Cori's Big Mouth

Cherry On the Top!

2010-09-07T19:59:00.001-07:00

Yeah! I received another award today, this time the Cherry On the Top award from Sofia at From PDX With Love!

The Cherry on Top Award’s rules are:

ANSWER: If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?
PICK 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform the person that they have gotten this award
THANK the person who gave you the award

HERE WE GOOOO…

ANSWER: I really cannot think of anything I’d change! I suppose I would say to take a language in High School, so that I didn’t have to take the round about way to get my language credits in! I’m a firm believe that things happen for a reason, and if I changed my past, I’d most likely change who I am today! So there ya go!

PICK: hmmmmmmm…..

THANKS: Thank you, thank you, thank you Sofia!! I love the award!! I really appreciate you thinking of me and passing it along!!

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks…..

2010-09-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

I don’t care if I ever get back, for it’s root, root, root for the MARINERS!!!!!!

Yep, this weekend I went to the Mariners game! I was lucky to be given A.M.A.Z.I.N.G tickets from Bruce & Mary who have season tickets! Jaime, Maddie, Amy & I all went and had an amazing time!! The weather was beautiful, the game was fun, the food was yummy, oh and did I mention we WON!!!

Did I mention….We WON??!!! Here’s Madison’s victory dance….(Don’t worry, the video is flipped when you watch it, just not in the preview for some odd reason!)

After the game was over kids 14 and under got to go on the field and run the bases! Madison was so excited to get to do so!! It was fun to be able to be on the field and run around with her, or should I say try to catch her!!

Thanks again Bruce & Mary for the tickets, if you ever need anyone to take them off your hands again, please let me know! XOXO!

Evergreen State Fair 2010

2010-09-05T18:41:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went to the Evergreen State Fair with Aunt Sue, Jaime and the girls, Brandi and Xander. The weather was so-so, not super nice, but not pouring rain either – so I suppose I can’t complain! Never the less we had a wonderful time, it’s the fair how can you not?!!

We had a great time at the fair! We saw the animals, rode the rides, ate yummy food, saw the Alaskan Pig Races, looked at the craft bo0ths and walked and walked and walked! Nothing sends the end of summer, beginning of fall like the Evergreen State Fair!

Guess what?? I have a GIVEAWAY that will go along with this post in a few days!! So stay tuned to see what you could win! You definitely will want to come back to see and sign-up!!

Circus Bash!! Connor & MacKenzie

2010-09-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Make sure you check out the Circus Bash!! blog post from couple days ago, it was the party of the year and everyone’s talking about it :-)

Today I’m highlighting the younger “twins” from each set, Connor and MacKenzie! If you missed yesterday’s post, make sure you check out the photos of Aiden & Annika!

Happy Birthday Connor and
MacKenzie!!

This was a fantastic party!! It was a lot of work in prepping, but totally worth it in the end!!

Circus Bash!! Aiden & Annika

2010-09-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

If you missed out on the Circus Bash!! blog post a couple days ago, make sure you hop over and check it out!! Today I’m highlighting the oldest of both sets of “twins”…I put “twins” in quotes, because the boys are legitimate twins, the girls not so much…but they’re only 6 weeks apart in age so most assume they’re twins. So there ya go!

Happy Birthday Aiden & Annika!!!

Stay tuned for Connor & MacKenzie’s pictures tomorrow!!

Sesame Street eBooks!!

2010-09-02T04:53:00.000-07:00

I’m so excited to post this…this is my first REVIEW post ever and I couldn’t ask for a better one to start with, especially with the new school year just beginning!!

I had the wonderful opportunity to review Sesame Street eBooks, through their distributer, Impelsys! Over the past month, both myself and the kids I spend time with all had the chance to read many of the Sesame Street eBooks! It was fun to get to test Sesame Street eBooks site and read the books!! I was able to “test” the Sesame Street eBooks on three different kids, that are three different ages!

What is an eBook? “An eBook is a digital version of a printed book. When you read a Sesame Street eBook with your child, you can make story time extra engaging with bright pages, audio narration, interactivity, animation, and more. Best of all, Sesame Street eBooks are ready to read right here, right now!”*

The Sesame Street eBooks have four different formats of books on their site:

Read: eBooks allows you (or your child) to read aloud at your own pace*
Read & Listen: Audio eBooks include fun Sesame Street audio narration, sound effects and music*
Read & Play: Interactive eBooks invite your child to to interact with the content in playful and educational ways*
Read & Watch: Animated eBooks bring beloved Sesame Street characters and stories to life in full-color animation*

The Sesame Street eBooks also have two different ways to read the eBooks on their site:

Automatic: The pages of the book will turn on their own!
Manual: When you are done reading that page, you click NEXT. You can read at your own pace!

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18-Month-Old & 4 Year Old with an Adult

The first kids I “tested” the Sesame Street eBooks were my nieces Emmalee (18-months-old) and Madison (4-years-old). When we first logged on it took us some time to learn how to navigate around the site, learn about the different eBook formats [see above] and pick a story to read. However, once we agreed on a story (that was probably the biggest problem, since there were so many to choose from!), both girls were absolutely mesmerized! Both sat with me for a long time reading eBook, after eBook! When it was time to stop, they both acted devastated; baby Emmalee even through herself on the ground in protest! Needless to say they wanted to read the Sesame Street eBooks again!

When was the last time you saw two little girls sit so still??!

8-Year-Old Reader

The next child I “tested” the Sesame Street eBooks on was Sophia, the 8-year-old sister to the triplets I nanny for. It was naptime for the triplets and Sophia had been bugging me to play on the computer, but she really needs to be reading and not playing on the computer. I quickly put two and two together, and realized she would enjoy the Sesame Street eBooks because:

a) she would get to be on the computer

b) she would be reading

It would be a win-win for both of us!

Sure enough, she loved helping me log on to the site, selecting that she wanted to read an eBook, the narrowing it down by genre (she chose Neighborhood/ People & Places) and then scrolling through the many book options until she settled on the eBook, I Want to be President.

Being the expert reader she is, she read through that book and couldn’t wait to pick another one to read. After reading a couple of Sesame Street eBooks, she wanted to try out an Interactive eBook, and gave Hide and Seek: Near and Far a try, which she loved as well!

Sophia loved the ability to not only be reading, but to be able to be on the computer, navigate the Sesame Street eBooks site and pick which eBooks she wanted to read all on her own! (Okay, so I sat there with her too, I didn’t want to be left out!)

4-year-old on her own

Madison by far loved the Sesame Street eBooks best. She constantly asks to go to the Sesame Street site and read the books, which isn’t a bad thing! She even learned how to “read” the Audio eBooks on her own. She loved feeling the independence of “reading” the Audio eBook by herself and getting to click” NEXT page on the mouse when we had it set on manual!

Our Top 7 Sesame Street eBooks we read were:
(in alphabetical order)

Abby in Wonderland
Eat Your Colors
Hide and Seek: Near and Far
I Want to be President
My First Pet
My First Sleepover
Rhyming Repunzel

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If you subscribe to the Sesame Street eBooks, you and your child can access more than 100 hundred Sesame Street eBooks at anytime, in the comfort of your own home!

I highly recommend this site to all “my” moms, I work with and know! This site is great for all ages, whether they are toddlers who love the bright colored pictures, the preschooler who wants to do everything on his/her own or the elementary school reader who wants a different type of media to read….everyone will love it!

Sesame Street eBooks offers FREE eBooks of the week for people to try them out!! Check out Sesame Street eBooks FREE eBooks of the WEEK and be sure to click the widget below!! I know you won’t be disappointed and will be subscribing for the year long membership in no time! I know I will be for “my” kids!

Happy reading everyone!!!!

* Information came from http://ebooks.sesamestreet.org/staticcms/whatisebook

In order to do the review I was given a one month membership to Sesame Street eBooks. The review I posted above is completely and entirely my own personal opinion of the product I reviewed.

Circus Bash!!

2010-09-01T11:52:00.001-07:00

*Beware* this Wordless Wednesday post is jam-packed full of photos! I promise lots of pictures, with very few words!

This weekend was the Munro Kids Circus Bash birthday!! Alex, Julia and I worked none stop from Friday evening until the party started at 1pm on Sunday!! It went off perfectly, even if a ton of people showed up that didn’t RSVP, but that’s another story!

The Circus Set-Up

Alex & I blew up nearly 400 helium balloons!

Inside was set-up like a circus tent. We used tulle for the outer part of the tent and then a whole lotta crepe paper for the rest! It took Alex & I about 4 hours to get it all done! A lot of work, but looked awesome!

Julia came up with a way to set-up a game section! Looks pretty good doesn’t it! We had 4 games for the kids to play, they were all a hit!

Looking down at the Circus Bash!

Cake Time!

The cake table!

The clown cupcake cake, yes Julia made that!
I did the writing on the kids individual cakes :)

Yep, those are cupcakes!!
We cut marshmallows for the popcorn and then sprayed them with spray food coloring to give them a butter look!

1, 2, 3…BLOW!!!

Miscellaneous Pictures!

Girls going down the bouncy house slide!

Munro Family

Minus the boys!

The kids with the clown!
Emmalee, Myself & Maddie walking!

I have LOTS more photos to share and will do so over the next couple of days!! So stay tuned :)

This post is part of Wordless Wednesday on the following blogs:
Wordless Wednesday’s
Live and Love…Out Loud
Seven Clown Circus
A Beautiful Mess
It's A Blog Party

Indubitably

2010-08-31T17:28:00.001-07:00

This weeks WOW is indubitably, every time I hear that word I think of one thing….Mary Poppins, and not the movie in its entirety, but one small itty bitty part…when Bert says “indubitably” in the middle of the famous song supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (okay oddly enough supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is in spell-check!). Thought I’d share the song with you all, so you can see for yourself the famous indubitably for yourself!

So….did you catch when Bert said “indubitably”??!! Did ya, did ya, did ya!!???

Here are some indubitable facts about Mary Poppins, indubitably one of my favorite Disney movies by the way!!*

Mary Poppins won 5 Oscars and 12 other awards. Never before had Walt Disney won more awards at the Academy Awards then that night (as of 2006).
At the time of filming, it was the most expensive film made by Disney
Many of the nannies in line for the job interview were actually men in drag!
It was the top grossing movie for twenty years!
Mary Poppins and Mrs.. Banks never speak to each other in the movie!

Week 12 of Word Up, Yo! a new word game hosted by Liz from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog, KLZ from Taming Insanity and Natalie from Mommy of A Monster! The word this week was indubitably, jump in, link up and play along!!

*Facts came from IMDB

El Toreadors Birthday Dinner

2010-08-30T21:01:00.001-07:00

Oh, how I love this restaurant! I have celebrated my birthday there just about every year since my first birthday…love it!! For mine and Erin’s joint birthday dinner we chose El Toreadors to eat at and enjoy some fun company with friends!

The Group

The Birthday Girls
(mine’s on the 24th and Erin’s is on the 27th)

Erin & I with the party planner Amanda!
Thanks Amanda for putting together our birthday dinner! I had a great time and appreciate it!!

Amy & I

Thanks again Amanda for putting this all together, it was fun to get together with the gang and eat some yummy food!!

Happy Girl

2010-08-28T19:11:00.001-07:00

A couple days ago, Amy brought her girls over to play with the triplets, along with her niece Emilia who she is now nannying for. Emilia is 6 months old, and is quite the cutie!! I told Amy, that these photos were blog-worthy :-)

Prepping for the BIG birthday extravaganza tomorrow at the Munro’s household! They are doing a joint birthday for all four kids since their birthday’s are all within 6 weeks of each other! So Alex & I have been busily helping prep and decorate! Julia goes all out for her parties and this one is no exception! Just wait…you’ll be blown away!! So until then….

Sure, Sharing is Easy…

2010-08-26T13:44:00.001-07:00

When you get to play with Cori’s iPhone!

I downloaded a couple of fun toddler educational games onto my phone for free…the kids are loving them!! Have an iPhone or iPod Touch and toddlers, check out Toddler Tap- Transportation and Shapes. My guys love them, plus they’re learning their shapes and ways to get from here to there!

