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This week’s craft was not a craft as much as writing. David and I practiced all the words he’s learned to spell in the last few weeks. He wrote each of them 5 times. He was losing his patience towards the end but stuck with it.
He tried to focus hard.
And filled the whole page. Two pages actually.
We need to do this more often and we need to get back into the habit of practicing more words. We both feel lazy about it sometimes.
The path to my house is filled with roses. They are each so large and stunning. So many colors. A wonderful Sunday here. Some scrappy time, some quiet reading time, a delicious and wonderful lunch with my whole family, some more reading, and now a little bit of business. As always I didn’t get all my todos done but I’m ok with that. The very best part of Mom’s day was getting wonderful photos of my family. One of all of us.
And then me with my boys.
And another.
And one of my three boys. The wonderful men in my life.
And another. The loves of my life.
I am a little sad the weekend’s over. But I am in a lot of pain, too. Maybe I’ll just take a sick day tomorrow and actually lie in bed. That would be a novel idea. I have no idea what to do to make my back pain go away. Anyhow. It shall pass. A word for my mom. I love you mom. Over the years, you’ve always loved and supported me wholeheartedly. You’ve always always had my best interest in mind and you were patient and respectful of my choices (even if you didn’t understand them or agree with them.) No child could ask for a better mom. I love, adore and cherish you. With all of my heart and soul. I also wanted to take a moment to thank and acknowledge my amazing sister, my grandmother, my other grandmother (who totally would have called me today. I thought of you so much Omama.), my mother-in-law, my sisters-in-law, and all the amazing moms in my life. And all the people who’ve taken the time to make me feel special in some way or another. Those of you who come to read. I might be just another blog in your surfing but it means a lot to me that you take the time to read my words. Note to Self: On what I want for our family: Over the years, I’ve been through a lot of different feelings about these events. Even about birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas, etc. On one hand I think most of these have become commercialized events and I am not excited about that. On the other hand, I think there’s nothing wrong with taking an occasion to make someone feel special. I want to celebrate life with abandon. I want days to be filled with appreciation and joy. And if there are certain days reserved just for that, I am ok with that. Why not? I want to make cards and banners and celebrations. I don’t care if others think it’s dorky. I think it’s happy. And why not live with joy. Sarcasm is so overrated if you ask me. On expectations: Having said all of this, while I want to encourage my family to play along with me, I also want to live my life with no expectations. I can’t find it now but Gretchen Rubin has this whole thing about gold stars and not looking for them or the one about no calculations and I wholeheartedly believe in it. And when I see myself slipping, I try hard to give myself a talking. The fact is, I chose my husband and I adore him. I chose to be a mother. I chose to stay/work at home and be there with them (which i love love love.) and they owe me nothing. My mom doesn’t owe me anything. No one owes me. I am so thankful for these people in my life. I am so thankful for how much I have. The best part of Mother’s day is getting to wake up and being in the house with the people I love. Knowing that they are in my life. The flowers, the chocolate, presents. Those things are meaningless compared to the love. To life. So, if you’re comparing, I hope you don’t. I hope you realize the amazingness of your life and its gifts. Cause I am working hard to do that over here. To live and love the choices I made. (and if I don’t, I love that I have the freedom to change my choices.) So no expectations here. If I want a special day, I want to be a part of creating it, not expecting it. For those of you who have personal tragedies or stories that keep you from feeling good about today, I hope you take the time to be kind to yourself. To pamper yourself. Don’t wait around for someone to recognize you. Recognize yourself. You’re amazing, just the way you are. I swear. You are. So make sure you are acknowledging that. Today and everyday. (I know it sounds cheesy but it is true. It really is. Let go of the stupid sarcasm and embrace joy and happiness. Life’s so much better when lived with joy.) Three Things I’m Grateful For: Two Things David’s Grateful For: This is with A Million Memories May Kit. Inspired by the Amazing Maggie Holmes. Nathaniel has just started trying to play peek-a-boo. He often misses his eyes but he’s super-cute. I love the photos.
The details:
So I am pretty pleased at the progress of LOAD but it does seem to be sucking all the other creative energy out of me. I have no idea what I did today and here it is 8pm and I haven’t accomplished much. I did take a walk with my family and have a mini-picnic. I read a bit. Oh and I bought a bunch of scrappy stuff. That’s it. Ugh. I will read a bunch more after this and I plan to get organized. Even if I don’t do any of my todos, it’s good to know what they are. David was playing the Wii most of today and this is the best shot he’d give me.
And Nathaniel played.
And laughed when I made noises.
Love my kids. Love my husband who puts up with my crazy. Cause I have so much of it, trust me. Note to Self: Three Things I’m Grateful For: Two Things David’s Grateful For: Another layout with the A Million Memories stunning May kit.
