Maddie's First Day of Soccer

Maddie started soccer Saturday, Sept. 20th. She just loves it. Her coach is really good with kids. My favorite part was how she knew every kid there. She could say almost every name, even though she didn't know a soul when school started. I'm really proud of her for stepping out and trying to get to know all the kids around her. They all know who she is and shout, "Maddie!" in greeting. What fun!

New Pages

I promise, someday I'll come back to all our current activites and goings on and post all of our adventures, but I worked on these pages today, and had great fun with brushes -- I used a brush to make the fish on the background and the boat in the foregroung. My friend Amanda taught me how to make my own brushes. Here's her steps:

1. Find an image you like, a boat or flower for example


2. Make sure the image size is smaller that 2500 px if not adjust it.


3. Then under "edit" find "define brush".


4. You will then find your brush at the bottom of the list of your currently opened brushes


5. If want to save it for good, choose "save brushes" on the brushes tab and make a separate folder for your brushes.

So, this boat is my first brush! Yipee!

Free Museum Day

This Saturday is free museum day with the help of a coupon from the Smithsonian Magazine. Most of the area museums are participating in CT, NY, MA and even UT and FL for all our other family and friends. Click here to get your admission free for you and your family!

Have fun! Let me know what you go to see. We're going to the Yale Peabody Natural History Museum in New Haven. Dinosaurs. Science. Evolution. IKEA. :)

Exploring brushes...

Today I wanted to learn how to use the brushes tool in Photoshop Elements. I've never played with it before. I'm totally in love with brushes! It's so fun -- you can take a brush, and make the image any color you want, cut it out of any paper you want or mutate it like the cookie cutter tool. I know many of you are way ahead of me on this, but it's fun! Some brushes start out boring, like straight lines, but the ones downloadable have fish, bubbles, stars, hearts, all kinds of things!

I found a great website that has bunches of free brushes. The sponsor has a list of free ones, and then people have contributed at the bottom of the page as well. Enjoy 'em! Here's the website:

In case you're curious about my latest pages, here's a few samples:



I think I'm getting better at this the more I learn.

John Walks!

Yeah! John walked today for everyone to see -- you included. I'm so proud of him. This was the best one yet, five or six steps. I know that it's a bit premature to call him a 'walker' but he's definately walking.

I had predicted that he'd walk by Sept. 15th, so I'm a bit disappointed he's two days late, but I have to say, he's pretty talented nonetheless.

'D' Vent

OK, so forgive me for indulging in a little venting here. I'm so sick of health trouble. This year has been the hardest year health wise for me I've ever faced. For those of you I haven't whined to yet, in the last 18 months, I've had:

• Bone hump and pinched nerves in my neck resulting in the loss of feeling in my arms and fingers
• Gestational Diabetes -- tummy shots, pricking fingers and all
• C-Section surgery(this was worth it for my darling boy)
• Terrible asthma-- loss of 20% of my lung capacity
• Terrible allergies -- UGH!
• Three bone spurs in my feet, resulting in loss of movement and extreme pain. I finally got a cortisone shot this week and I'm doing much better now
• AND.....

The most recent discovery today was that I have a severe vitamin D deficiency. Seriously? Isn't that for third world countries and people with malnutrition, or those who live in Alaska???

Supposedly it is the vitamin D loss that is causing my extreme fatigue and aches. It could even be responsible for my crazy bone formation in my neck and feet. Who knew?

They are telling me though, that apparently once your body has a severe deficiency of vitamin D, no amount of time in the sun will make up for this problem. They've prescribed special vitamins for me to replenish my stores of vitamin D. Normally, a daily supplement has 400 IU of vitamin D. The special vitamins I'll be getting have 50,000 IU. Crazy! Apparently I need to take these for several months before I'll be back to normal levels.

As sick as I am of health problems, I'm so very grateful for medical care. I can't even imagine the state I'd be in if there were not people who work very hard to help me. Both to do the tests to figure out what's wrong, but also to fix the problem when we know what it is. Getting a cortisone shot was the singular most painful experience of my life, but now my foot pain is gone. From absolutely miserable to pain free in minutes. What a miracle in my life that wonderful shot was. It's amazing what the right medicine in the correct spot can do to help!

Thanks medical team -- I love ya all!

Ridin'

Maddie has been working all summer learning to ride a bike. She's had some good friends that have been willing to learn right along side her, and that has helped her progress a lot.

I made the mistake of buying her a bike that was too big for learning. So, we've traded bikes with our good friends so that she could have a smaller one to learn on. It might be a bit too small, but it's given her the confidence to keep trying.

Today after school, she jumped on for a couple of minutes to see if she could just start on her own and get going. I should mention that getting started and stopping have been her greatest challenges. (Sorry she's breaking the helmet rules!)

In addition to starting, her biggest obstacle was her little brother. He kept chasing her all around the driveway, trying to get at the bike. You'll see the end result here:

Capturing the Cackle

John has this spectacularly funny cackle. I've tried for some time to get it on video. We were finally successful tonight. Maddie was jumping off the stairs trying to surprise him while he ate his rice. Sorry he's chewing with his mouth open-- this happened during dinner. We just had to take what we could get.

You just can't help but laugh right along with this little guy...

