If she had the proper words to say,

My scrapbook room looks incredible, and I'm loving it. Tomorrow will be CLEAN! Day, and I'm planning on using the upholstery attachment on my floor rug when I vacuum the hardwood floors. I can't wait!

I helped Jan for hours with her pictures. We had a great time, chatting it up. She had some juicy stories to tell me (concerning a whole host of folks I don't even know, but it was still fun to follow along), and then we ended the evening watching some cop cars a few doors down on my street - ooooh! She and her son Payton arrived a little before 1pm, and they left at almost 9pm (with a break in there for him to head to baseball practice, then come back).

Philip had a lot of studying to do down in Missouri, and he was bummed about missing tonight's episode of Memphis Beat. It was a good one, too. I had recorded it, and then I started it up as the boys were eating dessert (s'mores) at the bar. I guess they got sucked into the storyline from listening for the first ten minutes, and then they were snuggled tight to me watching the rest of the episode. I told them on a commercial break, "You guys don't have to watch this boring police crime show with me, you know. You can watch something else if you want in the playroom," but they both quickly assured me that they wanted to see how it ended. Funny guys!

I also watched the pilot episode of Covert Affairs tonight. It had originally caught my eye starring Piper Perabo (I absolutely adore Coyote Ugly!), and the show didn't disappoint. It had very clever twists, and I love her blind, male sidekick. Also, I caught a neat surprise: several glimpses of the sweet hunk from Center Stage (Maureen's boyfriend). I'm excited to see more from this show.

I finally turned my wall calendar over. I'd been hesitating, as June was a second "Jacob month" this year. I figured I'd better switch it, seeing as it's almost the middle of the month.

Tomorrow night, Heather and the Zippers will be in a hotel room in El Paso, sleeping near to the airport to prepare for coming to see us. We are all SO EXCITED! Someone was asking me last week if I was worried about Minot disappointing them... and I didn't even blink. For one, I'm not - we're really enjoying the Minot area. It's very cozy, and we've not found ourselves in wont of anything (other than Chick-Fil-A, which we didn't have in Alaska or Nebraska, either). For two, again, I'm not - Heather's not coming to see our town: she's coming to see US! And we want to see THEM, more than we care about showing them around. I really just can't even explain the kind of feel-good fuzzies I get when I think about seeing her again. She just... lifts me up just by being near, you know? Or just by hearing her voice on the phone. She's that kind of friend, and I've missed her so terribly. I can't wait to give her a hug - almost ten months has been far too long a wait!

I just marinaded my first brisket, and here's hoping it tastes fabulous on Wednesday night. I made a bunch of yeast rolls last night, and I can't wait to have little shredded brisket sandwiches. *fingers crossed*

Also in the kitchen today, I made chocolate chip cookies and the first banana pudding of the year. The boys and I had small bowls of the pudding after dinner tonight, and I also made up two pretty dishes of pudding for my two favorite neighbors. I hope they enjoyed it, too.

In addition, I thought it was super-adorable that both of the afore-mentioned neighbors joined a group on Facebook called, "I ♥ My Neighbor." It's especially heartwarming because I know that both of them only know me on this street. When I saw that, I became all warm & fuzzy inside, and plenty smiley on the outside. :-D

I had a good time at the National Scrapbook Day event on Saturday. I completed nine pages in about 7.5 hours, and that's probably a record for me. (I usually average about 1 page every two hours or so.) Also in that time, I spent half an hour eating lunch and at least a good hour sorting through photos. I'm trying to get an album completed of my own childhood, and it's tough to sort through my baby and toddler photos... I can't remember that time, you know? My parents are coming to visit this summer, and I'm hoping that my mom can look through the album with me. If she's willing to journal some stuff in it, that's great. If not, I plan on taking notes while she "talks" through it. I'm excited to have the finished project!

Jack had an early soccer game Saturday morning, and then the guys dropped me off for scrapbooking while they had a "Dude's Day Out" together. They visited the Dakota Territory Air Museum, then headed to lunch at McDonald's (the one with a large play area), and then they headed to the mall to catch a matinee showing of Iron Man 2. Sometime during their day, they bopped over to the specialty kitchen store, and Philip surprised me with the Beater Blade for my KitchenAid that I've been dreaming about. (I used for the first time in today's cookies, and it worked beautifully!) Then they picked me up at 6pm, and we came home for a dinner of BBQ Chicken Pizza. It was a great day, and I fell into bed by 11pm and was asleep before my head hit the pillow. ZZZzzzzzz...

I mailed several boxes off today, and I'll be mailing one more tomorrow. After that, I'm ready to stay away from the post office for a while - it's so expensive! Meanwhile, I've been waiting on a special something to arrive in *my* mailbox for over a week, and I'm getting antsy...

Jack's soccer practice tonight was really warm. It's been mid-70's and sunny here for the past three days, and it's not set to change anytime soon. In fact, it's supposed to be mid-80's by the end of the week. I'm so glad I got all my flowerbeds planted last week, or I'd be totally burned when trying to do it this week. After the planting, I put it 36 bags of mulch, and it took a good while!

