photo-of-the-day 01.11.08

Just the kids studying the Burpee Seed Catalog.... don't all kids do that over breakfast? LOL! Especially city kids with no real yard! Ever since we went on our neighborhood's garden walk last summer, Alex has been determined to have our house entered in 2008 garden walk. I asked and they do allow patios and decks as "gardens" so I told him if planned it, we would make a go at it. Yesterday our seed catalog came so today the planning began. The other damaging thing I did was have them watch the Tournament of Roses Parade this year so now he wants our deck entered in the garden walk and he has dreams of it looking like a float from the parade... sigh.

After we got some stuff done this morning we headed to run errands. First stop was the Vitamin Shop, then lunch at Panera and then off to the dance supply store to get Clara character shoes. It is going to crack me up to see my little girl dancing in heels tomorrow in class! However, she is soooo excited. Now we just have to get her the long character skirt.

Well... I could ramble more but I think I need to try to sneak in an episode of Ghost Hunters before I go to bed (yes, Jeff's out of town for the weekend).

'nite!

who is this guy?

and what business does he have at the lego post office?
This photo-a-day thing is kind of fun. I didn't exactly think that about 15 minutes ago when I realized that I hadn't taken any photos today. But knowing that I should take one, I looked around and found the scene above. And to think, I might have missed it otherwise!

Today was fairly uneventful.... just a full day of school (I blogged about it a bit on my homeschool blog). I tried a new crock pot recipe which was a hit with the family. I got it from a homeschool message board I frequent.

Here it is....

Honey Curried Crock Pot Chicken

1 (3 pound) whole chicken
2/3 cup honey
1/3 cup Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
2 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon finely chopped garlic

Place chicken into crock pot. Combine the remaining ingredients and heat in microwave or on stovetop until the butter is melted. Pour over the top of the chicken. Set crockpot to high and cook for about 4 hours.

Should be quite a bit going on over the next few days so hopefully I'll more stuff to photograph and more things to chat about.

For now... I'm heading to bed (and to read for a bit... something else to blog about later!).

'nite!

photos-of-the-day 01.09.08

I honestly don't know what this child is thinking half the time...I know what's going through this one's mind most of the time.... LEGOS!

This going to be short, my nose is stuffed up and my head is pounding.

Nothing much here today... I took Alex and Shark Girl (aka Clara) to the dentist today. Clara has earned that new nickname because, in sharklike fashion, her permanent teeth are coming in BEHIND her row of baby teeth! Totally freaks me out... but the dentist said that she's fine and not unlike a lot of the other 6 year olds she sees.

This afternoon we took advantage of a fairly sunny and almost windless day to meet a friend at the park to play. Kind of funny when a 38 degree day becomes a good day to play at the park. The kids got to burn off some energy which was much needed.

I honestly did nothing productive today, hopefully I'll make up for it tomorrow! But first I'll need some sleep!

'nite!

photo-of-the-day 01.08.08

This is what I do when Jeff's not home at night.... which in retrospect is probably not a good idea. I RARELY watch TV... no real reason other than I just don't get around to it most nights. But when Jeff's out of town or working late, I sit down and watch an episode or two of Ghost Hunters. I just cleared some space on our DVR so I can record Ghost Hunters International tomorrow night. Huh.... I just realized this is not a special but a new show? I was just assuming it was the same team as the regular Ghost Hunters... just on a special assignment. Tomorrow is a Ghost Hunters marathon on the SciFi channel all day... I have no business recording them all but I did pick a couple.

Nothing exciting went on here today and now its past my bedtime!

'nite!

randomness

Here is Clara being "Clara" last night at the hockey game. If you're wondering what she's doing... she melted Skittles in her hot little hand and she was sticking her hands together....Alex intently watching the game....
Tonight Alex had cooking class (he made crab cakes and deviled eggs... the crab cakes were FABULOUS... yum!). When we walked back from dropping him off, Clara and I decided that we had just enough light to play for just a minute or two. So here is one of the photos... I played in photoshop quite a bit, but I thought it could take it...
Can you believe that it was like 64 degrees out when I took this??? 64 degrees at 4:30 in the afternoon on January 7th in Chicago???? Craziness! It was raining by the time his class was over and we had to go pick him up.

My book order showed up today.... I'm not so sure about the whole Don Quixotething from The Well Educated Mind. That book is a BRICK! It is 982 pages long!!! What was I thinking?? YIKES!

Okay... I had more randomness planned but I'm running out of steam, so I'm going to wrap this up!

'nite!

and the winner is......

