Puddle Stompers

Shane and Dahlia had quite the time this afternoon stomping in mud puddles. These things look like small swimming pools. The sun came out right as we got to the puddles and made for a wonderful, fun stomping session.

Almost There!!


Dahlia jumps right in...Shane watches to see if it is safe. What a gentleman.


Mud Puddle Heaven!!

April Close To My Heart Newsletter

National Scrapbooking Month Constant Campaign
Tickled Pink
Join the National Scrapbooking Month celebration in May with this special Tickled Pink offer. It's a darling scrapbooking kit that includes the new D-size My Acrylix I Am stamp set, textured cardstock, B&T Duos™ paper (2 with glitter!), Mini-Medley Accents White Daisy collection, a foam texture tool, and an instruction brochure for creating two beautiful two-page layouts. You will be Tickled Pink during this campaign. Offers run through April 15th - May 31st. While Supplies Last!

To get your very own Tickled Pink scrapbooking kit:
*Place a minimum order of $60 in stamp sets (excluding K-size or Stamp of the Month) and receive it for FREE.
*Purchase the Tickled Pink scrapbooking kit at just $34.95.
*Sign up as a new Consultant between May 1-May 31 and receive a kit for FREE.
*Host a gathering with a minimum sales of $00 and receive the kit for FREE.


April Stamp of the Month
World's Best Dad (set of 12)
A playful fishing motif makes this set perfect for any man who loves tossing out a line. Available only April 1-30th.

Discounted Products
Shop online at https://jessicabooth.myctmh.com for discounted CTMH products. You will find a variety of paper packets, accessories and discontinued items at great prices.

Upcoming Events
Saturday, April 18th at 7pm -- Card Making Class -- We'll be making 4 cards (Mother's Day, Father's Day, and 2 Spring Any Occasion). The cost is $5. I have only 3 open spots left. If you would like to attend this event, please email your RSVP to me.

Friday, May 1st -- Summer Idea Book is available!! Book your gathering or place an order of $20 or more and receive your Summer Idea Book for FREE!!

Saturday, May 9th at 7pm -- Scrapbooking Class -- We'll be making 2 12x12 Spring themed layouts. The cost is $5. I have only 2 spots left for this class. If you would like to attend this event, please email your RSVP.

Monday, May 11th at 1pm -- Card Making Class -- We'll be making 4 cards for any occasion. The cost is $5 and kids are welcome! I have 6 spots open for this class. Email me to reserve your spot.

Saturday, June 27th at 6pm -- Workshop on the Go -- Leave this workshop with 8 completed 12x12 pages, as well as, extra paper and embellishments to make other pages and cards! The cost will be between $23-$25. There are 5 open spots for this class. Email me to reserve your spot.

Scrapbooking Retreat
Have you ever considered attending a scrapbook retreat? I did last year and had the best time of my life! There are spots available for you to join me at The Keepsake Cottage in Auburn on September 11th-13th, 2009. If you would like more information, just let me know.

Email me at jessicadbooth@hotmail.com

Visit my Close To My Heart website at https://jessicabooth.myctmh.com

Easter '09

It was a rainy, rainy and cold Easter in the Northwest this year. Not so great for egg hunting outside. We made due with the living room. The morning started out with Shane coloring easter eggs for the 1st time ever. He seemed to enjoy the process and took it very seriously.


A little later after the Easter Bunny hid the easter eggs in the living room, Shane came out to find them. He wasn't so sure to start out that finding eggs was something he wanted to do. After a few minutes of coaxing and helping him out, he decided that this egg hunting thing wasn't so bad after all.


Grandma and Grandpa Hussey came over from Sequim to celebrate Easter with us this weekend. We had a yummy dinner together.

Kenny and Shane finished the Easter evening off with Grandma's Berry Pie. The top picture Shane is signing for "more". He loves himself some Berry Pie!

Visit with Friends

Today Shane and I got the chance to visit with Serena and Jacob. We hadn't seen them in just about a year. It really hit home how much has changed in the last year. Jacob was just starting to walk a year ago and Shane was still crawling. They were truly still just babies. Now they are running around and talking. I wish I had a picture from their first visit together to really show all the changes.

