Another give away

Would you like to win a pre-designed layout from Paper Lovelies?

You could win a 2 page layout of Snow Much Fun & Baby Love! 

 Go to Paper Lovelies Facebook page and leave a comment. 

Winner will be chosen on Friday by random number.

And the winner is...

Jessica Walden.

I'll contact you.

Thanks to all who took the time to check out our items over on etsy.

We have sat down and did some re-calculating on our prices. They are now priced a smidgen lower but we took away the shipping cost. We really do want you to enjoy our head bands as much as we do.

We have a several more that we are working on. Many complete just need to be photographed. In that group it will include a few toddler(extra small), girls(small) and a pre-teen sizes(medium). If you would like a certain color combo or size, feel free to message us through etsy or at sewamber[at]yahoo[dot]com.

Just a reminder

The give away for the crochet headband ends tomorrow, midnight Alaska time.

You must leave a comment here on the blog. 

You can shop our completed  headbands here.

 I'll post the winner on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Completed layouts

Okay, so I'm guilty of rushing off to Wal-Mart yesterday to pick up these 7 pictures to complete my layouts.

But look at how nice they turned out...

I added my pictures. Then stamped 'Go out and play' with an Ali Edwards stamp. And completed the layout by journalling along the snow drift.

Easy and fast!

This one I embellished a little more. I didn't want to add all 4 pictures but use the space of the 4th to add my journaling.  I added a sub title with Naomi's name.

I then stamped a few sayings with some Ali Edwards stamps.

These stamps were so fitting.

The hardest part about putting these layouts together was the journalling.

I struggle with knowing what I should record and document.

Love how they turned out!

New, new, new!

Paper Lovelies is now selling pre-designed scrapbook layouts.

What a great way to get caught up on your scrapbooking.

Let us take the work out of scrapbooking! These pre-designed 2 page layouts are perfect for all beginning scrapbookers, and advanced. They are ready to assemble, add pictures and journaling. You can take them a step further by adding ink and stickles. The creative possibilities are endless.

 I am excited I have the opportunity to be involved in these layouts. The only thing is, to find them on her site they are a kind of hidden. So, if you didn't know, you wouldn't see them on the main page. I believe she is currently working to get them displayed on her main page.

When you are over at Paper Lovelies make sure you click on 'shop our latest kits' tab and you will be able to view and purchase the layouts.

This month there are 2 adorable layouts available.

Baby Love:

This layout is crying for pictures of the arrival of a sweet bundle of joy or a baby shower?

Snow much fun:

Think I need to dig through some of my pictures, journal and share what you can do with these layouts.

Will share soon. No excuses for me on the lack of scrapbooking now.

Excited, happy, nervous...

Yesterday Ryan phoned to tell me he is coming home for a few days and that he'll be on a flight home today. It is too cold to work. The forecast has the cold weather holding for the next couple days. So, instead of having the guys sitting around camp, equipment idling but not running they decided to shut it down for a couple days and return at the end of the week.

Yay! I could not be more excited!

The kids don't know at first he is coming home. (I was pretty scared that he wouldn't truly get a flight out and I'd have upset kids.) But now that he has boarded a plane I think it's safe to tell them.
I was a little frantic about getting this house looking spotless but then had to stop myself to remember, he isn't coming home to see how clean the house is, but to come see us. Shoot he might even be excited to help put the dishes & laundry away and even haul out the compost.

I'm off to pick up my better half.  



As I was scrolling through my January 2012 picture folder trying to find a picture of him to share I realized that out of the 250+ pictures that were there I wasn't going to find a single picture of him. He hasn't been home at all during this new year.

I am seriously nervous about his departure. As for me and him we have learned how to communicate, listen, sacrifice and love each other better than we did when we were first married. The little ones we have created and brought into this life don't always understand that. I am sure know it is going to tough on all of us again. I hope to make the best of these day he is home.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Oh, have you left me a comment on yesterday post to be entered into the crochet headband give away? If not, what are you waiting for?

Last peek

 with Paper Lovelies February kit. Be sure to watch for it tomorrow.

I was playing with this kit again this morning and was excited at how fast it was to make a card. The papers coordinate so well!

I will share the full photos soon.

Give away

Do you remember all the crochet headbands that I made for Christmas presents?

Well, a friend of mine & I decided to team up and make them to sell.

We have just listed 11 of them for sale in my etsy shop. But we want to give this one away.

Band is a cream with a purple and green wool flower.

So head on over to my etsy shop and take a look at the ones we have completed. We are working on a bunch more. We would like to also add them to hats.

