Six Years Ago


Six years ago, at approximately 9 am, I saw this face for the first time. My friends assured me that this picture was absolutely beautiful. I was stunned and in disbelief. It looked like I was going to be a mama — if everything continued to work out OK.

Going ahead 6 years, it all became reality. And now, this is the face I see on a regular basis:


Yes, even with the strand of hair in the middle of her face… laughing her head off about something or another. On occasion, I can still see a glimse of the worried-looking baby in this almost 7 year-old face.

Happy Referral Anniversary Time, Sarah!

Here’s Using Your Noggin’

Hats off to “ceo” from the Organized Scrapbooks forum. She created a personal version of page templates, not unlike the Pages by Design templates you see in some of the scrapbook stores. The link below goes to the forum where she explains how she created her templates for around $20.

http://organizedscrapbooks.com/ftopicp-2163.html

Check it out, especially if you’ve been thinking about using templates to help with your page design.

Autumn Moon Festival

We had our fifth annual Autumn Moon Festival party last night. We had a good turnout. It helped that the weather was wonderful. Who would have thought that in Minnesota on September 18th, the temperature would be 84 degrees at sunset?

Here’s a few photos from the event. The more incrimidating photos of adults stuffing themselves with goodies have been left off this entry.

All the girls play Ring Around the Rosie.

Amira helps some of the little girls … to do what, I have no idea.

Ah, the goodies! We celebrate the Autumn Moon Festival in spirit, substituting Moon Pies, Oreos, and Nilla Wafers for moon cakes. Oh, and those crescent roll things Snookie makes. None of us like moon cakes… chocolate under the stars is more fun.

Here all the girls are, under the yellow-cast glow of the Autumn Moon.

A very tired Rachel wonders if the party is over yet. Five minutes after this picture was taken, she was begging me to take her home so she could go to sleep!

An Oreo-stuffed Tacy grins for the camera while her sister looks ready to turn in for the night.

We sure had a good time running around in the dark. Mega thanks to Jeff who brought along some bug repellant that went the extra yard … or in this case, the extra city park.

I have a ton of moon pies left over — inspite of all the pie consumption. They freeze well!

Beautiful Girls

As I type that title, I hear Van Halen (the David Lee Roth version) singing in my head …

The Original M.U.M.s (Moms United in Meanness) now have an annual photo event for our kids. Each year, Linda tortures her husband Scott by making him take photos of moving targets — the kids. Snookie offers moral support, and I suppose add to Scott’s irritation by taking photos behind him.

Here’s a few shots I captured (or captured and cropped) of the oldest girls in the crowd. As I was looking through them, I was stunned by how beautiful each of these girls are, in different ways.

And so, I present to you … our beauties.Amira, Chloe, Sarah

Amira

Chloe

Sarah

And a group shot:

Is That a Zucchini in the Dog House? Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Our neighbor Lynn has a green thumb. She grows zucchini and squash that are huge. The plants take over her yard and part of ours as well. It’s a summer tradition.

Lynn has so many zucchini this year, she’s decided to give them away on the sidewalk.

John couldn’t believe how big the zucchini were. He decided we NEEDED a picture of Macalester and the Zucchini. Being the good wife, I complied:
The zucchini is bigger than the puppy.

Next year, I think Lynn should hold back on the Miracle Grow just a wee bit.

When Pre-Schoolers Crash Corporate Events

The company I work for has been in business for 125 years. Today, they had a birthday party for the company, in the streets of St. Paul, from 11:30 am to 2:00 pm.

Rachel goes to daycare in the building where I work. The party was held right outside of her daycare … during naptime.

Knowing full well there’s no way in Hell my child would sleep through that, I did what any good mama would do — take her kid and crash the party.

Technically, Rachel was the crasher, but she was also wearing the pin we had to wear to get admittance to the event.
The band “Beatlemania” played a number of sets during the party. Yes, grown men dressing up as the Beatles and singing. They were darn good, too.
Rachel enjoyed the music. As we walked around, she twirled and bopped away. Way cute.

I have some video of the band playing, including some semi-embarrassing moments of the CEO of the company singing with the band … and various managers bopping to the music. Not nearly as cute as Rachel. Fortunately, I can’t load video to this blog… at least I don’t think I can.