Bellevue Spray Park

2010-08-25T14:04:00.001-07:00

We had a gorgeous day yesterday, so we headed to the spray park for some water fun! Jaime came with her girls and Amy brought her girls and her niece Emilia! We enjoyed the sun while the kids enjoyed the water!

This post is part of Wordless Wednesday on the following blogs:
Wordless Wednesday’s
Live and Love…Out Loud
Seven Clown Circus
A Beautiful Mess
It's A Blog Party

25 Years Ago…

2010-08-24T02:47:00.000-07:00

On August 24, 1985, this beautiful little girl entered the world!

Now who could that be?! Hmmmmm…

Funny thing is look my mouth was big even as a baby!! My poor parents claim I never shut it. I spent the first year of my life screaming with colic, and then talked nonstop ever since! I don’t know how they managed to make it to the who I am today….big mouth and all!

My smiles look pretty similar, then and now, except I have a few more teeth today :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Versatile? Me?

2010-08-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

I am honored to receive two more awards (again they come in two’s don't get it!). Both of them were “versatile” awards, these are the second and third versatile awards I’ve received. Since I wasn’t 100% sure on the definition, I thought I out to check the Dictionary.com definition – you know, just to make sure it’s a good thing to be!

Versatile: capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of various tasks, fields of endeavor, etc.: a versatile writer.

Hmmm…..I always thought I was more of a boring mediocre writer. I don’t write about exciting things, let’s face it, what I right about is boring! I don’t understand why others find it entertaining! My blog is just my daily every day life…nothing extreme or overly exciting…just me, mediocre me, nothing more, nothing less!

With that being said, I feel BEYOND honored to be considered a Versatile blogger in the eyes of several of my readers. I love that you can get past my mediocre-ess and enjoy my blog and my writing! I’m a very lucky writer!

BIG THANK YOU, to Emily of Family and Life in Las Vegas for passing these awards on to me!! I greatly appreciate it!! Emily’s blog is anything BUT mediocre, definitely check it out!!

Now the fun part of awards, passing them along to other blogs!! In no particular order, seven blogs that I find are not mediocre and yet FABULOUS and extremely VERSATILE!

A Belle, A Bean and a Chicago Dog ~ Blogs about her life with her two adorable little girls! Liz has been a great helping me become a better blogger!
Taming Insanity ~ I wish I had a award to give her for the BEST titles for her blog posts!! They are always so witty and spot on!
Mommy of a Monster (& Toddler Twins) ~ Fun blog about a mama trying to survive three small kids! I totally relate with her, since she has twin girls – or ladies as she calls them!
Old Tweener ~ I think Sherri is my #1 commenter! She is awesome and I love her blog tagline “Between Changing Diapers and Wearing Them!”
Kludgy Mom ~ She is hosting an AWESOME 6 week blogging course, Back To School, Back To Blogging! I can’t wait for it to start!!
Mama’s Losin’ It ~ The one and only Queen of the world renowned Writer’s Workshop!
View From Down Here ~ This lady is getting married in less then a month! Love following her journey towards her wedding day!!

Week 11 of Word Up, Yo! a new word game hosted by Liz from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog, KLZ from Taming Insanity and Natalie from Mommy of A Monster! The word this week was mediocre, jump in, link up and play along!!

P.S. Nope, I’m not against sucking up to the Word Up, Yo head peoples :)

Getting To Know You, Getting To Know All About You

2010-08-22T19:04:00.001-07:00

Who doesn’t just love a good musical???!!! I know I do! I’m a big musical girl my “older” favorites include Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, Singing In the Rain, Meet Me In Saint Louis and OOOO-Klahoma (aren’t you singing along too!?). The “newer” musicals I enjoy are GREASE and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! I love me a good musical! *SIGH*

Anyway, that’s totally off subject! Tonight, I’m linking up and participating in ….

So here I go…..

1. If you could host a Reality TV show, which one would it be?
Hmmm, that’s a toss up! I’d love to host Survivor, because while everyone else is suffering I could partake in the show, without the camping part or the lack of cleanliness :)

Or….

The Amazing Race, I’d love to travel to the different places they go!

2. Do you put your seatbelt on before or after you start the car?
Hmmm….I almost have to go and sit in the car to see what I do. I’m pretty sure I belt up before I turn the car on – or do it as I’m turning the car on!

3. Shave or hair removal cream?
Shave my legs, wax my eyebrows!

4. What's your favorite feature in a house?
WINDOWS! Boring, I know, but a home would be quite boring and dark without the windows, don’t ya think?

5. What is your favorite "Fall" scent?
Toss up between Apple Cider and the smell of Fog/Mist!

6. What tv show are you looking forward to seeing the most this Fall??
Survivor for sure! Trying to remind myself that it’s now on Wednesday night! Can’t wait for the premiere on September 15th!

7. Personal Shopper or Personal Chef?
Personal shopper hands down! I love to shop and hate to cook!

8. What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of "Fall"?
Halloween! But also cooler days, leaves changing colors and crunching under your feet. One of my favorite times of the year!

[FYI: if the song in my title is stuck in your head and you can’t place the musical….it’s from Rogers and Hammerstein's 1951 hit, The King and I, another fantastic musical!]

Triplet Love!

2010-08-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

They were asked to go sit by the front door so we could go outside to play. I was shocked when I walked around the corner to actually see them SITTING by the door! Happy at that! It’s a miracle I tell ya!

Jack, Gabrielle & Nate

Sorry, for the bad quality in the photo it was taken on my phone!

Back To School, Back To Blogging Event

2010-08-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

I missed the boat in participating in the 31 days to a better blog event this summer. Somehow I missed when the registration was going on, I was a bit bummed. But at the same time I knew that summer is a crazy time to be participating in such a time-consuming event. Still, I wanted to learn as much as I could about blogging and the blogosphere! Today, when I was doing my daily blog-hopping I came across Kludgy Mom’s blog and she is hosting her own challenge/event/class to better your blog – Back To School, Back To Blogging!

According to Kludgy Mom’s blog:

What Is It? It’s called Back to School, Back to Blogging (or, B2S/B2B) It’s for anyone who wants to improve their blog. Kids go back to school, we go back to blogging. I hope to make this program:

FUN – because blogging should be!

EASY – because I don’t have time to do a blog task EVERY day. And you might not, either.

FREE - because money is tight and most of us aren’t making a red cent blogging.

INCLUSIVE – because everyone can improve their blog!

It will run for six weeks from September 12 – October 22. If you are interested in participating in Kludgy Mom’s Back To School, Back To Blogging event, go to http://www.kludgymom.com/back-to-school-back-to-blogging/ and sign-up!

I cannot wait to get started!! Hope I “see” you back at school on September 12th!

iPhone Luv!

2010-08-19T16:54:00.001-07:00

I can’t believe I didn’t blog about this sooner! I’ve only been waiting for this day for months now! I am now the proud owner of an iPhone 3Gs. My two year contract with T-Mobile was finally up, as was the life on my beloved Blackberry! I loved my Blackberry, so I was a bit hesitant. However, after talking to many people I made the big jump from Blackberry to iPhone and from T-Mobile to AT&T – let’s just say I haven’t looked back since! I’m still learning how to use the phone, but am loving every minute of it!

You might ask why the 3Gs and not the new 4G? I did a lot of research into both, and learned that the 4G is still having kinks worked out of it. While those kinks can be fixed, it’s still so new that more problems may come up. Whereas the 3Gs has been around long enough to have all the kinks worked out of it (I think). This phone has also already been updated to the new operating system that the 4G runs on!

Another big reason was I got a heck of a deal from my cousin on his! I ended up buying this from my cousin who’d only had a it a couple of months and it’s in pristine condition. He wanted the new 4G iPhone (to which last I heard he wasn’t sure if he was happy with it – sorry dude a deals a deal!) I couldn’t pass up the deal and took it! I then ran out to the mall and bought a new cover for it! Loved this one when I saw it, so different from my normal choice of pink, love it though!!

Needless to say, I’m loving my phone! I’ve become addicted to Words with Friends and have several games going on right now! Words with Friends is just Scrabble, but you can play against your friends! If you haven’t tried out Words with Friends, you definitely need to check it out. I play with the free app, so check it out! Leave me a comment (with your Words with Friends username and email) if you want to play me! I’m always looking for new friends to play!

Willis Tucker Spray Pad

2010-08-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

On Monday we had another BEAUTIFUL day here in Seattle! I had the day off, so Jaime invited me to go with the girls and her to the Willis Tucker Spray Pad in Snohomish. Neither of us had gone before, so we weren’t exactly sure what to expect. But no big surprise, we all had FUN! Lots of water go go around and stay cool!

Madison covering the water hole to make the sprinkler spray!

Don’t get wet!

Emmalee wasn’t so sure about it at first!

Once I got wet, she decided to join in!

Cute bum shot!

So much concentration!

This place was fun, we had a good afternoon, enjoyed the water and the weather! If you live in the area, you should check it out! I highly recommend it!

Linking Up Today With These Fantastic Blog for Wordless Wednesday!
Wordless Wednesday’s
Live and Love…Out Loud
Seven Clown Circus
A Beautiful Mess
It's A Blog Party

Kreativ Chaos

2010-08-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

I don’t understand, but for some reason when I receive awards they come in pairs! Don’t get me wrong I LOVE getting them, just interesting they always come two-by-two….kinda like my carreer working with multiples I suppose! Must be an omen! With out further ado, my new awards!

I received the Kreativ (it’s so creative they spelled it with a K and silly!) from the lovely Nain from View From Down Here! Thanks lady for the award I love it!

The Rules for the Kreativ Award….
1. Post the award.
2. Thank and mention the person who gave you the award.
3.Pass the award to seven bloggers whom you think embody the spirit of the Kreativ Blogger Award.
4. Name seven things about yourself that others don't know.
5.Don’t forget to notify your seven Kreativ Bloggers about their AWARD and post links to their blogs.

Seven Kreativ Bloggers
1. It's A Blog Party – I love linking up with this site! Each day they have a different blog meme going on!
2. Kelly @ Blue Frog Legs – First off I love the name of her blog! She is hosts one of my favorite communities on BlogFrog – yep, the Blue Frog Legs community!
3. Alicia @ A Beautiful Mess- She is the most amazing photographer out there! I always love seeing the photos she’s taken and edited!
4. Jeanette @ Sweet Jeanette- Always love to see what recipes she has cooking! They always look so scrumptious, if only I cooked!
5. Amy @ Keeping Up With the Schultz Family- I always love reading what’s up with The Schultz family! They are always doing something fun!
6. Kristen @ Frugal Antics Of A Harried Homemaker- This lady always is cookin’ something! She too posts the most delicious recipes! I don’t know where she gets the time to cook!
7. Cheri @ Jack and Jill of All Trades- This lady is a real friend of mine. She is the most creative person I know! She always goes above and beyond in her crafts! They are always beautiful!

Seven Things You Don’t Know About Me
1. My favorite color is PINK, I love everything pink, the majority of my wardrobe is pink! Pink, Pink, Pink! Love it!
2. I swam in the same pool with the guy from Mad About You….now what’s his name and his family?!
3. I have a HUGE addiction to HGTV and DIY, that’s what I fall asleep to each night.
4. I am a HUGE Price Is Right fan! I watch it nearly everyday, and tend to record it if I know I’m going to miss it!
5. I have a couple of “comfort” books, that when I’m anxious I read…these two books have been read so many times I can recite parts of them! They are my security, for some odd reason
6. I type more than 130 words a minute
7. If allowed to I could (and would) talk 24/7. LOVE to talk!

The second award I got, was A Daily Scoop of Chaos came from Amy at Keeping Up With the Schultz Family. Thanks Amy! I appreciate it

Amy’s Questions She Asked About Me:

1. What is your signature color?
Others say ORANGE, I say PINK!

2. Your most embarrassing moment?
I guess the real question is WHAT’S NOT my most embarrassing moment? My swimsuit top coming undone at the pool was pretty embarrassing!

3. Would you ever get anything pierced other than your ears?
No way jose

4. Are you a social butterfly or a homebody?
More of a homebody, but I do love being around people!

5. Are you done having babies or do you want more?
Since I haven’t had any, I probably want more :)

6. Are you loyal to your hairstylist or are do you tryout every salon in town?
I’m a player. I jump around from hair salon to hair salon!