The two big boys sitting on a bench together.


Jacob is trying to give Shane a hug. Shane wasn't quite so sure about that though.

A Shane Free Weekend.

Shane had the pleasure of visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Sequim this weekend. While Kenny and I had the pleasure of celebrating Kenny's birthday weekend together. We had some jam packed days!

Friday evening we headed to Teddy's Bigger Burgers in Woodinville. It is a new burger joint and was it ever busy and Yummy! After our delicious hamburgers we spent some time browsing Target. Always a fun place to waste some time and money. We finished our night off at Lucky 7: playing darts, and listening to some crazy music that took us back many, many years.

Saturday we had a wonderful morning sleeping in until a whopping 8am. True sign of our age! Kenny got to pick a movie for his birthday. There wasn't much out, so we saw Adventureland. It was not horrible, but I was very glad we saw a matinee. It captured college love and friendship nicely. After the movie we took the dogs on a hike at O,O Denny Park. The park is right on Lake Washington. We met Silvia. The biggest/oldest tree in King County. She is over 600 years old. Kenny said it was the highlight of his weekend. No joking either!! That evening we had dinner out and hit the mall for some shopping.

This morning we had breakfast at The Brown Bag Cafe in Kirkland. We took the dogs on another hike afterwards. This time we went to Cougar Mountain and hiked about 5 miles. I am going to be really sore in the morning. We ended the day by spending some time in downtown Edmonds before riding the ferry over to Kingston to pick up Shane. What a beautiful day it was out. What a fun filled weekend. Everyone had a great time: Shane, Grandma, Grandpa, Kenny, Me and even Sadie and Dodger.

Shane having some fun on the ferry. He all of a sudden seemed like such a big boy playing cars all by himself.

A Quiet Moment

Dahlia and Shane eating snack together. Shane moved the table up against the slider door and then moved both of the chairs to the side they are in the picture. The chairs were on opposites sides of each other orginally. Guess he just wanted to enjoy the view of the backyard with Dahlia as they ate their snack. Just to cute!

Book Worm

I have been flying through the books the past couple months. I'm in two different book clubs. I guess I just am feeling the pressure to have the books read for each one. Here are the books I've read in the last two months and my thoughts on them.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. Yep, this was recently turned into a movie. And was nominated for Best Picture, too (I think). I can't say that I really liked this book, but it left an impression. It kept me reading, but I disliked the characters (good writing though to make me feel the way I felt towards them). I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. In a nutshell this is about family and cancer. It is a memoir. I learned a lot about life with cancer. This was an easy read. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Dancing With Rose by Lauren Kessler . This book in general is about life with Alzheimer. It also touches on the elderly care system and aging. It was very insightful and is nonfiction. I learned a lot from it. I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. This book was set in remote 19th-century China and details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends and their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by pride and love. I would have never picked to read this story on my own. Though I learned a lot about the Chinese culture. It was a bit heard to get through at moments. I would give it 3 out of 5 stars.

It has been very interesting to read books that I don't pick on my own. It really makes me branch into topics and styles of books I would never be drawn to. In the end though I have learned a lot and have found each one truly interesting.

Everett Children's Musuem

This morning Shane and I visited the Everett Children's Museum with our friends, Wendy and Graham.

It was a lot of fun! This was the best out of the three Children's Museum that we've been to. There were lots of different themed rooms to play in (vet, cafe, train, airplane, bus, bank etc).
Shane and I in the Farm area on the tractor.

Shane watching as Graham milks the cow. Water squirted out of the udder.

Shane on the tractor. He loves anything that can "drive".

Graham and Shane checking out the front part of a real bus.

Shane driving the go-cart in the roof top area.

Making things in the construction zone.

Water fun...I think they would have played there the whole time.

Sunshine, Oh, Sunshine!

The sun is out in the Pacific Northwest!! It is still only 53 degrees outside, but the sunshine feels good. We took a little trip to Juanita Beach Park this afternoon.

