Where for art thou blog?

Yeah, I've been busy.  Yeah, that sounds good, so I'm going to stick to that excuse!

Not much really has been going on in my neck of the woods.  I do have an exciting post about Brayden's first day of school coming up, as well as the previously mentioned review on Creepy Cute Crochet, as well as a Valentine's themed blog hop sponsored by my friend Jamie at Glitter, Stamps and Paper, Oh My!  I'm also working on a post about making tile coasters.

I whipped up a batch of home made laundry soap and as we speak it is working it's magic on my towels :)  The hubs still thinks I'm nuts as since I don't have a food processor, I grated that bar of Fels Naptha by hand and it took me two days.  I took breaks, I could only stand so much haha.


Word to my momma as she is back in town for the time being.  Yea, she just left only to turn around and come back two weeks later.

I really need to clean my hardwood floors but I find myself watching Aslynn play with Brayden's battleship and Brayden run around with boxes on his feet.

I'll leave you with a few pictures....

He worked on putting them there so diligently

His end result.  We've been working on colors.

Aslynn has embraced her inner 80's child.

My sweet boy on his first day of school.

Wordless Wednesday

Win a Silhouette!

Pop on over to I <3 naptime with Chocolate Sundaes to see how YOU can win your own Silhouette and other goodies.

The Hubs is getting crafty!!

Mwuahahaha!  Oh I have pictures of him using a glue gun!!

But no, seriously, he has taken up the hobby of making Jigs.  You fish with it and they have skirts. A lot of them, I would classify as ugly but with my help, he is bound to make some that I would classify as pretty.

I think he calls these "green pumpkin"

"black/blue"

this name makes me giggle- "ultimate pb&j"

I'm serving as his photographer, lol

I'm really proud of him. 

"Oh Puff"

You could bet money that you would hear that come out of my Grandmother's mouth at least once a day.  It was  her "thing".  She had the same watch with the same leather band for I couldn't tell you how many years.  She always had beer in her antiquated refrigerator in the breezeway.   I wanted that fridge.  It was so awesome.  In that same fridge were cokes galore for her grandchildren.  She had a big barn on her property, which backed up to the Cass River, and inside that barn my Grandfather had his room.  The walls and ceilings were plastered with pin-ups from days gone by.  He was a sailor.  I don't remember him, he passed away when I was 3 and a half.

I remember spending summer days at her house, when we would visit Michigan, sitting under her big tree at the picnic table, vacuuming her cat Boober.  That was one fat cat.  I remember the outhouse building that still stood from when my mom and aunts were little.  Flowers were planted in it now.  I remember in the dining room, on one of her hutches she always had a container of Twizzlers for my cousin Jason and a bowl of Andes mints for me.

It's a davenport not a couch.

I remember that I hadn't been to Michigan since my cousin Jason graduated high school in 1999 I think it was.  She came to see Brayden in 2007 after he was born. He was her first great-grandson and so far her only one. She never physically met Aslynn.  But she always saw plenty of pictures of her.

2009 was the first time I had been back to Michigan in 10 years.  It was to bury one of the greatest people in my life.

My grandmother lived a wonderful life and was blessed in so many ways.  She passed away 2 years exactly today.  We buried her on the 19th.  And I miss her every day.

I love you Grandma!!!

Crocheting saves my sanity

No, really it does.  Don't get me wrong, I love being able to stay at home with my kids.  I love seeing them grow and being able to nurture them.  But some days I'd much rather sit back and watch them grow while crocheting then cleaning the house or doing laundry.  One of these days, if the schools ever open back up, Brayden will be in school two days a week and it will just be me and Little Miss.  And hopefully, on one of those two days, Little Miss will be going to preschool.  So then for the first time since really have children, I will have a day all alone to clean.  But I'm swaying off subject...


Crocheting is my "quiet place" so to speak.  It's when I sign off Facebook and pull up Ravelry and pull up a pattern.

I've been doing good here lately with it in completing the projects that I start.  I have a ton of WIPs that just sit in hibernation haha.

Here's what I've done so far since about December.  It isn't much, but again, remember, I have two preschoolers.

12x12 square I made for an afghan I'm working on

Another 12x12 square I made for the afghan.  This was Jan '11 CAL on Ravelry.

My mother's Christmas present which she has yet to get but knows about.  She requested slippers

Another color set for another blocked afghan.  Colors are Aran(Ivory color), Rouge(a darker coral color) and Fern

Christmas colors!!! Another blocked afghan I have planned.

Wordless Wednesday

My new pretty

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of this beauty

As of right now that bad boy is making it's happy little journey to my house all the way from Thailand.  

You might be wondering why I have an unset stone coming my way and possibly even what is it.

I have high hopes for this stone as my upgrade engagement ring.  No, it isn't a diamond.  That really just isn't how I roll.  Why I love a good sparkle and swoon over diamonds, I'm different.  

My first engagement ring was a 2 carat, trillion cut Pink Sapphire with 3 diamonds flanking each side.  The hubs then felt bad because I didn't have a diamond.  So I got a little antique diamond wedding set.  But I kept going back to the sapphire.

