i make things

Grace turns 8!

My niece Grace turned 8 years old today! 8! How the heck did she all of a sudden turn 8? Seriously? The time has FLOWN BY!

I can still remember the day she was born. Michelle and I both worked in the cities at the time. She called me in the early afternoon and told me she was in labor and had been since the morning. She was on her way home. She had to stop talking mid-sentence because she was having a contraction and needed to breathe. I was ticked. I yelled at her and told her to pull over. I was only 10-15 minutes behind her. I could pick her up and drive her to the hospital in Owatonna and I'd go back later with someone to get her car.

She wasn't having any of that. She kept driving. I kept worrying and speeding and swearing. I made it to the hospital and sat there until around 4 p.m. She was in heavy contractions when I got there and didn't even know I was there. I left at 4 to go pick up Jack, my  nephew and their kid, from daycare.

That was definitely an interesting experience. I still give her crap about it to this day.

So without further adeu...here are some pictures of Grace through the ages. Really, it's each year near her birthday but that doesn't sound quite as exciting as "through the ages." LOL

Grandpa and Grace.

First Halloween

Christmas 2007 - her First.

This kid loves her cake. and Pink, she loves pink. Although for several years she was deadset on purple but in the last year she's switched back to loving pink.

One of my favorite costumes.

Second Christmas

I loved those piggy tails.

3 years old and she got a homemade princess crown cake made by me. :) You can see already she's into the purple.

4 years old and completely into Tangled. She loved that movie for awhile. This was probably one of my favorite birthday pictures of her.

She really looks like my clone here. I know the picture is blurry but I love the look on her face as she gets ready to blow out the candles on her cake.

6 years old and definitely has a personality.

At 7 she's the ringleader, sheepherder, wrangler of her cousins.

At 8 she's all her own. She is very smart, too smart for her own good, in fact and LOVES barbies and dolls. She has a slew of little friends and loves to play with her cousins. She's very opinionated for her age and definitely has her own ideas and wishes.

Here are a few more pics I happened to find. I could spend all day perusing through old pictures. LOL

me and Grace.

 

The Kiddos Turned 4!

Itty bitty cupcakes for these two...cause 4 year-olds don't need an entire piece of cake. Image what that kind of sugar would do to them. LOL

Jacob was being a little turd and wouldn't let anyone take his picture. So naturally Daddy came in behind him and tried to get him to smile. The little stinker.

I bought Korby a superman t-shirt. Lately he's into the Avengers and Paw Patrol. He like super hero characters too but I couldn't find him a cool Avengers shirt that I liked.

Jacob is into playing on the ipad so that's what he got. He opened his gift so gingerly and you could tell he wasn't quite sure what it was until Mom took it out of the box. Then his eyes lit up and he gave us that huge smile of his, from ear to ear and was super excited. He clapped his hands and bounced in his chair.

On to the bowling!

Jacob getting his turn at bowling. He did pretty good pushing that ball down. Auntie Shelly's in the background with Bruce being goofy.

That's me and my rear-end bowling. The fam. likes to make fun of me for my style. I have a very high leg kick.

That's another one and of me and Bruce.

A picture of the scoreboard. I was doing pretty good. I think I bowled my best score ever. Somewhere around 136 or so. Bruce still beat me. He really turned it on in the end.

We probably had a good 4+ lanes so we could accommodate everyone.

Here's some of the other guests. I didn't get a picture of everyone because I was trying to make sure I got some time just to visit and be a part of the fun.

 

Clara and Korby. Sister and Brother.

Jack...omg he's getting so big and looking older everyday. Soon he will be taller than me.

Uncle Chris giving Clara smooches.

While I'm in the background sticking my tongue out at her. bahahaha

And lastly these two lovely ladies. I switched it to black and white because the color was off and I liked black and white.

*note: I used A Beautiful Messes' photo actions on these pictures. Sometimes I like to play around and today was one of them. They added a bit of pop to the pictures.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you come back soon.

