i make things

Family Get Together: Why? 'Cuz Dad's Home!

DAD's HOME!!!!

So we gathered together at home. All of the kiddos were there and most of the children...Nick wasn't. He fixes ag equipment so he's out in the field (it's Harvest time in MN and everyone is either finishing up their beans or starting corn.)

It's hard getting everyone happy at once. There's always someone smiling, someone crying, someone pouting, someone looking the other way and someone making a face.

These two love this kid. Grace because she loves babies and Jacob because it's his brother.

Ashton wasn't too thrilled.

This little cutie patootie smiles the most for her Daddy.

I call him Squirt-o. No reason really it's just a nickname. There's no back story on that one.

He looks somber now but you should have seen his excitement at Grandma's motion-activated spider that drops from the ceiling when you get close enough. He squealed with delight.

This kiddo should be wearing a shirt that says, "I army crawl for food."

Plaid groupies. I wonder if they planned that?

'

Smooches from Grandma.

PILLOW FIGHT!

Break time from fighting for popsicles.

 

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.

 

Around Here: Babies and Flowers

Around here:

Watching my flowers and niece grow. :)

Roses blooming consistently

Lily's still coming.

This beauty finally popped out.

These day lily's bloomed once and are getting ready to bloom again.

My petunias are getting fuller and growing longer.

This is my niece Clara. She wasn't too happy at this moment. Daddy just dropped her off. She loves Daddy so you can imagine the crying that ensued....it only lasted a moment though. I kept her busy with new things.

See the cute little curlies she has. Her Daddy had that when he was little...until Dad trimmed his hair. :{

She's thinking about being happy at this point.

Her little toesies. She doesn't mind sitting out in the grass and playing.

Father's Day 2015: The Harbal Family

Father's Day! All about celebrating Dad. I got lucky this year. Dad wasn't working so he was home. I got to see him. YEAH!

Sunday morning I asked Dad to meet me at the Straight River Farm to pick strawberries. He was pretty excited. He had been wanting to go for awhile.

Figured what better way to spend a little quality time with my Dad than picking strawberries (p.s. I paid for his because he's my Dad and I love him.)

This is my Dad. He's never minded getting down and dirty.

This is one of his boxes of berries. Between the two of us we gathered over 28 pounds of delicious berries. That's 4 boxes.

Here he is with his last box of delicious berries. He picked some for freezing and just eating. I'm pretty sure he ate a few while we were picking.

It's funny because Dad picks faster than I do but then again I'm a little more particular than he is. I won't pick them unless they are ripe. If they are slightly under or over I won't pick them. I want to get my monies worth. Plus I go home and turn them into jam and freeze them right away.

mmmm.....Strawberries.

Pretty sure each and every one of my nieces and nephews has loved strawberries and could eat a pound all by themselves. Not kidding. They could just sit with that pound in their lap and eat until everything was gone. LOL

After the picking and chatting was done we went our separate ways. Dad to freeze and me to can.

All of us got together as a family for dinner (or supper depending on your interpretation of the word. I say lunch and dinner others say dinner and supper)

This is Dad aka Gramps aka Papa aka Grandpa aka Grampa depending on the age of the kid hollaring at him.

He loves to give lawnmower rides. The kids go nuts for it. He likes to swerve, drive fast, go up and down the ditches.

Most of the time they are yelling at him, "Go faster Grandpa! Go faster!"

These four are diehards. They have been getting rides from both me and Grandpa for years. They beg and kind of plead for rides. (Korby, Jacob, Jack and Grace) They'd go all day in that wagon.

Here's the whole brood. Ashton (orange stripe) he's not sure whether he likes it or not. He doesn't cry or anything but he doesn't look happy.

Clara (little pony tail sprout) doesn't ride 'cuz she's too small yet. But she was sure happy sitting in there.

Lucas didn't ride either 'cuz he's way too small (a little over 6 months). His brother just got to hold him. (Jacob)

Love the look on Jack's face. :)

Okay after awhile it was time to eat so we had to listen to the whining and crying and pleading again. It was more humorous than anything. It only takes about a minute or two then they start stuffing their mouths with food and it's blissfully silent...for another moment. LOL

Look at this cutie patootie. She's my 2nd niece and goddaughter. This was the first time I saw her with her cute little pony. She hasn't had enough hair until now. I can't wait for pigtails.

This butterball is my newest and 4th nephew Lucas. He's so happy and fat. That's what I tell his mother. She just shakes her head at me. Bruce is holding him because these two were born on the same day and their bald so naturally I need to get a picture of that.

