Get Well Sign

A long, long time ago... In a galaxy far, far away... 

I bought these sheets of already cut out letters:

I hope you can see them properly. It was hard to get a really good pic of it without it looking like just a sheet of scrapbook paper, like below: 

But anyway, these sheets were inspiration for the last card/sign I made for my mother-in-law. She had knee replacement surgery and was having a hard time with recovery, so I thought having a card made by Elijah would cheer her up a little. So what I did was get out a white sheet of these letters and his Pip-squeek markers and let him go to town... supervised of course... Cause I was not in the mood to clean up marker off of the table.

Turns out we made into a sort of game. He would pick the color "How 'bout... Green" then I would suggest a letter to color, since I wanted to make sure he colored in all the letters for the phrase I wanted to do. It worked out really well. After he went to bed that night I pulled the letters, gently, out. Originally I was going to do a card, but these letters were way bigger than would allow for a card front, so I improvised. I got out my pastel card stock, picked a color that would go well and used mini glue dots to adhere the letters to the paper. This is the finished product:

That's all for today. I hope everyone has a good day!

Lesson in Patience

So there is this little thing called patience. It's one of the things I struggle with, on a daily basis. This statement might surprise most of you, but it's true. For the most part I have learned how to settle for what I have now and wait for opportunities to present themselves, because I believe that good things come to those who wait. It's not easy, especially when it comes to wanting to buy a house.

I have been casually looking at houses for a few months now to see what the market is like and what we can afford and what we want vs what we can afford. In our county it is really hard to find a nice house in a nice area for the amount of money we want to spend on a mortgage. I haven't been able to find anything just yet... Except for this one house I have been eyeing for a while now. It seems perfect, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, one car garage, fenced in yard, hardwood floors... The kitchen is a little on the small side, but I could live with that or potentially make it bigger or expand it into another room. And did I mention that it's only about 5 minutes walking distance from where we live now?

There are only a few things holding us back from jumping right in and buying it. First, it's $30,000 more (at this point) than we really want to spend on a house, right now. Second, the price goes down about every 2-3 weeks, so we are kind of waiting to see how low the price might go before they put it up for auction. Third, it's a possible short sale, which we are in no position to fund right now. And it's forclosed on, so there is no telling what kind of condition the house is actually in. With all of this in consideration, I'm still keeping my eye on it, but God is giving me a big dose of "be patient" right now and I don't like it, haha.

He even had someone tell me "be patient", in-directly, at church yesterday. The pastor was talking about debt and how society is always telling us that it's ok to be in debt and you need the latest and greatest things, even if you can't afford them. Wow, did that hit home...  Then he said to all the parents "Raise your hand if you've ever not gotten your children something they wanted" Lots of people raised their hands, us included. The point was that God will give you what you want if and when you are suppose to get it, we shouldn't go into debt to get it.

The whole thing about not getting your children something they really wanted reminded me of something we are going through with Elijah. All last year... and even to this day, every time he sees a skateboard at the store he asks to get it. -Every- -time-, it doesn't matter where or when. So every time I keep telling him no, you're too little. In reality it's because I know if he gets the skateboard, even if he could ride on it, he is not coordinated enough to play with it correctly and would most likely get seriously hurt. So to prevent him from pain and suffering and possible hospital visits in the near future, I said no. He wouldn't understand my reasoning if I explained all of that to him, so I left it at "You're too little".

Sounds a lot like God talking to me about the house... He's saying "No, it's not time yet" and still -every- -time- I think about getting a house I'm like, "Now God?". Nope. Like I tell Elijah, "patience is a virtue"... You would think after saying it enough I would take my own advice. Oh well, eventually I'll get a house, just like one day Elijah will be old enough to get a skateboard. It might take $1,000 more times for each of us to ask, but one day it will happen.

This was a pretty boring blog entry, but I thought I would share in case any of you are feeling the same way regarding different issues. I hope everyone has a great day!

Cards... That I forgot to post last year

During my time away from blogging (also known as my, not so wonderful, first trimester) I had made a few cards for family birthdays and one to tell everyone that we were expecting.

