Quiet Weekend

Theres nothing quite like a nice quiet relaxing weekend. Anthony and the boys are out fishing. Lizzie is visiting the neighbors. *sigh* the house completely to myself, with dinner in the oven. Does it get much better?

Oh how time changes things

I was looking at my last post with the picture of Lizzie and I can't believe how much time has gone by, not to mention how much my kids have changed!

The kids just started school. Ryan is in 3rd grade now and Ben is in 2nd. Lizzie is in preschool and will be starting kindergarten next year. I love waking up to that cool crisp smell in the air, knowing fall is drawing near. I find myself looking forward to the winter months and the holidays.

I am really looking forward to this next year. So many changes in life with a fresh outlook and a new start. I feel like I am reclaiming my life for myself and have never felt so at peace.

Reaching out of my comfort zone

Ive always been confident and comfortable sewing cloth diapers. Im not entirely sure why, maybe because I had a lot of help from friends to guide me along the way? Now I feel I am hitting unchartered waters...reading a REAL pattern! Yikes! Its not near as hard as I assumed it would be, though I am of course using the "kwik sew" and "super easy" patterns.

Im also learning to do applique on shirts. Another new realm for me. Last night, I decided to make Lizzie a new outfit for church. I was surprised at the outcome. It was easier than I thought and little Lizzie just LOVED it! *sigh* she is getting so big...

The Tooth Fairy is M.I.A.!

A few days ago my 6 yr old, Ben, lost one of his teeth. Now this is not the first tooth he has lost, so he knows to the routine. Lose a tooth, put it in a bag, hide it under your pillow, go to sleep, wake up to find money under your pillow. Sounds perfect right? Sure.... unless you have a very tired, forgetful "tooth fairy".

Two mornings in a row a very sad little boy came down stairs to report the tooth fairy had not taken his tooth. Talk about making me feel like a horrible mom!


We decided that it would be best to write the tooth fairy a little note, to let her know where the tooth was. Here is the note Ben wrote, completely on his own. It says "my tooth is under the rite pellow" (he has 2 pillows on his bed).

Now how could any tooth fairy resist that?? So this very tired, very forgetful tooth fairy left him a note along with $3 (nothing like guilt to get you to leave a little extra money eh?) The note read "Dear Ben, thank you for your note. It was very helpful to find your tooth. Sorry I was late. I hope you have fun spending your money. Love The Tooth Fairy.

When Ben woke up that morning he came downstairs absolutely squealing! "Mom, Mom, Mom the tooth fairy left me a NOTE!!!" He was so excited! He is learning how to read, so he was able to read the note himself. He was giggly all day telling everyone how special he was that the tooth fairy took the time to leave a note.

Ahhh I think Ive redeemed myself :)

Last nights project

I decided to make 2 fleece "no-sew" blankets to match our new couches, due to arrive next week (our Christmas present to each other).

It was much faster and easier than I expected.

I took 2 yards of a solid and 2 yards of a printed fleece. I prefer anti-pill but you can use whatever you like. Hint: Best time to get your fleece is when Joanns is having a 50% off sale.

I laid the solid color on the floor first and laid the print on top of it. Make sure the wrong sides of the fabrics are laying together. Cut a 4"x4" square out of each corner.

Cut 1" wide strips into the fleece about 4". After all the strips are cut go back and tie the strips in knots.

Pretty Simple eh?

Waiting for the snow

Why is it, when you have no where to go, nothing to do, and could really use a nice bit of snow to put you in the Christmas mood, snow is no where to be found, regardless of what the weather man says? BUT when you have a fabulous day of shopping planned (that requires you to drive 45 minutes to a nearby town) without kids, husband, and a wallet full of cash it comes in buckets accompanied with icy roads?

Today is the first weekend in a long line of weekends that I have nothing to do but bake Christmas cookies, put up some Christmas decorations and listen to Christmas music. My boys are off at their cousins for the day. My husband has a day planned of working on the paintball course, its just me and little lizzie and not a single snowflake can be found? *sigh*

Well heres to hoping there is a little bit of snow in the rest of the weekends forecast.

Early New Year's Resolution

This year I am starting my New Year's Resolution early. I am going to pick up my blogging again. It has been quite a while since I have posted and so much in life has changed. I find myself looking back over my previous posts in awe and amazement at where I have been, how my life has changed, how much my kids and marriage have grown and how God has been steadfast through it all.

Where in the WORLD have I been????

