Who Does She Take After

This is a really bad picture with the glare and everything. But I had to take it. These are the window clings that you put up. Sydney has a tendency to line everything up when she plays or colors or puts stickers on paper. To me it is very funny. She is just like her father when it comes to making sure things are in their place.

This is my scrap area in my room. It is very messy right now, because I have been in the middle of making about 50 xmas cards for work. But normally it not this messy. But this is me, creative chaos.

This is the little part of me in Sydney. this is her little area sandwiched between boxes and stuff. She has her play dough stashed here. She likes to come in my room and work while I am. She always want to help me. She has her own paper that she loves to cut up into little pieces.
She loves coloring & stickers too. It is really cute. She is just like her mom in this way. (but she better stay away from my markers)

So she is little bitty pieces of me and her dad both.

An Early Christmas Present

Mike gave me a early christmas present. I have been eying these Copic markers for a long time. They are kinda spendy, so I haven't bought any. They come in about 300 or 400 colors. Not sure how many exactly. But they are the kind that the professionals use. Like comic book artist. I am so stoked to get some of them. I don't even want all of them (thank goodness) But from what I understand, you have to have several in the same color family for blending and shading and such. The lighter colors are suppose to be used alot. I can hardly wait....gotta go. Got stuff to color. Who would have thought that markers would make someone so happy. Hope I have gotten better about coloring than I was when I was a kid. I could never stay in the lines very well.

More Sydneyisms.

When ever Sydney is being a little naughty and not minding her dad, he will tell her "your making me mad'.


Yesterday Mike kept telling Sydney No about something or another. Sometimes serious, sometimes joking with her. Part of the time, he was trying to watch football.

After one time of telling her no, she told him-

"your making mine mad"

Sydneyisms

Sydney is saying the cutest stuff right now at age 3. Her dad thinks she is just the funniest thing. We often have to turn around, so she doesn't see us laugh at some of the stuff she says. One of the last things she said that was so cute, was the other night.

We were talking about going to oklahoma. We asked her who are you going to see there.

Sydney: Papa
Mike: Who Else?
Sydney: Grandma
Mike: Who Else?
Sydney: Wandy (Randy)
Mike: Wandy who?
Mike: What Wandy?
Sydney: Hmm....Big Wandy

Alot of the time she will say Uncle Wandy or Randy. She talks often of going fishing with her Uncle Randy and sometimes talks to him on the phone. We thought it was too funny.

My Work Christmas Party

Mike and Me at my work Christmas Party last night.

Birthday Cards for Guys

For Doug

CTMH Cardstock, Ink, Brads & Ribbon

Majestic Blue Paper and New Horizons Stamp

For Bob

CTMH Cardstock, Ink, Brads and Stickease
CTMH Rustic Triails Paper
Riley Stamps from Hannah Stamps

Isn't Riley cute, sitting around the Campfire roasting his marshmellows.

I was asked by my work to make some cards for some of our December Birthday People. Here are two cards I whipped up the other night. Sometimes I have a hard time with Guy cards, because I don't have many stamps that are masculine. But I thought both of these turned out pretty good. Both of these are using my scraps and what little is left from these paper packets.

Today's Cards

I made this card for my nephew, whose birthday was in October.

A little late, but he was going camping this weekend and I thought it was appropriate.

Riley peeking out of his tent.

I have wanted to make this card for a long time.

Finally got around to it and it took me all of 3 minutes to make.

It is for my cousin Sheylong in Arizona. This reminds me of her looking for Snow.

Thankfully, I will get to see them both when we are visiting in Oklahoma for Christmas.

The Princess & The Pirate

This picture is just too cute not to share.

Sydney and her friend Josie wanted to play dress up one day.

Sydney is starting to want to play dress up a little more.

I love the hook for the arm and eye patch on Josie.

They love to play togather.

Happy 1st Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary Mike.
Here's to many more walks on the beach.
I love you!

Trick or Treating down our Lane.

And this is what you would have ran into.

We decorated a little inside and out.

See our three pumpkins that we carved.

These guys stopped by to see what kind of treats we had.

There are three of them who frequent our neighborhood.
I prefer them over the bear. (There was a bear in other neighborhoods on halloween)
Even though they can be considered to be even more dangerous.
Mike had to redirect foot traffic for about 45 minutes
to keep any little kiddies from getting hurt.
Only because of that-we didn't run out of candy.
I think I will stay home next year.
There was more Trick or Treater's there then where we went.

Carving the Pumpkin

We started a New Family Tradition of Carving the Pumpkins.

Here is my main helper - Sammie Helping me out!

Me helping Sydney pull out the guts

Sydney playing with the drill tool.

Sydney poking at the guts. This lasted about as long as it took to take this picture. She didn't like to touch the nasty stuff.

Sammie was very interested in the inside of the pumpkin.

