Things are looking up!

Well, things are looking up a little with my little "angel" of girls I have! They still have their bouts of naughtiness as all kiddos do, but I am trying to handle them a little better. Trying to remind myself that they are only little once and that I need to just loosen up on them. My house will always look cluttered, and there will always be a floor to mop and a load of laundry to do, but hey - that is my duty - I am a mom. God put me on this earth to rear my children and that is part of it! I know God has a great plan for my little girls and I need to just be there for them and love on them. Don't you love how one post can be so drastically different than the last - LOL!

Did my grocery shopping tonight in peace and quiet! I had about $12 worth of cans to put thru that nasty machine, but that was a nice little discount off of my bill. I have figured out that around here you need to go to the grocery store on Wed. nights. The place was a ghost town! I think it is because so many people in this community have church night on Wed. night - we live in a VERY reformed/christian reformed area with a church on nearly every corner! Our kids aren't quite old enough to go on Wed. night yet so we will just enjoy the empty Meijer while we have young kids!

It's been a crazy week - I hope to be able to share why sometime next week - but it has been crazy. A ton of soul searching! No, our house didn't sell yet, but our fliers are going pretty fast. It's amazing how many people look and take fliers and then never call to see the house. I would love to sell our house this spring - it will make life so so busy, but I am itching to start another house again, and clean out all of our stuff!!!

A LO to share. I worked on three LO's this weekend while scrapping with my girlfriends. Two of those LO's were my family christmas party LO's - they were all done using a template by Heather Ann and they all look the same just different pics. I am not even posting them, just will add them to our books! The LO I did finish is of Kyle and his friend Matt up in Drummond Island on their hunting trip last fall. I sent the camera with him and he got some great pictures - he must really love his scrapbooking wife! :)

Credits can be seen here.

I also worked on a LO today with a new kit coming on Fri from one of my designers that I "create" for - can't wait to show that off too! Keep an eye out!

Back to work tomorrow and then going to the hospital to meet my new little nephew - hope it doesn't give me the baby itch!

Have a great day!

Remind me again....

What is it exactly that we are to cherish and savor about motherhood? Now I know that may sound harsh, but honestly, some days I struggle with that and I feel horrible. Am I supposed to cling to the fact that I am awakened three times in the night by a 2 yr. old (almost 3) that knows better? Do I cleave to the fact that I never feel like my cleaning was an accomplishment because it never "looks" clean? Or maybe I am to love the fact that my kids colored all over my cream coffee table. Now don't get me wrong, my kids are my life and I love them to pieces. I think they are so dang cute and funny too at times, but I am not sure I signed up for the aforementioned stuff! Agh, this is my journal so I am just writing what comes out - hope to not be too negative here, but some times life is a bit negative I guess. I read some of you other mom's blogs and you have so much fun with your kiddos and say to cherish it b/c it goes so fast. And I do agree it goes fast, but I can't say that I don't sometimes wish for a clean toy free house. HOrrible I know. I pray everyday that my outlook changes. I need a better direct connect to God I think. I am sure half the problem is my lack of devotions and quiet time! OK - at the bottom I will post a few pictures of my kiddos masterpieces!

Well, tomorrow I do get to go at 12:00 or so over to a local hotel and have a little scrapping overnighter with my girlfriends. I am super excited about that! A much needed break right now for me! Kyle will bring the kiddos swimming on Sun. morning to burn some energy too! Tonight Kyle is going out with the guys so I will be home with the kiddos - maybe I can come up with something fun to do with them. I had a great lunch at a little bakery today here in town that has a GREAT turkey artichoke sandwich - it's a grilled sandwich with sliced turkey meat and some spinach and artichoke on it - mmmm! It was a fun lunch with my mom and my sister Tam. My sister is having her baby next week Thurs too - so excited for that! She is having another little boy, which is much needed in our family b/c so far there is just one boy out of 10 cousins! So Corbin will have a little brother now. We do have little Jacob - our little heavenly nephew, which means there are/were 11 kiddos - 3 of them now boys! Wow - that seemed confusing to me - I hope it wasn't confusing to you guys - LOL! Anyway so that will be the excitement for next week. We are just praying for a healthy happy little baby and that Tam's c-section/surgery goes good!

So sorry that the pics are so bad - I have like the WORST camera on earth - another thing that makes me so upset! Anyway - the first pic is the constant food and milk mess on the floor due to Selah's game of throwing things off of her highchair. Second and third pics are of the table - sorry you can't see them a little better.

I hope you all have a great weekend!!! Thanks for stopping by!

::BEWARE:: Scrapbook Supply Enabling

Just wanted to tip you off to some great stuff that I get to play with this weekend!

