(Drama) Queen of the Snow

Here is Megan's first snow experience of the year. She really liked it. She spent 15 minutes or so and went in when I felt like she was getting wet.

So what is the Drama Queen part about? It took 2 hours to get dressed and ready to go outside. I asked her at breakfast if she wanted to go outside. She said yes and after getting down from her chair, stood by the door waiting. It took some work to convince her that she couldn't go out in her pjs. We finally made it upstairs and I got the first layer of clothing on. I then put her footie pjs on over her clothes thinking her boots would fit over the feet (they are 3 sizes too big). Well, that didn't work, so I started to take the pjs off. This produced a crying fit because she liked that the pajamas had a mouse on them. I let her wear them for a minute, but then she got mad because she didn't like the footies. But, do you think she would let me take the pjs off? No, she couldn't connect that the footies were part of the pajamas that she didn't want taken off. Another crying fit followed. Once I had successfully (if a child walking around crying can be called successful) removed the pajamas, I decided we needed to take a break and watch Pablo. It didn't take much to convince her to watch Pablo. As soon as the show ended, she came over and said "side" (translation=outside) and "boots" (translation=boots). So we started over. I put a pair of jeans on her which led to more crying because she doesn't like wearing jeans currently. Then, we tried the boots again but she couldn't walk in them. She fell over and this led to again, more crying. She didn't want her coat on because she was still mad about the jeans (I've found it takes about 10 minutes for her to forget what pants she is wearing). Finally, I walked to the mudroom and told her I was going outside. At this point, she happily let me zip her coat, don her hat and put on the mittens that had all been detestable moments before...





No, she didn't build the snowman, but she liked it.

She liked making paths through the snow.

The Joys of Scraplifting

I got another picture out of my stack of "I'm going to scrapbook that someday pile." This one if for my Fifty States Album. Chad and I decided that we want to visit all 50 states together. To prove that we did it, we have to take a picture of us somewhere or doing something state specific and that picture goes in the album. So far, I have 9 pages, but we have visited at least 5-10 others that I haven't scrapped or haven't gotten the required picture. As a scrapbooker, it is an interesting experiment also because it shows how much trends change.


This page was a scraplift from the July CK. I thought I'd scan the original to demonstrate how I "scraplifted."


The

Politics...Oh, wait, no.

I have been reading lots of blogs and facebook entries on politics and it has been enlightening and confusing to see where different people stand. Part of me wants to talk it out and part of me does not want to impose on others and part of me feels like maybe I'm just missing something. There are obviously a lot of parts of me today...

So instead of politics, I bring you another page that I did today. It is again out of the "been holding on to this photo forever" pile. (And no, I didn't pick blue paper as a subliminal message).

My name is Katy Gorrell and I approved this page. I promise to continue to fill my blog with cute pictures of Megan and the occasional scrapbook page.

Christmas...2004

For my birthday, Chad is letting me take the day off (via his mom coming to watch Megan) and a friend and I are going to go to the scrapbook store. In preparation for this, I decided to spend today getting organized to make the most of my time. I pulled out my "to be scrapped" file and found this picture above that has been waiting almost 4 years. When I saw it, I grabbed my December Creating Keepsakes Mag and found the inspiration I had apparently been waiting for and my organizational plans flew out the window.

Megan saw me get out a jar of buttons and immediately started asking, "Please?" At first, I thought no, but then I decided to give it a try. She played with the buttons for 1 1/2 hours. She put them in and out of different containers. For the most part, she stayed in one area, but I'm sure I'll be finding red buttons for the next 6 months...

Scrappin'

Two weeks ago, I spent a few days in Ohio with the in-laws and got to spend some time at the scrapbook store. I didn't get a lot done, but these are the two pages I started and two weeks later finished.


This is a new thing I'm trying on some of my 12 x 12 pages. When I have extra pics to include, I'm going to use a 6 x 12 page in the middle of the double page spread. In the picture below, the insert is to the left.


Here is how it appears in the album:

The cutest lion

Megan was an adorable lion for Halloween thanks to Grandma Gorrell's smart shopping after Halloween last year. She was a little reluctant about the costume at first, but once it was on she was okay with it. I had left the lion mane out with her toys for weeks trying to get her used to it and every couple days I'd ask if she wanted to try it on, she always said no. Lucky for me the photo crazed parent, the mane snaps to the body of the outfit. We slipped it on, snapped it in place and the poor thing couldn't get it off...

We took her across the street to the neighbors who had M&Ms just for Megan because they know Megan loves M&Ms.


She didn't want to take pictures, she wanted candy.


She was trying to discover how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of the tootsit pop.


If candy weren't bad for her, I'd give her a sucker everyday. She sat still for 15 minutes working on the sucker. There are days where I would do some crazy things to get her to sit still for 15 minutes.



After the local trick-or-treat night ended, Chad and I went to a costume party. For those of you none locals, our costumes need an explanation.


Everyone in DuBois refers to the plant Chad works at as, "the Cheese Plant." The strange thing is, they don't make cheese there. When the plant was being built there was an article in the local paper about it and it said the plant would make cheese, which at the time was true. The cheese business never really took off and so instead they make coffee syrup for duncan donuts, beverages, mayonnaise, ketchup and anything else that seems like a profit could be made. The community still refers to it as "the cheese plant." We have received many a blank stare when we say, "Chad works at Giuseppe's Finer Foods." We follow that with, "it's part of ICP?" When the confusion still exists, we resort to, "the cheese plant on Oklahoma Salem." At which point a lightbulb seems to come on and the person usually asks something about cheese and what the plant makes and we have to explain that, "No, they don't actually make cheese."