This is pretty much where he sat the entire time,

unless he was trying to get inside the pumpkin.

This was a great family tradition that Sammie and I seemed to have enjoyed.

Mike did give it a try with a pumpkin at a later time.

But he wasn't too thrilled with it.

Trick or Treat

This was really the first time Sydney has been Trick or Treating to any extent.

So We started out at my office. Sort of a practice run. Everyone was happy to see Sydney and several brought in treats and stuff for her. She was a Black Kitty Cat and I was a Witch. A few of us dressed up on Halloween at my office.

Later we joined up with Josie and Peter for some real Trick or Treating outdoors in 12 degree weather. Even though Sydney had her heavy coat on, she wasn't bundled up well enough and got really cold. But she had a good time.

Christina and Sydney

Sydney stayed with Christina in her office for about 20 minutes and between the two of them ate a pile of candy and got a sugar rush.

Sydney playing ball with an orange from Christina.

Me and my little Kitty Cat.

Happy Halloween

Hope everyone has a spooktacular day today! We dressed up at work today. Or I should say about 3 of us did. Anyway, I feel a little overdressed. I keep getting people saying "I find it hard to take you serious-with your face painted". Not really much different then any other day. I came as a witch, with a glittery painted face.

Sydney is going to be a kitty cat. She likes her costume, but when it comes to showing it to someone, she gets shy and starts to cry. Whose kid is this anyway??? We have been having dress rehearsal to attempt to overcome this.

I am going to take a late lunch and pick her up and bring her to work to trick or treat with my co-workers. Then we will hit a few houses and Grandma's house and that is about it. We may hook up with Josie and Peter, so she can get the hang of it.

Sydney is just now feeling better. She had been sick from Last Friday until Tues. She could not keep anything down. On Monday, I had to take her to the ER two times for IV's of fluid because she was so dehydrated. We went back for a check up on Tuesday. By Wednesday she was eating us out of house and home. Mike and I both had it too. In fact I gave it to Sydney who gave it to Mike. Both of them felt worse than I did.

Don't eat too much candy or scare the little kids too much. We had to postpone Sydney's Halloween Tea Party until tommorow. I keep wanting to do stuff to scare the kids, but then I have to remember that they are only 3 after all.

EXCITING NEWS

It is so exciting……

Just received a phone call……

From Sydney’s Grandma……

She sat on the potty…..

And actually went!!!!!!!

YEAH!!!

This may not be too exciting to you, but it is the best news I have gotten today.

You may say…”So What”

Ok, then, want to hear some more REAL EXCITING news?????

My good news that made my day yesterday?????

May have made my month….

Ranks pretty high up there for the year…..

My brother Randy married my Best Friend Amy last Friday!!!

Yeah, It was a long time coming.

But love knows no time limits, right.

Want to hear better news???

I am now the proud Aunt of a niece and nephew.

Madeline and Austin

Want to hear the best news????

I am going to be an Aunt again in May.

According to my brother it will be a boy.

(That is what I am keeping my fingers crossed for too)

So get out all the John Deere and camouflage stuff.

If you love someone set them free-If they come back it was meant to be.

Potters Marsh

Today I went on a little outdoor excursion with Deb and Kerri and the kids. We decided to go to Potter's Marsh (even though I was still pulling for Thunderbird Falls) As we started out, it started to rain and we thought it was going to put a damper on our plans. But after much diliberation and driving haphazardly around Anchorage and taking the road less traveled, we made it to Potter's Marsh. And as it would happen the rain had miracuosly stopped by the time we arrived at Potter's Marsh. So it all worked out.

The kids love to run along the boardwalk. But, you alway are afraid that they will climb too far up to get a look and then go over the side. Of course that senario was playing through all three of Kerri, Deb and my heads. But for the most part, they just run and run, until they are too tired. So hopefully, Sydney will go to bed early tonight.

We stopped at Kaladi Bros. on the way home

for Coffee and Coco and to warm up.

It was a nice way to wrap up the day.

While we were there, it started to snow big flakes.

I keep trying to put on the breaks.

Maybe, just maybe Thunderbird Falls will happen next week.

I can only keep praying that it will be.

Sydney and Peter looking over the edge of the board walk.
Peter and Jack checking out the half decayed sockeye salmon who was making its way home.
Some of the kids trying to be "cool" while they posed for the pic.

Jace and Josie decided they would rather wait in the warm car. Smart Kids!

Peter and Jack checking out the reader board to see what it says about the salmon.

