hard work

what a memorial day weekend! for many years, and for many people, the three day weekend symbolizes outdoor work...and it was no different for us this weekend (even though jason had to work on saturday!)

so we got started a day early....on friday morning, this is what my front 'landscaping' looked like...


and then came the trucks, and the men...and the best entertainment the kids were going to have all weekend!!


and by saturday night, those same areas looked like THIS:


not having a tree in the middle of our driveway has made it so much more functional (go figure!) i was able to retrieve our camper from winter storage (aka my in laws property) and actually back it up into the side driveway area to get it set up and ready for the camping season...and, we no longer risk ripping off another side view mirror on one of the cars...

i bought some plants new, and transplanted some others, to give the front area a new look (as opposed to the bush stumps that have been decorating it since last september when i could no longer stand the dead bushes there!) then jason (and i - though primarily jason!) filled in the HUGE hole left by the tree with concrete. we can now add concrete to our growing list of home improvement dyi experiences! (yes, we have safely driven on this area of the driveway!)

and then we moved to the BACK yard - where we are in the process of setting up the 'mac daddy' play area...even though we live only two houses away from the school playground, having stuff nearby, particularly for molly, became a priority in this house...and now we've got just about anything their little hearts could desire. both sets of grandparents joined us on memorial day for the playstructure construction extravaganza! i likened it to how the amish work - the women did the cooking and caring for the children, and the men slaved all day with the tools (well, I did eventually get in there and build the rock climbing wall!) it was a beautiful day for construction...a little warm, but sunny with a slight breeze. the playstructure still isn't quite complete, but after a few more hours of work by grandpop and daddy yesterday, all that's left are some of the aesthetics...


so here's molly making the first trip down the slide!!

twinkle toes

you may recall that i 'took up' dancing in the fall - well, this weekend was our recital - a year's worth of learning and exercise and weight loss and blisters and sweat!!

the theme of the recital was a calendar year -many, MANY thanks to those that made the trip (and/or watched our younger children!) to see the show. how fantastic that kate had her camera, in the second row, with no one in front of her...and she captured over 200 pictures of the girls and i dancing!

the girls were fantastic! they are so fun to watch...

here's maya as a sugar plum fairy and leprechaun:



lilly was a snow angel, toy soldier and danced to 'schools out':


and then, of course, there's me...in my opening number "need a little christmas" and the closer "jing a ling" and then in our spring break number (where we danced to britney spears and janet jackson - whew!)

while i am no stranger to the stage, aside from whatever i learned to get me through the musicals i was in, i am NOT a dancer...this year was a challenge for me. being in the opening/closing number required three rehearsals a week! in the end, i'm very happy with what i've been able to accomplish this year. i'm not ready to say that i'll continue next year, but it was an interesting learning experience this year.

the best part, by far, occurred during my opening number. both lilly and maya were 'christmas/winter' related themes - with their dance numbers being right after the opening number. during the opener, i get a chance to exit stage right, run behind the drop and re-enter on stage left - which is where the next two numbers are lined up ready to go on stage. there were my girls....as beautiful and as excited as can be that we were all dancing together...and they gave me high fives each night before i went out to finish the opening number. it doesn't get better than that.

mega meet

i've survived the first two weeks of may!!

and, for those of you that don't know, it's really been a challenge...

first came the great lakes mega meet held each mother's day weekend in novi...i'm the exhibits and special events manager, among other things, which means i build relationships with my exhibitors (83 of them this year!) and coordinate our evening events - opening ceremonies, with keynote address by scrapbooking "celebrity" stacy julian and our crop parties (1000 croppers over two nights!!!) we had over 8,800 crazy scrapbookers join us this year!

here's some pictures of the weekend...

this is kate, tara and i on the little 'car' that tara had for the weekend to whip between our exhibit and event halls and down to the classroom area (we use a HUGE facility and this was an EXCELLENT mode of transportation - however, tara drove it like a little red corvette...)

me, holding the sign for one of our evening events - i was SO proud and excited for this event and that i was able to get Stacy Julian to come all the way to Michigan (from Spokane, WA!) ...unfortunately, we didn't sell as many tickets as we would have liked, but it was an awesome evening for those of us that were there (& kate made me bring the sign home to hang in my scrap room for at least a month to justify its cost!)

this is me teaching at the mega meet for the first time- oddly enough, my class was titled 'life is nuts!'

i get kate and tara a 'have a good show' gift each year - this year was specialty cookies from 'cookies by design' and i had them decorated to look like our logo for this year's event (which i also designed to resemble the logo from the upcoming beijing olympics)

and of course, here we are enjoying our cookies - kate's with the rolling tote girl, tara with the photographer, and me, running with scissors!


and here's most of the 'green shirt posse' - the management responsible for making this event possible every year - nicely done, ladies!!!

