Amelia's First Communion

We celebrated Amelia's First Communion this past Sunday. She did great, not nervous at all. After we had a party at the house with friends and family. It was a perfect day.

I like that Amelia knows what she wants and doesn't often stray just because of others. Most girls wore a veil, she did not want to wear one and she didn't care if all the girls had a veil or not. I let her make all the decisions, it was her day and she looked lovely.

She makes me so proud!

Amelia's Note

Today Amelia left me this picture taped to my office chair, as I pealed it off I noticed this note on the backside...

Wow, this sure made my day!!! I guess I am doing something right?

P.S. I know it might look like she drew a penis after the heart but it is a finger pointing to the stick figure with curly hair (that's me). 

April 2012

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Yes, I am still here... just so busy! As you can see on my calendar the past two weeks have been jam packed and this week is even worse and the rest of the month is more of the same. Include my work and etsy shop to this and I'm always running like the wind.


So... that is my reason for not having time to post. I do have a list of stuff I need to post, so hopefully I can come up for air soon and post some fun stuff.

Lincoln the Fox - Eco Friendly Plushy

Brian hands me a orange sweater and tells me it's too short on him. He is 6ft 5" so he has this problem a lot, clothes shrink up and a short sweater on a tall man is just not a good look. As he hands me the sweater I am already clicking through the ideas in my head of what I will make out of it.

I have made some red foxes before and have been wanted to make some orange ones... and this is the perfect shade of orange! Meet Lincoln the eco fox... made out of an upcycled t-shirt, leather, new felt, eyes and poly-fil... and a lovely orange sweater that shrunk up just enough to become a fox.

You can find him here in my etsy shop.

Lincoln loves bugs, he is obsessed with them. He spends most of his days exploring the dark forrest hunting for a rare bugs to study. He carries his favorite leather satchel to keep his vintage entomology drawings safe and close to him.

What I'm reading - The Help by Kathryn Stockett

 

I haven't seen the movie yet, I wanted to read the book first since I had heard it was so good... "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. And they were right... it's really really good! I don't really read as much as I would like, I am usually crafting something in my free time (did I really say free time, like I have any of that!)

But each night last week I would sit and read and I looked forward to that time to myself... to be quite, not move a muscle and engulf myself in someone else's life story. It's quite a stress reliever to stop thinking, or stressing about all the things I need to do and just send my mind off to another place in time. Like always, when I finish a really good book I say... gosh I really need to read more often.

Mmmmm, what should I read next? Any suggestions?

Oh Anna

The other day Anna yelled down the hall to me and said this... 

"Amelia did something bad to me but I forgot what she did".

What do I say to this one? 

Nothing... I pretended I didn't hear her, there isn't anything to say.

The big day... ear pierced

The before photo.

Ally went first and barely flinched.

Amelia being a bit silly, making funny faces...

but she really was a bit nervous and teared up a bit after it was done.

Yeah... we did it... they said they feel so grown up now.

Cindy and I were a bit sad, our babies are growing up so fast.

Spring Break Day 1

 The girls have had the same room decor since they were born except for a bed updates. They have been asking for purple walls so we compromised and agreed to paint one of the walls purple. Which actually works well since the other walls are green and their bedding is purple and green. Plus there is a mural of the claddagh symbol that we painted on the wall for the nursery and Brian and I are not really to paint over it just yet.

Today I put the girls to work... they were so excited to help paint. They loved it! I on the other hand I was a bit stressed and had to hold myself back from jumping in and taking over. They actually did do a pretty good job, I did not have to do too much touch up.

Later I pulled almost everything out of their room, wow... were was all this junk hiding! We will need to go through all this junk before any of it goes back into their room. 

Photos of the finished room coming later this week.

Top Secret Mission

 I meant to post this right after Christmas, but of course it's now 3 months later... life can just be so busy sometimes which is why this idea is so great. I think it is a fun idea for those hard to buy for husbands.

Our big gift this Christmas was a gas log set for the fireplace, so we said only small gifts to each other. The past year had been so busy we often forgot to take time for each other, we had not gone on many date nights last year. I had seen this date night idea on pinterest and made up my own version, CIA style. 


I planned a top secret mission for Brian. I had 12 dates planned out, one for each month. I also included gift cards for restaurants, etc. This way it's so easy, all planned out, no question of what should we do. Plus, I tried to plan fun things other than the movies, which is a usually date night for us.


So here is what we will be doing each month:


Jan: Dinner & Movie
Feb: Our Anniversary was this month, so Brian had to plan this one.
March: Show at the small local theater & dinner
April: Cooking class
May: Dinner & Bowling
June: Hike, geo caching & picnic
July: Lunch & antique shopping
August: Donate our time at a local food bank or shelter
Sept.: Bike ride & picnic
Oct.: Dinner & dancing
Nov.: Evening gallery talk and music at the art museum and dinner
Dec.: Romantic date night at home


Lucky for me he accepted this special mission and so far we have had two date nights and I think we are both enjoying this gift of time together.

Here is an image of one of the pages in the mission, I had an envelope attached to each page with the gift cards etc. (click to enlarge)

Girl Scouts turned 100!

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Our school celebrated the GS 100th year with an all troop GS party at the school last Friday. 

Each grade level planned a station: SWAPS, tattoos, cupcakes, crafts and a group dance party (the 5th grade troop taught us all a dance). 

We had three high school GS girls come speak to us and had group photos with a 100 year sign. It was a great party, the girls seemed to have a lot of fun!

Since this was a birthday bash we asked all the girls to bring coloring books and crayons as a "gift" that we will donate to the STL Children's hospital. Having fun and giving to our community... it's all good!

What a great memory I got to share with my girls and all our scouts!

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