What we're reading

Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems

Mo Willems has a knack for writing children's books that they enjoy reading.

Ethylwolfe has checked out almost all of these books from the library and loves reading them over and over.

Mo uses repetition, inflection, words, and situations that children can understand and think are hilarious.

We always giggle together when we read about the adventures of Gerald and Piggie.  Best friends.  

They are different, have fun, learn lessons of friendship, and are silly.

If you have an early reader, they will love reading these by themselves, and if they are younger, well, they will love listening to you read it to them.

If you haven't read Elephant and Piggie books, then definitely do so!

And the Winner Is.....

Drum Roll Please............

Mommy from Violets Garden,
come on down!

Congratulations!

We must now discuss what you would like your prize to look like and all those fun little details, I can't wait!

Sorry it took me so long to announce the winner, I've been busy

{and I kind of, sort of...forgot}

Thank you to those who signed up, 

I love everything about giveaways!

Paint Your Pot

Two weeks ago, we ventured out with D and her double dose of cuties to a pottery painting studio.  I may or may not have given my friend the guilt trip for not seeing her or her girls since AUGUST.  So she kindly invited us to tag along and enjoy a bit of pottery painting.

The kids had a lot of fun {I did too}.  For the first time since the kids were born, I was able to drive our group around.

{I love having a car that seats 8 people!}

The wait was long to get in, I guess we weren't the only people who decided to spend the day off of school actually doing something.  But we put our names on the waiting list and went to lunch.  The kids didn't mind playing around while we waited.

I gave the camera to the kids and let them go at it with photographing our day.

Enjoy!

Our friend LoLo joined us too!

I loved the wall of colorful tiles!

I think C-Bear and I are two peas in a pod, we could have spent the whole day there painting to our hearts content!

To say he's obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog is an understatement

The finished results!

Sorry girly, chocolate milk and doritos mouth, guess I should have timed this shot better :)

I didn't get to see everyone elses pieces, but I'm sure they were way cute as well!

I made the kids paint bowls because their cereal bowls were broken and they needed new ones.

They made me promise that the next time they go, I will let them pick out their own pieces :)

{But I'll have you know that they LOVE using their own special bowls}

So there was our day, it was fun, can't wait to do it again.  

And D, another 3 months better not pass before we see you and the girls again :)

*The kids took over 100 photos, so this was just a sampling of the many photos*

Flowers and Stuff

It's Tuesday


E's school is having their "friendship feast" today.  I'm annoyed, the teachers are annoyed, half the parents are annoyed.  We were told that there would be no "FF" this year because there was no half day.  Then a few weeks ago, they announced that it would be today.  Why they don't think Thanksgiving is a Holiday, nobody knows.  Why they don't consider their own day of thanksgiving part of celebrating the Holidays...Nobody knows.  But here it is.  They are wasting most of a full day with their feast...oh and a kid in E's class has a birthday thing today....yeah, SO not wasting E's day by sending him.


It's after 9 and the kids are still asleep...Woohoo!  Today is the first day in a long time that I haven't woken up with atleast 1 if not 2 kids in my bed.  I think they wake up when the hubby leaves for work.  I think they were tired.  Especially E.  KennaKat slept through the entire meeting last night on my lap...I enjoyed it.  It's rare that I get to cuddle her for that long, as the kids get older, the cuddle time gets lower :(


So I'm trying to plan a few fun things to do with the kids while E is out of school.  So far I've only got Go to the Library for story time, and build terrariums out of these glass apple juice jars I thought were too awesome to throw away.  I tried to get the supplies yesterday at Lowes and a garden store down across from E's school, but so far my search has been in vane.  I want to get E cool plants like the venus fly trap and a pitcher plant, but so far, no go.  KennaKat wants a flower, any flower, the girl is not picky.  And I think I might get a mini orchid for myself.


Here are the results of my nonproductive Saturday.

These 2 (above and below) will be made into headbands for KennaKat

Don't forget to sign up for the giveaway!

It ends on Friday.

Also, search the web for cool ideas of something you'd like.

I'm always up for a challenge and new ideas!

Alrighty, if I don't go shower now, 

we'll never make it out of the house today.

Have  a lovely day everyone!!

Blurp

Hey look!

I can randomly upload photos again!

I'll take it while I can get it!

I started another blog location yesterday, but I'm not happy with it,

So I'm glad I can upload more photos here for the time being.

Here is KennaKat last week at E's school.

She's mad at me for making her leave.

