Our Week in Review 2014 ~ 11/23-11/29

Another week has gone.  Much food was consumed during this one.  Thanksgiving was wonderful.  I'm still trying to figure out how it is December 1st already.  :)

{November 23: I made this!}

I was really wracking my brain today to come up with something for this prompt. And then I remembered ... Two Saturday's ago I spent the morning at my church with a group of wonderful women learning how to watercolor. My friend, Sam, is a fabulous watercolor artist and was gracious enough to show us how to do it. We each made a poinsettia book mark to take home. It was a really fun time! And it was great to see how different everyone's painting turned out. 

{November 24: I need to do this}

Today I wrote out a big, long list of things I "need" to do, when God spoke this to my heart.

{November 25: Time}

"STOP!  Hammer time!"  
If you don't get this, check out this video ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIRQf0S3oD0.  :)

{November 26: Wall}

{From the archives as I spent the day preparing for our Thanksgiving celebration}

The kids and I went on a photo walk around the city and had some fun at the "graffiti wall". It is actually an advertisement for our local cable company. As you can see, they were being pretty silly. I wish I could remember what they were doing. 

{November 27: I'm thankful for this ...}

Crazy crew! 

We celebrated Thanksgiving today and had family over to celebrate with us. It was such a great day! Lots of good food, laughter, and even some tears (caused by too much laughter).  Although I think my niece may have cried once or twice for real. She's all good now though. I try to get the kids together for a photo when they are here, which isn't the easiest thing to do. My kids are usually the most difficult. You would think being a photographer's kid, they would know what to do. Look at the camera, smile nice. We get done faster that way. But sometimes I take what I can get. I'm thankful for this opportunity to get together and celebrate family and our many blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

{November 28: Black}

This summer, while on a walk, I came across this little black damselfly that was nice enough to sit still so I could take its picture.

{November 29: So, this happened}

We went on a train ride today for Alex's birthday (which is on December 5). It was the Santa train! Santa got picked up shortly after we left the train station and made his way through each car talking to the kids about Christmas. Surprisingly when I asked the kids if they wanted a picture with Santa, they all stood up and got in the shot. Not a great shot as this was taken with my phone. I had my big camera with me but didn't have it out as I wasn't expecting them to actually want a photo with Santa!   :)

Not a whole lot happened this week.  I opted to stay home from another school consolidation meeting on Monday.  We had our Thanksgiving church service on Tuesday evening.  It was lovely.  Wednesday I cooked and prepped.  I even made a couple birthday cakes since we decided to celebrate my niece Christi's birthday, which was on November 18, and Alex's birthday, which is coming up on December 5, while everyone was here.

Don't you just love their genuine smiles?  :)  Thank you, Pinterest, for the idea.

Thursday we hosted Thanksgiving.  We ate too much.  Laughed a lot.  And played UNO, which has become a tradition when my mom and sister are visiting.

Friday we did nothing, really.  I thought our local light up night was Friday but turns out it was Saturday.  But we went on the train ride on Saturday and didn't make it back in time so we missed it.  Many of my friends shared pictures on Facebook though, so I didn't completely miss it.  :)  We enjoyed the train ride.  Five people squished into two train seats.  Seriously, were people shorter back when trains were used for transportation?  There was about 6 inches between the seats.  And since the train was so full, we couldn't spread out at all.  We still had fun though.  And we think we saw two eagles.  If not eagles, they were some pretty big birds.

Before you go, I need to mention a giveaway that I am having.  Go check it out ...
Awaken Love couples devotional

Thanks for stopping by!

Linking with Tamar.

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday 02.16.14

This week's Scavenger Hunt list was sponsored by me.  And it was a toughie.  Wow!  Why did I pick these categories?!  :)

{camouflaged}

This moth made an appearance in our house earlier this week.  He was hard to see though - camouflaged by the wood in the medicine cabinet.

{nutty}

Nick is so nutty sometimes.  He decided to make supper one night this week.  He was chopping onions and stuffed cotton balls in his nose to keep from crying.

{old style}

We still have this old-style phone in our house.  Just in case the power goes out and we need a phone.  Although with our cell phones, we probably don't really need this one anymore.  I also added some grain to this image to make it look more old style.

