I'm all off because Joe and I had Monday off for Labor Day. I can't believe tomorrow is Thursday already.

Today Joe was at my work site for some training he and his co-worker are coordinating. He and I left together and picked up Joey. It was nice to carpool for once. They said Joey was so funny today. He ran up to all the caregivers (all ladies) and kissed them, and then put his hands in his face and giggled. He's such a ladies man already - my gosh!! They said it was sooo cute.

We've been playing this game at bathtime. He takes a toy and put it in my mouth and I blow on it and shoot it at him. He laughs and laughs. It's quite funny. Here Joey is trying to put the duck on his head. He and I like to try to balance toys on our heads too.

I went to Curves tonight. I love my workout place. I joined a weight loss Curves challenge. They give you a book and for 6 weeks you are supposed to follow this meal plan. She told me I could go off plan during the cruise. We start next Monday. I'm excited about it. I need someone to drill my butt, make sure I'm eating well and to measure me weekly. I already get weighed on the scale for WW but this will be nice. A few other girls in the club signed up and it will be nice to hang out with them and do this! I want to lose another 10-15 lbs. I would love to be in a size 10. I'm in a 12 now.

I'm kinda tired tonight. It's almost 10pm. I still need to take a shower.

I went and worked out tonight, got some books from the library and then went to Kroger for a few things.

I came home and made Mongolian beef for Joe - one of his favorite meals that I make for him. Here's the Mongolian Beef Recipe. Here's the recipe for the Shrimp Scampi I made for Grandpa this past weekend. We also had corn tonight. Joey kept signing corn once he saw it and we gave him some to eat. He still won't try it on the cob but that's ok. He's been eating turkey like crazy. Both yesterday and today he wanted turkey for dinner. He says Turkey Turkey Turkey!

Signing off for the night.

Joey got up at 7am this morning. It was Joe’s turn to get up with him. I got up with Joey on Saturday and Sunday. I woke up about 9am. Last night grandpa said that he had read my blog from last week and wanted me to make the shrimp scampi that I made. The shrimp scampi I made last week was grilled and was ok, but not excellent. I found a new recipe that was more like the Red Lobster shrimp scampi and I made it Sunday morning for lunch. It turned out very very good. (See photo). In addition Grandma made a turkey breast that we had in our freezer – I have no clue how to make those things! AND she made a baked spaghetti dish that is very good.

Joey was a picky eater all weekend and it drove me nuts. He’s definitely turning into a toddler. His new favorite word he started saying this weekend is ‘MINE’. I hate that word. I asked him for something, he shakes his head ‘MINE’. What a stinker!!!! He had an hour nap today which is very unusual! It made him quite cranky today. He was only happy when he was outside.

We took Joey’s stroller up north to grandma’s house because it was very dirty. We’ve had this stroller for 2 years now, and it’s never been washed. The stroller was screwed together in 50 different places. Grandma is amazing – managed to get almost all the black mildew off of it. Then we tried to put it back together and it didn’t work so well. I would say it’s 85% together but I’m going to have to break out the manual to find out how to attach a few things. Isn’t it always that it’s easier to take something apart but a bitch to put it back together?

Grandpa took Joe and Joey next door to Carl Kurks and showed him all the tractors. Joey had a grand time but was not happy when he was ON the tractor. He loves tractors but does not like to get near them at all.

Here's a photo of Joey today. It came out a little blurry. I needed my flash on. Oh well. Anyhow, see his cute pj's? Grandma cut off the tight sleeves (guess my son his big pipes! LOL) and made them into short sleeves. Didn't she do a fab job?

Joe is still mad about the whole work situation. He talked about it most of the way home. I told him he needs to stop speculating about what could have happened and see what is happening. That is the worst when you know a little bit about the situation that you are in, and you speculate the worse or just speculate about stuff to make you angrier!

Oh and don’t even ask me how well I did on the core plan diet this weekend. I didn’t diet at all this weekend. Grandma and grandpa make the best food. I had peach/blueberry pie, asparagus soup, spaghetti bake, sloppy joe’s and more. It’s a good thing I don’t live with them full time or I’d be 500 lbs! Not only that, they had rice krispie treats, cake, and other good food at the Fisher Labor Day get together.

I don’t want to go to work tomorrow….augh!!!

Oh and today was my parent’s 30^th anniversary! WOW huh? I didn’t even know it was a ‘golden’ year anniversary until I talked to her. They never do anything big for occasions like that. They are pretty much kept to themselves and just like to hang out at home by themselves. I guess they went out to dinner. I told my mother it’s funny – this year is my THIRD anniversary, and we are taking a cruise, and it’s their 30^th, and they went to dinner. I told her it’s almost like it should be the other way around. She told me she wouldn’t want to go on a cruise. She thinks it would be boring – unless it was a knitters cruise. Now to ME I think THAT would be boring! LOL My mom and I are so different when it comes to interests. She thinks scrapbooking is stupid and has told me so. I think knitting is nice when I benefit from it but I can’t see spending countless hours knitting the same yard over and over to make something, when it’s so cheap to go out and buy stuff nowadays. See, such different views.

Oh and you may wonder why my blog gets sooo long – well I have a hour and a half drive home from grandma’s house to my house and I figure I may as well type something up for my blog. I publish it to the internet when I get home and hook up to the internet!

Tomorrow I’m submitting my last Avon order and then I’m done with them. Yay. I’m going to miss getting my stuff at discount, but it’s one less thing to worry about during the week.

