Playing Catch up

Glad to be back in my own bed after visiting my family in Ohio for ten days. Missed my hubby and of course, missed my own house and schedule.

But now I miss my mom, dad, Jeff, and Ang. And Pepper too, if only just a little bit. :) Glad to catch up with work, layouts, and photos.

Wednesday we're headed to Utah for a friend's wedding, and I'll be glad to see my newly engaged sister, my newly engaged best friend, and our gracious hosts, Aunt Mary and Uncle Steve (and their adorable girls). I know they're up for some Settlers, as are we! I can't wait. :)

I'm working through thank-you cards for all of the great birthday cards I got this year. Since I left home on my birthday, I didn't get to read them until this weekend. But thanks to anyone who reads this blog and sent me one! :) I had the most fun birthday -- even the TSA guy at the airport wished me a Happy Birthday. Nice.

Okay, here are some Eli pictures to tide you all over. :) He absolutely loved having a backyard at Nana and Grandpa's house, which he utilized all the time, by making my sing "sube" while he climbed up the hill in back. (For those of you who don't watch Go, Diego, Go, that is "climb" in Spanish) He also loved wearing Jeff's motocross helmet, which was literally twice the size of his normal head. Too cute. He may just be a skateboarder yet!

Have you ever seen a cuter kid in a helmet as big as his head? LOL.

This one is great, he's gearing up to get on the skateboard, but can't make it himself...

...so Uncle Jeff steps in to help out!

And here's the big ride!

What a fun adventure for Eli, I'm sure if he could, he'd ask for his very own skateboard. Jeff had a lot of fun showing off his skills as well, which I'll have to post about later. Right now I should be packing for our Utah trip, but I know that it's been forever since I posted here, so I'm trying to do my good blogging duty. Or, I could just be procrastinating. LOL. You guess which one is correct!

Identity Theft SUCKS

Well, Nathan and I have learned a big lesson this week. Password protect your stuff when you're using a remote desktop.

I'm here in Ohio, visiting my family. Yesterday morning I got a call from my bank asking me if I had recently used my credit card to through PayPal to buy something worth $1700 that morning. Shocked, I said 'No, I'm out of town and I haven't used that PayPal account in months.' Then they told me that someone had also used it to buy something worth $1400 before that. All of it using my PayPal account. So the first thing we thought is that someone had hacked that PayPal account, which I couldn't understand because I hadn't used it in months. So then Wells Fargo told me they were canceling that card and sending me a new one.

So then I got on the phone with PayPal and put in a report to them that the charges were fraudulent and we needed to suspend that account. (All of this was going on while I was driving around with my mom, not in front of the computer.) So I was freaking out, hoping that this person wasn't sitting there buying stuff as I was talking to the account people, trying to get it fixed. At this point, we still had no idea how they had gotten my information -- my credit card wasn't stolen, it was sitting in my wallet.

So then I got back to my parents' house and got on the computer to check this stuff out. I found an email from eBay notifying me that I had won several auctions, all of which I had never seen before. So it was then obvious that this person had access to my eBay account as well as my PayPal account. I couldn't figure out how this was happening, so I wanted to check my own computer at home.

So before I had left to come to Ohio, Nathan had set up a remote desktop access thing so that I could connect to my computer at home from my parents' computer in Ohio. So I logged on to my computer at home, and immediately got kicked off. So I logged on again and got kicked off a second time. I thought that was really weird, so I logged on a third time, and this time I stayed on. So then I started using my internet from my computer at home, looking up my bank account information, eBay account, and PayPal account. Then I had an impression to check the internet history for some reason. So I did, and realized that this person had hacked into the remote desktop connection and was using my computer from somewhere in France.

I immediately called Nathan to get the connection shut down so that they wouldn't have access anymore, and started assessing the situation. So they got onto my computer, opened my internet connection, and since my passwords had been saved in Firefox, they were able to log in to my eBay account, and start bidding on things, paying with my PayPal account, which had the password saved.

So I went through and cleared my saved passwords on my Mac, reset all of my passwords, and checked to make sure that they hadn't accessed anything else.

Talk about a nightmare.

I'm just glad that my bank called to check on these charges, as I would not have noticed it as fast as they made me aware. Thankful for that today. Thankful that it wasn't worse. Thankful that we figured out exactly what the problem was and were able to fix it.

What's funny is that this type of thing is what Nathan does for his job! :) It was just one of those things that we didn't password protect it because he was trying to make it easier for me to connect. We learned a great lesson. :)

I don't know where he learned it from, because I've never taught him to do this. But now whenever I get out my camera and want to take a picture of Eli, he says (with a big silly grin)

CHEEEEEEEESE!

Love this little guy.

What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

....apparently a fireplace of magnetic animals!


I found these great magnetic books at Costco that have a pocket of animals included, with little magnets inside them. I got it for Sundays during church to keep him busy and quiet. But he's found that the animals stick to all sorts of things around the house -- his folding beach chair frame, the fridge, my filing cabinet, and of course, the fireplace! Too cute.

