Emskyrooney

Week 7:

Wanted to share 2 funny things LP said this weekend before I forget... We were in the car on the way to a local Children's Museum.  I was driving, my mom was in the passenger seat, and LP was in the back.  We were behind 2 or 3 cars when LP says "these cars in the way! move cars!"  Wonder where he picked that up?  Certainly not from riding in the backseat of Daddy's car! We were cracking up! Later, at the museum, one of the first things you see when you get there is a large train table, which of course LP made a beeline for (because there's nothing better than spending $18 to play at a train table- we could have just stayed home!).  Some other kids were taking trains from him so that they could play with them.  I overheard him saying to them, "say please and thank you!!" Ha!  Guess we're on the right track when it comes to manners at least!

At the beginning of the year I made a few loose resolutions for 2011.  I thought I'd take a few minutes to check in on where I am with them. Working out: Um.  Yeah.  I'm sooooo not doing well with this.  The problem?  I'm lazy and I HATE working out.  But I'm going to do it. Cutting back on my ice cream portion:  This weekend I bought myself a special ice cream only bowl, just for me.  I bought it in purple and it's great! It's actually a dip bowl from Pier One, and it fits perfectly in my hand.  I got the purple one because purple reminds me of my Nana and she had little bowls shaped a lot like this that she used to serve me ice cream in when I was little (emotional eater, much??).  Last night I tried it for the first time and it held less than half of what my old bowls held.  I used a smaller spoon and was able to savor my ice cream for quite a while!  LOVE it! Here it is: Less looking, more doing:  Ok, I'm still doing a lot of looking.  But I'm a...

Week 6:

Oops! I missed a day in week 5!  Here's the weekly roundup:

Recently CSN Stores contacted me about doing another product review for them.  Of course, I said yes, and hopped on their website to try to narrow down the thousands of options to one thing. As usual, I chose something for LP, that's the name of the game when you're a mom I guess! Since we've been struggling with learning colors a bit, I wanted to choose something that we could use to work on this.  I found these great Melissa & Doug Lacing Beads and thought they would be perfect.  5 out of 5 The package arrived very quickly- much faster than I expected actually, and LP was very excited when I showed him his new toy.  After a few lessons on stringing beads from me he was quickly trying to put the beads on the laces himself.  And I love that the beads have colors, shapes and numbers on them so we can practice more than just one thing at a time. There are a lot of pieces to this set, so I wish it had come with a storage bag of some kind as there's n...

A few weeks ago I casually mentioned to Paul that we only have 2 rooms left to paint in this house- our master bedroom and the office.  We went for a little Home Depot run last weekend and came home with a can of "Pensive Sky" by Behr.  Initially, I thought it would be the perfect color for our bedroom (I've been wanting a pale grey in there) but when we got home Paul slapped a swatch of it up on the wall in the office and we decided to run with it and find a different, more saturated grey color for the bedroom. Somehow, I don't have a photo of this room as the before, but picture ugly oak wood trim, dingy white walls that hadn't been painted since the house was built in the late 60's, and a very ugly wallpaper border around the top of the room.  The room felt better the second we started ripping that ugly border down.  We spend so much time in here between the computer and LP's train table, and the room is visible when you're standing at the kitchen c...

For my birthday I bought myself a new camera bag.  It's the Built NY Cargo Camera Bag in the large size.  I got a GREAT price for it on Amazon- $30 compared to the regular retail price of $100!  I'm guessing this black raspberry color is being phased out... I'm really loving this bag so far, although I haven't had much opportunity yet to use it while out and about.  It comes with a shoulder strap so I can wear it messenger bag style.  My other camera bag is a backpack type bag, and while it easily holds all of my lenses and equipment, in order to get anything out of it you have to take it off your back, lay it down on a flat surface, and open the entire back flap of the bag.  It's great for storage or travel but it's not so great when you want to quickly switch a lens.  There also isn't room in it for anything else and I really wanted something that I could throw my wallet, cell phone and a few diapers in if necessary. Everything fits so nicely and all of t...

On one of my wanders on the wonderful worldwide web lately I came across a great Photoshop tutorial on the blog " Can't Stop Making Things ."  Using her easy-peasy tutorial I took this photo of LP: And turned it into this: Pretty cool!  I'll probably use it on a scrapbook page although I think it would also look great printed out and framed- would be really cute to do a picture for each family member like this and then hang them as a grouping... It was really very easy- took me about 15 minutes to do!

At least a year ago I picked up one of those vintage type drawers at a local antique store.  I've seen people do fabulous things with them- put photos in each little compartment, use it for displaying small figurines, etc.  I'd planned to use mine for photos but never really got around to it.  Then I saw someone had put little hooks in each compartment and was using it as a jewelry rack.  Aha!  We had an empty wall in our bedroom by my dresser and I just knew that was the perfect place for it!  I already had my necklaces on the wall on a little rack I decorated years and years ago and have loved being able to easily see everything: And so I decided to use my type tray on the opposite wall to display earrings and other jewelry.  I couldn't find small hooks like I wanted so I ended up scouring the jewelry findings aisle at the craft store and picked up a few things I thought might work, along with some epoxy type super strong glue. I painted inside some of the compartments wi...

(This month I'm participating in a photo class from Willette Photography called the Joy of Love .  It's a free photo class and is all about taking photos of the ones you love.  Every day you get an email with a little photography lesson and a prompt to follow.) The Joy of Love has been so fun so far! The prompt for day 3 was "Then and Now."  We were supposed to capture what has changed about our loved one since we first met him and her, and to possibly show a photo from "then" along with our photo from "now."  I was going to take some photos of Paul for this challenge, but really I don't think he's changed that much (except for his clothing- I should have taken a photo of his good jeans now and compared them to his ugly tapered jeans from then!) so I decided to take photos of the one "person" (she thinks she is anyway) who's known me the longest in this house. I got Gabby when I was living in Arlington with a couple of roomma...

This month I'm participating in a photo class from Willette Photography called the Joy of Love .  It's a free photo class and is all about taking photos of the ones you love.  Every day you get an email with a little photography lesson and a prompt to follow. The prompt for day 1 was "What They Do."  Since I couldn't get pictures of Paul at work, I thought I'd get some of LP doing what he loves to do the most- playing with his Thomas trains.  I love watching him play trains- the engines have conversations and adventures and it's amazing to watch him use his imagination... The prompt for Day 2 was "How They Look."  We were told to capture the TRUE essence/expression/posture of our loved one.  Most nights, the larger couch in our living room becomes Paul's lounging spot.  I knew this is what I needed to capture: I'm loving this little project so far and can't wait to see what the next prompt is!