a mom, a wife, and a me: November 2010

I'm thankful for...

Im thankful for my husband, and although we have our ups and downs he is still the love of my life! Im thankful for my oldest, Justin, my Ju bean, my brother bear. He has such a big heart and grown up ness to him at 6. Im thankful for my pretty little daughter Brooklyn, sissy, Jane. She may keep me on my toes but she is my light. Her smile and caring and just her her-ness. Im thankful for my Colton, boo-boo bear, my coco. He can light up a room, he is so silly all the time. He would do anything for his brothers and sister. He often seems older then he is. I am thankful for my baby, my carson, my zoom zoom baby bear. He is holding his own in our family. He is the most loved baby ever. He is so easy going and I might be a little biased but he has great cheeks! Im thankful for my best friend, my cousin Bailey. She keeps me sane, she listens, she has a great nack at bringing me starbucks when I need one. She loves my kids like her own, she tolerates my husband and she means the world and more to me. Im thankful for those families who are missing their loved ones to keep ours safe. Im thankful for my new blogging friends too... even the ones not quite fallowing me yet. Im thankful for their inspiration, for giving me an outlet to make time for myself. I am thankful they take time out of their lives to share them with us, to get to know ours, for just being ready to bond by creativity. What are you thankful for?

and a me....

Sometimes I find myself focusing so much time on being a mom and a wife that I forget there is a me in here. My kids are my life. Im lucky enough to be a stuck at home mom and I really enjoy spending so much time watching my kids grow up. I also enjoy being a wife, although we have our moments, knowing that I will be forever in love with the man I took to prom is pretty important to me. Then there is a me. Its been hard being a young mom (well I was young when we started this crazy life) I dont mind scrificing for my family, but there are my quilty times where I will sneek out of bed (between two dogs and a couple pairs of feet) and just sit in the office with MY music on, eating chocolet chips, sewing or crafting and just trying to relax. And I know I shouldnt feel guilty but I do. I spend a lot of time doing so much for my kids and husband and life that I forget I deserve time as well. And unfortuneitly most of that hidden me time is spent making things for them or to better our everydays. How do you take time for yourselves? Time to just have you time? As a mom or a wife or just a you..... Hope you all have a safe and thankfull thanksgiving and thank you for taking a little time out of your day to see my me-ness!

Snap shot #3

Joining in on the fun at

Last night my kids ate canned raviolies for dinner.... yes from a can... not that I dont feed it to them from time to time for lunch, but really its not much of a dinner thing here. I tried to explain to them that im just to busy and they could have ice cream if they ate it... they dont seem to realize sewing, glueing, podging, spraying, and cutting is work not just play lol. Needless to say they got their drum stick (BTW if you didnt know they make snack size drum sticks now that are perfect kid size) So at nine o'clock I was making grown up dinner for the husband and I! (however he was late so I ate alone surrounded by mountains of grown out of kids clothes I have been crafting up! So here is my snap shot , thursday at nine pm yumm-o

Shread mottz cheese

mix in left over shreaded chicken

add some cottage cheese

stir and pipe into pasta

cover with sauce and cheese

bake at 375 for 25 mins

enjoy

Then enjoy some ice cream!

baby blocks, busy book and blanket oh my!

I decided this year that for every one Christmas gift we buy this year, we are making another. Its a bigger task then I had planned. I'm still sewing all night long, and don't really know if I will make it but I'm trying! The first thing I wanted to show off is the blanket I made for Carson, he is only 4months and could care less but his bed theme is monsters and this is my first ever blanket blanket. I found a self binding tutorial online and this is the out come

Then I saw some really cute soft baby blocks people were making out of fabric... but I'm a cheap skate (you can call it green lol) And I saw a few boxes sitting in the garage of clothing my kids have out grown, cute clothes... thing I bought because I loved them... so this is what I did:

First I found some coordinating colors and some really cute designs.

Then I cut 5inch-ish squares and sewed them this way...

