P.F. Changs and Russell

February 2009

Scouts, Valentine's Day, and Snow Day Note

Sledding in the neighbors' back yard (Ross and Lydia are in front).

Trying Out Scrapbook Blogging.

I went away on my 3rd scrapbook weekend retreat- fun with Elisabeth and Jen Chauncey in Browns Summit (30 miles from home). This fun event is hosted by Lorna Miller of Creative Memories.
My goal is to switch over from paper scrapbooking to real-time blogging scrapbooking that I can print in books.
I've tried:
Creative Memories software- but it costs $ and no blog option.
Scrapblog- Cute but they charge and you for many templates (temporary?) and requires a new blog (?)
Smilebox- Laid out our new house photos from 10 different files only to learn that their templates are inflexible and are limited to about 20 pictures.
Cropmom- but it wants me to upload only 1 photo at a time. Fixed templates, too? Their logo is on each page.
Picasa- Our current photo editor but it doesn't allow text or fun backgrounds
Back to Scrapblog: Strength- Allows flexibility in editing pages and saving files as jpegs. The computer keeps getting overloaded so I'm reading my book when it bogs down and checking the weather online- they're calling for 4 inches of snow tonight!

Above, you'll find my first Scrapblog post. Ta da!

Lydia's Hand-Made Laptop and Our Annual McCain Family Portrait Outing

Lydia and DadDad used a box to make this laptop for Lydia. Love that keyboard and monitor!

Every year when we are all assembled in WV for Christmas (usually Dec. 22nd or 23rd), we trek to the mall to have a family portrait made. Above: Russell, Barrett and Lydia climbed through the chairs while waiting at the Portrait Studio.

JT holds onto Ross and Russell while my Dad stands by (probably feeling pretty good about his back in comparison to poor JT!)

We cap off the portrait outing with a trip to the mall's food court. I love that Graziano's pizza! Here, Lydia shows off the soft black bear she bought on clearance that day.

Russell's Logic

One night while J.T. was away, I kept trying to herd all of the kids to bed. In the midst of the chaos, Russell kept insisting, "I want do a-thing else!!!" What did he mean??? Finally, I realized that I had told the kids to clean up because we weren't doing 'anything else' but going to bed!


Russell keeps pulling the mini drawers out of my desk but he can't fit them back in. In frustration, he left the room and headed downstairs. Since he rarely travels there alone, I asked what he was doing. This was Russell's reply: "I getting a screwdriver so I can fix that drawer." OK, then.



However, some of Russell's plans are not so great. For example, when I told him to stop blowing the whistle near me, he said (you guessed it) "NO!"
While making hot chocolate, I doled out 6 mini marshmallows for each of us. I left mine on the counter and became curious to see if Russell could resist them while my milk was warming. His were long gone. The result? He looked at mine and rearranged them before diving in and eating 3 of mine. :)

Western High School

This is a picture of Russell from Oct. 2007 (when he was 1 year old) in front of our local High School. Russell enjoys going to this high school several times per month with Aunt Liz as part of her ministry work. Will he attend this very school in 13 years???

Russell sitting inside Western High School's lunch room with his beloved Aunt Liz. The origin of this photo?: A student took a cell phone picture and uploaded it to her Facebook page online. Aunt Liz then downloaded Russell's mug from the web and sent it on over!