Shane loves to swing! He got that from me.

He also loves birds. He points them out when we are in the car and signs "bird" to me.

Before we left for the park Shane and Kenny tried their matching Mariners hats on. Shane won't wear it for any length of time, unfortunately.

Some random pictures:

Last week Shane had a little stomach virus. Then went straight into teething. Here he is very pathetic looking, laying in our bed with Dodger.



Driving his fire truck with his cool fireman hat. This is one of his new favorite activities.

Fix It Weekend

It seems that Kenny and I were repair people this weekend. First, our two year old TV broke. We weren't so happy about that. Kenny did some research online and figured out we could probably fix it ourselves for less then $30 or have a tv repair person fix it for $500+. So we set off to do it ourselves. Two trips to Radio Shack, a few ups and downs, a visit from a repair person (free thankfully) and two days later it was fixed!!! The tv is back and I got my fill of Greys and Private Practice last night.

Secondly, my car wouldn't start this morning. We had the dogs and Shane all loaded into the car ready to head out to the dog park this morning and nothing. The battery was dead. We had some jumper cables and managed to get ourselves back out the door about 20 minutes later. I think we'll be looking into a new battery for my car soon.

Two possible large disasters averted!

Bothell Landing Pictures

Shane had his pictures taken a couple weeks ago at a local park. The pictures were taken by Ketti of Ketti Photography. Here are a few of them from the session.

Potty training has come to an end.

After eight days of working really hard with Shane to potty train him, we have decided it just isn't the right time. He was very persistent and learned a lot during the eight days, but he just couldn't consistently let us know when he needed to go. I'm super proud of him for trying and working so hard at it. This summer we'll give it another try.

"Grandpa Berry's" Berries

Last summer Shane discovered fresh berries (raspberry and cascade berries to be exact) courtesy of who we now loving refer to as Grandpa Berry (my Dad). One night Kenny decided to get the frozen berries we had out and put them on top of ice cream. Shane was sold on that!! It then was a ritual for a few evenings. Along with berries on his cottage cheese and yogurt too for breakfast. Shane will do just about anything for Grandpa Berry's berries.

Boy...has he grown.

As we packed up and moved out of our old house, I realized how much Shane has grown. We had a big picture window in our living room that Shane loved to look out of and watch everything outside. He use to have to stand on his tip toes to see out of it. When we moved he was towering over the window sill.



He now eats at the table with out his tray, in his booster seat, but his legs hang over the edge of the chair. He use to not even touch the chair with his feet.

Moving isn't so bad, when they let you eat a whole donut!! And he just about ate the whole thing too.

Here Shane is helping in the moving truck. When we moved into this house, he was just 3 months old. Just a little tiny bundle that didn't do much besides sleep, eat, poop and cry. I guess not a lot has changed besides his size for that matter.

Shane is helping Kenny rake in our new backyard. I can remember Kenny saying just last year that he couldn't wait until Shane could come outside and "help" in the yard. Well, the time has come. Shane hates when he has to come back inside after working outside with Dad.

Potty Training Day #1 and #2

With schedules falling into place, I decided to start potty training Shane this week. I cleared FIVE fun days at home in order to try and take on this task. To prepare for this event I showed Shane his big boy underpants and talked a lot about going potty in the potty. I taught him the sign for potty and read a few books. Thursday we woke up and took the diaper off and put the big boy underpants on. Then I handed him some milk and said have at it. About an hour later he was wet. I took him to the bathroom and he sat on his little potty chair and then on the seat insert on the big toilet. To sum up Thursday...there was a lot of accidents. At the end of the day he dribbled into the big toilet on Dad's watch. Pretty much what I had expected for the first day.

Today (day #2) brought along some successes....thank goodness, because I was about ready to call it quit this morning. He went potty a handful of times in the potty chair and even managed to get a couple poops in there, too. There were still a few accidents. Only once out of all the trips to the bathroom did he sign to me that he needed to go. But I feel like progress has been made.

We'll see what day #3 has in store for us. Hopefully, more of him telling us he needs to go and less of me asking every 30 minutes......