Alrightee, I'm off to do the dishes that just don't ever seem to do themselves. After a day of baking, I've got an entire sink full - eeep!

The weather is just insanely beautiful, it really is. Cruising down the highway, blasting some Panic! with my windows wide open this afternoon.

Ahhhhhhhh. :-)

I've been trying to improve my posture. I'm at the desk for hours, and I've been slumping too much in my comfy recliner chair (it's truly as large as a recliner, and it has all the same padding and supports - it is wonderful). When I get up to walk away, my lower back aches, and I feel like a granny.

To combat this habit, we went to Office Max this weekend, and we tried out every single computer chair they had. I finally chose the hardest, most uncomfy selection, and it is now in my office for my seating displeasure. The great big chair is now in the living room for when I'm scrapbooking. :-)

Though I wasn't scheduled for today, I had agreed to work for Kris this afternoon for a few hours so she could make it to her gymnastics meet. Of course, I had to call in early this morning and let Brett know that it wasn't going to happen due to Jack's being sick again.

So I have a sick child who is now napping away in his room, but it's a GLORIOUS day out today. A.J. asked to go outside a while ago, and he played happily on the swingset all by his lonesome for the better part of an hour. He pumped that swing so hard it looked like he'd fly away! I wish I could take him somewhere and do something fun, but I can't leave Jack.

He's going to help me finish baking the other two batches of cookies in a bit. I don't know what we'll do after that. He's such a reader, and his favorite thing right now is to curl up in a Star Wars book and just read away in his room in the quiet, so I imagine he'll do some of that today as well. And whenever the neighbor kids all start coming out, he'll probably head back outdoors for a few hours.

What should I do with myself in the meantime? I need some projects. There's always scrapbooking, and I might do some, but I'm not completely "feeling" it, either. I'm kinda feeling like beginning my reread of all six Harry Potter books. Or maybe watching the movies. But then again, it feels like I should save that stuff for rainy days later on. Hrmmm...

I ran the dishwasher with an over-stuffed, completely full load at 2pm. I ran it again at 10pm. This is the sign of a turkey dinner, is it not?

Yes, I made a full turkey dinner tonight. And no, it's not Thanksgiving yet. I found a turkey for a good price last week, and it sounded good. We had mashed potatoes, gravy, candied yams, green beans and rolls. Oh, and I had sweet tea, of course. I wasn't in the mood to make my own pumpkin pie this afternoon, and the bakery didn't have any. I wasn't up for a frozen pie either, so I just bought a lattice apple pie instead, and I drizzled caramel sauce over warm slices. Yummy! The boys were be-bopping around the house while the turkey roasted, singing, "We're having an early Thanksgiving! Yay, we're having an early Thanksgiving!"

I need to be getting to bed. Tomorrow morning is another meeting of the scrapbook group here at our house, and I always find myself in a flurry, trying to make sure everything is "just so" before the girls arrive. And if I tuck into bed now, I'll get a few more chapters into Deception Point. I started reading it a few days ago, but so far, I've only read a chapter here and there while on the toilet (I'm sorry - was that too much information?). I wonder how much better it is when I'm tucked into bed...?

I tried baking more Apple Spice Drops today. I actually checked the current weather forecast before doing so, and I decided to go ahead with it, even with the current humidity at 56%. The cookies still weren't perfect, but they were SO much better than the last time. Enough that I went ahead and made the apple frosting, even.

I've done three loads of laundry today and straightened up a bit. A.J. and Jack have been playing with A.J.'s new birthday toys today. The Lite Brite® seems to be a big hit (I used to love those things when I was younger!). Philip took A.J. to the BX and to Target to use his gift cards, and he picked out what he wanted. It was nice to have a quiet house while I was baking and folding, too.

A.J.'s party yesterday was wonderful. We had the entire pool for just his party - that was unexpected, but nice. It was only just above 70°, so I'd not taken my suit to swim, but Philip got in with the boys. Heather swam as well, and she and Philip both said that the water was great - who knew it would be okay with such a low temperature? The kids had fun, and the cake was devoured - every last piece. A.J. received a bunch of neat toys and gift cards, and he was a very happy guy. Even though the clouds had looked ominous all day, the party turned out just right.

Heather is coming over to scrapbook tonight, and tomorrow begins the second week of school for A.J. He finished his homework on Friday afternoon, but I'm going to have him write out a few thank-you notes before bed tonight.

It's raining softly now, but we were having a major thunderstorm earlier this morning. I am thankful that I didn't have outdoor plans for today.

I do have plans to clean out the boys' closets once again, getting everything ready for going back to school. Jack has so many, many clothes - new one from Heather, half of last year's stuff that still fits and all of A.J.'s old clothes from this age. A.J. needs a new shirt or two, and I need to move some smaller stuff out of his closet and put it into bins for Jack later on. His backpacks is already packed with all the necessary paperwork for tomorrow, so no worries there.

