Photoshop Elements on Sale!

Want to start digital scrapbooking? PSE 9 is on sale today only. I love PSE, and you will be able to find many free and paid tutorials online to help you get started. I've heard amazing things about PSE 9 (I have 6), so it's a good buy. In addition to the $40 you save instantly, there is a mail-in rebate for $20, making your final price around $40. I bet you spend more than that every time you go to the scrapbook store. ;) 

Here's the link!

 And just in case you need more reasons to get it, here are some of my latest pages! :)

Click the pictures for credits.  Do you recognize that last one? ;)

What's going on

So, despite the lack of edited pictures and completed blog posts, we've been kept pretty busy lately.  First trimester was spent in survival mode as I slept as much as possible and wasn't up to much else (luckily I didn't get sick though!) so we've been spending second trimester trying to turn into real people, instead of just survivors.  You know, we don't need to be dirty and ragged anymore, we can actually maintain a clean house again and do all of those things that real people do.

We've been setting up finances and getting caught up on our budget.  Luckily our only debt is our mortgage, but we know that it's only that way because we've been so strict with our money.  It really helps when you are broke when you get married.  Seriously, those people who wait until they are financially stable lose out on living on faith when it comes to finances.  Because we don't want to lose all of those lessons we learned we still stick to a strict budget, which luckily isn't as small anymore.  However, kids and pregnancies (aka cravings) tend to cost a lot.  We love our new budget program YNAB.  It's like our little Excel spreadsheet with all of the bells and whistles that we dreamed of writing macros for, and we can even import all of our bank and credit card info.  I know, Dave Ramsey is totally against credit cards, but we're really good at using our credit like money and paying it off.  P.S. Is it just New England, or are food prices going up?  I've even been getting back into couponing, but between buying milk, bread, and produce our bills are going up up up, and those coupons aren't very prominent in those areas.

I've also started actually menu planning.  First of all, to help with the grocery shopping, so I know what to buy while I'm there (I seriously don't have much of a brain these days), and secondly so that I can hopefully have some kind of dinner on the table when Matthias comes home, so that we can actually enjoy our evenings as a family before Oliver goes to bed.  Check it out, I even made a menu planner:

Matthias is pretty excited about it.  So is Amaryllis.  And ignore the animal cracker crumbs on the top of the fridge.

I've finally got my scrapbooking mojo back.  I've been trying and trying to keep up with pictures and making pages, but something about pregnancy makes me hate everything I do, so I've started going back and finishing up pages that I once thought were hideous, or didn't even know where to start besides putting the pictures on the page, and finishing them up to find that I'm loving it again.  What a relief!  I mean, right after upgrading to CS5 I suddenly stopped scrapbooking...that would be such a waste!  But, I'm loving CS5 and how it processes things, and just really need to start learning more of the tricks that it can do.

Along with meal planning I've been enjoying cooking again because of great new recipes that I've found at Our Best Bites.  I'm seriously in love with their taste, so I got their brand new cook book using my free Amazon gift cards I've gotten through using Swagbucks to search the web (seriously, just use it like you would Google, or even more, and you earn points that you can redeem as $5 Amazon gift cards.  It's just over a penny a point!  And if you use my shameless referral link then I'll earn when you do.  Feel free to tell your friends.  I've gotten over $40 from referrals alone!  Plus if you sign up with the code “BirthdayFun,” you’ll earn 25 Swag Bucks on top of the 30 you already start out with).  The cook book is AMAZING.  Seriously.  It'll be nice to have the book in the kitchen instead of walking back and forth to the computer.  This week I'll be using their guiltless alfredo sauce on Monday, and then using it again on Wednesday to make the creamy pesto pasta, which is amazing (although I'm horrible at roasting tomatoes, and only like mushrooms when Jason makes them, so I'll just cut up some fresh tomatoes to put in it). 

Matthias is learning how to play the piano.  He's learning Rachmaninoff's Bells of Moscow.  After several months he can play the first 4-6 bars.  However, this morning he played "Now Let Us Rejoice" and it was just about singable.  Not bad for someone who stopped lessons at eight years old after learning the Hokey Pokey.  I realized that I haven't been playing the piano much because it was so out of tune.  Luckily the tuner called me and he came by this week.  Now it sounds so much better!

