And here is the gang i took trick-or-treating on Halloween night. I really wished I had time for some better pictures but by the time we got home and I got all 4 kids dressed, people were already ringing our doorbell. They was a line standing behind me as I took this picture on our front steps. Micah ended up not wanting to wear his horse so he's a sheriff/cowboy and Kenzie was Abby Cadabby. She did such a great job at saying thank you after receiving her candy and running off to the next house. Micah made it half way around the block and then I had to carry him the rest of the way. (note to self: bring stroller next year)

the Reveal

Secret #1 - I was asked to be the guest Design Team member for TSR!!! I was beyond thrilled and it was truely an honor. I've been getting kits from the Scrap-Room ever since June of 2006. All four of the kits this month were fun to play with:

* Bella Boulevard Family Tree *



* Crate Paper Lemongrass *


* Fancy Pants Daily Grind *



* October Afternoon Weathervane *




Secret #2 - Makenzie & Micah will be a big sister/brother at the end of May

I am really bad at keeping secrets so I'm glad both of these were only known to me for about 3 weeks. We were planning to wait a while to tell our family but guess who let the cat out of the bag early? Kenzie went up to her Aunt and said...there's a baby in Mommy's tummy.

Secrets

I have not one but two big secrets I've been holding in and can't share until the end of the week.

Let's see what has all happened this month? We went to visit my baby nephew 2 weeks ago. It was the kid's first airplane ride and they did such a great job! Kenzie went through a life changing point....she's given up her blankie! She has this little fuzzy warm blanket with flowers and butterflies that we got at Walmart when she was born. She is 3 1/2 now and has not gone a day without it. She must have it with her when she naps and sleeps and even throughout the day. But while we were in Colorado visiting her 4 week old cousin, she was talked into leaving her blankie there in the crib for baby Koen. I thought she was just playing along for fun but she was really serious and hasn't asked for it since. It is so nice to not have to tote it along everywhere we go. There's been plenty of days where I've forgotten to bring it home from grandma's house when we pick her up after work and we had to make a late night trip back to the house to get it for her. Now if we can just give up that thumb sucking.

Lam's sister Bouavone got married a week ago. Lam's cousin took this picture of us.


Tomorrow is Kenzie's halloween party at school. I'm taking half the day off to help with the activities. She's also going in for 3 fillings on Wednesday so hopefully that goes by painless for her.



Micah's favorite phrase lately:
"I...Do....NOT" or "No...I...NOT" and each word is really stressed - used when we try to tell him he's stinky and needs a shower or when he's being bad

My nephew left for Houston with his mom and dad yesterday for the bone marrow transplant. Extra prayers that the surgery goes well and cures his leukemia.

I haven't read any non crafty books since I discovered the world of scrapbooking but I started to read the twilight series a few weeks ago and I'm already finished with books 1, 2, and 3. The final one should be arriving from Amazon this week. Such a great series, who would have known a story about teenagers and vampires could be so interesting. I can't believe my 11 yr old nephew read all four and liked it also. Can't wait for the movie coming out next month.

Micah's Birthday

It was all about the cake, this boy LOVES his grandma's homebaked cakes. Actually he just likes the whipped creme and strawberries. We had 32 people show up for his party of which 11 were kids. I had thomas the train goody bags that came with a conductor hat, whistle, hankerchief, thomas train tatoos, foam picture train to assemble, and a few candy treats. I love ordering things from Oriental Trading..so much cheaper than in town. His Aunt Kim/Uncle Ryan got him a set of Thomas books and he loves for me to read it. He knows all the train's names. Just a few other presents, a construction set from uncle Joe, a formal suit and packages of diapers from Ba Khoa and the rest was about $500 in cash that is going straight into his college fund. We didn't get him anything...I ran out of time but it seems we spoil the kids too much when it isn't their birthday. So we'll just transfer more money into his savings account and he'll never know the difference since xmas is just around the corner.

2 & 3

With Micah having his official birthday this week we now have a house filled with 2 and 3 year old. The party isn't until this Sunday so no new pictures to share yet. Kenzie had her very first dentist appointment on Wednesday. She was a great trooper, I didn't know if she would be scared or not but she sat very still and cooperated the entire time. I had to leave the room when they xrayed her and was stuck in the toy room with Micah during her whole cleaning and it didn't even bother her. But the bad news is she has to go back for 3 fillings. We are totally at fault since I don't reinforce brushing and flossing every night and we let her have too much candy. At least I know to start doing better now.

Yesterday at preschool she got to be leader of the day. She was so super excited. She got to bring a show n tell, bring and pass out snacks for all 16 students, and I guess be first in line. For snacks she brought pretzel sticks dunk'ems and for her show n tell she brought her big pink dinosaur that we got her at the TREX build a dino at KC last weekend. The teacher gave her a beaded bracelet and she was so happy to show it off. I'm just so glad she's finally enjoying school.

