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Digging, Watching, Reading

Digging
Have you guys seen Groupon yet? I think I'm the last one at that party, but just in case. It's a social deals site where local businesses offer goods and services at a DEEP discount. Today for Denver, they had three portrait sessions and prints for 87% off. They didn't give high-res originals, though, so I didn't bite. Worth a look though.

I also found these cute paperclip tabs at Target yesterday. I only wish they were erasable! Oh well.

Watching
Biggest Loser is over (waaaaah!). I was pleased at the outcome and hope the winner can keep the weight off long-term. It was a really good season. I look forward to it coming back in the fall. Luckily, Losing It with Jillian is on starting NEXT WEEK. She's shaping up flabby families across the country. Sounds like fun.

We went to see Iron Man 2 a couple of weeks ago. I've got to say … meh. RDJ is nice to look at and all, but it was long. And the theatre was cold. And really, I prefer my movies AT HOME. Where I can pause. And run use the bathroom and such. Plus, $20 for both of us??? Seriously?? That's over 2 months of Netflix service or 10 eps of Chuck!! But I will be going to see SATC2 with my mom and sister. Continue reading “Digging, Watching, Reading”

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Monday Night at Our House

So our resident BOY had quite a night last night. We were getting his room cleaned up and his laundry put away when he tripped over Matt’s foot and took a little tumble. No crash, no fireworks, just a few tears. There weren’t many sound effects and he wasn’t even terribly loud with his crying. But he came up gushing blood. As it turns out, he had crashed his lip into his tooth and cut it up pretty good. A bottle of ice cold water and some snuggles helped and he got back to his old self pretty quickly. And hurled a book at me. In joy, to be sure.

DSC_0007Tabby had her own fun going on. She got a new workbook this weekend when we went to Barnes and Noble. It’s for teaching uppercase letters. She is really getting interested in letters and what words start with and identifying letters. We were both really amazed how well she did with tracing letters and she really enjoyed it and did over 15 pages. We’ve got some more workbooks, etc. for her to do when she feels like it. We decided it was time now that she can pick out a few words by sight and knows pretty much everything we’re spelling. We won’t be able to get away with that for Ben for nearly as long. She’ll rat us out.

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The Virtual Race that Wasn’t

I was supposed to run a virtual race this weekend, a 10K. I do enough running that 6.2 miles doesn’t really bother me anymore, and yet, I couldn’t get ‘er done this weekend. See we should’ve done it on Friday. There is absolutely no excuse for not doing it on Friday as intended. Saturday we got up, got our gear on and left the house. We even ran about .75 miles out, but the wind was so hard it was practically blowing us off the road and was, at very least, blowing sand and gravel in our eyes. To add insult to injury, SportyPal crapped out on me and I couldn’t even be sure how far we’d run (I mapped our run when we got back). Nice. Neither of us could face doing the remaining (turns out 4.7) miles on the treadmill, but I was in a pickle. I always do my step and athletic conditioning classes on Sunday and they really take it out of me. Plus, I workout with my sister, which is a commitment I don’t like to back out on. So I figured I’d knock it out on my own during my normal workout time (plus a little) on Monday morning.

That pile of clothes is the closest I got. Ben, who is finally to the point where he sleeps through the night consistently, was on some kind of crazy schedule yesterday. He had a three-hour morning nap at 11 AM. Then he went to bed at 6 PM (and only that late because we kept him up, trying to get him to eat). Then at about 3:30 he was ready to roll. We, on the other hand, were not. I also went to bed extra late since I spent an extra THRITY minutes trying to find my mp3 player when I was already up too late. So when I, in a zombie-like stupor, hit the “snooze” button this morning to buy myself a paltry 5 minutes, I actually turned off my alarm. Sweet! Missed my run and was almost late leaving for work.

Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays.

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Birthday Boy

We spent Ben’s official b’day in Nashville with our family there. He had a great celebration with the gang there, complete with presents and balloons and gifts. But since Tabby had an official birthday party here, we thought we’d do one for Ben too. Owing to this that and the other thing, we had to postpone it until this weekend.

My parents generously agreed to let us use their house (ours is kind of small) and some of our nearest and dearest gathered to wish Ben a Happy Birthday. I had a great time putting together an invitation and slide show, but the week sort of got away from me and I could not do much in the way of decorations. I also phoned in the cake … to Whole Foods (but if you’ve ever had their Berry Chantilly cake – and I hope you have – then you know it was no sacrifice).

We put together a taco bar, complete with guacamole, chicken, beef, rice, beans and fixins and a bunch of fruit salad (the birthday boy’s favorite). Dad mixed up a bunch of margaritas. We got gorgeous (if slightly windy) weather and got to enjoy my parents’ deck.

We made burritos, sang Happy Birthday, watched Ben’s slide show, ate cake and opened presents. It was a lot of fun and it was lovely to see everyone and celebrate Ben’s first year. The birthday boy had a banner day. He was allowed to run amok and eat gobs of fruit and then some cake. He also tried to put out his candle with his fingers, but as I am now a seasoned-pro at this mom thing, he was thwarted. He wasn’t much interested in his presents, until they were open (Tabby was happy to help) and everyone was very generous.

The little guy lived it up and crashed early in his bed at Grammy’s house. He’s still still a bit behind on sleep today.

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Around the House Part 3: The Basement

Welcome to our basement. My name’s Jess and I’ll be your tour guide. This remodel project was undertaken with a few goals in mind, #1 to make a new office space for Matt – he had been displaced when Ben moved from the pack and play to his crib to a small area off our master bedroom, #2 to give our kids an area all their own to play, #3 to create a workshop for Matt where the sawdust is somewhat contained.