Dawn's new stuff found in her store:

And then The Lilypad gals are just whipping up some great stuff! Audrey did an AWESOME kit called Hello Dotty! Her stuff just keeps getting better and better, and this kit is jammed packed!

So head over and check all this fabulous stuff out! Dawn's little kits all have a little special suprise in them too - she is so generous!

TTYS!

Amanda

My Sweet Hubby

Just finished up this LO of my DH. He has just overwhelmed me with sweetness lately. Sat. morning he made me breakfast in bed - an egg in the shape of a heart on a piece of toast with cheese, a little bunch of grapes, sausage, milk and V8. It was so nice because on Sat. he normally goes to breakfast with some guys so I am normally fending for myself and the kiddos while he gets a nice breakfast in a restaurant with no kids! Then Sat. we just hung out until he suprised me with dinner out with some friends. All of the sudden the doorbell rang and it was a babysitter that he set up, and then he took me to one of our friends house that we met up with to go to a VERY nice dinnner out. We went to a hibachi steak place where they cook right at your table. I got the filet mignon and chicken combo - OMG was it delicious! He didn't stop there either! Yesterday he set the table and when I sat down in front of my plate there was a little conversation heart that said "I love U" on it. How sweet! Now I have to end this sweet paragraph with a shame on me part b/c I never do these sweet things for him. How horrible am I? I need to show him some more love this week and sometime set up something sweet for him!

Not a very big week, except for the fact that Sat. night I get a little scrap night out - overnighter with my housewives friends! I cannot wait! We are just doing a very small little quant get together - should be good times and an opportunity to get a lot of scrapping done!

Have a great Day - I am off to make some cheesy chicken rice bake for dinner!

a LO, and my kids habits lately

This is a LO I did as a scraplift challenge from the website designed by Susan aka Pachimac called Lifts with a Twist. I have never actually joined the challenge although I have the blog on my FEEDS links so I get an update whenever a new challenge goes up and I love keeping up with it! Great eye digital eye candy! I also have seen many of the girls' lifts in the various galleries and decided that they all looked great so I immediately played along! The kit I used is by Audrey Neal called Her Way - it is new and she has a girl pack and a boy pack called His Way - very cute stuff! Audrey sells at the Lilypad! Full credits for this LO can be seen here.

The boat show last night was somewhat dissapointing. There were not many HUGE boats - like the fun ones to look thru. Most of them were quite small and just boring. I mean they are the kind we would buy, but honestly you go to those shows to dream about life on the yachts and stuff. It seems like each year we go it is smaller and less exciting. Dinner was fabulous though - we ate at a great restaurant called Bull's Head and we had spinach artichoke dip as an appetizer and I had a pesto chicken pasta dish. After the boat show we went to Cracker Barrel for what we thought was going to be dessert and my pregnant sister started craving the egg dish she always gets there, and then we all decided on misc. breakfast meals - although Kyle somehow got a kiddie burger meal. BTW - we all got the kiddie meals and they are perfect size for a snack and they let anyone get them!!! So we had to laugh a little about the fact that we went in for dessert and came out full on breakfast! Date nights - I love the spontenaity of them!

So Braelyn's newest and greatest habit is always wanting her PJ's on. She wears them all day if we are staying in, and if we go somewhere it is a fight to get her in clothes. Once I finally do we leave the house and the minute we come back from running errands or whatever she runs to her room and changes into her PJ's. I think it is so funny and I do not fight it at all - I do roll my eyes sometimes however! It's pretty cool though that she pretty much dresses and undresses herself (although the shirt and pants aren't always on the right way or are inside out :) On a different note, when I signed Braelyn up for three-school I signed her up as Braelyn not Braelynn. I took the n off of the end of her name - LOL! I know that may sound weird, but we always wondered why we put two "n's" on the end anyway. Plus people always pronounce her name as two sylables - like Brae - lynn. It is not a big deal and it really doesn't bother me much, but it is pronounced Braelyn - like all together. So I think without the additional n on the end it will come out of people (namely teacher's) mouths easier. So she is Braelyn and I am trying to write it that way to get in the habit! Bonus for her it is on less letter she will have to write out.

Selah's newest habit is throwing her sippy cup on the floor. Now this little habit is not quite as cute to me as Braelyn's habit of wearing PJ's. PJ's are harmless and they don't involve me really. The throwing of the sippy cup involves me immensely! You see, I have a wood laminate floor and it is just the wrong shade for any type of spill, leak, dog tongue mark. I mean it shows EVERYTHING. And then add to that the fact that I have a LOT of wood - like I HATE cleaning it all. I don't mind general house cleaning duties and I tend to believe that I do a fairly decent job of keeping a tidy house, except for the fact that my wood floors NEVER look nice! If I mop them right now within 3 hours they look horrid. This is in a large part due to Selah's latest antics! So this leads me to thinking about inventing something that makes it not possible to throw a sippy cup. Hmmm...I might have to sit down with my brother to figure out how we can become millionairres by inventing another kid item! Selah is really getting so big though. She says quite a few words now! She says hot, ball, dada, mama, NO (shocking - that might be due to the fact that I tell her no all the time when she is about to throw the sippy cup). She said thank you a couple times too! I cannot wait until she is talking like Ainsley - her little cousin - it is so cute to hear little kiddos talking in full sentences.

