Seattle's Child Magazine

The Booth Family is famous! We made the front cover of Seattle's Child Magazine. View the article here.

Dahlia and Shane

Three times a week Shane and I go over to Dahlia's house and hangout in the afternoons. It is a great set-up for all involved. Dahlia is 3 months older then Shane. As time has gone on over the 3 months we have been doing this, I think they have really developed a "toddler friendship". We've taught Dahlia some of the songs we sing at Toddler Group and they love doing Ring Around the Rosie together. Super cute!! If you are in a room with Shane and Ring Around the Rosie is being done, he insists that ALL join in.

Last week they had what I would consider their first real play interaction. Shane was playing in the little kitchen and Dahlia was on the coach watching him. Shane walked over and handed her a cup. Dahlia asked for a drink. Shane then went to the kitchen got a container and came back over and filled her cup up. Dahlia then drank the "drink" and asked for more. Shane filled it back up. This went on for a good few minutes. It was really great to watch.

Dahlia has a great vocabulary. Shane is great at grunting out conversations with you. The last couple of days Dahlia has been copying him when he does his point and grunt routine. They crack me up! Hopefully all of D's great words will rub off on Shane soon.

Here are a few pictures of the two buddies.

Snack Time.

Hanging out with their blankets.

D's lunch time....yummy!

Shane and Muppet.

3am

I don't think it is necessary to be awake at 3am. Bars have closed, stores are closed and people should be home sleeping. Last night Shane thought that 3am would be a good time to get up. This is very odd for him. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. If only he would speak English so we could all communicate so much better with each other. He kept pointing downstairs. We did a little walk through the house. I was trying to figure out what he thought he needed. We cuddled in bed for a few minutes. I kept telling him it was sleepy time and finally put him back to bed. Around 3:45 I guess he decided that even he didn't want to be up at 3am either.

The day has come...

We were really hoping that we wouldn't have to do this, but it looks like we will be moving in February. We have been on a month to month lease for 6 months now and knew that at any time we would be asked to leave by our landlords. They got a divorce and the house was being decided upon during in the divorce agreement. The divorce is now final and the person that ended up with the house wants to move back into it. That means out we go.

Things have fallen into place quickly and we are in our final steps of renting another house in our same neighborhood, just a street or two over from where we live now. The hardest part of this whole thing is leaving our wonderful friends and neighbors behind. They've all been given warnings to let Shane and I know when they are playing outside, so that we can walk over and join the fun.

Here are a couple pictures of what we hope will be our new house for the next year.
Update: It is official, we will be moving Valentines Day weekend.

2009 -- Word for the Year

I'm not a huge fan of New Year's Resolutions. They usually just get all blown up in January and then start to fade after that. I do like to reevaluate my life and see where I would like to make changes, etc. This year I saw a great idea from Ali Edwards about choosing a word for the year. I really liked that idea, so that I can carry a theme for the year with me.

I picked:

Accomplish
   –adjective
1. completed; done; effected: an accomplished fact.
2. highly skilled; expert: an accomplished pianist.
3. having all the social graces, manners, and other attainments of polite society.

I think the biggest accomplishment I want to see happen in 2009 is growth in my Close To My Heart business.

Other things I want to accomplish in 2009:
--moving into my very own house
--continued/improved health and wellness
--continued balance of work, family and friends in my life
--more personal scrapbooking

Wishing all of you a Happy and Full 2009!

Happy Birthday....to me!

I turned a big 32 today. My biggest problem concerning my birthday is I can't seem to remember how old I am now. I remember that I turned 30, but 31 and now 32 seem to blend together. Guess I'll have to practice my age, you know how little kids have to practice there age. You must have to do that when your really young and then when you get really old. I can use 3 fingers on one hand and 2 fingers on the other.

Thanks to all my friends and family for my wonderful birthday wishes and gifts. Kenny and I are going to go to dinner this evening. A big thanks to my friend/neighbor Ann for sitting around our house this evening as Shane sleeps and we eat.

Kenny surprised me with a tiny Olympus Digital Camera. I have my big Nikon SLR that I love and use all the time. But I've been yearning for a little one that I can just have in my purse or back pocket for every day on the go use. Just this morning I was telling him about how I may use some of my Christmas money to buy this little camera I saw at Costco last week. Guess he sorta freaked when he heard me say that. He totally totally surprised me though. I had no idea, even when I saw it wrapped.

Another favorite gift I got today was from my friend, Julie. She brought me over 3 fantastic coupons in the cutest little book she made. One for babysitting Shane so Kenny and I can go out, one for tea with her (no kids allowed) and one for a home cooked meal. I can't wait to use them!!!