{haphazard}

The boys cleaned their room today.  The floor is clean, which you can tell by the haphazard organization of their shelves.  :)

{monochromatic}

The last ruffle scarf I made is a monochromatic blue.  I'm now working on a pastel one for spring.  And then my mom wants a black and gold one like I made my sister for Christmas.  After that, who knows?  :)

Be sure to stop over and visit Ashley for more great Scavenger Hunt photos!

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Our Third Week ~ 2014

Another mostly quiet week happened here.  The kids finally had a normal 5-day school week, with no delays or cancellations.  Yay!  I enjoyed some down time and spent several days in my yoga pants.  Knitting or sorting through pictures.

I did get to do a quick head shot photo session on Tuesday morning after Bible study.  A local author, who also attends Bible study, asked me if I could take some photos for her next book, which is due to come out this summer.  I'm excited to have one of my photos on a book cover!  And I'm looking forward to reading her books.  I bought the first one from her and hope to get it read soon.

Anyway, here are a few photos from last week ...

 

 You saw a sneak peek at the scarf I was knitting in this Scavenger Hunt post.  Well, here is the finished product.  It isn't perfect, but it's not too bad for a first time.  I used big needles and a multicolored yarn so you wouldn't be able to see my mistakes.  :)

 Here is a macro shot of another scarf I knitted.  It is a ruffle scarf made from the Sashay yarn.  I am finding knitting to be quite enjoyable.

 Lunch one day last week.  A spinach base with veggies, chicken, raw almonds, and dried fruit.  I topped it with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing.  YUM!

 Doug took Nick out for a little while to try out the new gun Nick got for Christmas.

 On Saturday as I was cleaning up my office/craft space, I noticed my old, dead Gateway laptop still taking up space.  So I decided it was time to say goodbye and send it off to the laptop cemetery.  But, I wanted to make sure I had cleaned off the hard drive first so I tried firing it up and it worked!  For a little while anyway.  The boys enjoyed playing on abcya.com while it was working.  It stopped working again after a few hours.

 Doug decided to wash down the dining room walls on Saturday.  I guess he didn't have anything better to do.  I wanted to document this momentous occasion with a photograph.  :)

Alex wanted to help his dad with the wall washing, so I gave him a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to work on the scuff marks.  He did a great job!

On a completely unrelated note, this post is going up late in the day because I couldn't get Flickr to let me grab the html code for my photos.  No matter what I tried.  So I just uploaded them straight into my post.  I'm not liking the new Flickr format.  It must be time to find a different photo sharing site.

Thanks for stopping by to see what we've been up to!  Make it a fabulous week!

Linking with Tamar ...

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Project 52 - The End

As hard as it is to believe, 2013 is nearing its end.  Overall it was a pretty good year for us.  My husband got a different job at the company he has been with for 5 1/2 years.  A salary position with an increase in pay and benefits.  He just started it last month so we'll see how it all works out once he gets a few months under his belt.  My photography business is growing.  Referrals are coming in, which is the ultimate compliment.  The kids are all growing and doing well in school.  Keira is getting more opportunities to play her violin, which is becoming a passion of hers.  It is such a blessing to listen to her play.  Despite the fact that Nick isn't crazy about his teacher, he's gotten straight A's so far this year.  He's growing into such a caring, loving young man.  And Alex continues to improve in some subjects he finds challenging.  He's becoming more and more independent, which is bittersweet since he's my baby.

I hope to participate in Ashley's Memories, Dreams, and Reflections later this week, so be sure to check in to see lots of favorite pictures from 2013.  But for now, here are a few from last week ...

My friend, Laura, taught a group of us how to finger crochet scarves.  I really enjoyed doing that, so I looked on YouTube for some videos and taught myself how to knit a ruffle scarf.   Same yarn, different technique.  This is the first I made - for my sister for Christmas.  She loves Pittsburgh's sports teams so black and gold was a perfect color for her.  I have made a few more since then.  It is something I can easily do while I listen to Alex read to me.  That way I'm being productive and not going stir crazy sitting still for so long.  :)

Keira's violin teacher gave her these really cool 3D-like glasses that make our Christmas lights look like stars.  I had Keira hold the glasses up in front of my lens so I could get a shot of our tree.  Cool, huh?

