CREATIVITY

I don't know if you know this about me. But my mind I guess seems to need a thousand different outlets to be sane. I have been watching an awful lot of HGTV lately and I always look at things and say, humph, I could do that. Well, no different in this case. My good friend Emily and I decided to take a woodworking class together to learn how to build stuff.

I have a thousand things in mind that I want to build but I decided the first would be a bench/toy/cedar chest for Audrey. I came up with a design. I designed it to have bead board in the front inset a little from the frame....Well. My teacher decided that we were going to make that bead board out of individual pieces. HOLY COW!! I cut, and jointed, and sanded, and shaped, and sanded again, and pieced together, and sanded some more 26 planks of bead board. Yikes! Even though that was crazy, for the last several weeks I have been forging ahead learning lots about all the amazing things you can do in a well supplied wood shop. I am pretty proud of myself because it looks awesome. Last night I did a few silly mistakes, hope I got them all over in one night so I don't feel stupid to the teacher anymore. I hate that feeling. Luckily it was nothing to do with my finished product or anything like I had to replace pieces. I am happy about that. So just wanted to share the progress!

EMILY'S MAKING A BOOKCASE

WHY DO I ALWAYS WEAR BLACK WHEN I DO STUFF LIKE THIS?

OH YEAH SHE LOOKS HOT IN SHOP GLASSES

THE PIECES BEFORE IT GETS PUT TOGETHER

YEA!!!! ITS FURNITURE

Audrey's latest

Being a parent is the funnest thing ever. I love to watch all the things Audrey does while growing and learning. She is the funniest little girl and I tell her 10 times a day that she makes me laugh. This morning we were all sitting at the table for breakfast and she was just chatting up a storm. She has never really "talked" super extensively. She makes noises, mostly to herself, especially when she is in her crib before she falls asleep. But this morning she just went on saying da di doda da and all this crazy stuff. And she had fluctuation and intonation on her voice like she was critisizing someone. It was the funniest thing ever. She has recently started talking a lot more, yesterday I was chaning her diaper and I told her when we were done we were gonna go get daddy...and she said..."dat" And we repeated it a couple more times. SO CUTE.

She is also really started reaching out for other people just recently. The other day we came upstairs to find grandma and she was sitting next to the window in the sun. I had had Audrey's window open so she was a little chilly on her skin and she reached right out for grandma and put her little arms around her neck and laid her head on grandmas shoulder and just laid there while the two of them soaked up the warmth together. It was the longest I have ever seen her cuddle with anyone unless she is tired and falling asleep. It was the sweetest thing ever. I know my mom will cherish that memory forever. Everyone loves to get hugs from a baby.

SOMEONE GAVE US THESE FUNNY PIXIE ANTENA THINGS. I ACTUALLY GOT HER TO LEAVE THEM ON HER HEAD FOR 1/2 AN HOUR.

SERIOUSLY....IS THERE ANY WAY THAT THIS COULDN'T BE MY CUTE HUSBANDS CHILD??? LOOK AT THOSE FACES!

Audrey also discovered this week that the bathroom in the mothers lounge echos! She crawled in there sat right on top of the drain (gross) and was just singing away listening to her voice. She sat so still and had her face kind of lifted....I could tell she was just listening. It was so funny. But we high taled it out of there before we disrupted too many people.


Oh yeah, Audrey also knows what the phone is now. We have this super old school fisher price turn dial phone from when I was a kid. She will pick up the receiver and put it on her shoulder and bend her head into it and say something babyish. So cute




She also started to walk with her little walker toy. We have had this toy out for a while, but it wasn't till we put batteries in it and it started making NOISE that she got motivated to use it on her own accord.

THOSE DANG PENS!

Ok, this entry is soley to vent about the ridiculousness of the whole situation. So, I ordered pens for the baby bonanza. I was so excited because this is a pretty easy way to give something useful as a marketing tool. I ordered 300 pens from this company online with info and a picture. Cute, I was excited.

Well, it was quite a process to get them to print the order in the first place. My contact kept emailing me with proofs and information. BLAH BLAH BLAH, she wouldn't ever answer any of the questions I asked her. VERY frustrating. Well, I called her on Monday because I needed them on Friday to make sure they would be here in time. (no worries that I thought we would be fine seeing as I ordered them 2 weeks in advance) She told me it would be $20 shipping to upgrade to get them to me on time. At this point I was like....whatever, I just need them here. So reluctantly I sent her the ok. Well she calls me on Wednesday and says she has bad news. She changed the order to upgrade the shipping but someone in the factory forgot to do it....so they will be there on MONDAY!!!!! (#&$&%#!!! I was seriously speachless. I almost hung up on her. Although she was actually very nice about the whole thing and I felt bad being as mad as I was....

