Favorite Sesame Street Memories

With Sesame Street getting ready to celebrate it's 40th anniversary in the next week, I thought I'd relive some of my favorite Sesame Street memories from my childhood! I really credit my love of learning in part to watching Sesame Street every morning while waiting to go to daycare and preschool. I hope you enjoy!

Ahhh, first off, The Ladybug Picnic . . . I loved this. I loved the ladybugs, I loved the idea of a picnic, and I almost think I loved the counting too!

A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter . . . a sesame street idea on helping kids with their memory. I wish this one had stuck a little more, but I do use this method with my kids, as well as backtracking to help them with theirs!

Red Balls 1, 2, 3 . . . watching those balls go through their little roller coaster ride was very entransing. I could watch it for hours . . . the fact that the balls ended up being cherries in a float was just that much better!

How to Make Crayons: ahh, I love a good box of brand new crayons, and my favorite part in this was watching one color get joined with all the others and placed into that box. Isn't it interesting to see all of the people working in the factory when everything these days is so automated; and they look so happy working in there too!

And . . . . drumroll please . . .

my favorite all-time Sesame Street Memory, the one that just made me laugh every time I watched it (and still does to this day) is C is for Cookie by Cookie Monster!

Thanks for following my walk down memory lane in honor of Sesame Street! Do you have a favorite Sesame Street memory that you'd like to share?

Little Treasure

THIS was the sweetest thing that my son has done for my darling daughter in a LOOOONNNGGG time! I don't know if you can read the note he wrote but it says: for kristen from matthew I hope you like this. You see, his sister, for the first time ever, decided that she would give up trick-or-treating this year for the love of Florida football. The Florida-Georgia football game was Saturday and didn't get over until 7, and therefore, she wouldn't be home until close to 9. Now, a few things you have to understand before you can really appreciate this story is that a) matthew has a major sweet tooth and can never get enough candy, b) these two are 8 years apart and at odds over EVERYTHING, and c) he doesn't like the Florida Gators (at all. I think it's how he's rebellious . . . trying to ruffle feathers in the family and really bug his father) . . . At any rate, what you see there are four bags of candy that, when Matthew came in from trick or treating, specifically set aside for his sister for when she came home. He asked first if she liked it and then if she could eat it (b/c of her braces) and then he'd bag it if it was cleared. It was so stinkin' cute! Just another reminder that I am doing something right, even on days where it seems like my kids just want to test their boundaries and I'm exhausted to no end. I have these little treasures that brighten my day and remind me that it's all worth it.

Blogging for Scrapbookers, anyone?

I've decided to take this online class, taught by Shimelle Laine, to hopefully perk up my blogging (and actually give me a reason to come by and get in the habit of posting)! I'm sure all of my readers, both old and new, would appreciate that! Which, btw, through the class, there's a whole lot of new traffic I may be getting, so I want to take a minute to say HELLO to all of my new readers! I hope you'll stop by often, and comment on things you like.

My goals for this class: I may not get a post in EVERY day, but hopefully several times a week. I also want to fit it into my already very busy life, which concerns me because I've already spent way too much time today on Shimelle's forums chatting and blog-hopping to all my classmates blogs (yikes!). I also hope to incorporate this blog for more than recording the "big things" but also little snippets of everyday life that I don't want to forget - in order to incorporate those thngs into my scrapbooks more frequently. Another goal is to start including more photos in my posts . . . I admit, while I take pictures, I only upload to the computer every week or so, and then forget about bringing them into blogger . . . Keep your fingers crossed, because I know posts are more fun with pictures and not just a bunch of words!

Anyhow, if you'd like to join me (maybe you wouldn't mind improving some of the very things I mentioned above) why don't you run quick over to Shimelle's website and sign up! It's only $15 USD and it's been so informative thus far . . . I've made quick friends with my google reader and next button! :-)

In other scrappy news:

I finished a LayOut A Day challenge with Lain - with 100% success nonetheless! I'm pretty impressed. While I knew I could do it (I did it in January 2008 as well), I was amazed that I could do it during the day, fitting in all of my other responsibilities and not leave it until after 11 pm. This made me very happy!

I also won a random drawing contest at ella publishing for submitting this layout based on using the title "I love your smile." I know, I know - it was a random drawing, but I still think this is one of my favorite layouts I've done in the last month. I was channeling my inner Cathy Zielske with her clean linear design and basic neutral background. I also have NEVER won anything in a contest (or drawing) before - EVER - so I was pretty excited. I won a pair of LittleMissMatched socks as a runner-up! Okay, if you've never heard of these socks before, go NOW to this site and check them out! Their colors and patterns have always made me happy, and I was lucky enough to get a pair of flip flops from them this past spring, but I've never splurged on their socks before - so I'm super-uber excited!! Thanks Ella ladies!!

