Been so busy!

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while! Somehow I have managed to loose most of my free time this week! The kiddos haven't being going to sleep till after midnight, which eats up a large chunk of my alone time! I've  just been so tired by that I point, I just pass out! I feel like I've been living on coffee this past week. At least the hubby and I swithced "rooms", meaning I get to sleep in the bed with the babies, and he sleeps on the couch. We went shopping this week and got a portable DVD player for Aeryn. Hubby was tired of not having a TV or computer to play with, since I generally have the computer, and Aeryn is a TV hog! LOL. ( I also got a sweet new laptop out of the deal) But since Aeryn has the DVD player, she takes it upstairs and curls up on a pallet in the floor and watches Toy Story 3 till she passes out. I know I'm a horrible parent, but I just get so tired of fighting with her over bed time, so whatever keeps her occupied till she is ready to sleep is fine with me! And with the new laptop, I'm finally portable, so I can take it upstairs as well. The only downside really has been that little Mary-Anne still wants constant attention up into the wee hours of the morning, so all my late night computer time is limited to when I get an arm free from her.....lol.

I'm loving the new laptop, and have been playing around with getting all my files reorganized. On the old laptop I had been using the photo organizer that came with Photoshop Elements, but it completely crashes 100 times on this Windows 7 machine, so it just isn't feasible. Unfortunately, it also means my organization system needs to be redone. Which is time consuming! But once I get it all "fixed", it will be a much more effortless system to maintain. Windows Live Gallery is a pretty effective organizer and editing program. I've also realized how more effective it is to save my layouts in .TIFF format instead of .PSDS, so I've been trying to convert those too. I know, I'm OCD, and should really stick to one project at a time! PLUS I keep getting side tracked by challenges and such in digiland I want to participate in, so I have to squeeze in some scrapping time as well! I need a better time-management system or something! Perhaps I should make myself a schedule until I get everything done I want......except with two kids, that wouldn't last long either!

I've also become addicted Google Reader, which actually lets me read all the blogs I have subscribed to, without me actually having to "visit" each one. A GREAT time saver, but I spend way to much time browsing now! lol. At least before I just skipped it most days....and missed TONS of cool stuff! I've actually learned a few things this week, found out about some pretty nifty programs, and caught some great sales!

Speaking of great programs, I got turned onto to Evernote. It's a niftly little program that lets you organize, well, everything!! I can make "Notebooks" for my layouts for challenges, and CT works, and each layout can have it's own note! I can keep track of my layout, the credits, where all I have to post (complete with checkboxes if you so desire!) I'm gonna open one for each of the girls as well, and just jot down fun details about them as we go along, each month getting its own page! If you haven't checked it out yet, it is certainly worth a go! You can even sync it to your phone or other gadgets if you so desire, so you can take all your notes with you where ever you go! Of course, I figured out the trick, if you just really use a laptop, or don't have an awesome smart phone, if you turn the sync off, none of your stored data goes toward your monthly free 60mb "storage" total!! This is great if you are "pinning" alot of layouts to notes to keep track of! Essentially it becomes limitless! Cool, huh?

I was a scrapping fool yesterday! And by that I mean, I got two layouts done, instead of the usual none! Unfortunately, one of them I have to hold onto till later (check back around the 25th for the reveal, and a freebie!) but I am going to show you my Iron Scrapper Week 2 layout! As soon as I saw the kit, I knew what I wanted to scrap with it! The final layout didn't turn out like I had originally planned but I LOVE it! And apparently others did too, because it got GSO on Scrap Orchard's Facebook page!! I am SO excited!! Here is the layout!

(image linked to gallery for credits)

If you aren't participating in Iron Scrapper, you should be! It's a great chance to win some great prizes, including an IPad2! So head on over to the forums and jump in!

So what lesson did I learn today? Instead of repeating "no" for every one of my daugther's "outside play"'s,(mostly because it was torrential downpouring outside, and even our covered porch was soaked) I simply opened the kitchen door and let her out. It took her all of five minutes, less then half the time I argued with her, to decide she really didn't want to go out anyway. Mommy wins!

Since I was up at 4am yesterday, I was rather ambitious and made myself a little list on the refrigerator of things to do. It looked something like this:

Fold Laundry
Fix Air Mattress
Put Up Dishes
Fill Dishwasher
Make Lemonade
Scrub Downstairs Toilet

Today, it looks exactly the same. On a bright note, I did manage to get a much needed 4 hour nap yesterday, and a shower today. Two things that may not have made it onto the list, but certainly needed done! The only way I was able to take a shower is because DD has decided she likes showers, as long as she doesn't really get wet......I'm still not sure how DH manages to wash her off, but hey, I don't have to know.

Speaking of DH, I do believe he will be moving to the third shift sometime by the end of this month. While I'm a little stressed on how I'm going to manage two kids all by myself for 4 days and keep DD from banging down his door while he sleeps, I am slightly looking forward to nights sleeping in the bed, and not on the couch. It's not a terrible arrangement, unless it's one of those frequent nights when DD is awake hours past DH going to bed, and I have to occupy her, and the baby. And then get them both to sleep. LittlestDD has to have perfect conditions for sleeping, and DD has to have a hold of at least my arm in order to go to sleep. Last night was tricky. And by tricky I mean I was in the floor between both girls, nursing one and trying to cuddle the other. It was most uncomfortable and very frustrating. I guess we have officially made it out of the honeymoon phase (was there even one to speak of?) and DD just wants her mommy back.

