Brennan made this really cute and simple Advent Calendar in class today. The only thing is that there isn’t a way to hold a goody treat, but you can always have one close at hand for each day.

Instructions on back: December first ’til Christmas, is the longest time of year. It seems as if Old Santa just never will appear.

Now glue one ball on Santa’s beard and one more every day. For when he has all his whiskers he’ll be ready to start on his way.

I saw this at Memory Creators.

CK or Memory Makers? I’ve never read MM, so I have to say CK.
Glue stick or dry tape? Glue stick all the way.
Chatterbox or KI Memories? KI Memories because I love all the epoxy.
Buttons or charms? Charms.
Twill or ribbon? Twill.
7 Gypsies or Making Memories? Ooh, that’s a tough one, but I will have to say 7 Gypies.
Color or black and white? Color.
Straight cut or torn edges? Torn edges.
Rub-ons or stickers? I would have to say rub-ons.
12×12 or 8-1/2×11? 12×12.
Eyelets or brads? Eyelets because I like using the tools.
Digital or 35mm? Digital.
Chalk or ink? Ink, Ink, Ink!!!

I’m so sad because I ran out of magenta ink the other day, but haven’t gotten a stinking replacement yet. I have all these pictures that I want to print out from over Thanksgiving. It just sucks.

I am slowly coming out of my Thanksgiving coma. My mom cooked a wonderful meal for 14 people, which I am so thankful for. I don’t think I am quite ready to prepare such a great feast. Thanksgiving dinner consisted of my mom, dad, big brother Mike, my parent’s close friends from over 30 years, my single cousin and his two boys (he is the nephew of my dad’s dad’s brother, or something like that), a cousin that we just met this year (he is a nephew from my mom’s sister’s side, but I am not sure where the relation comes from exactly. He moved from Korea and is graduating from a small Korean music school out here), and his girlfriend, Den, me, and the boys. BTW, I am so amazed at my single cousin Hoyong, who is raising two boys by himself. The mother left to Korea when the boys were younger. She is a total bitch, but I won’t get into the story. Both boys have down syndrome, the younger one a lot more than the older one. I think the older one is just a little slow, but functions normally. The younger boy has severe down syndrome, and is also very hyperactive. I am just amazed at my cousin.

I have been really tired, but probably because I have been staying up late to scrap. Well except on Wednesday, I stayed up to watch “The Aviator” with Leo DeCaprio. I didn’t realize that Howard Hughes was so eccentric.
Anyways, I’ve actually been pretty much scrapping everyday for the past month, since my class ended. I simply can’t stop. I cover our kitchen table with all my stuff, and then come meal time, I clean up everything. I definitely have an addiction. I mean I am not constantly scrapping, but usually on and off throughout the day. But a good thing has been that I haven’t made any major purchases, since our budget is beyond tight this last year. It is killing me with all the great holiday papers that are out. I still have tons of BG paper from last year, so I have to use that stuff up. Also, I have been making quite a dent into my surplus of supplies, although, I still have enough to last the next couple years.

My little baby turned 17 months today. How can he practically be a year and a half already? I know I mentioned this before, but he is so active. He gets into everything. Today, I actually put him on the toilet a couple times and he sat there pushing and little drips of pee were intermittently coming out. I could see that he was trying and totally understanding the concept. I know we still have a while before we officially start potty training, but this is a pretty good start. I know that he does understand because usually when I remove his diaper to change, he will run off and then will stand there and look at his weewee, and pee drips all over the floor. It drives me nuts that he does that. He is just too quick.

He loves when I read the Baby Einstein Babies Chunky book. This was Brennan favorite book as well, when he was a little laddie.

