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 :-)

I almost forgot...

Here is a pic of the finished buffet table! I can't believe I almost forgot to post it.

First, one more look at the before:

And after:

I am hoping to do some more crafting tonight so I should have more to share tomorrow! Happy weekend!!

A solution...

Last night I set out to solve a problem. A big annoying problem that I have been having over the last couple weeks. See, my friend and I go for these long walks and I have to take the stroller, but Hayley is 3 now, so I use an umbrella stroller and got rid of all my other fancier ones and I was stuck with nowhere to put my water bottle, my phone, my keys, etc. while we were walking. My temporary fix was to use a purse but it was too bulky and got in my way, so I needed something better.

Here is my solution. It attaches with velcro on those tabs, since you can't see that from the picture.

Pretty cute, huh? I love this fabric! I bought it at http://www.aboveallfabric.com/. Well the swirly one anyway. The pocket fabric is actually just from a bandana I got at the craft store for like ten cents. My next one won't have such a deep pocket, though...I just wanted to make sure my water wouldn't fall out and I think even just a couple inches shorter on the pocket and the water would still be nice and secure.

And look! It works on my elliptical too! And I plan on taking it grocery shopping to hold my coupon thing and my car keys so i don't have to dig through the purse for those!

One year later...

Today is me and my wonderful hubby's anniversary! To celebrate the day since Will is gone, I took my girls to the beach where we were married and we spent the day there. Here are a few pictures from the day.

This is the aisle that I walked down a year ago today! Except this aisle now ends in a wall of sand that just drops off instead of the gentle slope it was a year ago. Amazing how much changes in just a year...not to mention that there is so much more grass here now when last year there was barely any. I had butterflies in my stomach walking through here though...I'm so glad I went there today. It was the best possible way to spend the day under the circumstances...and knowing me, I'll drag him back to this very same spot next year :-)
I love this beach. Today we decided to take a shell-searching walk and went all the way down to the end of the park area. We found some pretty cool shells, but even better was the complete lack of people down there! So peaceful. The ocean was so beautiful. This photo was on the first part of our walk but you can see that further down there was NO ONE there. It was awesome.

Happy Anniversary, Will. I love you!

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge 16

Once again one of Dawn's challenges has brought me back to life with my creative side. I just haven't had time to sit down and do much for ME lately. Will left last Saturday for his deployment and it's been a little overwhelming to get into the swing of doing everything on my own again. Will had issues with the international service on his phone, so I've had to run around trying to fix that and he still ended up having to ship it back home to me to take care of it here. Then Hayley has had a really rough time with this one and is still not quite herself and Caitlynn is of course testing her boundaries again to see how far she can push me. It makes things really interesting, I suppose, but it also makes me really frazzled! So between the housework, yardwork, kid work, and my actual work, I haven't had very much time to just do something fun for myself. That brings me up to today when I decided that I needed to just take a time out for myself tonight and do something creative. Get my hands dirty. So I did. Once again I made 2 cards for this challenge. I had this image of what I wanted to do in my head, but when it came to actually putting it on paper, it didn't work out as great as I thought. It's just a little busy to me. You can't really tell in the picture but the circles are punched out of the kraft cardstock and then the designs are on the inside. So it has some texture and stuff on it...but it still just wasn't quite what I had hoped for.
So I kept going and churned out another one...And I'm much happier with the final result on this one.

Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary and we are spending the day at the beach where we were married. I thought it would be nice to be there, to just connect with the day and just let all of the happiness from that day wash over me. Hopefully the weather holds out! Hope all of you are enjoying your Labor Day weekend!

T minus 9 days...

Will leaves in 9 days. For 4 months. Not at all looking forward to it. I know as soon as he gets his bags out and starts loading them up, I'm going to be an emotional basketcase. Happens every time he goes TDY for an extended period of time and it definitely happened for the last deployment. The hardest part about being a military wife. The goodbyes. I HATE the goodbyes. Blah. Trying SO hard not to focus on that happening here soon, so I'm trying to stay extremely busy with my crafty stuff. I have a couple cards to share today and an update on my buffet table that I've been working on sporadically over the last few weeks! ** I apologize for the not so great photography here...I was photographing these while the kids were eating so I didn't have a whole lot of time to play around and then crop and edit before they were ready to get up and play!

First the cards... some I made just for fun.

Used all PTI stuff on these. Friends Til the End, Women of Life, Polka Dot Basics, and Damask Designs are all the stamp sets I had pulled out for these. I used up a lot of my scraps from some other cards and projects which always makes me happy!

And here is the progress on my buffet table. The staining has begun. Hoping to have that wrapped up today so it can dry completely and then I can apply the polyurethane finish! And then it will be DONE and displayed in all it's glory in my entry way! WOOHOO!

A couple more hair flowers

Here are the other hair flowers I said I would share. I am super excited because I actually sold these about 10 minutes after I made them and talked about them on facebook! (Thanks Ronee!) Now I need to go to the store and get some more supplies to make more and maybe I'll sell those too!!

Happy Friday!

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge 14 take 2

Will decided to watch a scary movie last night and I'm not a big fan of watching those when I need to be guaranteed to get some sleep so I had to distract myself. I had some papers and supplies still left out in my studio from working on the challenge card I posted the other day, so I thought I would use those up and make another one. Pretty pleased with it! I seriously LOVE this Star set from PTI!

Here are the challenge deets again...And my 2nd take on the challenge...