Autumn Photos

I always love to take picture during the Autumn here in Alaska. Although I hated to see it come this year, since it signaled the end of the summer that never happened. But anyway, love to take pictures of the trees and leaves and autumn stuff. I wanted to go out to Thunderbird Falls this weekend before the snow creeped up on us. It didn't happen, but we did go over to Russian Jack Park and get a few shots of Sydney and Mike. They are not as nice of pictures as I would like, but they work. I still want to take a photography class, so I can understand how to take better pictures with my camera and eventually get an SLR camera and take way cool pictures. But after seeing how much those cost, I think it will be a while before I Am able to purchase on of those cameras, and lenses and flashes. But one day! Anyway, getting back to more pictures of Sydney. Here they are. Oh yeah, autumn pics too.

I think this picture turned out pretty good.

She had a pretty good time running around. She kept looking for the slide and swings.
Sydney and her Daddy

I love this picture. Something about people walking down lanes, is neat to me.

A New Toy for us!

Today we got a new laptop. It has been a year since we moved out of our condo and our computer crashed in the move. We finally broke down and bought a laptop. Mike and Tony got it set up tonight. I am messing around with it and trying to figure out. I think I will like it. I can multi task with it, like watching Sat Night Live and typing this blog, or surfing the internet looking for card and scrapbook examples, while crafting or scrapbooking.

I can't wait to try to figure out my photo editing software or try our new software for restoring our ipod library. I hope neither of them are too difficult. Maybe I will be able to post on a more regular schedule now as well. Well I am getting sleepy and am going to go to sleep.

Layout from This Weekend

Here is a two page layout that I did of Sydney this past weekend. I loved these pictures. Sheylon took this this past summer while in Oklahoma visiting. I enlarged one of them. They were picking corn at Mom and Dad's. Since I was feeling sickly at my retreat this is one of the few two page layouts that I actually completely finished. I love this paper packet and color combo.

I

Fall is Upon Us

In order to enjoy fall in Alaska- you have to act quickly. Winter and snow will be here before you know it. So last night, we enjoyed the leaves in our yard.

Last night I decided to rake the leaves. I had Mike bring Sydney outside as soon as she woke up from her cat nap. She was so excited to see the big pile of leaves. She knew exactly what to do and ran to them and fell into them.

Helping her Daddy rake leaves around her little house.

Her throwing leaves at me. She really got into this. We had such a good time rolling in the leaves and throwing them at each other.

I'm Scrap Happy

Yep, I am. I am leaving work today at 3 to go to Wasilla to go to a Scrap retreat. It starts at 3 on Friday and goes until 3 on Sunday. It is held at a B&B. So that is 48 hrs of Scrapbooking. Although, probably take off about 3 hrs for me to get off work and get out there and get set up. This seems to be the only times that I get much Scrapbooking done lately. But of course we are just now getting into our house (still not completley settled) and spent pretty much the last year living with Mike's mother. So you can see why I am excited to get back to scrapbooking. It didn't help things that I mixed my dates up last spring and missed the retreat, because I was home getting ready for the next weekend, when I thought it was. So I should have the scrapping bug out of my system come Sunday. I am just hoping to get lots of pages and pictures scrapped.

Two stops on my way out of town. For Gas and to pick up pictures at Costco.

Getting Ready to Party!

Sydney picked out this Party Hat on Saturday when we were shopping at Freds for her party. Pretty fitting- it had butterflies and kitty cats both on it. She insisted that we wear them around the house, while I was baking her cake. If she came back and I didn't have it on, she would tell me to put it back on. That kid, she likes her parties. Everything about them, kids, presents, hats and cake! Now I remember what was so much fun about birthdays as a kid.

This is a quick picture that we set the timer for. Both of us with our party hats on!

More B-day Pictures

Sydney's Cake. Do you see the tiny little bitty lady bugs and bumblebees?

They are cute, but a pain in the butt.

Blowing the candles out "all by herself"
Look how excited she is!

She said "Is it mine to keep"?

With her new camera. She wants to be just like me!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYDNEY!

Today is my darling daughter Sydney's Birthday! She is three! Can you believe it? I can't. Anyway this is a picture of her with her new kitty kat -- Sammy.

Short for Uncle Samuel Nelson Lewis. He was born on the 4th of July and so there is the where the Uncle Sam comes from. Then of course Mike has always liked the name Sam and wanted to name Sydney - Sam- if she was a boy, but of course we already had a Sam in the family, then my grandpa's name is Samuel Nelson. But this isn't suppose to be about Mike and I now is it! Anyway his name is Sammy!

Sydney called it boy for one day. But hopefully she will adapt to Sammy. I will post more pics later. As you may have seen my pattern is to post a bunch for awhile and then stop for a week or so. I am trying. Hopefully, I will get the hang of it.

Today we are going to go over to Mike's mom's house after work and have Pizza and a Small cake and open the presents from Great Aunt Jerri Rae & Sheylon.

This will be her 3rd birthday party this year. She has got it down.

Lots of love to everyone!

