West Coast Style

Sorry I'm just now getting around to posting pictures from my fabulous trip to the west coast. I had an absolute blast - met some fantastic friends, ate some of the biggest pizza I've ever seen in my life and even got a little scrapbooking done, too! In all, I managed to assemble all of the shower invitations (55 baby and 50 wedding), completed 5 cards, made 7 scrapbook pages and started the felt swap I'm participating in. I can't show you the invitations since I haven't figured out how to effectively blur out the personal information on them, but - trust me - they turned out great. That was the biggest job I had and I'm glad to say that it's over now.












Back to the retreat...Andrea and her sis-in-law, Eva, picked me up in LA Friday morning and we started our journey up to Pismo Beach. We met up with Katrina to eat some famous In-and-Out burgers (I had a cheeseburger "animal style" - yum) and a quick trip in at Joann's and a grocery store for snacks and beverages. I rode the rest of the way with Kat..and, although I think we didn't really follow the directions perfectly, we still managed to get to the beach house faster than we thought we would. I even got to see some vineyards! The California coast is so different...hills (which really look like mountains to me) right next to the beach, clean sand and blue water. A stark comparison to the beach at Galveston for sure! I was so excited to meet all of the girls I've been friends with for the past few years thanks to scrapbooking message boards - Kelci (the hostess), Andrea, Kat, Jen, Shanna, Keeley, and Shana. I even made new friends in Heather and Eva. We stayed up way too late every night, ate way too much junk food, played in the chilly temperatures at the beach and still managed to get a lot of scrapping done. I'm so thankful that Kelci emailed me back in the Fall just to see if I *might* be able to come. It definitely was a trip of a lifetime.







On the way back to LAX on Sunday, Andrea and Eva were kind enough to give me a quick tour of Hollywood. I got to see the Chinese Theatre, ran by the Wax Museum, read a few stars on the Walk of Fame and even got my picture with a Transformer for my boys at home. It was quick, but the 15 minutes and $13 in cheesy souveniers made my trip to California feel complete!

Things are looking up!

Cole has been fever-free for most of the day. Finally, I got to do something I was really looking forward to this year - walk Caleb to and from school. Working doesn't let me do that... :0( Sure was nice weather, too!

Today, I got a lot of pieces together for the baby shower invitations I'm working on and I hope to get (most of) them done this weekend. Oh, that's right, I forgot to tell y'all...I'M GOING TO CALIFORNIA! I'm just a tad bit excited about it. My friend, Kelci (you know, the purse girl...Crafty Mama over there in my blog links), rented a beach house and invited a bunch of us online friends to come scrap the whole weekend away! I can't wait! I'm flying out Friday morning early and will return Sunday night late. Chris has my "other job" (you know, parent-in-charge) all weekend, so say a little prayer for him, okay? ;0)

So I'm at home...

...with a very sick little boy. I feel like such a horrible mother when I take him to the doctor. He never really complains about anything, but has been a little congested and "clingy" lately. Well, this morning, I thought he felt a little warm and then told me that his ear hurt. All while jumping around, fighting me to avoid getting dressed. Since I will be out of town this weekend, I thought it would be best to go ahead and take him to the doctor today. After I made my quick trip up to the school to run copies for my sub, we went to the doctor where he threw a terrible fit and the doctor confirmed that he has a double ear infection - and the right one is "really, really red". Yeah, he only told me that his LEFT ear hurt. Where do I sign up for negligent parenting classes??? I feel like such a dummy for letting my child get this sick.

So, here we are - sitting at home. I finally got half of his meds in him and he's now sleeping on the sheet-covered couch...'cause I don't want him puking on it. Me? That's okay, I guess. I'm already on my third outfit of the day thanks to that. You really know that motherhood has taken over your life when your child gets sick in the middle of HEB and you immediately stick your hands out to catch it. Nice one, Kristi. And sanitary, too. (Don't worry...there was an HEB associate that evidently has seventeen grandchildren or something that came to my rescue...we got it all cleaned up and sanitized.)

Happy 6th Birthday, Caleb!

Well, it was actually on Tuesday, but I haven't had a free second to get on here. (Trying to finish up the semester at school and get my finals prepared...)

We celebrated Caleb's "Golden" Birthday (turned 6 on the 6th) with some mini-cupcakes, a few presents and a trip to CiCi's Pizza. We will have the bigger bash at Chuck E. Cheese next weekend. I still can't believe he is SIX!!! Where does the time go???

Favorite Christmas Pictures

Top 5 things you would be seeing if I had remembered my camera on NYE...

5. roughly 1,000 pounds of food that hardly got touched

4. an alternative version of "The Newlywed Game"

3. a sweet dance number to "Baby Got Back" (we could teach Kim Kardashian a thing or two about her so called "dance" from Dancing With the Stars!)

2. Caleb's Air-Guitar show - complete with jumping from the couch and smashing his air guitar.

1. a pretty awesome group of friends having a great time!



So, yeah, I'm the loser that forgot my camera. We had a great night at Stefan and Nancy's house. It was a LOOOOONNNNNGGGG night, but New Year's is supposed to be, right???