Eli Update

I can't believe it was over two years ago that this picture was taken. Man, he's getting so big now! Eli is finally being really vocal, repeating what we say and imitating our words. He's curious about new words and loves to tell us what each animal says and loves pointing things out to show us. He's really showing his intelligence and I'm loving it!

Eli loves Dora the Explorer. I seriously think he's got a major crush on her. It's too cute. He's got a little backpack that looks like the one in the show, and she's even got him counting to 15 in Spanish! Yay for Dora. Eli also loves it when Dadda comes home, he bounds to the door to open it and let him in. I love seeing that, as I'm sure Nathan does too. So cute. :)

He's also a big Play Doh fan, as witnessed by the multitude of little dried bits of it in my carpet. Oh well, that's the price I pay for a happy toddler, right? I'll take it! :) He loves being outside, running around and playing in the sand at the park. He always finds a little corner to hide in, where I will find him digging in the dirt or sand. He's definitely all boy!

Here are the big changes! LOL. New banner. I want to thank Keri Schueller for her great template, Amanda Sok for her amazing Ponder Collection, and Thao Cosgrove for her Sisterly Collection Mini that has that beautiful flower in it. Yay for a new look for spring! :)

Oh, and my announcement is probably not what you're thinking. :) I'm not preggers! I just have a cool thing coming up with Scrap Girls that I can't quite tell you about yet, but I'm looking forward to sharing soon. So don't get too excited and start knitting me a baby blanket! :)

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Hi all! Just wanted to let you know that my blog will be going through some renovations in the near future. So do not be alarmed, I'm working on a different format for it, and it will be cool. Sorry about the dust and debris. It will be gone soon.

Oh, and I also have a fun announcement to make soon as well, so be on the lookout for that!

-L

Down Memory Lane...

Ran across this video today and it totally took me back to when I was a kid! I really loved Doug and I was so excited to see this! :)

Just have to give a shout-out to my dear hubby. Yesterday he did the dishes and even some laundry! What a sweetie he is, and so patient with me while I am in my cave working on layouts. Seriously, I married UP! :)

Also, he got me an early birthday present on Saturday -- a Lego Hogwart's Castle from the Order of the Phoenix! :) Only those who know me well will know how cool of a gift this is. I LOVE Lego's. I have since I was little. And I'm so excited that I got to get this one! It was so much fun to put together. Thanks babe! You're the best. :)






Oh, and Eli really had a fun time trying to 'help' me put the Legos together. Needless to say, most of it was finished while he took his nap yesterday. That's why I love lazy Sundays! :)













This castle came with two extra side parts, one of which was the greenhouse where the Mandrakes were being grown. The detail that goes into making these things is just incredible. Love it!

LEGOLAND!

I feel like a little kid again! :) My good friend Tracy and her husband both have passes to Legoland (our kids are free until they turn 3) and she told me one day that she was going out there. She asked if we had ever considered getting passes, and I told her we wanted to, but weren't sure if we would like it, if it would be worth it, how often we'd go, etc. But she convinced me that we'd love it and she said that we were welcome to go with her and David the next time they went.

So I got home that night and proposed the idea to Nathan. It didn't take too much convincing, as I know Nathan loves Lego's as much as I do and I'm sure he was curious to see how fun the park would be. (I mean, if all else fails, there's a huge Lego store there where you can get great pieces and sets, so that would be worth it! Hahahaha.)

I bought my pass that night online, printed out the ticket, and we went the next day with Tracy and her son David. Let me tell you, we had a BLAST! Eli loved it because there were rides that he could go on, I loved it because it is a fun amusement park with lots of little kid stuff to do, but even a few big kid rides too, so Eli won't grow out of it too fast. So needless to say, I'm so excited that we got passes! Yippee, thanks Mom and Dad Lakey! :)

Okay, so I guess I can't post something fun like that and not show you the pictures! Here are some fun ones from the first day we went and also from today (Nathan and I took Eli Saturday morning). Enjoy! :)


This is Eli absolutely loving these water musical instruments. He loved watching them spit water and wanted to hang out at that fountain all day long. :)

Here is the little monkey at their Mini-land place, he's pointing to something cool, I'm sure. :) The little mini towns are really neat, it's amazing to imagine the work that goes into making those things!

This is Tracy and David, our friends who invited us to go with them. I'm so glad we have good friends close by us that we can hang out with! Yay friends! :)

This is Eli's crazy happy face. Don't ask me, I don't know what he was so crazy happy about. :)

Here's me and the King. No explanation needed.


Okay, this is my favorite photo of the entire day. Look at the terror in his face!! BWAHAHAHAHA! Okay, I probably shouldn't laugh at my own child, but this just took me by complete surprise. He enjoyed all of the other rides just fine, going up and down and round and round. But then we got into this airplane ride that did a diagonal dip, and he just wasn't sure about that one. Love this priceless photo, and will definitely be showing it at his wedding, LOL! :)