When you come down the stairs, you see two two big pieces of the project. The carpet, which I love, was about the last thing done. We went through many samples because everything we like had been discontinued! The stairs used to have a solid wall going down the center and that is difficult on Matt getting 4×8′ sheets of whatever to his shop, so he (and cousin Ryan) knocked out the wall and put up this removable banister. It still needs a bit of stain and trim work, but it is functional.

If you look to the left, you see the kids playroom (and also Loki’s dogfood container). It is about the size of a small bedroom and has a closet, so a future owner could use it in this manner. We wanted a place for adults to sit (the college futon lives on – new cover, though!) and the kids too (hello Ikea table & chairs!) and plenty of storage – those shelves and baskets are from Target.

We have two pieces of artwork for this room. One is a conventional size and was easily framed. The other is not and we are slowly buying up a custom frames here and there so we don’t get hit with a $1000 framing bill (I’m not even kidding).

The kids love this room. Tabby knows where all her stuff is kept and is great about putting it back. The carpet is low-pile enough to have push-vehicles on. I like being able to shut the mess away and also having an entire room that is stuff just for the kids. Matt wants to add a TV and/or computer. I think we can wait a while. Continue reading “Around the House Part 3: The Basement”

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Around the House Part 2: Small Projects

Matt had a stated goal that six months after our contractor finished (around Jan 15) that he wanted to have all of the follow-up projects done. It’s a seemingly easy task, but really a lot of work!! The #1 thing we needed to do was get our storage situation taken care of – our garage and Matt’s shop were (are) over run with the extra stuff from the basement. We got rid of a TON of it, but sporting goods, baby stuff (I’ve even gotten rid of a lot of that), mementos and seasonal stuff remains.

We decided to install hanging shelves in our garage. Our garage has like 12′ ceilings or taller, so Matt found these AWESOME shelving systems that you mount on the ceiling and then winch up/down using a crank or a drill attached to a crank.

Installing them wasn’t simple and I wasn’t able to help since I am 5’0″ and terrible on ladders besides, but the effect is awesome and we’ve gotten so much storage from them. Continue reading “Around the House Part 2: Small Projects”

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Around the House Part 1: Views

So I got to thinking that we’ve been doing lots of this and that around the house and I have not been updating you on it. In fact, I still owe you, my readers, some photos of our finished basement. I was waiting on the finishing touches, some of which have happened, some of which have not and I’m sick of waiting. It’s all a work in progress anyway, right?

So this week in celebration of the new look around here (the blog – did you see, it’s pink now), I’ll share with you what we’ve been doing to the house and (maybe) what we’re up to next.

I strive for our house to be neat and presentable as much of the time as possible. I am not a neat-freak, but I enjoy our house more when it is uncluttered and put-together. That is no small task with the kiddos, but I fancy myself that we do an OK job. Most weeks. One thing I love, though, is finding a room that is otherwise very “adult” and having a small bit of “kid” in the middle of it. Like this coloring setup on our dining room table (we don’t have a kitchen table). It makes me smile.

DSC_0242Another view of our dining room (click for full), reveals a slightly different story, with a few more “we have kids!” touches – some children’s artwork, a Lady and the Tramp Print (that we had pre kids) and Ben’s high chair. Continue reading “Around the House Part 1: Views”

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Cloudy with a Chance

It is a lovely grey day here in the Mile High City. We don't get a ton of them so I try not to mind them too much when they do come along. Yesterday (well this whole week, really) was grey as well and I was grumpy, but today I'm at peace with it.

I received my copy of Adobe Creative Suite Web CS4 yesterday (don't ask how much THAT cost). I ordered it on Tuesday and was shocked when Matt told me it showed up on my doorstep around 11 yesterday. I've been limping along with Photoshop 7 and an ancient copies of Dreamweaver and Fireworks and it is so nice to have programs that are CURRENT.

Speaking of current (and web design), I am in the midst of a redesign to the site. I think it is going pretty well. It's been almost 3 years since the last go, so it was time. Though as I updated my “about” page to reflect life now and then, it kind of shocked me how much things have changed in three short years. Tabby is no longer a chubby baby, but a long-legged big girl. *sigh* At any rate it is going well and you can see a sneak peek here. I considered purple as well … whatcha think?

Maybe I'll be back again with more to say… and maybe not. In any case, have a happy weekend.

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Around the Web in 3 Min (or longer if you read slowly)

The things that have caught my eye in the past couple of weeks … a complete list of my shared items is, as always, here.

• trade in unwanted gift cards or buy fresh ones cheaper than face value at Gift Card Rescue
• XKCD recently did a very interesting (and funny) survey on color and people's perception of it and names for it
• this one was a LOL for me: fun with identity verification “secret questions”
• a nice post about finding your online running community
• Romp.Com might just be my new favorite online store … check out the blank board books and the glitter letters
• cool hack for drilling upwards without mess
• 12 things you can do with your microwave
• the web has now brought us a service that endures musical hold for us … oh internet, what CAN'T you do?
• unusual, cool, foldable, reusable water bottles and a good deal cheaper than those SIGG ones
• love the idea for these personalized cookies – many possibilities
• Matt and I are turning (*gulp*) 30 this year, but a Great Gatsby Birthday Picnic might just take the sting out of it!!
• oh the cuteness: hobbit doll house
• from hipster to hippie, tee-he-he
• beautiful felt dahlia corsage, for Mother's day or any day
• Say it ain't so!!!
• Maragarita Cupcakes, need I say more?