Ok so many of you have been sending me emails asking me what Im up to...well im about knee deep in all types of fabric! Yup my diapering business is growing in leaps and bounds! I get up around 5 a.m. to sew while the little monsters are all asleep. I join the family for breakfast around 7 and head back to work around 9. I sew pretty much all day with minimal breaks here and there.

It has been so satisfying to create this business. I started from scratch and have learned so much in just the last 6 months. I truly am so thankful to God for giving me this amazing gift (both the business and the talent) There are so many "God Moments" that happen day in and day out.

I will try to post occasionally, but fear I will not be able to keep up, so I thank you all for reading and I will check back once in a while to see whats going on in your blog worlds.

Oh, and if you are slightly curious what it is that I do, you can check out my various cloth diaper websites...

www.cuddlebugcloth.com

www.hyenacart.com/cuddlebugcloth

www.hyenacart.com/granolachicks (scroll down to cuddlebugcloth section)

Round 2, Strike 2

Well Ryan has pretty much completely covered from chicken pox. He went back to school and all is well...Until Ben got his turn. Now, this proves my theory that immunizations are a waste of time, money, and harmful to kids...ok don't get me started on that subject...anyways, Ben got the chicken pox shot and he STILL got chicken pox. He actually got a worse case of them than Ryan. Poor kid. He even has them in his eyes...yuck! So I guess now I just need to wait to see if Lizzie gets 'em, which at this point Im almost positive she will...its just a waiting game at this point.

My first sale

Some of you may not know, but I've started my own Cloth Diapering business. (you can check it out at www.hyenacart.com/cuddlebugcloth).

Anyways, I had my first sale today! Woo Hoo! Actually I sold 4 diapers today. I really did not expect this type of response this fast! Sooo looks like Im going to be sewing my little fingers off tomorrow :)

For all you dieters out there...

After starting a new diet I altered my drive to work to avoid passing my favorite bakery. I accidentally drove by the bakery this morning and as I approached, there in the window were a host of goodies. I felt this was no accident, so I prayed ... "Lord, it's up to You, if You want me to have any of those delicious goodies, create a parking place for me directly in front of the bakery." And sure enough, on the eighth time around the block, there it was! "God is so Good!"

Kinda like being snowed in...but not really..

Thanks to this...I am completely stuck at home...canNOT go anywhere..at. all. not even grocery shopping...




YUP, that would be CHICKEN POX. Ryan started about 8 days ago. Needless to say he is driving me a little nutty being home and bored. Im expecting Lizzie to start any day now. I did not have any intention of immunizing my kids against CP simply because they were claiming it was only 70-80% effective. Somehow Ben managed to get that immunization...so for his sake, hopefully the immunization works.

I will probably be off blogger for a little while until this clears out of my house !! :)

Here Comes The Bride...

Yup, the day finally arrived that my littlest and yet biggest brother Josiah got married to his highschool sweetheart, Chelsea. It was, of course, a beautiful ceremony.





On a side note, my sister and I did our neices hair since she was the flower girl. We managed to get this little 3 1/2 year old to sit still for 2 1/2 hours while we curled, crimped, banded and glued her hair...yup you read right...we GLUED her hair. See those cute adorable little ribbon rosettes in her hair? We couldn't get them to stay on, so we used my handy dandy hot glue gun and glued 'em to her head (with her moms permission of course) I guess they got them out just fine because when I saw her yesterday, she didn't have them in her hair anymore *giggle*





The happily married couple along with my neice Ashley aka the flower girl and my nephew Corban aka ring bearer.



I will post some of their professional pictures at a later date after my brother gets them from their photographer. We took one large family photo that Im hoping turned out great :)

Public Announcement

I haven't had the opportunity to publicly announce this...but...

Im going to be an Aunt. Again. x2.

My sister Anna is due for her first baby in June and my sister-in-law (anthonys sister) is due for her first baby in or around September.

Yay...babies, babies, and more babies.

I can't wait to find out whether they are having boys or girls so I can start buying STUFF ~ yay for shopping!

Let it snow...

Ahh yes, then there was the snow storm we had...ugh! The boys loved it though. It was exciting to them to have snow for Christmas, and it definitely kept them all busy while home on school break.

At least we got only "just enough" snow. We are lucky we live in an area that doesn't get slammed like Denver.

Anyways, heres some pictures of the kids playing in the snow along with their very first "made by themselves" snowman. Lizzie didn't get to go outside to play with them, so she just watched them from the window.