for your kind words, for your support, for making me feel like I am not alone. :)

I think I must need to write about the crazy stuff more often, because as a result of it I now had a few hours to myself today and a scheduled day with a break in it in the near future.

I appreciate it, guys. More than you know. Thank you so much for all the kind offers and emails and sweet words. It helps me cope.

And one of my best friends in the whole world sent this to me to make me giggle. The humor is weird, but right up my alley, and totally made me laugh this morning.



So on that note, the kids are napping, and I'm going to enjoy the quiet. Spaghett!

You are a complete failure as a parent?

I feel like such a jerk at the moment.

I am really, really tired; a combination of my kids literally waking up nearly every hour from midnight to 6am every night in the past few weeks (I seriously can't remember the last time I went to sleep and then woke up in the morning), and if one of them hasn't woken up that hour, I'm woken up by Sabriel either kicking the heck out of me, contractions, or major leg cramps.

I'm running on low.

I'm tired of hearing "mommy, mommy, mommy" and feeling like I"m being ordered around all the time.

I'm tired of picking up crap that has been pulled out all over the house. How many freaking times do I have to say, "No!"

I'm tired of none of my clothes (maternity included) fitting normal.

I'm tired of my kids not following directions.

I'm tired of being stuck in the house with them, especially since we haven't really been able to go do fun stuff because of being sick, or a broken arm, or pink eye...

And what do I do? I take it out on my sweet child who is scared of having her hair washed in the sink.

I yelled and I screamed and I felt so ashamed when my husband took over, because I was losing it.

:(

I hate being trapped in this sinful body, I hate letting my brokeness control me.

So now, now that I've apologized to my two year old for yelling at her and freaking out on her because I am burnt out, I'm going to snuggle with my kids and watch their "dragon movie" and feel horrible and pray that tomorrow is a day full of grace. I know it will be shown to me; I just pray that I can show grace too.

I have been hoarding a bunch of layouts to share with you all... I got the fabulous Crop Addict December kit earlier this month and have just wrapped up all my projects. (See the gallery for this kit here!)

In addition to that, I got to play with the Tinkering Ink newly released "Beloved" collection as part of a manufacturer challenge, so I have those things to share too! :)

Tonight I'm working on finishing some Christmas decorating and some Scrap Etc. layouts- which means I can finally pull out that Creative Cafe` stuff I bought about a month ago! LOL

-I'm wanting to be in a good mood because my brain is full of several crafty and around-the-house projects ... but I'm not so happy because my kids are grouchy.

-Pink eye and fractured elbows and withdrawals from spoiling relatives makes kids grouchy.

-I like rainy days. I am glad we are getting some this week. Makes me feel all cozy inside.

-I am sick and tired of Atticus getting into every single thing in our house and finding some way to make a bigger mess out of it.



(That's non-toxic stamping ink on his face.)



(At least he's really cute.)

-I'm freaking 35 weeks pregnant. That's only 5 weeks left, IF I go all the way to 40 weeks.



-I need to make a list of things "to do." Like finish Christmas gifts, pack my bag for the hospital, and make arrangements for the kids' childcare while I'm at the hospital.

-I am glad I have all the little clothes I need, thanks to already having a girl and my sweet friend Katie passing along her Campbell's tiny pink outfits.



-I'm feeling overwhelmed a bit by all that's going on. When I do this, I tend to withdraw socially because social stuff stresses me out. I'm trying to be aware of this and not get too analytical about everything.

-I'm so very, extremely, hugely thankful for my husband. I'm glad we are friends. I'm glad I can trust him. I'm glad I feel like I can tell him things. I'm glad I feel like we are partners. He's a keeper. ;)

-I'm very excited about Christmas. I've already gotten a huge chunk of the decorating done, and am hoping to finish it today. I just love sitting in our living room with a mug of hot chocolate and basking in the lights. Hehe











-I'm on a big hot chocolate kick right now. I'm not picky about what kind it is (although my fave is definitely the kind from Starbucks!). Just give me a big ol' mug of hot yummy chocolate. It's the only type of "hot" drink I like, and I must be cold to drink it.



-My kids were given (decaf) coffee by my sweet husband yesterday. Which ensued in Emerson crying for about 10 minutes yesterday afternoon for "more-more coppee!" He didn't even add much sugar to it!