Even while she's mad, she just looks too adorable to not catch on camera.

{Yep, I'll be that annoying mom that will capture all of my children's emotions, 

thus making them more mad/angry/annoyed at me.  Heehee}

We've got meeting tonight

I'm in an annoyed mood...actually it started to pass when I found out I can upload photos

so hopefully the grumpy side of me is 'no mas!' for today

I love when the meeting schedule gets changed around

Mix it up a bit

Keep me on my toes

I don't really feel like making dinner, it is Monday after all

My attempt at a productive day got squashed like a bug being hit with a newspaper

I'm so tired of washing dishes by hand, it's a never ending cycle that's driving me crazy

I got my first load of laundry started around 4pm; the goal was 8am...

All I really feel like doing is making stuff, 

make make make to my hearts content and not have to clean up the mess.  

*I wish it wasn't so time consuming

*I wish I had an art room 

{so that I could have a place for all of my stuff and not have to clean off the table every time I feel like not having a cluttered living/dining/kitchen area.}

Alright, that was my 10 minutes of blurping for today.

Off to be more productive...

{t'yeah right}

Confession

Confession:

Instead of cleaning and decluttering the house as planned today...

I spent the majority of the afternoon and evening making flowers and listening to music
 :-o

In case you are wondering "where'd all the pictures go"...Well, I have reached my quotimas maximas of uploading pictures to Blogger.  I can either pay $5 for a years worth of uploading to my hearts content or find another Blogging headquarters.  I'm still up in the air on that dilemma.  If you have a blog, who do you use and do you like them?  Is it free {because I'm a cheap-O} And what's the photo upload quota???

This week has gone by pretty quickly.

My life has been really busy lately, so this week, I tried to slow it down.  Since the break-in I've avoided being home like the plague, and it is obvious in the disheveled appearance of the house.

So this week, KennaKat and I stayed home for the majority of the week.  The plan was to clean up and organize, but that didn't quite happen... I had my head buried in a book for most of the time, so the house still looks disheveled, and the few efforts that I made to get ahead of the mess were all for not.

We visited Ethylwolfe's school on Monday.  Did the whole librarian thing, I like it....I always wanted to be a librarian, so helping out once a week and cataloging/organizing/ and helping the kids check books in and out is fulfilling a bit of my childhood dream.

Story time was cancelled on Tuesday.  I really really wanted to be good and visit another story time somewhere else, but I didn't make it out of my pj's until noon.  So then we ran by the library and dropped off the due books and checked out 15 more.

Wednesday we enjoyed the last beautiful day and had pizza for dinner.  Our new phones arrived.  We're trying out straightalk.  It's like the pay as you go plans but better.  Depending on the phone you get you can either be off of Verizon's network or at&t's.  We got the $30 plan...for $30 a month you get 1000 talk minutes, 1000 texts, and 30mb of data.  For $45 you get unlimited everything, including data (you know, internet, all that jazz).  So far, so good.  It's nice to have a cell phone that actually gets reception at our home.  And I kind of like not being constantly aware of every time I get an email.

Hubby wasn't too impressed with the pictures I posted for pizza night, so he made me take better ones :)

Thursday, we went to the meeting, seriously, I think that's the only thing I did other than take E to school and pick him up.  Hubby came home from work early, so for lunch we made pizza :)  Oh and my new boots arrived. I'm so thrilled to have brown leather knee high boots!  I want to wear them every day.  If you care to hear about the demise of my black boots from last winter it is as follows...I'm leaving the hall, trying to make my way through the crowd, when a sister steps back and lands right on my toe with her very pointy metal stilettos...OUCH!  I almost cried...I think my eyes got watery...so anyways, her heel poked a hole in my boot.  I think stilettos should be outlawed, they are dangerous!  So that's the end of the boots.  Hubby thinks we might be able to repair them.  I'm still waiting on that though, I hope he's right, b/c I would hate to have to buy another pair.  I'm not much of a shoe buyer.  I LOVE shoes, but I'm very frugal when it comes to buying them for myself.  Plus, growing up, I always got hand-me-downs from my older sister, I never quite learned the art of breaking in shoes.  To break in a shoe is torture to me.  I don't know how to do it.  My feet always hurt, and I limp around whining.  I've hunted around online for years now trying to find a good pair of brown boots, I think I'll like these, They land just under my knee, and are real leather, and they're brown...those were pretty much my only requirements...oh and they couldn't cost me an arm and a leg.