7. How many times have you moved in your life?
3

8. If you could plan your dream vacation with just you and your love where would it be?
Caribbean Cruise and/or Disney!! Love both of those places!

The 8 Blogs I’m tagging and giving the Chaos Award to:
Katie @ Katie's Life Journey
Hannah @ Our Happy Home
Kristen @ Ladybug Blessings
Nain @ View From Down Here
Sherri @ Old Tweener
Lady Hill @ From Lazy to Lady
Megan @ Infertile Myrtle
Booyah’s Mama @ The Adventures of Chip and Bobo

*Now to the 8 I tagged have fun answering the questions above.
If you do not want to play along no worries.
Just take the award and enjoy it.

Thanks again Nain & Amy for the awards!!

“Not Me” Monday: Playing Catch-Up

2010-08-16T18:54:00.001-07:00

It honestly is “not me” to be so far behind in everything, blogging and life lately. I feel like I’m treading water, which is so “not me”. Normally, I’m on top of things, on the ball, first done, etc – lately that has been so “not me”.

Let’s see what am I behind in….

Blogging: I have two more posts (not counting this one), that I need to write. But I keep either forgetting to do them or something else comes up more blog-worthy then the others! Which is normally soooo “not me”.
Church: I’m the secretary of the Relief Society, and that comes with quite a bit of responsibility and organization. Normally, I’m on top of it, lately I can’t seem to stay afloat. We had a meeting today, I barely got the agenda’s done and to the meeting [barely] on time. Both of which or “not me”. I still have the weekly announcements email to put together and write up the post meeting notes.
Email: I’m so behind on my personal and blog emails it isn’t funny. They just keep coming, and I am not doing anything about them. Which is “not me”. I normally respond to people within 10minutes, that’s “not me” lately.

I’m going to blame the sun for my laziness. Yes, it finally arrived to grace us with it’s presence the middle of August. It’s hot, I’m hot, I have no energy and off which is “not me”. The weather is supposed to be returning to normal by the end of the week and hopefully I will too!

Since I’m boring you all with my lack of energy/need to catch-up/blah blah blah post, I wanted to include some photos from babysitting a couple weeks ago when we went to the Factoria Children’s Museum.

Okay I feel a little bit better that I’m slowly getting caught up, because being so far behind is “not me” and really stresses me out! I need to relax and enjoy the summer, before I know it school will be here again….then the real stress will be back!

Happy “Not Me” Monday!

Stressed & Swimming

2010-08-15T20:43:00.001-07:00

Stress & Swimming seem to go hand in hand don’t they?! *Sigh* Well tonight they do! You’d think since I was done with school for the quarter that the stress would be lifted, well it was, until yesterday when I bought an iPhone. I spent the last several hours updating my hotmail contacts, with the assumption that I could sync it with the stupid phone. I’m so fed up and stressed I gave up, sent Jaime on the mission to find out how to sync the phone.

Other stressors I have going on…I have some church stuff I really should be working on and yet, I’m google’ing like crazy trying to solve my iPhone problem. I’m behind in blogging (bad me), replying to emails and have several “follow” meme’s to catch-up on….Sigh, so much to do and yet I can’t seem to pull myself away from this phone. I already have a love-hate relationship with this phone! I could just scream!

With that being said, I do have some cute photos of my adorable niece Madison at her swim lessons! She’s so stinkin’ cute I can’t stand it (as my mom would say!)

Note: For those of you who know Madison & Aiden Munro….what’s up with their face shape resemblance in picture #1 & 5?! Very strange!

Okay, I better get back to work! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and is ready for the start of a new week!

Contact Me!

2010-08-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post different ways to find all over the web! I'm around, so come befriend me! I'm always looking for more friends and blogs to follow!!

Email: corisbigmouth@gmail.com
Twitter: @cori_shelley
Facebook: http://facebook.com/corisbigmouth

Have a great Saturday!

In the Paper AGAIN!

2010-08-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

Seriously??!! The Munro’s are in the paper again! It was just a couple weeks ago that Annika appeared in the newspaper and a couple months before that when Julia & I appeared in the newspaper! Craziness!

This time it was the Connor & Abby & Charlie (Mackenzie is in it if you look closely too!) that made the HeraldNet Newspaper’s Photo Section with a photo from our day at the Stanwood-Camano Fair! Click HERE to see the actual photo on the HeraldNet site or check out the photo below!

Happy Friday everybody!!

Baby Blue Eyes

2010-08-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

When this weeks Writers Workshop Writing Prompts from Mama's Losin' It were posted, I immediately new which one to go with….

3.) The most unbelievable blue eyes you’ve ever seen…

Two beautiful babies with blue eyes, popped into my mind. I then contacted their mom’s and asked for one of their favorite photos showcasing those stunning baby blues!

Madison Sophia

Mackenzie Karen

Love both of these little girls so much, and don’t they have the most beautiful blue eyes you’ve ever seen!! Gorgeous girls! Their parents need to keep their eyes on them when they grow up!!

Cute Preschool Board Game!

2010-08-11T20:08:00.001-07:00

Today I was babysitting for some family friends and I was introduced to an adorable cute preschool game Froggy Boogie!

This game is a new and improved Memory game that helps preschoolers with their MEMORY and COLOR LEARNING skills!!

Object: You’re trying to get your baby frog from the big lily pad all the way around all the big frogs and back to the big lily pad without getting caught!

How Do You Do This?:

Roll the 2 dice, and they will roll two different colors, you then have to “find” the big frog that has those 2 colors on them
Once you find that frog, you have to pick one of his 2 googly eye’s. One of the eyes with have a green frog stamp under it and the other one will be blank. You want to pick the BLANK eye, you get to move one lily pad to the right! If you pick the eye with the green frog stamp, you stay put!
Continue play until someone goes all around the ‘board’ and is back on the big lily pad!

Picking the BLANK eye Picking the GREEN FROG eye!

The little boy I was watching and I played this several times! This is a great game! I definitely am going to look into getting it for either the triplets and/or Madison & Emma! FUN and educational!

*I received NOTHING for the review of this game, this was all and entirely based on my experience playing it!*

How do YOU do the fair?!

2010-08-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

This is how WE do the fair!

We started by …..

Pictured above: Kjell, Aiden, Charlie, Connor & Annika

Each of the kids was able to feed the alpaca’s. They even were (once again) photo-interviewed by the newspaper while they were feeding them! It was really cute!

There were 12 new baby piglets who were born last week. We arrived right at feeding time, and Oh.My.Gosh. those piglets were hysterical when they wanted to eat. All 12 of them at once. Heaven help mama pig!

Then We…..

Pictured above: Aiden, MacKenzie, Annika & Connor

We did this last year, and when Charlie saw the display again, he made a beeline for the booth! Alex, Julia, Molly & I spent a good hour helping each of the 7 kids make their own wooden boat. We hammered, glued and drilled till we were tired, and then we started on another boat! Let’s just say we were more than ready to get out of that booth! Molly even made the comment “It’s a good thing we did this early, I would have been out of energy by the end of the day!” So true, so very true!

It was then finally time to go on…..

Pictured above: Connor, Molly, Abby, Alex, Kjell, Charlie, Cori, Aiden, Annika, MacKenzie & Julia

This is all the kids wanted to do from the moment we got there, who am I kidding?! From the moment they woke up! They were very excited to get their turn to ride the rides, and ride those rides we did! Again, and again, and again, and again!

The ride highlight was the Hang Gliding ride. The kids (Charlie & Up) were able to go on this, along with the adults. Poor Alex, I think road it three times in a row with the kids. Julia & I were well done, and ready to puke after one trip!

One other funny story was Connor wanted to so badly to go on the Haunted House ride. No one wanted to go with him, except 3-year-old Kjell, who had no idea what the ride was. Right as the ride started, before even going into the dark, Connor panics and jumps out screaming. We tell Kjell to climb out, Kjell doesn’t want to. Kjell wanted to ride the ride. The look on Kjell’s face when he came out was priceless. I wish we would have gotten a picture of it. (Sad isn’t it!). But don’t worry, he happily went on it again with his big brother Charlie a little bit later, so it couldn’t have been that scary. However, his second trip he covered his eyes the whole time!

Before we left Abby, Connor & Aiden were begging us to go on the Gravitron. Yes, the ride where you go in the spaceship looking thing, and then it spins so fast it feels like there’s no gravity. Julia gave in (when Molly, Alex & I had the little kids on another ride) and let the three go on it. When they got out they WANTED TO DO IT AGAIN! Wow! That’s some serious guts, not to mention strong stomachs for not losing their lunch!

And then right before, we left we all…..

Pictured above: MacKenzie, Aiden & Annika

Some of us had ice cream while others had elephant ears and cotton candy!

So, how do you do A fair?!

What a great time we had at the Stanwood-Camano Island Fair this year! The kids were older than last year and new memories were made! What a fun day! Nothing better than going to a good old country fair!

Finals

2010-08-09T16:27:00.001-07:00

Just the sound of that word sends shivers up my spine!

For once though, I’m not stressed at all. I’ve done excellent in my ASL 101 class and understand the concepts. Sure, there are some vocab I don’t remember, but there’s still time to learn and memorize them. I have a study plan and I’m sticking to it!

We’ve already had this test before, in the sense of Units 1 & 2 (not units 3 & 4 that tomorrow’s tests will cover) and unlike some classes these tests are very straightforward, there was no malarky in them. As straight forward as possible! I LOVE THAT! Long gone are those multiple choice exams from my science classes that were full of so many malark-ish (is that even a word?) questions, it wasn’t fair….seriously!

A friend from class keeps texting me in panic that she’s scared, and doesn’t know where to start with studying. In my opinion that’s just plain malarky. I asked her if she’s watched the vocab DVD we were given for the chapters on the final, and she replied with NO. That DVD is like gold for this class. It shows one by one each sign we need to learn. For my last two vocab tests I used that GOLD DVD into a game to play with myself to help learn the signs I can’t remember.

However, honestly we’ve gone over these signs tons already, been practicing them for weeks. So it can’t be that much memorizing. More of a refresher. I can do that. I am doing that.

My plan for the next 24 hours….

Watch the Vocab DVD many times, until the signs I am struggling with become second nature
Go over and over and over my notecards to quiz myself on the vocab
Meet up with a couple classmates tomorrow at 3:30pm, to study and review together

No biggie at all! I have my two vocab tests tomorrow over Units 3 & 4. There’s no malarky involved in my study plan! I’m going to ACE this test, and that’s no malarky!

Bring on Thursday, and that’s no malarky!

Week 9 of Word Up, Yo! a new word game hosted by Liz from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog, KLZ from Taming Insanity and Natalie from Mommy of A Monster! The word this week was malarky, jump in, link up and play along!!

Bouncy House Babysitting!

2010-08-07T21:19:00.001-07:00

I was able to spend Friday & Saturday babysitting some wonderful kids overnight while they’re mom and dad went away for some R&R. Miss L, Miss E and Mr. B have their own….BOUNCY HOUSE! I packed up the kids, the bouncy house and we headed over to the triplets to play! Oh.My.Gosh the kids had fun! I’m now working on talking Kim into buying one for us [the triplets of course]! It easily entertained all the kids for 3 hours, and let me tell you we [Jaime was working for Kim] had our hands full….an 8, 6, and 4 year old, four 3 year olds and two 1 year olds! Yes it looked like a Jaime & I had a daycare, but honestly we do on most days!

Jack, Myself & Mr. B

The Babies kept fighting over the straw!

A whole lotta kids climbing in/out of the bouncy house!

Today the kids and I went to the Factoria Childrens Museum with Brandi, Ems and Madzy. We had a blast! I have to say I wore out those 3 kids! The 3 and 1 year old were out cold when Mom got home! Yep, I’m that great :) Haha!! Brandi took lots of pictures, but she has those on her camera so you’ll have to wait until later to see them!

Alex & I are up in Camano tonight enjoying the company of Julia and her two new kittens, Cuddles & Catcher (Aiden & Connor named them!). They are sooooo cute!! Catcher is sitting on my shoulder right now while I am blogging! So adorable!!

Regrets? Yes? No? Maybe?

