Summer riding and steering

Summer did really well in her third lesson and successfully steered her horse around a standard. It's a lot harder than it looks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX9NoUTwGWM

1st time on horseback

This is the second week of lessons for Summer and she got to ride today. She was sooooo excited and even that is an understatement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb3OKP3_CqU

9!

A special day for a special girl. Summer’s 9th birthday was last month and the day was full of fun and catered to requests. To start off the day, she was served breakfast in bed. She still had leftover star tattoos on her face from the night before…

As it was a school day, she was chauffeured in by the Mommy Limo. Then as a surprise for my sweet girl, I brought her a Happy Meal for lunch and cupcakes for all of her classmates.

When school was done, she was again chauffeured home by the Mommy Limo. Fortunately, I had arranged a bouncy playdate with her friend, and they jumped on the trampoline for over an hour.

Dinner was made by request… chicken cutlet parmesan and spaghetti, followed by a strawberry birthday bundt cake with glaze and sprinkles.

In the spirit of continuing the obvious spoiling, presents were in order. Her brother gave her the DVD for Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2. Which inspired this Kodak moment…

Then we gave her one of our presents…

and then the piece de resistance…. her wish came true and she is now taking horseback riding lessons and loving every minute of it!

 

Happy Birthday and happy trails to my little tom-boy princess!

Congratulations to my scout

We are so proud of Bryce. At the most recent Boy Scout Court of Honor Bryce was awarded merit badges for Pathfinding and Carpentry. Additionally he received two simultaneous rank advancements of Tenderfoot and Second Class. Great job buddy, keep up the great work and you’ll be an Eagle Scout before you know it!

Project Life: Week 4

Welcome to my Week 4 (2/27-3/5), albeit quite late, but I made no promises on timeliness. As I write this I am working on closing out my Week 11 although it’s Week 12 for me. Now that I have a rhythm, I’ll  catch up and then probably remain two weeks behind in order to give myself some breathing room.  Perhaps if I had a paying sponsor I’d be more motivated to keep it right up to the minute, but alas, I do not. Therefore we are going on ME time and that means two weeks behind, and I’ll call that on time :-)

As you can see, I am still enjoying having my Project Life out in full view in my studio. I love that every time I walk in and out of the front door I can see our progress. I’m truly enjoying the whole immediate gratification of this thing!

This week I used Katie Pertiet’s Make A Date Stamp Set No.1 from www.designerdigitals.com for most of my photos.

 

Journaling cards on left side:

I got this chalkboard as a St. Patty’s Day decoration because I thought it would look cute in the kitchen. Imagine my joy when I came down this morning to find a little love note. {I love you Mom, from my DD Summer)}

Keith works a full time job during the week and then is a flight instructor on weekends. He’s usually a bit tired so when he has some down time a well deserved nap is usually in order!

(Re: Awesome hair product call Bed Head) Hair products to compliment my nickname ~ Sweet!

Simple Things: It’s nice to be able to do the simple things like having lunch with my kids at school occasionally. All of the little things add up and it’s the Simple Things that I’ll remember.

The Annie Gooth girls, Katherine & Julie & I spent the day in DC as a surprise to celebrate Julie’s birthday. We toured U Steet, visited Ben’s Chili Bowl (President goes there) & ate lunch at Zaytinya. Good fun!

3/5/2011

Monthly Harrington family gathering. Fajita Fiesta at Casa Harrington. Dad & Marti brought their new dog, Charley. Everyone was here except Jill (vacay in CA). We all watched the video of Summer’s talent show.

{Written by Bryce} I was amazed at how much my algebra tutor helped me! Not only did I get a 100% on my next quiz, but my grade went up 5 points total.

Other notables about the week: Summer was excited to receive a birthday present from my sister in Ireland. I got to mark a milestone on the incentive chart my sister sent me. 15 pounds gone ~ yippee!

Crazy equations summed up our week. Hope your week adds up a little better!