To be entered into the give away all you need to do is leave a comment saying the color combo that you like the best. If you tell a friend and they name you, I'll enter your name in the give away again. You can only be entered into the giveaway up to 3 times.

Got it? 

Give away closes Sunday, January 29th at midnight Alaska time.

I'll announce the winner here on Monday, January 30th. 

Our model Maddy was so fun to take pictures of. She was such a sport modeling in -12 degrees weather. Thank-you Maddy!

**This give away is closed**



Sneak Peek

Excited to take a break to blog and share with you a sneak of the February kit from Paper Lovelies. The kit will be released on the 25th. So be sure to head over then and check it out.

Quantities are limited and the kits sell fast.

Sneak of the book for Ryan.

It has been busy around here.

 Thus the lack of blogging and also not being able to share yet.

I am excited to be involved with a new avenue that Paper Lovelies is adding to their site. In addition to the monthly scrap booking kit, Paper Lovelies will also be selling two different 2 page layouts.

All the work of designing the pages are done. Assemble. Add pictures. Journal. You could jazz them up a bit more if you would like by adding stickles. Be sure to watch for them.

Going to take a break before wrapping up my projects by exercising.

I resolved to make exercise a habit, but have only made more excuses each week as to what else needs to be done instead.

I'll have for sure 1, maybe 2, more sneak peeks before the kit is released.

Moose be getting close...

 We've been cooped up for a while with all this cold weather.

The kids have been literally bouncing off the walls. Driving this mama crazy.

With deadlines close approaching and all the energy levels building, we burned some energy at turf time this week. The kids had a blast running around playing with friends.

We have had some visitors lately.

Big hairy ones.

One that tried to eat my wreath.

It was literally just outside the door.

These things are huge!

It's back looks to be the same height as the roof on the playhouse.

 Evelynn is growing way too fast!  In the 3 weeks Ryan has been gone, she has learned how to roll from her back to stomach. She has more control over her hands, reaching and successfully grabbing at toys and anything within reach. She is starting to grow out her 3 to 6 month clothes and is mostly in 6 month clothes. She has also been blowing bubbles. We are missing him tremendously!

I have decided to put together a little book using Paper Lovelies February kit for him. That way when he does come home, and if he has to leave again, he can take a piece of home with him. Drawings from the kids, pictures and letters. Look for a sneak peek coming Friday.

Still here

Just finding a hard time to craft and hold the house together.
During the first week Ryan was away I really tried to do something crafty every night after the kids had gone to bed. I've given up. Staying up that late, night after night, wasn't working.
I felt like I was going to crash and burn.
I have decided that keeping this house together is more important right now.

Since Christmas and the arrival of more toys I have been starting to feel overwhelmed with them all. So we found every toys in the house, brought them into the living room. We made 3 piles: keep in bedroom, put away & donate. I am hoping the keep in bedroom pile still isn't too big. I have found that the kids don't play with all of their toys. They dump to find their few favorites. The goal is to rotate toys out. No boredom here.

Yesterday we made our second trip to the dump. The rates have increased, but not by much. For 100 pounds of trash you pay $6 instead of $5. Not bad. The gentleman honored the other half of my dump coupon with no additional payments since the rates increased after the coupon was printed. Ya hoo! Now that we are in a new year I'm going to keep track of our total savings as a way to keep motivated to bringing it ourselves.

I must be saying "Cuz I'm the mom around here," a lot lately because Nolan the other day countered with... "Well,     I'm the kid around here." Crack me up!

Sounds like my day has officially started. :)

Attitude

With all of our snow sitting on the power lines, the power company has stated to be prepared for when the power goes out. Your probably wondering why then the title and the picture from fall. I'm getting to that. When preparing to be gone for the weekend I asked one of Ryan's brothers to come by over the weekend to make sure if the power went out, it wasn't out long enough to deal with frozen and bursting pipes. The power did go out once during the weekend and not for a long period of time. We lost power again yesterday morning for a couple hours. After we regained our power I quickly went to turn the heater in our front porch back on. The porch has no source of heat right now beside a plug in heater, and stores all of our potatoes that we harvested out of the garden. It was then that I realized that the heater had been off since the weekend. I had completely forgotten about the heater out there. Ugh.

All the potatoes had froze.

I started thinking about all the waste, the time that was spend gardening and how good garden potatoes taste, but had to quickly change my attitude. 

I am quite thankful that we can in fact garden and harvest our own vegetables.

I am thankful that our kids take a great part in the gardening process.

