The Birthday Season Has Begun!

In our family, Spring brings almost all of the birthdays.  We have several in March, and the majority are in April.  That means I'll be busy making presents for the next few months!  This last weekend we celebrated my niece Sofia's 6th birthday.  The day before the party I had remembered that Sofia really wanted a special box to put her treasures in (similar to the one I had made her younger sister Pearl a few months before).  So I brought out the paper and the Mod Podge and went to work!  This is the end result ...

I used one of my dad's old cigar boxes (which I have PLENTY of) and some of my more "childish" looking paper.  

This was really my first attempt at decoupage and I had so much fun doing it!  I definitely will be doing more projects like this in the near future.

A Nice Little Getaway!

This past weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to get out of Ellensburg for a couple of days and head up to Leavenworth.  We met up with Matt's father and his wife and some of their good family friends.  We had a blast!  Matt and I drove up a few hours early with the girls and had a few hours to ourselves which provided the perfect opportunity to get some great photos!  The weather was outstanding, we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful weekend!  We had a great dinner, good drinks, and a wonderful time visiting with family and friends!  Here are some shots I got from the weekend.

Yearling Bald Eagle hanging out on our road

Testing out my new remote while Bea naps

Checking out presents from Aunt Nikki and family with Margot

Evelyn can't put this thing down, she keeps saying "Brody and Peyton got this for me!"

Pobrecita!

Morning snuggies with Papa!

Trying to open our eyes for the camera in the bright sunlight!

Matt and his Father

Gymnastics!

Tonight Evelyn had her first gymnastics class!  Matt and I have been saying we need to get her involved in some sort of outside activity for a while now, and we finally made it happen!  She had a blast, and picked everything up so quick!  She's such a strong little girl, I have no doubt in my mind that she won't be great at this!  I can't wait until Bea is also old enough to take classes, we had a hard time keeping her off of the practice area!  I hope this is something Evie really enjoys.  She teared up when the class was over tonight and we had to leave, she didn't want to stop!  We are also looking into swim lessons, which is something I probably should have had her in already...oops!

Bea's Boo Boo

Well not ten minutes after I had completed today's first post, Bea took a pretty bad spill.  There is a drawer in my kitchen full of aprons, pot holders and dish towels that Bea absolutely LOVES to tear apart.  I've never thought anything of the large drawer being open while she's walking around until today!  She loves to run around the island in my kitchen and usually does so without any problems.  However, today she tripped on the rug in front of my kitchen sink and landed on the edge of the towel drawer hitting her face.  I knew it was bad from the second she fell, but I wasn't able to assess her injuries due to the massive amounts of blood flowing from her nose, mouth and a significant gash above her eye.  I panicked, to say the least.  Do I call 911 or drive her to the ER myself?  I decided to drive her myself and grabbed Evelyn and a kitchen towel for Bea's face and ran out the back door.

We were on the highway before a minute had even passed by since her tumble.  Normally it takes us fifteen minutes to get into town, I think I made it there in nine today, Bea screaming the whole way and dripping blood all over herself and car seat.  Evelyn was very concerned for Bea and kept trying to console her.  My mother and Grammy met us at KVCH and Grammy took Evelyn to the waiting room for us.  After sitting in a holding room in the ER for 5 minutes a nurse came in and told us that there was such a long line for care in the ER at that time that we might be better off calling Bea's doctor and taking her there.  The nurse said as long as she didn't pass out when she hit the drawer or have any seizures she probably would only need stitches, or even less bothersome, glue.  So off to the doctor's office we went.

Bea's nose and eyelid stopped bleeding just before getting to the doctor's office which was a relief.  After the nurses cleaned up her face we could see some bruises forming under and above the eye and on her nose.  There was nothing wrong with her mouth, so the blood coming from there must have been a result of the bloody nose.  I was so grateful to hear she didn't knock out any teeth or bite her tongue at all!  The doctor was able to just glue up the cut which is another plus.  She did great through the whole thing.  My poor baby!

I keep having to remind myself that a head injury bleeds much more than any other.  I think I handled myself alright throughout the whole thing, although I did fall apart a little on the drive when we were momentarily stopped by road construction and also when Matt wouldn't answer his phone!

Finally we got home and Bea fell right asleep.  What a traumatic experience for us all!

Bea destroying and Evie putting it back together again

                                      

These were taken earlier today, the bruising is a bit more significant now...

Happy despite the boo boo!

New ways to see more from me!

I have always kept up to date (for the most part) with sharing my photos online for family and friends to see -- at least this was the case while I still had Facebook.  I was looking for a way to share my photos with everyone again and came across Flickr.  I created an account there last night and hope to keep uploading pictures on a frequent basis!  Please stop on by my page and check it out, be sure to let me know if the links are not working or of you cannot see any of the pictures.  I have tried to make them visible to all but I'm still new at this, so bear with me!  Just click on the link below and you should be redirected to my photos.  Thanks!