2010-08-06T11:40:00.001-07:00

Last week after not participating in Word Up, Yo! with Liz, Kristin and Natalie, I was in a serious Hot Mess! But never fear, I’m back this week to link up, and be named made man DON!! Watch-out ladies I’m getting all nostalgic on ya’ll this week as I’m oozing with effervescence!

On Tuesday, I talked about my excitement of my new schooling endeavor and saying au revoir to nursing (at least for now!). Since posting that, my mind keeps circling back to a conversation I had four years ago, with a school advisor. During that appointment, we were going over my GPA and future goals, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, she looked at my grades and let me tell you, they were anything but effervescent. I’ll be 100% honest, I struggled with the science classes I had to take for nursing school. Maybe, struggled isn’t a strong enough adjective, the science classes were HARD, and didn’t come easy for me, I retook several of them twice, and on a couple of occasions three times…just because I so desperately wanted to get into nursing school.

That day, the advisor advised me that maybe nursing wasn’t right for me. Well, NOBODY tells this effervescent girl, she can’t do something! So maybe, chemistry didn’t come naturally to me but I was going to try my hardest!! I figured that since I I really enjoyed the labs, the effervescence of blowing up, mixing and making different things excited me, I could study hard enough to make it. I enjoyed going to lab and following the procedures, however what I didn’t like was the hard tests, complicated formulas and non-stop memorization that was required.

I continued to want to prove that advisors wrong, and trust me I tried. I tried and tried and tried. I applied twice to nursing school, have $20k in student loans trying to get in. You (& I) can’t say, I didn’t try my hardest, do everything that I could in my power to get into nursing school. I tried, truly I tried.

Do I regret needing to prove that advisor wrong four years ago? No, well maybe a little, but had I stopped back then and listened to her, I wouldn’t have grown like I did. I learned SOOOO much in my many chemistry, anatomy & physiology and biology classes. Nobody can take that away from me. I needed to do everything I could to reach a dream. Not only that, but I I proved to myself, that I am able to try and do anything I want!

I am soooo proud of myself for the work, time and energy I put into it. While I’m not giving up a dream, I’m ready to move on and act on a new one. This effervescent girl, doesn’t give up, never have and never will!!

Week 8 of Word Up, Yo! a new word game hosted by Liz from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog, KLZ from Taming Insanity and Natalie from Mommy of A Monster! The word this week was Effervescent, jump in, link up and play along!!

Time Out, Naptime, Sit in the Stroller? PICK ME!!

2010-08-05T13:52:00.000-07:00

Don’t you ever wish you could be put in a mandatory time out? Or have to take a nap? Or heaven forbid someone push you in a stroller?! Why do kids complain, I’d die for these opportunities!

2.) If you were put in “time out”, where would you want to be placed and why?
(inspired by Melissa from Night Light Stories)

I thought this was the perfect prompt this week to talk about. Every day I ~~fight~~ put the triplets down for a nap, in the stroller and/or into time out, I think to myself please just let me have this time to sleep/sit/rest/think/all of the above! Wouldn’t it be nice? I would give tons to get a chance every day to lay down and rest! I’m lucky enough to not work everyday, and yet, I normally find something else to take up my time instead of resting.

So in answer to this question, I would love to but put in my bed with the light out! I’d just love sometime to catch-up on my sleep and thoughts! That would be so wonderful! Ahhhhh…..dreaming about it now! To bad I have a test in a few hours I need to be preparing for. Sheesh…where are my priorities??!!

I’m the Twitter Hop Thursday Twitterer of the Week!

2010-08-04T22:50:00.001-07:00

Don’t miss my post, that I posted earlier today on Birthdays, Birthdays, today seems to be everyone's Birthday!

A BIG THANK YOU to Twitter Hop Thursday hosts Simply Stacie, The King’s Court IV, Little Yaya’s, and Review Retreat for choosing me to be the Twitterer of the Week! I’m so honored, thanks!!

(Copied from Little Yaya's Blog)

Would you like more Twitter followers and be introduced to more neat blogs and businesses out there? Come and join us!!

1. Add your Twitter to the MckLinky (you only have to add it to one and it will appear on all).

2. Click on the Twitter for the four hostesses and follow each of them on Twitter. We will follow you back.

3. Follow as many people on Twitter as you like, but make sure to leave comments with links so they’ll know where to follow you!

Spread the word and add this MckLinky to your blog! Write your own post or copy and paste this one. Below the MckLinky box, you’ll see “Want to be a part of this Blog Hop? Click here for instructions and code….” Have fun Twitter-Hopping along!

We have selected a Twitterer of the Week from last week’s entries and the lucky winner is Cori Benson!! They will be in the #5 spot! We will choose next week’s winner from everyone who participated today.

Please only add your Twitter url. All other entries will be deleted. Thank you!!!

Birthdays, Birthdays, today seems to be everyone’s Birthday!

2010-08-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

Apparently August 4th is a popular day to have a baby. Friends Cheryl & Courtney have birthdays today, my ASL teacher’s birthday is also today. There is also a handful of famous people who share their day of birth Barack Obama, Cole & Dylan Sprouse, Louis Armstrong and the Queen Mother Elizabeth to name a few. But (sorry) none of those are as important as two people in my family…..

My Daddy & Annika

I love my daddy!! His birthday always was important to me, not because I love my daddy and think he’s the bestest (which I do), but it means once his birthday comes its 20 days until mine! (Yep, I’m vain, I love myself, and my birthday!). I assume tonight we’ll have a birthday celebration for him and celebrate his birthday with extended family in the next week? Not 100% sure on that!

Our Daddy, Kelly (left), Alex (center) & Me (right)
Cruise February 2010

On to Annika…..three years ago this little girl was brought into our lives through adoption. Unfortunately, she didn’t stay with us very long. After 2 failed adoption attempts, last October she finally came home at just over 2 years old! So today is our first REAL birthday with Miss Annika Brooke! I wish I could be up celebrating with her, but I can’t! I’ll be up this weekend, and cannot wait to hear all about it!

Annika with her purple flower cupcake-cake with pink sparkler candles and a Thumbelina doll made by her mommy!
*Apparently Alec thinks it looks like a purple spiders web, I think it looks more like a purple turtle :)*

Happy Birthday To You!

Happy Birthday To YOU!

Happy Birthday to Dad & Annika!

Happy Birthday To You!!!

Happy Birthday to YOU too if today is your birthday!!! If not, I hope your August 4th is a great one!!

Dear Nursing Program….

2010-08-03T12:32:00.001-07:00

Never thought I would admit this, or be okay with NOT getting into nursing school!! Loving what I’m doing now!!

I’m linking up today with Supah Mommy's Post-It-Note Tuesday!! Check it out and link-up!!

Craft Time: Dobbers & Stickers

2010-08-02T15:07:00.001-07:00

The triplets love crafts, and I try to do one with them every day, sometimes are more successful the others! If you’re new to my blog here are some of the crafts the kids and I have done over the years:

Pudding Painting (scroll through the pictures to see the pudding painting pics!)
Finger Painting
Playdoh

One of the triplets favorite crafts is using BINGO dobbers to paint with! Where did I get the idea of BINGO dobbers for crafts? On my cruise a few months ago, my cousins and I went to play BINGO almost daily. On the last day of the cruise people were tossing their dobbers in the trash, I on the other hand had big plans for them! I happily collected TONS of bingo dobbers from fellow patrons! No lie, I probably packed 30 bingo dobbers home with me!

Brandi & I showing off all the dobbers I collected after the final BINGO game! Sorry there’s a bad glare, I blame that (haha, see my last post) on my sister Alex who was taking the photo and failed to mention the glare!

I get the dobbers out, the kids grab the ones they want and then go at it! Sometimes they ‘dob’ other times they ‘paint’ with them, either way they have fun! We also have a big box of stickers, I dumb the box out and they have a hay day with adding stickers to their masterpieces!

The Masterpieces the triplets made today!

Dobbers are a CHEAP and fun craft activity for young kids, especially if you don’t want to deal with the messiness of real paint! I bought several lots of stickers on Ebay, just random stickers. Doesn’t matter what the stickers are, they just love sticking them on paper! Oddly enough, toddlers always seem to stick their stickers on top of each other…strange!

We’re always looking for craft ideas, what are some of your favorite kids crafts?!

Blame & Sympathy

2010-08-01T20:11:00.001-07:00

Yep. That’s how I roll, I like to blame others and get sympathy. Some people would say that’s the perfect equation to lose friends….but it’s the truth. Well maybe not the blame part, I will step up if I was truly at fault, but still…I’m human, don’t we all wish we could blame others for our flaws and faults? It would make us seem so much more, well perfect.

Right now I wish I could blame someone for this darn cold I have right now. Yes, a cold on the 1st day of August, how unfair is that? I thought long and hard about who who the culprit could be and came up with this…

My friend Erin: She had a bad cold last week, unfortunately I wasn’t around her at all recently. Darn probably got to cross her off my list.
My cousin Jaime: She woke up with a cold yesterday and I spent all day with her. Double darn, probably need to cross her off my list too, because there’s really no way I could get sick this fast from her. That and we’ve been together daily for about 5 days. She must have just got sick first.
The ~~Gremlins:~~ I mean the triplets and all the little kids I spend time with. Unfortunately, none of them have been sick lately.

Guess, there’s only one person who I can blame….MYSELF…yes it pains me to admit that, but this wouldn’t be the first time! I wish I could throw the blame at someone else, but I have no real proof of where it came from, it would be mean of me to just blame it on someone with no proof, wouldn’t it?? [See I can be nice!]

If you have sympathy for me [c’mon I know you do, or at least make me think you do!], I’d love to hear your remedies to get rid of this cold. It’s 8:02pm, and I’m in bed, getting ready to take some Nyquil, so I can breathe and get a good nights sleep. And, if you REALLY wanted to show your sympathy, feel free to grab my button I just recently made for my blog and add it to your blog roll!

Hope the rest of you are feeling healthy! Hope I can get back to normal status again real soon!!

A Day At The Woodland Park Zoo!

2010-07-31T19:47:00.001-07:00

It had been over a year since my last trip to the Woodland Park Zoo (click HERE to see my last trip to the zoo!), so I was excited to take a trip and wander around!Zak’s best friend Zac (original names huh?!) came into town with his daughter Bailey, so Jaime offered to take Bailey with us to the zoo too! So Brandi, Jaime, Bailey, Madison, Emmalee and I all headed into Seattle for some zoo fun!!

Look Mom! A Gorilla!!

So cute! Giving us a big smile with teeth and all!!

Emmalee insisted on PUSHING the stroller, Maddie rode in it, go figure!

All three girls LOVED the flamingos! Emma held on to the railing and refused to let go when it was time to move on!

Bailey & Jaime

Left: Madison posing in front of “her” family, Mom, Dad, her & Emma
Right: Emmalee & Bailey (Jaime too), posing on the hippo

We got to watch the giraffe’s go for a walk, it was pretty cool!!

The girls posing on Hansa the Elephants favorite toy ball!

Both of us with our crazy frizzy hair :-)

At the Woodland Park Zoo, the Tapirs ALWAYS sit with their butt’s against the window. Is that normal at all zoo’s??!

Who doesn’t love an elephant?!!

Madison loved reading the map and directing us which way to go!

Madison resting on Brandi’s shoulder! It’s a lot of walking at the zoo!

The Meerkat exhibit was the newest exhibit of the zoo! First time any of us had seen it! They are pretty cute little creatures!

Emma & I standing near the Meerkat exhibit!

Maddie, Jaime & Bailey jumped in….Emma wasn’t thrilled about that!

We had a great day, the sun came out which made the zoo 100x more enjoyable with sunshine and warmth! Nothing like going to the zoo in the rain!

Happy Saturday Everyone!!

5 Question Friday

2010-07-30T13:29:00.001-07:00

10:24am

Nothing worth blogging about today! I’m at work, the kids are playing in the bath nicely (don’t worry, I’m sitting here with them about 1 foot from the tub) and I’m trying to get some “work” done while they are content! So I’m linking-up today with Five Crooked Halos and her

So without further ado, the questions…..