-Emerson has been really, really cooperative with the whole cast thing. She's asked a couple of times "Take it off?", but other than that, has not been really frustrated or hindered by it. I'm really proud of her. I totally thought we would have a melt-down when she got tired of having it on her arm. She's such a tough little cookie.

-I am thrilled to be on the Crop Addict Design Team again! They have the BEST kits- seriously. Tons of stuff in them. :) :) :)

-I'm still in my pajamas and don't foresee changing out of them today. I'm putting the kids down for naps in about 45 minutes, and then I'm planning on cleaning, decorating, and scrapping. Maybe not in that order.

**Actually, I think I'm putting the kids down now. I can't handle the crying anymore.

***While I was waiting for my pics to upload, Emerson climbed into my bed and fell asleep. Atticus tore apart Sabriel's room and had a massive poop. He's headed to bed now.

for my secret sister!

Let me just tell you- I'm involved in a secret sister swap on the Scrap Etc. message board... it was started as a fun way to get to know other participants going to the Event in April, and also- it's fun to get packages in the mail!

I have had so much fun already, picking out cute things for my secret sis, but I have to tell you, the girl that is MY secret sister- she is spoiling me.


I got an awesome package today, which was just what I needed. I hate the whole packing/preparing to go out of town thing (esp. with toddlers), plus, obviously, this week has been a bit exhausting for us. ;) I opened up a big ol' box from my secret sis full of goodies that TOTALLY brightened my day.

Check it out!









Thank you so much, secret sis! :)

So last year, around this time, we made a trip to the Emergency Room with Em because she drank too much of that yummy grape cough syrup... and then two weeks later, Mommy ended up at the Doc-in-a-Box with a broken foot.

Em decided to combine the two traditions into one this year.

Now, before you freak out, it looks way worse than it actually is. The kiddo is coping very, very well. It's a really big cast for a small injury.

Friday evening, the gang and I were at Walmart and Em was being super helpful and cooperative... until it came time for us to leave the store. She wasn't following directions and holding my hand in the parking lot, so I scooped her into the cart and let her ride in the back (the front seat being taken up by little bro).

While I unloaded Atticus into the car, Em decided to try climb out of the back of the cart on her own, and the cart began to roll a little bit. I turn to her just as she's tipping out.

Of course I'm frantically trying to grab her, but I'm not so lithe or quick on my feet these days, so she fell out and caught herself (apparently mostly on her right elbow). :(

(Meanwhile, old gross smoking dude pulls up in the spot next to us and makes obnoxious comments about how Em "sure doesn't look happy" as he stands there and puffs, apparently oblivious to the fact that standing within arm's reach of a stressed out and upset preggo woman is probably not a good idea. Fortunately for him, I bit my tongue and just say in a tight voice, "No, sir. She isn't.")

I wasn't really sure what was wrong with her until that night when we tried to put on p.j.s and she cried when she bent her arm to put it into the sleeve... we went to her dr. on Saturday and they took x-rays (which she was a real champ about, considering that her mommy couldn't go into the x-ray room with her) and her doc said it looked like a small fracture right above her elbow.

She's been really tough about the whole thing and hardly complaining at all. As a matter of fact, I kind of doubted the diagnosis on Sunday afternoon when she was jumping on the bed and landing on her arm without wincing at all.

However, after the orthopedic pediatrician saw her and confirmed the diagnosis yesterday, they decided to go ahead and cast her for the next 3 weeks.

So here's to sponge baths with a 2 1/2 year old (the same one who has been advised by her physician to not "jump around and run") for the next 3 weeks.
(**P.S. Just to clarify, in case anyone reads my tongue-in-cheek telling of the account as being insensitive or making light of it all... sometimes in life, you gotta laugh to keep from crying. I'm choosing to look at the humorous side of things. I really do feel horrible that my baby got hurt, especially while I was right there. Sometimes things can get misinterpreted on the internet, so I just wanted to make sure that was clear!)

The girl is a very silly little drama queen.

Here's a (very dark) vid of her and her "infamous" animal noises.

:)

Happy Sunday!

It's Friday morning.

I'm on the computer, chatting with Shaun and finishing up a layout I began last night.