If you have any comments or questions please post below.

 

 

 

Jacob Turns 1!

Jacob turned one yesterday! I would have posted these pics yesterday but I was a bit busy with his party and then softball. So, here are a TON of pictures from his first year. I made centerpieces out of these pictures for the party. 2 for each month...and a couple extra because I couldn't resist how cute they were. :)

That's Grandpa's hands in there.

Sitting on my lap the day after he was born. Too cute and totally Thomas. I brought Thomas a jug of milk and a package of cookies and I brought Kimmie a bologna sandwich. She was famished.

The little peanut. (My nickname for him) He's sitting on Thomas I believe. 1 month old.

A pea in a pod - 6/14 - 2 months old

6/10 - one of Kim's fav outfits. Little Jeans.

6/22 - over 2 months old. Laying on my bed laughing. The first time I saw him smile and giggle. It was cute.

6/26 - His Baby Shower. Baseball-themed of course. :)

7/4/11 - At 4th of July fireworks. He was pretty happy and the fireworks didn't bother him at all. He didn't cry or anything. Smiles all the time.

At Grandma Sherry's birthday party. 7/26 - over 3 months old. Much more alert now and getting so big and chubby. :)

8/15/11 - 4 months old today! - SCFF - his first fair day! Eating breakfast at teh Aurora Diner in Twins attire with Auntie Jen!

8/17 - Another Fair picture.

8/25 - At Kickball with Auntie Jen. He got some shots today. That's why he's wearing band-aids

8/27 - my birthday party. Jacob is standing in the couch, leaning on Auntie Shelly.

10/1 - 5 months old with Uncle Nick (his godfather)

10/9 - Just taking some baby pictures of him today.

10/9 - One of my all-time favorite pictures of Jacob. Kim and I were giving him a baby bath. He loves baths. Loves to splash and be wet and play with his baby toys.

10/22 - 6 months old

11/8 - Working on moving up the food chain. Eating cereal now.

11/23 - 7 months old - At Cookie decorating at Michelle's house. He wanted to eat pizza and the cookies. Likes to grab for stuff now.

11/25 - Shopping the day after Thanksgiving with Mom, Auntie Jen and Auntie Michelle. He loves being carted around in the backpack. Loved watching everyone and kicking his legs and waving his arms. Pretty good baby that day.

12/1 - Wearing Jayde's hockey hat and doing the military crawl (uses just his arms)

12/7 - with Grandma.

12/18 - 8 months old. Totally getting around and getting into stuff. Loves these bibs because it has that monkey in the pocket he can chew on.

Same date. Put him in his little santa suit and stuck him in front of Grandma Harbal's Christmas tree. He was so cute.

12/24 - Loved being in this box, giving us his little devilish smile. That's totally Thomas. I call Jacob LT (Little Thomas) sometimes but Thomas calls him Little Turd. So then I call Thomas Big Turd. LOL

1/11 - Naked Baby! Well, not really but it's cute.

1/18 - 9 months old - Cookie Monster Baby! He's getting so much bigger. Eating more food now too. Same amoutn of milk but more food.

wearing auntie sheila's winter bear hat.

2/6 - Baby bath time! He loves them. Loves to splash and play with his toys. Loves the rubber ducky.

2/14 - 10 months old - Ate his first baby sugar cookie. He loved it. He tried to get the whole thing in his mouth.

2/16 - Loves the chair at Grandma's house. One of his favorites and go-to toy when he's over. He stands up and bops the chair and makes it sing then he kind of shimmies his butt like he's trying to dance. It's cute.

3/2 - He stands up on the baby gate in "baby jail" and likes to shake his baby booty. LOL He also likes ot yell at you if you are in the kitchen because he wants to watch what you are doing...or get into the cat food.

3/10 - 11 months old (almost) - He loves standing up now. Especially when he stand against the door and look outside. Sticks his tongue out a lot too.