Well of course I mulled over this all night so irritated. And was fully prepared to kind of lay into her first thing in the morning. She answered the phone knowing I would call and asked if I was calling to yell at her. I said, "well, not yell....!" She told me she was on the phone with the factory to see if they could reprint the order and have it overnighted to me. I said, "good, that is why I was calling" So I went most of the day without hearing from her, so I assumed that they were not coming. Well she called at like 4:30 telling me they were on their way and would be there in the morning. YEA!!!!

They arrived, I was thrilled and extatic....then I opened the box......300 pens that read.... www.catchproto.blogspot.com..... THEY MISSPELLED IT! URG! I about threw something. So, the saga ended with me spending 4 hours of my day scratching the r into and h on every single one of those dang pens!

Braggin-The event

Well, the Baby Bonanza was this last Saturday. I have pretty much had every minute filled trying to get ready for it for the last 5 or 6 weeks. Oh my gosh everything turned out SO perfect. It was a gorgeous day, we were in prime location in the shade and many many people came to see us. This was totally worth the investment to do everything to get myself looking professional. Wonderful Rachael Lippmann came and ran the booth because I was actually in charge of shooting at the event. She of course is gorgeous and has wonderful people skills and was a huge amazing help. I couldn't have done it without her.

I was very pleased with how many people stopped and took advantage of our cozy setup and looked at everything. Rachael had the brilliant idea to put up a little table and nice chairs so that people could come on in and sit down to look at the books and things. It worked, we got a ton of comments on how awesome that was. We had lots of people ask questions seeming generally interested and we even had three bookings that day. It was perfect and beautiful and I am pretty sure that everything I did got commented on and noticed, so that makes it all worth it. I just love little kids. Catching the moments of pure innocence and joy is why I do this. Here are some pics of the event, the products I got done, and some of my favorites of the event. Enjoy.

PAMPHLET I DESIGNED/BUSINESS CARDS/ THOSE DANG PENS

INSIDE PAMPHLET

THREE DIFFERENT TYPES OF BOOKS

OUR LITTLE SETUP

THE "GIVEAWAY STUFF" TABLE

CHRISTMAS CARDS

Just wanted to post a little shout out. I had a photoshoot at the Mommy Mixer today and I was working hard to get some Christmas card design layed out to have so they would all see some of the ideas. So passing them on to you. Thanks Rachel for being my awesome little model family.

THIS IS A CARD DESIGNED SPECIALLY FOR ME BY CASSIDY

AT PAPER ART EXPRESSIONS...CHECK OUT HER LINK....SHE'S AMAZING!

Last two weeks of solitude

Things have been really busy and really good getting ready for my showcase I am doing in TWO WEEKS! But, I feel good about it. I have basically had my rear end glued to this seat clicking away as many minutes as I can sneak in. Unfortunately Audrey is bored of playing in this room, and gets irritated in about 30 seconds when she sees I am headed for the computer! I kid you not that I have tennis neck!!! Didn't know there was such a thing did ya? Well, my friends there is. See, since my laptop has kicked the bucket I have been using my mom's computer. She has her mouse on top of the table and slightly forward and the keyboard below. Not really a fan of this setup, because you have to switch all the time between two levels. Well, I think it is because of this that I have had the WORST soreness in the front of my neck. It is a little better now, but MAN not cool! Anyway, everything is all coming along. I received my pamphlets yesterday that I designed....they look awesome. I have two photobooks on order, one in the works, at least all the photos are edited for it, and lots of fun little things coming, ie ornaments, vases, jewlery boxes. I am excited. I think I have a good spread of things to help me stand out but hopefully not to be too overwhelming. Oh yeah in addition to all of that, just wanted to give a shout out to SMILEBOX. I like the idea of scrapbooking, but get tired and unimaginative real fast. Well, these guys are fabulous. They have a ton of pages that are the most user friendly get-it-done digital scrapbooking I have come across. And I have tried my fair share. There isn't as much personalization as some people might like, and I love to create, but when I need to knock out 2 years worth of digital pictures....BAM DONE. I kid you not. I got all my 2006 and 2007 pictures scrapbooked and looking cute in probably a total of 12 hours. I printed all the 2006 stuff myself, but decided that seeing as I have the whole year done, it would actually be CHEAPER for me to order a really fabulous book, then it is done and bound and something I wouldn't mind having out. I will take a picture and show you when it gets here. Exciting. Here are some our Tahoe pictures and Audrey's most recent

WHO KNOWS WHAT THIS FACE MEANS...I THINK IT'S PRETTY CUTE THOUGH

AUDREY'S FIRST TIME PLAYING ON THE PLAYGROUND

AUDREY'S FIRST TIME IN THE LAKE/BEACH

THIS WAS A GORGEOUS DAY ON THE LAKE

WE HUNG AROUND FOR A WHILE TO CATCH THE SUNSET ON THE BEACH

AWESOME HUH?

DUDE I LOVE THIS LENS....THANKS JEN

MY LITTLE MODEL