I've successfully taught DD that it is perfectly acceptable behavior to yell and throw things when you're having a bad day. I think we might be tied for "most tantrums thrown" this week. Last night's was a doozy, on both ends. I don't generally mind what we watch on TV. At one point in time we were letting DD get her own DVDs out and change them, since both were in her reach. This worked well for a while, until the novelty of it wore off, baby sister arrived, and it became a battle for her not to changed them every two seconds (a literal two seconds). Or she just opened them all, took them all out, and strew them all over the floor, which was just as annoying. So all the DVD's got put up out of her reach, though the DVD player is still accessible (much to our dismay). We finished watching Toy Story 3 for the hundredth time, DH was in bed (for only a few minutes) and DD decided she wanted to change the dvd's instead of rewatching Toy Story again. So I asked her what she wanted to watch, to which she replied with silence, while pointing and grunting at her DVD's (she can say the titles to just about everything she watches). I could feel my blood pressure rising, so I picked her up so she could just grab what she wanted. She progressed to pointing out everyone of her DVD's all the while not deciding on a single one. I asked again what she wanted to watch, even making suggestions, I told her to pick one or I was counting to three and then it was my turn to pick. So I did. And she started screaming and crying. So we went through the WHOLE PROCESS AGAIN. She still didn't pick anything out, so I put in something for her, again. (I'm sure at this point in time I had yelled a few times to "just pick out something" and other less kid friendly phrases) More tears and crying and screaming and massive temper tantruming. So I picked her up, threw her over my shoulder and carried her upstairs and threw her in bed with DH and told her to just go to sleep. Of course, this just resulted in 15 minutes of her screaming and kicking and crying upstairs.

At least when I finally went back up and got her, she sat on the couch quietly and let me watch Tangled. (SUPER CUTE!) And to anyone who says the Terrible Two's are a myth (my mother), they obviously never had a toddler, or gave them away for a few years!

Good Morning!

It's been a busy day already and it's only 11am. DD#1 decided to wake up at 4am this morning, wanting to come downstairs and play. I thought perhaps she would go back to sleep when she crawled into bed with Daddy, but alas she didn't. Nor did she go back to sleep when I went upstairs and took her back to her bed. So I have been up since then. Thankfully she went back to sleep around 7am, but by then I had drank a cup of coffee (or two) and was wide awake.(I'm probably going to pay later for letting her sleep in till now as well, but.......god it's so quiet!) So I've been playing on the computer. I paid all our bills, which wasn't nearly as depressing as it used to be (Yay for the DH's promotion!). I've decided to try and do something I haven't in a while, which is keep a paper ledger. I.hate.balancing.a.checkbook. It has always been so much more convenient to check the bank account online for my daily balance. But more money in the bank, means more spending and it takes our bank a literal forever to post a transaction. And while we may be experiencing a substantial increase of pay, I don't really feel like paying it to my bank in overdraft fees.

For the first time in my life, I paid for an antivirus program this morning as well. I am LOVING my new laptop, and quite frankly am tired of the gradual descent into bogdowndom that every computer I have ever owned has inevitably suffered.(And I just couldn't wrap my head around paying so much for a MacBook, which are apparently lifetime-virus-free) While I am not entirely convinced relying on free antivirus protection is to blame, it certainly can't help it much. So for the first time in 10 years, I'm giving Norton a shot again. It came pre-installed on this bad boy, so I might as well use it, right? If it starts giving me fits though, it's the first to get the boot and back to AVG I will gladly go!

I finally got to see Toy Story 3 this week. Such a cute movie! Even after watching it 700 times in three days, it's still enjoyable. And now our Toy Story collection is complete! Even though the first two are about due to be replaced since they are both original copies! I'm hoping DD#1 will let me watch Tangled sometime this week. She has been rather set in her ways and unwilling to compromise with the DVD selecting, regardless of the fact that I'm pretty sure she will enjoy it immensely as well.

Anyhow, I do believe I have rambled on long enough! Perhaps I will be back later today with more fun news, but the babies are stiring and need attention!

Whew what a day! I would say I had a constructive day, but no, not really! Haha. One of the girls over at Scrap Orchard turned me on to "Google Reader" and I have literally spent all day subscribing to all my blogs on there, and moving all my non-blogspot blogs to it as well. I will NEVER miss a blog post again!! I'm so excited to have it all in one place, right at my fingertips with no links to click! No redirecting my browser, unless I really just want to go to the actual website. I can follow all the designers I love, all the stores I want, any fellow scrappers...all of it! In one spot!! If you aren't using it, you should be!! Apparently I've been using the web like it was still 1999 and it's time to step it up and keep up with technology!

It's actually making me a little excited to "blog" again. I haven't done an online journal of any sort it YEARS. I used to journal a little with my old Myspace account, and well, I haven't logged into it in over two years. So needless to say, I'm a little rusty. When I started this little blogspace, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with, and other then use it as my "scrapping" blog, I'm still not sure how much of my personal life I'll let creep out, but who knows!

As far as my 4th of July goes, we had a small cookout for the In-Laws. Of course, it came a torrential downpour and the grilling had to be done on the patio under the canopy, and socializing was done inside rather than out! But that's okay, DH still made his AWESOME grilled potatoes. Did I mention they were AWESOME? We are one potato loving family...! :) We skipped the fireworks, since DD has a chronic fear of loud noises (only recently has she gotten over her fear of moving vehicles) and the littlest one is entirely too little to take as well, we are saving it for next year!

I've been severely lacking in scrapping this past week. I've been playing around in a new community, the babies have been pretty touchy, and due to the hardrive on the laptop busting at the seams, I've been hesitant to push Photoshop and risk an unrecoverable hard drive crash. Thankfully, pay day is a few days away, and I'll be picking up a passport drive of some sort and alleviate some of my fears of the laptop dying. I've snuck in a bit of shopping this week, and am eager to get to scrapping with it! :)