POTD 50/365 Ahhhhh...Can you hear the Angels Sing?

Today I came home from school to find a huge box in my entry.

This is a clue what it was...
















and another...


















Wait









for









it....

















Wait









for










it....



This is it!














I got a Fiskars Anvil Trimmer. I have been wanting this trimmer for about a year now. It's not your average everyday, trim one piece of paper trimmer. This is your super duper, heavy duty, cut a chunk (50 sheets) of paper at once trimmer.

This is the product description:

This trimmer's rotating handle allows optimum ergonomic cutting. The press bar holds paper down as you cut to prevent tearing or fanning. The aluminum surface improves visibility for accurate measurements and the cutting guide allows the measurement to stay in place as you cut. Gear and anvil cutting action cuts up to 50 sheets at a time.

I am so happy right now. I love, love, love this trimmer. I make journals and sketchbooks and this is going to make it so much faster. I can cut the chipboard covers and the inner pages in one 'smooth as butter' cut!

As you can kind of tell, it is HUGE. It takes up about 25% of my table. I can't wait to use it, maybe even tonight.

Thank you Fiskars! You are awesome!

So, the last photo of the trimmer is my POTD:)

POTD 49/365 Milk and Cookie Wednesdays

Wednesdays are milk and cookie day. MJ has a minimum day every Wednesday. The kids eat an hour early and come home ninety five minutes early. If he doesn't have some sort of snack Wednesdays he is famished before dinner time. So, I have a batch of cookie dough I keep in the fridge, and I bake him two cookies every Wednesday after school. After a day with only 10 minute recesses, it makes for something to look forward to. Every other day of the week, if he's hungry he gets carrots or an apple. He loves milk and cookie Wednesdays.

POTD 48/365 Fancy Pheobe

Once again the kids decided to dress up Pheobe. She is Fancy Pheobe in this pretty little furry jacket. My little Wubie got one of these little furry jackets form my sister fir her birthday. Of course when we saw one at Build-a-bear we knew we had to get one for Bob (Wubie's bunny) too. Bob and Pheobe wear the same clothes. It's very economical that way. Hahaha!





















This is another photo of Fancy Pheobe.















Here is my little Wubie in her fancy little furry jacket from my sister. She got the dress from Granny for her birthday. Notice how Bob got a matching dress. We hadn't gotten the little jacket for Bob yet so he could only wear the dress. Yes, Bob is a boy bunny and he wears dresses.

*Correction: I was just told that Bob is now a girl because he wears dresses. So, we are no longer allowed to refer to him as a boy. :)

POTD 47/365 Lego Sorting Happiness

Even though MJ loved his birthday gifts from us, I think he was a little disappointed that he didn't get bins to sort his Legos into. He would rather sort Legos than put them together. Funny thing is, I used to love sorting my things too. In fact, I still do. So I get his disappointment.

For Valentines day we gave him 10 Iris bins to sort into. He was so excited and had to get started right away. He spent hours and hours this weekend sorting his Lego's into colors. MD is giving him all of her Legos from when she was younger to sort too when he's done with his. He might be sorting for years. Not much of a dent was made in what he has, since he had to spend a lot of time taking stuff apart.

It's the little things, like sorting that bring the most happiness to my boy.

POTD 46/365 Poor Pheobe

The kids have a great time dressing poor Pheobe up. She is so patient and tolerant. She puts up with being dragged around by my little Wubie and dressed up al the time. Really, daily.

This is Pheobe as Sleeping Beauty.





















This is Pheobe as Mrs. Claus














This is Pheobe as Cinderella



And, this is little Pheobe as a girl Pirate. She refused to wear the eye patch, but was fine with the hat.

My little Wubie loves that Pheobe can dress in the same clothes as she does when she plays dress up. Though Wubie doesn't have a Mrs. Claus outfit.

I'm glad my little Wubie got Pheobe instead of Hazel, because Hazel would never stand for such shenanigans.

POTD 45/365 Valentines Day gifts for all

The second week of February seems like we have gifts to wrap everyday. With MJ's birthday on the 10th, my little Wubie's birthday on the 12th and Valentines Day on the 14th, the gifts just keep on coming.














K gave me the Dream Peace bracelet I have been coveting. It came is the cutest little bag too.



This is what it looks like. I will be wearing it everyday.:)

POTD 44/365 A few Valentines

I finally finished my Valentines. This is them. I used a lot of what I had in my stash. The only thing new was the rhinestone and the border punch. It feels great to use my stash.

