More details:
yey for happy layouts. Journaling is all about how David makes Nathaniel laugh so much and how much we both love doing that. Here’s this week’s item: I’ve been dreaming about this project for a long time. I have this huge wall in my living room that was itching to get filled. I knew I wanted to put a lot of small prints there and I knew they were going to be from etsy but I spent a long time putting it off. When I finally bought all my prints, they then waited another few months for my mom to arrive and help me hang them. I intended to hang them all next to each other but that wasn’t so easy and as they ended up being all over the place, I decided I liked that better so here we are. I couldn’t get a photo without glare as I have so many windows in this room so I got a few closeups and I will list each of the prints. Here’s a faraway shot to give you a sense of the space. There will be a much larger TV coming very soon which is why the left side is open space.
here’s a closer shot of the wall:
When I was trying to decide what to put on here, I wanted all of the images to be happy and full of love. I wanted them to be fun and uplifting. A few months before I bought the rest, I had bought six prints from Kal Barteski whom I adore. Two of them were for this wall. This is one of them:
And the elephant in this photo is the other:
Here are the links to the two prints: Tiny Art 104 and Tiny Art 91 Other pieces you see in the above image are these lovely giraffes, trees one and two(not in this photo) from Stephanie Fizer, Mistletoe kisses, and the awesome boy chairs. After I bought Kal’s prints, I saw Marisa, who is one of my favorite artists, put up this set of postcards and I bought them as soon as they were up. So now I had all the colorful art I wanted. I went looking for some blue and green and quieter images that made me fee happy. I fell in love with all of the trees in Once Upon a Paper but finally settled on this clean, green one.
I bought several postcards, too. One of which was this love one.
I adore angels which is why I bought this top right print called Angels the minute I saw it:
And another one was this little girl (I love this artist.) Another print I don’t have as closeups is My umbrella which has incredible texture. And finally, I have a postcard that says you are so loved in green. Since loved is my word for 2010, I thought it was only fitting. On the opposite wall, I hung this wonderful painting by Picasso that I adore:
And that’s it for the living room. More next week.
It all starts with the morning it seems. I woke up more rested today and that caused most of my day to go better. Amazingly simple and yet it’s something I cannot actually control. Oh well. Life. I took a series of shots of Nathaniel getting up to walk today, I actually took like 12 of them but here’s a small montage.
A typical Nathaniel face. Checking things out.
And here’s a typical David look. Love this boy to bits.
David’s been learning how to ride his scooter. Two days in and he’s already better than I am.
We had some friends late today and one of the women gave Nathaniel some cheerios which he never eats when I give him.
But he didn’t hesitate when she gave him some. And jammed them all in his mouth.
As if he’s never seen them before.
Well, love these boys. I can’t believe a whole week of LOAD is finished and I am still going on. I didn’t think I’d make it this far honestly. My heart just wasn’t really in it even though I thought it would be a neat idea. And now, I have seven layouts every single one of which I absolutely adore. Let’s see if I can keep this going. Still taking it one day at a time. I am also hoping to read some this weekend, paint some, help a few friends with technical stuff, and maybe reach for my art journal which has been neglected a bit. I have a sewing project in mind too. Or and some long-overdue todo items. And the email. oh the email. Note to Self: Three Things I’m Grateful For: Two Things David’s Grateful For: My first layout with the beautiful A Million Memories May Kit. It’s to die for.
More details:
You know I had to have butterflies. It had been too many days without them 🙂 And I finally put up the layout I’d sneaked earlier this week. You can see it here.
Journaling Reads:
I’ve discovered today that I don’t do well during the 4:30-6pm timeslot. No matter what, I get stressed, cranky, tired and overwhelmed. I’ve been suffering from back and jaw ache and I now have allergies again which is causing me to have headaches and means medication and lots of tiredness and crankiness. All in all, not good. But I am still loving doing my layout a day and I’ve just received the May kit from A Million Memories which is full of beautiful October Afternoon which I love so I am really excited to be ripping into it tomorrow. I can tell you without a doubt that my favorite thing in the world is watching my two kids play with each other.
And they both love it too.
I adore them.
With all of my heart.
I love how Nathaniel looks at David and how patient David is with him.
And how he walks him around. (I know this is blurry. I don’t care.)
I adore them. They and my incredible husband are the highlights of any bad day. Of any day. I swear. Even when they frustrate me, my heart swells with love at seeing them. I know I say this every night but I think I am going to head to be early tonight. I can tell I need rest. I just can’t seem to get enough of it. I am really behind in email and I apologize if you’ve sent me mail. I am not ignoring you, I swear. Note to Self: Three Things I’m Grateful For: Two Things David’s Grateful For: And here’s day six. Still enjoying this so much. I can feel it getting stressful but I am trying to remind myself that there’s no medal for doing 31. I will be happy however far this takes me. It’s that many layouts to have done and that many memories preserved.
No butterflies again! The journaling is about how I want Nathaniel to be a less picky eater than his brother and how I started with pasta and how he didn’t much care for it. Happy Thursday! This week’s download is some you themed sayings. Here is what they look like:
You can download it here: You Sayings download. You are welcome to play with these as much as you want and use them anywhere you’d like. You are NOT allowed to sell them ever. You don’t have to but I’d appreciate a link back if you do use them. This is part of a weekly digital download series. They are posted every Thursday. You can find all of the ones that were posted here. If you like my downloads, please click here and give me ideas/requests for 2010. I would like to continue this feature but I am not sure I can come up with enough ideas on my own. |
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