This is Gracer (Grace) and Clara. Grace loves herding these kids. She's taken on the role of leader of the pack. She is the ring-leader in most of their mischief and noise-making. She chases them around and screams and they laugh and scream too.

This is Dad again. We bought him a man crate for father's day. It was pretty cool. Full of bacon-flavored things like bacon-flavored beef jerky, popcorn, sunflower seeds, peanut brittle (yes you read that right. bacon flavored peanut brittle) and even some pork belly seasoning.

It comes with it's own metal crowbar. Pretty freakin' sweet dontcha think? Oh I think so.

He loved that. Pretty sure he polished off the bacon-flavored popcorn in about 10 minutes.

This is Dad's brood. gaggle. herd. pack. family. whatever. :)

Left to right: Angi, Ashton, Nick, Karen, Chris, Korby, Jimmy, Dad, Kelly, Kimmie, Lucas and Jacob, Thomas, Jack, me, Grace, Clara, Bruce, Guy and Michelle

This was the best pic I could get. There's always someone talking or messing around or won't cooperate. I just told Mom to keep snapping and one of them would have the majority of us looking at the camera.

My Dad and his Children:

BackRow: Nicky, Jimmy, Kimmy

Front Row: Chrissy, Dad, Jen, Mitchelley

Do we look alike?

How about now?

 

Dad and the grandkids. Korby didn't want to cooperate AT ALL (orange). So he sat in the back and cried. Not sure why he didn't want to sit by Grandpa. We'll never know. Okay. Moving on. :)

Jack, Ashton, Gramps, Lucas, Jacob, Grace and Clara.

This is like the picture of faces. Here's what I think they could be saying/thinking.

Jack: Ashton what are you doing?

Ashton: Dad why am I sitting here with my sippy cup?

Dad: Woooooaaaaahhhh

Lucas: Help!

Jacob: The stare of death.

Grace: Heeeeeeeyyyyyyyy

Clara: What are we doing?

Korby: Don't look at me?

Let's try one more...well, most of them are smiling and sort of looking at the camera. Eh. Good enough. :) If they were sitting there are prim and proper looking straight at the camera I'd say, "Who are you and what have you done with my nieces and nephews. Give them back!"

My niece and nephew Jack and Grace with their Dad. Who is my brother in law and is now rivaling my other brother-in-law for the whitest legs.

I should start a contest. The winner gets some free tanning sessions? or fake tanning spray?

Ashton at MOA

I babysat Ashton on Saturday (Apr 18th) for pretty much a half a day.

He was a complete joy! Happy, fun, playful, talkative, engaging, interested. He was so much fun.

I was so excited to get the chance to watch him. Usually I can't because I don't respond quick enough to the text from Nick or I have something going on, or someone closer watches him. (He has babysitters that are literally 5 minutes away and I'm more like 30 minutes)

I decided instead of sitting at home that I would take him to the Mall of America to check out the Sea Life Aquarium and do a little shopping. I thought he'd get a kick out of all the fishies.

He was excited even before we got in to see the fishies.

He LOVED the jellfish. I pushed him right up against the glass tubes and he could reach over in his stroller and touch the glass so it was like he was touching the fish.

He'd reach over and touch one and then look at me and smile. Then he'd talk baby to me about it. It was precious.

He thought the crabs were neat. I encouraged him to say crab. He tried but it was more like "cab" instead of "crab". He's little though.

I thought this purplish/blackish seahorse was cool.

This trip was fun for me too. I love aquariums.

They didn't move as much as the jellyfish so he wasn't as interested in them.

Often times he'd just stare away at the fishies swimming by. The sea tunnel was the coolest because fish were surrounding you from side to side and even above your head.

I pointed out the shark swimming above and he'd throw his head back and point and babble on about it.

da dum, da dum, dum I had a very "Jaws-like" moment seeing that shark swim right above my head.

The bottom-feeding shark, that's what I called it, was weird looking. When it swam over the top it look like a real mouth talking to you.

We Love You! smoochie smoochie smoochie

Fish lips! After I saw these two fish "kissing" I tried to teach Ashton how to do fish lips. He couldn't quite get the hang of it but he sure loved watching me do it.

Cool blue frogs. The colors were incredible. How does a blue frog hide on a tree stump?

Happy as a clam he was.

I picked him up and pressed him against the glass to see the evil eye of the gator poking out of the water.

I'm watching you.

"Just a bite!" - think Finding Nemo. Just a morsel.

Me and the squirt. Who wasn't sure what I was doing grabbing him and telling him to look at the camera for a picture.

Those eyes get me. Such a rich chocolate brown color and he just stares into you like he can see and understand your inner workings. He's been like this since he was little.

aaaaaand...he's a little stinker. Likes to smile and flirt with the ladies. In the shoe store he smile at all the passerby's and they'd say, "What a cute kid." He just ate that up.

