Scrapfest

Yes. There is a 'Scrapfest' and yes, I do attend :) My friend, Sarah, and I went for our first time last year and decided it had to be a tradition. Yesterday morning was registration online, 7 am sharp. Now, sounds silly, but it's actually quite stressful. Us and hundreds of other scrappers were waiting for the clock to strike 7 and then it's a mad rush to get the classes/workshops that you want into your cart, paid for and checked out...so you get what you want and the times you want. I know, dork...but, we love it :)

So, for this entire weekend in September, we'll rent a hotel next to the Mall of America, load up ALL of our scrapbook stuff, and spend it scrapping in the hotel and going to the workshops at the mall. Can't wait!!

hard day's work

for Connor that is, when he has hour long photo shoots :) My aunt Mary came down this afternoon to take pictures of Connor, out of 300+ photos...I think we definitely has some good ones :) I have yet to really go thru them (seriously, 300) to find my favorites and edit them...but here a few for a quick look, then hopefully this week I'll post some more edited versions. My computer is really dogging it lately when I run photoshop...so it's kind of a pain, but maybe I'll have someone at work look at it.

Now for the pictures. There are so many more good ones, but I need to spend some time sorting and editing (as if I really know how to 'edit' photos, but I pretend!)

Should probably explain this one. My cousin Terry (that just visited from Japan) brought Connor this as a gift. It says 'Fighting Spirit' which is what he has showed from day one. Now, whether or not we have it right side up...who knows. Mom and Mary nick named him 'Fighting Spirit Wing-Nut'. Cute, huh.

Picasso II

I picked up Connor the other day at daycare and on his little daily slip it said 'Connor had fun painting today!'..so, having really no idea how they could paint with infants, I ask what that really means...and she tells me they take off their clothes and just put some paint in front of them. How fun! And then I asked if they took pictures, and they did! Seriously loving our daycare.




The final product is a little kite they cut out of the sheet of paper he painted on and attach a little streamer to make the string. Adorable! Hopefully they send it home with us someday instead of trashing it. It might have to be permanent decor in the new house ;) His first art project.

Ang's Baby Shower

Sunday was Ang's baby shower, that me, her sister, Emily and her sister-in-law, Chrissy, hosted. It turned out to be a GREAT shower, had a great turnout (35+ people!) and she got LOADS of great stuff! Below are a few pictures from the day! (we didn't let a little rain ruin our party :))

Chrissy, Emily, Ang, Me

Em, Ang and their Mom, Sue

One of the games was to get into groups and create a diaper out of one roll of toilet paper...the above group happened to win.

Little Avery...she stared at Emily like this the entire time she was holding her. Too cute.

All the babes. Avery was not thinking this was cool, she kept propelling herself forward, nearly off the couch.

Pre-rain, our balloons were very full, nice, in the air...then it started to pour.

And then it poured even more and pretty soon we had no balloons.

Connor's New Toy

Kept him pretty occupied the other morning while I was getting ready.

Visit from A far

My cousin Terri and her family have been living in Okinawa, Japan for the last 7 years. Warren (Terri's husband) is in the military and they are stationed there. They love it...and actually just got approved to stay another 3 years over there. If I understood correctly, in three years they'll be 'home' for good (wherever 'home base' would be), but it'll at least be in the states.

ANYWAYS, Terri and her two boys, Michael and Mason have been home for the past month, visiting her sister and kids, her mom and dad, and then us! They stayed out at my mom's house Sunday night on their way back to Des Moines, where they fly out on Wednesday.

Here are a few pics from the evening!

Michael, Bryan, Me & Connor, Terry, Joe, Krystal & Ashlyn, Mason

Mason

Michael

Connor was...hungry? What else?

Aunt Mary and Ashlyn

Sticky Note Fencing

Here it is...what you've all been waiting for! Sticky note fencing...Matt won his match up...but it turned out not to be a playoff scenario or bracket, whatever you want to call it, and since he didn't stick the MOST notes on his opponent out of the other people that competed...we didn't win. Not even third. It was the most active duo, however.

Then we followed it with Chipotle lunch at Matt's house with his wife, Trisha, and daughter, Kaitlyn, who amused us (and herself) by trying to blow up water balloons.