3/11 - Trying to get some pictures for his Cookie Monster birthday card but he was sick and wasn't cooperating.

I'll post pictures of his party soon. I'm a little behind with going on vacation then helping out with his party and other daily life stuff. :)

 

 

 

Korben is 1 Today!!!!

My nephew Korben James Harbal is 1 today! I call him Korby though. I picked that nickname up from Dad. LOL So I thought I'd post some pictures of the little guy from birth to now...just because the first year is when they grow so much that it's cool to see a timeline.

Me and Korby.

the Parents.

About a week old. Korby is on the left.

Both the boys. Korben is closest to the camera with the white onesie on.

At mom's birthday. About 3 months old.

Grandma and the two new nephews. Korby is on the left. No they didn't plan to wear green striped shirts.

Wearing Grandpas glasses. LOL

At Grandma's house. 3.5 months old

9/26/11 - A little over 5 months old. He was spinning himself around with his feet at this point.

At a friend's wedding in the Fall. All decked out in a button-up shirt and some suspenders. Too cute.

During the Fall on a picture-taking adventure that Jimmy and I took.

I call this the fish hook pose.

Looks like Jimmy. Chris calls him the clone of Jimmy. LOL

Xmas Eve! 8 months Look at his chompers!

Korby is on the right.

1/31/12 - 9 months old. Still got the chompers.

Right around Valentine's Day - 10 months

10 months and a week - He loves chomping on water bottles. He's got very long eyelashes.

Play Guitar Hero with Uncle Chris (one of his favorites). Here he really looks like Jimmy. He's getting more hair and it's starting to curl just like Jimmy's did. This is during March so close to 11 weeks old.

At the 4-H Pasta Dinner/Fundraiser weraing the batman shirt I bought him for Valentine's day. He's close to 11 months old.

So Jimmy. Starting to thin out and get taller I think.

Wearing my Easter present the other day. He's a little clone of Jimmy. LOL

Project Life 2012: Week 8

Week 8 is here! I kept it fairly simple this week which is good because otherwise I turn a small project into a large project...which is not the point of this project. I just used project waaaaayyyy too many times. LOL

One of things I've done recently to aid me in keeping this project simple is put all of my supplies that relate to this project in a clear 12x12 paper holder. It helps to have everything in the same spot so I don't have to go digging through supplies elsewhere. It really saves time. There's not a greater time suck than digging for a certain supply or just plain going through your stuff.

Supplies that I've put in there include, small letter stickers and rub-ons, paper with lines on it for journalling, small journalling tablets, word and phrase stickers, any kind of rub-on or sticker related to the days of the week or life, as well as some clear stamps that have journalling lines on them and dates/days of the week.

Here is the full album if you'd like to look at all 8 weeks. Project Life 2012. There is also a link on the left-hand side of the blog where you can click on the full album as well.

Well, enough gum-flappin here you go.

I used the 6x6 page protector on the left and the 8-3x3 and 1-6x12 on the right.

I like the large space in the middle on the right because you can break it up any way you want to. That can be helpful...or can make you take more time because you are trying to decide how to use the space. So I only use it when I have a clear and distinct idea that I want to do...otherwise it's another time drain.

Page 1

I broke down the 6x6's to fit each section. Top left is the week embellishment and journalling from part of the week. I really like using the Jillibean Soup day stamps to indicate which day I'm writing about. I think it's nice to have something to break up the monotony of my hand-writing.

On the top right I broke it out using 4 2x3 pictures. By using the 2x3 I didn't lose any of the original image. (Divide 4x6 by 2 and you get 2x3, therefore none of the image is lost).

The bottom left I used one 4x6 and 2 2x3's. I really like that. I also did that for the bottom right as well.