Z is for…

ZZZ’s, gotta have ‘em
Because of my penchant for a long night’s sleep and the inability to wake on my first alarm, my husband has ‘lovingly’ given me the nickname sleepyhead. It has stuck, I have even adopted it as my user name in forums and galleries and also use it for my email address. The fact is, I do not wake easily in the morning. Regardless of the amount of sleep I’ve had I can never get up the first time my alarm goes off and inevitably hit the snooze button at least once, ok maybe twice. My son has inherited this gene which makes our mornings a bit nutty. Getting him moving in the morning is a bit like trying to move a mountain with a toothpick. Hopefully this will get better at some point, but I’m not holding my breath as it’s still a challenge for me.
See also: alarm clock hater, nicknames
Zoom, Schwartz, Pfigliano
Although I can’t seem to recall the exact rules of the game, I do know that I played it a lot as a kid all the way through high school.   I remember it involved lots of yelling and pointing and we used to try and trick each other. The only rule I can remember is that you apparently cannot Zoom a Zoomer. We also used to play a game called Bizz Buzz at the dinner table. When none of us knew what to do while waiting for my Dad’s emergency surgery after his heart attack, we fell into a game of Bizz Buzz to pass the time.
Zany, what my nephews think I am
Zoo, I feel like I live in a

Project Life: Week 4 (Sneak Peek)

Sneak Peek for the week

Project Life: Week 3

Howdy folks! Checking in with Week 3 (February 20th – 26th). Still loving the simplicity of it all as you can see by one of the photos as well as one of the journaling cards.

Journaling cards:
Project Life: I am totally in love with this project. Keith and the kids are also contributing which will make the stories much richer and not always just told from my perspective. Life is Good!
I’m FLY’ing. It has saved me. She has introduced the baby steps of keeping a clean and organized home. I wasn’t born organized but a little each day keeps the clutter away. :-)
Old Me: Fat & Couch Potato
New Me: Shrinking & Gym Rat
My new addiction: EXERCISE
My new hangout: AmFamFit
Watch out skinny jeans – here I come!
I try to thank Keith on a regular basis for being such a good husband & father. He works hard so I can stay home with the kids and make sure they’re doing well in school. Love my MAN.

Journaling cards:
Summer wrote: look at Stacey. she has a new haircut and it is cute!
I am loving my new hair! I told my stylist to take me from “soccer Mom” to “sassy!” and I think he hit it right on the mark. I love it!
Summer wrote: In this picture is me petting a horse in the stable. it was so much fun!!!!!
Summer immediately fell in love with the horses @ Hazelwild. Although the Level 1 class was full we had high hopes that she would get in. As luck would have it she did & starts lessons on 3/12. Summer is in horse HEAVEN.

Y is for…

Yankee, Shotzy & LadyI always wanted a puppy as a kid, but my Mom is allergic. I finally got one after Keith and I were married (he grew up with several). The story goes like this. Me: ' I want to have a baby', Keith: 'How about a puppy?' Me: 'OK, that will do for now' … the next week we got a chocolate lab named Yankee. Three months later… Me: 'Let's have a baby', Keith: 'Not yet', Me: 'OK, can we get another dog? Keith: 'Do I have a choice?' The next day, he came home from work and we had another puppy; a lab/boxer/collie mix named Shotzy. We had both dogs for quite a while and they moved around with us. Yankee was a crazy purebred and Shotzy was a mellow mix. Yankee used to jump up against our sliding glass door and leave messy, muddy puppy prints all down the door. We tried to keep them penned up in certain areas of the house, but Shotzy would just lean all her weight against the gates and bust them down. We were devastated when we lost Shotzy to cancer in 2004. Yankee stuck around for a few more years until 2007. We were all heartbroken after losing both of them and thought we'd never get a dog again. The kids started pleading on a regular basis and we finally gave in and rescued Lady, our sweet little Dachshund/Beagle mix last year . She has filled a spot in our hearts that we never knew was empty. The kids absolutely adore her and Summer thanks us daily for getting a dog.

Years, I have been...Wife: 18, Scrapbooker: 16, Terry's friend: 35, a Durango owner: 11, contact lens wearer: 22, CK subscriber: 8, Mom: 13, Nike sneaker wearer: 12, shot glass collector: 18, personalized license plate buyer: 20, dog owner: 14, candle lover: 11, blog reader: 1

This is one of many installments on the ABCs of Me's. Each week I will feature a different letter of the alphabet and a few corresponding entries on yours truly. This project was inspired by a class I took at Big Picture Classes (Me: The Abridged Version) which was based on a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.