and during all that madness, and MANY thanks to my roommate donna who lent her sewing fingers, i was busily altering SEVEN costumes for our dance recital the next weekend! as usual, the whole event was exhausting, but an excellent product of our year-long work!

new "business"

i've gotten compliments on my own design, and even designed for a few others...who then pushed me into this venture...

so feel free to check it out:

blogsbycara.blogspot.com

reunited

as part of maya's birthday present, and the convenience of having a 'school day' off for teacher's professional development day (which they actually do once a month, here) - i took the kids and headed the long journey back to our old stomping grounds for a day to give the kids a chance to spend some time at grandma jane's day care....we were only there for about 4 hours, but it was four hours (and then the 3 back home!) well spent...

it took maya and her friend tori about 15 minutes to warm up to each other, but then it was back to 'normal' while we were there. it was great to see all the kids (and how much they've grown!) many thanks to grandma jane for letting four extra kids crash the joint for a day!

seis

cinco de maya no more...

we had an extraordinarily busy day yesterday with school, soccer, and three dance classes mixed in..not to mention a BIRTHDAY!

we did have a chance to enjoy a birthday dinner (go check out SAHM cooks for what it was!) with Maya in between all that activity, and let her open a birthday present. we're saving the rest of our celebration and ceremonies for sunday, when we'll have a joint experience with her grandparents (and it's grandpa's birthday on monday!). we're going out to birthday dinner to the local japanese hibatchi steakhouse - maya's favorite. she did at least consult her grandpa this year - unlike the year she choose chuck e. cheese for their birthday dinners. though that provided an extra element of entertainment when 'chuck e.' delivered them both ice cream sandwiches as their birthday treats!

it's here!

here i am on november 13th, mailing off my page to memory makers magazine...to get 'published' for the first time...

and here i am TODAY
when my issue, with MY page arrived!!!

here's my page in the mag...and the 'fine print' since you can't read it:

Cara supersized the photo of Molly to showcase her daughter's charming personality. One photo, a piece of patterned paper, cardstock matting, a few chipboard letters, a stamp - it's done!

spring has sprung

and i'm probably slowly going insane because of it, and the millions of things we do this time of year...so here's recap of what we've been doing recently...

we prepared an 'upset tummy package' - complete with bottle of water, some triscuits and (at a huge sacrifice for jason) and orange barf bowl for lilly - who on our ride home from spring break heaved every 10 - 15 minutes or so for several HOURS and needed said package in her room when we got home.

we ate our first meal of the season in our screen room

we explored wildlife at grandmom and grandpop's house


we put up a new toy in the backyard!




and we started soccer season...oh and what a story goes with this...when it was time to register for soccer season, we discussed the playing options with all the kids. maya and porter decided they were going to give it a go (much to their father's delight), whereas lilly held steadfast that if there was an actual competition involved, she wanted nothing to do with it (much to her father's dismay). so we sign up maya and porter and the week that practice starts we're talking about it, when to get their uniforms, etc. and getting them ready for their first practice when lilly is starting to act a little forlorn and jealous. so i ask her - do you want to play soccer? cause if you do, i have to sign you up RIGHT NOW, and you'll be put on a waitlist. and she immediately says yes, she wants to play.

so we're headed out the door to the soccer club admin building to buy the required equipment for the kids. this gives us the opportunity to talk to the club manager about lilly's odds of being placed on a team (and the other two kids are WILD because they both have practice shortly after this adventure and now lilly is somehow DYING to play). the club manager tells me that there is already a U8 girls team (under 8) that doesn't have a coach, so if they don't get a coach, then those girls are going to have to be split up on to other teams, which will then be 'overloaded' and therefore, lilly won't get to play. the solution to this, the manager says, is if we want to coach.

take a deep breath. oye. jason walks in after selecting the uniform stuff with maya and porter. i briefly explain situation and he says 'okay'. as in - we'll coach. we had briefly discussed it previously, when we got an email from the club saying they needed some coaches for the U4 division (that's porter's division). we looked at the schedule and just didn't respond, but knew, between the two of us, that we could probably make it work if we had to.

and there stood lilly - wide-eyed and ready to play. so we said yes. we started coaching last week (a week later than all the other teams) and have a great group of eight U8 girls...it's been very interesting for jason (who LOVES other people's children - NOT!), but has been great for me, cause after all my work with lilly's classes and the girl scouts, it's my first interaction with kids other than mine for awhile, and i've missed it. i handle all our warm up and team building and jason directs the drills, and i think we all are having fun. we practice at our local school, less than a block from our house, so the other kids come along and play on the playground while we're training the next mia hamms of the world.