We had a really good day. He napped on the way up so he was ready to go.

We probably spent a good 1 or 2 in the aquarium. Then got a chocolate covered strawberry which he absolutely devoured; both the chocolate and the strawberry.

Walked around and hit my favorite stores: DSW, Barnes & Noble (bought him a fun noisy moving turtle pull-toy, cuz I'm an aunt and can spoil him.), Lush, Loft, Ann Taylor and Victoria's Secret.

Stopped for Mac 'n Cheese at Noodles & Co. He didn't want any part of that so he ate some goldfish instead.

We splurged on Coldstone later on he kept wanting more and more. He'd open his mouth and I'd put the spoon in and rattle it up and down on his teeth. He just squealed with laughter...and I did too because it was hilarious and cute.

I kept him entertained a lot of the time. Pushing the stroller around back and forth, making noises, singing and doing the actions to little red caboose (girl scout camp song), talking to him, trying to teach him new words like "ready, set, go" which turned into me saying "ready, set" and him saying, "go" and thrusting his arm in the air.

Funny story. While I was in VS his daddy called wondering where we were. "I'm in VS with your son. bahahaha!"

He's so darn cute. And playful. and Fun. I Love him.

It was a really good day!

 

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.

 

 

 

the Nephews are Visiting!

I had a planned visit from the Gwins a couple weeks ago. It's always fun when my nieces and nephews (and you too Kimmie!) come over to visit. In this case it was 2 nephews, Jacob and Lucas.

Usually when I get visitors I like to cook for them. In this case I went all out, ham, potatoes/carrots/onion hobo stew and ice cream. It's a tasty meal and one of Bruce and I's favorite.

 

Jacob is the bigger one and the little one is Lucas. Aren't they too cute?

Jacob, lately, has been into holding Lucas. He's 4 so that usually lasts about 2 minutes. Plus we like to keep an eye on him as he forgets he's holding a 5 month-old and Lucas would slip right out of his grib at any moment.

I just want to smooch both of them. Lucas and his fat cheekies and Jacob with his infectious smile. These kids will never grow up with a complex that they weren't hugged and kissed enough. LOL

You can see Lucas starting to slide right down Jacob. It was funny. Lucas's face just says, "Help...ppppppplease help." (think Piglet p-p-p-p-p-please)

Lucas made it all the way down because Jacob has lost interest. p.s. Lucas is called the tank, he's heavy duty with roly poly-hamhock-michelin thighs. Damn it's cute.

Jacob getting the "treatment" from Bruce. Jacob likes rough-housing...and to tell you the truth, Bruce does too, although I don't know if he'd admit it or not.

At one point Bruce and I ganged up on Jacob and gave him a "pretend swirly." Bruce put his head near the toilet and I flushed it...without Jacob's head actually in the toilet. Jacob laughed and laughed....and so did we.

Jacob got an ice cream cone because he finally finished his meal. It took us about 15 minutes to get him to eat it. 4 year-olds...the little stinkers.

He kept telling Bruce, "I want a big one!" So he got the two-scooper and danged if Jacob didn't finish it.

Jacob loves his ice cream. He definitely does.

 

An unexpected surprise!

One sunday afternoon I got a random text from my brother, "Hey can we come over to visit?" "Sure, I said."

So I got to see my niece Clara and my nephew Korben for a couple hours. I don't get to see them as much as I would like because either they are at one grandma's or another.So it was a pleasant surprise.

Clara is totally a daddy's girl. She loves her daddy and he loves her. They are such a cute pair. Ever since she was born my brother has taken to her. I don't know if it's sisterly love on my part but it warms my heart when my brother's are so into kids. All of my brother's are. It's truly special.

This is one of the few smiles I got from Clara today. She was having a rough day today. I think it was a combination of getting over a cold, teething and being in a new place she wasn't familiar with. She cried quite a bit today. Just a look would set her off. I felt kind of bad because I didn't know what to do. I said to my brother, "Is she always like this??" He just shook his head. So I took what I could get and what I got was pretty dang good.

Korben definitely did NOT want his picture taken today. He was being a stinker. So I took this picture anyway cause it made me laugh.

I was playing with Clara on the floor and I look over and Korby was playing with the Transformers on the floor doing the splits. I hadn't seen that before so I snapped this pic. Anybody else have little boys that do this?

December Daily | Day 22 | Minion Cookie Help

Day 22. In the home stretch. Almost done. Yeah, I know these posts are extremely late but hey, better late than never right. I always figure as long as I get them done it's a win. Even if I'm late getting to it, I documented my life. It doesn't matter that it took me a couple months. I did it. Score 1 for me.