1. Did you have a favorite blanket or toy as a kid? If so, do you still have it?

Yes, I did, I had a little pillow, which I named Bee-jue. Why that name I have no idea!! It was my best friend until it landed on the heater and started to burn…at that point I had to throw it away :( Luckily, I’m now finally over it

Well this is how far I can go right now with them….the content-ness in the bath is long gone now! Gotta get them out, before they flood the bathroom!

12:27pm

Okay, I’m back again. Kids are once again playing nicely. Pizza is on its way and I’m trying to finish this blog post before I’m interrupted again!

2. Do you dream in color?

That’s an interesting question, Yes, I do dream in color, I think. In fact, I remember most of my dreams. It’s odd because a lot of people hardly remember any part of their dreams – and yet I vividly can replay my dreams.

3. How tall are you? Do you wish you were shorter or taller?

I’m 5’4”, I like the height I am. Average is good :-)

*SIGH* didn’t make it to far again! I have to go finish prepping for the pizza to arrive! I have lots of hungry kids wanting lunch! I’ll be back…

1:22pm

Yay, it’s naptime! The triplets are all down, and quiet, yippeee!! I’m hoping they took a good nap – 3 hours would be nice! Okay back to the questions…

4. If you could have anyone's (celeb or other) voice as the guide on your GPS, who would it be?

McDreamy, he just has that kind of voice…nice, soft and serene! That or the Price is Right Announcer, love that show :-) It’s a toss up for me!

5. Do you return your shopping cart to the corral or leave it wherever in the parking lot?

I (99% of the time), return the carts to their corral. I hate random shopping cards in the parking lot! The only time I don’t, and pop the front cart wheels over a curb/planter thing is if I have kids in the car and it’s to far to walk back to a car return.

Few…I finished it with no more interruptions!! It only took me 3 hours to answer 5 questions, not to shabby! Hope everyone has a great Friday!!

Biker Babes (Kennewick Fun – Part IV)

2010-07-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

I really didn’t think I’d be linking up today with Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. None of the prompts seem to fit, or to be something that I was intrigued to write about. Until last night when I was going through my blog email and saw the prompts again. I decided I’d take one last look before deleting it, and that’s when I saw it….

4.) It happened on a motorcycle.

No it’s not me. I’m not the biker babe. I’m not even a big motorcycle fan. They seem so dangerous. I’ve ridden on my uncle’s a couple of times, but that’s it. The safety factor keeps me very hesitant! Anyway back on topic.

I remembered last weekend Brandi had taken some pictures of Madison with her Granny and her Granny’s motorcycle. There’s no story behind it, I didn’t have any intentions of even posting these pictures, because their well, kinda boring (sorry Sue!). But they fit with the prompt and this motorcycle is a big part of my Aunt’s life, so if it’s important to her, it’s important to me….right??!

Let’s get one thing straight … No, Madison DID NOT get to ride it, that is something her parents would be VERY big no-no with her parents, but we did get pictures of her with the motorcycle and her Granny!

Little Fish

2010-07-28T18:10:00.001-07:00

After nap today I took the triplets swimming, well I guess I should say the twins, since Nate didn’t want to and just watched. Sophie sat outside with me as extra eyes while Jack, Gabbi & I swam!

Gabrielle

Playing with Cori

Jack & Cori Swimming

Jackers giving me a kiss! How sweet!

Happy Wordless Wednesday Everyone!

This post is part of Wordless Wednesday on the following blogs:
Wordless Wednesday’s
Live and Love…Out Loud
Seven Clown Circus
A Beautiful Mess
It's A Blog Party

Enough Stringing You All On (Kennewick Fun - Part III)

2010-07-27T11:33:00.001-07:00

Okay, I was mean the last couple of days leaving you hanging with how we ended our Saturday fun in Kennewick. Well, it’s your lucky day, because like I promised here’s what I strung you out with…hope you didn’t wet yourself with anticipation! If you missed the last couple of posts, go back and check them out Kennewick Fun – Part I and Out For the Count (Kennewick Fun – Part II)! So here we gooooooo……

At the dollar store we stocked up on SILLY STRING and WATER BALLOONS!

The Silly String was fun, but the dollar store brand doesn’t give you much! So we quickly went through our bottles of silly string! But don’t worry we had a blast while it lasted!

However, the REAL fun came with the water balloon fight!! It started out nice enough. Grandma was filling up the balloons as fast as she could, but we quickly learned that wasn’t fast enough for our impatient family, plus the balloons appeared to be faulty (darn dollar store) and wouldn’t pop on contact. We quickly moved onto not tie the balloons and spraying the water that way! But we still had the problem of one house filling up balloons. So Aaron then ran insdie and brought out three large spray bottles….and the war was on!

I don’t remember another time that my family had so much fun together!! Everyone got in it and had a great time! Aaron got me good, not once, but TWICE….the same way, with a 10-gallon bucket of water. The first time I didn’t see it coming at all, suddenly I was just overcome with witness. The second time, I saw him out of the corner of my eyes a split second before he through water at me….again. *sigh* Oh well, it was worth it!

What a great time we had this weekend in Kennewick! I love spending time with my Auntie Susie, she’s the best! We definitely had a memorable weekend, I don’t think any of us will forget about this very quickly!

Can I get a WOOT WOOT?!

2010-07-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

[Edited at 4:01pm, with another award!!]

It’s been a great day, I was given The Versatile Blogger award from two different blogs! A BIG thank you to Mona at More Milestones and Lindsay at Looking For Strawberries for passing this award on to me! I really appreciate it, it’s a great way to start the week! If you don’t already follow these two awesome blogs, you really have to check them out!

[updated] I just received another award, Balancing Mama Finds Time to Read Me! Granted I’m not a mom, I take this as a real honor, to be considered a “surrogate” mama! Thank you to Julie at 3 Moms In One! Love the award! Thank you!!

I combined this award’s “job” with my other one! So the lucky ladies below, get two awards from me today! Yep, I’m lazy!!

7 things about myself:

I really don’t enjoy chocolate, seriously I am not a fan!
I have a serious addiction to text messaging!
The best (and only) way to travel is on a cruise ship!!
I fall asleep nightly to either HGTV or DIY, I love those channels!
I’m lactose intolerant, but can’t stand the idea of giving up milk and/or dairy so pay for it often :-)
My favorite store to shop at is probably Gymboree! While I love shopping for myself, there’s something about Gymboree that I can’t stay away from! My nieces have a very nice wardrobe thanks to my addiction (and their other aunt’s!)!
I’ve never been interviewed for a job. Every job I’ve ever had, I just got without needing the interview!

15 Blogs You Should Visit:
(Award Rules at end of post)

[addition] Honorary Mentions, so please take the other award Ladies :)

Here's how this award works:

Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
Share 7 things about yourself.
Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason!
Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award! I’m sure they’ll be thankful ;-)

Congrats to all these blogs!

Once again I’m stringing you all on, I’M SORRY!!! Try not to wet yourself with anticipation! I promise, promise, promise to blog about it tomorrow! You won’t be disappointed you had to wait!!

Out For the Count (Kennewick Fun – Part II)

2010-07-25T19:50:00.001-07:00

After all of our excitement we had yesterday morning at the craft fair and watching Maddie swim in the pool we all were exhausted. I don’t think anyone was nearly as tired as Maddie was though!

After we came home from the park we grabbed lunch then made plans to go to the dollar store to wander around. Maddie was so excited that Grandma had given her $3 whole dollars to spend on whatever she wanted! However, after about 5 minutes in the car on the drive there she was OUT!

It’s not that unusual for her to fall asleep in the car, especially after the busy morning she had, but what we didn’t expect was that she was so tired, we couldn’t wake her up. Brandi unbuckled her, she didn’t move, I started poking at her (I enjoy bugging her!), nothing. Hmmm….Brandi & I look at each other like what do we do? Sue suggests we get a cart and she can sleep in it, we quickly veto that idea because 1) she has nothing to lay on and carts aren’t that comfortable and 2) she’d never stay awake.

After a couple minutes we decide to just get the stroller out of the trunk and she could sit in it while she woke up. To bad all we had was an umbrella stroller, so she couldn’t really recline, but that’s okay she was going to wake up anyway when we moved her. Or so we thought….Here is what we ended up with after moving her out of her car seat into the stroller….

Sound asleep. Brandi quickly snapped a photo because we knew at any moment she’d wake up. But she didn’t. We decided it would be mean of us to go to the dollar store while she was sleeping, so we went next door to the craft store to shop. We were there a good hour, and she never moved….

The girl slept, and slept, and slept! She finally woke up and off to the dollar store we went! We bought some fun items that kept us busy the rest of the afternoon….what could those be, I’m stringing you all on again!! Try not to wet yourself with anticipation and make sure you come back tomorrow to find out :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!

Kennewick Fun – Part I

2010-07-24T21:37:00.001-07:00

I came along with my Grandma, Brandi & Madison to Eastern Washington for the weekend to visit my Aunt Sue and go to the local craft show…huge craft show!! The had so much fun stuff to do and see! Not to mention the weather was awesome! I love the sunny hot weather! (Not that I really want to move over here, it’s fun to visit.)

One of the booths we stopped at had the CUTEST hats in the world – okay so most of the were above the top gaudy (sp?), but still cute!! We have fun modeling them.

Maddie enjoyed some ice cream over looking Columbia River! Brandi got some beautiful photos of her!

Maddie (of course) was treated like a princess and we got her (and Emmalee) each adorable tutu’s. Mad got the whole ensemble with a fairy wand and a crown as well….sorry Em, you’ll have to deal!

We lucked out and the park had a beautiful kiddy waiting pool. Madison had a BLAST splashing and swimming around in the water! She is such a fish! It was a great place because the water was like 5” deep…max! Sue told Madison that if she dumped a bucket of water on her head (Madison’s) she’d let her get Sue wet… Didn’t think she would do it, but Madison surprised us and did it over and over!

While Sue, Maddie & I were “swimming”, Grandma & Brandi sat outside the pool on a swinging bench in the shade! The swing was soooo nice to sit in!!

All of this fun was over by 1pm and you’ll never guess how we spent the rest of the way! I’ll leave you in wonder…..you’ll have to come back tomorrow to see the remainder of our day! Trust me you won’t want to miss it!!

NEWS FLASH: Cori’s Schooling

2010-07-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

Hither here friends….I only want to say this ONCE and never again! Who am I kidding it won’t be the last time, but I gotta admit I’m tired of sharing the same story over and over! So here I go (again)…

I have spent the last two years at a very expensive private school, Seattle Pacific University. I love, love, loved it there! I chose to go to SPU for hopes of entering their nursing program. I had the best chance of getting into their nursing school. I applied twice to their nursing program and couldn’t get in. Dissappointed? Yes. Angry? Oh Yeah. Frustrated? You have no idea! But, I’m a true believe that things happen for a reason, and there’s some reason why I cannot (at this time) get into nursing school.

After get rejected again, I had to do some serious thinking about what now?! Was it worth continueing at SPU and be paying nearly $10k a quarter? As much as I love the school, I really couldn’t justify the cost. However, I was in a bit of a bind. I didn’t take a foreign language in high school, and thus couldn’t apply/be accepted into any public university.

My dream has always been to attend the University of Washington, ever since the 3rd grade. I finally decided to go after my dream. I’m now taking American Sign Language at a local community college, and will take the second year next quarter. I talked to the admission counselor at UW and they said I could go ahead and apply, with the assumption of passing both language clases…and guess what??? I was accepted to the University of Washington Bothell! I will start there in January! I’m so excited!

You may be wondering, what will I be getting a degree in….communications & media…I’m going to be able to blog for a living! Who knew that was even an option!! I also will be able to do PR work, and other work in that field. This field has endless oppurtunities and options! I’m psyched!

I’m not ready to close the chapter of my life on nursing, I’ll continue to apply and try to get in, but at this time I’m moving on….going to work towards something! I’m tired of just being in limbo land waiting! So bring it University of Washington! I’m so excited!!

With all that being said, I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled blog post and wait to see how many people still ask when I’m starting nursing school!

Happy Friday Everybody!

EARTHQUAKE! Where were you?

2010-07-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

I’m linking up again today with Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop! The question that spoke to me this week was

5) Earthquake! Where were you when it happened?