I love updating this blog. I never thought I would enjoy keeping an online diary so much. I love the fact that I can add photos too. So fun!

Saturday night was a good night. I finished a page yesterday I’m absolutely in love with. I’m a little late for my assignments this month because – well not sure why. August just got away from me. So I had to do a photo corners page for Scrapjazz and we got a product donation from Daisy D’s company. I got the ‘country’ line – it had deep reds, blues, yellows – it is gorgeous yummy papers. Well they had the coolest thing ever – it’s this piece of paper that folds into an accordion – then you glue flaps of paper into it and it’s a PHOTO ALBUM! I want to buy like 500 more now! Oh I’m amazed by the smallest things you see! So I made this layout about my favorite photos of Joey in 2005 thus far. The book holds 9 photos and I took my favorite photo and blew it into a 5x7. I used these awesome Daisy D metal photo corner holders and then I used these daisy D hinges to hold it on. It was one of the most fun product donations I have gotten! I will upload it in a little bit!

I told you about the page I did for my cousin who had leukemia. I like how that turned out (see right survivor page). Then I had a kit I needed to do a page on for Scrapaddict.com. I did a page on my last birthday (27 - below) and I like how that turned out too.

I THINK the secret for my latest pages that I am loving is the SEWING MACHINE! Yes, I hijacked grandma’s sewing machine. Her sewing machine is easy to use for someone who has never sewn a thing her entire life. Poor patient grandma – I had to call her so many times because the machine jammed or I did something wrong. By the end of the weekend we found out certain threads work better on paper and I learned how to run the thread through the 50 different places on the machine. Joe’s mom gave me a sewing machine for scrapbooking. Now I just have to give in, bring it out of the closet and figure it out. I really LOVE how the stitching makes the page look so much better. OH and even better yet – I did not INK a single stitched page this weekend. I guess the stitching was giving me the look I wanted. Yay for me! It’s nice to finally feel good about your scrapbook pages. Grandpa was even impressed. He has always loved looking at all my pages but he said these latest pages are really ‘something’. He said he really likes my scrapbook pages lately.

Sunday afternoon we went over to Joe’s father’s side grandparents – Dean and Elaine’s house. Most of the family was there for labor day. Joey had a long nap before we left so he was well behaved and well rested. We ate when we got there and he ate well – pork, a hot dog and when they brought out the cake for Jessica’s birthday he ate the cake too! He turned green and yellow while eating it but enjoyed every bit.

Joey enjoys watching the chickens and cows at Dean and Elaine’s. He’s always liked to see the gator and golf cart but did not want anything to do with them. Haha, we picked him up, got on the golf cart and took off. He fussed for about 10 seconds, then realized, wow this is fun, and then let us take him on the ride. We rode around the yard, saw the cows, went into his father’s woods next door and he was so interested in it all. I was so angry I left my camera at grandma’s house!

In addition, his dad needed to bail up some hay, and Joey and Joe rode on the hay wagon while they bailed and I didn’t have my camera for that either. What is wrong with me? Joey liked it but they didn’t stay long because it’s really dusty. We had a nice time at the Fisher’s for Labor day. It was nice to see the family. I enjoyed talking with Elizabeth – she’s a senior this year and we talked about colleges and stuff.

Well, thanks to Grandma, Joe and I slept in until 11am. Boy was that nice. We work so hard during the week, we need a good sleep to revive us!

So we woke up and scrambled to get ourselves together. We had to go to the post office in town before it closed! Joey needed a break so we took him with us. We mailed out our stuff. I had a layout published by Memory Makers - see right - so I had to send that in. It's one of my most favorite layouts. I'm glad someone finally is publishing it! I did this in 2004!

Joey fell asleep on the way back. We put him to bed when we got home and Joe and I headed downstairs at Grandma's house to go through 15 bins of clothing. We are going to finally go through his old stuff and get rid of some stuff to consign and to give away for a tax deduction. Like for instance, 0 mos - 9 mos old we only really put him in those zip up or button up sleepers, because it was soooo easy so we got rid of most everything else. We culled through a few other thing too and I think we have like 10 bags of clothing downstairs - and I'm not kidding!!! That and I'm constantly going shopping for clothes for him because it's fun, so I had a lot in storage. Oh and Melissa - I still use your clothes you gave us for Joey! They were too cute to give away! :) SO we got that done.

Then it took me the WHOLE day to get a page done. I was doing a special page for my cousin Kelly. I had a new spotlight for scrapjazz which were Zsaige papers and they had a line for breast cancer, prostate cancer and Luekemia awareness. I asked my aunt Jennifer for a photo of Kelly and I told her it could be any time - even today. Then I asked her to writeup a little bit about it. It took me ALL DAY to do the page. When I was done Joe asked, did you get more than ONE page done today. Ok, so I admit, I'm a slow scrapbooker but I'm super pleased at how it turned out. I'll scan it on Tuesday and put it on my blog to show you.

So not much else went on yesterday. My sons favorite thing to eat are hot dogs. He can eat 2 1/2 and I'm not kidding. Each time he eats hot dogs, he eats 2 1/2. I really do not like to give them to him because they aren't healthy, but everyone else looks at it as an easy, sure way to feed him. He does like them!

This morning (Sunday) was soooo cute. Joey and I woke up at 8am. When grandpa got up and said Hello Joey, he yelled 'Hello Papa!!". It was so cute! He just started to say Grandpa and I can tell how happy it makes grandpa every time he says it!