So fast forward to now.  As part of our restrengthening of our marriage he said I could have an upgrade.  Whatever I wanted.  I played with the idea for sometime of an antique setting and fell in love with one actually.  But my mind get floating back to color.  I kept seeing this image of a colored in a diamond halo or legacy setting.  Hubs thought that I would regret not getting a diamond.  I always can get one.  No problem there but it wasn't what I saw.

This bad boy

is a 5.75 carat cushion cut Padaradscha Sapphire.

I love the fact that "Pad" sapphires are various shades of red, orange and pink.  Each pad is different.  The color drew me in.  I kept coming back to it.  I should roughly have this bad boy in my possession in 3 weeks.

I also have my eye on this one if I feel like the size of the Pad is too overbearing.

This is a 3.1 carat cushion cut Pink Sapphire.  

Eeek!!

If any of you know me or even knew me in high school, you know I tend to be a little OCD about planning.

In high school I had a planner and since I essentially had 6 classes, out of 7, that always had assignments those little boxes tend to fill up quickly when you have to write the subject and then of course the assignment.

If you also knew me in high school, you would also know that I had a slight addiction to multicolored gel pens.  I'm talking the kind that you can get with like 50 in a pack that range from neon colors to metallic to sparkles, ect.  Yes.  I had those :)  They made my heart sing.

So of course I had an epiphany.  I'm sure this happened during Organic Chem or Honors English.  Why not make even better use of my addiction.

Thus, each class had it's very own color!  That way all I needed to do was write down the assignment.  I did the same in college when I had to write down my schedule.

ANYWAYS!

I said all of that because I found the greatest thing!  I love planners but the expensive ones that I like are well, just that, EXPENSIVE.  I want one that I can customize.  One that reflects ME.

I was doing my normal blog hopping this morning and stumbled upon this beauty.  Sofia over at Sofia's World just made my year!  I'm so excited to make one of my own but for now I leave you a teaser of her pictures of her planner.

Addiction

That word applies to me.  Yes.  I have an addiction.  No.  It isn't harmful to my health or illegal although I'm sure it could fall under the first one.

What is this addiction you might be wondering.

Recipes and Cookbooks


Yes.  I said Recipes and Cookbooks.

At any given time, you can look in my house and find stacks of cookbooks, old and new, stacks of the little recipes books you get at the store that are for like the crock pot or specifically for Halloween or Christmas.  I also have a spiral notebook with recipes in it.  Stuffed in that notebook is also printed out recipes waiting to be cut and fixed into said notebook.

I also have recipes saved in my bookmarks as well as different websites like Kraft and Betty Crocker.

Earlier this summer I stumbled upon a new website and it just sent my heart into overdrive.

Tastespotting

That website right there is 3000+ pages of user submitted websites with recipes.  I was in Heaven!  To this day I am still going through the pages.  It gets updated every day, countless times.  Right now, I sit at page 822.  One day I might get to the end.  Who knows.

Combine that website with another new love of mine and I could spend all day on there.  But alas I have to do that thing called parenting and make my house look somewhat presentable.  At least as presentable as you could with a 2 year old and a 3 year old.

That other new love is called Evernote.  I think that it was created just for me and this soul purpose.

It also works well when I come across a craft tut that I want to try out or a crochet pattern.

My friend Derek said on Facebook the other day when I admitted that I had a recipe/cookbook problem that admitting that I have a problem is the first step.  Do I want to continue on with the other steps.  Nah.  I kinda like this addiction :)

Besides, it was helpful when I moved back in and we ate a new dish every night that I cooked for a little over a month.

The infamous Mount Vernon and White House Ornaments

Each of these ornaments is hand craft and plated in 24k gold.  The Mount Vernon ornaments are sold each year by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association and help go towards the cost of upkeep for Mount Vernon.  You can read about the Mount Vernon Ladies Association and Mount Vernon itself, here.  The White House ornaments are sold each year by the White House Historical Association.  Each ornament has to do with a specific presidency and something relevant towards that time period.  You can view all of the ornaments that they have put out here.

So with out further adieu.... 

 White House 2010 Ornament

The 2005 White House Ornament

The 2009 White House ornament and by far my favorite one

 The 2008 White House Ornament

Mount Vernon 2008 Ornament

 The 2005 Mount Vernon Ornament

The 2010 White House Ornament

The 2007 White House Ornament

2009 Mount Vernon Ornament

 2000 White House Ornament

And the 2007 Mount Vernon ornament

Ball of emotions, party of 1

It's 8:24pm and I've written names on binders and a backpack of a certain little boy.  My sweet, hyper-active Brayden starts school tomorrow.  And I'm just a ball of emotions.  I know that this time would come eventually but that still doesn't make it any easier.

He's in bed now, resting for that big day.  I'm all nerves and I just know that I will cry tomorrow.  He looks so grown-up with his backpack on.

I'll be most certain to post pictures tomorrow of his first day in school.

Christmas numero dos

After Christmas with the Hub's family, we came home, wrapped the presents that had been previously unwrapped and finally made it to bed after midnight.  We woke up to our white Christmas around 8 and had to then wake our sleeping ones.  And then the carnage began.