My Account

So Long, Farewell...

So this afternoon, I decided to close my Facebook account.  This is something that I have been thinking about doing for some time now.  I can't believe that it was actually a hard thing for me to do, and I think that's pretty pathetic!  The media has its hooks so deep into some of us that the computer can actually be a harmful and addicting thing.  I'm not to bad on the internet as a whole, but when it came to Facebook, I spent WAY too much time on there!  Not just playing the stupid games they have but "checking up" on all my friend's and family's pages.  I have found out some things in the past few months that have really upset me, things I wish I would've never heard and I found it all out on Facebook.  I feel that people are all too open about their personal lives on public forums and when I see them react and get so defensive about people commenting on their original threads it actually angers me.  Why post something if you don't want people to comment on it?  I think everyone should really think about what they post before they do it.  But then again, I know there are some FB users out there that like to be the center of the drama, therefore they post anything and everything about their days (yet they still throw fits when people call them out on it).  Oh well!

This has all led up to the deletion of my account.  I decided that instead of being upset about what someone is doing (or not doing for that matter) with their lives I should just remove myself from the situation all together.  What good does my worrying about them do for anyone?  Certainly not a whole lot of good.  There are some people that need help and most of them refuse it when it's offered.  Well I am done trying to offer.

I see this change in my life (and as I'm typing these words I feel pathetic that Facebook has played such a large role in my everyday life) as a positive one.  More time for teaching my children and playing with them, and less gossip to go around!  Yay!

I will still be checking my email (feel free to send me a message - bschoos@gmail.com) on a regular basis and I will continue to blog and post pictures on here.  I know that's one of the best things about social networking anyway, being able to get "photo" updates on the kids and parents.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

A brief update

Well it's been about a month since my last post, so I figured it's time for a little update!

Life here in Ellensburg is good (as usual), the weather has been fairly good to us, cold mornings and warming up a bit in the afternoons.  We haven't seen much snow lately *knock wood* other than the occasional dusting in the morning (which melts by noon) which is a huge blessing to me!  With the sun shining more and more I'm getting antsy to rush outside and start prepping my garden!  If only the ground would thaw out and dry!  Another reason I'm excited for warmer weather is that my daughter Evelyn desperately wants to get outside and play in the yard, on her swing set and climbing trees!  She refuses to go out if it's too cold so she has spent a lot of time inside this Winter.  I think we all have a little case of cabin fever!

I haven't done much this past month.  It's just been cleaning, laundry, scrapbooking and the occasional woodworking.  Evelyn has been asking if she can get her play kitchen back, but seeing how it has been given away that's not going to happen.  SOOOOO we decided to build one of our own!  We found a lot of good plans on various blogs that I follow and finally decided on making one from an old TV entertainment center!  We are very excited about it and working on it as much as possible.  I can't wait to post pictures to show you all, but I think I'll wait until the finished product (but don't worry, I'm taking pictures of all the stages!).

We have had a tough winter to say the least.  Finances are definitely a bigger concern in the Winter months than they are the rest of the year.  Our heating costs are through the roof, which is another reason we can't wait until it warms up!  We had our roommate move out a few days ago, it's sad to see him move on to a different place, but great to have some personal family space as well.  My mother lost her sister-in-law in late November, and her youngest brother Mark (the husband) exactly two months later this January.  This came as a great shock to us all and I think there is a lot of regret surrounding his death.  Mark and his wife left behind four children, two of them were 13 and 15 at the time.  My awesome cousin Ashley (who is my age) has really stepped in and taken on a lot of responsibility for her sisters which is a great blessing.  They just moved in with her and she will be raising them from now on. How great it is to have such a loving supportive family!

With all of the hardships of these past few months, there has been a lot of good come out of it as well.  The changes in our family have been significant.  It is sad that death is often the one to bring family members closer together, and it really makes us all appreciate what we have (even if we think we have it "bad").  But all the same, I'm grateful for the opportunity to get in touch with the family that we don't often see or hear from.  I worry about my grandparents in California.  My grandfather is old and doesn't have much life left in him, I can only hope that we get to meet again before it's too late.  I love him so.

Now let's see....some good things to talk about.  I recently got to visit with my sister-in-law and her family when I was in town.  Evelyn just loves her cousin and I enjoy getting to watch her grow into a beautiful little girl!  I always love catching up with my sister-in-law and only wish we lived closer together!

With all of the depression that hits around this time of the year, Matt really takes good care of me!  He wanted to surprise me with a trip to see my best friend in Atlanta, but I blew the surprise when I asked him if I could try to surprise her for her birthday in March!  When I asked he said "Well Steph and I were actually going to try to send you out there two weeks after her birthday!"  I couldn't be more thrilled about going to see Steph, I miss her so much!

Anyway, I guess that's enough of an update.  Here are some random pictures of the past month!