So what do ya think? Pretty fun, right? I used a SU backgrounder on the large Plum Pudding piece and sort of mixed and matched stamps from a few PTI sets for this one. Some dots from Polka Dot Basics, the large stars and sentiment from Star Prints, and the small stars from Let Freedom Ring. I admit I didn't use much scarlet jewel, but it's in there! One of the large stars and the "you're my shining" part of the sentiment ;-) I squeezed it in!! And this card is a larger format than I usually work with, but I think I'll have to do it more often! It's a 5.25 in. square card.

That's it for now- I have some more hair flowers to share tomorrow as well as a couple cards I made for an old color challenge that I missed during my crazy summer hiatus :-)

Good thing I already have things done because a busy night ahead for us. I'm working today and then tonight we have Meet the Teacher Night at Cait's school. She is beyond excited to go back and see everybody and find out who all is in her class!

Playing with the sewing machine...

I was playing with my sewing machine this morning and here is a new little something I cooked up. Saw something like this on the web and thought, hey I can do that. So I did a little trial and error and this is my end result. Now I want to make some more in some cuter fabrics to see how those turn out...and to see if I can re-create it ;-) It has an alligator clip on the back but I'm going to play around and make some on ponytail holders and the snap clips too!

By the way, isn't my little model the cutest?!

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge 14

Wow it's been a while since I've been able to participate in a color challenge. Just too busy. I gotta admit, though, that I REALLY needed the alone time in my studio today. We had a crazy busy weekend...or well, I had a crazy busy weekend. I attended a coupon seminar on Saturday morning for a few hours, had to come home and bake like crazy for a donation to the Crisis Ministries soup kitchen, Caitlynn had a friend over, Hayley was attached to my hip all day...then today I had to drop the cupcakes I baked off to a friend who was going over there to volunteer (I baked because I wasn't able to actually go and help out and still wanted to contribute), grab my newspapers, cook a side dish for our squadron picnic, run some other errands, head out to the picnic where we spent 3/4 of our day...and then deal with a very crabby over-tired Hayley and Cait's friend came back over and on and on and on...

SO long story short, I needed some quiet time and I got just that thanks to Dawn McVey's color challenge! Definitely not colors I would generally create with together, but I LOVE how they came together. Makes me so happy when that happens!

Anyway, here is the challenge ...and my card...

Not sure why it's kinda crooked looking in the photo...I promise it's not in real life! I tried a new thing with the ribbon on the card edge and I really like it. Adds just a bit of texture :-).

Hope you all had a great weekend!

What I'm working on...

Just a peek at what I've been up to over this past week.

Found this gem on craigslist for $40. I talked the lady down to $20. And the obsession begins. I seriously can. not. stop. working on this table. I want it DONE so I can have it in my entry way as planned!Here it is after Day 1 of sanding...which was about 4 hours worth of sanding with an orbit sander. We bought a beautiful red mahogany stain for it and some great square brushed nickel knobs. I can not wait to have it finished. I'll be sure to post a picture of the finished product when it's complete, which hopefully will be some time next week. I have a few other things that are in the works now too, so stay tuned...

Life

This summer has flown by. I can't even explain what a whirlwind life has been the past few months.

Been spending lots of quality time with these adorable little people...

Went on a camping trip to Myrtle Beach for a week.

Been spending a lot of time at the pool watching my youngest little peanut do this...

hard to believe that at the beginning of the summer she was scared to even get in the water and now she's jumping off the side.

I've had around 10 kids in my house most days. Took on a few extras for the summer with my daycare. It's been NUTS, but tons of fun. I will not know what to do with myself when they all go back to school and life goes back to "normal". Well yes I do. I'll blog more, scrap more, stamp more, sew more... you get the idea :-)

So that explains my long absence. Thank you to all of you who keep checking in. Sorry for not having more for you to look at! I will be back, I promise! :-)

For now, though, go check the Making Memories Blog. They are doing TONS of giveaways and CHA peeks! :-)

For Today...

Saw this over on Ali Edwards' blog...thought I'd try this method of documentation.

Outside my window... There is a swimming pool waiting to be filled with fresh water. If only the sun would make an appearance.

I am thinking... That I need a bigger vehicle to transport all these kids to the park to run off some of this energy! Life with 5 kids 24/7 is definitely different than life with 2.

I am thankful for... good friends who help me take a break now and then.

From the kitchen... made eggs and sausage for breakfast-HUGE hit as usual.

I am wearing... a yellow tank and khakis with no shoes. My toenails are painted red, which makes me happy.

I am creating... some crayon rolls for my kids to take on our camping trip next month. And probably a few extras to give as gifts and/or sell.

I am going... to have to do some grocery shopping this evening. We are out of milk and running low on juice and chicken.

I am reading... nothing at the moment. I seriously have NO time to do it. I'm lucky that I get to blog hop these days.

I am hoping... that Will's class finishes WAY earlier than 4:30 every day this week.

I am hearing... the girls chatting while they color, and the other group of kids upstairs watching Cinderella.

Around the house... there are legos all over the playroom floor. There is a pile of laundry ready to be washed, another pile ready to be folded and put away. I have literally a million things to do.

One of my favorite things... is that Will finished my blanket yesterday and I love the soft coziness of curling up on the couch with it.

A few plans for the rest of the week... work, try to finish some sewing projects, clean, go to the pool, maybe visit the park, and possibly invite some girlfriends out for coffee or ice cream or something to get out and socialize a bit!

A picture to share... (hasn't been edited yet, but I wanted a recent one and like I said I haven't had much time for extra hobby type stuff here lately...)

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge 9

Ok, so I missed the deadline again. Ugh... life is just too busy these days. But here is my card anyway...