About an hour into the party, a few other parents took their kids out of daycare and brought them to the party. Fortunately, the security looked the other way when these small gatecrashers came in. It was cool — how often do you get to take your preschooler to a grown-up party — and both of you enjoy it?!

Blood Relatives

Our big family joke was that the only blood relatives in our house were the dogs — Macalester I (aunt) and Sydney (niece on her mom’s side). Even the kids got a laugh out of the fact (well, Sarah understood the joke; Rachel just laughs anyway).

When Macalester I died, we couldn’t use that joke anymore, and we thought Baby Macalester and Sydney wouldn’t be related, because Baby Macalester’s mama was no relation to Sydney.

So, it was the shock of the day (in a day filled with stupid work-day shocks)when I looked at Baby Macalester’s pedigree. Her father is Sydney’s brother — from Sydney’s litter, no less. So that makes Sydney the aunt and Baby Macalester the niece on her father’s side.

It’s nice to be able to recycle the family joke again.

Got Fonts?

Technical writers have an unnatural obsession with fonts. Probably because fonts are the only “pretty” thing we can do with a hardware specifications document or user guide.

Now, make that technical writer a scrapbooker … on technical writing email lists populated by other scrapping technical writers … and you get periods of posts listing cool font sites. And a hard drive full of fonts.

I’m passing along the latest list of locations for “cool fonts”. The dingbats site looks particularly appealing.

I’ve done a quick check of these sites, and they all seem to be legitimate, independent font sites. Didn’t make my spyware, antivirus, or firewall software programs send up alarms. Most of these sites have a combination of free fonts, shareware fonts, and fonts for purchase. Maybe you’ll find a new font to fall in love with.

www.fontfoundry.com
www.fontgarden.com
www.fontpool.com
www.dafont.com
www.momscorner4kids.com/fonts/
www.katsfunfonts.com
www.dingbatpages.com

Have fun!

Exciting Days!

Yesterday and today were exciting at the Wall household! On Tuesday, Sarah (finally) went back to school. She has been edgy and anxious all summer, and it escalated in the last month. She complained that she wasn’t learning anything in the summer. I was glad to finally send her to school.

When she came home, she was MUCH calmer — almost back to her old self.

I have lots of photos from that first day of school. Because of the number of photos, I created an album at my ISP’s website. Here’s the URL to the photo album:
http://myweb.core.com/photos/catwall@pclink.com/1stgrade
(Note:  This site is not available any more.  Carol Anne 8/18/2019)

Tonight, we picked up Macalester! We thought we wouldn’t be able to get her until the weekend, but tonight worked out best for the breeder. Right now, at almost 10pm, she and Sydney are sleeping at my feet. She’s already had her first REM cycle, and barked and nursed in her sleep. Horribly cute.

So far, Sydney seems to be doing very well with her role as big sister. At first, I thought Sydney was going to eat Macalester. But Macalester growled and snapped at Sydney. Sydney took a few steps back, thought about it, and then started issuing doggy play invitations. All evening (except when sleeping) they have been alternating between playing and establishing hierarchy.

Several times during the evening, Sydney looked up at me with shining eyes and a rare Scottie grin. This is the happiest I’ve seen her since the first Macalester died.

Sydney and the baby are doing very well. We’ll see how long the honeymoon lasts. Here’s another photo album at my ISP of doggie pictures:
http://myweb.core.com/photos/catwall@pclink.com/NewPuppy
(Note:  Alas!  This site is not available any more either.  Carol Anne 8/18/2019)
Now, I wonder how much sleep I’ll actually get tonight…

Five Random Things About Me

This is part of a blog game of “tag”. I commented on Cathy Zielske’s blog (http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/), so I’m “IT”. I think I’ll have to pounce this on my pals on Nihao Stampers . But then again, if you’re reading this … you’re it!

So, here are my five random things…

1. I like shopping for groceries in the middle of the night. They play the music REALLY LOUD at Lund’s at 2:30 am.
2. I like to read the encyclopedia.
3. I used to hate coffee.
4. The sun, moon, and all the planets need to align properly for me to remember to re-charge my cell phone.
5. I\’m allergic to dogs — especially labs.

So, what are your 5 random things?