She's 8

I feel like I am suddenly the mother of a sixteen year old. She's 8. {Well 8 and a half if you want to get technical}. This child will be the end of me. I'm sure of it. Big time struggles in the morning, every morning make for an unhappy grump of a mama. This is our morning as of late...

Alarm goes off at 5:40 a.m. I hit snooze one time then get up.

Go upstairs and flip on the lights.

Pick out Hayley-Boo's outfit for the day. {Cait's too if she didn't the night before}

Pull Caitlynn's covers off.

Cait covers her head with a pillow and groans an alarmingly irritated groan at me.

I gently give her a little shake. Time to get up.

She grips the top of her bed, groans again-more irritated though.

Hayley pops up smiling, "Mommy! Chicken!!". yes. She says 'chicken' randomly. Started this two weeks ago and no clue how, what, why, when, where she picked that up, but she does it.

Shake Cait again a little more forcefully. Nothing.
Tickle her. Get a little flop out of her but she's still clinging to the bed.

I grab on to her ankles and literally drag her off the bed. Yes. I drag her. And she grumbles and mumbles but finally she stands up and I hand her her outfit and she trudges down the stairs. And she sits on the couch. And covers her head with a pillow.

We have wasted approximately 15 minutes at this point. So she has about 15 minutes roughly to get herself ready to make it to the bus.

5 minutes pass and she's still either wearing PJs or is just in her undies. I say you need to get moving you have 10 minutes and you still have to brush your hair, brush your teeth, put on socks and shoes, take your medicine, and get your coat and stuff on. To which she says "OK!" like I haven't just asked her 20 times to do it. Like she's already dressed and ready to go...only she's not.

It's not until we are down to 2 minutes to go that she somehow gets the lead out and even then it's only with prodding. Come on. Two minutes. Yep, you're late. You must put your coat on now. And then about 5 minutes after that she gets out the door and sprints to her bus stop.

Then Hayles asks me for a pop-tart...but not just any pop-tart. A brown sugar pop-tart and cartoons so that I can go get ready. And then we have peace for the 15 minutes I now have left to shower, dress, and make myself look less like Frazzled Mommy and more like Polished Professional.

Hustle Hayley out the door with whatever toy {or toys} she insists on bringing with her that day and get her to the sitter. Along the way she says Mom, can we go left? Is this left? Can you just go already? (which is at the same place EVERY morning because we get stuck behind traffic). Can I listen to Caits music, I don't like this song. Why don't you have it? You need to get it. Mom, where's Ella? Is she at school? Did Daddy go to work?
This is a 4 minute drive.

Drop her off. Then I sit in traffic. Lots and lots of traffic. And don't even get me started on it if it happens to be raining, or misting, or about to rain because any type of condensation seems to cause panic in drivers here and they start getting all crazy.

So long story short, by the time I get to work I am in need of a stiff drink. Maybe two on some days.

Couldn't I just get up earlier? Yes. I have tried. And then I endure this routine for just a longer stretch of time. That's right...to my child, more time equals more time to complain about being sleepy and that I am mean for making her get up when it's dark outside. She should tell that to the school administrators for making an 8 year old get on the bus at 6:30 am. Yes. 6:30.

She's 8. Heaven help me in 8 years.

A great weekend...

I am not a big fan of Mondays. Especially after a really great weekend, going back to work is just not something I look forward to.

We had a fabulous family weekend; Caitlynn got to choose a place to have dinner Saturday night for her excellent report card and she chose...Subway. of all the places she could have picked, she picks Subway. Silly, silly girl. So we ate our sandwiches and then headed out to the Stingrays pack the house night. Hayley had a lot of fun dancing to the music and trying to find "Ray" the mascot through the entire game. We enjoyed it because there were a lot of people, which makes it a lot more exciting! The Stingrays won so we got free tickets to a game in February as well, which is just awesome because we love going! Then Sunday we watched football and ordered pizza--I will accept any excuse to get out of making dinner for a night, and actually managed to avoid having to actually cook a dinner all weekend-YES!

A quick card to share this morning...
I made this one using entirely scraps. I've been trying to do more of that lately so that I can reduce my scrap bin contents considerably--it's a huge mess and one of my biggest problem areas for how to keep it neat and organized.

Being productive at work

Things are REALLY dreadfully slow at work right now. We are waiting patiently (or not so patiently in my case) for things to pick back up. In the mean time, we've had to bring in books or something to keep ourselves entertained through the work day. I complain a lot about this to my husband because I am really not a sit and do nothing type of girl. I have a to-do list a mile long for things at home that I could be working on instead of sitting at work doing nothing. But I decided to make the best of it and I've been bringing some crafting supplies with me to work and that's where I created today's card. Had some fun with this one, mixing up patterns and colors. I really love how it turned out. I used my SU! scalloped circle punch to create the flowers. Just punched them out, crumpled them up, flattened them back out again and adhered them together and topped them off with a PTI button. Easy peasy flowers. All of the papers and stamps are from PTI as well. Dark Chocolate, Spring Moss, Raspberry Fizz, and of course white.