Our copy is so tattered though. He loves the part of the book about the baby crying. I will read it to him and ask him “how do you cry?” He is so funny because he opens his mouth wide and smiles, and lets out the quietest little cry. Also, he likes the page about the baby eating. I ask him, “how does a baby eat?” He responds by feeding himself with his fingers. Also, Brennan gets in the act as well. Elden copied Brennan when he started letting out some spit bubbles. I guess that is supposed to be the food or something. But is so funny, when Elden copies Brennan, which he pretty much does all the time now. He wants to do what his big brother is doing. He is just the sweetest llittle boy. We have the nap down pat. After a noon feed, I put him down in his crib and he falls asleep almost instantly. At night, not so. He still wakes up two times. The first time, I try to coax him back, usually without a feed, and he will go back down. The second time, around 4 a.m., he cries and cries, and I feel so bad that bring him back to bed with me. When I hear his continual cries, I just feel terrible. I do feel like I am almost ready to stop breastfeeding him, although, I don’t think he is ready. He loves drinking from a cup, so maybe I can entice him that way. Don’t get me wrong because I love that I have this time with him. I love that he actually listens to me when I really want him to do something. Like when he wants to drink water, he comes up and grunts his request. I tell him, sit down on your boppy and I will give you some water. He will usually sit down immediately. At least one of my kids listens to me. Brennan is another story. We still have another week to fill out his sticker chart. But for some reason this week, he is fighting his sleep. I wants me to stay in bed with him because he is scared. I did that a couple times, but I don’t want to make it a habit. He screams and fights, and just drives me nuts. Den ended up threatening him to take one of his bears from him and throw is chart away. We are both fed up with it. We do have a pretty rigid night schedule. We read his books, brush his teeths, and he goes to bed right away. I would stay with him, until he falls asleep, but like I said, I don’t want to make it a habit. Hopefully, he will grow out of it soon.

Whew, I think I will stop writing now. This is way too much for one night of blog writing.

Breakfast: plate of turkey and ham, green beans, fried rice and shrimp

Lunch: turkey sandwich

Dinner: turkey soup

snacks: bite of turkey here, and a bite of ham there, apples

I seriously cannot believe that Thanksgiving is in two days. Two freakin days folks!!! Thanksgiving is at my parent’s house as usual, and my mother will pretty much be doing all the cooking. I’ve volunteered myself in the past, but she is the matriarch in the family, and insists on doing the ENTIRE FREAKEN DINNER, so who am I to complain. We have in the past purchased everything cooked, but my dad complained that the turkey was too dry, the potatoes were too chunky. Whatever.

It’s been sunny and gorgeous as usual, but since Den has been gone we really haven’t gone outside to enjoy the weather, except to go grocery shopping at TJ’s. I’ve been wolfing up these yummy Mango flavored tortilla chips from TJ’s. I was so looking forward to eating them with salsa, but the salsa that I got was too spicy for me. Thank goodness for that because it would have overwhelmed the mango flavor. I also picked up a couple of these 99¢ Advent Calenders there as well, and of course along with a lot of other goodies. Instead of getting the $7 bags of almonds, I been buying the 99¢ soy nuts that my told me about. Elden just gobbles them down.

I so love TJ’s!

We did go outside today after Elden’s nap. Even though we have been inside the last few days, the kids still needed to burn off some energy. I just been been lazy to go anywhere. Most days we are out, so it is nice to be home once in a while. These were a few snaps of the boys. I can watch the boys play all day long. We stayed out until the sun starting going down.

This is part of a layout that I had brewing in my head for a few days, which I also entered in a DT tryout.

This stamp is one my newest, which is from Lost Coast Designs from the Carson Stamping Expo. It is so versatile. I stamped it on a ink jet transparency with black Stazon. The brown stars below is part of a another stamp by Sassafrass, which was a RAK from Suzanne. The chipboard star is Fancy Pants, which I painted in Twinkiing H20’s Heavenly white and the brown stamp is also from Sassafras. The brown ink is “Van Dyke Brown” from an old Vic Bantok pad that I have. Love the deepcolor to it.

