Digital Scrapbooking

I love to scrapbook. I think that it is a great way to keep up with family pictures. The problem is it is very expensive. It is also very hard to do with kids around. If you are a scrapbooker you know what I mean. You get the tote of stuff out, get everything out and organized and little hands are grabbing at everything "helping mommy!" I found a whole new way to scrapbook that I am starting to LOVE. I am using Photo Shop and learning digital scrapbooking. I figured that I could get 20 pages put together, upload them onto Snapfish, or Shutterfly, order a book for $20-30 and I could have a wonderful book of memories with half the work, and a lot less mess. I am a rookie at digital scrapbooking and this is my very first page. I hope to get better at it as I learn how to use Photo Shop. It is an amazing program but kind of hard to figure out. I am working my way through a tutorial CD that my friend let me borrow. It is a lot of fun. So I welcome myself to the world of digital!

My date with my little Man

On Thursday night I had the great honor of taking my handsome little man on a date to "Disney on ice". I got together with my friend and we planned to buy tickets for our kids but not tell them where we were going . So for a month neither one of us mentioned Disney on ice. The night of the show I invited Cori and her daughter Jessie over to our house for Pizza making night. Daniel and Jessie loved making their own pizza's. Then after we did that we told them we had to out of a little while. We went down town, parked, and walked to the convention center. When we got inside both kids were very confused. We had them close their eyes, and put mickey mouse ears on their heads. Then we told them to open their eyes and see if they could figure out where they were. After opening their eyes they both looked very confused. Finally Jessie saw a sign and yells "Disney on ice!!!" Both of the kids were so excited and Daniel could not wait to get to his seat and see "buzz lightyear". Here are a few pictures and video from our fun trip. It was a great night full of fun memories!!!The princesses with their prince charmings!
Beauty and the beast.
Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
Finding Nemo
Daniel and mommy before the show.



The toy story scene with buzz lightyear was Daniel's favorite part of the show. He loves toy story!!!

silly Daniel

Daniel came out of his room the other day with his coat over his head crying. So what did mommy do? Of course I picked up the camera. Enjoy seeing a little bit of Daniel.

Monica's big girl bed

This past week we decided that Monica was old enough to be moved out of her crib into a toddler bed. At first when she saw daddy taking down her crib she was very concerned. She kept coming into the living room to report in her gibberish language what daddy was doing. Then when we brought up the toddler bed her eyes lit up and she got very excited. She is growing up so fast! The first nap time was a little rough as she tried to test the boundaries but she has been doing great since then. She loves that she can get in and out of bed by herself, just like big brother. Oh sweet daughter of mine, another mile stone has been reached.

Sweet Monica Marie

Which do you like better?


Movie Star Monica... or

Rock Star Monica??? Cast your vote in the comment section.

Out for a Stroll

It is finally warming up here. It is going to be 50 degrees tomorrow, I am so excited. On Saturday I took the kids out of a stroll around campus. It was such a nice night. I took the camera along and snapped a few shots of the kids.

Monica the observer

I started watching Eva and Zachary again at the beginning of January. Monica has been very curious about the new baby. Today she took the bumbo (which she knows she is to big for but is now interested in it because of the baby) and sat it right in front of Eva and just stared at her until Eva woke up. It was really funny to see Eva's reaction to this person just staring at her. Monica has also made sure to be right behind me every time I am tending to the baby and watching my every move. It is cute to see her so intrigued by the baby.

For those of you who do not live in Michigan...

...this is the kind of weather we are dealing with. I am thinking of going into hibernation.

The Trio

Who needs to be scared when you have super heroes around?

Daniel Sledding

Here is a video of Daniel sledding down a set of stairs outside our apartment building. This was after one of those big snow storms we had. This gives a little bit of an idea of how much snow we have had so far this winter.

Monica dancing and playing

Monica loves her fridge phonics toy she got for Christmas this year. Here is a video of her playing with it. She loves the push the button and then dance to the music. Enjoy!

Monica learning to use chop sticks

Random Pictures from the past 2 weeks

Well here I am trying to update what has been going on here for the past couple of week. We had a wonderful Christmas day. We got to share Christmas with my parents via Skype. I really enjoyed being able to share our Christmas morning with them. Then after we skyped with my parents we got on with Brandon's parents as well. The kids got a lot of fun presents. Thanks to all who helped spoil my kids this Christmas.

Daniel got two superhero outfits. He got Iron Man from my parents and Batman from Uncle Randall. He also got batmobile from Aunt Andrea and family, which he says is "really super cool" and is his favorite Christmas gift. Daniel was looking for a superhero sidekick so we put Monica in the Iron man costume. She looked so cute!

Daniel as Iron Man. In the background is Monica's favorite toy, her "Melmo" (Elmo)
Monica got a shopping cart from Babu and ShoSho. She and Daniel both have loved playing with this.
We did a lot of cookie decorating this Christmas. Monica wanted to help decorate the cookies, actually she just wanted to help eat the cookies!
Daniel did a great job decorating. He is getting so big!
Daniel wanted the empty wrapping paper rolls, and this is what he did when them. He wanted "super long arms." Just a note here with Daniel these days everything is "super" something. "Really super cool," "really super sorry," "really super hungry," "really super mad," you get my drift. It is "really super funny" listening to him say "really super" all the time.
This was our porch a couple of weeks ago after a big snow storm.
Monica and Daniel eating snow.

Daniel made an "igloo" out of snow.


Daniel visiting Santa before Christmas. Monica was not a happy camper and refused to sit on Santas lap so she is not in the picture. Maybe next year she would do better. More decorating! Here is Daniel with the neighbor kids decorating cookies.
Monica decided to put on her daddy's hat and she looked so darn cute!

My big boy

The last few days we have been pummelled with snow. We are going to have 10 more inches in the next couple of days. Today I told Daniel that I would give him a quarter if he would go out and shovel the porch. He was so excited, he went out and did his very best and earned his quarter. What a sweet kid!

Winter Weather

This morning we woke up and looked outside to see near blizzard conditions. The wind is blowing 40 MPH with a wind chill of -10, as you can imagine it is blowing snow causing major snow drifts and 0 visibility. We found out a few minutes ago that our church services have been cancelled because of the travel conditions. I thought I would share a few pictures of what our major highways look like right now.