5 Minutes of Growing

It's time for another 5 minute Friday... even though today is Monday. This time we're writing about Growing. This is such an appropriate subject to write on in my life right now. Life is changing, things are moving forward and my babies are GROWING. Ashton just turned 8 a couple weeks ago, Angel will be 4 this weekend, and Andrew is going to be a teenager in 3 weeks. WOW. My babies really are not babies. And I feel older. I've been through 6 months of a deployment, single parenting my kids, running a household alone, and learning how to live my day to day life without my husband/partner/best friend by my side. He isn't completely out of the picture of course; we still email and yahoo chat as often as possible, but not having him physically here is quite a growing experience. My children are getting older; changing personalities; learning to deal with life without a Dad around 24/7. Everyday life has been an adventure, a challenge, hard, tough, rewarding... LOOOONG. I'm tired. Growing makes a person tired. There is a real reason why kids who go through growth spurts tend to take longer naps or sleep longer at night. It's EXHAUSTING. But it's worth it. You come out the other end of the growing experience a changed person. Hopefully changed for the better. Hopefully made stronger, more resilient, more sure in yourself and your choices. I really hope the end result of our Growing is all these good things. I really pray that things get better because of our Growing Experiences and things are made stronger. Specifically, I want our relationships to be better and stronger. I want my kids to depend on each other, and us, their parents, more. I want them to realize we've gotten through all this together, we've gotten older, and we are better for it. We just had a great Harry Potter Themed birthday party for Ashton on Friday and this Sunday we'll be having a Princess Tea Party for Angel. Then a couple weeks later it's Andrew's turn to have his first Teenager Party complete with music, food, and friends. Then we start actively preparing for our Soldier  to come home to us again. So much Growing is still left to be done, and yet these events are ushering us into our next steps... I'm scared yet looking forward to these next steps.
I think I've gone over my 5 minutes. Once I started, the words just came and I needed to get them down. I love these 5 minute posts. I'll be back with more.

5 minutes on JOY

I'm trying something new today. It's been a long time since I've posted anything on my blog, and I've felt the urge to just write. No pictures, no plan, just write what I'm thinking and feeling and see what happens. Yesterday I found a blog called The Gypsy Mama and she has a thing that her and several other bloggers do called 5 minute Fridays. I decided to give it a shot. It was pretty much exactly what I was feeling like doing on my blog, and it gave me a direction to write in. Today I'm going to write about JOY.
Joy is a word I've used throughout my life, but I always use it flippantly. I know I've felt true JOY in my life, but I think I take it for granted. I remember the pure JOY I felt when my daughter was born. It was such a difficult, stressful, worrisome pregnancy. I remember the moment I looked down at her, literally seconds after she was born, and she was on the birthing bed and she was ALIVE. She was tiny, reddish, and so perfect. I remember thinking that she was BREATHING on her OWN, and she had a look on her face that said, "How DARE you interrupt my nap!" The JOY I felt at that moment is unexplainable.
There have been other moments of Joy in my life, but I honestly think none can compare to that one. I want nothing but happiness for my children in their lives, and when I can do something for them to bring them Joy, well... I think that is one of my biggest goals as a Mom.
So that's it. My 5 minutes is up. It feels good to have put some words out there, even if they don't make much sense and even if one of them isn't really a word (unexplainable).
I think I'll continue on with my day, and try to find little pieces of JOY. Actually, I just heard some Joy in the other room... My Angel baby is playing with her friend, Maddox, and they are laughing like only 3 year olds can... I love it.
I hope some of you out there read this and want to join in on the 5 Minute Fridays as well. Check out The Gypsy Mama's blog and see what it's all about. I'd love to read about your JOY.

A Thousand Sheets Giveaway

The Amazingly Talented Crafter, Amy Young is giving away a SWEET Candy!

Check out all the details on her blog A Thousand Sheets Of Paper! WOW!

Scenic LONDON

The kids, Nana and I recently went on a trip to London! It was our first tour day in the great city so I started taking some amazing pictures...

These totally cute telephone booths:

 Nana, Ashton and Angel on the Big Bus tour:

 Paddington Station (duh) where the ACTUAL, soon to be internationally famous, teddy bear was found:

 This awesome Arch whose name I have now forgotten:

 Really neat sculpture of a colorful family:

 A Horse's HEAD:

And then!!!! My camera died. YUP. And who forgot to bring the battery charger??? Me of course! So Nana took the rest of the pics, and some are on Facebook, but most are NOT. Maybe next Sunday I'll have them to share with you... Until then, Be blessed and don't forget to charge your cameras!!!

