Craig's List

Have any of you gone to this website? Well, Kurt is obsessed with it. Last Sunday he was looking at it for stuff and came across a BBQ pit just like ours for free. We we had several things wrong with ours: needed new knobs, new grill, and some other things, about $250.00 worth of "stuff" to fix. We hadn't done it because why not just buy a new grill.

Wellllllll, we jumped in the car, got our trailer, and headed over for this "free" BBQ pit. We got there loaded it up, came home and Kurt parted it out to get the stuff we needed, then got rid of the stuff he didn't need.

Good news: Now we have a "new" BBQ pit and it works great. Bad news: Kurt is more obsessed for finding stuff we might need!!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

We didn't do too much this past Memorial Day Weekend. We celebrated Kurt's birthday on Friday, we went to this restaurant called Plucker's - it's really funny to get Matthew to say the name real fast. Well, they have wings at this joint & Kurt loves it. Since it was Kurt's birthday, we got this awesome dessert - Fried Twinkies. Oh, My, God - they are the best thing EVER!! Fried Twinkie, Vanilla Ice Cream, chocolate syrup. That was the only "birthday cake" Kurt got - we spent the rest of the weekend trying to burn the calories from that dessert. Other than that, we just played around the house and got some really cute pictures of the boys goofing around.

Nothing is better on any day than Icee's. The boys love these, but I'm sure they are never as good as they are at Nannie & Pa's.

Here are Matthew and Sam driving their cars. I hope that armored tanks are available for purchase when they start driving in 12 short years for Matthew.

Last layout for tonight

Ok. I'm very proud of this layout. Mostly because I do like everything about it, plus I also put my photographer hat on and took some non-traditional photos. Best part was that this layout only took me an hour to do. Which is one of the reasons I want to digiscrap - it's faster!!!!

Scrapbook Pages

Still trying to get the hang of digital scrapbooking. There is such a huge learning curve. I'm sitting here looking at a layout and I know what I want to do, but don't know how to do it. It is so fustrating!!!!! But here are 2 new layouts. I think I'm getting better and I even learned a few new tricks on these pages to make future pages easier.

Brothers

Many times people will ask us since we got to "pick" the sex of our children - why 2 boys. Of course I have my moments of not having a little girl - no nail polish, no dance recitals, no pms of two women under one roof. But we always thought that it would be so much fun for brothers. Neither Kurt or I have any brothers, so we thought it was a good idea.

Well for the past week and a half, Sam has been sleeping down in Matthew's room. We want them to share a room and thought the summer would be a good time to get them use to the idea. Well, we have had our ups and downs with that - Matthew keeps singing this cute song. He asks if Sam is going to sleep in his room the breaks into song "Party in the house, party in the house!!" (I am so afraid when he goes to college)

Well for the 2 of them, it has been a party. I went to check on them because I was going to bed - It was 9:30 pm and I found this.....


Both of them in the same bed, reading books and giggling. I took one look at them and thought - this is why we have two boys - so they can play, laugh, giggle, tickle, tease, fight, cry, and love each other the only way brothers can.

The Evolution of Dance

I know this is making the rounds through email, but it is so funny I had to post it here so everyone can have a good laugh. Check it out: The Evolution of Dance

Disney on Ice - The Incredibles

We took the kids to the Disney on Ice show. This year it was The Incredibles (http://disneyonice.disney.go.com/disneyonice/incredibles.jsp). It was very cool. Usually these shows go along with the original movie, but this was was the Incredible family going to Disney World. A few people thought it was just a huge infomercial for Disney, and it kinda was, but we had a great time. We were a little worried on how Sam would be, but he did great. I think that he had a better time than Matthew. Every time someone who was selling something came by, Matthew said, "I want that". Well they did get 3 things - a Dash mask that came with cotton candy, a Dash light up sword, and a arm band. The arm band was actually FREE and all the kids at the end of the show defeated the bad guy by pushing a button. They turned out the lights and you could see all the lights from the kids arm bands.

Crowe's Nest Field Trip

Matthew's class headed to the Crowe's Nest (I think we were in Manor, I really have no idea we were so far out of Austin) (http://www.crowesnestfarm.org/index.htm). It was a really cool place. The kids had a blast on the tractor/hay ride, learning about milking cows, a picnic lunch and checking out all the animals.

I was pretty impressed by my photographer's eye with this picture. I saw Ms. Laura, Matthew, and Justin walking in the distance and thought it was so cute. Two little friends and their teacher.

Hear no, See no, Speak no EVIL

Matthew had to do a scrapbook page for his teacher's at school. I thought these were the best poses for his personality.