This one was for my little Wubie. She loved it. I like it so much I want to frame it, but I won't because it doesn't match anything in my house.





















This one was for MJ. Couldn't go to girly and that's kind of hard with Valentines, ya know?





















This one was for MD.
















This I made for K. I like how it's not all girly too. He loved it.:)

POTD 43/365 Happy Birthday Wubie

My little Wubie is 3 today. Where has the time gone? She opened presents as soon as she was dine with the cinnamon rolls she wanted for her birthday breakfast. We had a great day celebrating at Disneyland. She finally got her own Disney annual pass. We went on all the rides she wanted to, even The Haunted Mansion that didn't officially open till Friday, but there was a preview for a couple of hours. We had lunch at the Golden Horseshoe because Wubie wanted fried mozzarella. She chose a charm bracelet at the princess store, got to ride in the very front of the monorail and visited Build-a-Bear in Downtown Disney, where she made a new friend; Quincey the kitty.















This is a collage of the highlights of Wubie's day.

POTD 42/365 My Little Wubie's Princess Cake

My little Wubie wanted a Princess birthday cake. So, since it's what she wanted I had to do it. I have never done one of these hideous doll cakes and swore I never would. But what's a Nennie to do, when her little Wubie asks for one? I couldn't disappoint her.

I have no idea where any of my cake decorating tools are. I had nothing to use for flowers or borders or even spreading, so it's even worse than I thought it would be. But she's going to love it. It's all pink and sparkly and princessy, just the way she wanted it.

POTD 41/365 Happy Birthday MJ!

MJ is officially a tween. Yep, my little boy turned 11. He opened his gifts right after breakfast then we headed to Disneyland. We had lunch at the Golden Horseshoe, he finally got to build his own light saber and smash a Stitch quarter.
We went out to dinner at his favorite place; Souplantation, then enjoyed his giant birthday cookie with mint chip ice cream and hot fudge at home. He got wonderful gifts, had a great day and went to sleep happy. It was a fantastic day for everyone.














This is a collage of the highlights of his day, though I forgot to take photos at dinner.

POTD 40/365 MJ's Giant Cookie

MJ requested a 'giant cookie' for his birthday cake. Thats exactly what I made him. Extra chocolate chips and heath bar pieces too.

POTD 38/365 Darn

This is not a good thing. I was planning to paint the laundry room a pretty shade of blue next weekend. Now it looks like we'll be patching the wall first.

For a couple of days we've noticed water on the floor in the breakfast room. Before there was too much I thought maybe one of the cats had thrown up. That was wishful thinking. It was definitely water.

Then I noticed it on the laundry room floor too. Uh oh. Well, it has been raining, so we were hoping it was the roof. Most people wouldn't hope for the roof to be leaking, but it's a lot easier to fix the roof than it is to rip out the walls and fix leaky pipes. We've had to do that before and it was awful.

Anyway, the wall was torn out and it wasn't the pipes. Darn. Because it also wasn't the roof. Double darn. It turns out we need a new water heater. It is on the other side of our laundry room closet in the garage. It's leaking into the house, not the garage.

This week between MJ and my little Wubie's birthdays, going to Disneyland on Tuesday and Thursday for those birthdays and me taking year book photos for the classroom year book page, we'll be getting a new water heater.

It's going to be a long week.

POTD 37/365 Filing Needed

So, I haven't put any of my layouts in albums for a while. This is 12" worth of them waiting to be filed. It's not that I don't have the albums to put them into. I have plenty of them. As I've mentioned before, I am a procrastinator.

This stack is a step in the right direction though. At least now I have them all stacked and waiting near my albums. I won't feel comfortable scrapping with them all there like that and taking up room on my table. And, I can see them as I walk up to my front door, and it looks messy. So, I guess they'll be going in the albums this week.

POTD 39/365 Fairy Wings

My little Wubie had a birthday party to go to today. Her two best 'buddies' Victoria and Jessica are having a combined birthday this year. Since they're sisters and their birthdays are so close, a combined party is easier.

MD and I went out Friday and Saturday night to get the supplies we needed to make fairy wings for their birthday presents. It took two trips to get everything we needed.

We got up early this morning and spent three and a half hours working on these wings. Both pairs turned out so cute, though the adhesive I used to attach the little rhinestones wasn't quite dry when it was time to leave for the party. MD had to just set the wings on her seats and let them dry until it's present time, then she'll have to run out to her car and put them in the gifts bags. We didn't have any boxes big enough for them.

The girls loved their wings and will be wearing them to Disneyland this week.

