Sneak peek

I am about 99% finished with my scrapbook room and have even started to scrap in it! amazing huh? Especially since I got the basic cupboards/counter in last winter?? Better late than never right? Gotta say, I love it! The first day I scrapped in it, my fabulous husband came up (after about 3-4 hours of scrapping) to ask if I was making dinner....hmmmm Guess you can guess we had take out that night!

I put my mp3 player and speakers in my new digs, even a couple of candles and I was ready to roll. You see, I can barely hear the phone or TV or kids (unless they come and try to *help me). Mark thinks I need a corded phone up there for *emergencies, like making dinner, bathing kids, putting kids to bed, and on and on an on..... I think he is forgetting that all spring & summer he fishes (sometimes well into the late fall and winter). I have always said the winter is mine. Once summer comes I am sure my scrapbooking dime will dwindle, who wants to be inside when it is so nice out, unless we get a screaching hot humid stretch of course!

Wanna peek....

The SCRAPTUARY

I will officially name my room once i order the vinyl from the wall to cut out with my very own CRICUT! This is a new to me possession! It is the orginal smaller version, but great for cutting letters and small things out with. And who needs the big one or a lot of cartridges when your sister in law (who happens to live next doors) has it and LOTS of cartridges!

Our little budding....MckMama??

Josie has always loved taking pictures, ever since mommy starting taking them almost non-stop when she was born! We officially have more pictures that I can scrapbook!

Over the holidays, she has become obsessed with our tripod! We let her use our old sony camera, and she has begun to flash away! She learned to use the timer, and even set up self portraits. Her favorite things to photograph are her new dollhouse, family & randomness....Hmmmmm wonder if she will grow up to be a great photographer like Mckmama? A girl can only hope!

You can click Here to see some of her recent work. This will link you to snapfish. Here are a few sneak peaks!

setting up her shot

Her doll house

(thanks santa)

close up of the living room for her dollhouse

Not sure what are artistic edge was here, any insight mckmama?

family portraits

catching daddy in the act of napping...

All this and only 1 month shy of 4 years old? and to think when she was born her fingers were all fused together? and now, she has 10 beautiful fingers and enough dexterity to use them to shoot these awesome photos! I hope she has as much confidence when she is a teenager that she has now!

What do you think?

The stockings were hung....

by the tree with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there....

Merry Christmas!!

Oh christmas time....

The countdown is on, it is official, christmas is a mere few days away! Presents are wrapped, shopping is done, baking is done (not that i do much baking) and Josie is sick, YEP folks, we got some viral cold bug. It all started thursday evening. She got home from daycare and complained of a belly ache. She did not eat dinner (that was sign enough, if you know josie, she LOVES food), and had a mild clear runny nose, no fever. She threw up in Brendan's room, and seemed ok after, went to bed and woke with fever & hoarse cough. My morning, there were boogers everywhere!

Luckily friday was a grandma Diane day, so mommy & daddy did not have to take a sick day. She was mellow all day friday and by friday night was a bit back to crazy. Still have boogers everywhere. clear to yellow, and I mean EVERYWHERE. She is back to crazy, silly, food eating self, so we must be on the mend. In the mean time it is EMERGEN-C for everyone else in the house, hope nobody else gets it!

BTW, hop on over to Mckmamas site for an AWESOME giveaway! Lightroom & photoshop! YIKES.

Find out how : Here

Merry Chrismtas!

It's beginning to look a lot like HO HO...

Josie has taken to call christmas and anything associated with it "HO HO" even our tree is a "HO HO" tree. So HO HO it is this year. The tree and the kids trees are up, now for the rest of the house. That is more of a chore but will hopefully be done soon.

The Dowd household has been very busy! Not sure where all the time has gone, but since I last blogged about it, we have had conferences for both kids. Josie's conference was great! Her teachers say she is ahead of her goals, so that is great. Brendan is doing well, just a few areas to focus in on, but second grade brings a lot of new things for him to learn. They are writing stories, so he has to get the sentence structure of paragraphs and story theme mastered. They are also working more with money, double digit adding and subtracting. And of course reading, which is always an area of struggle. But he is NOT a trouble maker, so that is good!

