Such is the busy life of a stay at home mom...

AHHHHHH! I cannot believe I haven't written in over a week!  With school ending last week, Zoe's birthday and party and me feeling like a truck hit me, I just didn't have the time. 

So here is a re-cap of what's going on.  Iris is now officially a 3rd grader!  And Zoe is officially a Kindergartner!  Iris was accepted into the REACH program at her school, which is basically for gifted children. (Don't ask me how that happened, I may have street smarts, but books...no way.)  She is really excited, I just hope she keeps up that excitement once she is finally challenged in school!  She will be working on 4th grade work, so it's definitely going to be a whole different ball game. But I am so proud of her, I am one happy momma!

Zoe turned five on May 18th...I can't believe she is going into school next year. I swear it feels like yesterday when we brought her home from the hospital.  She is no longer my helpless little baby! It makes me a little sad, but excited for her future at the same time.  She is smart as a whip, and such a comedian.  I think my biggest fear is that she will end up being the class clown!! :) She had a blast at her birthday party. Even though it was hotter than Hades out, the kids didn't seem to mind a bit. Momma here though....whew...I hate the heat and humidity! Now, can I just say that this child got enough toys to keep 5 of her busy??? My goodness...she needs her own house just to store all of her toys. 

The biggest hit at the party though, was the pinata.  The kids each took turns swinging a stick at this thing and let me tell you, these kids have some serious pent up rage...LOL. The looks on their faces was priceless!  Once the pinata busted open, it was a complete free for all.  Luckily, I put five and a half pounds of candy in that bad boy. So there was plenty to go around. 

Tomorrow I am going to the girls' school for a Kindergarten Readiness seminar.  It claims to give you the tools and tips to make sure your little one is ready for school.  I am really excited and hope that I can come away with some useful information.  I really need to work with Zoe this summer to make sure she is on the up and up.  (fingers crossed triple time!) I will report back my findings, and share some of the tips I get for your own use!

Iris' last day of school was also on Zoe's birthday.  The day before her class had their awards ceremony.  Iris got a "Positive Patriot" award for the second year in a row!  A Positive Patriot is someone who exhibits, throughout the entire year, a positive attitude, helpfulness, etc... Basically someone who sets a good example for other students.  I am so proud of her!! If only she could bring that positivity home with her...(sigh)  

So, now that summer has officially started, so has the fighting, bickering, tattling, and general grumpiness. LOL. It's gonna be a long one....

Speaking of bickering...I must go break up the latest round.  But I promise to get down to business now that the beginning of summer has started.  I have been working hard on some new jewelry and will be posting pics soon.  I will also be having a giveaway in conjunction with my latest jewelry venture. 

Have a WONDERFUL Wednesday everyone, it's hump day!!

Tuesday Fun! - "My Journal" For Kids

Good Day! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, and for all of you moms out there, I hope your Mothers Day was as good as mine was! My hubby treated me to some new shrubs and flowers for the front yard!! I may have worked my behind off on my special day, but it was so much fun I didn't want to stop! The yard looks wonderful now, and that makes me unbelievably happy.  (Major Kudos to my hubby for that!)  Zoe gave me a hand colored rock, and a flower she picked on a walk with her papaw the day before. :)  Iris gave me a framed photo of herself, she picked the frame out all by herself and paid with it with her own money too.  All in all it was a great day, and I am so thankful for what I have.  

Ok, enough gushing!.....

Today's tutorial is a project that I finished months ago, but only came across the other day.  I got the idea from something I had found on the Internet, but didn't want to pay $30 for! 

Basically, this a guided journal.  I made one for both of my girls, and my niece.  I put various fun questions on a page and then a space for the girls to fill in their answers.  I also added a few games, pictures and coloring pages as well.  Let me tell you, the girls LOVED their journals.  I just gave the journals to them yesterday and all three of them immediately started flipping pages and saying things like "Ohhhh I want to start on this one!", "Who wants to play Tic-Tac-Toe with me??".  This would be a great way to keep them busy on a long trip too.  I am actually thinking of putting one together for just that purpose.  Maybe more games? 

I printed all of these on 4x6 plain index cards, but obviously, you can make them any size you wish.  I wanted them to be small enough that they could throw them in their bags (or my purse).

There are tons of pages, as you can see from the above picture.  You could customize this anyway you want to, the possibilities are endless!  Like I said, I am thinking about making a travel one. You could make one that is all story starters, all games, all coloring...whatever you like, or whatever your kids like.  This took me a while to put together, but that was simply because I made it from scratch, and didn't really know what direction I wanted to go with it.  