we had our first game this saturday - and luckily for us - in this rec league we don't keep score. we had to miss maya and porter's first games, as we had tickets to see Avenue Q (the third time for me!) while it's on national tour. my fil covered 'picture duty' for us - because, as an OCD scrapbooker, missing these first games about put me over the edge. so here's some shots of maya and porter during their games, and lilly and jason warming up for ours. i was too busy coaching to take pictures actually DURING our game.




true to his coach's prediction - porter is a scoring machine (coach also said that porter has a lot of energy to play soccer - go figure). looks like this might be his sport. we'll see about the girls!

anniversary

this monday was the 17th anniversary (holy cow!) of this:

some validation...

last november i entered a scrapbooking contest. I'm not big on the contests or submitting my pages to magazines, but this one peaked my interest. winners were announced in february and are appearing in this month's magazine. so i was clicking through the magazine's blog and found an article on the contest...

"Funnest Scrapbooker Ever (for 2007) Contest Winners

In our Scrapbook Play special issue, we initiated a new contest in hopes of finding the Funnest Scrapbooker Ever (for 2007). When it came time to judge all the entries, we found that crowning just one fun scrapper was a challenge far too great for our staff. Instead we chose one grand-prize winner and two attendants to help the winner fulfill her royal duties of spreading “funness” all year long. The winner and both attendants received a sash and a box of goodies from our office. We also picked five honorable-mention layouts that had us laughing so hard we couldn’t resist showing them off. We hope you enjoy laughing at these costumes, jokes, and layouts as much as we did and that they inspire you to have even more fun scrapbooking!"

and so i clicked through the pages to see the winners again...

and what did i find?!?!?

who would have thunk

the grandkids (well, and me, a bit, i guess) talked grandpa into giving DDR a whirl while on vacation (that's dance, dance revolution for you folks 'not in the know' that read this blog).

i believe this was a somewhat overcast, windy and rainy day - so we were stuck inside a bit. lest you think that we could have been sunning ourselves on a beach instead of doing this.


on our last day, we took a trip down to the sea pines plantation and harbor town, home of hilton head island's lighthouse. here's our family by said lighthouse where we watched for dolphins from the dock and met a family that was crabbing there (placing chicken inerds that had been left out to rot in the sun for day into a basket and then lowering it down into the water...one of the kids did get two crabs that maya and my mom got to see them pull up, so that was cool). we saw a few dolphin fins, but apparently arrived a few minutes after a couple of them had been playing near by. bummer.

after that we headed down to the 'beach' area next to the dock that was revealing all sorts of treasures during this almost low tide time. we were accustomed to low tide findings on the beach at our resort, but this low tide area was very different, since it was on a much different area of the island. look at my cute little toddler finding shells (which the whole beach was covered with).

and then look at her after she discovered that this 'beach' was more muck and mud than sand. and had fun seaweed wads to play with.

molly walked away from that beach with a new tshirt, cause we had to strip her down in the public restroom for a bit of a sink bath.

and this is what i ate right before we got into the car to head back to michigan:

creme brulee french toast

it was out of this world

like monkeys in a zoo

so is molly and her poo.

i would so LOVE to tell you about the spectacular day we had on vacation today. all about the sun, the mid-70 degree temperatures, the salty sea air, the kids spending hours hunting for shells with their buckets and shovels, then their first swim in the ocean and enjoying the feature pool here at our beautiful resort.

nice image, isn't it?

unfortunately, all those memories of today are overshadowed with how my day started. we are vacationing with my parents in a two-bedroom condo...this leaves the master for my parents, and the other bedroom for our family of six. it's actually working nicely, except for the fact that molly, who is in a pack and play in our bedroom, has no concept or ability to sleep in.

so this morning, like most other mornings, she wakes up at about 7am and starts talking to and calling to us (and lilly and maya sleeping in the bed next to her). i drag my sorry, tired butt out of bed to retrieve her before she gets loud enough to wake up porter on the hide-a-bed in the living room. she lovingly hands me something, and in my half awakeness, i realize it's HER DIAPER.

yikes. usually she's not poopy in the morning. usually.

but lucky for me - today was unusual. the toddler had stripped off her pajama pants and taken off her diaper. who knows when, cause i didn't hear her do it. i start to panic as i think i notice that indeed, her diaper contains a little present. i'm starting to freak out and now lilly and maya are WIDE awake and i'm hollaring at jason to turn on the light.

pack and play full of poop. there stands my darling little delicate flower of a daughter, bare butt, with poop all over her. under her fingernails. squished on her feet. and she's just delighted as can be. poop OUT of the pack and play on the carpet. like she had thrown it. like the monkey in the zoo. as jason said - it was poopalicious. my parents say it was molly's fecal artistic expression.

needless to say, there was some clean up duty. i did the textiles. jason did the toddler. the older kids did a treasure hunt for missing nuggets. thank goodness molly didn't load up on juice yesterday...

how about some more of how wonderful the REST of the day was....