And now I have really cute baby blocks for Carson (who is now a whopping 5 month old, and my triplet niece and nephews! There are more to come of these and I think I will be the million and one person to put a tutorial about these up... but in all fairness I made these second hand there for I'm neat!

And lastly before my coffee runs out here is a sneak peek of the busy book I'm putting together for my two year old (by the way finding gifts to make for boys and not babies is really hard so please throw your ideas at me!)

I know my skill level is no where near cutting out felt cute like and I don't have a cute cutter machine (hint hint Santa) so I used some cute scrapbook paper and some clear contact paper. I made magnetic fishing, hot clued on some gloves for right hand left hand,

Hot glued Velcro to some crayons I printed off line and a left over crayon box from our craft bucket, made a tool box pocket with tools (also images from online I just colored) to be snapped onto the nail or wood of which ever tool they go with. I have a few more pages done that I will post pictures of soon. I'm just not sure how to bind them.... maybe eyelets and snap rings... I dunno.... any ideas on that one?

And before I go can you tell what this is? Its an elephant! Well to be fair its only part of the face, but if you can imagine with me, its an elephant pillow pet tee hee hee hee... coming soon!

busy busy!

'Tis the season!! I have been so busy latly with kids and chiristmas gifts that I have been neglecting the uploading process and now that I have a cup of coffee and two minutes to sit down and do it the battery is dead... such is life. However I do have good news! I got by gift enchange buddy and have been swapping emails! Im trying to come up with something fun and pretty for this exchange, you know the first always has to be the best lol
Since I cant up load my photos yet here is my current project list:
A spy kit breif case
A dress up box
A busy book (but you will see how crative I am, or lazy because there was no way I was going to cut out that much felt lol)
Coasters
A fish tank
A pillow pet (check out when I post picture for a really cool tutorial I found)
A sock elephant
Many a baby blocks (Made my triplet niece and newphews gifts wow lots of babies)
Wooden puzzle blocks
A pet shop purse fold out thing
And a blanket and thats just the first round! Anyone out there working on any fun christmas gifts?

Snap shot!

OK here is my snap shot for Thursday 11/11 at 10 am (if you have not checked out eighteen25 ... do so and then play along too!!) I have to admit im one of those people, my dog was my first baby (althought I found out I was pregnant 2 weeks after getting him) however my dog seems to think that my kids are his babys. If you can immagen Nana from Peter Pan, then you can picture my 70lb pitbull Endo. He is a nurse maid. Yesterday he spent the morning litterally pulling my 3 oldest kids around the house with a chew toy.... he is such a goofball....

snap shot

3 out of 4 watching Dora while I fold laundry.. that baby is loved to much!

So the ever inspiring ladies over at eightteen25 have this thursday snapshot thing where they give you a time, you snap a photo of whatever you are doing, then post it on friday! I always make a point to take a monday morning photo of my kids (they hate it) but this was a great chance to randomly pull out the camera and I got some pretty cute shots I would have other wised missed! Great idea, you all should fallow and play along, its nice to see im not the only other person with a messy house at 8am lol
Click here

I heart power tools!

So the thought of winter time is starting to scare me, 4 kids + daycare kids inside all day... I know your scared for me lol. We have actually been really lucky to be able to spend so much time outside this summer that inside is looking a little boring. Dont get me wrong we have a nice sized house stuffed full of toys and two play rooms but that doesnt seem enough to hold off all the 'im boreds" So we came up with this:

And This:

I still have to paint it and add some things to it (I was thinking a mail box and maybe a rope & pully bucket) But im still at a loss on what else to do to make it more inter active, any ideas?

PS Just a word of advice, if you start making one of these and your husband comes home and catches you in the middle of it, it will ruin his day, when you remind him you still need more stuff from home depot, he realizes your a pretty cool mom!

Here is our first year of homemade costumes... I think they turned out alright... maybe next year I will have a little bit more experiance sewing and they will look a smidge cuter.. but everyone commented on them so that was a nice pat on the back!