Hope everyone's having a fabulous day! :-)

Backyard Neighbor

Here's our big bad "neighbor" that lives in the pond behind our house. I mentioned one day how I wish I didn't have curious kids with an all too friendly curious alligator, and the other day I grabbed this shot wen he was out sunning - one day when the weather was cooling off last week. While I don't mind him at this point, because he hasn't gotten close enough, we're watchful . . . as he doesn't seem very afraid of us. In fact, he likes the idea of coming up while we're feeding the fish, so we don't get to do that often. I'd say he's pretty close to four feet. Anyone want to come and visit? Maybe catch a gator?

One-Photo Layouts

I don't know what happened to my scrappin' style since LOAD started, but I've just realized when looking over my most recent layouts that I've really been doing a LOT of one-photo layouts. On the message board of our LOAD group, someone had asked about what criteria we use when we decide to do a one-photo layout vs. a multi-photo layout . . . and until that question, I never stopped to realize it.

Before I go any further, let me share with you several of the layouts I've completed for LOAD since my last layout posts. By no means is this all of them (I had worked on my 30 Days Hath September album from Sept. 08 as well as a few layouts from Ali's Yesterday+Today class that I'm not sharing at this point) but they are the ones that have had no real "predetermined" class or layout. The ones I sat down at my scrap table, browsed through some storage binders or category drawers and said "ah-ha, this one has a story behind it!"

 So, what I realize when looking at all these layouts is that a) I could tell the story with just one photo . . . and b) I didn't want to mess with trying to manipulate 8 photos of an event to fit on a 2 page spread and have it look pretty. During this challenge, I'm all about getting photos scrapped that I can work on in less than 30 minutes, AND that have a story to tell. Quite honestly, part of it is that I'm kind of out of that "event-based scrapbooking" right now that tends to lend itself to multi-photo layouts . . . those events that you have to cover hours (or days) of activities - Christmas layouts, birthday layouts, vacation layouts . . . just not where I'm at.

Seriously, it's part of the beauty of having a Library of Memories. Some of these photos are from 2002, some from 2004, and some from 2009. They'll be put in my albums in various locations to help tell a complete story of my thoughts, and my children's likes/dislikes/desires, from an at that moment perspective. I'm sure my future grandchild in 30 or 40 years will love looking back at my daughter's iPod playlist - maybe searching and re-discovering old favorites? And what about my daughter's desire right now to be the first female President of the US? I'm sure she'll laugh back at it in 20 years and say Oh yeah, I DID want to do that, didn't I? (Okay, the LOAD layout is for me, for a reminder of an accomplishment that I did of a hobby I enjoy doing!)

So, my long-winded point here? I use the number of photos I feel I have (and need) in order to tell the story. I had a lot I wanted to say in some of these (and honestly, I'm not into hidden journaling if I don't truly feel like I don't want to have those thoughts in the open). I've stopped making journaling be an afterthought on my layouts and so I make room for it. Does that make any sense or am I just rambling in my exhaustion tonight? I'm signing off for now. If that made any sense, do you seem to do the same, or do you have a formula for how to choose single vs. multi-photo layouts? I'd love to know!

Monday Check-in!

So, how'd you do? Did you accomplish a lot? I'm amazed at all I (and my family) got done, but I paid myself for it with moving slowly today! (Somehow I don't think that's the way it's supposed to work.)

So, what I got done this weekend:

• bought pumpkins (one for M's class, one for each of the kids, and one for our family carving)
• carved pumpkin
• cleaned bathrooms (at least the toilet and sink and floor - no one ever uses that tub so I skipped it this week)
• vacuumed floors
• decorations out - but I'm not really happy with them. They look pretty wimpy in our front lawn . . . they'll work for this year, but we need a serious makeover for next Halloween.
• laundry was done and put away
• we didn't get a box unpacked, but we did get the corner units moved to the garage.

We also made time for breakfast Sunday morning at Dunkin' Donuts, along with some park time for the boys while Kristen went to a friends house. We also had my inlaws up Saturday late morning after we got our pumpkin and they stayed until it was time for football. Hubby also took L to get a haircut, AND we still watched football. Gators won! Whoo hoo!!

Finish It Friday

Aby Garvey over at Creative Organizing does a Finish It Friday on her blog for what she's setting out to accomplish in the coming weekend . . .  we tend to get more done with goals in mind after all. I thought I'd share my list of "to-dos" this weekend of things I need to finish.

1. finish cleaning the house (one bathroom to go and vacuuming the carpets)
2. finish decorating for halloween (the new decorations I picked up the other day, plus the ceramic ghosts I made with my mom when I was a child - need to find them in the holiday boxes from the move)
3. finish the laundry - this includes folding what's in the dryer, putting that away, and washing the remaining load).
4. finish unpacking one box and take the side entertainment center pieces to the garage.
5. buy a pumpkin and get it carved . . .

sigh, it's been tough going this week to get anything done. I had two sick kids home on Monday, one sick kid home on Tuesday, and then today was a Planning day for the teachers, so no school yet again. It's been tough to get into my normal routine and I didn't walk at all this week . . . :-(