New Hobby

One of my goals for this year was to start digital scrapbooking. I've always enjoyed scrapbooking, but I've seen some really awesome digital pages, so I wanted to give it a try. My other reasons were having more time now that I'm out of school and being able to put some of my knowledge of digital media that I learned in school to use, not to mention the fact that I already purchased the CS4 Adobe Suite student version (and I don't want to forget how to use it :)

I just started a few days ago and I am loving it! It is way easier and faster than regular scrapbooking, and there are so many cool papers, letters and embellishments that you can easily download. Everything I've used so far has been free. It is sweet! It's inexpensive and the possibilities for creativity are endless. No more buying stuff at the scrapbook store or choosing pictures to develop, and the best part is I can close my laptop whenever someone starts to climb on me (which is a lot).

This was my first layout which I did in Photoshop, though I'm not sure why I used that program. It turned out okay, but part way through I realized that Photoshop is best for editing photos and certain effects you can't do in other programs and not for doing layouts. The layers can be annoying and text is horrible, in comparison.


All the other layouts were done in InDesign and were much faster to put together. If anyone has a chance to use it, or even get a trial version, I strongly recommend this program. It is made for layouts. Text boxes are extremely easy to edit and each thing you place in the layout is it's own object that you can arrange to be in front of or behind other objects (so you don't have to worry about layers). Sizes of all objects are really easy to adjust in InDesign too. Most of the effects that you use also work in this program. If you need to, you can create a photoshop file (.psd) and then place it in your InDesign layout. Then if you edit the photoshop file it will automatically be updated in InDesign, because all the Adobe programs are linked like that. It's pretty cool.




Thanks to my friends that inspired me to start by posting some of their awesome digital pages! My only reservation about it is how it might affect my blog--because I kind of like the blog too. If I already blogged about something, it makes me not want to scrapbook about it and vice versa. Hmmm. But I really enjoy it and I figure everything I do is a form of family history so whether it's on the blog or in a scrapbook, it's something, right?

Nursery

You would think the title of this post would be about how elated we are that Marissa has reached that magical nursery age, but you'd be wrong...

I said I was going to write about my emotional breakdowns. One occurred last Sunday. I was already having a not so good morning, but church was all right until I got asked to speak with one of the counselors in the bishopric. Now, I have never cried when I got a calling before. I cried when I got released from a calling, but never a minute after they told me what a new calling was, and we are not talking tears of joy or "feel the spirit" tears. That new calling, of course, was nursery leader.

Honestly, before I had kids I would not have known what to do with kids this age. My only real experience with kids was babysitting 6 rowdy hooligans on a regular basis in middle school that I had absolutely no control over. They all survived, but it was not for any talent I had with children. At least now I am used to little kids and my vocabulary already consists of phrases like "we don't hit", "we don't color on the table", "puzzle pieces aren't for eating", "go throw that chewed up cheese that you threw on the floor in the garbage", and "someone smells poopy". You would think there would be no problem with this calling.

So why did I cry? Honestly, I don't know. I feel bad for the counselor giving the calling, especially since he is a good friend of ours, but I couldn't hold it back. I quickly said, "I guess so. Can I go to class today?" and headed straight to the handicapped stall to dramatically slide down the wall, sit on the cold tile and cry out the rest of Sunday School (it's always worth it to slide down the wall). So lame, I know. I didn't have a problem with the calling per se, in fact I thought nursery would have been a great place to be 6 or 8 months ago when I was in the hall doing nothing with my pre-nursery aged child. But to call me now? When I spent a good part of a year counting down until I could happily hand my child to someone else in charge of nursery, go to class and find out I am still using the manual two prophets ago (because that was the last time I went)? When I am going to have a baby in 5 months and feel like this is my only window to breathe before "it" starts all over again? When I already spend all my time with children this age? It was slightly hard to understand.

I wasted the last opportunity to go to class and had a good breakdown instead. But I have since come to terms with the calling. I still don't think I'm cut out for this age, but I'm okay with it. It's like coming to terms with the fact that going to church with a 12 month old means standing in the hall for two (or three) hours. I had a hard time with this the first time around, but it's been so many years now that yes, I have come to this realization. I had expected to be able to go to class, but it was not to be. Surely when my child bearing days are over or when I'm in retirement I will not have these same feelings. I just know that church for now will mean chasing after Marissa for the first hour (because if I try to stay with the other kids while Jared takes her, Alex screams for daddy--so it's always me in the hall) and back with the little kids for the rest of the time.