When you are creating the pages, there is no need to format the page in Word to the size you are printing.  Just make sure when you are getting ready to print, you select the correct paper size.  Word (or whatever processor you are using) will shrink it to size. Also make sure that if you have the option, check "shrink to fit paper size" or something along those lines so that every bit of your page makes it on the smaller one.

When I was finished printing and compiling all of the pages, I simply hole punched  the pages and added metal rings to hold it all together.  Iris commented that she liked the way she could fold the pages underneath one another without bending any of them. (Score one for mom!)

So there you have it, another kid friendly project! You could collaborate with the kiddos ( I wanted mine to be a surprise) and come up with page ideas together. Maybe make a "Mommy and Me" journal? 

Let me know what you come up with! It's hard work, but its so much fun and so rewarding to see the smiles on their faces when you give them their personal journals.

Have a wonderful day everyone, Zoe and I are heading out to get her birthday party goodies.  (Ahhhh, I am so behind on this party stuff. I am usually on top of it! )

Weekend Recap

Whewwww, what a busy weekend!  Hope everyone had a wonderful one, I know I did! 

Saturday was full of sports. First was Zoe's T-ball game, it was my first one since I missed her first one last weekend.  It was SO much fun to watch.  I was cracking up laughing throughout the entire game.  Fighting for the ball, playing in the dirt, throwing the ball to the umpire instead of tagging someone out. It was comical, to say the least.  Zoe had her team pictures that day too, and I cannot wait to see them!  I managed to snag a few pictures for myself to post here.

This is Zoe waiting to get her team pictures taken, she did so good and stayed just like this for a good 10 minutes. That's a lifetime for this little girl!! 

She got to be the "Pitcher's Helper" which put her right where she wanted to be...able to snag a lot of balls hit her way!  She did so good chasing after the balls. Now, if we could only get her to throw them when she got them... :)

I couldn't wait to watch her hit.  We have been practicing with her for weeks now and she's got a pretty good swing, if I do say so myself.  

Since she was the last to bat, she automatically got to run all of the bases.  So, she thinks she hit a home run each time at bat! :) As she rounded the bases, she gave me a huge smile and a wave.  Melted my heart instantly to see her so happy and loving the sport.

One drawback of a 9am game was that the grass was still wet with morning dew. I learned that the hard way when I wore my little cotton slip on tennis shoes. They were soaked before I even got to the field! I absolutely hate wet shoes. 

As you might tell in the picture, the shoes look sort of dark grey. But in reality they are a very light grey. I kept taking them off to sit in the sun for a bit, hoping they would dry, but to no avail. I was mad too, I love these shoes!

Next up was Iris' soccer.  Unfortunately, I missed her first game of the day because it overlapped with Zoe's T-ball, but I did make it to the second one.  She loves playing Soccer and I am so thankful for that.  She is such a girly girl, I was afraid she would avoid sports all together! She made three goals Saturday. One in her first game and two in the second.  Anyone who plays soccer knows how difficult it can be to make one goal, let alone two! 

It was so hot out for the second game, I thought the whole team was going to pass out right there on the field! Poor Iris' face was bright red and she was exhausted.  But, she played right through it.  I could tell by the end of the game though that she was slowing down a bit.  As soon as we got in the car, the AC was promptly put on full blast!  

One thing I realized about taking pictures at Soccer was, they never stand still! It's so hard to take good pictures when they are constantly on the move. The one picture I did get of her standing still, she said to me..."MOM! NOT NOW!!"  :)

So, after all of the games, the girls and I grabbed a healthy lunch at the McDonald's drive through. :)  Later on in the evening, we went down to my brother-in-law's house to watch the Mayweather boxing match.  I tell you what, I would love to see someone finally beat that guy. He is way too cocky.  But, that will probably never happen, because truthfully he is good at what he does. 

I got to see a girlfriend of mine that I hadn't seen since Easter time, and I realized how much I missed her face!  :) So it was good to see her and laugh with her.  The kids had a blast because there were a bunch of kids there to play with. They ended up not getting in to bed until after 1am!  I told Iris, who is my early bird, that she better sleep in.  Apparently, in her world, that means 9am. I swear that kid just can't miss an hour of daylight.  Zoe on the other hand is good for sleeping in.  She didn't end up getting out of bed till around 10:30.  