Cleaning is going great. I have tackled 4 loads of laundry, vaccuumed all carpet (except the bonus room and stairs), cleaned our bedroom and masterbath, and I even wiped down some walls of little finger prints and spills. Tonight/tomorrow will be spent cleaning the other 2 bathrooms, vaccuuming and mopping that horrible wood, and I am sure a few other little things here and there. I am hoping to enlist hubby to help on the wood floor task - ugh - I am alreay dreading it! Just wanted to take a little break here and document my kiddos habits so I don't forget them - I have taken a few pics too but haven't loaded them onto the computer yet.

You all have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Just a short post

Just a short little post here today. Nothing big going on over here, just normal everyday stuff. Tonight Kyle and I are going with my sister and her husband to a Boat Show in the next city over. We will do a nice dinner out there and just scope out some of the new cool boats that are out there. We do not have a boat (well, my hubby does have an aluminum fishing boat - LOL), and I don't really ever want one. My husband would love to be a boating family, and we do live like 10 minutes from Lake Michigan, so in theory it sounds great. Me personally I am all about the camping - a little more space, a little more comfortable - I think you can use a camper more. Have I convinced you yet, because i have not convinced my hubby yet - LOL. Anyway, so we are going to dream at the boat show tonight.


As for the weekend, there are really no plans. I really need to clean the house and maybe I can convince hubby to either help or to take the kiddos away making the job easier, we'll see. I did finish up a LO that I will hopefully have time to post tomorrow. I used Audrey Neal's Her Way kit that she put up this week at the Lilypad. I am so fortunate to be on some great creative teams, and I try my hardest to do my part for them! Anyway - I can't post it on here yet b/c I am writing from work briefly.


Anyway - have a great day everyone!

S.W.A.K.

Happy Valentines Day everyone! I hope your day has started out fabulous and I hope you have gotten lots of hugs and kisses already today! My DH left a sweet sweet letter this morning - 2 little pages - I will for sure be making a LO of it so that some day our kids and grandkids will be able to see how romantic their father and grandfather is/was! I need to make him a little card again with his three valentines on the front like I did last year - he just might be getting it late - LOL! I have to head into work this afternoon so the day will be busy for me! Tonight we are having a yummy dinner here of a roasted chicken, dinner rolls, some veggies, and maybe a drink or two!

It is still absolutely freezing here - below zero temps last night, but the sun is out so it does look beautiful out! I can't wait for spring though just to open windows here and kick all the sickies out of everyone's houses! There is just so much sickness going around in our community - yuck!

So, in the digi world there are quite a few sales going on! Dawn has some valentines goodies on sale over at her boutique. The little glitter goodie I made above is made with Dawn's stuff! I also got an email from ScrapArtist too about a sale. That is all I can think of off the top of my head, but I am sure there are more! I am almost finished with a LO I worked a bit on yesterday, but not finished enough to post or show! I did a LO as a challenge over at the Lifts with a Twists site - loved Dani's original LO and all the LO's that people have been doing for it - they all pop out at me in the gallery! I will be sure to show it off soon!

OK - so again, Happy Valentines day - I wish you all a little bit of love today!

{S.W.A.K.}

MandaKay

Selah got her cake!!!

So this weekend was pretty quiet, but I found success in have a little tiny party for Selah! She got to eat her cake!!! And boy did she ever LOVE it! It was the cutest and funniest thing I have ever seen! She had no hesitation at all! Here are some fun pictures!

If there is one thing I hate about blogger, it is the way the posts and pictures always show up all eskew! Anyway - here are the untouched pictures. She pounded that whole piece of yummy cake - didn't leave one stinkin piece - LOL!

Day off tomorrow - gotta clean a bit and maybe scrap a LO or two! No big plans for Valentines Day - we don't really celebrate it much b/c it is a hallmark holiday. Braelynn isn't in school yet so there is no hype with her either! Maybe I will make some heart shaped jello jigglers.

BTW - I did get Braelynn into the mornings I wanted for three-school!!! I waited in line for 4 hours, but I got the schedule I needed due to days I work! So all systems are a go for Braelynn to start school this fall - wow - that is so crazy!

OK - I am finishing up watching the 2-hour "24" show tonight - phenomenal show!