Oliver just pulled the marshmallows off of the counter and started going at them,  before he got caught he poured them all over the floor so he could beat us to them as we couldn't collect them all at once.  We enjoyed hot cocoa during his nap.  Today we woke up to about 5" of snow, but got ready for church anyway.  However, on Sundays they aren't as quick with the plows, so we heard the roads were pretty bad and we didn't venture out to church.  Instead we watched some Conference talks to try to teach Oliver about President Monson, and then we colored a picture.  Oliver loves to color (cuh-cuh), so we figured it would be like having him go to nursery again.  Short but sweet, and neither of us got to teach our planned lessons.  They always say you learn more in preparation than the kids do in presentation.  I do know that because of the lesson I planned, President Monson's talk in Priesthood Session was even more amazing. 

Random small talk about the weather:  January was the 4th snowiest on record for New Hampshire.  We got snowstorm after snowstorm, each pounding us with 8-24".  And we were the lucky ones in the northeast!  Schools were canceled at least once a week, but Matthias went to work all but one day.  I was scared of ice.  Luckily our snow tires are amazing, as well as our city is good at clearing the roads.  One particularly cold week I remember the low was just under 0 F, and the high was around 28 F.  That same day, our family and friends in Arizona were experiencing the same degree of coldness!  We were safe and warm, but many people there were left without water or gas.  Water pipes were frozen everywhere, and there was a shortage of gas because they assume that the northeast needs it more than the southwest.  We keep our thermostat at around 65 degrees, so I did laugh a little when people were complaining that their indoor temperature dropped to 60.  We'll probably keep it closer to that when the kids are older and can use hot rice packs and blankets.  I'm definitely grateful that our blood has thickened living here!

We've been loving the February snow though.  We've only had a couple storms, and they haven't been in blizzard conditions, so you actually get the pretty snow in the trees, and don't have to worry so much about trees knocking out the power (although we did have a bad wind storm that did just that.  Luckily damage wasn't too bad and most people were back up pretty quickly).  This morning on Facebook many Arizona friends were posting about the snow.  They were excited to get about a quarter of an inch.  We took some pictures of our light dusting.

This is me on our driveway, in front of the garage and next to our backyard.  Yes, the snow is that tall, even after the 2 warm weeks of melting. Granted, it is taller because of our wonderful neighbor Joe who comes and snowblows our driveway for us every storm.  Seriously...he's amazing!  However, you can see the collection on the roof of the garage, which Matthias shoveled in January and had mostly melted.  As well as the collection on the trees.  By the way, you can attempt to walk on top of the snow in the backyard, but you might end up thigh deep and possibly lose a shoe that you will then have to shovel out.  Just saying. It's not like Matthias tried that or anything.

And this is me across the street just a little while after the plow came by.  By the way, my coat can zip up still, just not very easily.  Amaryllis is really starting to get big.

And here's a random joke that I read, that is pretty funny.  Good thing I don't use shampoo anymore!

I figured out why I'm so fat. The shampoo I use in the shower that runs down my body says, "for extra volume and body." I decided to start using Dawn dishwashing soap. It says, "dissolves fat that is otherwise difficult to remove."
~ author unknown

Happy Things

Listening to this playlist from Dear Lizzy.

I just uploaded this picture for the challenge at Peppermint Creative.

Blue skies with puffy white clouds make me happy.

This little face scooting towards me:

How could that face not make you happy?

Matthias will be home tomorrow night from his work trip.  You'd think that spending most of a summer apart would get us used to this, but it's still really hard to force myself to go to bed when he's not here.  Instead I scrap:

click for credits

...and make a pointless blog post.  I promise I've got more pictures coming.  I've decided to start shooting in RAW because I'm horrible at setting my white balance and then it gets frustrating to edit photos.  So even though it's faster to get my pictures edited, I'm horribly behind.  I'll probably just post them randomly.  I hope you don't mind.

I'm in the middle of week 2 of C25K and 100 Push Ups.  Allergies and sinus infections gone and now I'm going strong, and loving it.  I feel like these workouts were catered to me and help me exert myself just enough that I don't overdo it.  Tonight I maxed out at 10 consecutive push ups for a total of 28.  How are you doing?

And what makes you happy?

Here is a special Valentine for YOU!

I love you! All of you! If you read this blog, then you’ve probably swooned over how cute I am and I LOVE YOU! So here is a special Valentine I made for each and every one of you because I love you!

The Hungry Little Oliver

So I don't know if you noticed in Oliver's Monthday Celebration post how tall he is.

He's 25". That puts him at about the 97th percentile for height at 2 months. His weight is at the 77th percentile. He's completely grown out of all of his newborn shirts/onesies, however he can still wear the pants. Just look at how big he is in the bath now?