Keira played Lindsey Stirling's What Child Is This on her violin during Christmas Eve service at our church.  As soon as I get it uploaded to YouTube, I will share it.  She did a fabulous job.  Anyway, I had a friend take a few shots of the whole family afterward.

We had a wonderful Christmas, but the pictures are still on my camera.  I have yet to upload them.  I've been working diligently on some other things - decluttering, PTO Treasurer stuff, and editing/printing lots and lots of pictures from 2012.  Yes, I am still behind on that.  But I'm working on it!  I'm almost done with October now.  Thankfully I've been doing a decent job of editing/printing photos from 2013 so there won't be much catching up to do there.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season - Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever it is that you celebrate!  Have a blessed New Year!

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Staff Luncheon Invitations

A good friend of mine is in charge of our PTO's staff luncheon this year.  A day that we set aside to show the teachers, administrators, and staff at our school how much we appreciate them.  She had the idea for a picnic theme and asked for my help with the invitations.  Of course, I went straight to Pinterest to gather some ideas.  (What did we do before Pinterest?  I guess we had to be creative on our own. haha!)  I found this free printable from Hello Lucky and liked the idea. But the card didn't quite work for what we wanted to do.

So I went to work.  Now, I'm not a digital designer.  I think it is a very cool thing and wouldn't mind learning how some day.  But I didn't have time to learn before the invitations needed to be distributed.  So I did my sample the old-fashioned way.

I took a piece of cardstock, adhered a strip of red gingham scrapbook paper to it, and adhered some ant stickers I found at Michael's randomly around the card.  Then I scanned it into my computer, opened the jpeg file in Photoshop Elements, cropped it to the size I needed, and added the text.  Once I was happy with the way it looked, I arranged them 4 per page and printed them.

To make the RSVP cards, I just resized the original scan to about the size of a business card, arranged them to a page (I think I fit 9 per page), and printed them also.

Once they were all printed and cut, we stuffed the brown lunch bags with the cards.  We folded the brown bags to look like envelopes, wrapped some red gingham ribbon around them, added an ant sticker or two, and placed the name tag on the front.



The tags were cut out by my Silhouette Cameo.  This was the first time I tried the print and cut feature.  Now that I have a printer that works, I expect I'll be using that feature over and over again.  It is very cool.

If I'd had more time, I probably would have inked the edges of the tags before adhering them.

(You can see I blanked out some information.  Names, etc.  My friend probably wouldn't be too thrilled to have her information posted to my blog.  And, yes, I know that May 6th is a Monday.  I didn't catch that until after the invitations were distributed.  Ugh.  Thankfully our guests didn't mind our error.)




Then I had this large Ball jar and a spool of the red gingham ribbon that wasn't going to work for the invitations (wired and too wide).  So I wrapped the ribbon around the jar, attached the tag, and placed it in the school office for an easy way to RSVP.

The luncheon is on Thursday.  We will be preparing what food we can tomorrow and the rest Thursday morning.  And we're praying it doesn't rain on our picnic!  Otherwise we will have to move it inside.  Right now there is a 40% chance of rain on Thursday.

We hope the teachers and staff enjoy this special day!


Linking with Kleinworth & Co., Project Alicia, In the Moment with ..., and Live and Love ... Out Loud.

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Project 52 - Week 17

Another busy week has passed.  And another busy week awaits.  What is it about spring that makes my schedule get so filled up?  Today is the first day we have an extra person here with us in the mornings.  I am keeping a boy before school in the mornings until the end of the school year - about 6 weeks.  He's a very quiet, polite boy and seems to get along well with my boys already.

Last week, among other things, I went to Phipps Conservatory with my mom, visited with a friend at Panera, took Nick for his yearly check up, worked on invitations for our school's staff luncheon, had my butterfly photo featured on These Moments, and participated in the 30-Hour Famine that our church's Youth Group was doing.  And, in about hour 26 of fasting, I made cookies (one of my Scavenger Hunt finds) to be enjoyed after the benefit concert.  THAT was tough!  :)  But I'm very glad to have participated.  I will never again complain about having to fast for 12 hours before having blood work done again. :)

Anyway, here are a few photos from last week ...