Many people may not realize that Seattle is part of the Ring of Fire, the tectonic play ring in the Pacific Ocean, and we get quite a few earthquakes! Without giving it much thought, I can remember 7 memories of different earthquakes I have been apart of. The most recent one being just a couple of months ago! I’m sure there have been more, they just didn’t leave lasting impressions or memories!

San Francisco ~ 1988 I was three years old when the big San Francisco earthquake hit. I remember being on my Aunt’s bed when the room started shaking. That’s about all I remember, I was only three after all! Amazingly enough, I can still picture it!

Grandma’s House ~ 1992? For this earthquake, I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I know I was at my Grandma’s house. My Grandma lived on the 4th floor of a 6 story condo ON the water (literally the condo was built IN the water). I remember looking out the windows and watching as it appeared the condo was swaying back and forth. Very creepy. I didn’t sleep much that night, I was to afraid that at any moment another earthquake was going to happen! It really scared me!

May 2, 1996 I remember my parents were watching the Mariners game at the time. The memory I have is Ken Griffey, Jr. coming out of the dugout and yelling and gesturing to the crowd telling them to GET OUT. I just now googled this and was able to come up with the story that went along with it, along with a date…pretty cool technology is!

What was I doing at the time? I was working on my Science Fair poster. I remember looking out in our backyard at our deck and watching it “roll”. This earthquake a magnitude 5.3 and was different because instead of shaking, it was a roller and you could see the earthquake!

Nisqually Earthquake ~ February 28, 2001 This was the biggest earthquake that I remember, and most memorable. I was a Sophomore in High School when it occurred at 10:54am. I was at school when the earthquake hit, I had just sat down at the lunch table when it started. My first thought was someone at the other end of the table was shaking their leg under the table. But it quickly became obvious it was an earthquake when the lights started shaking. This was a LONG earthquake, it lasted 45 seconds of non-stop shaking. It also was a BIG one, with a 6.8 magnitude.

After the shaking stopped, the fire alarm went off (not sure if it was pulled by a staff member, or somehow it knew to go off??) and we went outside. The staff did a quick check of the school. Everyone was okay, and accounted for so we went back inside. By that time lunch was long over and I moved onto class. We had televisions in every classroom and I think we spent the remainder of the day watching the news.

About an hour after we came inside, we were informed that we needed to evacuate the building again. The Fire Department, City and School District needed to come and check the building. So we went back outside for another couple of hours. Please remember this is the middle of winter in wet Seattle! We finally were able to come back inside, but I don’t remember doing much school work! More news watching and talking about the quake!

When I finally got home, my dad was there. His work had closed do to power outage. He had been less then a mile from my school and he didn’t come get me! How rude!! He said he figured we (my sisters & I) were all fine, and he enjoyed the quiet! Hmmmm….not very nice!

January 30, 2009 This one was an early morning earthquake, it hit at 5:25am. I’m normally a very hard sleeper, but woke up for this even though it was a really small quake (only 4.5 magnitude). That night I had spent the night at Jaime’s and was sleeping on their couch when it happened. Brandi woke up too, so we spent the next hour watching the news! I blogged about that quake HERE.

April 4, 2010 This quake was REALLY small only a magnitude 2.3. The only reason I probably felt it was right before the shaking started there was a big bang. Jaime & I were playing WII at the time (11:37pm) and had just asked each other what was that? when the earth started shaking. It was small, but I still blogged about it HERE.

May 25, 2010 The most recent quake was just a couple months ago, early in the morning (5:21am). For some reason I was awake when the earthquake started. I don’t know why, but I had just woke up. I was laying in bed when it started. Again it was small, with a magnitude 3.4. Not many people felt it, because of the time.

This one was also different because it wasn’t very deep, making the shake stronger then it normally would be (I think, or maybe I’m backwards, I’m not an earthquake expert!). The epicenter was just about 2 miles from my house, which is why I probably felt it (that and I was awake!).

Now What? Seattle is due for a LARGE earthquake, a 9.1 or higher magnitude. They said it would happen before Y2K, that didn’t happen. We got close with the Nisqually Earthquake, but they still are projecting we’re due for a big earthquake in the next….50 years….could they be anymore vague?!!

A lot of people are “scared” of the idea of earthquakes because they just happen. They are a natural phenomenon that you really cannot prepare yourself for like you can for a tornado or hurricanes, where you know there’s a chance they are coming. I however, prefer earthquakes…I’d rather them just happen, then have to worry and have anxiety over the pending arrival of one!

Happy Thursday!!

Our Mommyhood Guest Post!

2010-07-21T09:35:00.001-07:00

I’m so excited that my first blog guest post was posted today over at Our Mommyhood! You might ask why am I guest writing for a mommy’s blog when I’m not one, well that’s simple, I have a lot of experience as a nanny and wanted to share some advice from a nanny’s point of view! I was lucky enough to be asked by a blogging buddy Liz from A Belle, A Bean, and A Chicago Dog, if I’d write one. I of course jumped at the chance and had fun writing one!

I wrote the article about a month ago, and have been giddy with anticipation ever since! I’ve known for about two weeks the date that my article would be published and it’s been hard waiting so long!

Please pop over and check out what I had to say, what I posted about and ask questions any questions you might have! I’m hoping to get enough questions to do another guest post answering questions about nanny’s and childcare options! So please hop on over and check it out! Don’t forget to come back and tell me what you though!!

Click on the OMH button above to be taken to the Our Mommyhood site!

Link just to just my guest post … Not Your Typical Childcare

If you have any questions for me, please leave a comment below or email me at corisbigmouth@gmail.com! If you are interested in having me guest post for you about my experience as a nanny, my experience with multiples (I have experience with twins to quintuplets) or anything else relevant, please send me an email to corisbigmouth@gmail.com with the information!!

Scrapbook Expo 2010 (Part 2: Pictures & Prizes)

2010-07-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I posted the layouts that I accomplished at the Scrapbook Expo over the weekend! I wanted to conclude that post with some photos that we took along with Brandi’s BIG prize she won!

We normally start out pretty clean and organized when we start, but quickly our table turns to this….

No we can’t find anything, we spend a lot of time sorting through the stuff looking for one itty-bitty brad or sticker or even pair of scissors! It’s bad…really bad! Oh well, it shows we had fun!

Brandi was the BIG BIG BIG, pre-convention winner and won a Hobby Hideaway Mini Armoire. No lie this costs $1,100!! Not only does it cost a ton, but it ways about that much too! O.M.G that thing was a ton. It took Brandi, Zak & Myself to get it up the three flights of stairs to her house. We even had to leave it on the second floor for several hours to take a break. Zak said it was THE HEAVIEST thing he has ever moved in his life! It’s pretty awesome though, Brandi is one lucky girl!

As you can see it is H.U.G.E. It just barely fit in the back of my Grandma’s SUV. We loaded it long before we packed up our stuff from the crop….needless to say it was a miracle that we fit all our stuff back in. Seriously, Brandi & I were at the point of trying to decide what to throw away, because it wouldn’t fit! It was quite comical, especially because it was almost midnight at the time!

After finally, getting everything into the car, we made a midnight trip to Denny’s. You can see it in our eyes how tired we are! It was bedtime, we were exhausted, and very hungry! I scarfed down a BLT (minus the T and mayo, yep without) and a sprite…yum!

What a fun weekend! It’s sad it’s over, but we’ll definitely be back next year!! Plus, in just a few months will be the Creating Keepsakes Convention! I cannot wait! Hopefully I’ll get to scrap again before then (November), but who knows, life is so busy you never know!

Somersault Attempt WOW!

2010-07-19T11:54:00.001-07:00

It’s true, I cannot do a somersault. Not then, Not Now, Not Me. I don’t know why I can’t do them, I’ve always been a outgoing and rambunctious person. Never afraid to make a fool out of myself, but I still could not do a somersault. It was probably more the fact that I psych myself out to the point where I could not do them.

My family is a very rambunctious one, where we are known for doing outrageous things, and trying to outdo each other! One of our favorite activity us bridge contests. When I say “bridge”, I mean the physical/stretch bridge, start on your back and use your arms and legs to push your self up!. Bridges normally lead to somersault contests, which ends with everyone making fun of me, and no it does not hurt my feelings (really it doesn’t)! I try. I attempt. I fail. They laugh. I get the attention, which is what i live on!

I can now say I can do somersaults, granted it’s OFF of the couch. When I give something a try, I go all out….no boring and basic floor somersault…no not me!

Madison was showing off her gymnastics ability yesterday and did a somersault off the couch that’s she’s now mastered. Seriously. A somersault off of the couch! Only that rambunctious child would come up with an idea like that (and follow through nonetheless, flawlessly!) Well, I thought to myself….I bet I could do that! I might not be able to do a standard somersault, but I was ready to give a somersault off the couch a try!

Yes, it took Brandi giving me a little push to get all the way over, but I did it!! I now don’t have to tell people that I do not know how to do a somersault…not me anymore! Granted I can still only do them off of the couch, but that just shows my rambunctiousness! Anyone can do a normal somersault, but it takes a rambunctious person to attempt an off the couch somersault, when she can’t even do a normal one! I now need to master the “normal” somersault, but for now I’m going to live in the moment that I CAN do a somersault (off the couch)!

I do have one question for ya’ll…..when did a “somersault” be renamed a “forward roll”? Madison kept correcting me when I’d say “somersault”, makes me feel so old! LOL!

Disclaimer: I give all credit to my somersault ability to my 4-year-old niece, Madison! Madison also gets credit for the photos taken! Pretty good photos aren’t they!!

Funny story: I told Madison I gave her all credit for me being able to do a somersault. She asked “well where’s my card?” She had us all stumped, card?? I finally realized she thought she got a credit card! Ha-ha, what a funny kid!

Week 6 of Word Up, Yo! a new word game hosted by Liz from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog, KLZ from Taming Insanity and Natalie from Mommy of A Monster! The word this week was RAMBUNCTIOUS, jump in, link up and play along!!

Scrapbook Expo 2010 (Part 1: The Layouts)

2010-07-18T21:35:00.001-07:00

We went, we scrapped, we shopping and we didn’t sleep! But BOY OH BOY did we have a lot of fun!! No lie, we arrived at the event at 7:30am, and started scraping at about 7:45am. Scrapped non-stop (except for a 1 hour class and 1 hour of shopping) until 11:30pm! I’m so tired, but wanted to post these layouts tonight before I get to busy and forget!!

I branched out, and started an acrylic (working on plastic) family album, that will be attached with ribbon and ring fasteners. It’s going to be about 10 pages long I believe, but only got through the first 3! Only the cover page has a photo on it, I wasn’t prepared. The second and third pages (my “mom’s”) is done, minus the photos. But I have now know what size photo to print….just need to find the time to find some! This is supposed to by my parents’ Christmas present, but I couldn’t wait and showed it to them anyway. (Anyone who knows me, knows I can’t keep a secret!). Luckily for me, they both have short memories and will forget probably by tomorrow – ha-ha!

First 3 pages of my Acrylic Family Album
1st Page: Cover
2nd & 3rd Pages: Dedicated to my mom

Brandi & I also took a class from Boxers Scrapbooks, on Unlocking the Magic of Disney. They helped us start an adorable chipboard album. The album is the shape of Mickey, I’ll again, add ribbon and two ring fasteners. We didn’t get much accomplished in class, but got TONS of fun supplies and a great kit to finish! I got through the cover page and the first two pages of the book, once again minus photos, and it’s so stinking cute!!

Mickey/Disneyland Chipboard Album Cover
From the Unlock the Magic of Disney Class by Boxer Scrapbooks

First 2 pages of my Chipboard Mickey/Disneyland Album
The left page’s photo mat, is actually “accordion” style, and you pull on the ribbon and 10 more photos appear!
From the Unlock the Magic of Disney Class by Boxer Scrapbooks

There of course was a few layouts, that I did for Jaime. All specifically of Emmalee, because she has so few layouts while Madison has at least two albums just of her first year alone!