A Long Hard Day

Today has been one of the most terrifying days in my life. Something that I have always been scared about. That I would get a phone call telling me that something had happened to one of my family members. Late yesterday I got an awful call from my brother. He then went on to tell me my dad had some chest pain while they were out building fence. At that time they didn't think that it was serious, but they wanted Dad to stay for monitoring at the Coalgate hospital. I called Dad at the hospital. He said he felt fine and was just trying to take a nap. Then he said he had indigestion from a Jalepeneo burger from sonic. He said he would be fine in a couple days. A few hours later I got a call from my Mom. She was in route to OK city to the Heart Hospital. They were taking my Dad there on the helicopter. My brother was a few minutes behind her. Later we found out that Dad had several heart attacks that day. One building fence, one while on the phone with me and some on the way to OK City on the helicopter. That was late last night.

All I have been doing today is calling and waiting. Dad had surgery at noon OK time. They ended up finding 3 blockages and putting in stents into 2 of them. The main doctor will come by in the morning and they will discuss the best thing to do for the remaining blockage. Dad says he doesn't feel that bad. Just very tired.

Ever since last night, I have felt like my heart has stopped beating or that I am holding my breath. I love my Daddy so much. Always have. We just have a special bond. I miss all of my family and times like these make it almost unbearable. Now that I Am married and have a child, I know my home is where my husband daughter are. But it is still very hard to to be so far away from all those people that I love.

Since I have became a mother, some thing are so much clearer to me. Like how your parents can love you so much. Even when you are a little shit. I love my daughter so much. She loves her mom and dad and grandparents so much as well. It scares the crap out of me to even think of anything bad happening to her. Right now she is sitting beside me in my chair watching cartoons and just being near me. She knows when I am upset and tries to make me feel better.

Today she said that Papa didn't feel good, and needed medicine to feel better. She said she wanted to go see Papa, house & Grandma's too! She sure loves them both. Mom said Sydney would be the best medicine of all. I have never seen a room light up, like it does when my Dad sees Sydney. The same for her.

I will write more tommorow. If you believe in God, please please say a prayer for my Dad, our family and Dad's doctors. I know that God was watching out for Dad. It could have been so much worse, as Dad could have been home alone when all of this happened. So God, Thanks for what you have done so far and please continue to heal my Daddy's heart. If you are my family or friend, please go to bed knowing that I love you and am so blessed to have each of you in my life.

First Trip to the Library

Yesterday after work, I needed to stop by the Library to drop off a book for Jere, that I had borrowed for our upcoming bookclub. So I told Sydney we were going to the Library. She was excited! I told her she had to be quite. That lasted all of about 1 minute. Then she seen the kids that were playing with the puzzles. The became her new best friends for the next 30 mins or so. I ended up picking out the books for her. Her only request was that we get a Curious George book. Which of course I got two of those for her. We also checked out a book titled "Duck for President". It was cute. I picked up a couple more for her and one for myself.

This morning, she told me we had to take the books back. I am pretty sure she just wanted to play with the puzzles again. This was the first time she has been to the Library, but she sure knew what it was about. Or at least I think it was. Later on at work I got a phone call from my friend Deb, who wanted to know if Sydney would like to go to Story time at the Big Library today at 11. So as far as I know she went. I will have to catch up with her tonight about Story time. I am sure she loved it. I was hoping there was a story time on Saturday's at the Library by our house. But I don't think there is. So Sydney has now hit the Library two times In two days. Pretty good start I guess.

Deb has recently been taking her along with her son Jace to the Museum where Kerri works. Josie is normally already there. On tuesday's they have preschool day. Sydney has been loving it. They get a story, time to make a craft and some play time in the Pit. Which I am told is where Sydney digs tunnels. Actually it is a sand pit where they can dig for stuff. She comes home with her craft of the week. I am glad she can get out and learn stuff and socialize with other kids. So thanks to my friend Deb who takes her to places. She took her a couple weeks ago to the Imiginarium. I was able to sneak away from work for part of my lunch to see her while she was down there.

My Little Political Statement

Here is the picture of Sydney that appeared on the front page of the Daily news the Sunday before last. This was a taken the day after McCain announced Palin was going to be his running mate.

Sydney had wanted her face painted. After transforming into a Tiger, we saw this shirt and got it. She was getting really sleepy about the time this picture was taken. As you can tell, it isn't one of her best pictures. But it is the only one that has made it onto the front page of the Anchorage Daily News.

A couple of Thank You Cards

CTMH Ink, CTMH Cutie Pie paper, CTMH Big Pink Flowers, Bella Stamp

CTMH Ink, CTMH Cutie Pie papers, CTMH embellishments, TinkerBELLA stamp, SC112

I have been wanting to post some of my cards or scrapbook pages that I have made for a long time. I finally got around to doing so. Here are two cards that I made for some friends of mine, Kerri and Deb. There were sweet enough to think of me for my birthday and took me out for appitizers and drinks. They also had a basket with 36 individually wrapped presents in it. Way cool!