Micah is just Micah. I still have to wrestle with the boy after each bath. As soon as I towel him dry and place him down he starts sprinting off into the living room making me hunt him down to put his diaper & clothes on. He loves to repeat the phrase "You naked! Ewwww!" It was cute & funny at home but not so funny when he says it in public at the grocery store when there's noone that is.

Altered items

I participated in a secret sister swap where we had to make an altered item each month. These are some of the things I made/recieved.

I received this cute tin that came with a Starbux gift certificate.


I made a tag address book that had pictures and addresses of all our scrap friends.


I received this awesome mini journaling book that is all blinged and and ID tag for my luggage.


I made a lunch tin to hold handmade cards.


And lastly an altered starbux tumbler. Too hard to add embellishments to this.


Also received an altered "L" for my scraproom but I need to wait for daylight to get a better pic. This was such a fun swap, receiving handmade gifts is so much fun!

Benefits 1-in-48

GS102 is officially over and i hop right into another sketch class. This one is at nycscraps.com and it's called benefit One-in-48. We get a sketch every 48 hours and all the proceeds go to a great benefit....save the children charity.

Back from Vacation

I had to use up 2 days vacation to stay home with the kids since my MIL was in Florida for a funeral...but it certainly wasn't a vacation! The kids faught the entire day long and I was trying to clean the house and ended up getting nothing done. We went to Burger King on Monday cuz they wanted to play on the slide, I dropped off some of my pants at the dry cleaners, I got my hair colored a mahogony red (not too sure I like it), got the car washed, took the kids to Raytheon park, also took them to Watson park to ride the choo choo train, and Kenzie had a good day at school.

And my sister finally updated her blog with baby pics

These are the pictures from Cousin Annie's wedding...I'm still thinking of a title and how I can add it in the little space I have.

More layouts & Sept TSR

Recieved my September TSR kit and I'm loving the Scenic Route the most. It was perfect for the GS102 sketch. Only a week left of classes.

I'm an Aunt!

Yahoo! My sister delivered a 6lb 12oz 19.5in Baby Koen Liem Lucas on 9/11. She didn't have quite the easy delivery that I had with both of my kids. My mom and I were anxiously waiting to hear a phone call from them all day and night but the little stinker finally made it out. I've only gotten a peak at the cutie through a picture message on my cell phone but I'm making plans to visit my nephew maybe this coming weekend.

Another week

Another layout from the GS102 class. My photos were too large to include much embellishment but it was fun to use these Fancy Pants transparency that my secret scrapbooking sister sent me.







Micah loves horses at the moment. It started out as a game to search for the horses as we drove the 8 hours home from Colorado a few months ago and now he searches for horses everywhere we go. On the way to grandma's house we pass 2 houses with horses and he loves it every time. At chuckie cheese, he rode this station at least 10 times. Kenzie is doing so much better in preschool. Last thursday when her uncle Don dropped her off was the first time she didn't cry...it was mainly because she's scared of him and he said he'd spank her if she did cry.

Since Micah can talk so much more than a few words now, it is just hilarious listening to the dialog between the two of them. Kenzie was wearing her princess tshirt and Micah was telling her it was a cake and she was telling him no, it is a princess crown.

Labor Day

Got Sketch 102 is up and running, this was sketch 1


We didn't go anywhere or do anything the whole weekend. Micah was sick on Saturday, he threw up all over the floor at BurgerKing and couldn't sleep very well for the last couple of days. I think his back teeth maybe coming in because he pokes his fingers in there and cries.

Kenzie is still having anxiety about preschool. Today was day 4 and she still crys when I drop her off. Cry is an understatment, screaming, kicking and grabbing onto my hands for dear life as I peel her off and hand her over to her teacher is more correctly stated. But when Lam picked her up from school the teacher did say it only lasted for 3 minutes and she was good after that...and if you ask her why she cried, she will deny it ever happening and tell you she loves school and had fun.

GS102

Got Sketch 102 started this week with a warmup sketch. The kids were giving their dad a back massage for Father's Day...Micah was giving more of a neck/scalp massage.

Chalk and Mowing

Aunt Kim and Uncle Ryan bought the kids these giant sidewalk chalk sometime ago. I just opened it up for them to play yesterday. Kenzie liked playing hopscotch and Micha just liked getting his hands dirty. Then he tried to color the walls with it.



The boy just loves to mow the grass. Everyday he'll go to the back of the house where we keep the lawnmower and tell his daddy to cut the grass. He got his own mower for his 1st bday and pushes the thing around the house constantly.



She got a new pair of shoes to wear to school but being independent and stubborn, she won't let anyone help her tie the laces. They keep falling off and she gets frustrated...today she put them on backwards but wouldn't let grandma or mom fix it. She's already at a size 11 going on to size 12. Big FEET for a little girl.