Wednesday, July 25, 2007

We're very very busy and we have a lot to do


It's a crazy week at our house. I have been frantically trying to finish a book before the Friday deadline (almost there, whew), I am getting ready to cohost a mini retreat with some friends this weekend, and I have a couple projects I really need to get done this week. But I couldn't resist doing a little stamping today - the SCS Dirty Dozen Fan Club birthday celebration got under way this morning, with the first four challenges of 36 that will come over the next week. I don't know how much I will get to play, but it's a very fun thing to contemplate!

The card I made was for the toile inspiration challenge. I thought my new Carte Postale set would be perfect. The ink and cardstock are Stampin' Up! not quite navy. I stamped the background first on a white card, then cut the navy panel and mounted the stamped images (cut out with a square punch) with foam dots. I tied the ribbon on next, letting the images overlap slightly. Then I stamped the sentiment on a white scrap. The corners are punched out with a 1/2" circle punch. I inked the sentiment panel's edges and mounted with tape so that it would go under the ribbon. Voila! This was really fun to make and I think I will want to try it in other colors.

The kids are great, and keeping me busy as well. Sarah has become a constant imitator of all of us. Any noise or word or action, she will try to do it. She likes helping put away toys, and she even tries to put Tinker Toys together! She is really trying to say a lot of words. She's been working on "strawberry" and can say "meow" and "bow wow" if you ask her what a kitty/doggy says. Ben is... still 3 1/2. We are hanging in there but he's really in a tough phase. I've finally figured out that giving him choices ("Do you want Mommy to put you to bed or Daddy?") and being silly will usually break his bad tantrum cycles. How did it take me this long to figure it out?

I do have a couple cute Ben stories to share, to show that it's not all bad. He has taken to calling me honey - but only when he's correcting me. Like I said something about his Tinker Toy sticks, and he said, "Those are ropes, honey." (I don't know why they're ropes...) I was telling Todd about this and then he said that Ben had called a cashier at Wal-Mart honey. He didn't believe he'd actually heard that at the time, but after I told him my story he realized he'd been right! And here is some encouraging news. I have long been afraid that my sweet boy would never be interested in doing anything for himself - don't get me started on potty training - and we've also struggled with him eating any kind of food with sauce or seasoning, or foods mixed together (he doesn't eat pizza! gasp!). Today at lunch we were having rosemary chicken and rice pilaf that I picked up at the grocery store, and not only did he eat the chicken, he ate it with a fork some of the time! and he used a spoon for the rice! I was beyond excited. And tonight he ate a bit of rather spicy pork, which had been stir-fried with other stuff and so had sauce on it, and he used the fork and spoon again. Progress always makes me feel better. Now about that potty training... sigh.

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