Congratulations Kami!! Just click the "email me" link on the right to send me a note and I'll email you the code for the templates.

And thanks everyone for playing! And another set of thank you's for Katie, Alyson and Ia for your kind words about the templates!!

I could get hooked on this give-away thing so keep checking back and see what I come up with!

I'm not sure if I'm committing to the photo below being my photo-of-the-day, but with the light and my energy fading, I doubt I'll take another (but you never know...lol!).

This is Clara in the outfit she TOTALLY picked out on her own (ignore the trashcan... she was walking toward me and I just had to take a quick snap).
The skirt is green and navy blue plaid, the shirt is black, the socks are navy blue knee socks which she has pushed/rolled down to her ankles. The girl definitely has her own sense of style! :-)

photo-of-the-day 01.06.08

Details to follow tomorrow... right now I'm sleepy and have a headache... plus we're trying to corral two kids into bed who are all hopped up on being up past their bedtime, hockey and Skittles.

'nite!

I can't believe I'm posting this...

But I am doing the photo-a-day challenge... and this is my photo from today....

We're in post-holiday purge mode. We usually do this in October before Clara's birthday so the toys are cleaned out and organized before we hit the big influx of Clara's birthday and Christmas. However, this year, it just didn't happen. In our old house in Texas, it wasn't as crucial, we had a big huge playroom just for toys. Now, we're city dwellers with limited space.

So, a couple of months ago I read about Stephanie Vetne's experience with cleaning and organizing her children's rooms and decided to file that info away for when we did the big clean. Today we tried it out in the "kids room". First of all, everything came off the shelves and all of the bins of random stuffed were dumped in the floor. That was where we were when I took the picture above. Then came decision time. I sat in the floor and which each item, I called who it belonged to and asked if it was to stay or go. If it stayed... it had to be categorized. We told them that they could keep whatever they wanted but it needed to find a home. After everything was sorted as "stay" or "go" and categorized... we moved on to asking them which was their favorite thing to play with. Alex's was Legos and Clara claimed board games.... so Jeff went to work with Alex to find a location and system that worked best for him and his building... and Clara and I organized games. I think she worked out a good system... the ones they don't play very often went on the top shelf and those that they play more regularly went on the shelf below. We then put her Littlest Pet Shop stuff on a bottom shelf so she could easily pull it out, play with it and put it back. We had TONS of books on the bookshelf in the kids room... we cut those down to only one space worth. The rest went downstairs to the big bookcase we have in our spare bedroom since the kids do most of their reading downstairs.

When it was said and done... we had one black garbage bag full of trash (broken toys, missing pieces, art projects, etc.) and another full of stuff for Goodwill. Alex also decided to part with a great big bin of Rescue Heroes and Clara has decided to give away her My Little Ponies. Oh.... we also compromised and agreed to "keepsake" boxes for each of them (to be kept in the top of their closets)... a place for them to keep a few of those toys that they've outgrown but are still special to them (or possibly special to me that I can't bear for them to give away... just yet... LOL!).

I wish I had an after picture but we still have a little left to do.... maybe I'll take one tomorrow once we've gotten the garbage bags out of there and vacuumed.

Well... after all of that... I'm tired!! I'm heading to the couch!

'nite!!

PS.... don't forget, tomorrow is the last day to put your name in for the give-away!!!

yippee... it's Friday

Although I'm not quite sure why I'm excited. We haven't really left the house in days because of the various illnesses we have had going on and now Clara is breaking out in hives so it will be a couple of days before we venture out.. . sigh. When will it end??

I guess we did venture out for a little bit today. I had a dentist appointment so we packed a bag to keep the kids occupied and trekked to the dentist (that's a little misleading... one of the perks of the city is that you can walk to your dentist's office in under 3 minutes.... it's directly behind our building). After the dentist we picked up take out from our favorite neighborhood noodle shop.

Here are my pictures-of-the-day, the kids enjoying their Pad See Eiw....

This afternoon I set up my printer! Can I just tell you that I am totally in love???? Maybe I'm especially excited because I've never had a color printer before but this printer is just fabulous!

In case you missed it, I bought the Epson R1800... and Kelly, I bought it through Epson (follow the link for the deal I got). I priced a few places but I'm very picky where I buy electronics from online. Epson had the best deal. They had free ground shipping (I ordered mine 12/31 and it arrived 1/3), a $100 rebate (it originally ended 12/31 which is why I ordered mine when I did but now it has been extended until 3/31) and it came with a free Storyteller book kit. I totally agonized over the purchase and after listening to the Epson interview on DiScTalkRadio's Hullabaloo Show (June and July '07... lots of good info, the printer info is mainly in the July show)... I was finally ready to purchase.