I gotta say, this one isn't my favorite. It has a lot of pictures I wanted to put but I just didn't find what I needed like in the last couple of days.

but, that being said, it's okay. I documented it and realistically I can't come up with lovable pages every single time so I'm rolling with this one in hopes that the next one is awesome. Plus, I documented it. Score 1 for me.

Page 1: All about the kiddos coming over to help me make Christmas cookies. The one cookie that they love to eat and love to help make and it doesn't take long. Perfect trifecta for the kiddos.

They are called "Pretzel Huggy Goodness" (I just made that up.) I'm not sure what they are really called. A friend of mine calls them Reindeer n*pples and I haven't heard anything else so that's what I'm going to call them.

This page is super busy. All pics which is fine. None of them I wanted to leave out so I added thick borders in between each picture to at least get some definition.

Tis the Season is from Ali's Dec Daily Kit. The heart is from Ali's Digital "gatherings" story stamp kit.

While this layout is pretty crazy I still love that I have all of these different pictures in it: me hugging Jack, my sister sitting on the couch with the kiddos, the kiddos watching the dessert baking, the kiddos helping me make them. All of it I wanted to put on there and I did.

Here's the right side of the page.

This is a little less crazy because of the journalling. I used a 3x4 card from Ali's kit and typed my story of the day using the Remington Noiseless font.

In retrospect...being a monday morning quarterback...I should have added a title or something just to give it a better focal point. BUT...I say but a lot...well, I do, anyway, it's done and over. I've documented this. YEAH!

Top of the card.

Bottom of the card.

I hope you enjoyed this post and please come back to my blog soon.

As always if you have any questions or comments please leave them below. I LOVE COMMENTS!

Have a great day!

 

December Daily | Day 17 | Dance Recital

 December Daily - Day 17 - Grace's Christmas Dance Recital

I FINALLY had a really good reason to use all of the pink in my stash. Woot woot! All of this pink paper and stars are from the Ali Edwards December Daily Kit from 2014.

Granted my niece Grace is wearing purple but purple and pink go together like peanut butter and jelly so I figure it's all good.

 The entire layout. I had fun with this one. Did some different things I don't normally do. I'll get to all that below but looking at this page I will say I used the visual triangle again to connect the two pages.

Visual Triangle: Stars on the top left (#17), a star on the bottom right picture of Grace twirling and a star within a circle on the right page in the layout.

It's one of my favorite design techniques. I like how it can draw the eye across a layout so even if you have a lot going on but make sure to have the obvious "triangle" it'll help keep your layout cohesive.

I had a hard time deciding which pictures of Grace I wanted to post because, and trust me on this, there were A LOT. Most of the time when I photograph her dance recital I just sit there watching her through the lens of my camera snapping away hoping I get something good.

You just never know what she's going to do. What's going to look fun. What will look cute. etc.

 For the day 17  I used two pieces of paper. One had the little thin  stars on it. I used that as a background and cut out a circle (which I used on the bottom half of the layout) and then stapled a plastic star in there to fill up the space. The 17 are silver thickers from American Crafts.I put the 17 on a punched out circle on pop dots.

I liked the 3 different levels represented; recessed, flat and raised.

The picture of Grace was just her posing for me. I needed to have just one where she wasn't moving.

 This picture is my favorite. She's biting her lip, twirling, her skirt is moving, legs crossed...it's so cute. I added a pink gradient on the bottom of the picture using Photoshop Elements. I thought it would match nicely with the pink theme of the layout...and let's be honest, cuz I just learned the gradient trick and have been desperate to try it out. This picture definitely fit the bill.

The font is Remington Noiseless in Dark gray. The December is a plastic piece from Ali's kit (mentioned&linked above) stapled with my tiny attacher from Tim Holz.

 I used a circle punch on the star paper to get this attachment. It served two purposes; one of which I didn't even realize. 1. to cover up the little girl (who I don't know and didn't have permission to post a picture of) and 2. to complete my visual triangle.

 This is my contact sheet. I thought it was a good way to include all those pictures that I loved but just couldn't justify as a main picture to blow up to 3x4.

I have a Canon Pixma printer and as part of the printing capabilities you can make a contact sheet. All I had to do was pick out the pictures I wanted then print it out. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. :)

I made this embellishment using a circle punch of a piece of the pink paper, a smaller circle punch of white paper, a pink plastic star from Ali and the chipboard "make merry" sticker.

Thank you for reading this post. If you have any questions or comments please post below. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have on this layout or the processes behind it.

Have a great day!