I loved how this title came out. It was a bitch to stamp and heat emboss these little Bazzill chipboard circles. I wanted a title that wasn’t too overbearing and didn’t take away all the focus from the photo. I’ve been into chipboard lately, and also have a renewed sense of love for heat embossing. I love this blueberries and cream embossing powder by creations unlimited. It is just so sparkly and pretty.

Tomorrow in class Brennan will be making some kind of soup in class. All I know is that I volunteered to bring green beans, so that the kids can cut them up. I won’t be staying because I have a luncheon to go to, but I may have to stay a few minutes to take a couple photos. I can’t wait for my soulmate to come back home on Wednesday.

It’s such a pain to post pictures. Our computer is really working itself when I do postprocessing on the photos. When photoshop is open it pretty much uses all the RAM. We really need a new computer, dammit!!! Okay, no more complaining.
Here are a few of the pictures from yesterday.

Yesterday Den surprised the kids and I with a mini day trip to Knotts Berry Farm. We had a total blast. Brennan just so giddy and excited to go on the rides in Camp Snoopy, that he insisted on going on more than once. Brennan went on a few of the rides by himself. I even got to ride on two roller coasters. I so love riding roller coasters. Unfortunately Den does not share that love with me. Mostly, he says that it gets him dizzy. I only got a chance to ride on two rollercoasters, the Xcelerator and the GhostRider, which is a wooden roller coaster. It was so thrilling for me. It is just a little bit of freedom, where I could let loose and scream my lungs out, for a few minutes, well in the Xcelerator case, it was like a few seconds, but not think about anything, except to enjoy the moment.

Den will be out of town for a few to day to attend the American Academy of Religion yearly conference in Washington, D.C. Madeleine Albright will be there to speak. I’m not sure what she will be speaking about, but I am thinking she will be talking about her recent book, titled “The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and the World Affairs”. Just my guess.

I was planning on spending a couple of nights at my parent’s house, but I don’t want to screw up the kid’s sleep pattern. Hopefully, Brennnan will want to stay in his bed while Den is gone. The last trip was what screwed us up before.

It’s been almost a week since Elden has been sleeping his crib. He has no problems falling asleep, but then he wakes up around 11:00. I usually go in there to check on him to calm him back down to sleep, although I admit that I do bring him back to our bed to breastfeed him. I know that it good that it works as a comfort tool, but in the other hand, I don’t want him and me to be dependent on it. The nights that I don’t bring him back to bed, he would wake up almost every hour upon the hour. Honestly, I do want to wean him, so that he won’t have this crutch or I guess you could call it sleep tool. I used be so against CIO, but realistically, it isn’t that bad. Plus, I really don’t want him attached to my boob constantly, so i think it is a good thing for all of us that we are doing things this way.

Tomorrow I just plan on dropping the kids with grandma, and then I will go out to lunch with my bro Mike for his birthday. Maybe, if we have some time, we will go watch a movie. We have no other plans for the weekend, probably just chill out. I will most definitely get some scrapping done. I want to create a few layouts, enter a couple DT tryouts, and make a calendar out of two clipboards. I saw the calendar in a recent magazine article. I also want to redo this advent calendar from last year.

I want to redo it, to make it sturdier. I glued the dominos on the cardstock. I should have nailed the hinges into the wood. I don’t know if I will keep it on this piece of wood, or attach the dominos onto something else. I want to make it so that the dominos open up like doors and then inside would be a candy treat or something for the boys. I do love the way that it is laid out vertically though. I don’t have much time, since Dec. will be upon us in a couple of weeks. I love the fact I used two Kiehl #1 lip balms for the base. Pretty creative thinking on my part.

So I did enter a couple DT contest earlier this week. I really want to be part of a DT one day, hopefully in this decade. I really have no idea what they are looking for. Also, I just can’t imagine how difficult it is to even pick a DT. There are so many entries. How can they possibly decide. It certainly boggles my mind. I can only hope for the best right? So please send me good luck dust this way for me, will ya.