Today I played just a little bit. I really, really, really need to start using a planner, so after a couple of quick 4x6's, I decided to take on a project. Part of my Memory Makers Masters prize package was an adaptable planner by My Book. That was my project... to design and print a cover. And here is how it turned out....
I LOVE IT!!! However, I did have some issues that maybe someone could help me out with. It comes with paper that it says is inkjet-compatible. Okay... but it's 6x8 and my printer wouldn't accept 6x8 sheets. Am I doing something wrong??? It was making me crazy so I ended up placing my 6x8 layout on an 8.5x11 canvas to print. I ended up using a sheet of Ilford Create (also from the prize package). Amazing paper... but I don't think this was the type of project it should be used on. I think I wasted a sheet of gorgeous art paper on a project that should have been printed on photo paper. I did realize too late that a sample pack of 8.5x11 photo papers were included in my printer. I'm not going to reprint... I just know better for next time.

The digital supplies in the project above are:
Background: Funktastic Kraft by Two Sisters Designs
Film Strip: Not Ordinary Film Strips by Designs by Lili
Circle: Tout Doux Collection - The Circles by Designs by Lili
Button: Scrap Stash: Buttons by Two Sisters Designs
2008 and Duct Tape scalloped edge: Kim Christensen

Okay.... dinner time!

'nite!

wooo hoooo... it's here!

My Epson R1800 has arrived and to celebrate, it is my photo-of-the-day!!! I stalked the FedEx guy all day today. That's the downside of living in the city.... the FedEx trucks make lots of trips through my neighborhood throughout the day.... so I had several false alarms today starting at around 9:00am, another at around noon and then finally it arrived around 2pm. Unfortunately, it is not hooked up yet. The main reason being that it is larger than I expected and it doesn't fit in the exact space I had planned for it. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, I'll be up and running.

I took some more pictures of the kids and their K'nex creations. They'll be on my homeschool blog shortly if you're interest. I'm having too much fun playing with my wide angle.

Well... I'm heading to bed. I'm still fighting this cold and I'm sleepy. Alex woke up around 4:00 with a major headache... so major in fact, he threw up because of it (poor Jeff... I was too hopped up on Niquil to be anything more than a witness to all that went down). Ugh. I'm ready for us all to be well again.

'nite!

behold... a blender LOL!

Yes, this should probably be on my homeschool blog (and it will probably end up there tomorrow with more explanations as to what is going on academically)... but these are my photos for the photo-a-day project I have embarked on.

We're easing back into school (official post-holiday start date is Monday... same as the public schools here). So, today we got out the K'nex Simple Machines: Gears set and made a blender.

These are real life shots, I did not clean up, I did not stage anything... I'm going to try to be better about capturing our real daily life.

First of all, I'm sure Deann will notice that my children are sockless and yes the temperatures were in the teens today. They DON'T like socks for some reason... as you can tell by the lone sock by Clara's head in the picture below, they do actually own socks. She wore them when she went with Jeff to take Friday to the vet this morning... but as soon as she was home, they were off.
In the pic above, I'm reading questions from the teacher's guide (by Alex's head) and the kids are studying the blender and answering the questions. I took this with my wide angle lens that I've been playing with lately. It was hard taking a straight down shot that didn't include my feet... you can see the very tip of my toe at the bottom of the picture (I'm wearing socks.... fuzzy black socks with grippers on the bottom... I have a tendency to fall down LOL!).

I'm so excited to see you all playing along with my give-away!!! I love seeing who reads my blog. Hmmm.... maybe I should find something to give away each month! Oh... but whoever posted as #2, you posted anonymous and I have no clue who you are! LOL! Wow... I just misspelled "anonymous" so badly that spellcheck gave me "nonvenomous" as a suggestion... how sad is that?

Okay.... the cold is still lingering and Niquil is calling again!

'nite!!

giveaway alert! :-)

I posted the layout below on the Memory Makers Blog last night. To make this layout, I used a template from Kissed Studio based on a previous layout of mine (more details and the original layout are posted in the MMM blog entry).

I have a coupon good for one free set of the digital templates from Kissed Studio that are based on my layouts. All you have to do is post a comment here by midnight on Sunday and I'll draw a name on Monday.