I made this one for my SIL, Katie's birthday

I drew the pot by hand and cut it out. The decorations on the pot are rubons and the flowers are stickers that I put on white cardstock to make them thicker and more durable. Add a button and a circle puffy sticker for the flower centers, use white gel pen to make the stems and leaf and it's done.



This was for my BIL, Mark's, birthday.

It's not the prettiest of cards, I fully admit that... and it's hard to read, but it was an experiment of sorts. I think I would like to do another one like this, but have it be easier to read.

And lastly, this is the card I made my in-laws

It's from all the cousins and the, soon to be, newest addition is all the way on the right.

As an update, of sorts, since I don't post about my pregnancy. Yesterday we found out that it's going to be a Caleb... potentially. I was shocked because ever since I found out I was pregnant I had this feeling it was going to be a girl, so that has been my thought all along. Then I find out it's a boy and it's like "Seriously?" If I didn't see if with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. So I am definitely going to be outnumbered in July. Now to finalize a name... Caleb and Matthew are the front-runners for most potential name. The middle name is what's giving us troubles. I would like the middle name to be a family name on both sides. It's a hard chore, but it worked out for Elijah's middle name. *sigh* I guess this nameless little boy will eventually have a name... hopefully it will be before he's born. :-)

Valentine's Day Card and BUTTONS

 Just a quick post to show the card I made for Joe for Valentine's Day.

It's a rather large card, it's just a 8 1/2 x 11 piece of white heavy duty card stock folded in half. The buttons are from bag-o-buttons in various collections. I love me some buttons, so this was the perfect way to use about 1/8 of my collection.

This is my collection without the bigger buttons. I have the bigger ones stored in one of the bag of buttons bags.

This is actually a spice rack that my MIL found on clearance at Target. I just put the spices into individual plastic bags and gave them to my sister (cause I'm not the cooking with spices type of person), rinsed and dried them out then sorted the buttons by color and put them in.

I'm loving that they were organized that way because when I needed a whole bunch of red buttons I just dumped them on a piece of paper and looked at the sizes before forming them on the card.

Thanks for looking!

The Notebook

Unfortunately (or fortunately) this is not a review of the movie/book. This entry is about a notebook Elijah got for his birthday this year. We were in Target one day looking for (cheap) birthday presents for Elijah, so he would have quite a few to open. At this age it's not the amount of money that matters, but the amount of gifts, so we took full advantage of that. He got some stuff from the dollar section... little cars, coloring books and self inking stamp that say "awesome". Then we hit up the clearance section of craft items. Not too much there, except for these cool Cars and Toy Story activity backpacks that come with crayons, stickers, coloring pages, etc.

Right next to the craft aisle is the stationary aisle, so I was browsing there for some things and I came upon this:

A notebook... to be his very own. Since he loves to write in -everyone else's- notebooks, I thought he would love it, but apparently I wasn't realizing that he is only turning 3. We wrapped it up and when he opened it, this is the expression we got.

Nothing. He flipped through the book trying to figure out why it was blank. As he flipped he gave the expression that Joe is imitating in the background (without the smile), about every 30 seconds. He was annoyed... "Was this some sick joke? Why would my parents give me a book with no words or pictures? Very funny, people, very funny..." is what his expression said.

I explained to him what it was for after a few minutes of him scouring the pages for any possible words that might be on it. After he heard, the notebook was promptly put on the floor and he moved onto the next gift. A day or so afterward I re-introduced it to him and he has been drawing/coloring in it ever since.

So if you are looking for something inexpensive to get a 3-5 year old, a notebook is a good way to go... however just make sure the little boy or girl knows what notebooks are used for, first. :-)

DYL - Sick person edition

These past few weeks have been full of sickness. The week before last Elijah had strep throat and he apparently passed some of it on to me. Last week I thought I had caught it, but before it turned horrible in my throat it traveled to my sinuses and became an awful head cold instead. Fun times and 3 days off of work and I was on the mend, kind of. Today is the first day I can actually breathe normally again, so in honor of yuckiness this is a Declare Your Love for things when you are sick.

I would like to declare my love for the...

