Words To Live By

If today was awesome...
HIGH FIVE!
If today could've been better...
TOMORROW IS A NEW DAY!

Happy Monday!

Wordless Wednesday - Hopscotch, Chalk Dust, Word To Yo Muthah

Happy Wednesday!

Mother's Day, Placemats, and Time

I had a good Mother's Day.

Matt let me sleep in.
Griffin told me I could sleep in by running into my room first thing, jumping up and down on the bed

next to me and yelling, "Happy Muvuhs Day, Mommy! You close eyes!".

It was a rambunctious but good start to my day.

I wound up sleeping for another 3 hours after that.

Nice.

 I also had time to make these placemats.

I love them!

I fell in love with this fabric that I got at Patches on Main Street.

I immediately knew I wanted to make placemats with it.

I made a simple 3 layer placemat with two pieces of fabric and a bath towel sandwiched in between.

I just sewed it all together along a binding strip.

I'm not that great with a sewing machine so the seams aren't perfect but it gets the job done.

 He picked "Cat in Hat" as the mat he wanted to use first.

It was a good day.

Nothing special or out of the ordinary.

But so special.

I just wanted some time and I got it.

Time to sleep in.

Time to make the placemats.

Time to do a blog post.

Time to edit pictures.

Just some quiet time.

I think I need more of that.

It makes me a better Mommy.

Happy Monday!

****I am linking up to Life Made Lovely Monday.

I love Heather's blog.

Check it out!****

Happy Mother's Day weekend!

A very happy Mother's Day weekend to all you mothers out there!

The first year Matt and I were married, he made a "Step-Mother's Day" card for me.

He read an article about Step-Mothers being the unsung heroes.

He taped it to the card and embellished all around it with hearts and things.

It was so sweet.

This year I told him what I wanted.

We aren't big on getting gifts for each other but

I wanted a Lisa Leonard necklace.

I love Lisa's work.

Love love love.

 And I luuuuuuurve my necklace!

Isn't the packaging great?

So simple.

Colorful.

 There it is.

Perfect. And a pearl.

So simple and beautiful.

I forgot to take a picture of the back.

There's a little heart soldered on the bottom of the pendant with "xo" stamped on it.

That's one happy Mommy.

Not the best picture of me but hey...

I love my necklace.

I love my life with my family more.

I'm one lucky gal.

:)

Happy Saturday!

Wordless Wednesday - 'Ol Blue Eyes

Happy Wednesday!

Comparison, Ramblings, and Swagger

Comparison is the thief of Joy.

I read that awhile ago and boy has it been on my mind.

I love the blogs that I'm dedicated to reading.

I love the women who write them.

Like her & her & her.

I read their words and they fill me up. I love that.

I love the things I learn from these blogs.

From new recipes to thoughts on parenting to creative projects to internal challenges.

But I also hate how I compare myself.

My little house.

My lack of tons of children running through the house.

Not being a young mom.

Etc.

You get the picture.

When it really started to bother me I thought maybe I shouldn't follow so closely.

But really I just want to teach myself NOT to feel this way.

My life as it is right now is nowhere near what I thought it would be.

But who's is?

 Don't get me wrong now.

There is a great and powerful force of joy and love in my life.

I'm grateful for what I DO have.

Every bit of it.

 I am struggling with this blog at times.

I would love for this blog to be a vehicle to give back to people.

Giveaways, Linkys, creative people meeting other creative people.

But here comes the comparison again.

Who wants to read the ramblings of me?

I only have two children.

Only one lives with me.

I lead a very quiet little life.

I work too much.

 Each week - several times a week - we go for a walk with G and pick out rocks.

Each week we raise the level of the lakes and canals at our house with these rocks.

We watch movies, try to get G to eat something other than carbs, do crafts, & bake.

Who wants to read about that?

The blogs that I love to read have houses FULL of children.

Chaos.

I would love that.

 But I'm going to press on.

I used to journal.

I don't anymore.

This has become my journal of sorts.

I've decided to create an album of this blog every year.

Did you know you can do that?

You can.

Go here to find out.

I want a reminder of the little moments.

I know our life won't be like this forever.