Turkey day was good. We celebrated as usual with Mark's family (we do easter with my family). And now the race to christmas....Started out with a little Black Friday shopping (never go to walmart! unorganized chaos).

*brendan reading josie the night before christmas*

I guess we are just settling in to a normal life. It has been 9 months since a surgery, and with no surgery on the near horizon, we are living day to day being THANKFUL at how far Josie has come and just how "NORMAL" she is. As I type I am watching her secure a bib on her baby and feed her a bottle. Most definently in a few minutes after she burps her, she will change her diaper because she will be "poopy" and then we may repeat that a few hundred more times until I tell her time for bed and she throws a major FIT! You see when you have a child born with a "rare syndrome" your future of normacly in unsure. So we are going to settle into our normal little life and enjoy us some HO HO time, heck maybe we will even get daddy to not be a scrooge this year....

Ho Ho Ho

Inevitebly christmas is coming...sooner rather than later. How can we deny it when it is shoved in our faces everywhere we go? Take for instance this weekend. It was a beautiful weekend her in Michigan (for november) so mark was fishing on saturday to "clear his head" so i decided to take the kids to Henry Ford Museum to see the Lego Castle Adventure. Being that is was the first weekend of the month, and I had my Bank of America Debit card...I got in free, Josie was free (under 5) and brendan was 25% of b/c of my card, and parking was free! So for 8.25 we got to enjoy the whole museum and the LEGO adventure! What a deal.

We had a great time at the museum. Saw the HUGE locamotives, old cars & campers and brendan could not believe that at some point in time McD's burgers were only 15 cents! I mean WOW mom. We headed over to see "Abraham Lincoln's Chair" This is a must everytime we come. Brendan has been so interested in it, since he learned about his assassination in kindergarden. This lead to a talk on equality and slavery. Pretty deep for a saturday and a 7 year old.

The lego's were amazing! bigger than life and I could not imagine how long they took to build....

Before we left brendan was made into a:

hot dog courtesy of the oscar meier weiner mobile!

And the kids made their "pennies"

Josie chose Rosa Parks Bus and Brendan chose the wiener mobile this time!

To get back on track....we stopped by the mall to use a free certificate i got from chilrens place, and to my amazement SANTA was there already! Have to admit it was a cool exhibit. Polar express & snow globes fused together. You even walk through a snow globe and get snowed on! Of course it was free *unless you want a picture of course. so we walked through. Josie a bit aprehensive of santa himself. To my wonderment, when we rounded the corner to santa, and jolly old santa himself asked josie what she would like for christmas, she simply said "a pack and play for my baby" no crying..nothing. And josie NEVER talks to strangers! But hey, a girl wants a pack and play, she will do whatever it takes. Brendan asked for a Nintendo DS.....

So to the root of my post, how do you "BRIBE" your kids at christmas? I told brendan that santa would not even consider such an expensive gift if he does not look through his toys and books and donate some to kids less fortunate and to mommies mom to mom boxes for the spring ($$$ in mommies eyes!) So we will see how he is able to weed through some of the discarded toys that he will most likely say "its my favorite mom" and "i was going to play with it tomorrow"

Josie on the other hand is EASY. We were going through some toys in her room and I asked if I could sell a few things and she said yes! and proceeded to tell me where her pack and play would reside in her room on christmas morning...lol

Of course after we seen santa and told him our wishes, I told them that since they already told santa what they wanted they better start being EXTRA good, because santa, mrs. clause and all the elves would be closely watching them!

Rest of the day was spent letting brendan pick out some clothes (since I usually do it for him, this was a treat for him) and hanging out outside. We had such a nice day, no yelling, no fighting....and no it was not a dream!

Wordless Wednesday