Supplies:
Adobe Photoshop CS3
Template: Tracie Radtke Signature Series Set @kissedstudio.com
Background Paper, green paper, ribbons and staples: Lisa Whitney @scrapartist.com
Stamped Alpha: Nancie Rowe Janitz's Shmootzy Alpha No. 4 @scrapartist.com
New Year's Doodles: Kate Hadfield and Jacque Larsen's Let's Celebrate @the-lilypad.com
Photo frame on larger photo: Nancy Comelab's Realistic Photo Frames - Vintage 1 @the-lilypad.com
Cardboard Tear: Linda Gil Billdal's Cardboard Flip and Tear @scrapartist.com
Fonts - Arial and Arial Black

quick post...

and then I'm off to bed.... somehow I've developed a bit of a cold today. I'm hoping the Zicam I've taken and a good night's rest (courtesy of Niquil) will take care of it before it gets out of hand.

It snowed all last night (although it didn't amount to a whole lot) so the kids (Jeff included) went out to play in it a bit.

Here's Jeff pelting the kids with snowballs....Alex in his new cold weather gear he got for Christmas so he can keep riding his bike along the lakefront when Jeff goes running this winter...
Clara with hat issues...
There she is!
We finally got the kids snow pants. They got them for Christmas. Love 'em! They're from Lands End and I don't think they're technically "snow pants" but they work great!

I did scrap a page today.... you can see it here on the Memory Makers Masters Blog.

Okay... Niquil is calling!

'nite!

the Radtke's Rockin' New Year's Eve

Last night was our annual Radtke family New Year's Eve Party! Nothing big, just the four of us.... some kiddie cocktails, finger foods, games and party supplies!

Clara LOVES her Shirley Temples....

We let the kids alternate choosing the activity.... here we're playing Alex's choice, You're Pulling My Leg Jr....
Next we moved on to Clara's pick, Disney Scene It...
We threw in some other games and some video games and the next thing we knew it was just about 20 minutes before the ball was to drop in New York, so we let the kids stay up to do the countdown (hoping that they would be on their way to bed shortly after).

However, they got a little riled up in the celebration...


Don't ask....

Well... the celebration got so out of hand that when we looked at the clock we realized that we were only about 20 minutes away from midnight here in Chicago.

Alex made it.... however, Clara did not...
Happy New Year Everyone!!!

finally... a resolution I can keep! :-)

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to actually spend my gift cards and money I got as gifts. I know... that sounds obvious, doesn't it? But apparently that's harder for me to do than it sounds. I cleaned my desk yesterday and found $130 worth of book store gift cards and another $40 in iTunes gift cards. I know we've had the one $100 book store gift card over a year now (it was a gift from our realtor when we bought our house last December). As for cash... I have a tendency to roll that money into my daily spending and never actually buy what that money was meant for. This year I vow to do better!

So, last night I sat down and placed a book order... using up the $100 gift card...

First, Jeff got The Non-Runners Marathon Trainerhe had asked for....



Next I got two homeschool books that I wanted early so I could plan for next year...

Story of the World Vol. 1


and Story of the World Vol. 1 Activity Guide


I got Into the Wild because I just love Jon Krakauer's books...


Finally... I got the The Well-Educated Mindfor my birthday and have decided to give it a shot, so I ordered two copies of Don Quixote (one for me and one for Jeff)...


Next on my list is to spend my J.Jill gift certificate, find a new winter coat and finally pull the trigger on buying a color printer (I'm leaning toward the Epson R1800... any opinions out there??).

Like I said earlier... looks like a resolution I just might be able to keep! :-)

dinner

Tonight Jeff and the kids made dinner for my birthday. They did a fabulous job. They fixed Corn Flake Crusted Chicken, Potato Pancakes, Salad and two desserts - key lime pie and dark chocolate molten lava cakes. YUM!!! However, right now I'm practically vibrating from all of the sugar and chocolate. All of the recipes were from Alex's cooking class. He really enjoys that class.

Here they are making the chicken...
Here are the molten lava cakes, fresh from the oven.....
Here are the kids putting candles into the cakes...
PSA: Do not put candles into molten lava cakes! They will melt... speaking from experience here.

If you haven't noticed, I've been branching out with my last couple of sets of pictures. I'm learning to embrace my wide angle lens AND my external flash. I don't yet know how to use them for the best results, but I'm liking that I'm getting shots of things that I would normally miss out on due to low light. The wide angle is just plain fun... I'm loving the distorted perspective you can get at times.

Clara is finally doing better.... no fever at all today! Yay! She's still coughing quite a bit but with the fever gone I'm thinking we're on the road to recovery!!

Well... I have nothing else to report so I'm going to go!

'nite!