I'm still trying to make some sense of it all. Maybe I need to spend even more time with Marissa for some reason. Maybe I need to learn to love that age even more. Maybe it's just a test of my faith. But whatever the reason, I am the new nursery leader and you better believe I will be chowing down on the snacks faithfully every Sunday. Hey, pregnancy has some perks, like "needing" to eat every couple of hours and having emotional breakdowns and being able to say, "yeah well, I'm pregnant."

Wilma or Willis?

All right, I'm actually saving those names for if I ever have boy/girl twins. But the exciting news is that I have a due date, which is June 5th, and that we found out what we are having... a BOY!! This works out great for many obvious reasons like the fact that we only have two kid bedrooms, that it's much more Brady Bunch-ish, that Alex will have someone to wrestle with (that may agree to wrestle back), and that I'm sort of into even numbers. No pressure on this baby, but all the other kids were born on even years, months and days. 06/08/10 sounds good, right?

Evidently I am 20 weeks today, the half-way mark. Yay! It also means that this will be the fourth June birthday in the family (Jared, Marissa, Erin and baby), which is fine except that we are already out of space on the birthday calendar. We may just have to reduce the font to 6 or something. At least I'm used to saying "I'm due in June." I'm hoping there will be some sort of advantage with so many June birthdays. Anyone know of any? Free ice cream on your birthday month? Anything.

It was nice to see that everything looked great on the ultrasound and just so you know, he was not at all shy about being a boy. Overall I am very lucky when it comes to pregnancy. My only real symptoms this time are mosquito bite like itching mainly on my legs and arms (a rare and harmless, yet pesky side effect), the same lower back pain I had with Marissa (that I'm hoping will go away some time after the baby comes), being extremely tired (I don't remember being this tired with Alex or Marissa-Erin, yes), and not being able to go a week without having an emotional breakdown (more on this one later). At least I never get really sick. Jared turned to me after the ultrasound and said "Laura, if we decide to have any more kids, let's wait a long time before we do." And I couldn't agree more. Sometimes it's really hard having this many kids that are so little and being pregnant. But like I said, more on this later. I just know that it is right for our family, even if it's not always easy.

And here are the images of our 11 oz. creation. Cute kid, right?Leg, foot and five little toes. Aww.Like I said, not shy about the boy thing.

You know it's cold in Florida when...

You have to turn on your heat for the first time since last year and you get that "first heat of the year smell"

You get a call from the elementary school advising you of the severe temperatures and to dress your child warmly

Your son can't understand why he should wear pants if he's not going to church (and he doesn't)

Walmart and Target have completely sold out of coats in one week

You don't let your kids play outside because it's too cold, when usually it's because it's too hot

You have to wear socks

Your husband gets an email from human resources explaining that the building does not have heat and other arrangements should be made

Your daughter only has three long sleeved shirts and she's already worn them all to school this week

Your friends from Utah make fun of you for wearing flannel pants, a sweater and wrap yourself in a blanket when they opened the window at night because they were too hot

You can't find enough blankets

You don't want to take a shower because being wet sounds way too cold

Your child won't go in the garage because it's too cold

You are afraid your baby will freeze to death at night because she won't keep blankets on

You go to the doctor and he tells you this is the first time he realized the building didn't have heat

You get an email from the university advising you to be careful how you heat your rooms

You don't go to the store (or anywhere) because it's just too cold

You make hot chocolate and your kids can't figure out what you are drinking because they've never seen it before

You are surprised that you found 3 hot chocolate packets in the house

You make soup for dinner to warm you up

You want to sit on the couch all day wrapped in a blanket

You have to scrounge around for your 10 year old nylons to wear to church

You get yelled at by another parent for picking your kid up while wearing flip flops

You have to dig around the garage for the container that says "winter clothes"

You find your husband wearing a jacket in bed

IT'S FORTY FREAKIN' NINE DEGREES OUTSIDE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY!!!

If you haven't noticed, we 1) are having a 2 week cold front and 2) are big wimps! I really don't know how anyone in cold parts of the country does anything besides hibernate and I'm not sure if I'm ready to go and do it again any time soon. We are one of the lucky families that has heat. Some of our friends are living in coats, hats and shared body heat. It's even gotten down to the mid 30's at night! So until this frigid weather blows over, you will find me in the same made fun of wool sweater sitting on the couch un-showered drinking warm liquids wrapped in the warmest blanket I can find wearing socks and all. So how's your weather?