POTD 36/365 Rain!

We finally have rain again! It was so cold today. Well maybe not according to people that don't live in California, but to me, it was COLD. It was maybe 55 degrees today on the playground and windy. Brrrr... I thought I was going to freeze to death out there. Hehehehe

POTD 35/365 Reflections

At the bi-weekly flag ceremony this morning, MJ was called up to the stage in front of the entire shcool and recognized for his beautiful photography entries into the National PTA Reflections program. He was so excited, he ran into the office looking for me to show me his awards, but I had already left for my morning break. I wish I had known about the awards ceremony so I could have brought my camera and watched.

The theme this year was "Wow!" He spent quite a while pondering what would be a "wow" thing for him. This is what he came up with...
















This one is titled "Community Awareness in Red". He took it during our city's Red Ribbon Walk against drugs















This one was taken at the local Waste Management facility. This is where the stuff that's supposed to be recycled goes after the garbage men pick it up. He called this one; "Can't We do More?"
















This one was titled; "The View That Took My Breath Away" He took this one evening in late October at sunset on his favorite beach at a super low tide during the California wild fires. This one won the trophy.

I am so proud of my little guy. It makes me so happy that he loves photography so much too.

POTD 34/365 A New Bed for Hazel & a Missing Tooth

Hazel has decided that the top of my Expedit is her new favorite place to sleep. She is determined to be up there and loom over us. I had to move one of my jars so it wouldn't fall off and I may have to move another.



Last weekend I noticed that Hazel's mouth looked a little funny. Upon closer inspection I found that she is missing a fang. According to the paperwork from the rescue we got her from, she is 14 months old. I am fairly certain that's too old to be losing baby teeth. I am hoping she's just a late bloomer and her tooth comes in, but I'm not expecting it to. I'm pretty sure she had the tooth when we got her since she gnawed on me when I was trying to trim her nails.



She gave me a really good look at it as she was getting ready to go to sleep up on my shelves. I'm glad she's an indoor kitty and doesn't need to fend for herself and rely on those fangs to sustain her.

POTD 33/365 Hooray!!!

So, yesterday I posted that I had deleted all of our photos files from Kodak. Today K came home and figured out they were in the Recycle Bin on the computer. I have all of my photos back! Yeah!!!!

Oh, and I did learn my lesson. I will never delete anything more than my own emails. Ever again.

POTD 32/365 American Girl Place, The Grove and Ethical Drugs

MD and I decided to drive up to






















The Grove yesterday. We had never been there and it was probably the most beautiful shopping center I have ever seen.














The buildings were just amazing and the whole feel of the place was different than other malls and such.













I bet at night it's even prettier with all of the lights strung across the 'streets' and the old fashioned feel. It was rather Disneyland-ish really. Not with the rides, though there was a trolley that ran down the middle, but just the feel of it.

We went there to buy






















Bitty Baby for my little Wubie for her birthday that happens to be next Thursday. I specifically wanted to buy














this Bitty Baby Starter set, but they were sold out until after her birthday. So, I bought the Bitty Baby and some other stuff to go with it. I have been wanting to buy this for her since she was born, but decided to wait till she's 3. We were told that if we hang onto our reciept, they'll credit us the amount we paid for the doll towards the Started Set when they get them in.

After we were finished at American Girls Place we went over to Anthropology. We love that store and even though there are two near us, we had to see what was new.

I found this



and thought it was just fabulous. The photo doesn't really show how pretty it is though. If you can't tell it's a hanging lamp. The tag had the awfully low price of ONLY $1990.00. Yep, you read that right. Holy cow!

I took a close look at it, and I am going to make one. I know I can do it for very little and it's so easy. It astounds me that people think something so easy to make should cost that much. I bet they sell it too.

This sign on our way to the Grove just cracked us up.






















You know you wouldn't want to be buying any of those UN-Ethical Drugs from the guy under the sign now. I guess he thought he could stand there and the people would assume he was only selling the ethical variety. Bwahahahaha!

Just kidding, I don't know what the guy was doing under the sign, but it was funny none the less.

POTD 31/365

I love getting shots of MD and MJ together. I like seeing the contrast in their size. Soon MJ will be taller than his sister and it will be weird to me to see that.
It was really hard to get a good shot. MJ hates having his photo taken. I have such a hard time getting any good photos of him.














I don't get alot of photos of MD by herself. My little Wubie is usually with her and can't stand to not be in a photo saying 'cheese'





















MJ enjoying his first Balboa Bar. Yum!