Fun with Emily and Ang

Ang kindly lets me use her house for pumping all the time...yesterday when I came downstairs after I was done...I find them taking photos of Connor, in some random fake flowers, trying to make him smell them. Because that's manly.

stupid flowers.

Who is that crazy lady?

Ben & Mary's Shower

Connor and I stopped over at a shower for Ben and Mary last night, good times :) Connor was such a good boy...and showed off a little by having a really loud man fart...which of course turned out to be more than a fart :)

So, Connor looks huge, but really, in comparison, Shelby is tiny.

The happy couple

Hostess with the mostess.

Office Olympics

Four weeks out of the year, our building holds a 'social week'. Angie was actually the founder of this great idea last year when she was head of the social committee for our building :) Anyways. This week's theme is 'Office Olympics'. We started the week off by having office chair races in our big conference room in the basement. I wish I had pictures, but one person sat on the chair and the other was blindfolded and had to listen to their partner try and tell them where to go, in circles, around obstacles, really fast, slow down, to the right..etc. It was pretty funny.

Tuesday was Olympic Trivia...which our team did terrible at. Questions like, when was the first Olympics, how often did they have them, what was the first Olympic city, etc. So not a history buff.



Yesterday was a Rock, Paper, Scissors competition. I lost in the first round, but Angie and Matt made it to the final rounds, and Ang took second place! (she also took 3rd place (I think) in Mankato's city wide competition last year...performed at the civic center...no lie)

Ang in the final round...Carynn, the opponent beat out Matt and Ang. She was intense. We're hoping Matt doesn't have to fence against her today. Yes, fence. More on that below.

Ang is going to kill me that I didn't crop her head out of this picture, as she didn't know her head was in the photo, and she threatened to post bad pictures of me on her blog...but, I didn't have the time to crop it this morning :) Hard to see in the photos, but her hands were BRIGHT red. And that's Matt in the background. Built to fence.

The employees and their families also get to go to a Moon Dogs baseball game, and get to participate in all of the events, first pitch, race with Mutnik, pie eating contest, and the favorite...the dizzy bat spin. Check out the video below to see Shanna, one of our building's copywriters get dizzy :)

Ok, having a little technical difficulty adding the video. Will add later. It's funny.

Today is Post-It Note Fencing. Yes, fencing. I'm not sure what it all entails yet, but we have Matt, our long armed, long legged teammate signed up. Something about wearing a garbage bag and trying to stick as many post its on your opponent? Ha, can't wait. Will definitely have pictures to share.

And, maybe you just don't think this is as fun/funny as we do. It's sure a nice break to the normal grind!

multi-tasking

So, each day at work, I have to pump twice. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon. Each time, I attempt to be somewhat productive with work stuff, bring my laptop, etc. Yesterday afternoon, a few IT guys and I were emailing back and forth trying to troubleshoot a problem on one of our websites while I was pumping in the 'lactation room' (a conference room that no one can book anymore for a meeting) and ok, I was doing no troubleshooting...just doing the whining why stuff wasn't working. Now, just to get you on the same page, at one point in the conversation one of them asked if anyone had seen the new Star Wars exhibit. So, three IT guys and me.

Anyways, to the story. So, we had like 10 emails back and forth within a matter of minutes so one of them suggested that we just get on the phone. Okay, no worries, Angie told me that she can't hear the pump while on the phone with me, so I didn't think anything about it.

The first few minutes one of them kept asking what the 'static' was in the background and if anyone else could hear it. I didn't say anything of course. One of them (that knows what I do 2x a day) was like 'it's probably Christy' and laughed...so I was just like, haha.

Then maybe 10 minutes into the call, one of them asked me where I was (same one that knows what i do 2x a day), I replied '3b'. And he goes, "what, you think you can just go use that room whenever you want"...then a few jokes about how it's the 'maternity' room now..haha...then the final guy steps up and was like, "um, what did you guys think that noise was in the beginning" like duh, she was pumping, can't believe you guys didn't figure that out...etc.

