Old picture

After my last entry, I decided to force myself to start picking up crap that's been sitting around. I found my very old engagement pics with ex-husband. **snicker** Like my long, straight, black hair? This is from 1993. It's amazing how much can change in just over a decade.

Boring

I'm sitting here waiting for a giant box of scrappy supplies. Oh hurry and get here. It should have been here yesterday. **sigh**

I haven't been able to function very well today. I've had a headache since yesterday. I did a finish up a layout last night but I haven't even felt like starting another one for today. The mess from yesterday's is still spread all over my table.

Trent has been watching tv nearly all day and I feel totally guilty about it.

Told you it was boring.

Pretty in Pink and Hurricane Katrina

I'm sure by my title, that you are thinking this post is entirely about Baby Kat. No. You are wrong.

My neighbors gave me a bag of clothing to go through for the kids. I was to take what I wanted and give back what I didn't. I had the bag of what I didn't need sitting at the front door when Trent discovered it. I guess he was immediately drawn to the bright colors of the jacket inside. He put it on and showed me. "Hmmm, nice". I said. He totally caught me off guard.

Later on, while still wearing the jacket, I caught him posing in front of our mirrored closet doors. He was even humming a little tune as he posed.

He calls it his "Jumping Jacket". I'm not sure what his fascination with it is, but he never wants to take it off. I guess I should have just taken the bag back right away as the next day he discovered the matching pants. There are zippers on the ankles. They help him jump higher and "bigger". This is a point that has been proven to me many times today.

We just had to go to Grandma's house today to show her the "Jumping Jacket" and matching zipper pants. He was even more delighted when his Great Grandma stopped by so he could show her, too.


It doesn't matter to him that it's 94 degrees in the shade of the patio with pretty high humidity. The hood (or "helmet" as he refers to it) doesn't come off his head, either. Usually, it's pulled around his face as tight as he can get it so only his eyes are peeking through. These pictures don't show that, I know.


Oh, and I have been asked 100 times today if I'll be doing a LO with Hurricane Katrina. Yes. Yes, I will. LOL! I'll pull some clippings off the computer and I'll have a "hurricane comparison."

Oh, and here is a pic of Baby Kat from today, too. She is "Pretty in Pink".

Pics of Katrina

Trent is actually taking a real nap today so I was able to have some one on one time with Baby Kat. I tested out my new camera to make sure it was working ok. I took several shots, but I really like how these came out. I love the look she has on her face while trying to throw the Frisbee, like it's serious business.

Getting picture of her in a good mood is actually quite a relief for me. This is the first time in quite a while that she hasn't spent the afternoon crying. I will have to refer back to these when I have another one of "those" days.

Oh, Trent is now awake. Time to go...

Best Buy ROCKS!

I bought my camera at Best Buy just two months ago. A couple weeks ago, I noticed that the flash hot shoe was just very slightly bent. It was really difficult to get the flash on and even harder to get it off. I had no idea what happened to my camera. It is always in the camera case and it's never been dropped. I thought for sure if I took it back to have it repaired, the warranty wouldn't cover it because it would be considered "accidental damage". I debated taking it back and facing embarrassment because I honestly didn't know what happened.

In my mind, I could picture employees huddled around my camera talking amongst themselves, "Yeah. She had to have dropped it. She must be a liar. How else could this have happened. Oh, she has two small kids, I bet one of them got a hold of it." Other employees would naturally walk over to the huddle to check out what was going on. Looking over another employee's shoulder, they would nod in agreement and turn around and look at me, the liar, out of the corner of their eye as they walked back to their normal duties.

Maybe I should just take it to a camera repair store and have it fixed there.

It took me two weeks to build up the nerve to take it back to Best Buy. I was ready to accept the fact that I would have to pay for the repair and it would probably take weeks before it was back to me. I was prepared to buy rolls and rolls of film and go back to my film SLR for the time being.

When I arrived, I went right up to the repair counter. I gave the employee my camera and showed him what was wrong. He looked at it for awhile, turning it around and around in his hands.

"Well", he said, "this may be covered. I can tell that you didn't drop this or mishandle it in anyway."

I was starting to feel better.

"Let me check with my manager."

He came back after a few minutes and proceeded to enter in all the info from my receipt. He explained to me that it would take about two weeks for repair.

I was feeling pretty good at this point.

Uh oh. There was a problem. The info wasn't be accepted into the computer. He left to get the manager again.

Now my confidence in this situation was beginning to thin. I was starting to panic, and it didn't help that the kids were acting up. Both of them were in the cart and fighting over who got to stomp on my purse.

When he came back with the manager, he explained to me that because the camera was only two months old, they would just replace it with a new camera. I couldn't believe it! I was absolutely shocked!

I walked out of there with a brand new camera. I love Best Buy.

Monkey shirt

Thank you to Laura who sent Baby Kat this adorable monkey shirt. She really does like it. She's only crying because she's mad that Mommeeeeee won't hold her 24/7. I took this yesterday near a partially open window with no flash. **sigh** I still can't get my exposure correct. Oh, and I swear that little red focus light was on her eyes, not her shirt. I'm slightly annoyed that her face is out of focus. One of these days, I will learn how to properly use my camera. I can see that this is a delicate balance of maneuvers to get it just right. Although my light meter was showing things were fine, my pictures still showed up blurry because of her movement. I sometimes play around in manual mode with my camera and then review the "info" field in the playback mode. Although the graph shows that the exposure looks good, it doesn't show if my picture is blurry due to movement. I don't know how to fix it and it's really frustrating me. I've increased my ISO up to 800 and I still get blurry pics. So, just in case my pictures don't turn out as well on the computer screen as they look on the LCD screen, I always take some programmed mode shots. **sigh** It's kinda depressing. But, she does like her monkey shirt. :D I love it when I get little surprises like this in the mail. They totally make my day. Thank you again, Laura.

Christina Cole

I {heart} Christina Cole. Where did she come from? She seemed to have come out of nowhere. I am deer in her headlights. I love her papers, her epoxy stickers and her darn cute little shaker boxes. I did this layout for Peek. You have to click on the link to see the rest of it. heehee

I love Mexican Folk Art, especially the Sacred Hearts. When I saw the shaker box, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

After completing this layout, I seem to be wearing quite a bit of paint. It's everywhere. It's even on the inside of my shirt. I have no clue how it got there.

Anyway, Erik is putting the kids to bed and we're going to watch Ring 2. I hope it's scary. I love scary movies.

Listening ears

This child does not listen to me. Unbelievable!

"Put your listening ears on, Trent", I say nearly all day.

Today he ripped the map out of the Lord of the Rings book. As he was doing it, I asked him to stop. He just kept going until he was finished.

However, there are times where he is just incredibly cute. Like today, when he asked me to come up stairs to take a picture of him with his people. He had about 20 of them all lined up on a bench in the play room. He squated behind them and made goofy faces while I snapped pictures. Not very often does he let me take his picture. Today was fun!

I like that picture. He looks so solemn. Like's he's totally content and pleased with his "People creation".

I like this picture of Baby Kat, too. It's from over the weekend. We were visiting with her cousins and in their backyard was a playhouse. She wouldn't come out of it and I actually had to go in and drag her out of it. Too bad for the dumb shadow over half of her face, though.

Here's their cousin, Kate. Love the fancy shoes, on the big wheel, in the dirt.