Cosmo Cricket

Belly Button Embellies

So, I guess we are starting to go a little bit stir crazy. We have played all our games, we have watched all our movies and we have colored on all our paper. 

In an effort to entertain ourselves a little bit, we came up with this crazy idea. Belly button faces.

Here's Abby's. Her beautiful button is singing.

Kate's button was trickier, since her "mouth" seened to be frowning. But, by drawing lips on the frown line and making it open up underneath, she turned out quite happy even if her eyes are a bit uneven. Bellies are not the easiest surface to draw on... especially when they are laughing!

Speaking of laughing bellies, Jack's has us all cracking up! Here is his button when he is standing normally.

When he flexes his tummy muscles, his belly button laughs at us and we all laugh back! Sorry the pic is blurry, but you try photographing a laughing belly in low light!

Ok, Texas experience number 2. Before we moved, I told my kids that they needed to practice their manners with things like "yes ma'am" and "yes sir". Well, they thought this was hilarious and had a great time "yes ma'amming me" in a variety of funny accents. Obviously, this is not standard practice in Providence, Utah!

I took the kids out for a treat and as we entered, a man held the door open for me. I thanked him and he replied, "Yes, Ma'am." Abby turned to me and in a very loud voice, exclaimed, "It's true, Kate. They do say yes Ma'am!"

They are now seriously trying to figure out the etiquette. It's more complicated than you think. Kate asked me, "What do you say when someone offers you something? Yes Ma'am, yes thank you, yes Ma'am thank you or yes thank you Ma'am." 

$50 Prize Challenge

Head on over to twopeasinabucket.com to take part in a fun challenge with Cosmo Cricket. Read all the details on their Cosmo Cricket Project Challenge page, but in a nutshell, use Cosmo Cricket to make a project, upload and tag it in the twopeas gallery and you could win $50 in free Cosmo Cricket products. That sounds pretty good to me.

I won't be entering though. Not only am I not eligible, but I can't imagine where I would put any crafting supplies at the moment. I think the only extra space I have is in the freezer!

I thought that until I can get back to crafting maybe I would share one Texas experience per day. So without further ado, here is Texas experience number one.

I arrived in this hotel a week ago Sunday. Everyone had told me about the bugs.... big.... many.... etc. So I wasn't completely freaked out that when leaving the hotel building we saw a cockroach. It was easily 2" long, very slow and not as gross as the smaller and considerably faster cockroaches of Salt Lake City apartments. In fact, it was so slow that Eric killed it with the end of his crutches.

Here's where it gets really gross. Yesterday, it's dead carcass was still on the floor of the hotel hallway. We now have a tradition of pointing to it and saying, "they haven't vacuumed yet" everytime we leave the hotel. I haven't left the building today, so maybe this is the day it is finally discovered and cleaned up, but I'm not optimistic!!!

 

Living Small: Take a tour of our current home

We are living in two hotel rooms that are connected by a short and public hallway.

When you enter the door of our main room, not only do you come into our grand entry, but also our kitchen, Eric's office and our living-family-toy-and kid bedroom. As always, Cosmo Cricket is a place for truthful blog posting. No pretty staged photos here. This is exactly what it looks like each morning at 8:00am.

If I pivot the camera about 20 degrees to the right, you can see our kitchen and Kate, making herself a healthful breakfast of chocolate cheerios (something I don't buy under normal circumstances).

Now, come with me through the master bedroom to our closet/bathroom/utility room and Suki's bedroom.

To check up on Ethan, who has not shown up in the main room yet, we will walk from room 302 to room 300. Ethan has been cleaning up in an effort to gain some brownie points. This is not typical or to be expected on a recurring basis, but it's still nice none-the-less.

Here we enter into the kitchen, my office, Ethan's bedroom/ Kate's bedroom/ Abby's bedroom/ living/ TV room. My kids refuse to sleep in a shared bed and so they have been taking turns sleeping every third night on the floor in a sleeping bag, you can see it rolled up in the photo.

So, trying to remain optimistic, here are my top ten things about living in two hotel rooms with 6 people and one dog.

1.  I don't have to leave my computer desk when Jack needs a drink. I can reach the fridge and cupboard from my chair.

2. I pick out my clothes while I'm brushing my teeth. There is no closet door and I can see everything I own in the bathroom mirror.... so streamlined!

3. The sheets and towels get washed by somebody else! 

4. I always know where my kids are.... right next to me.

5. I don't have to vacuum or dust anything for three weeks.

6. Eric's Mac is in our main kitchenette so looking up a recipe online is a snap.

7. I don't feel guilty eating in bed. We only have four chairs between the two rooms and so somebody's got to!

8. For the first time, we have more than one TV. In fact, we have three so there's been no fighting about that. But, can I tell you, we haven't had cable for over a year and I sure don't miss it!!!!

9. There is absolutely no yard work. This Saturday I will not be weeding a garden or mowing a lawn. I will however, be looking for a dog friendly park... we're getting a bit of cabin fever here!

10. Downsizing from our huge house in Providence, Utah to our smaller home in Austin will no longer be difficult. After this experience, our new house is going to seem like a mansion!!!

Happy Wednesday everyone, we are halfway through the week! Only 21 more days for us before we move into our home. 

Cards from our Fans

During my week and a half hiatus moving half way across the country, our facebook fans posted some awesome projects. Here are just a few showing off some really fabulous hand made cards.

From Vaneesa Mehorn, we have a set of cards featuring Twenty Three. I love how she's used the Element Deck!

This darling Odds and Ends card is from Tini Cards. I will never get tired of this line.... it's still a favorite!

And Angela Fehr posted this beautiful Evangeline card. I love her stamping.

If any of you have projects send them my way! You can post them to our fanpage, email them to me (julie at cosmocricket dot com), or send them via mental telepathy, but with the last option, I won't be able to share them with everyone here on our blog.
 
PS: Our "small space" countdown is on. We have twenty three more days in the hotel. 

The 411: My Whirlwind Adventure

After a really great show in NY and some fun times spent with friends, I got home to Eric who had his knee surgery while I was away. This meant two things, I was worried about him and he couldn't help me load our house into a moving van. But, I did it!!!

True, my dad and neighbor helped for about 3 hours and I totally wore Ethan out, but still I have to say it is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life!

Next, I loaded Kate, Abby and Suki into our van and drove them to Austin. This took three days. Abby's birthday is today and I gave her an Ipod as an early gift for the drive. She documented the adventure with more than 300 photos. Here are my favorites.

They had stick on fuzzy mustaches which made for great fun when waving to passing cars.

We chose to drive down the east side of Utah so that we could see all the great landscape. We went through or by Spanish Fork canyon, Moab, Canyonlands, Arches and Mesa Verde on the first day. It was amazing!




The next morning we got up and drove until Albequrque where we stopped to see "Old Town." Just for us, a dessert turtle decided to lay eggs that afternoon.

Abby got a turtle souvenir which she named Albequrque and we made up lots of stories about him on our way to Lubbock.

The hotel had showercaps and my girls thought this was the greatest thing ever. They wore them in the car the next day... with their mustaches.

Some of the drive got pretty boring, but Suki didn't seem to mind. She slept on Kate's lap for pretty much the whole time.

Into Texas a ways, we came to windmills. Finally something interesting to look at again!

Now we're in two hotel rooms in Austin, having a grand adventure. Jack, who flew in with Eric and Ethan on Friday, has thoroughly explored the premises and is taking me on a tour this afternoon. We will be here for about a month, so bear with me, the blog may be a bit different until we get settled (there's no room for crafting in our 400 square feet!).

Thanks for hanging in there with me!