Christmas, Birthdays and CHA

I can't belive it's been a month since I've posted here.  After Ryan got out of the hospital last month things got really busy around here.  We've celebrated Christmas, Ryan and Shane's birthdays and I just had the opportunity to go to the Craft and Hobby Convention and Trade Show.

This was going to be our Christmas photo for the year but I never got the cards finished and sent out.

We had a Wii filled Christmas this year.  Shane and Rob both have their own game systems and Ryan never got to play so we got the Wii just for him for Christmas.  He's very generous with it though and lets all of us play.  There have been many intense Wii Sports battles.

I can't believe how fast time goes. It just seems like yesterday that he was our happy little baby, now he's our sweet big boy.  Ryan celebrated his 6th birthday with a Star Wars Lego theme.  He requested a Lego cake so I did my best to make it look like a Lego block.  Every one came over for pizza and Wii.  He was most excited to get Legos Star Wars and Batman for Wii.

Shane wanted to spend the day at Howie's Game Shack with his friends for his birthday so I dropped them off in the morning with All Day Passes and that night everyone came over for dinner and cake.  I can hardly believe he's already 16 years old and learning to drive.

Since then the most exciting thing for me has been having the opportunity to go to CHA.  My friend Nan asked if I would be able to help her with doing Make n' Takes for the Zutter Innovative Products booth.  I said heck yeah. CHA is for retailers to see and place orders for all of the new products for the next season.  I never thought I would ever be able to get into CHA so I was very excited to be able to go.  Thanks Nan.

This was the Make n' Take Nan designed using the new Zutter Cover All's and Perfect Closures. 

I'm not sure how many people made the project but I'm sure over the four days I must have taught hundreds of people how to use the tools and helped them finish their mini books. Even though I spent most of the time in the Zutter booth and didn't see everything (that place was huge) I really had a good time talking to all the people that stopped by to make the project. Talking about scrapbooking all day is way better than going to work.

Sorry there aren't pictures of the show but there were signs all over as you came in the show that said you weren't allowed to take pictures without permission so I  felt weird taking pictures.  The people working in the booths were all busy making sales so I didn't want to bother them to ask if I could. I saw lots of great new products I'm looking forward to buying.

1st Homecoming Dance

This past weekend Shane went to his first Homecoming dance.  The theme this year was Las Vegas and each class was assigned a Las Vegas Hotel, the Sophomores got Caesars Palace.  I was informed by Shane that they were supposed to dress up in costumes.  I said, "What are you talking about?" I mean it's weird enough that they even have "Homecoming" because I thought that it had something to do with football.  OC High School of the Arts doesn't even have any sports teams.  Shane told me, "Mom, this isn't a regular school it's what we do."  So, I went along with it.

I can't believe that Shane actually paid for his own ticket to the dance.  I wasn't totally off the hook though. A couple of weeks before the dance he told me we had to go shopping for an outfit and he arranged to go shopping with one of the girls from school.  He was planning to go in a toga but decided it would be to uncomfortable to wear the whole night.  He decided to modernize the idea and went with an all white shirt, pants and shoes with a vest. Most of they guys had similar outfits except for Shane's friend Joe. He dressed up like a Roman citizen, Rob said he looked like he worked at Caesars Palace.  Luckily there were more people dressed in costume when they got there.

The night began with a pre dance dinner hosted by his friend Megan's parents. I had to drive all the guys from our neighborhood out to Cota De Caza (a 40 minute drive) for dinner. There were at least 20 girls there and only 7 boys (what a bunch of lucky guys).  Megan's parents chartered a party bus to take them to the dance at Game Works in Long Beach. Afterwards another mom picked them up and took them to an after party at another girls house and yet another mom picked them up from there and the guys all crashed at his friend Luke's house. I think they were out until almost 3:00 am.  

I think Shane was a little embarrassed to have me around taking pictures so I gave him the camera and made him promise to take pictures.  The pictures I got back were not the best but I'm glad to have them to see what part of his night was like.  He said it was AWSOME! 

The Group

The Guys