Don't you love how he uses the sink as a foot rest?

He does too!

He's starting to get the bald spot all around his head like reversed balding. When he's just waking up he just keeps turning his head left and right really fast and it rubs all of his hair off. Not to mention how much he loves his playmat! He has to rotate his head back and forth from the tiger to the lion. Then he gets mad when he sees the monkey that he has trouble reaching.

We give him tummy time too. He doesn't like it for long, but I don't worry about it too much since he has such a strong neck. He'll do the superman pose where his head and arms and legs are lifted. We've been trying to help him strengthen his arms since he doesn't know what to do with them during tummy time. I think the playmat really helps, as does not laying him all the way down on his tummy.

It's started getting cold here. On Friday we woke up to flurries. Nothing stuck. That night when I was coming home from a girl's movie night there was frost everywhere. On Sunday when we were leaving church it was sleeting (a rain/snow mixture sometimes called a winter mix). However, today it's in the 70's. I hope this lasts because it is a little ridiculous to have the heater on in October. If it weren't for those poor little cold hands and cheeks of Oliver's we probably wouldn't have it on.

(if you click on this one I brightened the color so you could see the blue-grey color of his eyes)

Last year our apartment would sometimes go down to the 50's overnight because our heaters were weird and we didn't think it was safe to leave them on overnight.

In other news, I bought a butternut squash. They were on sale, and I thought we had tons of recipes that called for them. I couldn't find one. However, good thing there is google (or in my case, Swagbucks). I didn't take a picture of it, but I made Baked Rice with Butternut Squash last night. It was good. I omitted the wine, and wished I had added more cheese on top. It would be really good with seasoned chicken.

And finally, here's some scrap!

Crafting

Since Oliver tends to sleep a lot during the day, but he sleeps enough at night that I don't need to nap, I actually have time to scrap! Also, when I was a beached whale at the end of pregnancy (ok, so I didn't get that big, but I was rendered very useless and had almost no energy) I was able to dabble in as much scrapping as Oliver would let me sit up for.

I haven't posted any of my scrapbooking in awhile (besides the blog header), so here goes:

NOTE: Click pictures for credits.

Those last two I just did this past week. Because pregnancy killed my mojo for so long (that and having no time due to engineering senior capstone), I've taken to joining fun challenges at Peppermint Creative. The Mixed Bag Monday challenges are weekly challenges that mix up our style a little. The Pimp-My-Page challenge is a monthly template challenge. There is also a Click-A-Pic photography challenge that I have really enjoyed participating in. Here are a few of my favorite submissions (that haven't already been posted elsewhere on the blog):

Now when I take a million pictures, most of them turn out. And not only do I get to play and learn more on my Canon Rebel, I also get to play and learn on Photoshop. I took a Photoshop class from Jessica Sprague that really taught me a lot about editing photos. I've still got a lot to learn, but I at least have a starting point now as opposed to being too scared to do anything.

I've been dabbling in the hybrid scene because of challenges, where I print out digi supplies to make fun things. It's been something I've always wanted to do, and lately I've just been having the inspiration/challenge!


I've been crocheting, and I need to do more so that we can stay warm this winter/fall. Isn't Oliver so adorable in that hat?! I seriously can't get enough of it and have taken so many pictures it's ridiculous!


I guess this sums up a lot of what I do in the spare time I've got now that I'm a stay at home mom. That and I watch What Not To Wear in my sweatpants and over-sized button up Raytheon shirt.

I Scrapped!

So first trimester consisted of me sleeping and eating (hooray for not being miserable though!). Luckily it was mostly in December and January when I wasn't in school and I already elected to only work half days at work. Needless to say, scrapping fell way down on my priorities, and when I tried I ultimately failed because my mojo was gone.

Second trimester I could have made time, but school took priority, and I didn't have my mojo back anyway. Then when I wanted to scrap toward the end of the semester I really didn't have time due to senior design and such keeping me busy, so I was able to scrap a couple of cards and the invite for my baby shower, but no pages. I also didn't have my computer for awhile because we sent it in to get fixed, and then had to wait for all of our files to be restored.

Then came the move, and now that we are all moved in, and my only pregnancy complaint is my back, that means I can scrap! I was a little worried because it'd been so long, but this page came together right away. Not sure why I chose this picture when we have so many pictures from the last 6 months, but you have to admit it's a good one!

Click the picture for credits.

Randomly many of our pictures from during the semesters are of food. I think the only exceptions are random occasions like the picture above, my belly pictures, and our trip to Patagonia. Oh yeah, and that whole thing where we drove across the country.