No more boring email invitations

I decided to step it up a bit for the upcoming Easter holiday and instead of just sending an email out to my in-laws to invite them for dinner, I actually made cute invitations.
They only took about an hour from start to finish and look positively adorable. The reaction from the recipients was egg-actly what I was ‘hopping’ for. {I’m so punny, I know – ha ha}
JoAnn’s was having a sale on Easter items. So I got the large plastic eggs and the treat bags for 50% off. I then just used some cardstock and ribbon I had at home. I stamped the butterfly images and then handwrote the invitation using a colored pencil. The inks and stamps are from Stampin’ Up! , the stamps are from the Flutter By collection.


After opening the invitation my sister-in-law said “these invitations are too cute to possibly say no to!” I’ll have to think of other uses for these lumpy-type invitations when I really need to rally the troops – perhaps when my house needs painting! :-)

Project Life: Week 2

Welcome to Week 2 (February 13th – 19th). I am totally digging this project (I’m pretty sure you get that, but it’s worth repeating!) The simple overlay outlines I made are working out wonderfully, and I love that I can just put a little caption on a photo and call it done. That leaves me room for more journaling on the cards, which I absolutely love by the way. It’s awesome how everything is color coordinated!

I originally thought that the binder rings sticking out in the middle would bug me, but I am so in love with bringing all of these pieces together that I really don’t mind them. It might have something to do with my love of office supplies, but that’s a completely different story :-)

Here are both sides ready to go.

 

 

The left side.

Most of the photos I find I’m using are my everyday photos I take with the camera on my cell (Droid X). It does a decent job and it’s always in my pocket. After all, they say the best camera is the one you have with you!

This week was Valentine’s Day. There was a school function called Sweets with your Sweet. My hubby was able to make it home in time from work to go. We ended up making it a family affair which was fun, I mean who doesn’t like free ice cream!

 

Journaling cards:

I went to Summer’s school on Valentine’s Day for a cream soda float. We all had fun. (Written by DH)

(Love the calendar cards, I plan on doing one a month, or at least when we have significant changes in our regular schedule to show what we’ve been up to.)

DS wrote: Mark, Caelen and I finally got to go to airsoft together. If you don’t know already, I’m the experienced looking one in the middle. Mark is the one on the left who also plays airsoft with me at/in his backyard but is still not as good at airsoft as I am. And at last Caelen. It was his first time playing and I thought he did pretty well besides breaking my M9 (M9=pistol)

{I love that my son infused his sense of confidence and humor in this little note, and the fact that he agreed to write it for me without complaining was awesome as well!}

I find that I really love taking everyday candids or pictures of our surroundings. It helps me get a sense of what’s going on around us. I’m also trying to get better at not zooming in too closely to faces in order to capture some of the background stuff that at some point in the future may be very interesting.

Journaling cards:

Summer danced with her friend Morgan on stage for the first time for the CRES Talent Show. Her words when exiting the stage? “I can’t wait to do that again!”

Surprise Party: I got a bunch of friends together for dinner at Pancho Villa’s to surprise Keith for his 41st . He was most surprised when his college friend Craig showed up. The last time they were together was at our wedding in 1992. Paul as best man and Craig as groomsman. We sure had fun then as well as tonight!

Project Life Introduction & Week 1

I have been thoroughly enjoying working on my Project Life. It sits out in full view every day which encourages everyone to participate. I have it set up in my studio on an elevated craft table. In order to make it simple, I leave out a journaling pen as well as the boxes of journaling cards and fillers. Everything is there at my finger tips anytime I feel like updating it and this is working so well for me. I also have a zippered pencil pouch (like the one you would use for a child’s binder) that I always carry in my purse. In it I keep a journaling pen and a box of journaling cards.
It helps me capture things in the moment and/or keep up with life as it happens. This is so cool and so me right now.

