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.)

Flats & Hand Washing Challenge–Day 7

Thank you Lord, it’s Monday, and that means that the flats and handwashing challenge is done, DONE, DONE!

And not only is it done, but I made it through the whole week without giving up or quitting! There might have been of irrational hatred of the washing of the diapers towards the end, but I didn’t let that slow me down. This morning, before I even made my first cup of coffee, I carted yesterday’s diapers to the bathroom, tossed them into the tub and washed those suckers, and then hung them out to dry. Then I sat down, smiled, and put a pocket with a disposable liner (because it’s poop time since he chowed down on some avocado last night) on Mason’s naked butt, and did a happy sigh for knowing that I wouldn’t have to deal with another poopy flat.

Flats & Hand Washing Challenge–Day 6

Did you know, I have had Live Writer open, and blank for like 3ish hours now. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m getting kind of tired about blogging about diapers. It’s all “Oh! This and this and this has happened! But wait, no, diapers. Mother freaking hole diapers.”

*big breath and straighten spine*
Today and tomorrow, then we’re done!

 

Flats & Hand Washing Challenge–Day 5

New cover! And hey, there’s a t-shirt flat under that cuteness.

 

Flats & Hand Washing Challenge–Days 3 and 4

There was no post yesterday because yesterday sucked.

Flats & Hand Washing Challenge–Day 2/Part 1

Today’s blog prompt:
How did you Prepare?  List your supplies, where you bought them, how you made them, how much you paid, etc.
Well, to start I didn’t buy anything for this challenge, because well, I didn’t have any excess funds to buy stuff. I gathered up about 8 of my husbands old shirts and cut them up following the t-shirt diaper instructions on Dirt Diaper Laundry’s website. Then I hunted up all of our cotton receiving blankets (all three of them, lol). That’s about it. Cutting the shirts up was a remarkably quick thing. I was sure it would be tedious and time consuming, so they all sat in a pile in my living room for about two days. Then yesterday on the drive into drop John off for work I got them all cut up, so in about 40 minutes.

Second post today!

I promise, most days of the challenge won’t be sporting two blog posts, but I wanted to go ahead and put up the end of today’s video and… my boys have news as well.

The boys got awards today!

Zach got Most Improved and his class voted on awards and he got Most Compassionate, Most Likely to be Injured or Bruised, and History Lover. Ryan got an award for having the highest Math scores in his class.

I’m feeling super proud of my big boys at the moment.

Flats & Hand Washing Challenge–Day 1/Part 1

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.

Of sick kids, spiders, and volcanoes.

Of course Ryan has to be difficult.

Our house came down with a stomach bug last week. Everyone got sick. It was… gross. Ryan however did not. Ryan, who has the constitution of an ox, generally does not catch most sickies that the rest of us get, so I figured we were all good now.

Oh no. Ryan just wanted his own sick time it seems. I got called Wednesday afternoon to come and get him from school. He had already thrown up twice, and then he threw up two more times while I was waiting on him. The nurse told him just to leave all his stuff in his class, she’d rather he didn’t walk all the way back across the school to get it. Got the boy home – no more pukes, or sick feelings AT ALL. Yet, since he got sent home for throwing up he couldn’t go back yesterday. Yesterday, with a bored Ryan, was a very, very long day.

How I spen… MASON, NO!

Mason is such a Spencer.

Spencer is my younger brother, and Mason is named after him as a nod to their almost shared birthdays; March 23rd and 25th. I told him if Mason was a boy they could share middle names, I kinda didn’t think I’d actually get lucky enough for another boy. But nope. He’s a boy. He has all the parts to prove it.

You might be wondering how one can be a “Spencer,” please, let me explain.

As a baby, toddler, young child (lets be honest, he’s 20 and this still applies) Spencer was the child you weren’t expecting. Cute, chubby cheeks, sweetest little angelic smile, loving, and could destroy a room in under two minutes all while laughing and saying he loves you. But no, there’s more. Even little he looked for adventure and had to explore everything. And touch everything. And taste everything. Sweetest child ever, but you couldn’t have him out of your sight for a second or all heck would break loose. (If you’re curious how I know all of this – I’m six years older than Spencer)

The Mother’s Day Craft

Inspired by this pin:

After Pablo Picasso's "Hands with Bouquet" – Artrageous Afternoon

Bella and I were scrolling through Pinterest one day last week when we saw that pin and Bella decided that she just had to make it. Well, I couldn’t help her do a craft for ME so we decided to make it for my mom from her and Mason. Here’s our spin on it.