Today, I loaded up 2 mattresses, 2 boxsprings, 2 headboards and railings, 2 bags of bedding, and a large vase into the back of our new honda pilot.  It was awesome.  I didn't realize I could fit that much stuff back there. :)  Ethylwolfe has a field trip today.  I'm sorry i'm missing it.  In a little bit i'm heading out to the eye dr.  Gotta get my eyes examined and order glasses.  My vision is pretty good, but I've got a bad astigmatism.  Lately I've been getting really bad headaches every day and I know a lot of that comes from straining my eyes while I drive.

This weekend, not too much is going on, and I'm looking forward to that.  Hopefully I'll gain some ground on  this messy house of ours, I just want to throw everything away.  Can I do that?  My hippy/earth loving side is screaming "NO!  reduce, reuse, recycle!" but the lazy side is saying "eh, throw it out, no one will care" I'm looking forward to a hopefully productive day in service tomorrow.  Then after the meeting on 

Sunday, we're going to a surprise party for a sister.  

No names, no details, lest she finds out :)

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Blogiversary Giveaway

Wow, in one week, I will have been blogging for a year! 
I never thought that I'd last a year.

I'll admit it, I've enjoyed the ride.

I like looking back at past posts, it's a nice reminder of what I've done.

{My online Diary if you will}

It surprises me how many things I've forgotten about.

{I'm glad I've recorded them somewhere.}

Good 'ole mommy brain at its finest.

I guess I could admit that I've sidetracked from my original purpose of this blog which was to catalog projects done with the kids.  In fact, I've gotten pretty lazy lately about posting kid related art.  I will try to get better about taking pictures and posting what we've done.  

This blog has become more of my online Diary, as I already stated.   But that's cool, it's my life journey, which includes a nice {odd} variety of topics.

In all honesty, sometimes I think about ending the blog.
For one, it's a time waster.
And I think 'Is it all for not?'
'Do I really want to let just anyone know what's going on in my life so easily?'

For now, I guess the answer is yes, or at least a shoulder shrug.

The plus sides are:
It makes it easy to share pictures of the kids and stuff with family and friends.
It encourages me to keep a journal of what our life has been.
{And I guess this poor memory needs to record things or else I could forget them into the deep abyss that is forever}
And the most enjoyable part is the comments and bits of encouragement from you guys!  {Even when you don't comment on here, but in person you've said, "Hey, I read your blog!" And I'm thinking "Really?  I can't believe people actually read my random rantings.  That's so awesome!" and I blush} Some days I'm having a really terrible, no good, very bad day and your kind words, your encouragement, your love, lift my spirits and make me feel good.  Like a virtual warm cup of chai tea with cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon good.
So thanks!  Thank you very much!


In case you are wondering, here are some of the stats that my blog has accumulated during it's first year:
7,087 pageviews
9 lovely official followers
153 posts {excluding this one, and some of the past that I deleted}
450 comments from you guys!
Top 10 countries who read my blog:
United States
United Kingdom
Russia
Chile
Germany
Latvia
Canada
Pakistan
Congo
Mexico

OK, enough of my ramblings... On to the good stuff!

As you already know, I've been really into flower making lately.

 I even posted a how-to so that you can make your very own.  So now, I'm offering to give you one to celebrate making it through a crazy blogging year together in one piece.  I'll even give you a color choice and a size choice and the choice to make it a brooch or a hair decoration.  We'll discuss all that good stuff after you win.  It's OK if I've already given one to you and it's OK if you've been making your own, free is free, and who's gonna pass on that? ;)

Here's how to enter:

Leave a comment.

Simple right?

Well, for some of you, probably not so much, so if you don't remember, here's how:

click on comment, add your comment, then below that, select to enter your name or be anonymous, just be sure to tell me who you are.

The giveaway will end on my blogiversary which is Friday, November 25th.
I'm excited to see who wins. :)

G'day mates!

We've been photographed!

That's right, you heard me!

We finally, for the first time, have a family portrait!

The other week, my step-sister-in-law, Ariana of Faces in Focus posted a giveaway on her ever adorable blog.  Her theme for her business is "Let me show what your Love looks like...in Focus"  I think it sums up her awesomeness right there!

She's new to the photography biz and I'm proud to say that I've been a fan ever since I heard she was going for it 2 years ago.  It has been fun watching her grow as a photographer and cheering her on.  

The prize was for a free 30 minute photo session for yourself if you nominated someone else to win one.  So, I nominated my loving mother in-law to be the recipient.

  

You can imagine my glee when I found out that I WON!!!  