And how easily we forget from year to year.

But I want to remember.

And when we finally DO have more kids, I want to laugh at myself.

I want to reread this post and laugh and laugh about how I once wanted to be surrounded by chaos.

:)

 I'm also going to be a bit more open.

Like using names.

Griffin, Matt, Rachael.

There. Names. For those of you who don't know.

We've been working on skipping.

I'm proud of him!

He's got his right side down pat. The left side just sort of shuffles along.

But hey. He's got swagger to cover it.

I also gave him a hair cut.

See? Exciting stuff going on here.

Happy Monday!

Obligations, Eggs, and Prayer

I apologize for my lack of blogging as of late.

I guess that I can view this busy time as a good thing.

Every single day is so jam packed that something must always be dropped.

It's good to be so busy.

So blessed.

But the things that always wind up getting dropped are the things that really

fill me up.

Like blogging.

And reading my favorite blogs.

And throwing rocks in the lake with G.

And watching movies with Hubs.

Mainly obligations fill my days.

I'm working to change that.

 I hope you all had a good Easter!

Ours was good and bad, as any Holiday is.

The drama, the sweet moments, the appreciation of the day, the frustration, etc.

We dyed Easter Eggs at 9:00pm on Easter Sunday.

I really wanted to dye eggs.

So we made it happen.

 G had fun!

Hubs did not.

G isn't exactly "gentle" with delicate things.

 G has started the "Terrible Twos" a bit late.

He'll be 3 in 3 months.

I understood when G was still learning to string words together why he would be fussy.

He couldn't really communicate his feelings.

But now he knows how to communicate his feelings.

And that's the problem.

He FEELS so much.

Oh the burden of being a little sponge.

The intensity of feeling when you have no concept of time and all you want to do is keep playing

with that toy you found in the store and Mommy says it's time to go.

The intense emotion of

"ALL I WANT TO DO MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD IS

PLAY WITH THAT TOY!!!!".

 But with the sour comes the sweet.

This little guy shows such depth of love.

He wrings my neck with "squeezies" and tells me a secret.

"I lob too, Mommy"

The night before Easter

Hubs and I were trying to recount the Resurrection of Christ to G.

We fumbled. It was funny.

Something along the lines of this...

"Jesus was so cool and people just loved to hang out with Him. He wandered the whole world just making people happy! Isn't that so awesome?!

But there were some people that didn't like Jesus so they killed Him.

But it's okay because on Easter Sunday He rose up up up up into the sky!

Like a rocket.

Or Superman.

And now He lives in Heaven!

Isn't that so cool?!"

*sigh*

You would have had a good laugh at us if you were there.

We did.

:)

But really.

How. Cool. Is. That?

How cool is it that despite my "Terrible THIRTY Twos", God still loves me.

I've been a bit of a mess lately but I'm working on it.

I have a personal relationship with Jesus but I don't often pray as much as I should.

I think of God daily and thank Him for the many blessings in my life

 but I really don't PRAY as much as I should.

 I did yesterday.

Yesterday I got the opportunity to 2nd shoot my first wedding.

What a great thing!

Before leaving the house I looked down at what I had.

And what I didn't have.

I prayed.

"God, I am grateful for this. I am so happy. I will do my very best. But I don't have THINGS.

I don't have all that I need. Lenses, camera bodies, cases, flashes, cards, etc. I don't have THOSE things.

I'll do my best with this. I'm giving the rest to you."

I don't often do that.

You know, "leave it at the foot of the cross", as they say.

Others would call it "the Hows".

Because I burden myself with the falsity that I should be able to do it all myself.

And that somehow I'm a failure that I can't.

I'm working on that. 

I read up on one of my favorite blogs today.

They have 5 kidlets, with one just being adopted a month ago.

Just recently they found out they were pregnant.

They will have 6 kidlets under age 7 in their house soon.

I had to mull that one over in my brain for a sec.

Then it kinda hit me.

If she can do it so can I.

She stays at home but has a boat load of kids.

That's like having a boat load of full time jobs.

I have two full time jobs and one kidlet.

I think we can both do it.

I have confidence.

I have faith.

Happy Saturday!