Here's my Week 8 in detail. I used some funky paper...because it had some whirly circles, some bright fun blue and a hint of red since it's still February. I used a heart stamp (can't remember who it is) that had an 8 ball in the corner pocket of the heart (did that on purpose since it was our last scotch doubles pool night this week). I cut out around the stamped image to give it some pop then backed it with bright red and added the white 8 sticker (American Crafts) to the side and outlined it with a red pen. I also bordered the edge with the same red pen to give it some pop.

Jillibean Soup stamps and some journaling. I wrote about those days because the other days are covered in the other journaling.

Date night post. I like using the big title. Seems fun and good way to get the point across fast. :) I also added some phrase stickers along the border because my pictures weren't quite even so now you can't tell.  :)

I used some Doodlebug twine and tied it in the middle of the page. I did this because at first you couldn't see the pictures separately. They looked all jumbled and you lost a focal point. So I split them up with this twine which I thought made it feel warmer to match with the pictures. I had to use a bit of glue to make it stay in one place. I just used a little bit by the knot.

I just wanted to show these three pictures. One was of Jayde eating lunch with me and the other two are, of course, of food. LOL :P

That is a picture of Costa's English Toffee. It's the best. It's so damn good. I always get a piece or maybe two when I go. You know...one for now and one for later.

Page 2: I did the big Happy Birthday in the middle because I went to two parties during the week for Traci and Jimmy. Figured an important event like that needed a big section on it's own.

These two images go together because one is the flowers that Jayde, his Mom and I got for Mom the week before for her surgery. The other is the card Jack made for Grandma. I couldn't fit them in last week so I added them to this week.

I also added this little piggy picture and Jack's hand-writing here because I thought it was a cute addition. I like to show his progression of handwriting and drawing. He's very good at drawing. This isn't the actual drawing. It's a picture of it. I forgot to save the sheet he drew on and I think it had food all over it anyways. LOL

I had to put in this quote that Jayde said the other day because it made me laugh so much. LOL

Had to get this picture of Jacob in. This week he started "helping" whoever was feeding him get the food into his mouth. It was cute.

A new book I bought and a movie I went to. The book is a picture of the corner of one of the pages then I added an image of the book and shrunk it down. J.D. Robb's Celebrity in Death.

Jayde and I went to the Descendants which was excellent. A funny yet poignant movie that made me tear up a couple of times. Heart-wrenching but funny. A good mix. Not sure I would buy it because it was so painful for me to watch (reminded me of Grandma in the hospital) but it was very good.

Broke down the two days into their own journaling.

I used two different types of stickers. The black was American Crafts and the Pink was Making Memories. The cupcake is a stamp. I can't remember who made it though. It's cute though.

Here's a look at the journaling.







 

 

Week in the Life Day 4

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Gracie's Birthday Party! She's 3!

Co-Ed Softball Game 1 vs. Borchard's

So our first game had highs and lows. The low being that we lost like 18-13. It was sad because we were leading for most of the game...until the last inning when they got a ton of hits and we made some errors.

The highlights! Nick hit his first over the fence home-run! It was sweet! Totally sweet! I went out of the dugout to slap his hand. He also had a sweet diving catch out in Center. I was glad because if he missed it I was going to have to run after it and it would have at least been a triple or an in the park homer.

Traci played her first game and had her first hit. I think we screamed and cheered and jumped up and down more than when Nick hit his homer. It was cool. A nice hard bouncing ground ball to third.

I caught a liner out in left and a fly ball. So I didn't mess up. I went 2 for 4 with 2 runs too. I had a couple good line drives out to center and right center. The other two were good hits but people just happened to be where I hit the ball. Dang it! So right now I'm batting .500!

The team we played was good. They weren't hitting as well as I've seen them hit. Seriously. I think it was because Jimmy pitched his very first game and he threw a lot of balls and walked a lot but he did pretty good for his first time out. So basically what I'm saying is that the other team didn't have good pitches to hit which I think helped us out a lot.