Oh, and as far as my back goes, the pain is miserable, but I'm not. I like to make that distinction because I am still fully capable of enjoying myself, I just need more back rubs than I used to! The major pain is that my right rib is popped out of place, and I can't get it back in. Once our insurance kicks in I may go to a chiropractor, but I'm pretty sure that my insides have just expanded my rib out of place. As many of you may know, it has been popped out of place before by my abnormally large hiccups, so it's that much easier now for it to pop out of place. We might just have to wait for baby to come to try to get my bones back in order. Until then, I just have to do whatever I can to make myself comfortable, even if it means taking lots of lie-down breaks. Luckily we got this amazing bed as a graduation present, and it works wonders at taking the pressure off of my back!

Reasonable Gas Prices

I've been so lost in the dark abyss of studying and school that I haven't posted in awhile! I had some really good news to post on Sunday, but I didn't want to supersede Matthias's Sunday Morning Sermon so soon.

Anyway, onto the good news! So when gas prices were getting ridiculous (like at about $4 a gallon here) we were ALL complaining. Anyway, I decided that there needed to be a definition of reasonable gas prices so that the complaining would officially be over. I decided that with inflation and the higher demand for gas that $2.25 would be a reasonable price and I could stop complaining about high gas prices.

After a few weeks of watching gas fall about 2 cents a day (seriously...it would almost always be 2 cents less on my way home from work!) for quite some time, on Sunday we finally saw it! $2.25 at Fry's! I yelped for joy and get so happy whenever I see one of the reasonably priced gas stations. I even saw one for $2.17 today! Hooray! Maybe this is a sign of good things to come concerning the economy...

School for me will be mostly done by Thanksgiving! I still have 2 hard classes to finish up after that, but it all just seems so much more manageable! Until then I may seem like a school-zombie, but that's just because I want to be able to enjoy my break all the more! :)

Onto Scrap-booky goodness! My good friend Megan (pronounced Meeeegan) had a little challenge on her blog awhile back to try to go hybrid! A hybrid scrapbooking project is where you use your fun digital supplies, print them out, and use them on a tangible project. Back then I had a lack of supplies, but I tried my hardest and came up with a wonderful little cd frame! (click the picture for credits)

I think it's fabulous! :) AND I even won her contest! Yes, another random number generator loved me! I got the best box of hybrid goodness that I can't wait to play with, and I even have a few ideas up my sleeves! AND I even won the monthly gallery contest at GGdigitaldesigns.com! I love that picture of us, and had such an easy time scrapping this page. I find that my pages that just come together are the ones I like the best. At other times, my mojo isn't so good.

These next two have pictures from the Christmas when Matthias and I were dating (December 2006). I love them! :)This picture was taken when we were at Apple Annie's, and a wonderful Scrap friend from the Netherlands was able to fix my corrupted picture for me! You would never believe that there was a big grey line right through my face, would you?!


And lastly the cute boo buckets I made for our trunk or treat!



On a disjointed note, I'm so grateful for my faith, that I know who I am and what my purpose is here on earth. I can't imagine how hard it must be to not know these things, and to not even know that you don't know these things! I've been having some conversations with a coworker lately that really make me so grateful for the knowledge that I have, especially defining the family as a fundamental unit of society. Even though there is really no perfect family, and every family has their struggles and even fights, the world would be so lost without the family. For all of those people out there who feel unloved, know that you have a Heavenly Father who loves you, and it's His approval that matters most. Allow yourself to become your best self through his Son, Jesus Christ. Life is hard, struggles come, people can be harsh, but you always have a Heavenly Father who loves you and wants you to succeed, and gives you so many opportunities to succeed!

Digi!

Matthias keeps encouraging me to post my scrap pages on here, and since I'm procrastinating working on my lab, I figured I would post a few. I've been loving digital scrapbooking more and more each time I make a page!

This first one I finished over the summer for the ggdigitaldesigns color contest. I ended up being the random winner of a $30 gift card! I loved this page because it just came together for me!

I think this page is currently my favorite! I just love the blue polka dot paper with the brown and pink...

These are some of Matthias' favorite pictures! :)

This one was for Miss Mint's Template Contest, of which I was the random winner! I got a full year subscription to the Digital Artist Magazine (which is pretty amazing!) This is also the first time I did a little bit of extraction on a photo. You can't tell the background was super busy because I blurred it. It's still pretty busy...I'm no expert yet!

Anyway, we just made flan and it's ready to be eaten! Flanstastic!