Sunday was a good day here at the Escue household.  Mike had the girls help him load up grass clippings (with no complaints from the girls! WHHHHAAATT?) and then he took them shopping for a special prize for helping out with no complaints and working so quickly.  After that, we all had lunch at the local Mexican restaurant that we love. Later in the evening, we went to Mike's softball game.  Unfortunately they lost. But, they made a pretty big comeback in the 6th inning. 

All in all, it was a great weekend. I couldn't have asked for a better one. Hope everyone else had as good of a weekend as I did.  Feel free to share any fun stuff you had going on!  

As always...please feel free to email me and PLEASE follow me, by entering your email address over on the right of your screen,  or leave a comment!

Here's to a great week!!

Happy Fibro Friday! (And a bit of thrift shopping too!)

Welcome to my second "Fibro Friday"!  

This week has been so-so for me.  I've had a few good days, and a few bad days. But overall, I'm not complaining!  I received my TENS Unit in the mail yesterday. TENS is an acronym for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation. For those of you that don't know it is or what it does, its a little device that has conductor pad thingy's (yes, that is the technical term for them :) ) that send a low voltage current between pads to stimulate the nerves.  

It's supposed to help with pain basically. Although, when you are using it, it feels like a tiny rubber band being snapped against your skin.  So, I'm a little iffy about the whole thing. Not only the whole rubber band slapping feeling, there are also warnings all over it about where NOT to place the electrodes because of the risk of..ohh...ya know...heart attack. The thought of purposely running an electrical current through my body, low voltage or not, is a little scary for me.

I tried it out for maybe three minutes last night. That was all I could handle after I accidentally turned it all the way to the highest setting and freaked myself out!

Aside from my little mishap last night, the biggest problem I have had this week is my hips.  They ache so bad when I sit for long periods of time. I hate the feeling too. It's almost a ache that feels like it needs to pop pain. Does that make sense?  I've been having trouble sleeping too, but that's nothing new for me. I also found, at the beginning of the week, that I started developing a patch of Eczema on my face, right smack on my chin. (Eczema has been linked to Fibromyalgia, in case you didn't know.) It wasn't the red scaly kind of Eczema, thank goodness, but it was bumpy and itched like crazy! How do I know it was Eczema you ask?  I have suffered from Eczema for years, so I have gotten pretty acquainted with its various forms.  Thankfully, I keep a bottle of Aveeno Eczema lotion on hand at all times. That stuff works wonders on my skin!

Alright, enough about the Fibro for today...it's making my back hurt just thinking about it! On a brighter note, I got to spend the morning with my nephew Alex. Dude is so stinking cute! I have the pleasure of watching him a couple times a month when my sister works at my niece's pre-school. Today was one of those days. Of course I take Zoe with me, and she entertains the heck out of him! She's crazy and that seems to make him extremely happy. :)

He is so special to me, probably in part because I always wanted a boy. (but I completely love my little girls!) Now, "dudeman" was born with a club foot, so he has really been through the ringer getting it corrected.  He was in a full leg cast for several weeks, and now he has these crazy looking boot things that has a bar connecting them. 

But I tell you what, those bars don't keep him from doing anything! He can crawl faster than the wind, and he can roll all over the place.  He definitely doesn't let it keep him down. 

Once my sister got home, we ventured South to my house and picked Iris up from school.  Then we headed out to a new little flea market that opened recently...can anyone say jackpot!  For the most part it was junk, but I did find a few things that were ridiculously cheap.  I came across five vintage tablecloths that were in great condition.  Now, if you like vintage tablecloths like I do, you know how crazy expensive they can be.  I have seen them in upwards of thirty dollars or so.  Well, this thrifty shopper paid a total of $5.50 for all five, together. I couldn't believe my luck!  Two of them are Christmas patterns, and those can go for a good bit of change on Etsy and Ebay.  

My next "treasure" was a vintage 1950's/60's Samsonite travel case.  Now, I just found this sold on Ebay for $15.00...I paid $1.49 for it.  Are you kidding me??? So, yes it is a bit rusty around the metal bits, but that just adds to its charm.  I am debating on what to do with it though. Keep it and use it to store craft supplies, display it around the house or re-sell it.  Knowing me, I will end up keeping it. I hate to give up a good piece.  

My last find was a vintage 1950's Androck flour sifter.  This thing is so cool.  I normally don't like anything with ducks or geese on it, but they just totally fit this piece, and I was in need of a flour sifter.  I found this piece sold on Ebay for up to $16.50 and I paid a whopping...wait for it.... .49 cents for it!