Thanks again everyone for making my big 32nd birthday special!

Christmas in Reno

We settled into Reno quickly and were really excited to be there with all of Kenny's family. His younger sister, Aimee and finance, Chris were there from Denver. His older sister Claire, husband Joe and daughters Carolyn (4) and Meredith (2.5) were there from Sacramento. And of course his Mom and Dad.

Shane had tons of fun playing with his cousins. We woke up to a very white Christmas. Eight inches had fallen over night. There were times during Christmas day we thought the power was going to go out.

Cousins: Shane, Meredith and Carolyn

Grandma and Grandpa Booth with all three grandkids.

The Family: Chris, Aimee, Claire, Joe, Jessica, Kenny, Jeni and Joe.
Carolyn, Meredith and Shane.

Our super cool Snowman we made on Christmas Eve. There was a couple of inches of snow on the ground when we got to Reno, which ended up being great for making a snowman.

A Christmas Day snowball fight.

Gingerbread house fun.

The finished product. We were all impressed by it.

We visited some friends of Kenny's (K.J., Becca and Stella) from high school. It was our first time meeting little Stella (6 months). Here Shane and Stella are checking each other out.

The flight home. Shane loved sitting at my feet. Getting home was a breeze compared to getting down there. Shane even slept for the last 20 minutes of the flight home.

The trip to Reno....

We headed for Reno on Monday. That day has now become one of my top 5 worst days of my life. What an experience it was to get to Reno. Here is a little run down of what happened.

We knew the trip to the airport was going to be rough with all the snow. Kenny got the dogs to the kennel with no issues. He did put chains on his car before he headed out though. He would have never gotten there with out them. When he returned we hopped in the car for a long drive to the airport. The roads weren't to bad, but the chains helped quite a bit. Parking the car and the shuttle ride was uneventful. Besides the fact that we could have used more arms with all the bags we had.

When we entered into the airport there were people EVERY WHERE. Lines were a mile long. We headed to the baggage check line, which was wrapped around and around the airport. It took about 30 minutes to get to the counter and check our bags. All while trying to keep our wiggly little toddler happy and keep the tons of baggage we had moving every two feet. Next we headed to security. Not too bad there.

We get all gathered back up and head to our gate. We briefly glance at the arrival/departure board....ah, what...our flight has been canceled!!??!? Yep, minutes after getting through security it was canceled. We drag ourselves to a couple lines before getting in the right one to figure out what we do next. Our options are stand-by or stand-by. We choose to fly stand-by to Reno at 3:45 (that gave us 5 hours to kill in the airport) and stand-by to Sacramento at 4:25. You ask, why Sacramento? Kenny's sister lives there and it is only 2.5 hours from Reno. His parents could pick us up there and we'd all arrive in Reno safe and sound by Tuesday.

We slowly watched time go by as we hung out in the airport. And also saw flight after flight get canceled. It was a zoo in there. Time comes for the Reno flight that we were on stand-by for....it's delayed. Now the Sacramento flight and Reno flight are going to be taking off at the same time. Kenny heads to the Sacramento gate and Shane and I stay at the Reno gate to see which one we get called on first or at all. It's Sacramento. Shane and I sprint to that gate and are the last ones to board. For various reasons we ended up sitting on the plane for 1.5 hours before it even takes off! Here comes the low of all lows. Shane has the biggest and worst poop of his life! He was covered from head to toe literally with poop. And we had no extra clothes for him. He ended up flying in a shirt, diaper and shoes. This all happened while we were just sitting on the plane. We finally take off and arrive in Sacramento at 8:30pm. Twelve hours after we had left our house that morning.

For the situation, Shane did extremely well. Kenny and I held up pretty good, too. We were very happy to be able to get a flight out of Seattle. And to arrive safely at his sisters house. We got to Reno Tuesday afternoon. Exactly 24 hours after we were suppose to. What a couple of days!

Snow Total

Here is a picture of our patio table on our deck. This represents snow from the past 5 days. It's just about 9 inches.

Cabin Fever

We've been sorta snowed in our house since Thursday. I say sorta because Kenny has taken us out to the grocery store and Costco, but other then that we've been in the house. We were suppose to be in Sequim this weekend for Christmas with my family, but with the two snow storms we postponed it until after Christmas. We didn't want to take the chance of getting stuck there since we are flying to Reno to have Christmas with Kenny's family on Monday. Here are some things we've done to try to alleviate the boredom.
Saved a bird from dying -- This little guy crashed into our window. I bundled him up and put him in a safe location. He flew away a couple hours later.