Em's in their room, changing clothes.

I hear Atticus walking around, bouncing a ball.

The sound comes closer.

I look over, and - wait a minute.

That's not a ball I hear bouncing.

That's the sound of our plunger. Being used as a walking cane. Around the house.

I've seen a few discussions going on around about handmade Christmas gifts, so I wanted to post a comment here that I made on Missy's blog.... she's got a cute popcorn holder on there right now, so go check it out! :)

These are some decorated purse calendars I made. Planning on personalizing them with names or initials for folks. You can get these at tons of places, I found mine at Target. They are really fun to make. :)

These journals are AWESOME. I got them at Hobby Lobby. The reason why I love them is that they are spiral bound on the inside (I'm particular about that) but bound on the outside. The insides are pretty too. They are only a few bucks, and then you can personalize them for whoever you are giving it to.
A variation on my now infamous (or rather, overused idea) altered trays. This is a smaller sized one, and it's for putting Christmas pics in.


This is another little tray/sign I made. Just used a tin tray, dry brushed it with white acrylic paint, and added on the paper and embellishments . I attached everything with glue dots (the best glue evah!) to make sure it stayed on there.

Ok, here we go with a link-fest of ideas:

This one I have made before, and it's really fun and customizable. You can store the magnets on the back and each day add a new one.

Magnetic Calendar (designer- Amy Williams)

You could get the kids involved in making the different squares. Walmart sells a pack of 3 cooking tins for $3, or you could check out the Dollar Tree.

Another idea, using the same thing, is to do an advent calendar.

Here are step by step instructions to do it:

Teresa McFayden's Advent Calendar

Speaking of advent calendars, here's one using a muffin tin.

Muffin Tin Calendar

The girl made each square to cover the "holes" on a mini muffin pan tin, and put magnetic strips on the side to attach it. Inside each "hole" is a little treat.

Here are instructions & a pic of yet another advent calendar:

Scrap Etc. - Renee's calendar

This:

Exploding Box

(sounds dangerous, but I promise is not! hehe) It's really cool looking, and the directions look pretty simple, plus the lady has step by step pics. It would be great to do a year-in-review type photo thing!

A friend of mine made one, here's hers:

Linh's box

I liked the colors she picked. :)
Someone suggested also that you could put pics in it of all your Christmas mornings and have it sitting out during the holidays.

This is a pretty nifty idea:

Patricia Roebuck's Altered mirror

You can get the masks she refers to at Scrap Etc., Michael's or Hobby Lobby (they are a brand called Heidi Swapp that is near and dear to my heart). They are only $1.99. Or you can come over and use mine. ;)

Here are some various ideas:

Amy Kiane's Christmas Ideas

I'm so making some of these:

Ali E.'s Button Christmas Trees

Here are the complete directions:

Tia Bennet's directions (and a pic of her button tree):

This is a .pdf file (so you'll need Adobe to open it) of "Christmas Spirit" ideas. One girl had the idea of printing them on pretty paper and then filling up a decorated "Christmas Spirit" box... you pull one out each day of the holidays and do it. You could give it as a gift, too.

Christmas Spirit ideas

I know a lot of these are more Christmas crafts than regular gifts, but I know I've got more ideas floating around. :)

Labels: Craft ideas

Ok, finally got to make a few changes around here! Yay! I'm happy to have things looking just a bit new and spiffy... I could probably fiddle with it a lot more, but I'm leaving it as is.

Before anyone asks, I'll go ahead and volunteer some info on how I did things:

To do my banner, I downloaded a WAY cool (and easy to use) program from Shutterfly that Linh from Scrap Etc. recommended. It's called Shutterfly Studio, and you can download it here for free.
It's kind of cheating to do it that way, because I know there are a lot of people out there that spend hours in photoshop creating this kind of stuff, but I'm not proficient enough in photoshop yet to do things how I want to, and this was fast and easy.

In Shutterfly studio, there's a button you can click called "collage" that has about a bazillion (no, really!) different templates for a photo collage. You can do them with text & captions, or just photos. I chose to do one with just photos, and then saved it as a .jpg. Once I did that, I did open it in photoshop and added text there (because there were a few things I wanted to mess with), but you could easily do that in Shutterfly Studio.