Seriously, I couldn't have gotten any luckier. The vintage fairy was on my side today.  I also came across some vintage magazines (another of my favorites to collect) and a Physics book from 1915. I paid .75 each for those. Not too shabby of a day. 

So, now that I have shared my most recent finds, how about you share some of yours...so I can be completely jealous! Well, I am off to make the kids dinner. (i.e. The Papa Johns delivery guy is here) I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! 

And don't forget, shoot me an email just to say hi,  if you have questions or maybe a suggestion. Comment, comment, comment! :) And I finally added my email subscription thingy, so please subscribe to make sure you know what's going on!

Who Would Have Thunk It Could Work...

Good day readers! Today I am going to walk you through one of the easiest but most fun and kid friendly projects ever. 

**Note: You will start seeing the finished product first, before I go into the step-by-step, so you know what you are going to be looking at! Sorry for the previous tutorials where I didn't do this. But hey, it's a learning process, right?**

I found this project on Pinterest (LOVE that website) a few months back and I have been dying to try it. Finally, this blog gives me a reason to try out all these things I want to do!! You basically grab a canvas, a bottle of Elmer's Glue, and pencil and some paint. Simple. 

What I did next is totally optional, if you would rather free-hand just skip this step.  I drew out the basic picture I wanted to "glue draw" ,with a pencil. I liked doing this so I could see before applying the glue what it would look like.  

Once you have the basic layout, start drawing with glue!  Now, what I did find is that it is best to hold the tip of the bottle directly on the canvas if you want it to match your drawing lines perfectly.  I did not discover this until I was almost done, but I liked the way it turned out anyway, so I didn't bother starting over. 

This is what it looked like when I was done with the glue part of the project.  Now comes the waiting...and more waiting...and even more waiting.  The thicker the glue, the longer it will take to set. Finally after several hours of drying ( I may have over done it, but I wanted to make sure it was really dry. I didn't want the paint to smear the glue!), just start painting until your heart's content!  You could use one color, or you could do a mixture of several colors.  It all depends on the look you are going for.  For purposes of this tutorial, I painted it one color. 

And there you have it, the finished product.  I did learn a few lessons throughout the process. As I mentioned before, keep the tip of the glue bottle against the canvas as you "draw" with it.  I think the next time I do one of these, I am going to make the glue a little heavier to give it even more texture and 3-D appearance.

I hope you enjoy trying this as much as I did.  Please feel free to post your own work, or shoot me an email with questions! Comments are always appreciated so please leave me one!

Until tomorrow, have a great evening!

Tuesdays Rainy Day Tutorial

Man is it raining here! It has been raining off and on all day, along with all evening last night. I love it though!  Truth be told, I prefer the rainy, cool and cloudy days to the hot, humid and miserable ones.  

Since Zoe had me up all night, and I was up early this morning with Iris, I decided to throw together a little hair pin tutorial.  Granted, it is now evening, but I promise I worked on the project at seven this morning. 

This tutorial is really simple (that's the way I like 'em) and really cute.  I am a huge fan of bobby pins, and I have a small stockpile of them all over the house...in my car...in my purse...just about everywhere you can imagine.  So this morning, I pulled a few out and decided to "spruce" them up a bit.  I gathered my supplies, which consisted of: My trusty glue gun, scissors, a few bobby pins and a silver clip, buttons, flowers, game chips and a bit of felt for the backing. 

The first one I made was with a pink plastic flower that had a flat back.  I decided (after the fact and trial and error, truthfully) that I should probably add a bit of felt to the back for some support.  You will see what I mean in just a minute.  What I ended up doing, after finding that trying to apply the felt after attaching the flower was a major PIB (Pain In the Behind), was sliding the felt bit on first, adding the glue and then applying the flower.  Apply a little pressure and voila! You have a pretty little flashy bobby pin!

I tried this on myself, and it looks really cute and dainty...and NO, I am not posting a picture of myself wearing it...I haven't done my hair today...sorry! But trust me when I say, it would be really cute on anyone's "do", but especially in a little girls.

The second clip I made was with the silver clip. I was rummaging through my studio (i.e. my converted garage) looking for bits and baubles and I came across a cute little crocheted flower. Don't ask me where it came from, I have lost track of where anything comes from anymore.  At any rate, instead of collecting dust in my much under used studio, it will now sit pretty in one of my girls hair!