See my previous "diving into life" post to see my set up.
If you are not familiar with Project Life, check out www.BeckyHiggins.com, she sells her kits through Amazon. The whole kit is only about $50 (I bought the turquoise edition) and it comes with everything you need except the photos of course! If you are looking for inspiration on how this kit can be used, check out Ali’s blog at www.AliEdwards.com. I believe Cathy just started using the monthly version, you can check her out at www.CathyZielske.com. And of course, you can stay tuned here :-) Since I am not quite the superstar that Ali is at keeping up-to-date with my book, I’ll post my weeks probably 1-3 weeks behind. That will keep it fun (and not stressful) for me and you can follow along.
I resisted my perfectionist tendency to try to fill in the first few weeks of the year and instead gave myself a break and just started when I got the kit. Consequently, my week numbers start with Week 1 in February.
Totally love that it even came with filler blocks to make the cover page look all artsy with little effort.

Journaling card: I’m hoping this project will become a family affair for all of the Happy Harringtons!

You can see all of my journaling boxes lined up right next to the book – I’m sure this is one of the only reasons that it is actually getting done!

The family contribution is working already, every so often I hand a card and a pen to my husband, son or daughter and show the pictures from the week and ask them to write something about it. This is the part that is PRICELESS!
I’m also putting digital overlays on most photos with a short caption. That way I don’t feel like I need extensive journaling about every single photo on the page.
Journaling cards read (from left to right): Bryce’s troop went to a shooting camp. We shot skeet and rifles. It was VERY cold but we had a lot of fun. Granddad came out also (written by my sweet hubby)
Bryce & Keith are very fond of anything weapon related. It was so nice that Keith had some time off to spend with Bryce doing something they share a love for – guns & shooting!
School Project: Summer got very creative on her Roman school project. In addition to the adorable little man below. She also made a chariot and drew a coliseum full of people.
Her graded paper is inserted as well, she is very proud of her “A”.
I went back and added an 8.5 x 11 page protector to enclose the actual Roman dude she created, I love having these slices of  life in my book.
On the right side I continued using overlays and captions on the photos and shared the stories that were pertinent.


Journaling cards read:
What is cuter than little puppy footprints in the snow?
Danielle was very sweet and sent me some inspiration for my quest to finally remove the excess poundage :-)
Betty’s birthday gifts for Frankie and Keith were a big hit. They wore those silly head lamps the whole night. Now the boys want them to play flashlight tag in the dark.
We had to get creative with our practice time for the talent show because of crazy schedules. Parking lots, hallways and living rooms were all game.
The look of sheer joy on Summer’s face tells it all. She is absolutely smitten with this pup and thanks us daily for bringing this sweet girl home.

And this concludes Week 1 – whew! Stay tuned…

X is for…

X-Files, Witches and the paranormal
It all started with Samantha on Bewitched, A wiggle of her nose and I was hooked. In grade school I even did a paper on the Salem Witch Trials. While I don't believe it is real, I am still fascinated by it. My TV and movie viewing have primarily consisted of the following: Charmed (3 sister witches), Supernatural (2 gorgeous brother demon hunters), Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie both had housewife witches, X-files (pursuit of the paranormal), Harry Potter (teenage wizards), Eastwick (3 friends that have special powers). Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Wizards of Waverly Place are shows about teenage wizards that my daughter now watches. From Bewitched to Harry Potter, I often wish I had my own magic wand. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of HP7!
See also: movies, Jensen & Jared

Xternal brain, aka my cell phone
My cell phone is an appendage I was not born with but now can't live without. It is always in my pocket wherever I go. I set reminders throughout the day, send messages to myself and make notes of things I want to remember, things I want to scrapbook and things I need to do. Simply put I use my cell phone as an external brain. I didn't get my first cell phone until I was 27 (paid for by my employer). It's a different world we live in now, my son got a cell phone at age 12 and I'm sure it won't be long before my daughter gets one. Technology is amazing and I love embracing the change it brings with it. I'm due for an upgrade and I hear the Droid X calling my name.
See also: gadget girl, ipod

This is one of many installments on the ABCs of Me's. Each week I will feature a different letter of the alphabet and a few corresponding entries on yours truly. This project was inspired by a class I took at Big Picture Classes (Me: The Abridged Version) which was based on a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.