Seeking Imperfection

These cookies look so yummy!

I really like these Chalkboard Fridge Magnets.

I love this wishing tree idea.

I'm running behind posting my week in pictures. I've been taking them, just haven't gotten a chance to post this week. Monday is my last day of school, so there's been a lot going on over the last week or so trying to finish up the school year. So here's last week's pictures.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Saturday's picture is a picture of a scrapbook page that I worked on that morning. I had the idea early in the year to make little scrapbooks of Paige with different family members as birthday gifts for this year. I also thought it'd be great if I could make an album with the same pictures for Paige to have too. Of course, my perfectionism got in the way, as I had a hard time picking the "perfect" album, etc. I finally realized that I just had to start, and forced myself to start the book for my grandmother, who's birthday was back in February! So I took a picture of the scrapbook because I was proud that I'd made myself just start a project that I had been thinking about for a long time. The picture in the picture is of Paige's first Christmas, at my grandmother's house for their annual Christmas Eve open house.




Sunday, June 7, 2009

The two little yellow pots are plants from seeds that Paige and I planted. They are part of a Christmas present my dad gave Paige. Of course, I can't remember what plant is what. Ooops. Whatever was planted in third pot has never grown, so I didn't include that one one in the shot. :) The little flower Paige brought home from Grandma's the day before. It is part of a bouquet that my sister-in-law had. I thought the colors all looked so pretty with the sun coming in, and I took a bunch of pictures of them that morning.



Sunday, June 7, 2009 - #2

Our sleep saga continues around here, and I'm sleeping in Paige's room about every other night now. Sometimes while she's asleep, she shifts so she's lying across her bed. Sunday morning around 12:30 I had some little feet hanging over onto my couch cushion bed.



Monday, June 8, 2009

I like many elements of this picture. It amuses me because Doyle (who started his journey with us as a foster kitty, but who has since been adopted by Michelle) appears to be playing Chutes and Ladders with Paige. He kept chasing the spinner and knocking over the pawns with his paw. About halfway through the game, Paige knocked the pieces off the board and climbed on it, proclaiming that she was a kitty. I also like that in this picture you can see an Ariel band-aid on Paige's knee. The Thursday before this picture was taken, Paige fell at the library on their rug and skinned her knee. She told me that her leg was "broken" and that she might need a wheelchair. When Grandma put the Ariel band-aid on it, she wouldn't let anyone touch it. We had to wait for it eventually to fall off of her.



Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Besides Ariel, Paige also likes Hello Kitty. Paige wasn't sure how to go about drawing a picture of herself, but I told her to try. She also wrote her name under her picture. You can kind of see a couple of flowers from the picture on the next page. I kept those in the shot because she cracked me up by asking me to help her color the "baseball flowers" on that Paige. When I looked closely I realized they do kind of resemble a baseball!



Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I took a couple of pictures of Paige cuddled on Roland's lap. Roland hates having his picture taken and often makes faces when I take the pictures. So, here's another picture of Paige with her grouchy camera shy daddy cropped out. She's holding his baseball cap that does have a skull on it, if you can see it in the picture. Daddy always wears a hat when he goes out.



Thursday, June 11, 2009

Paige spent the day with Michelle, who took this picture. They apparently picked out a "rock star outfit" for her to wear, and she did some rock star poses for Michelle. There's something about this picture...she's starting to look more and more grown up to me.



Friday, June 12, 2009

Michelle and I had been talking about my wanting to spend some time this summer decorating my room, and how I would like it to look. I love the show Dress My Nest on the Style Network, where host, Thom Filicia takes a person's three favorite personal items and three favorite style items and uses them for inspiration to design their room. The mermaid in the picture is something that I thought would be a great inspiration item for me. It is a Christmas ornament I bought for my mother a couple of years ago, that never actually made it to her because it fit in with our beach bathroom. It is currently hanging up in my new "shell" bathroom. That night I also fell in love with all the pictures on this post about a screened in porch, that I'd also like to use as inspiration for my bedroom.



Ok, so now I think I'm up to date with my pictures! Hopefully once I'm done packing up my classroom I'll have a little more time for blogging. :)

When we have foster kitties in our house, we get to name them. We have been having fun coming up with names for them - although Paige wants to name all of them Ariel. We currently have one foster however, who was a stray and is very scared of humans. Because he is so scared of us it is hard to "get to know him" enough to pick a name. We've come up with a few ideas though, and my friend Michelle has created a poll on her blog. She's asked me several times now to invite everyone to her blog to participate in the poll. Here's her post about "Nameless Kitty" and the poll. We'd appreciate it if you could help us out.

Thanks. :)

I love this pancake birthday tradition. Too cute.

I am intrigued by the weekly photo inspiration,
It begins with a colour.

Look at these cute fairy cookie wands. Paige and I might have to try this.

I'm interested in checking out this new blog carnival, Kid's In The Kitchen starting next week.

I absolutely LOVE this doorway into summer.

I also like this summer list of things to go, read, make and do.

Watermelon Lemonade might be something to try!

Saturday, May 30, 2009

A few weeks ago, my mother came and saw our new house. She walked around the yard and pointed out plants she knew as she went. She happened to notice that we have a bunch of strawberry plants around the side of the pool. Paige has been very interested in these, and we have been checking them, looking at the green strawberries, waiting to see if any turned red. Saturday we found one red strawberry and she picked it.



Sunday, May 31, 2009

On Sunday, Michelle went to volunteer at an event at the shelter. When she came home she had a shelter name tag on. She changed out her name for Paige's, and let her put it on. She was so excited. What a great prop for when she asks to play "Animal Shelter."