Just some new LO's

Credits can be seen here in my DST gallery! Had a lot of fun creating these LO's in the last week or so!

We are going to have a fairly laid back weekend here. Tonight we are going to a chili dinner with my husband's sister's family at our local highschool. Tomorrow during nap time I am going over to a neighbor's house and I am going to help two girls learn some of the skills of Photoshop and digital scrapping! Then at night we are going to head out to Toys-R-Us (about a 45 min. drive) and Selah is going to get a few new toys as birthday gifts and then conveniently Krispy Kreme is right next door!!! I am sure we will do dinner also at a nice kid friendly restaurant! Sunday is always kind of busy with all the church activities in the morning and lunch and all that good stuff. This sunday though for lunch it should be just us - Kyle's parents are gone and my parents will just be getting back.

Hope you all have a nice weekend!

Everyday Life around here

I need a break. I think I need to gather my digi glas and do the hotel thing in a few weekends! I am not sure why I feel overwhelmed but I do! Just one of those feelings we all get as mom's I guess. Anyway - life really is pretty good here.


So everyone but our family is going somewhere warm this time of year. We are having negative degree days here with windchill - finally schools are back in today and we are seeing a bit of sun!


Tomorrow I go to sign Braelynn up for Three-school. That is crazy to me! I cannot believe she will start school this fall! I am so excited. The process is to sign your kids up is a little insane. I am going to our local school at 3:30 tomorrow and sign up doesn't start until 7:00pm! Luckily I will be sitting and waiting with some friends, but talk about boredom! I will for sure be taking my new Simple Scrapbooks mag I got! Braelynn is getting signed up at our Christian School here and she will do hopefully a Tue./Fri. morning schedule since those are the days I don't work!

So my daughter Selah still hasn't had her 1 year old birthday party yet. :( I am getting so upset about it - I have a ton of presents from everyone, but I don't feel like she should open them without a party. I was going to make a delicious cake and the party got reschedules like 3 times due to her and Braelynn's sicknesses. So there is not party setup for now - b/c everyone is either out of town or going out of town. So the poor second child is getting a bum deal! (she turned 1 on the 19th of Jan.) When I have a party I am heading right over to buy some scrapping stuff from Kate Hadfield at Lilypad - her birthday little pack is so cute!

OK - so I am working half day today - this afternoon and will be busy all day tomorrow - so maybe I will check back in on Fri.! Have a great Wednesday!

New Store Opening!!!

In case you all haven't heard Miss HuniBuni has opened her own shop again!!! After taking some time off for some family issues she is back and better than ever! This LO was done with goodies from Dawn's new store:

Everything in this LO is by Dawn except for the ribbon tag which is by Amy Martin and the word Princess which is by Shabby Princess! Dawn does an amazing job on her glitters - they are so completely real looking and she is always coming up with new little shapes and ideas to make glittered! So run and check out her store HERE!!!

Well, on the home front news not a whole lot going on! We have been hit here in MI with a blizzard so we have been stuck in the house for the last 24 hours. All churches are closed today and police are urging people to stay home and watch the Superbowl! We will be staying home only because we are all recovering from the flu here. YUCK. I can only say that I wished that I was dead about 36 hours ago - told my hubby to just put me out of my misery - LOL. It was so horrible, but things are looking up now! So we might try to get out and go to lunch only because I need to get out of this house and have some good food.

A CONTEST!!!

OK - digi gals - here is a contest you will not want to miss out on! Here are the details!

Do you love word art? Would you love a chance to have your favorite quotes turned into great handwritten word art just for you? Then read on!!!!!!

beginning: Friday, Feb. 2

ending: Tuesday, Feb. 13 (12:00 CST)

winners announced: Wednesday, Feb. 14

To enter: Create a layout using a quote from one of Audrey's Wordart packs (any pack, any quote). Post your layout to any gallery and add your link to the comments section on Audrey's blog. You may enter as many times as you wish, but each layout has to use a different quote. Layouts may be any size and may use any other designer's work that you wish. Audrey's creative team will judge the entries.

Prizes:

1st place: a $15.00 gift certificate to Audrey's store and your own personalized word art pack, containing 6 quotes of your choice

2nd place: a $10.00 gift certificate to Audrey's store

3rd place: a $5.00 gift certficate to Audrey's store

Make sure to link your designs to Audrey's blog entry entitled "it's contest time!"(http://audreyneal.com/blog/?p=19)

So - hurry - what are you waiting for - this is like the easiest and best contest out there!!! I always told my sister Shawn that she needed to sell word art - because I have always felt there was not enough wordart in the digital scrapping world - well now I have it!!!

So everyone have a great weekend - we seem to be on the mend over here finally! I think we will have a low key weekend here though!