Vicks Waterless Vaporizer

This thing is the best thing ever for little kids... and adults too. It's completely safe for infants and pregnant women, which is the best part. There is this little square pad you stick inside that is "soaked" in vapor fluid and the fan blows it out into the room (it lasts about 8 hours per pad), so your sinuses are cleared without having to put the Vicks directly onto your body. I also like that it has different settings, so you can set how much vapor is released. We have used ours for over a year and it's still going strong... We just have to remember to buy the refill packs of the pads and we are ready for any sickness that hits... but hopefully that won't be for a long time.

So what do you love when you are sick?

Elijah's Turning Three! Yipee!

Happy Birthday to my little man who is turning three today!

Here he is hanging out with his favorite doggie, at the park.

He has become such a big boy and so helpful too. He is a delight and we love him very much. He's turning into a wonderful young man.

New Years Resolution - In Review

As you might (probably not) remember, I posted our New Years resolutions in this post. Well, I must say after reading over it, we did relatively well. The goal of not eating out at all, of course, failed. However, we have cut back a lot and only eat out once in a while, on weekends mostly. We have figured out cheap and quick dinners and instead of ordering out for pizza, we get frozen instead. So even though we failed I feel like we are slowly getting to where we want to be and hope to continue that this coming year.

My goal to pay more attention to Azalea went well too. I made sure I acknowledged her when she greeted me at the door, each night, and gave her a little pat on the head, if I could. She is the type of dog that likes to be near people, so just letting her sit in the living room with us and watch TV made her happy. On November 1st she was tremendously happy, though, when her favorite person... My brother-in-law, Mike, moved into the basement. I was quickly relieved of my resolution, per her request, and was replaced by him. So until Mike and Reach move out she could really care less if I pay attention to her or not. Oh well...

Elijah's resolution to eat more things could have gone better, but he made a valiant effort. He started eating more fruit over the summer. Apples, Grapes, Strawberries and Blueberries were his favorites. Apples he will still eat in the winter, however the other ones he only likes when they are in season, so I'm guessing he won't be eating them again until next summer. He also ate some other new stuff, but he still isn't eating the same dinner as us, most nights. So we'll see what the new year brings, food wise, for little Elijah.

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All of that leads us to this year. Joe and I have a joint resolution/goal, this year. It is to to really get a hold of our finances. We kind of started in the middle of last year and we are already seeing an improvement. If we continue to do really well this year we should be able to afford a down payment (and mortgage payments) for our own house next year or the year after. Our own house has been a long-term goal for us, so that is definitely motivation to continue doing well with it.

That is all from me today. I hope everyone has a good week and weekend... and year. :-)

Such A Slacker... Merry Christmas, BTW.

I must admit that I have been neglecting this already hardly-ever-posted-in blog. I have a good excuse, I promise.

And here it is:

This little baby has made it hard to even just do the regular household chores and the almost-3-year-old has me tired out by 8pm. Add that to working full time and you get no blog posts for a few months. The baby is due July 23rd. Hopefully I can squeeze in a few blog posts before then. :-)

As for the here and now, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Wall Hangings - A Preview

If you have been following the whole remodeling of Elijah's room, you'll know how I wanted to buy some scrapbook paper to frame instead of buying posters. A few weeks ago I found some at JoAnn Fabrics, it's from DCWV, a stack called "The Grade School Stack".

It was perfect AND 50% off, so I had to get it. It has a "Sesame Street" feel to it with the colors and ABCs and 123s. A few of the pages even have open spots for pictures and journaling, so we could make a simple scrapbook page with the pictures of him with the characters from Sesame Place, if we wanted to.

I think my favorite paper out of the stack is this one though:

It's so fun and colorful. I also love how each picture corresponds with the letter next to it. I actually have already framed the ones I am going to use and Elijah loves this one the best too. He sits there for 20 minutes at a time saying the letters and the corresponding picture. And as much as I hope these will stay up on the wall, after I hang them, I have a feeling little hands will find a way to get them down. But oh well, I guess that's why I thought ahead and bought frames with the glass that is almost like plastic. :-)

I hope to have another entry soon about his finished room. The main thing holding up the "finishness" of it, is that I can't find curtains that I like for a decent price to save my life. So once that is done and I buy the things to hang up his art work, the room will be ready for showing off. So until then...