My obsession - this week!

My obsession this week has been my scrapbooking. I have been trying to convert to digital scrapbooking, but there is a huge learning curve, because you have to learn the software. I've decided to start in 2006 as the digital attempt. But this weekend I went to a all weekend scrap and scraped traditionally - here are my favorite layouts. Kurt thought it was just a gab & drinking fest, but when I came home with 34 pages, he new I had been working. Ok, maybe I did gab and bit and had a few drinks.

Oh, my sweet boys....Father & Son

After Sam went to bed, Matthew & Daddy had some one on one time watching the hockey playoffs. They were so cute together, I had to break out the camera. I managed to get a few tender shots, but then they realized the camera was on them.

I should think of something better to say....

This was our conversation last night in bed at about midnight....
It was very, very windy outside....
Kurt "Is everything ok out there?" referring to our backyard Toys r Us crack house.
Stacie "Yes, everything has been put up" Of course, I did it - you didn't.
CRACK - CRASH - BANG
Stacie "Except my car getting hit by a tree"
Race to the window. Yep, there is a huge branch that fell out of the tree, laying right by my car.
Kurt "Next time could you say 'Why don't we win the lottery'!"

Well, unbelievably, my car didn't get hit by the limb (tree). It really sucks because my car is never outside, but it was last night because the neighbors and I are getting ready for a garage sale this weekend. In the morning we were able to inspect the limb more closely & there was a void exactly where it broke and there was a bird's nest in it. Check it out....

Easter Egg Hunt

We went to an Easter egg hunt this morning and the boys had lots of fun. Sam was a little slow on the line, so he didn't get many eggs. But Matthew more than made up for him. I love this picture of these two. They can drive me up the walls a lot of the time, but look how cute they can be.

Happy Easter

Good thoughts to everyone this Easter weekend. God Bless.

Mom card's

I found this cool idea in Parents magazine. Mom card's. Since most of us use to have business cards when we worked - why don't we have them now. When you have one of these, next time you meet someone at the park, mall, or McDonald's, you don't need a pen and the back of a napkin, or you hand. Plus, most people don't remember your name. For example, to Matthew's entire class, I'm Matthew's mom. Yep, you guessed it, I did this digitally all by myself!! Kuddos to Digi Artchick Designs for the Krista kit I used.

Hoop Stars

These are outfits that Nannie & Pa got Matthew and Sam. Matthew was running around all day saying "I'm on the blue team and Sam is on the orange team". They were a big hit. In fact, when a neighbor friend, Griffin, came over to play for a while he ended up with Matthew's uniform on before he left!!!

Sleepy boys

This is what happens when we go to an early afternoon birthday party and try to skip naps. Sam was so hilarious falling asleep while sitting on the couch. As for Kurt, I guess running around after two kids for 3 hours, just plum tuckered him out!! Funny, he should try caffeine, like me!!!

Peace Lutheran Preschool Parents Picnic

It was the Week of the Young Child, so Matthew's preschool had many activities. One morning we had donuts and another we had a picnic. Matthew was especially excited because Daddy got to come to both activities. At the picnic, Mommy brought McDonald's and we participated in games (bubbles, sand art, Hullabalu, and of course, chasing) and we got to plant flowers. Matthew and Sam are here eating lunch with Matthew's teacher, Ms. Laura and a friend, Cori.

Digital scrapbook layout

Here is my 2nd attempt at digital scrapbooking. I'm getting faster, but there are still things that I know what I want but I am having trouble figuring out how to do something. Oh well, I think this one is cool. We all have to start somewhere. I look back at some of my first traditional scrapbooking layouts and think, oh, those look like crap. Hopefully someday soon I can think the same about these!

Sam is 2

Sam celebrated his 2nd birthday on Saturday. He had such a great time, he is quickly turning into a happy, go lucky, fun little boy. Who would have thought 7 months ago, he was sitting in an orphanage in Russia, not knowing if he would have a loving family. Well, now he is here and everyone is totally in love with him. Not only does he have a ton of love from family, but he has so many friends that love him.

His party was a blast, we had a farm theme. There was a jumpy, bubbles blowing machine, and instead of a petting zoo, we had many blow up farm animals. The animals were a great thing, there was no sticky animals and no one got pooped on.

There was only one problem, Matthew got very sick. On Friday night, he threw up on me. Not just a little spit up, but a huge three puke hurl. Kurt was running around trying to get a towel, meanwhile, I was holding about 2 cups of vomit in my shirt. Well after that he was ok, but he then got a high fever and has just been laying around. He slept through Sam's party. He is better now, but really bummed that he didn't get to go to Sam's party.