Birthday pics...finally

The much requested dress that went to her feet and high heels. We found the dress on Ebay for $20--I couldn't have made anything that cheap.

Birthday dinner at Red Robin--her choice.

And the party. And it rained and rained and despite checking the radar 452 times that morning and it claiming that everything would be gone by 1:15-1:30, it kept raining. Luckily it wasn't storming, the pool was really warm and nobody seemed to mind swimming in the rain.

The Barbie princess cake. No I didn't make it, yes I could have but the fact that I didn't have to...priceless. :)

She told me before we sang she was nervous. She told Aidan he could help blow out her candles.

The pinata...it had ribbons to pull but they wanted to hit it so we did both because it would have taken hours to break that thing.

happy birthday

Katherine turns 5 today!

And apparently (according to her) you need a name sign to decorate with for your birthday...so I made one. When Charlie asked, "why spend time making one instead of just buying one?" I said because I wouldn't like it as much, because I have the ability to do it, and have you seen the amount of crap supplies I have upstairs--WHY NOT?

Finished it about two weeks ago and it's been hanging here since--have no idea what I'm going to do with it after her birthday--maybe hang it in her room for a while?

And of course I made some of the popular tissue paper flowers. Ok, so they were supposed to be balls hanging from the ceiling but even with Martha's tutorial, they looked weird so we went with flowers instead. What to do with these after the party as well? hmmm...

Here's some more close up shots of the banner...

I cut the template for the banner shapes (there's three different kinds--hard to tell in the photo) using my Cricut and a SCAL file I downloaded. Then I cut the backing out of thin chipboard, covered those in patterned paper, made the paper rosettes and attached them, stuck a punched center in the middle, cut the letters out using my Cricut, attached them, put some random glitter glue on them, punched the holes, strung some ribbon through, & hung it. The flowers were cut by hand using a template found online. I thought it needed a break between the words so it was easier to read.

Be back later this weekend with pictures of the actual party and birthday!

happy 4th (on the 6th)

or what we did on the 4th....
spent most of the day hiding inside--it was hot. Or at least it looked hot from the window! :)
And then we went to an Aberdeen Ironbirds baseball game with Margaret (aka: Grandma) and Aunt Susie (aka: Aunt Susie). Luckily there was shade and a slight breeze so altogether it wasn't so bad out. Had some cotton candy, Rita's Ice, cracker jacks, a crab pretzel, a beer, hamburgers and hotdogs and french fries--oh yeah, we were watching baseball during all that eating.

Joe Flacco's brother, Mike (I think?)

bejeweled, bedazzled, and bespeckled for the 4th

And we saw some fireworks. I tried a photography technique I had read about for taking pictures of fireworks and took about 50 pictures of them...

I also ran 11 miles in 2:06 on Saturday morning. There was actually a chill in the air when I started and I can't even begin to tell you how absolutely amazing that was. Not to mention how much better I felt when I was finished--come on fall! Total milage for last week: 21-1/2 miles.

A Salute to Reality

People tell me they think I take great pictures. In reality I take lots and lots and lots of pictures and hope for 1 or 2 that are decent. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes not. I guess that's one advantage of digital photography--no film to waste, all you have to do is delete. Today, the weather was nice, Katherine had just showered AND was wearing matching clothing--the trifecta of a good kid photo! I wanted to get a nice picture of her with her hair shorter (oh yeah, we cut about 3 inches off--her idea, not mine). The older she gets, the goofier her expressions are. Here's what I got:

Which if it looks a little grainy, it's because I cropped it down from this:

She wanted me to take a picture of her standing on one foot. Check.

Then there's this:

And this:

Really not sure what to say about this one.

And this:

Great smile, but what are you doing with your shirt? (still may end up on a scrapbook page!)

And this tilt her head to one side "look at me, how cute am I pose"

Also seen here:

AND here:

So that's a few of about 35 pictures taken in a few minutes outside this morning. There were a few more, but I had the camera on manual mode since the light was so good but I guess the shade from a tree was enough to challenge the shutter speed when you put an almost 5 year old into the equation--lesson learned!

Of course these can't equal the gems Katherine took:

(although the sky in this one does look awesome--and I didn't touch it in Photoshop!)

There was a lot of talk in blogland and scrapbooking in general about how we (as bloggers and scrapbookers) portray ourselves and only focus on the good, positive perfect lives we lead. When if that's all you see out there, you're naturally going to compare your own life and feel bad you're not measuring up. Instead we should be exposing our realities so we can support and encourage each other. Several bloggers I read regularly did a post about their real life so here's a few from mine:

• 
  
  I never make my bed. It only gets made when the sheets get changed. I'll never make Katherine make her bed either--I'd feel like a hypocrite making her do something I don't.
• 
  
  I donate at least monthly to the Harford County library. These little donations are my way of saying "thanks" for reminding me about my disorganization and/or absentmindedness when I'm overdue.
• 
  
  I question regularly my job performance as a mother and wonder if I put enough energy & time into it or if I spend too much time on my hobbies. Hence my latest two books checked out from the library: "Mitten Strings from God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry" and "Bringing up Girls."
• 
  
  It's a good week when the laundry gets put away before it gets pulled from the basket and worn again.
• 
  
  I compare the cleanliness and decorating of my house to houses on TV and even though logically I know it's a TV set, I still wish my house looked like theirs.
• 
  
  Sometimes I look at the clock and it's only 3pm, Charlie's at work and I wonder how in the world I'm going to entertain Katherine till bedtime.
• 
  
  I watch the Bachlorette--and I like it!

Pheww, that was a long one. Gotta get to bed so I can run 11 miles in the morning!