Deployment Chain

I'm back again! Here's an update on our Deployment Countdown Paper Chain. This is the chain in April:

 The Chain in May:

 The Chain on David's Birthday, Today, July 21st:

We love you and miss you David. See you SOON!

I MADE SOMETHING!!!

Hey there Friends! Are any of you still around???  So I haven't been in the mood to craft with my paper products lately AT ALL. But, I have been learning how to sew! I'll have to share some of my creations on another post, but this post is all about The Burtonesque Dolls Challenge! I love The Burtonesque Dolls Blog and even though I haven't been paper crafting, I've still been checking out the blog. They have a challenge going on right now that you can check out HERE. And this is my entry for the challenge:

This is an digi stamp from Bugaboo Stamps. Can you recognize the character? Bugaboo calls him "Spoiled One"! LOL. Well, poor spoiled Draco used the Floo Network and instead of staying in the world of Wizards, landed in the Wonderful World of Wonka! Yup, Draco is in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! I hope you like my card, because I'm quite satisfied with it. After all, I was able to achieve a ruffled ribbon on a card after not creating something for MONTHS. Alrighty then, I'm off for the night. Maybe I'll be posting up something soon... oh yeah, I do have an updated picture of our paper chain...

Until next post, Be blessed!

Deployment

I know I said I was gonna take a break, but I just wanted to share these pics with you all really quick since it is Scenic Sunday. This is our deployment countdown chain in April: 

 And this is our chain today:

Shorter, but still a long way to go....

Break Time

Hey there friends. So, I've been absent from the blog for awhile. Honestly I'm debating on whether or not I want to keep this up. It's not that I don't have time, it's that I'm not making the time and I really don't have the motivation to make it. I am still crafting and creating, but in different forms. I'm learning to sew, organizing my home, purging and packing... And just trying to keep my head above water with all my responsibilities. Add the blog to my list, and it just adds to my feelings of being overwhelmed. I didn't come on here to complain, but I just want to let you all know that I am still around. I'm just going to be MIA until further notice. I hope to get back to a place where I feel like life is in order before I can commit to blogging consistently again. I hope you all understand. Until that time comes, I'm still on Facebook! LOL!

I Made it!-Sacchetto del Vino

Happy Monday Friends! So, I'm learning to sew. I'm learning VERY slowly to sew. I have gone to a sewing club meeting and made this:

It's a wine pouch. It's not the most complicated thing to sew, but I did it! I was so happy that it actually worked out! Here it is again:

 I discovered that day that the presser foot on my sewing machine is missing. It must have gotten lost while I was carrying the machine around to get it to sewing club. So, needless to say, I haven't sewn anything on the machine since. :( I really want to get back to sewing on the machine so I can do more projects! I don't know when that is going to be possible but I do have a couple little things in the works that I am sewing by hand... but you'll have to wait until next week to see those!

Scenic Sunday-Primavera in Italia

Buona Pascua!

That means Happy Easter!

I love Primavera (Spring) in Italia. Here are some pictures of the flora around my house:

OH! I had to throw that picture of Angel Baby in there, just cuz she's so stinkin' cute! Primavera Felice, Amici and have a Buona Pascua as well!

Family Friday-Dentist

Quick Family Friday Post; We went to the dentist in February and Angel had her very first REAL checkup! Here she is in the purple room with the purple NY Monkey:

 She sure was stylin' with those glasses!

Angel Baby did incredibly well at her checkup. I have no worries that the next checkup will be just as easy. You all have a wonderful Friday!

Thrifty Thursday-Stars

Have I mentioned that I love finding treasures at the Thrift Store? Well, I DO! Here are 2 things I've discovered at work!

 

The big star is not a light fixture, but I put it on the light instead of the regular light cover and it looks FANTASTIC. Here is a close up of the candle holder:

That green glass is so pretty when there is a candle lit behind it. Here is a picture of the whole display:

 To the left of the big star are 2 shadow boxes with keys in them. I love keys. Below that is where I hang my purse and a couple of decorative keys. One of the keys is and antique one that I got in Croatia. Below the big star is a faux wine barrel. My husband got that for me on our 10th wedding anniversary. I can put a 5 Liter box of wine in it to serve my wine in vintage-y style! To the right of that is a blue demijohn. I got that from the same winery the barrel came from. it has several wine corks in it with a cupcake-topped wine cork in the opening. Oh, and there is a cool Sugar Skull bracelet around the neck. I'll have to show you a close-up of those next Thursday. Thanks for stopping by again! 