Aurora's Chicken Pepperoni

You may or may not be familiar with Aurora's Chicken Pepperoni. For me, it's been a dish I've thought a lot about. Why? Some lost family recipe? From my great-grandmother perhaps? Not even close. It's a featured item in the plot of one of my favorite movies, Seems Like Old Times with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, please, enjoy!

I've thought a lot about this menu, and I've always wanted to try making it to see what it was like. So, of course, I googled it. But I was very disappointed when I followed this link to the supposed "recipe" for the movie. I'd like to argue that this is not possibly the dish that was served in the movie for the following reasons:

1. It is prepared in a saute pan. Glenda is clearly wielding a 9x13 baking dish


2. It uses cutlets -- there are visible little mountains of chicken in said baking dish in the movie


3. The recipe listed is more of a casserole, not the dish you would serve the governor, not even if it has artichoke hearts


4. If it was a casserole, then why would there be side dishes on the table, aren't casseroles a one dish meal?

So, since I couldn't find what I was looking for online, I invented it in my kitchen tonight. Here is my version of Aurora's Chicken Pepperoni:

• Chicken Breasts, pounded thin
• Pepperoni
• Mozzarella Cheese
• Butter
• Garlic Salt
• Pepper

Spray a 9x13 baking dish with non-stick spray.

Pound the chicken until about 1/4 inch thick. Lay it on the cutting board. Put 3-5 slices of pepperoni on the chicken. Top with mozarella cheese. Roll up, place with the end down so that you get a nice piece of smooth chicken on top. Repeat for desired number of chicken breasts.

Melt butter. Coat chicken with melted butter. Sprinkle with garlic salt and pepper to taste.Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until a light golden color starts to appear -- or until internal temperature reaches about 150.

Remove the dish from the oven. Top each chicken breast with about 2 tablespoons of spaghetti sauce. Then top lightly with more cheese. Put it back in the oven for another 10-20 minutes, or until the cheese is to the desired crispiness and the chicken internal temperature measures 165 or more.

Serve atop fettucini noodles with extra sauce on the side.

Loving the ocean

I've always wanted to live by the beach. I apparently started telling my parents that I would live by the ocean when I was about 6-years-old. I don't think I've ever lost that desire. It's one of the reasons Jared and I decided to move to CT. We just wanted to be near the water.

The really sad part is that living by the beach doesn't mean you get to sit and read books and bask in the sun every day. What a bummer!

Having said that, we've really tried to take advantage of our opportunities here and go at least once every week all summer long. But, now that Maddie's in school, it's more of a pain to take John. He's just so curious and so very messy. His favorite thing to do on the beach is eat rocks. Case in point:

But, I think I've come up with an answer. There is a beautiful walkway in the town of Niantic where you can mozy along for about 2 miles. Since they don't put sidewalks anywhere in my town, it's about the safest place to go for a walk with John. I've been putting him in the stroller and walking along the boardwalk. There is nothing like listening to the ocean and smelling the surf. I love the squawking of seagulls and the whoosh of the Acela train as it passes by. John seems to really enjoy the walk as well. It could be his is more of a social experience -- every person passing by has something to say to John. What a bright soul he is.

This walking on the beach is a real boost to the soul! What a beautiful place to be.

More digi scrapbooking

I really love this hobby! My hard drive is so full! My children are looking neglected and my dinner tonight is a little iffy, but I've had a fun afternoon. This picture represents my afternoon. It's all I've accomplished, but I love it.

I think I like this page layout best of all so far -- thanks again Amanda! This was her first template. (Her site is mandagirl.com)

Photobook reward...

Thank you for everyone's input on my new digital scrapbooking hobby!

I really took all your comments to heart and evaluated them as I put this photobook together. This book is my first reward for entering sweepstakes. I won it from the Quaker Book of Life give away. I'm pretty pumped. If you'd like to take a look, click on the link below:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AYuWTdy2asmTiY

I need to give a big shout out to my friend who made half of the templates that I used in the book. Her blog is mandagirl.com. You can find links to the templates that I used there.

Also, I have to thank Two Peas in a Bucket and Shabby Princess for all of my free digital papers and elements. They have great stuff!

Let me know what you think of the final product.

Reasons to enjoy....

OK, so I'll be the first to admit I wasn't thrilled to be sending my daughter to kindergarten. (And yeah, this post is going to make it up before her first day at school pictures, sorry!)

I really like her, I like spending time with her and I don't want her to grow up. But, in the last week, I've discovered several reasons to enjoy this new adventure of ours. They are not limited to, but include:

• Naps. I get a nap!
• The computer to myself
• Listening to talk radio(no censoring necessary)
• Licking the bowl clean by myself
• Cleaning -- yep! I can clean the house!
• Walks -- with John in the stroller, I can go for walks again
• One child shopping -- did I mention he can't ask for anything yet?
• Quiet. Oh, how I love quiet.
• She wants to see us when she comes home! It's not all talk about finding a friend for the afternoon, she wants to be with us. I'm not sure how long this one will last, but I'm enjoying it while I can.
• Tasty dinners -- I am getting ahead on my to do list enough that I'm actually cooking dinner. Good dinner.
• Early bedtimes for kiddies
• Getting up and getting going -- she forces me up and since I have to take her to the bus, I also have to be dressed.
• But, most of all, she's just happy. She loves school and wants to be there. It's so fun to see her learning and growing and yes, even growing up. She was so ready, it's good to see good things happening for her.