My boys

My sweet little boys. Today they are both wearing new shorts and Caleb is SOOO excited that he asked to take pictures (that hasn't happened in a long time) - so we did.

New Scrapbook Pages

Chalk

Grandma

 About Caleb

Sick, sick, sick...nothing but sick

Saturday Dad helped our landlord tear down another trailor. He was in the sun for several hours and got very sunburned (note - we were glad it was Dad and not Mom who got that sunburned). Sunday he had some kind of heat stroke or something similar. He was supposed to sing in church - but stayed home at Mom's insistance.

Sunday night Big Brother was sick in the middle of the night. Dad slept on the couch and watched movies with Big Brother. Big Brother spent most of Monday on the living room floor feeling quite sick.

Tuesday Big Brother asked for oatmeal for breakfast and Mom knew he was feeling better. Baby was having a hard time though and started crying around 10 am. At 2:30 Mom took him to the doctor (he was still crying) and found out he had a sore throat and 1 infected ear. Baby did sleep through the store while we were waiting for his perscription - but then resumed crying until around 5:30 when his medicine must have started working. Big Brother and Baby Brother both started coughing.

Wednesday everyone was starting to feel better.

Thursday Big Brother's cough was sounding better but baby's wasn't.

Today, Friday, Mom decided that  Baby needed to go back to the doctor. And she was right. The doctor says he has Bronchlioitis (Baby Bronchitis) - a strain of RSV. We had to go get the nebulizer and medicine for it. Baby really doesn't like that thing - he got so mad he cried until he was coughing (actually a good thing). We're hoping the breathing treatment stuff works because if he doesn't the next step is the hospital.

How, in all this, did Mom manage to not get sick??? No one seems to know. Perhaps only by grace alone - and perhaps the fact that she takes care of everyone else when they are sick.

Will we be better next week? Watch for an update!

Squirt does the blogging

Mom said that now that I'm 2 and a half that I can update the blog again. I've been waiting for about forever to update the blog!

Music is still one of my favorite things in the world - though lately I've been expanding my iTunes library. In addition to Crush and I've got a Dream (which are still the top two on my list) my new favorite songs are Here Comes the Sun (Beatles), and American Pie (Don McLean). I have also recently discovered lots of fun kid songs. My favorites are 'Wain down' (The wise man and the foolish man), Wheels on the bus, Itsy Bitsy spider, Snowman, Sunbeam, and of course, my all time favorite Primary song, Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. I am often singing and I always ask Mom to turn on the iTunes and dance with me. She says I'm getting too heavy though - because she can't sing and dance with me for very long. Sometimes Mom dances with Emmett and I dance with Tey.

I also love to talk. I am starting to remember things very quickly. I learned who President Uchtdorf was over Conference weekend. Now when I pray for President Monson I have to make sure to add President Uchtdorf too. I am always talking to Emmett. Often I tell him, "So-kay baby. Mama's gotcha. Caleb's here." Some other funny things I have said recently:

(in a very dramatic voice)"Uhhhh-ohhh. Where's my daddy? I don't knoooooow."

(when asked, what does a raven say) "never more"

"____________ in the sky with diamonds" (usually airplane)

"Emmett is a hungry elephant."

I like to pretend I am a rhino. Aunt Terese showed me how to use my finger as a horn. I like to roar at people. Mom keeps saying I need to ask before I roar someone - but I don't get why...Sometimes I ask anyway - but I rarely wait for an answer. Everyone wants to be roared when I am a scary rhino!

Lately I've decided I don't like baths. Mom doesn't like this because she used to have an hour of entertainment for me while I played in the bath tub. Now I only take a bath for a few minutes most times. 

I love that we have a new car. Every time we go somewhere I ask if we can go in the new car. I can see out the windows so much better now! I often yell "Bingo!" Mom says I'm just supposed to say that when I see a yellow car - but I just like yelling it whenever.

Mom has been teaching me about full names. I usually call myself C. Thomas Robbins or Caleb C. Thomas Robbins. Almost everyone else is their name then C. Thomas Robbins. Emmett is the exception. He is usually Emmett C. Steven Thomas Robbins. I am very good at remembering names. I remember most of the names of the kids in Nursery and I sing about them all week long. I am also fascinated by learning who is a boy and who is a girl. But I don't really know the difference. I have a 50 % chance of guessing and I remember once I'm told - but I have no idea how to figure that out on my own.

Recently Dad was teaching me about trading. He had fruit snacks and I had raisins. I asked him for a fruit snack and he told me I had to give him a raisin. So I gave him a raisin and he gave me a fruit snack. Then I wanted another one. He said we had to do a trade. So I went over, got a whole handful of raisins and on my way back to Dady I shoved them all in my mouth. I then asked Dad for more fruit snacks. He said I had to give him a raisin. So I went back to the raisins and got another handful. I carefully pulled out one to give to Dad, then got a fruit snack - and shoved the rest of the raisins and the fruit snack into my mouth. Boy trading is great!

This is the birthday message I wrote for Uncle Cody yesterday:

nc nnnnnnnnvnvvcvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvvtt33-pppppe0oiurt,..jnjklgfldhgklrfkhkflcmn tuirdcjh gb jjhhhhhyhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww66652``QQIGADFJK-
.FFHHHGJNNNNF.J

Translation: Cody - no write love you now - write Happ Day to you now. Uh - oh. Cody and a Bryce. And a Caleb. Baby lion a computer. Cody's a 'Cabe. Emmett's awake. Talkin' a Caleb (aka - we should video chat again sometime).

I guess that's about it for now. I have lots of other things I have to do today besides blogging. I mean, there's chalk, and bubbles, and rainbow rice, and water beads, and cars, and running, and hollering, and singing, and talking, and calling Grandma on the phone, and watching movies, and... Yes, I am a busy two year old.

Digital Scrapbooking organization

Put a preview of each digital scrapbook kit as the file image on your computer - makes it easy to see a general idea of what is in the kit without opening the file. Mac instructions.

How do you organize your digital scrapbooking stuff? I don't mean the pages you've done - but the elements and papers. I must have too many - I guess. I never seem to remember what each kit looks like and even with this organization I find myself opening almost every kit trying to see if it is the perfect kit for whatever layout I'm working on.

Just recently I remembered how to do this really cool thing that has helped me a lot. You know how each file has a little picture of a file? Did you know you can change that picture?

You can even change the file picture to a little picture of the kit inside the folder!

See? Now I can just look at the preview (yes, it's tiny - but it gives me a general idea of what is in the kit) and I don't have to open every single kit to find something perfect to work with.

Here's how to do this - at least, on a Mac. I don't know how to do PC stuff much - but I imagine you could do something similar on a PC.

First find the picture you want to use. I usually use the preview of the kit. If there isn't one or if the kit you're using has a really cool element that shows several of the colors you can use that. Open a jpg image in Preview.

Now you want to select the whole image. I usually do Command + a (or Apple + a) - I usually use key strokes. I think they are so much easier. Then do Command + c to copy. To do this manually I think you can select the entire image under Select and then you can do Edit and Copy.

Then click once on the folder you want to change. Then you need to pull up the information window. You can do that by using key commands Command (Apple) + i or right click on the folder and select 'get info.'

You'll see this at the top of the window that comes up. Click on the little folder image. This one will be at the top of the page - not the bottom.

Once you have selected the folder image do Command + v or paste. This will put your image where the folder image used to be. You should see it change almost immediately at the bottom of this window as well as in your finder window.

When you have all your folders done in one file it will look like this:

To see a quick preview you can just click once on a folder and then hit the space bar. Once the preview is up you can use the arrow keys to get a preview of other folders too.

Now you can quickly see what colors are in each folder.

It's also really helpful in Bridge. This program comes with Photoshop and I love, love, love Bridge - but we'll get into that some other time.