I swear, I'm making this sound harder than it is, but I promise it isn't that difficult. ;)

For those of you interested in uploading an image to your blog banner, you can email me (although I'm mostly just jimmy-rigging mine! hee hee) or you can do a google search for instructions on how to do it (most of the instructions out there are a lot better than what I can give).

Now that I've wasted the last hour messing with my blog when I could've been chilling out some more, I think I'll get off of here and spend a little quality time with.... me.

Ciao, bellas & fellas!

Trying to make a few changes around the blogaroni, so it'll probably look kind of weird for a day or two until I can get some uninterrupted time to really fiddle with it. :)

Psalm 121 says I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? No, my strength comes from God, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains. He won't let you stumble, your Guardian God won't fall asleep. Not on your life! Israel's Guardian will never doze or sleep. God's your Guardian, right at your side to protect you— Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from moonstroke. God guards you from every evil, he guards your very life. He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always.

Saw this on Wilna's blog and was something I needed to read this morning. My kids are both sick and I am coming down with it... plus, Atticus had a tummy-ache all last night (and when I say all, I literally mean ALL) and cried and cried and cried...

Needless to say, it's been a draining week already.

Just pray we get good nap times today.

Ciao, bellas and fellas.

Here's a few more peeks at some more stuff I am bringing on Saturday- come by if you can!

Oh, and have I mentioned my daughter has a VERY STRANGE sense of style? *sigh* ;)

You and I are going head to head!

I've tried for about 30 minutes to adjust and edit my post below, but alas, blogger is NOT cooperating. Grr.

Anyways, here's the photos of the the sneak peeks I have for the bazaar. For me, the pics below are all pixelated and distorted. Maybe they look normal to everyone else, who knows.

I am frantically creating stuff this week in an effort to have a fully stocked table for the Community Presbyterian Church Christmas Bazaar this weekend. Shaun keeps reminding me that not everything needs to be "unique," but I'm having a hard time reining myself in.

Regardless, here's a sneak peek at some of the things I am selling... come one, come all! Details of when/where below. There will be 40 different artists there with some very cool wares to sell! :)




Location:
Community Presbyterian Church
825 Oak Blvd.
Moody, AL 35004

View Larger Map

Time:
Saturday, November 10th
9am - 7pm
Admission: Free
Individual booths will take cash and/or checks

Some of the booths will include home decor and handmade Christmas items with a shabby chic flair, photography, sewn projects, pottery, artwork, and much more! Come see us!

Working on uploading a slideshow of the kids' Halloween pics, but you gotta see this in the meantime:





Slideshow (and description below if you want to read all the details of our day!).
--This is a really long slideshow, so if you don't want to watch the whole thing you can click on "view all images" to browse through the pics at your own leisure.--

Emerson was Strawberry Shortcake. As you can tell, she was enthralled with herself. We sprayed her hair with red stuff- I think she looks pretty good as a red head! We had a brief costume change for a little while when she wanted to wear her "green-blue" (her name for any color) pink pants... but I managed to get her back into her "authentic" Strawberry Shortcake jeans later. :)

Atticus was a lion (although we got asked a couple of times if he was an Ewok). He was not thrilled with his costume to begin with. He seemed to be happier in it once he had a "treat" to pacify him. He was so freaking cute in it. He could barely see- the "mane" cut off his peripheral vision, so he would just keep his little head down and watch his feet go.

We started off the day by hitting the grocery store with Kim & her boys and another girl from her church. We were hoping to score more candy there than we did (last year apparently the store had five "candy stations- but alas, this year, not so much), but we did get an awful lot of looks and "Oh how cute!"s. Oh, and Kim got groceries. Heh

Then we hit downtown Leeds, for some trick-or-treating of local businesses. They were officially doing it from 4-6, but most of them were really nice and gave us candy even though we were early. The Regions bank setup was really cool with some "witch's brew" with dry ice. The kids (and grown ups) were digging it.

After coming home for naps (and *Emerson meltdowns*- ugh) we went out again for some real trick or treating at night. Fatticus and Shaun stayed home and Em & I went out with some friends. Emerson was TOTALLY working the cute factor at the doors of the houses. She was fluttering her eyelashes and talking in her "cute voice" to everyone. It was cracking me up.

All in all- a good night. :)