Kim, Tom and Chris were gone so we played Traci catching, Jimmy pitching, Jessica on first (new girl-she's really good), Courtney on second (new girl), Alan on short (had a diving catch), Jedi on third (he never played this before), me in left (normal), Nick in Center (did good for not playing in the outfield) and Marsha in right (new girl, they kept drilling her, poor thing)

Easter and Birthdays

My mother tells me I'm a little behind on doing posts....and I am. I haven't taken many pictures lately....just haven't been in the mood but here are some that Mom took. Thought you might like them.

Jack dying his Easter egg blue. He got a huge kick out of it. Of course it helped that he got to do it with Grandpa, his favorite person on the planet.

Kimmie and Thomas (wearing a kermit the frog shirt.) hee hee. Kimmie decided to sponge paint some of her eggs. That was too messy for me. I stuck with Teal and Green for eggs.

Me and Gracie doing eggs. She wanted to have a yellow egg. She was pretty good at checking her egg without making too much of a mess but as you can see...she's 2, she can't always be careful and she's inherited the gift of clutziness from her Auntie Jen. LOL

Grandpa and Gracie eating meatloaf cupcakes. Tasty. It was an April Fool's thing Michelle did. She made food that looked like dessert.

Michelle and Gracie working on her egg. She is waiting patiently, clapping her hands together. (oh and this is a funny story. So one day last week she got into a brawl at daycare with a little boy named Odin, who is 6 months younger than her. Apparently they both like the Work Bench and got into a fight over who was going to play with it. The scratched and bit each other. Gracie comes home a couple days later and holds her hands out and says, "Odin...I bite him." Damn that was cute)

Jimmy and Kelly looking bored.

So that's the end of the Easter pictures. Now here are some pictures from Kelly's Birthday Party at Applebee's

That's me and my boyfriend Jayde.

Here are some pictures from Auntie Shelly and Uncle Tim's birthday at the Bowling Alley. We played bingo while the little kids did bowling with Tim and Dad.

Jamie, Tara and Traci. Nick in the blue.

Thomas, Kimmie and Nick

Me and my Auntie Shelly. :)

Jack was bored so I let him play with a dobber. He had fun marking up old Bingo cards. I was watching him carefully so that he didn't get it all over the table and himself.

Uncle Tim and Auntie Shelly with the brownie cake. It was tasty and quite frankly a nice break from regular cake. 
  
  
  
  
  

 
  
  
 
  
  

Jimmy's Birthday Party

Some pics I took at the big bad bash.

Michelle (sorry it is blurry)

Auntie Sheila in her favorite "gold" short coat...actually it is mustard not gold. That's what I think anyways. I was teasing her about it. :)

Kelly and Jimmy, the birthday boy!

Christles and Gracie...who funny enough actually sat on his lap without too much of a fight. strange...normally she doesn't.

Gracie doing the limp-baby thing. She does that when she wants to get down...you know, where she goes limp so her body weight is heavier and you'll let her go. LOL

Traci and her boy-toy Marc-y pooh. Look at that scruff on his baby face...he's trying to look older but I don't think the hair works...too bad Marc-y.

Little Kimmie trying to smile for the camera. Usually when I take her picture she has some sort of food item in her mouth, at her mouth, on the way to her mouth or on her lap. LOL

Gracie...climbed up on Nick's lap too...not sure what her deal was today but she sat on Chris and Nick's laps which usually she doesn't.

me and the Sandwich (Gracie). She was kind of sick here...which ended up getting me sick becuase she kept kissing me and then putting her finger in her mouth and putting it in mine. The little sh*t. LOL

Jimmy...who blew out his candles and left two burning...two girlfriends...hmm...no wonder we don't see much of you lately...too busy with the two chicks on the side. LOL (I'm totally teasing here!)

Kim and Traci playing the canoe game on the wii...stroke, stroke, stroke!! LOL It was hilarious to watch them go. They got pretty into it and intense.

Gus eye-balling Kimmie's cake plate...you could see it in his black eyes...I want that cake, give me a bite of that cake!