Tidy Tuesday

Warning. This post is FULL of pictures! Because of the amount of pictures, I'll try to minimize the amount of words. So, after deciding to purge, sort, and store my medicines in a place besides my bathroom (see THIS post if you don't know what I'm talking about) I realized that I needed to purge, sort and restore EVERYTHING in my bathroom. And I did!

I have VERY little storage space in my bathroom, so this is an essential thing to do and maintain on a regular basis. Here is my storage shelf before:

 Above the bathroom mirror vanity before:

 EVERYTHING was taken off the shelves and out of the mirror vanity. Here is all is on my dining room table:

 After I saw all the CRAP that I had, I went through everything and threw away expired stuff and purged useless stuff. This is after the sort:

 Everything was sorted into "like items". Here is my basket of electronics:

 My hair stuff:

 My hair products (yes, I have doubles of things, but they go out of stock so often here that I buy multiples when I can):

 Lotions and body sprays (note: I did NOT buy ANY of these, they were ALL given to me! I haven't purchased a lotion in YEARS, lol!):

 Makeup and nail supplies:

 My "paper" products: 

 Other toiletries:

 Pedicure/Manicure stuff (again, ALL of this was given to me):

 And here is my bathroom storage shelf after!

 And my Vanity Mirror after. The white basket holds my hair products and the other one holds my pedicure stuff. The red thing on the right of the mirror is a heart shaped ramekin that I re-purposed to hold q-tips. I used an empty pesto jar to hold our brushes and combs. (BTW, That white basket is driving me nuts! It's too wide to be up there but I haven't found another basket to replace it):

 Sink After. I didn't get a before pic, but trust me, it wasn't this nice looking. I keep my lotion RIGHT THERE so I have no excuse to not use it. Also, I re-purposed that green mason-like jar for our toothbrushes. I love that it matches my mouthwash! lol!

 Top rack of the storage shelf; NAIL STUFF! And since this pic, I've added at least 4 more nail colors... I may have a problem, lol.

 The second rack has my makeup box and the third rack holds my electronics and hair accessories. They are in that white makeup bag right up front:

 Fourth rack are my "paper" products and some "other" stuff including hair dye, extra toothbrushes, etc.

On the bottom shelf is just extra toilet paper rolls and baby wipes. Yes, Angel Baby is potty trained, but she INSISTS on using wipes instead of toilet paper. She's SUCH a princess! 

That's it for this week's Tidy Tuesday. If you've made it all the way through the post, THANK YOU! Now I need to do some more tidying up for next week! See you on Thursday!

I Made It-4 in 1!

Today I want to show you 4, yes FOUR, different things I've made lately. First up, I colored this little digital image from The Greeting Farm for my friend to hang in her house. I wanted to try a technique where I make the image look like a black and white photo, so I looked up a few tutorials on You Tube and grabbed my copic markers and gave it a shot.

 

 Then I mounted it on some patterned paper. My friend will frame it and hang it in her new house in England. They are in the middle of the move right now :( I'm gonna miss her... ANYWAYS...

In other news, the hubby is deployed to Afghanistan right now and I wanted to countdown the days until he gets home, so I made this paper chain.

We remove a link every night before bed. Some links are made from plain white paper. Those links are for special days like Easter, last day of school, birthdays, etc. This way, we have little happy moments to look forward to as well as David coming home to us.

So, to stay busy while time passes, I've been trying to be more crafty. And this includes FOOD! I made a recipe that I've been meaning (since St. Patty's day) to try. These are chocolate Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream frosting!

Yes, there is Guinness Beer in the cake mix, and Bailey's Irish Cream in the Frosting! YUM!

Also, since the cupcakes were NOT made for the kiddos to eat, I made them THIS delicious Strawberry Shortcake!

I didn't make the cake part, but I slopped on the whipped topping and arranged the strawberries all by myself! LOL. It was SO GOOD that it only lasted about 15 minutes. 

So that's it for this post. I hope you liked all 4 of my creations. See you all tomorrow for another Tidy Tuesday post! I'm on a roll! :)

Family Friday with Scenic Sunday

Hey there Friends! I'm combining posts today since I didn't post on Family Friday. Here are some pictures of a little family trip the kids, my friend Devon and I took on Thursday.




You can find more pics over on my Facebook page if you care to check it out. Happy Sunday!