Learning, part I

Learning something new..well actually learning to use some of the features on the picture software (picasa3) that we have had for a while. It took the encouragement of my son and daughter to get me to explore these fun features. I must admit I was somewhat reluctant at first but now I am having fun with it. We have a youtube account now. My setup and email and he gets to have all the fun of filming playing his ocarina. All inspired by his love of the Zelda video games. That's his love right now. One of his favorite things. Glad to help him have fun and learn at the same time.

One thing I noticed is that children are so natural around all the features of any software and technology in general. Its so easy for him to figure things out whereas I might be there for hours hemming and hawing over what if I click this? or that?

This a little movie/practice I made of his bloopers.

Night At The Museum : Rochester, NY

Friday night the Rochester Museum and Science Center and Strasenburgh Planetarium was all ours. Really! Which of course led to all sorts of "Night at the Museum" jokes the whole night long. This was for our daughter's girl scout troop "space explorer" campout/sleepover. What a cool experience!!! Participate if you ever have the opportunity.

I have always loved the Strasenburgh Planetarium and have taken the kids there several times. I have fond memories of school field trips as a kid. But to sleep there all night?! OMG - I was a kid all over again. The Space Tunnel - I was there. The excitement as the planetarium's plain white dome "sky" turns to a twinkling night sky -- had it. This close to a mastodon you can almost imagine it breathing and hear its footsteps - yep.

The scouts get a special Star Show (just for them), hands-on activities that go along with the space explorer theme, Q&A time, and freetime to explore the museum exhibits. The museum at night is just an awesome experience. No one else was around just our troop (plus about three others) and the museum security. There were two employees there to help guide the education part of the program and go through the evenings events along with the troop leaders and moms that came along.

Just very well done. The RMSC is a gem here in Rochester. We are so lucky to have this caliber of exhibits.

Random April

just some photos from the last month or so.
... signs of spring
...favorite shade of blue + yellow
...cool boots for puddle splashing
...earth day poster contest
...Domo? little brown monster (go look it up on youtube. its hysterical)

Spring Cleaning Party

its finally here.....spring cleaning fever is hitting. this doesn't happen often 'round here. so the motivation to help me was found on the simplemom.net blog. if there are any others out there that are challenged in the area of "cleaning" then you should check it out.

discovered: finishing something makes me giddy

my craft table around 30 minutes ago

For the December Journal/Scrapbook (actually the official name is "December Daily") I chose to do a numbered tag for each day 1-25 but I didn't want to leave out days 26-31 since so much goes on that week with the kids off from school etc. I plan on just making a page/place to put those end of year reflections. I find the last week of the year always puts me in a kind of mood where I like to relax, enjoy the kids being home, clean up after the holidays and start fresh.

The whole idea was not to run out and have to buy a whole bunch of products....good thing I didn't have to. Plus, I like tinkering with digital to make my own journaling boxes or number tags. My two minor purchases were binder rings -- a box of 12 and 3" red vinyl number stickers in helvetica font. Office Depot has them on clearance this week. I was lacking in some christmas-y paper until I found my basic grey Figgy Pudding paper that I had purchased last year after the holidays. In fact, it was a little like Christmas as I uncovered a bunch of stuff I had stashed and forgotten about. Clear stamps I had forgotten about. Lots of number stickers I had yet to OPEN. gasp.

One thing, the best of all things I enjoyed, was finding out that I am totally in the mood for all this. Getting the supplies out for this project and the Christmas cards put me in a good creative flow that I haven't had in a while.

oooooh, look, pretty tags I forgot about (gotta love the toys, keeps little guy busy so I can glue things together)

yep, more stuff I forgot about. uncovered in an unlabeled brown box.
sheesh, why do I hoard?

Also tonight I printed off some penmanship paper to use as one of the pages for the journal. So I'll end the post with another very cool site to visit. Here. You can download and print out all types of papers or calendars for free. It gives a nice place to record thoughts, you can print them in smaller sizes for another element in your journal or use them as background paper on which to stamp an image on. When I print these I like to use heavy matte paper specially made for printing brochures and such (I use Epson)

glitter in my coffee

two of the tags that will number the album pages of days 1-25 for a December journal scrapbook

enchanted gold lightly blended with sea green glitter + caffeine = hmmm, yummy
(glitter is more obvious if you click on picture)

That's what happens when you are crafting + drinking your early morning cup of coffee at the same time.

The projects I am focusing on for this month are putting together a journal for December and getting the Christmas cards ready. Last year things got so busy around here that I ended up sending some New Year Cards instead. I just don't want to do that again. Starting earlier this year. Maybe doing a little less of some things to make sure the right ones DO get accomplished.

it is just not possible to get away to my craft table without the little ones following. yes, I know, the force is strong with this one.

The December journal/scrapbook album is inspired from the ali edwards blog....here
There is some really pretty christmas card inspiration at another favorite blog scrapscene... check the : a christmas card a day series.

have a great week.

Voter: " #371"

That's what the volunteer in my district said after I signed in and I went over to stand in line to cast my vote. I stood there taking it all in. I considered it one of the most memorable and significant election days ever. We made sure the kids were part of it too.

Yes, Tuesday was a very exciting day....regardless of whether your candidate won or not. Volunteered at the bake sale/fund raiser for our youngest child's school, helped early morning voters get their sugar and caffeine intake so they could stand in the long line. Went to work in the afternoon to take down old cards and put up the Christmas and Holiday cards. Ironically, I also had to take down all the "summer" cards which included the "Politics '08" line. I can't say I was sad to see them go. But a few were LOL worthy.

We as a family ended up going out to cast our vote around 5:45pm that night. We took the older kids with us. In the back of the car both of them were figuring out how many years it would be until they could vote. And who they would vote for. Nine more years buddy. Ten more little lady. They did get to participate in voting at school which made them even more excited to see the real thing. Our daughter asked if she could go in with me, they allowed it (I was surprised), but of course she was not allowed to touch anything. However, she did blurt out in a loud-ish whisper, "You're voting for Obama Mommy?" "shhhh, yes dear." We were a house divided though.

How great it was to see them, still so young, so excited to be part of something.

{Halloween pic: our little bumble bee running through the Seneca Park Zoo wooded area}

Fall is almost done dropping its beautiful autumn color here, get out and enjoy it. About 70 degrees here today, but rain projected for the weekend (that's so rochester!)