We had a family Christmas Saturday morning. So of course we needed to leave Santa some cookies and milk Friday night.

Shane enjoyed opening presents. He really got the whole thing this time compared to last year.

We have laid around and slept. Here is Dodger really relaxing.

Sadie and Me on the couch cuddling.

We played in the snow a couple times. But it is just to cold for Mom.

We had a fun cookie decorating party and gift exchange at our neighbors house. It was planned before the snow came, but it was great to get out of the house for a couple hours.


One of Shane's favorite things to do is play in the laundry basket. It is even better if Dad zooms him around in it.


We also hung out in our PJ's an awful lot!!

National Papercrafting Month

Close To My Heart has declared January as National Papercrafting Month. Now is the perfect time to celebrate all the fabulous things you can do with paper-related products. And CTMH has a promotional package that will help you do just that! It’s a simple but dynamic combo: The beautiful new Key to My Heart paper packet, featuring all four of our luscious new colors, is accompanied by the E-size My Acrylix Key to My Heart stamp set, a knockout collection of fashionable, elegant designs.

The great Key to My Heart kit has a retail value of $47.90, but you can get it at a substantial savings or even FREE! Here’s how:

Spend $130 and get the Key to My Heart kit FREE!
Spend $75 and the kit is yours for just $20!
Or you can buy it outright for $47.90.

The campaign also has enticing opportunities for hostesses and new Consultants. Hostesses get the package FREE with a Home Gathering sales total of $400 or more, and new Consultants who join Close To My Heart between January 1–31 will receive the kit FREE in their New Consultant Kit.

This promotion runs until January 31, 2009. You can shop on my website, book a gathering or sign up to be a consultant.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at jessicadbooth@hotmail.com.

My Husband's Odd Sense of Humor?!

Last night Kenny and I were laying in bed talking about sleep and getting up early. Shane just got out of a waking up before 6am phase and back into a sleeping in late phase (7:30ish). Kenny was giving me crap about how he has to get up at 6am and I get to have 1.5 hours of extra sleep. My comment back was that he chooses to get up at 6am so that he can run every day. He then says to me that "after all my lost sleep from when Shane was an infant I deserve the extra sleep." I instantly thought "Oh, that was so sweet". Before I even had a chance to tell them how nice that was, he follows it up with..."But as of this morning you've caught up". UGHH!!!

***

This evening I find out that he was featured in an ESPN column. I can't really explain the whole back story to all of it, because it is really confusing. Just another example of his wonderful sense of humor. Guess I gotta love it, since I married him.

Here is the excerpt from his online debut:
"There has been running speculation in the column about whether advanced planets could fight by hurling basketballs or pints of vanilla ice cream at each other at 99 percent of the speed of light; calculations suggest that a pound of any mass striking at 99 percent of light speed would detonate with 60 megatons of kinetic energy. Kenny Booth of Bothell, Wash., supposes that accelerating a pint container of vanilla ice cream to relativistic speed would melt the contents. What you'd really want, he thinks, is Comet Crunch ice cream."

18 month Well Baby Check-up

Shane had his 18 month visit to the doctors today. Not a lot to report. He weighs 21 pounds (3%) and is 33 inches (50%) tall. He continues to be tall and skinny. But in his normal growth curve, so no worries by the doctor at all.

He is reaching all his developmental milestones nicely. She did suggest that we start to whine him off the pacifier. I wasn't really in a hurry to do that. He still drools a lot, especially when he is doing something he is really into. She said his mouth muscles may be a little weak and the pacifier won't help that. Guess our New Year's Resolution is to say bye-bye to the pacifier. He only gets it when he sleeps, but I think it may be a rough few days of withdrawal for the little guy and us!

He even walked away with out any shots today. Lucky guy! They were out of the chicken pox vaccination, so we'll go back for that after Christmas. All-in-all he is a health and happy little boy.

Fisrt Snow of the Winter.

We went to sleep last night with the snow falling and woke up with almost a whole inch of snow! Okay...so it wasn't very much, but Shane and the dogs had tons of fun playing in it anyways.



What is this stuff??


Dodger and Sadie taking a rest in the snow after tons of circles, wrestling and romping in it.

Warming up on top of the heater with a snack.

Happy Half Birthday to Shane!

Shane is officially 1 1/2 years old today. In just 6 months he'll be TWO! That is amazing to me. He is a funny little bugger. He sure makes each day interesting. I can say most days he has me crying tears of pain and joy. I love watching him change, learn and develop each day.

We had pictures taken today at Picture People in his Christmas outfit. This was to render lasts weeks problem of forgetting his outfit when we went to JCPenny's for pictures.

Here are a couple of them from today: