Villere House Halloween Blog Tour & Giveaway

While I might be a book junkie I’m not exactly a book snob. If you’ve been following along on my book challenge then you’ll know that I’ll give most books a chance, and a book has to be really bad for me to give it less than 3 stars. I figure if a book is good enough to get published it deserves at least 2, and if I can finish it then it deserves 3. Of course now that people can self-publish so much more easily I should change that, but then again, most of my books are from my library, and they don’t carry many self-published books.

When a friend of mine, Laura, mentioned that the authors of Villere House were looking for some bloggers to read the book, review it, and blog about it, my interest was sparked. I don’t do many reviews, despite getting emailed to on a regular basis, but the synopsis sparked my interest and sounded like something I would enjoy, so I decided to do it. And in case that wasn’t clear enough – yes, I was given this book for the purpose of reading, reviewing, and blogging.

Project Life Update

I am so hopelessly very, very, very behind on my Project Life pages.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I always say I’m behind. You, dear reader, probably just know to expect it by now. However, I believe I’m behind even for me. Lets see, the last week I finished was week 30. We are now on week 42 I think.

I take heart in the fact though that I’m nowhere near behind as it seems from my blog, which is just today getting updated to week 20.

The next free weekend I get I’ve really got to spend knocking out several weeks at a time again. (Which, as you know, is what I normally do anyway.) Or I could just start on them now… but I don’t know… I think I might want to do anything but that at the moment. Like clean. Or fold clothes. Catching up on 12 weeks just seems daunting.

But I’ll do it. I will make it through this year dangitall.

Now, enjoy these pages and let me know, if you’re doing Project Life, are you all caught up, or are you behind too?

Wordless Wednesday

*Gasp* Did I really go black and white this week? I know. I’m shocked too.

Give a mom a webcam.

Each month I make a new scrapbook page all about the things that I love about the month. And, well, I need a new photo of just me for the page. Those are the rules.

I didn’t light a candle at 7 PM.

Tuesday was one of the hardest days of the year for me  - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness day. It’s the day that people all over the world use to recognize their grief and love for the babies that they have lost. This covers miscarriages, infant loss, and stillbirths. And one thing that people do is at 7 PM (their own time) all over the world they light a candle so that it is a wave of light.

But I didn’t light a candle.

It’s not that I’ve never had a loss. I have. But I still didn’t light a candle at 7 PM.

Bella’s Fall 2013 Hat (Wordless-ish Wednesday)

Bella gets a new hat every fall. This year she wanted a long, squishy, warm hat. (Her words) So, I made her a long, squishy, warm hat. Keep reading for directions.

Our Life in Crafts–October Pt. 1

In case you were unaware – Bella is a crafting fiend. No really. The girl absolutely loves to get her craft on. I decided that once or twice a month I would post and share our crafts that we have done each moth, along with some very basic steps on how you can do them as well. A lot of them are pretty basic and can be done with stuff you already have around the house, and some I got from Pinterest. Now, they aren’t all Halloween (or even fall) themed, but most are, and the others could probably be mixed up some to make them fall themed.

New Releases–October 12

I have several things to get done today – including a few more scrapbook pages, some laundry, and countless knitting and crocheting projects that need to get done as they are Christmas presents. Instead of my usual break down of each product, I’ll just link the product to where you can buy it, and then show you my pages with them.

Sharing–Not quite what I meant.

I’ve been working on Mason and sharing. His version of sharing is usually – here, I don’t want this anymore, you take it now and I’ll take what you have. Or it’s I’m going to stick my face right in your face and yell at you until you give me what you have that I want. OR it’s no, this is mine, you can’t have it ever and if you take it I will lay on the floor and scream until you give it back to me or I forget that it exists.

Ah, one and half year olds, so much fun.

Zach stayed home from school sick today (though I slightly doubt his level of sickness…) which made Mason happier than all get out. His “Acky” is his favorite person in the whole wide world. When Mason got up from his nap he did what he always does – he nursed for a good twenty-thirty minutes. About 15 minutes into his breastfeeding session Zach came in to the living room to wax on about how bored he was. Mason noticed the introduction of his favorite person to the room so he popped up and started yelling “Acky! Acky!” After Zach acknowledged him Mason started calling for him again while signing milk over and over. And just in case Zach didn’t get what Mason was hinting at, Mason would yell and sign, then latch on, then pat my chest, call Zach again, and sign again.

Zach finally did in fact catch on to what his brother was wanting. He gave a big sigh, rolled his eyes, and said “No Mason, I don’t want a boob.” It was at this point Mason decided that he actually didn’t want one either, got off my lap, and went to get on to the couch next to his brother.

That lasted a whole 5 minutes before he decided, no, he really did want to nurse after all, not sit on the couch with Zach.

Wordless Wednesday

Ryan has vitiligo. If you want to learn more about it, click here.

Project Life pages with an art journal twist.

How ironic. I take time off from the blog to relax and give some thought into reorganizing it and planning more for it and what is the first thing I do in my return… a post that doesn’t go with the calendar I mapped out. (Yesterday’s Edit like this…. doesn’t count since it was planned a bit back and scheduled.) Of course, you the reader, don’t know the new schedule of posts, so I’m just ratting myself out, but I just thought it was a funny tidbit to share.

I’m part of a digital Project Life group on Facebook and a question was asked about how to create Project Life pages that had a strong art journal feel, but were still noticeably Project Life. The question was asked with this page linked as an example: mumkaa_’s Project Life::week11 on Flickr. Now, I don’t necessarily consider myself to be an expert on Project Life or art journal pages, but I am really good with messy pages. If you’ve ever seen my Project Life spreads you’re probably aware that they are very simple with more of a focus on photos and journaling and color, the pages generally don’t have a ton of extra stuff on them. However, if you’ve ever followed my regular scrapbooking pages you would know that messy pages and I go way back.

Edit like this…

Edit like this… is a set of simple picture only photo editing tutorials. If you need something more clearly explained, or you have a question feel free to comment with it. I used Photoshop CS3 to complete this edit.

Yoo-hoo!

Ryan on the mind.

Ryan has been occupying a lot of mind lately so I thought I would do a post dedicated just to the dude.

"OK! I brushed my teeth! Only, well, I couldn't find my toothbrush so I used my finger. But that's OK to do."

New Releases–September 7th

This week I got so many pages done. Seriously. The image shows seven but… I got NINE done, and that’s not counting the five weeks of Project Life pages I did. But honestly there were so many amazing products to work this week that it was so easy to get swept away and lose so much time in Photoshop. Make sure you stop by Sweet Shoppe and check out this week’s new releases to see the ones that I didn’t get around to using.

Life in details: Playing in the hose

Let him sleep.

I’m not going to lie, or feel any guilt or shame in admitting this:

Mason still sleeps in my bed. Not only does he still sleep in my bed, he’s almost 18 months old and he still doesn’t even pretend to sleep through the night.

I don’t mind. I feel deep down that as long as he wakes to nurse at night, and as long as he feels he needs me, that we are doing the right thing and that he is exactly where he belongs. The few times that he has slept through the night (in his pack-n-play right next to my bed) I never sleep well. I’m up all night checking on him or waiting for him to wake up.

I know bed sharing and co-sleeping isn’t for everyone, but it’s always been the way our kiddos have slept as babies before they would start sleeping through the night. And up until Mason it wasn’t any big deal. With the big boys it was just me and them, and then with Bella, and Mason at first, it was us and them. I’m pretty sure John enjoys snuggly baby loves more than me – this is probably because they aren’t trying to latch on to him when they snuggle him.

New Releases–August 30th

Sweet Shoppe has a whole ton of awesome new releases this week! But here are some looks at the three products that I worked with this week by Sugarplum Paperie, Mari Koegelenberg, Lauren Grier, Studio Basic, and Darcy Baldwin.

To my sons.

This week there has been a lot of hoopla over the whole Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke performance on the MTV VMAs. Most of it was directed to Miley since she’s been a public figure since she was a child and in most of our eyes, she is still that child. A few days later people woke up a little and remembered, oh yeah, there was a grown-*** man on that stage with her whose only outrage after the fact was that her performance completely eclipsed his in the press. There was a blog post almost immediately after the performance from a mom to her daughter about not following in Miley’s footsteps. My first thought after reading it was “Well, what about me? What am I supposed to tell my three sons about living in a world where there will be girls like that?!” Then there was this blog post from a man to his son about Robin Thicke, and I felt better.

Edit like this…

Edit like this… is a set of simple picture only photo editing tutorials. If you need something more clearly explained, or you have a question feel free to comment with it. I used Photoshop CS3 to complete this edit.

Seven ten to seven fifteen.

Who would have ever thought that a five minute window would become so precious to me? Since giving up smoking I have realized that there isn’t really much you can do in five minutes to justify being alone for those few minutes. I used to have several kid-free five minute breaks during the day… and that didn’t even count the lovely 60 – 90 minute quiet time I got while children napped. I used to spend nap time outside, with a book, and would just sit and read and smoke. Ah… those were the good days.

Life in details: Toddle Finger Painting

Back to School - 2013

The dudes, off to fourth and second grade.

They get to walk half way to school on their own this year. (There’s a way too busy crossing they have to make to go the whole way alone.)

And, since the chick didn’t make it into the county PreK or the one at the boys’ school -

Cause a chick has to get her learning on to get ready to go to kindergarten next year.

World Breastfeeding Week Wrap Up

This is late because we had that whole pesky internet or electricity situation again last week, and well, electricity won. I made a tough case for the internet, then I remembered it would be useless to me without electricity to power my Wi-Fi stuff.

I mean really there isn’t too much to tell. I pushed breastfeeding down everyone’s throats so often my husband started joking about it. However, after breastfeeding 3 kids a combined 34 months my husband actually JUST that week learned that a baby latching on to a boob is called… latching on. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard him use that phrase since this month started. Also, all my posting about it to Facebook – including several pictures – made my cousin comfortable enough to breastfeed in front of my mother and I when she came by last Friday.

I got mine and Mason’s breastfeeding portrait from the Big Latch On.

I am seriously beyond in love with this picture. I wish I had one from each of the kids.

Big Latch On–Memphis

I had big huge plans to take lots of photos Saturday at the Big Latch On, but then well, Mason had other plans.

The poor dude was just so darn tired! We woke up early so we could get everyone ready out the door on time, and the boys dropped off at my mom’s, and then make the drive in to Memphis. Plus, the event took place right smack in the middle of his nap time. All he wanted to do was nurse and go to sleep, but I kept making him wait so that he wouldn’t fall asleep and then not be nursing during the actual time he needed to be latched on. About 5 minutes before I went ahead and let him start and then he didn’t stop until like 20 minutes later – long after all the other babies were done. We did get some pictures taken of us, but I haven’t seen those or gotten them yet. Maybe if the photographer OKs it I’ll share them when I do.

I’m passionate about breastfeeding for my daughter.

It wasn’t until after I started regularly getting online, sometime between the birth of Zach and having Ryan, that I realized that some people can be rather vocal against breastfeeding. I remember at the time wondering, “why? how?” Roughly eight years later and I still just sit and wonder at the negative reactions.

I guess I have my mother to thank. She breastfed us, she was open about it. We grew up on stories about silly or annoying things that we would do while nursing. She gave us bottles and formula too (well, I believe only one of us got formula). But when I got pregnant with Zach we never had discussions about formula or bottles. We had discussions about breastfeeding and pumping. I sort of thought everyone was like that.

Wordless Wednesday–Breastfeeding

In honor of today being the start of World Breastfeed Week I thought I’d take today to share some of my favorite photos from our breastfeeding experience.

That digital washi tape tutorial

I know, I promised it like a week ago, but then, you know, life happened. It just has the habit of doing that you know.

Anyway, enjoy!

Project Life–Weeks 7-11

Note to everyone – I am still doing my project life. I mean I’m way behind (duh). I just finished my pages for the first week of June. BUT. I am not quitting! Anyway, here are the next set of pages because I, um, forgot I was sharing them on my blog until I redid the “Found on the Blog” page.

Edit like this…

Edit like this… is a set of simple picture only photo editing tutorials. If you need something more clearly explained, or you have a question feel free to comment with it. I used Photoshop CS3 to complete this edit.

2013 Book Challenge–I finally hit 50 books!

In celebration of finally, finally, finally making it to 50 books on my 2013 Reading Challenge (my goal is to read 100) I thought I’d share a little post about books! I’m going to say a little bit about each of my favorite books I’ve read so far. Enjoy!

the only order those are in is alphabetical

A close up on my shadows.

When it comes to scrapbooking I spend a lot of time and thought on my shadows. It gets kind of weird obsess-y. Anyway… I spend a lot of time on them. I want them to look as near perfect as I can get them. Mind you, they aren’t perfect, but, if I may so, they are pretty dang good. Converting my layouts to web size I think sometimes takes all that hard work that I did, and it kind of tones it down.

I decided, earlier today, to participate in one of my first challenges at Two Peas in a Bucket – mind you – Two Peas is a primarily paper store and gallery. I am not a paper scrapbooker. BUT. My goal is to make my digital pages look as realistic as possible. So, it seemed like a good idea.

My page for their 213 in 2013: Me - May 8:

(for a full credit list see here: http://scrapstacks.com/scrap/66408)

We’re going to grow some veggies.

Last year we went all out and bought the Jiffy Professional Greenhouse Kit and planted pumpkins, squash, okra, carrots, and um, something else. We got all organic seeds and the big boys and I spent an evening getting it all set up. Then we babied it, and watched it, and watered it, and followed the directions to a tee.

Then we noticed the only thing that survived and prospered to planting time was the squash and pumpkins. But that was fine – we could live with that. Then we got these nasty black caterpillars that came and ate all our poor baby plants. To put it mildly, we weren’t too happy with how our little foray into gardening went, and it just reminded us why the only plants we have are our hardy bushes and azaleas out in our front bed.

A few weeks ago Bella found some seed packets that somehow ended up in one of the drawers in the kids’ dresser and ever since she has been begging us to plant them and make a vegetable garden. It’s all the girl talked about for days and days. But we really didn’t want to spend a ton of money on it again in case those nasty caterpillars came back. We had just finished a large container of eggs and it just so happened to be a biodegradable container – so we picked up some dirt this weekend and decided to plant us some veggies.

Our life in black and white.

If you know anything about me and my photo editing preferences you know this – I’m not a fan of making my photos black and white. I can love to death someone else’s black and white photos, but when it comes to my own, eh… not so much.

Then last night while I was laying in bed, it came to me.

Just call me Eeyore.

I feel like everyday lately has just been bad, and I’m getting just so, so, so tired of it. I'm not depressed, so no worries there. It just seems sort of like life is just ganging up against us.

It seems like every time that we make a step or two into improving things in our life a few new things pop up. They might not be big things, but when they jump out all together at us it just seems like so much. And it makes staying happy and positive so hard sometimes.

I know I seem to only be posting woe-is-me stuff lately, but I’ve just been feeling all woe-is-me lately, so I can’t help it. But I promise tomorrow will just be happy. I have some mighty cute, sweet, and funny zoo pictures to share.

Lets look at it this way.

I see people *coughmomscough* constantly arguing and nitpicking each other to death about different parenting choices.

“You’re wrong! You’re wrong! And you’re a horrible person! Here facts!! (insert link) See how wrong and horrible you are!”
”No! You’re wrong! You’re not just wrong, you’re backwards and horrible and ruining your child for life! See! (insert link)”

Generally this starts when someone asks a simple question. Generally not the person who is yelling at someone else, that person has usually been scared away by this point, so really you most likely aren’t educating anyone, you’re just yelling at a brick wall.

I see other peoples parenting choices this way “It ain’t my business and it ain’t anyone else's either. I don’t agree with you, but you know what, you don’t need to know that, so I’m just going to sit here and keep my mouth shut unless someone asks about my side of it.”

Keeping on.

the following is the journaling to this page, to see what the page was made with click it

Each month I am a little more surprised, thrilled, and overjoyed to find that Mason and I are still managing to keep up with breastfeeding. Never in my deepest imaginings did I ever think that I would still be nursing a child who was already past one year old. Breastfeeding, yeah I knew I’d be doing that, but going past the age when most people stop? No... not me. I just never saw myself as that kind of mom. Zach had self-weaned around the age of one, Ryan didn’t breastfeed, and Bella had to switch to formula before she reached six months. So really I never had to think too much about extended breastfeeding. I just figured I  wouldn’t do it or that it just wouldn’t be an option.

Summary–Birthday/Father’s Day Weekend

Can you spot the baby party crasher?

The slumber party was a huge success! The boys all had a great time, and Zach proclaimed it to be the best two days of his life. We just had two boys for it (we only invited 3) and it was tight just with them. Bella and Ryan got sent away for the night, Zach really wanted Mason to go too, but well, as he still wakes to nurse 2-3 times a night that wasn’t happening. The boys went through 2 pizzas, 2 bags of popcorn, a can of pringles, and a container of ice cream. Who knew three nine year olds could eat so much!? They stayed up late watching Oz The Great and Powerful and Netflix. When I went to bed at 12:30 all three were still wide awake (though thankfully quiet) and all three were up and going when Mason and I woke at 7:30.

*big sigh*

Today is slumber party day and all I can think is “Thank God, we told him 3 kids only.”

This slumber party is kind of a big deal for us. For starters, it’s our first ever slumber party. Most importantly, we’ve never had the boys’ friends over before. No, there was one boy who just randomly showed up a few times, but that was years ago and less than a handful of times.

I keep telling Zach he better enjoy this because this may be the ONLY time this happens.

We aren’t dirty messy people, we’re cluttery people. I make piles. The boys make piles. Bella and Mason make messes. Cleaning happens, but the house is never like, company worthy. I could be just going hard on us seeing as how I was raised by a person who flipped out over cups on the counter and an un-vacuumed floor. Zach and I have been cleaning and cleaning all week, and Bella and Ryan keep going behind us and messing it all up over and over again. This stress? Yeah… thus the whole this may be the only time this happens.

On yesterday.

Yesterday, well yesterday was just bad.

Bad, crappy, and horrible. And thank God that today is a new day.

But wait, today’s the day that I have to knuckle down on the kids to get them to really help and get the house in shape for Zach’s slumber party Friday, because John told Zach that while we’ll help with the front of the house, he is responsible for getting the back of the house how he wants it to look for his company. Why does he always make rules or such like this that I have to be the one to enforce?? Seriously. Biggest pet peeve I have with our parenting, and he knows this.

What goes on in my head.

we look enough alike, just image this look on my face

If I hear one more repetition of “Can we…,” “He just….,” “She won’t….,” “Tel them to….,” “But why do I have to….,” “That’s not fair, I want to….,” “That isn’t the kind of…. that I want,” or “It’s my turn, not ….’s turn,” I will seriously pop a blood vessel and develop a twitch.

I’m like 6 weeks behind on Project Life, I just want to get these pictures laid out.
Or sleep.
Or marathon watch all of Season Three of Pretty Little Liars.
Or finish this freaking book so I can move on to the next one.
Or eat these Pringles/ice cream pops/cheese slices/whatever in peace.

Our morning in earthLINGZ diapers

find earthLINGZ on Facebook and Etsy

First off, let me say that I wasn’t given this diaper to review. Heck, I didn’t even buy it to review it. I bought it because I wanted it. I’m reviewing it because I just feel like I have to share my thoughts on it. Oh and trust me, I have thoughts.

A little about earthLINGZ (pulled right from their Facebook page)

earthLINGZ Cloth Diapers are a new breed of cloth diaper... The world's first ALL Fleece Hybrid Ai2! We strive to provide the world with an all around better solution to diapering. Our one size fits all diapers are 100% reusable, affordable, and fashion forward! We combine snuggly soft polyester fleece with soft and eco friendly organic hemp fleece to make for the ultimate in dryness protection, and absorbing power, all while keeping bulky-ness to a minimum.

Not sold on them yet? Well, lets look at a little more from them:

What is Project Life?

Project Life is this scrapbooking thing that’s been going on for several years now. I can’t be positive, but I think maybe it was started by Becky Higgens and made super popular over the past few years by Ali Edwards. But please, don’t quote me on that or bash me if I’m wrong. (I recommend checking out the Becky link to find out more information on it.)

It isn’t that easy….

Today Bella pulled out one of my favorite dress up skirts she owns, and I was looking at her in it and I just thought “WOW! She has grown so much in the past year.”

You see, one of my favorite pictures of Bella is from July of last year when we tried out rag curls in her hair. She was wearing the skirt and stopped whatever it was she was doing right next to the backdoor and I was all “Ohhh! I need a picture of that right there!” Pretty sure it’s one of my favorites of any of the kids ever. It’s just so sweet and girly.

Anyway, today when I saw Bella in the skirt again I decided that I just had to attempt to get a similar picture of her in it. I knew it wouldn’t be completely the same since, you know, we weren’t putting curls in again, and she’s big enough now we don’t just let her go around without a shirt anymore.

Lets just say, she really made me work for this picture.

Begin doing.

So today, today I quit just talking about working to one of my dreams, and I took my first steps to doing it. Now, please excuse me while I work on the next part.

(like it? pin it. and vote for the blog.)