But I do hope there's a bright spot in the morning for that "first day of school" picture.

I might bake some more zucchini bread this afternoon. A.J. wants to take some to his new teacher, and I've already got some zucchini shredded in the refrigerator, plus six more whole zucchini. Later on this evening, Heather2 and Josie are coming over to bake chocolate chip and gingerbread cookies. She wants to makes some of each to take with her when she deploys in two weeks. I'm sure it will be fun.

Heather brought over a yummy dinner of ham steaks and homemade macaroni 'n cheese last night, and I cooked up some carrots from the garden to serve with it. She also brought over a fresh fruit salad, and we had that for dessert with some whipped cream. It was very yummy, but I was so full later! We scrapbooked for a few hours after dinner, doing a re-watch of both The Prince & Me and Hollywood Homicide. After she left, I continued working and also watched The Fast and the Furious. All three of those movies are in our current DVD collection, so I made no progress on my Netflix rentals.

I find that it's easier to scrapbook while watching something that I've already seen, though. I don't have to feel bad about just listening, as I'm looking down at my work to much to be actually watching.

I'd better get moving on today's agenda items. I want to be done with everything and able to scrapbook some more tonight!

Last night I stole away to IHOP with Heather for some BLT (though I did have a salad - not french fries) and a cocoa. As it turns out, our waitress thought we were finished, and she never came back to our table to we could add on our cocoas. We decided to finish our gabbing at Heather's house, and we watched Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone while scrapbooking and enjoying some of Heather's cocoas. I scrapped one page, and I'm very pleased with it.

This morning, I journaled on the page from last night, and I scrapped two more pages. I chose to work on Easter 2005 last night, and I used the new Parfait Album Kit for these pages. I wanted to have some pages done with this new Parfait/Confections/Toppings collection so that I'll have some things to show at my Memoranza™ event for Creative Memories® later on this month. I love the pale blue, chocolate and petal pink combination - so pretty! I didn't journal on the pages before stopping this morning, as I didn't have my stickers and accessories with me. I might finish that up tonight.

The Kenny Chesney concert is just two days away - wheee! Philip is pretty excited as well. It's surreal to think that I will have seen Kenny Chesney perform twice in less than one year. I can't wait.

I received a very cute birth announcement in the mail today from my cousin Jenny. Once again, how in the world had no one even told me she was pregnant again? I didn't learn about her first baby, Katie, until she was born, and I didn't hear word of Nicholas until the announcement arrived today... and he'll be one month old tomorrow! He's cute as a button, though. Also, they used those nifty photo stamps on the envelopes - I think those are so cool. I've looked into doing them myself, but yikes! The prices!

I was asleep hard when the alarm went off this morning. HARD. I was not ready to get out of bed, but I did anyway. A girly get-together was planned for breakfast this morning, and I wasn't going to miss that. As I was putting on my shoes, I called Marissa to tell her I'd be there in five minutes to pick her up. Instead, she barely squeaked out a "Hel-fumble-rustle-lo??" I knew she was as asleep as I had been only a few minutes earlier. I told her I'd come by and get her after I dropped off Jack instead, and that's exactly what I did. We were then off to Panera Bread.

Girly breakfast was good and girly. And hot. I imagine that Panera Bread still had their heat running this morning, but they also had bread baking and the fireplace going in the dining area. I was stifling. It felt so good to walk back out into the spring breeze again when we left. I dropped Marissa off and came home for a bit. I started washing all of the boys' bedding, and I loaded the dishwasher. We deep-cleaned all the floors yesterday afternoon, and I wanted fresh bedding to go along with the super-clean feeling. Soon it was time to pick up Jack, and I did just that. Afterwards, he and I went to the commissary to pick up just a handful of things. We also went to the BX and bought a new computer mouse.

We came home, and I made lunches for us both. I rotated loads of laundry, and I washed some grapes and put away the rest of the fruit. I folded and put away all our clean laundry (which I washed last night), and Philip picked A.J. up at school (he had an early dismissal today). We all went outside to play for about two hours. Philip left for work, and then I read the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to A.J. while we sat on the swing together. He thought it was really neat, especially since he feels like he knows what's going to happen, having already seen the movie countless times by now.

After coming inside, I remembered (finally!) to take pictures of the last few scrapbook pages while there was still daylight. I did that, and then I put the pages up over at nicole_scraps. :-)

Now it's time to go make dinner, I suppose. The new mouse is spiffy and works great, and so I'll try to get a Field Trip picture or two up later...

So.

It's, um, Sunday. We got up, bathed, went to church and came home. We played, and I got a letter written that I'd been needing to get done for a little while. We drove around for a bit and came back home. We ate dinner.

It's nighttime now. The boys are in bed, and I'm going to scrapbook for a little while, and I'm going to watch whatever it is that Philip is already watching on the TV.