Okay, and now that I type this story, it's not as funny, and I don't have the great talent of telling stories (seriously, that is a talent), but, it was mortifyingly (I know that's not a word) embarrassing, and I felt quite unprofessional...but at the same time it was pretty funny. All three guys are super cool so I'm not too worried about it...but guess I won't be multi-tasking that much anymore.

couple randoms

Just thought I'd share the few pictures I had on my camera. The first are from after the 'incident' at church the other day, see why I was glad he didn't get it on his shirt and jeans? I loved his outfit :) And, this is showcasing we CAN sleep on our back...for like 15 minutes.

The last picture is how Bryan fed Connor tonight. Now, I'm sure this is probably bad for him, but, it worked :) It appears upside down, but really I'm just taking it from above him, and he's watching the Twins game (again, up for debate that TV is bad for babies...)

And if you already think I'm a bad mom...this won't make it better...I have Bryan rigging up the trailer for behind the bikes that we bought last year...I think we're supposed to wait until 6 mos. or so, but maybe we can rig his car seat into it...we were going to try it tonight I think, but, Connor just went to sleep :) Let's hope he's down for the night!

Hope you all had a great Monday!

a night with Ang and Jay

Well, mostly Ang. But anyways, Jay and Angie were kind enough to watch Connor one night while I went up to the house and painted last week. Ang posted a few pics in her post.

Ashlyn's Photo Shoot

a couple to start...

We just thought this was funny. She was not digging the too small basket :)

Messy Saturday

Yesterday, we had our first real 'blow out' situation. And of course, it was during church...and of course, I was wearing white pants. Not that you really need more information than that, but, I'm going to tell you the story, I just won't post a picture of my pants.

I could smell that Connor had a dirty diaper, so, I turn him onto my shoulder and take a peek down his pants. Not that I needed to, since it was bubbling over the top already. However, amazingly, there wasn't any on his shirt or his pants. I was thinking what a good mom I was that I caught this disaster-to-be just in time. So, I grab the diaper bag and head to the bathroom to change him. Of course, I'm out of wipes, so I go to the sink to wet a paper towel...and it was then that I noticed while standing in front of the mirror. My entire left leg, and when I mean entire, I mean entirely down my thigh to my shoes, was covered in poop. I honestly am so close to posting a picture so you get the full effect. I'm sure it made it worse that I had white pants on...but, seriously, gross. So I instantly start thinking, what the heck am I going to do now. I can't go back to church like this. Luckily...there were two girls in the bathroom that had been sitting across the aisle from us in church. So I ask them to tell my husband that I need him. A few minutes later I hear a knock on the bathroom door, open it, Bryan asks what's wrong...and I look down and he's like, oh, gross! So yeah, needless to say, Bryan grabbed Connor and headed back to church, I snuck over to Old Navy to buy some new pants (which, I held Connor's blanket in my hand while walking around the store so no one could see the mess...).

So, that was our 'messy Saturday'. We did follow it by a nice family dinner at Olive Garden :)

Still working on posting pics of Ashlyn's photo shoot...just getting the house cleaned up and laundry in order.

check...

check one more thing off the list for the house. Mom and I (and wow, a HUGE thank you to Mom today! Not only helping with Connor, but a great sounding board for ideas, and helping me figure out what will look best, where, etc.. THANK YOU!) spent most of today in town running around to the three home improvement stores to buy lighting, drawer/door hardware and bathroom stuff (toilet paper holder, etc.). SO...we did AMAZING, I think. We have all of the interior lighting done, aside from one or two flush mount fixtures, wasn't sure what I was supposed to buy for those, all bathroom 'stuff' aside from the main 1/2 bath, all ceiling fans, and all cabinet/vanity hardware. SUCH a good feeling! Have the vanity lights left, but we were definitely getting burnt out!

So, probably just take a once over once everything starts coming together, make sure everything we bought matches up with the faucets, etc. Hopefully it all goes great :)

Hope you're all having a great weekend so far, not sure what is on the agenda tonight, maybe a nice dinner out with my little family :) (wait...Connor is FAR from little...)

Will have pics sometime today hopefully of Ashlyn's photo shoot yesterday with Mary, lots and lots of good ones! Such a little peanut.

I lied...

Sorry, ONE more post. Just a few pics I snapped yesterday morning before going to work. Sorry for the red-eye, too lazy to take it out right now.