On Monday my mom and I visited Phipps Conservatory.  We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back.  This is the photo that was featured on These Moments blog.

The boys have been very eager to help out in the kitchen lately.  This particular day Alex was helping me make home made potato chips.

Nick finds the strangest things.  Somewhere he found this HUGE remote control.  He thought we could use it so he brought it home.  I took his picture with it before it got thrown away.  :)  I don't keep other people's trash.

I helped Nick put together his new Star Wars blanket.  Photo by Keira.

These beautiful grape hyacinths are growing in our church's flower bed.

I hadn't photographed the moon in a while so since it was clear the other night, I ventured out.  This was the night after the full moon.

So that is a taste of our week.  I hope to post my Project Life pages tomorrow.  As long as I get time to work on them today.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a great week!  We are expecting a butterfly any day now.  I'm excited to share photos of it with you!

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Throw Pillow Covers

So I told you recently that I've been trying my hand at sewing.  I finally completed some place mats that I started over a year ago.  Then I jumped right into making a stand/case for my Kindle.  I'm now looking into the possibility of making some curtains for our home.  We have blinds up on almost every window but only one has curtains.  And blinds for our big picture window in the living room would cost almost as much as we paid for the window!  Yikes!

In the meantime, I kept seeing tutorials for napkin pillow covers.  They looked easy enough so I thought I'd give them a try.

I went to our local home store and found napkins on clearance for 50 cents each.  I scooped up 3 and a pillow insert for 6 bucks at Walmart and headed home to see what I could come up with.

The middle pillow is the one made with the napkins.  Basically you just leave one napkin whole and cut a second one about 1/3 of the way up.  I had bought the 3rd napkin just in case I messed up.  :)  Lay them right sides together with the hemmed edges inside and sew around all four sides.  (See the second photo in case I just totally confused you.)  Then turn right side out and slip your pillow inside.  

They didn't have a great variety of colors at the home store - lots of solid browns and greens.  And black, which would be a big no no having a golden retriever.  I'd be picking her hair off of them all.the.time.  So since I wasn't really loving their selection, I went to Joann's and bought some home decor fabric.  That fabric was used to make the two flowered covers.

I just cut the fabric to 19 inches square (the pillows are 18 inches), then did the same as I did with the napkins - cutting one side about 1/3 of the way up.  Of course, I had to hem these.

The one thing I learned is that I needed more fabric to overlap.  I really have to tuck to get the opening to close so the pillow insert doesn't show.  But I still like them.  And I could probably use velcro or something to keep them closed.  When I make more, I will remember to overlap the fabric a bit more.

I'm still thinking about what to make next.  I like being crafty!  Maybe I can make some furniture covers for our ugly couch and loveseat.  :)  Although I'd rather just buy new furniture.  Especially since we've never bought new furniture.  Ever.  And our couch is incredibly uncomfortable to sleep on.

Linking with Kleinworth & Co. Your Best Weekly, Project Alicia, In the Moment with ..., NC Sue, and Live and Love ... Out Loud.

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I MADE THIS!

I'm so excited!  I wanted a cover/stand for my Kindle for a while now but couldn't find one that I really loved.  So I did some searching online and found a tutorial to make my own.  And I did!  I actually made one!  A novice sewer ... made a Kindle cover!  I'm so pumped!  It's not perfect, but it is pretty good.

A little self portrait going on there.  :)

I wanted one that would stand up so when I'm reading while eating lunch or trying to view a recipe while cooking, my Kindle would, well, stand up.  Without me trying to prop it up on something and risk it falling over.

The tutorial that I followed was here.  So I won't bother with trying to give instructions because theirs are pretty good.  The only adjustments I made were to make my elastic a bit longer and my fabric a little larger than what the website says.  That gave me more room for error, which I found out the hard way that I needed.  :)  After spending a few hours at a friend's house on Monday doing some sewing and then having it not work.  But that is how we learn most things ... the hard way.