Emmalee’s 3 Month Photos
March 2009

Emmalee’s 9 Month Photos
June 2009
Based on a Sketch by Becky Fleck’s Page Maps

My Binky
Emmalee at 1 month, February 2009

We'll I’m absolutely exhausted! We scrapped all day yesterday, and even took a midnight trip to Denny’s after! We were so hungry, once the crop was over. We didn’t really take much of a break to eat, except for little snacks here and there! By midnight, we were ravenous! And yes, I’m a dork and took a picture of the Denny’s clock to show us there after midnight!

I have more to post about, including Brandi’s BIG prize she won and some photos that we took throughout the weekend at the convention! Later this week I’ll try to get it up and posted, but in the meantime it’s bedtime!! Hope you all had a great weekend to! I’m bummed mine is over already. Why do weekends go by so fast, when the weeks go by so slowly? Doesn’t make sense…or….seam fair!

I’m linking up today with Mama Manuscripts' Stitching, Sketching and Scrapping Sunday!

The time has come….

2010-07-15T14:35:00.001-07:00

and I am soooooo ready and excited! Bet you can’t guess what Brandi and I are off to do tomorrow??!!

Guesses??

We'll if you guessed scrapbooking then you are RIGHT! We’ve been planning this weekend gateway for months. I’m talking we signed-up in January!! We both our so busy, that we don’t have time for much scrapbooking! So we both jumped at the chance to go to the Scrapbooking Expo at the Puyallup Fair Grounds! We’re participating in an all-day crop on Saturday from 8am-11:30pm! I’m soooo excited!

The last time I scrapbooked, I believe was the end of January!! So it has been a long time coming! Check-out some of my past layouts HERE! Love, love, love scrapbooking, wish I had more free time to devote to it! Oh well, I’m going to make the most out of the weekend!

Are you going to be at the Scrapbooking Expo in Puyallup this weekend? Leave a comment if you are and maybe we could meet up, say hi and share our layouts!

With that being said, I will see you all on Sunday!! (Unless, I find something blog worthy to post about tomorrow, who knows!)…I guess stay tuned to my blog to find out :)

Raspberry Picking!

2010-07-14T15:18:00.001-07:00

The triplets, Sophia & I went raspberry picking today with Erin and another nanny Amanda. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the triplets, so I wasn’t holding my breath it would be a successful trip – but it was! They all enjoyed it!

They sure are yummmy!! I’ve had more than my share, grab a handful each time I walk by! I have a feeling they’ll be gone before the end of the day!! Off to eat a few more!

Happy Wordless Wednesday Everyone!!

This post is part of Wordless Wednesday on the following blogs:
Wordless Wednesday’s
Live and Love…Out Loud
Seven Clown Circus
A Beautiful Mess
It's A Blog Party

Hi, My Name is Cori and I’m ready to STOP being snarky…

2010-07-13T22:58:00.001-07:00

and admit I’m lactose intolerant.

This has been a long time coming, asking my friends and family. I’m tired of being snarky after I eat dairy. I’m snarky with those around me, who are tired of listening to me complain. I’m snarky when people mention me trying to get me to try soy milk (still don’t like the idea) or lactaid pills. I get snarky when I’m reminded that I shouldn’t drink milk, or have my before bed bowl of cereal. But do you know who I really think is tired of being SNARKY? My poor stomach.

My stomach has been warning me, pretty much my whole life, not to do dairy. My mom is now convinced I’ve been lactose intolerant since I was an infant. I was snarky even back then. Apparently, I had awful colic the first year of life, and my mom now believes that I probably was allergic to the breast milk I was receiving.

The light finally went on about a year ago, when my cousin made the connection that maybe the reason why my then sweet niece Emmalee had now became a very snarky baby, that Emma might be allergic to the breast milk she was getting. At her 4-month check up she was official diagnosed with a milk allergy. She was weaned and put on soy formula (which stinks by the way!). At twelve months, they tried to transition her to dairy, but once again her body rejected it. So she’s now on soy for good!

Amazingly enough the snarky Emmalee quickly became a thing of the past and she is back to being her sweet self we all love! I’m hoping that if I make that switch too, that maybe I’ll feel better, my stomach will stop hurting all the time, and I can get rid of my endless supply of Gas-X, that I currently use to reduce the pain! A girl can dream right?

I went to the doctor a few months back and mentioned it. My doctor told me that the test for it isn’t real accurate and often does false-positives. I was told that since it’s not very accurate they normally don’t test for it (it’s a blood test). They just go with the symptoms you have, and narrow it down from there. Well, I had to have blood work drawn anyway, so they went ahead and checked my lactose levels, and they came back NORMAL. I’ve taken that statement that I’m NOT lactose intolerant to heart, trying to convince myself of the truth. Finally ready to admit the inevitable…I’m lactose intolerant.

I now need to do something about. I’m posting it here to publically have it out there. I’m Lactose Intolerant and it’s okay! I can (and will) reduce my dairy intake, try soy and look into lactaid pills.

Are you lactose intolerant? Do you have any advice or suggestions that might help? I’d greatly appreciate any and all you have to share!

Week 5 of Word Up, Yo! a new word game hosted by Liz from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog, KLZ from Taming Insanity and Natalie from Mommy of A Monster! The word this week was SNARKY, jump in and play along!!

Not Me! Monday: Sleep (or lack there of) Edition

2010-07-12T18:55:00.001-07:00

It definitely was not me who stayed up until 2:00am last night chatting on twitter, facebook, instant messenger and the telephone. It certainly was not me who couldn’t turn off the the television and close my eyes. It for sure was not me who at 2:00 in the morning began watching infomercials for the Cricket (love mine!) die-cut machine and then the Magic Bullet, because there was nothing else on at that time! It really was not me who actually enjoyed watching the infomercials and was relieved my phone wasn’t within reach to order them! Otherwise, I’m sure I’d be the proud new owner of a second Cricket and a Magic Bullet (which I would love to have!).

Luckily today I didn’t have to work, so you know me it would be so not me to sleep in! What did I wake up for? I did not wake up minutes before 10am so I wouldn’t miss my (not) favorite show The Price is Right. I certainly am not that nerdy! Oh wait……maybe I am…..

I am definitely not feeling the effects of lack of sleep from last night and the weekend. There is no way that I am already in bed at 6:52pm and feel that I could go to sleep at any moment. I am not trying to keep myself up to watch the end of the Home Run Derby and the Bachelorette. Really, I’m not! Or am I?

HAPPY “NOT ME” Monday, everyone!!

Steve Tyrell Concert at Jazz Alley

2010-07-11T17:27:00.001-07:00

Last night my family, along with longtime family friends Tom & Dianne Knapp, went to Jazz Alley in Seattle to see Legendary singer, songwriter, producer Steve Tyrell. When I first found out about going (or when my parents informed the three of us that WE WERE GOING and if we had plans, we’d better change them asap) I was less than thrilled. I had no idea who the guy was, nor did I want to spend a Saturday night see him in concert.

However, I quickly learned that he is best known for his songs he sung in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, that my family LOVES! Probably, our family’s all-time favorite movie. We can just about recite the entire Part II movie (and do quite often!).

What an amazing performance, he sang some of our favorites from the Father of the Bride films including On the Sunnyside of the Street and The Simple Life. He also sung I Say A Little Prayer for You and I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself from another family favorite movie, My Best Friend’s Wedding! And yes, we even did the “lobster” hands during I Say A Little Prayer for You! (If you don’t know what I'm talking about, you are totally missing out! But, because I feel you need to see it, I’ve included a YouTube clip of it!

Our group before we ordered dinner…I had rigatoni and it was sooooo good!!

Alex & I

The two photos above were the extent of the good photos we took! We couldn’t have the camera flash on, so all the other photos are bad, and I mean B.A.D! Sorry Dianne, I know I said I’d post the videos, but they really aren’t worth seeing, just ask my family!!! Oh well! We did take a few more photos outside of the theater ….

My Family

Our extended family including Aunt Dianne and Uncle Tom!
Tom & Dianne were there when I was born, how cool is that!? My dad and Tom have been friends for like 35 years!

Before and after the show we were at Tom & Dianne’s home on Queen Anne. They have a BEAUTIFUL view of Seattle, the Space Needle and the waterfront! Stunningly beautiful!

Alex with Baby Chance and I posting with the Space Needle behind us!

In my opinion, one of the most beautiful symbols of a city!

There was also swimming in their pool and holding Tom & Dianne’s daughter Gina’s, little man, Chance! He’s 5-months old and so very cute!!

Kelly & Alex in the pool! I didn’t get in until after the show!

My parents with cutie Chance

And because I love babies, one more of Chance!
Ignore the fact he’s holding my dad’s middle finger!

Needless to say the day turned out pretty darn fun!! I very much enjoyed myself! (Other than the fact I was eaten alive by mosquitoes, but that’s another story!).

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Just laugh!

2010-07-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

….or maybe cry!! That’s what our neighbors probably do when they see the front yard after a toddler swim party – haha!

Note the clothes, diapers, toys, towels and pool paraphenalia!

How did it get way? Just like this…….

And incase you are curious…YES…I did leave it like this for several hours! I guess I’m white trash, what can I say? That and after a couple hours in the sun, when naptime came around it was REST time for me! Don’t worry we went back out after nap, made a bigger mess, that I then had to clean up later! I always put my messes back together….well almost every time and everything!

(Pictures were taken on Wednesday, July 7th, same day as the first swim of the season!)

A Day at the Beach!

2010-07-09T21:17:00.001-07:00

Amy, Alex & I ventured to the beach today with the triplets, Camryn & Jordyn for some fun in the sun! We had a great time, the kids loved the sand and water, I of course took a lot of pictures! Like usual I went click-crazy! Took so many cute photos, that I made them into a collage!

There were a few photos, that were too cute, and needed to be showcased on their own!

The four 3-year-olds enjoying the sand!
(And apparently wishing they were bigger and could play with the older kids!)

Myself & Alex with the triplets
(I dare you to try to get three 3-year-olds to smile at the camera at the same time! Needless to say I posted the best picture of Alex & I!)

LOVE this photo of the trio! How sweet is that??!!

We had a great day!! Got the kids home and they were out! Their mom even came home early, so I got to leave early too! What a great way to start the weekend! A big thank you to my sister, Alex, for helping me out with the triplets, she made the trip more enjoyable for me! Thanks Amy, for meeting up with us!

Happy Friday!!

What would I change? What do I wish I had done differently?

2010-07-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time picking which question to answer, because they both fit!! So this week I’m answering TWO questions, as they really go and hand in hand for me!

1.) What would you change about your life if you could?

2.) I wish I would have...describe a time when you didn't take action, but later wished you would have.

There really has been nothing in my life that I regretted, seriously. I feel that my life has gone really well! So when reading these questions what came to mind is lack of a foreign language. Foreign language, wasn’t a graduation requirement for high school – but it required at 98% of colleges. With that being sad, I didn’t take a language, thus couldn’t get into a 4-year university right away.

Freshman year, first quarter, at my local community college, I took American Sign Language and I enjoyed it. However, never took the second one. Putting me at 1 year of language instead of 2. I finally decided to transfer to a university that has a language pre-requisite and now have to fulfill it.

I assumed (yes, it’s not good too), that I could easily just take ASL 2, after 5 years of not using it. Yeah…that didn’t go well. I lasted about 20 minutes before leaving and joining the 101 level class. So I’m back taking that same language again.

I have to admit that I am enjoying this class, this time around. Our instructor is awesome and is making learning ASL fun and enjoyable. We’ve had three class sessions and I have learned so many new 'signs’, it’s unbelievable! Loving this class and happy I am re-taking it.

If I could I would have taken a language in high school – it would have made things much easier. I’m mad and frustrated with myself for taking the easy way out in high school and regretting it now. I now tell ALL high school students I meet to make sure they take a language, even if it’s not required – there’s no doubt it will help them in the future! Don’t make the same mistake I did and save yourself a lot of time, money and brain cells!

First Swim of the Season!

2010-07-07T16:02:00.001-07:00

Summer is officially here in Seattle! It was a long time coming, but it’s here now! Madison & I took a dip in the pool for the first time this season. Let me tell you it was coooooooooold! I didn’t get in above my waist, but Madison was all over the pool! The heater needs to be turned on or we need a few more days in a row of sun before I get all the way in!

Thanks for stopping by Mr. Sun! Please don’t be a stranger and come back again soon!