Okay, now that the background is clear, Chad and I dressed up as superheroes. He was Cheese and I was a Plant and together we combined forces to be, "Cheese Plant."



And finally, this is the pumpkin we carved at the party. I was pretty proud of our effort. We went boys versus girls and the boys made a Steelers emblem and then used a DRILL to write the word "Steelers" into the pumpkin. It was Chad's idea. We ladies made due with our little carving knife.

Meeting Clifford

Our local library had an event this past Tuesday to meet Clifford and get a free book. We took Megan and she thought it was pretty fun. She wouldn't sit on his lap, but she touched his foot, pointed to his eyes and gave him high-5s (well, low 5s, afterall he's the BIG red dog.) She had a good time.

We visit the library every two weeks. The children's department is nice, they have puzzles, a play house, blocks, puppets and of course, books! She loves "Spot" books and recently has been into the "Thomas the Train" books. Our favorite right now is called, "You and Me Baby" and she will randomly say the first two lines even though we returned it last week. Since I have the book memorized, I tell it to her while she acts out what all the babies in the book are doing. Very cute, very funny.

What a difference a year makes.

Kim, Tracy and I did a retake on last years photo shoot with the kids. The obvious change was that both Kim and Tracy had a baby this year. I didn't realize though until I went back to look at last year's picture how much the kids had actually changed. Obviously there has been a dramatic change when I stop to think about it. Last year, she couldn't sit up, let alone run, jump and dance. Last year, drool was about the only thing coming from her mouth. Now we laugh, moo, give kisses and say about 75 words. She has also become a blonde...hmm. Enough words, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.







The kids sat down and immediately let us take pictures. We took a brief break to readjust the babies and after that things went down hill. Lily informed us that "it's too cold" and proceeded to cry. It was very sad (and also cute in that weird parent way that sobbing children are adorable).



This is Connor Matthew, he belongs to Kim, Matt and Caden. He was born July 21.


This is Ella Rose. She belongs to Tracy, Phil and Lily. She was born June 24.

Scrapbooking and the Backyardigans

I made this layout this past week. I know, there is no journaling and I'm trying to come up with some additional embellishments, but I like it otherwise.

Megan absolutely loves the Backyardigans. If you ask who her friends are the list usually includes Caden, Tracy, Macy (who are all real people) and she always includes "Tasha" and "Pablo" who are cartoons from the show. Last week, I decided to make her a little book of the Backyardigans. I was able to print off all the pics from the Nick Jr. website and here is the final (quickly made) product:

A trip to Cooper Farms

We spent a perfect fall day (or three hours of it) at Cooper Farms, a local farm market. They have a "Pumpkin Festival" every Saturday in October and probably make a killing off of people like Chad and I who want to give their children a country experience. That sounded a little cynical. Megan loved it and so we loved it. There was a lot to see and do and it was a very fair price. In fact, Megan got to ride everything free. I, however, paid two dollars to ride the barrel train below...Megan liked it because we have been looking at books about trains and tractors lately. We also took a carriage ride with "horseys" which was a big thrill for Megan.

They had lots of hands-on activities set up, pumpkin tic-tac-toe, pumpkin bowling, bean bag toss. Megan liked the bubbles.

We went on a hayride.

I just thought this tree was pretty.

They had a petting zoo. Megan was excited but was also too scared to get down or touch anything. She likes animals, but she likes them from a distance which is fine by me.

Eventually, she allowed me to set her on the ground and even patted this goat several times. I think her favorite was the pig. And yes mom, we used hand sanitizer when we were done because I know pet zoos have lots of salmonella or something bad.

After a lunch of hot dogs, we went into the corn maze. Neither Chad or I had done one and I think it was a mistake. Megan was tired by this point and wouldn't let me put her down. It was hot and we had dressed for cool. Plus, once you go in, you have to find your way out (that probably should have been obvious to me).

We bought some of the little tiny pumpkins for decor, but Megan walked among the bigger ones.

Megan was very busy inspecting pumpkins and wouldn't stay still long enough for the photo-op I wanted so I asked her to hug the pumpkin.

She has been very affectionate lately so the hugging quickly led to a kiss. She then walked from pumpkin to pumpkin giving them kisses...

Falling for Fall

We have had a beautiful week here in Pennsylvania. The trees are turning and the weather has been low 70s with just that touch of cool when the sun disappears. Yesterday afternoon, Chad got home a little early, so we picked up some Subway and went to Parker Dam State Park.

Megan found the whole experience to be so exciting that her hair stood up on end!



After our picnic dinner, we (I say we because we all did take turns crawling through the tubes and going down slides) played at the playground.


Then, we (I say we, but Megan got carried a fair portion) hiked around the lake. She thought tramping through the leaves was great fun and found lots of things to explore including the pine cone seen below. She also thought the gravel path at another point on the hike was great and stopped to eat a few handfuls.




See what I mean about a great fall!


After our hike, we went back to the playground for another round. Then went to the nature center for an up close look at some stuffed animals of both the synthetic and the once living and breathing variety.