Also from Sunday:

The day before, Saturday, Michelle had taken Paige to the shelter with her. Paige convinced Michelle to buy her a small blue lamb. It is a dog toy, but Paige finally told Michelle that it was for her stuffed dog that Michelle had bought her at the shelter on a different visit. Michelle decided she couldn't deny that kind of logic and got it for her. Paige has fallen in love with Lambie, who she brought outside to swing with her. I stuck her up on the swing set to watch, and Paige loved it.



Monday, June 1, 2009

There's no real significance to this picture, other than I thought she looked cute eating her "circle bread" as we call it, and it happened to be the only picture I took that day. So there you go.



Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Tuesday gives us two pictures, as I decided to document our current "sleeping plan" before I went to bed in her room. First a quick picture of Paige sleeping. She's wearing new Hello Kitty jammies I'd bought that day. She loves Hello Kitty and they are red, which is her favorite color, so I had to get them. I also like that in this picture you can see, from left to right, Taggie, Brown Bear, Douglas (the panda) and Dolphin. These four go everywhere with her right now, and there's a little song that goes with getting them ready for bed. She sings as she places them in order, "Taggie in the front, Brown Bear in the middle, Douglas in the back, and Dolphin in the back too." Then I'm allowed to join in for the chorus of "la, la, la, la." There are always four las, which she counts out on her fingers. Then I say, "and everybody schooch, to make room for Paige." You can also see her new friend Lambie on the other side.



Second, here's my current sleeping arrangement - the cushions from the couch on the floor of her room. I have sleep apnea and need to wear a CPAP when I sleep, so that's the funny looking contraption on my pillows. You can also get a glimpse of the Ariel curtains that I made for her - my first sewing project on my sewing machine, and, well, pretty much ever.



Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Roland brings us Wednesday's photo. We have a squirrel that will come up on our deck, and walk right up to the screen, even if our cats are sitting there. At one point we had a Rubbermaid bin with birdseed in it, and he lifted the top and was eating out of it. Roland has named him "Ballsy," and now everyone, including my four year old, says, "Hi Ballsy" when he's on the deck. For some reason on this day, he jumped up on the screen of the slider, just to further torment the cats, I guess. I came home and Roland told me to check out the last couple of pictures on the camera, and this is what I found.



Thursday, June 4, 2009

Wednesday night, Michelle and Roland had discovered some Powerpuff Girls cartoons that are offered in the "extras" stuff we can access "On Demand" from our cable company. Paige loved them. One of the episodes was about bad dreams, and the Girls eventually beat up their dreams. Michelle taught her "Powerpuff Paige" kicks and punches so she could beat up her dreams too. That night was the first night she slept through the night, in her own room, by herself, without waking up at all or needing to get one of us. Thursday morning, Michelle asked her to pose with her super punch pose.




Friday, June 5, 2009

For Christmas, Roland gave me twelve envelopes, one for each month. In each envelope was a piece of paper telling me, "Date Night Tonight. Dinner at..." and then there's a picture of the restaurant logo. Well, I've been opening them each month, but we haven't actually gotten a chance to go on our date night until Friday. I opened the envelope and it was for Chili's. When our dinner arrived, I surprised him by pulling out my camera to take a picture of it. He asked me what I was doing and told me I was crazy. Then I convinced him to share the Chocolate Chip Cookie Molten Cake with me. I told him, "you know I'm going to take a picture of that too?" and I did. He thought I was crazy, and I reminded him that crazy is one of the things he loves about me.



So that rounds out week two. I've noticed that most of my pictures from this week are of Paige, and I don't necessarily want this to become an all Paige album - but she's my favorite model. I guess I'll have to see how it goes, as I'm sure all weeks will be different.

Anyone else take any good pictures of the day this week?

Paige loves watermelon, and likes making Jell-O too. We might need to try this Wiggly Watermelon.

I LOVE this "recycled" puzzle.

I have received a couple of awards over the past couple of months, and am finally getting around to passing the first one along. I just checked and this first one was given to me back in February! Gasp. I didn't know it was that long ago! The problem I've been having is that most of the blogs that I'd like to pass the awards along to have already received these!

The award was:


passed along to me from: Forever Daisies

and the rules are:

"When you receive the prize, you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in their content or design. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing that they were prized with 'Honest Weblog'. List [if you can and/or dare] at least ten honest things about yourself. Then, pass it on!"

So my blogs I'm passing it to are:

1.Mom and Kiddo
2.Bare Baby Feet
3.Our Eastern Journey
4.Be Different, Act Normal
5.Our Crafts N Things
6.Scott Chris Cori Cassie Cali
7.The Write Start
8.SER.EN.DIP.I.TY

And 10 honest things about myself are:

1. I snore. A lot. And loudly.
2. I procrastinate quite a bit.
3. I am kind of a loner and a homebody. I get excited on the rare occasion when I have the house to myself.
4. I take better care of my daughter than I do of myself.
5. I get overwhelmed very easily.
6. My husband is the cook in our house, which I'm grateful for, but I get mad when people insinuate that I'm not doing my "job" because I don't cook dinner.
7. My husband also does the grocery shopping - another thing I don't like people giving me a hard time about.
8. I dislike "fake" people.
9. Respect for other people is important to me.
10. I've always been honest almost to a fault. I've often said I have Jiminy Cricket for a conscience.

Ok, there's one award down. Hopefully I can pass the second one along soon. Please don't think I'm not grateful - I'm just a big time procrastinator!