This post is part of Wordless Wednesday on the following blogs:
Wordless Wednesday’s
Live and Love…Out Loud
Seven Clown Circus
A Beautiful Mess
It's A Blog Party

4th of July 2010

2010-07-06T23:01:00.001-07:00

Madison, Alex & I had a fun 4th of July up in the cul-de-sac with a big block party! The weather was so-so, but at least it didn’t rain…much! There was delicious food, lots of people and fireworks! We had a great time! Be warned….there is a TON of pictures in this post! If you are afraid of oober-cuteness, you’ll want to leave this post right away :)

How cute is this photo of Gabbi & Pey-Pey??!!

Maddie joined the big kids in a game of kickball!

Around 9pm, the Sparklers (or magic wands as Madison called them), were pulled out. You wouldn’t believe the amount of sparklers they had! Every kid got at least a box of their own, and we’re talking 30 kids! Even the babies (can’t call them that much longer) got to have a go at them! They all loved it, at first weren’t sure what they were supposed to do, but quickly caught on!

Cul-De-Sac full of Sparklers!

Jack & Gabbi

Ryan & Nate

Maddie & Alex

Maddie, Alex & Brittani

Once the sparklers were all gone, it was time for the real show! Who doesn’t love fireworks (well amazingly enough, a lot of people don’t…I don’t quite get why, but they don’t! Something about them being dangerous??). We all sat back and enjoyed the show!

Nate, Jack & Ryan are ready!

Maddie, Alex & Brittani, too!

We can’t forget about Gabbi!

Jack quickly discovered his fear of fireworks…or at least the noise!

Natey & I

Did I fail to mention how cold it was??! It was freeeeeezing! Even wrapped up in sweatshirts, blankets, coats and near a fire, we were cold! Oh well, that’s the 4th of July in Seattle!

Now that the 4th is over, it’s time for summer! It finally made it’s debut today! Supposed to be near 90 all week, yippppeee! That means pool days are ahead, and I for one cannot wait! Thank heavens for SUMMER!!

Happy 2nd Blogiversary to ME!!

2010-07-05T20:00:00.001-07:00

I cannot believe that I am celebrating my 2nd blogiversary already! Seems like just yesterday I posted my first post, and yet that was two-years-ago! Crazy how time flies! Thought it would be fun to take a look back at my last two years of blogging, how I have changed as a writer, fumbled my way through different sites, and learn tons about blogging…which eventually leading to changing my major! Being the nerd that I am, I also wanted to throw in some benchmarking (statistics) for my own remembrance!

The Beginning: Two years ago, I started my blog on MySpace. I wanted to learn how to ‘use’ MySpace, so I fumbled my way through. Never did figure out MySpace, it just never made sense to me (probably the same way my mom doesn’t understand Facebook-lol). With that being said, my stay on MySpace was short, I lasted 74 blog entries, before leaving MySpace for the big bad real blogging world of blogger! (For the record, I still am not a MySpace fan! I have become a Facebook-aholic, love my Facebook!).

1st Blogiversary: The next year, I posted a lot more, started to get more into it, my posts changed quite a bit. I had a new site to discover and more fumbling to be done, while I learned basic html, added different gadgets to my site, and tried to stay true to who I was. At my One Year Blogiversary I blogged 233 times (or 64% of the year)!

2nd Blogiversary: Let’s see…this past year….I did less fumbling with blogger, I even started to feel quite confident with it! I’ve learned some (I mean very basic) HTML, that has helped me improve my blog. I went from the basic blogger background to making my blog more unique and me! In the beginning I was changing my blog a lot, while I tried to find “my blog”. I have finally settled down, and have changed maybe three times in the past year – making big changes each time!

The Last Year: As for benchmarking, let’s see, I haven’t even checked it out yet….I hope I have done better this year then last!! Here we go….(be right back…wait right here! ha-ha)…..(okay back, did you miss me?? I warned you early I was a dork!)…. okay so I blogged 276 times this past year….holy cow for me, which is 76% of the year!!

Benchmarking By the Numbers*

Average 37 visits/day

1.77 Pages visited/visits (once they view my blog, how many separate parts of my blog do they visit on that visit)

73.47% bounce rate (bounce rate shows how many people clicked around to different spots on my blog…the lower the % means people are touring my blog and reading different spots). I was told that for a blog anything lower than 75% is really good.

2minutes, 57 seconds is the average time spent on my blog

59% of visitors never have visited before

I’m still very much a newbie at this. Joining blogfrog has dramatically helped my blog. I’ve made so many new friends, and learned new ways to blog and bring in a bigger audience! It’s really fun to watch my blog grow!

The Next Year: I have big plans for the next year, well actually couple of months! I feel that I have mastered blogger and want to try something new. I’m gonna set-up my blog on Wordpress, and go for a more “professional” look! I’ve learned a lot about it, and am excited!

Why Wordpress, you might ask. On Wordpress you own (100%) your blog and all the material on it. With blogger, Google really owns it and at anytime they can shut it down…that really scares me! I’d hate to lose all my memories! I’m also excited to fumble through a new site and learn more HTML! So look for that towards the end of the summer! From what I understand it takes a lot of work to set-up, but I am ready and excited for the challenge!

Week 4 of Word Up, Yo! a new word game hosted by Liz from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog, KLZ from Taming Insanity and Natalie from Mommy of A Monster! The word this week was FUMBLE, jump in, link-up and play along!!

*Benchmarking from Google Analytics ( from June 13 [first day of analyzing] -July 5, 2010)

Our Saturday Outing Was A ….

2010-07-03T20:21:00.001-07:00

Quick Trip to the Science Center!

hope you have a happy 4th!

My First Blogging Award!!

2010-07-02T15:42:00.001-07:00

Wow! This is my first blogging award ever!! Thank you so much Suzie Q from I Married A Moron and Survived for picking me for this honor! I’m so excited!! I’m finally feeling like I’m moving up in the blogging world…yay me (& Suzie Q!).

Let’s see, the first thing I need to do is to sum up my blogging philosophy in 5 words…okay lets see….

LOVE ~ FAMILY ~ FRIENDS ~ TRUTH ~ HUMOR

I also am excited to pass this blog award along to 10 of my favorite blogs! They are listed in alphabetical order …..

Thank you Suzie Q, I so appreciate this!! You made my day!! I encourage everyone to check out these great worthy blogs!

Here Comes the Sun!

2010-06-30T13:59:00.001-07:00

…..doo.doo.doo.doo, here comes the sun, and I say it’s all right!

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces.
Little darling, it feels like years since you’ve been here.
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it’s all right!

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes!!!!

Song is Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles.

This post is part of Wordless Wednesday on the following blogs:
Wordless Wednesday’s
Live and Love…Out Loud
Seven Clown Circus
A Beautiful Mess
It's A Blog Party
The Florida Hogans

Rolling With the Punches

2010-06-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day back to school since Winter quarter last year. Needless to say it was hard to go back to school this evening. I was told to go ahad and register for ASL 102, since I'd already taken 101....but within 10 minutes of class, I knew I was in over my head. Politely got up and left.

Luckily, I had remembered that an ASL 101 was being taught in the classroom next door, so I popped in. I have decided to go ahead and take 101 again, and then 102 in the fall. It sucks with another set-back, but I really don't think I have much of a choice. I'd rather retake then fail the class. If everything goes as planned, I hope to be admitted into the University of Washington Bothell in January.

It continues....

Happy 8th Birthday Sophia!

2010-06-28T22:14:00.001-07:00

Today is Sophia’s 8th birthday, where has the time gone?! I’ve only known her since she was 4 years old, but what an impression she has left on my heart, I love that little girl! (how sweet isn’t that??)

For her birthday she got a couple of Mad-Libs books and we had fun playing with them today. It has been forever since I did one! Forgot how funny they are, especially when you are with a silly 8-year-old!!

I hope you had a wonderful birthday sweet Sophia!!

Plethora of Posts & Pictures!

2010-06-27T20:26:00.001-07:00

Yesterday marked my 500th blog post and to think I forgot to announce it…silly me! I didn’t want to miss my 500th post so for a week I’ve been counting down on my laptop until my 500th post! Go figure, with the plethora of computers in my house, I didn’t use my laptop and yet one of our desktops….missing the big 5-0-0. *sigh* what’s a girl to do….post about it today I suppose!

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had a plethora of posts! My top 3 blogging topics are:

My niece Madison – with 102 posts
My cousin and one of my BFF’s Jaime – with 89 posts
Tied for 3rd with 85 posts – My niece Emmalee and favorite 2nd family the Munro’s!

One of my favorite things about blogging is getting to go back and look at past posts! It’s a great reminder to me of what I’ve done, where I’ve been and where I hope to go!!

Yesterday, I blogged briefly on my Aunt Sue’s wedding, and posted a couple of pictures, but mentioned that I had a plethora of pictures to sort through, 521 of them to be exact, to still go through. I’m so proud of myself, in less then 24-hours I:

downloaded & edited all the photos off the cameras
uploaded all the wedding photos to Snapfish for people to order from,
put them on a CD for my Aunt to take home with her
made a montage of the wedding!

Phew! That’s quite the plethora of photography related items, in a short period of time, for me!

With all that being said here is the wedding montage I made of the plethora of photos that we took yesterday! Since I know that I know that the majority of my biggest blog fans and followers are my family, here you go…I hope you enjoy the video!! Congratulations Sue & Aaron, I love you guys!!

Week 3 of Word Up, Yo! a new word game hosted by Liz from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog, KLZ from Taming Insanity and Natalie from Mommy of A Monster! The word this week was PLETHORA, jump in and play along!!

Sue & Aaron’s Wedding: 26 years in the making!

2010-06-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

Today was my Aunt Sue’s wedding. She and Aaron have been together 26 years and finally tied the knot in a beautiful backyard ceremony today! The weather was beautiful, the wedding went off without and hitch and the food was fantastic! I took 521 photos, guess you can say I got a big snap happy!! Tonight I’m to busy to go through the photos so I just wanted to post a couple to tied my family over for the night :-)

The beautiful flower girls Madison & Emmalee! They were the stars of the show!

I’m vain, so here’s a cute picture myself! I’m vain and really don’t care ha-ha!

love, love, love this photo I got of Emmalee playing with a drink umbrella!

Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll get through all the photos and add more from the festivities today! I had a great day, but now am ready for bed!! It’s been a long, stressful few days for my family!

Happy Saturday evening all!

Alex’s Piano Recital

2010-06-25T23:29:00.001-07:00

Tonight was Alex’s Spring piano recital…let me tell you this girl has TALENT! I wish I could play like she can, if only I’d stuck with piano lessons!! Like the proud big sister I am, I came with my camera and video camera, only to find out that my video camera didn’t have the memory card in it….so I couldn’t record, I was bummed. (If you want to check out Alex playing from a year and a half ago, check out HERE.) So you’ll have to make do with just still photos!

“I’m getting a bit nervous….do I look flushed to you??”

She plays very intensely! Man her fingers move quickly up and down the ivory!

She also always bites her lips when she’s concentrating!

Love this photo of her…a big smile on her face after she NAILED a super hard song! She even got an unexpected round of applause by the audience! (We were told not to clap until after each student performs all their songs and this was only her 2nd of 3 songs!)

My sister is so talented, I so wish I had been able to share her music with you tonight. She plans on playing tomorrow during my Aunt’s wedding reception, so I’ll try to record it then! She will knock your socks off!

Well, my Aunt is getting married tomorrow in a backyard wedding! Hope the weather holds out, supposed to be in the 70s tomorrow, but you never know with Seattle weather! I’m excited because I’m also the photographer of the wedding! I have never taken a photography class, and am very much an amateur, but am still excited to try! My Aunt has only three photos she really wants, so that shouldn’t be to hard to achieve! The rest will just be me taking photos of the fun and festivities! With that being said, hopefully tomorrow evening I’ll have photos to share, we’ll see how exhausted I am!

I’m participating in Family Friday’s with Peterson St. Louis and Keeping Up with the Schultz Family blogs!

If you haven’t checked out Cori's Big Mouth Message Board, please do! The question of the day today is on computers! Other hot topics include exercise, favorite blogs and introductions!! If you haven’t stopped by, please do!