Like last night when I was making Italian bread to go with dinner and I forgot to put the yeast in the bread machine.  And I didn't realize it until it was all done mixing.  I did manage to salvage the bread - just kneaded the yeast in the dough after taking it out of the machine.  And letting it rise for over an hour instead of 30 minutes, which is what it would normally need.  It turned out okay but was much smaller and denser than it should have been had I remembered the yeast.  And it was way more work.  You can bet I'll never forget the yeast again!  :)

Anyway, once I was done with the Kindle cover/stand, I hemmed a pair of Keira's jeans and fixed a zipper on one pair of Alex's jammies.  

I also learned how to change the foot on my sewing machine from the standard one to a zipper one.  And I learned how to do a whip stitch.  I feel so educated now!  :)

I'm going to see what else I can make now.  We still need curtains in our home, so I think I'll try my hand at them.   So many possibilities!  :)

Linking with Gina's Your Best Weekly, In the Moment with Sarah, Project Alicia, and Live and Love ... Out Loud.

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Project 52 - Week 8

Happy Monday!  The sun has been shining here all day and feels wonderful.  I love it!  I spent the morning at a friend's house doing some sewing.  My project ended up not going quite like I'd hoped, so I stopped on the way home to pick up some more fabric.  I will try again with better measurements.  Hoping to have that done to share later this week.

Last week wasn't super eventful, mostly just the routine stuff, but it was a good week.  I completed a sewing project that I started almost a year ago!  The kids and I went for a walk on the bike trail on Thursday after school, but we didn't last long because it was COLD!  Saturday morning I attended our local Praise and Coffee while Doug took Alex to soccer.  I really like his new Monday-through-Friday-daylight-weekends-off schedule.  He can still work some long days and even an occasional weekend, but primarily he's off.  It is nice to be able to plan things again!

Anyway, here's a glimpse at what last week looked like around here ...
(can you say "last week looked like" five times fast?)  :)

Alex brought home this snowman artwork from school.  It is made from glue and shaving cream.  I took a picture of it and threw it away because the stuff was flaking off and getting everywhere.  :)

Speaking of Alex, I bought this hat for him from my friend, Laura, who makes custom hats. He loves it!  And the day I brought it home he just happened to be wearing his favorite sweater with a train on it.

Working on my sewing project.

I spent some time watching the birds that were visiting my feeder and saw this red-winged blackbird for the first time.

Honey is my shadow all day every day when I am home.  When I go do anything, she follows me.  

Keira learned how to do a fishtail braid this week and wanted to practice on me.

Keira also taught me how to do a French braid since I have never quite gotten the hang of it. I think it turned out pretty good for a first try.

Thanks for stopping by!  I look forward to seeing what you were up to last week!

Linking with Gina and Tamar for Project 52.

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Monster Valentines

For some bizarre reason I decided to make the boys' valentines this year.  I guess I was feeling a little ambitious.  I mean, really, store bought ones aren't that much money and take way less time.  But I figured I have this Silhouette ... I may as well put it to use.  And I didn't need to prepare anything for either of their valentine parties this year, so I had time.

I showed Alex a few different ideas and he decided he wanted monster valentines. So I found a few cute monster shapes to download and cut them out on some patterned paper I have had forever.  I cut some card stock down to a small card size (3x4 inches I think) and adhered the monsters.  For some extra fun, I picked up some large wiggle eyes at the craft store instead of using punched circles, which was my first plan.  Then I just drew a mouth with a black marker.

Alex signed them all then I adhered a couple candy bars to the inside.

I found a Monster's Inc. font for free online and downloaded it for the phrase inside.  Printed it on printer paper and adhered to the inside.

As you can see, we went with some unconventional colors for Valentine's Day, but I really like how these turned out.

Easy peasy!  And I feel so crafty!  :)

Now to finish Nick's and help Keira with hers!  (Yes, even 14 year olds can still do valentines - at youth group anyway).

Linking with Gina for Your Best Weekly, 
Project Alicia, Live and Love ... Out Loud, and In The Moment With ... for Wordless Wednesday's

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