We stuck with supplies that we had sitting around the house. For the hands/arms we used brown paper bags and colored pencils. They’re held down with double sided tape and some Elmer’s Craft Bond glue. The background is glossy heavy picture printer paper painted with the only three paint colors I could find (yellow, white, and red). The flowers were made from scraps of silver wrapping paper and pink tissue paper glued down to circles of cardstock. Then they got a coating of gold and clear glitter spray paint. (The background also got a coating of clear glitter spray paint) The stems of the flowers were made with green plaid washi tape I had laying around. The frame had been sitting packed away forever. The flowers are held down with hot glue on the background and where they meet with the frame.

My mom loved it and said that it is very “Bella-esque.”

Feel free to pin this: http://pinterest.com/pin/177540410282910837/

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Dear Mom-Me,

Sometimes being a mom is hard.

When you have to deal with four puking kids, laundry, dinner, & cleaning the house on two hours of sleep the night before it seems even harder. When you have to comfort one child, while cooking, cleaning dishes, and trying to keep the crying baby who so wants to be held happy, then it can just feel impossible. At moments like this all I want is for my kids to at least be big enough to help or keep themselves happy for just five dang minutes.

Then I have to remind myself that I shouldn’t be wishing this time away. They won’t be little forever. It’s at times like that that I have to sit and remind myself of all the great small things about being a mom. Not the cleaning up one year old pukes. But the way that Mason only really quiets when upset by nursing and having his fingers jammed into my mouth. The way that Bella comes and gets into bed with me every morning and the very first thing that she does is rub her cold feet on me to warm them up. How Zach still lets me climb into his bed at bedtime. The way he’ll hold me close and tell me about his day. How there is nothing Ryan loves more than to cuddle on the couch and watch Merlin or Doctor Who with me.

Someday, probably much, much sooner than I would like, they will be too big to need me so much, or well to admit to needing me so much. They won’t cry for me when they throw up. They won’t want me to pick them up and hold them all day. They won’t want to sit and watch movies with me. Or cuddle with me on the couch or in bed.

For some time, they’re going to think that they are too big for all of that. I know that deep down they won’t ever be too big for that, but I also know that that phase will one day happen, and even though I know it won’t last forever it’ll still break my heart a little each day.

So today I will take the hard and sometimes frustrating little things that go with these kids, because when these little things pass it’ll be much too late.

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iNSD–In Review

For the first time in forever I actually got to buy some things! Yay!! I think I had more fun just going through the stores and thinking “Ohh… isn’t that cute! I could get that, should I get that? But, oh! Look at this one!” And even though I hadn’t set myself a limit – NOT that unlimited was an option – I still was extremely strict with myself on not only how much I could spend, but also would I actually use what I bought.

Here’s what I got:

plus this alpha set: https://the-lilypad.com/store/Whoop-de-doo-Alpha-Brushes.html

I didn’t get a ton of pages done, but I did get five pages done, these being my favorite three of them:

Now that iNSD is over I can get back to the rest of my life and blog about more exciting things… like poopy diapers.

Don’t forget to grab my free gifts while you can, and be sure to enter for the Michelle Godin gift certificate!

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Ahhh! It’s iNSD time!

I wanna get my scrap and fun time on so all I have for you is a little gift.

--->DOWNLOAD THEM HERE<---

And get this set on the Free Gift tab on the blog’s Facebook page.

Last, don’t forget about the template challenge going on here on the blog.

I hope all you scrapbookers are enjoying interNational Scrapbooking Day! I plan to have some major fun and scrapping time! See you all Monday!

iNSD Template Challenge!

Going to type as fast as I can to get this post done as fast as I can to get my free blog and Facebook gifts done in time for tomorrow!

(Of course Mason coming to get in my lap as soon as I typed that is not speeding things up at all. The turd.)

I know this isn’t the case for everyone, but I spend weekends like iNSD scrapping, scrapping, scrapping to try to win, win, win since I’m always broke. And if you’re anything like me, at some point during the weekend your creativity is going to go kuhplooey. To help you out I have a little template challenge for you!

But if just a template isn’t enough (which it should be…) I’m giving you a little prize that’s going to go to a random commenter that links up their page made with the template… a gift certificate to MICHELLE GODIN’S STORE @ THE LILYPAD.

--->DOWNLOAD THE TEMPLATE<---

For extra chances to win, link up where you have shared this post, but you must link up your layout with the template for your extra entries to count.

Pages must be linked to this post BEFORE Wednesday, May 8th to count!
Don’t forget to stop by and pick up the two free iNSD template sets while you can! The links will be going away on Friday, May 10th!

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