Will is back to work starting today. Had to share the bathroom to get ready this morning for the first time in 5 months! CRAZY!!!! I'm so not used to that. Kind of messed with my routine a bit, but we all managed to get out of the house on time. That always makes me happy. Hoping to start a new book today, My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I know I'm a little behind the trend with this one, but I still wanted to read it...so that is my distraction today for the work day.

Hope you all have a great day!

Love you tons!

It's Friday! It's Friday!
Once again, life got in the way of me posting yesterday again as I planned to, but here is the card I was going to share. This card was inspired by a card of Dawn McVey's that I saw a while back. I created the sentiment on my computer, but the rest of it is stamped using PTI stamps and inks. I have been pretty busy making cards, lately. Really enjoying the quick and easy of them right now as opposed to scrapbook pages. It allows me to do something creative, but not spend all day on it and these days that is definitely what I need. Things are so busy right now getting back into the swing of things with Will being back home and me working full time.
Hayley has been enjoying every minute of the last two weeks with her daddy. She just adores him and missed him so much. She is going to be very sad to have to go back to her normal babysitter next week when he has to return to work and I know he is going to miss spending the days with her. He gets such a kick out of her...she really is very funny though. Definitely will do just about anything to get a laugh, which keeps things pretty interesting around our house. Here lately she has had a lot of static so she knows if she rubs her head on the couch, her hair will stand straight up. She does this CONSTANTLY and it makes me crazy because it makes it impossible to keep her hair under control. But it is very funny. Its on my list of things that I absolutely have to get a picture of this week.

Caitlynn has bronchitis and has been coughing non-stop. Poor girl. She's been sick off and on since before Christmas. This South Carolina weather that can't decide if it wants to be warm or freezing is to blame, I think, because she is very rarely sick. Really hoping that this round of antibiotics gets rid of it for good so she can get back to her normal cheerful self.

Busy weekend for us, though. We are going to finally tackle this garage project that we've been putting off for months, and I'm getting a haircut tomorrow that I'm really excited about. Then hopefully some family fun at the bowling alley or movie theater plus lots and lots of football. GOOOOOO COLTS!!

Dusting off the cobwebs

the blog has been at the bottom of my to-do list for quite a while. Life just keeps getting in the way. I have added it to my list of resolutions for things I want to put more effort into. I want to use it as more of a record of what is happening in the life of my family as well as a place to share the things I do creatively. So today is hopefully the jumping off point for that.

A lot has happened the last few weeks. Changes. Adjustment. Will came home from his 4 month deployment almost 2 weeks ago. It's crazy how those 4 months just drag and drag and then he gets home and his 2 weeks off from work FLY by!! We have been enjoying our time as a family, though, and just LOVE having him home.

As soon as my camera battery finishes charging, I have a card to share...be back before the day is out!

Fabric Basket

Phew...long time no post. AGAIN! Sorry to those of you who still check this thing!! I haven't been too crafty here lately. Just too busy trying to clean house and have it actually look clean. Anyone else have that problem? I feel like I clean 24/7, finish a room and move on to another one and by the time I finish the second one, the first is a disaster again. I'm sure it's part of having kids and having to keep up with it all on my own while Will is away, but MAN is it frustrating!!!

I decided that enough is enough and made myself let go of the fact that my house just isn't perfectly neat and gave myself a break to do something just for fun. I got out some fabric and my sewing machine and got to work and here is what I came up with...

and the inside...

I know this is going to look awesome with some of my Amy Butler or Heather Bailey fabrics...YUM. But for now, I think this little polka dot one is pretty darn cute! I definitely didn't reinvent the wheel here, there are other people all over the web that have done these and I just decided on a whim to give it a go...thinking they might make some mighty cute gift baskets with some other stuff inside.

Look, the seams match up on my very first try!! I usually have at least some issues with this...not this time!

Pretty proud of my cute little basket! :-)

Happy Friday, everybody.

Got a little messy...

I LOVE working with paint and canvas. I wish I could take credit for the design of this piece--I can't. I totally copied this whole idea from someone else. I saw it on the Living with Lindsey blog and thought it was such a cute idea and I love the quote because it sort of relates to my life with my hubby and such. Anyway, here is my take on it...

I got a few parts a little spattered with some black paint and I just kind of went with it and left it there. I figure it was just a happy little accident ;-). Besides it's just for me anyway. Just a way to get outside of my box and do something fun. I hadn't worked with paint in such a long time and it's so relaxing. I was so wrapped up in it, it was nearly 1 a.m. when I finished!! But I like it and for now it is gracing my lovely buffet table. I will probably move it into my studio/office at some point.

**Sorry about the flash on it, it was obviously dark when I finished it, so not a great picture, but you get it :-)