{I mean, WE won}  

Winning anything is just pure joy, but to win something that you desperately need and want, well, that bumps it up many notches.  And after the break-in and hubby's car dying, we just really needed something great to come our way, and it absolutely did!

Our little family of four cashed in on our prize this past Saturday.

I was nervous...

The only time I've really had my picture taken by someone other than myself was for our wedding...*8 years ago*  I chalk it up to a lot of things, the major one being self-consciousness.  I've always had body image issues, and having two children doesn't really help the equation.  Add procrastination and the ever passing of time... Plus when no one ever really takes your picture and the only ones they do take look horrible, you start to think 'do I deserve having my picture taken?' 'What's wrong with me?' etc etc...

So yeah, the nerves were getting to me, I have anxiety issues... felt like I was going to throw up.  But I tried to remind myself that it was more for getting a good picture of the kids and showing that yes, they do indeed have parents, and so in the end, it didn't matter what we {the parents} looked like.

You can imagine my startle when as we're getting started Ariana looks to me and says that she is going to let the kids play while she takes pictures of the hubby and myself first.  "GAH!"  But I was trying to go with the flow,  play it cool, act cas {casual}, so I agreed.

Our first few poses were a bit tense/awekward, but then I remembered...

{She's a professional, she wants the pictures to look great just as much as I do, and the most important part was to have fun and relax.  And oh yeah, we've been married for 8 years, dated since I was 13, fear of PDA {public displays of affection} shouldn't even exist}  So I took a deep breath and I did it!  I'm so thankful that she suggested it, because hubby and I really needed couple shots and Ariana was great!  She was encouraging, helpful, gave suggestions, walked me through it, and it was fun.  Her husband Brian {who was in our wedding} was there too.  He has become her side-kick and he was there capturing moments and encouraging us right along side her.

It was a lot of fun, and even though the kiddos didn't quite cooperate, the weather was perfect, leaves were on the ground, love was in the air, and it ended all too quickly.

I encourage you to consider Ariana for your future photo taking needs, she's awesome.  Check our her website, she blogged about us!

Also, for those that would like to see the rest of the pictures, check them out { http://www.digiproofs.com/facesinfocusphotography/   Password: Brandie } I am quite pleased with how the pictures turned out.  Thanks Ariana!  I think you've found yourself some repeat customers!

Special Assembly Day

We have had a very busy past few weeks.

I haven't recorded much of any of it, so I will work backwards starting from Sunday.

This past Sunday we had our S.A.D!

It was timely information and I especially appreciated the last talk about comforting others.  The part about comforting the depressed really hit home because I have depression as well as many people that I care about.

Aside from the many bathroom breaks that the kids took {why couldn't they coordinate their timing and WHY couldn't I remember to ask the other if they needed to go while I was taking the one, I have no clue.  But as soon as I got back from taking one, the other needed to go...kinda made me crazy. }  I missed a few talk transitions, which was sad, but the day was a success otherwise.  We missed you Nani and Tricia Jane.  We recognized at least one young girl from our hall who got Baptised!  There were 18 total, and 2,345 in attendance for the morning session, didn't hear how many for the afternoon.

I severely slacked in photo taking, but I took a few at least.  A very few.  Sorry for the blurriness, and fluorescent lighted people.

We bumped into a sweet sister from P&K's French Congregation that I just love

Love that boy

My Guys, love them!
Mmmm mmmm, I could look at that handsome man all day :D

KennaKat was having a "moment" and didn't want her picture taken and hubby couldn't get the camera to work right, so we only got blurry pictures like this...

Look at that gap :)  He makes me grin every time I see it!

Finally got a smile out of her, and it's blurry, grrr

The first of their friends that we bumped into.  Little CH.

2 sweet girls in our hall

KennaKat wasn't the only one having a "moment" before the session started. :)

C, K, and K
Three sweet girls

Every now and then, I caught them holding hands...melts my heart :)

Caught holding hands again :)

Nearing the end of the lunch Break, I realized that I couldn't find Ethylwolfe and his friend was missing too.

After hunting around for 10 minutes and asking everyone I bumped into, I found him at our seats waiting for me to take him to the bathroom.  Thanks for giving me a heart attack son!

After the program, we went out to dinner with our friends L&T and their 3 kids.  Due to the kids being sick and being busy, I hadn't seen L in a few weeks.  It was great catching up and a Great "Special" Day all around.

Hopefully our next SAD will be at our own Assembly Hall.... Hopefully!!!