As you can see, I was able to apply the flower and not worry so much about having an issue getting the felt on.  I think after today, I may stick to these types of clips and alligator clips for awhile. :) 

So, So cute! This one turned out to be my favorite of the morning.  I may even have to keep this one from the girls and wear it myself.  

For the third one, I used another crocheted flower, along with a little metal flower embellishment and added it to a bobby pin.  to get the two flowers together, I simply glued them. Easy Peasy!

Ya know, come to think of it now...I think this one might be my favorite.  Its so dainty and...well...just...cute.

This would be really cute for a wedding, or first birthday.

Speaking of first birthdays, this last clip has that in mind. Well, in my mind it did anyway.  Too bad I don't know any little girls turning one! 

I had a random wood game piece with a number one on it. I immediately thought of how cute it would be to do one like this for each birthday year...until they got old enough to to tell you to knock it off anyway. :)

Same principles applied here, I slid the felt between the prongs first (my mind is in such a fog, I literally had to Google "what are those little arms on the bobby pin called?"...Lord help me.) and then applied the glue and finally attached the game piece.  

So all in all, I made four clips this morning. Not too shabby for four hours of sleep and terrible coffee! 

I am having so much fun with this blog so far!  I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it.  Let me know what you think of my ideas and please feel free to post your own work! Have a great evening everyone, I'm off to finish my latest read, The Hollow by Jessica Verday. (Love this book!)

Monday, Monday...(sing along with me!)

If you read my last post, you will know I had a pretty rough weekend where my Fibro is concerned. But, that didn't stop me from spending a few hours at one of my favorite antique malls, Southport Antique Mall.  I swear, I could have spent the night in that place.  I went for a purpose, and lost it about a third of the way through.  I went looking for a First Communion gift for my daughter Iris for the next day. (I know, Mother of the year right here, waiting till the last possible moment.) I ended up leaving with that gift, plus some vintage baseball and basketball cards for my husband (big kid at heart) and a bunch of wishes for a wad of cash to burn.

Since I don't like to give just the typical cliche kinds of gifts on special occasions, I ended up buying my daughter an antique rosary, that is supposedly from the Civil War Era. (making it roughly 150-160 years old!) It really is a pretty piece and she likes it because she knows how much I appreciate old things, and I don't buy them for people who aren't special to me. :)  Tell me what you think about the piece pictured below, is it as old as claimed to be? Either way, she loves it and I do too. The best part, and most important part when dealing with questionable antiques, is that I didn't pay a lot of money for it.

The mass for my daughter's First Communion was really nice. And although I am not a practicing Catholic anymore (12 years in Catholic school was enough for me.), I am happy that she has found something to believe in.  Mass was over an hour and a half long! Luckily the Priest is a funny old guy who cracks jokes and doesn't "preach" too much.  Afterwards we went over to the little parish center for a party and pictures. My daughter Zoe told her sister "You look like you just got married Sissy!". It is true, the whole white long dress and veil really does look wedding-ish. 

Now, mind you, Zoe had a make-up T-ball game (Go White Sox!), and she showed up to the party in her uniform. I don't normally dress her this way, although, she might prefer it. :) 

*As a side note, according to Zoe her team won (they don't keep score) and she hit a home run (impossible). My husband, who coaches the team, did say that Zoe was one of the only players that actually went for the ball when it was hit by the other team! That would explain the grass stains all over her pants I suppose...

Anyway, after a long day of church, party, T-ball and shopping, the girls and I decided to play "Beauty Shop".  I had recently purchased a set of hot rollers (I'm old school) and a curling iron with the hopes that my hair was long enough to curl into soft waves. Sadly, I was wrong. I ended up looking like Shirley Temple.  On a little girl, cute. On a thirty-blah blah blah year old woman, horrifying.  The girls results were so much better than mine, that I had to take a few pictures. Ok, so a few might be a fib...more like fifteen or twenty would be about right. I can't help it though, it's the photographer in me. 

You see what I mean about the Shirley Temple look? On Zoe it's adorable! I love it and so did she. Too bad her hair is so fine still that the curls fell out about an hour later!

Iris' hair is so thick I am jealous. Except for when it comes to brushing it. OUCH.  But it is so beautiful.  Her curls stayed in a bit longer and now I am being told that we should do it every morning before school...yeah, sure. :) 

So far so good for this lovely Monday.  It's getting ready to storm pretty good here so I need to get my jammies on and get a good book started...it's gonna be that kind of evening and I can't wait.