I am thankful that we have been able to eat our own potatoes up until this point.

I am thankful for all time spent with the kids and the memories that have been made.

 

This year I want to try to always see the best in everything that is done. Sure it doesn't always happen the way we would have wanted it to go and we sometimes have no control over that. But we do have control over our attitude. An advisor of mine during High School once told me this saying, 'You have your bed to lie down in, but you can always change the sheets,' I'll never forget this saying and the meaning of it.

 

Laundry

Our back entry way is our laundry room, pantry & point of entry we use the most.

Last spring we gutted and did some rearranging to maximise our floor space.

The cabinets are the only thing that are missing in order for the room to be complete.

Today I tackled the laundry room wall.

Some day it will have cabinets on it, but who knows when that will be.

So until then we'll enjoy it filled with color.

Before.......

After.......

It already makes me smile.

I'm not happy with the way my pictures printed. Way too dark! I did suspect that would happen if I printed there. They will remain that way until this summer when they will need to be updated.





I just found the tin signs at the thrift store. Knew right away they would make a perfect fit to the decor here. I found the wash board a few years back at a garage sale. I envision it on top of the future cabinets with a old wash tub. I created a stencil using the cricut and card stock for both 'LAUNDRY' and the word collage. Wish I would have slowed down and took more time painting them. But then again, it wouldn't have looked like I painted it.

Refreshed

This past weekend I joined 13 other ladies for Mother's camp.

(A mother's retreat through our church with instructions and teachings of the Word of God)

It is so nice to pause and take time over the weekend to hear the instructions and teachings of the word of God as to what our duties as a mother are. 

It is so uplifting to hear and discuss the joys and trails of raising our children.

I always head home feeling so refreshed.

 It really makes you stop and look at all you have to be thankful for.

God has blessed my life so far with 3 healthy children.

And it's a wrap

Are you sick of all the Christmas posts?

Here's the last one

Ending with a few of my favorite shots from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Once again we are truly blessed to have been able to spend Christmas surrounded by the one's we love!  



The gift of giving

I made a few of these jars to give to friends from church.

For my sisters, mom and dad's wife I crocheted hand wraps.

I ran out of time before Christmas to get some calendars made.

I am making 3. One for my mom, dad and Ryan's mom & dad.

They will be in the mail today or Monday!

Better late then never right?

Calling for some order

With Ryan being away, I have no one to hold me accountable for doing the deeper cleaning of the house.

I am realizing that I do the majority of these chores are done when Ryan is home distracting the kids.

Only having nap time and the time after the kids are tucked into bed, I have been torn between just putting the feet up, crafting and cleaning.

I enjoy a house that is clean. I truly do. 

When I slack off and let these chores go, it takes forever to get caught back up and get back to the routine of keeping up on it.  

Today we need some order around this cluttered, dirty house.

I am going to set the timer and use 1 hour of nap time to see what I can knock off this long list.

• dusting 
• the clutter on the kitchen counters
• bring the pile of paperwork from kitchen counter to filing pile
• round up the last of the Christmas items & put away
• Empty garbage's
• Burn paper garbage
• clean & wipe out fridge cleaned out but not wiped
•  bring the compose out
• vacuum
• scrub floors
• fold & put away 3 loads of laundry 2 loads are folded the kids clothes got put away
• scrub bathrooms
• organize and clean computer area
• clean bedrooms
• go through toys
• The middle child never did take a nap today. My cleaning was done between needs of children. So it felt like all I did today was clean. Time to get the kiddos off to bed. Then I'm going to drink coffee do a little crafting.

I am shooting to complete a big portion of  the whole list. The computer area and bedrooms will have to wait for another day though.

Supper is already the majority of the way done and in the crock pot cooking.

Did I mention that today I get to stay at home all day and not have anywhere I have to go?

Aah... feels so nice not to have to go out.



Bon voyage

Okay, so I'm not leaving this seriously cold state but a couple of my friends are.

My friend's husband approached me before Christmas wondering if I had any suggestions on what to get his wife.    Hmm...  Couldn't really think of anything. He and his 2 other brother-in-laws got together, did some brain storming and purchased their wives tickets to Hawaii. Now how cool is that! He asked me to take the travel info and put together something that they could wrap up to be opened. I was happy I could help them.

My gears started turning.

I knew I had some shells leftover from a project, just needed sand.

On the backside of the card it has there travel dates and flight information.

I sure hope that they bring some of the sunshine and warmth back with them!

Christmas re-run

Last night I happened across a memory card full of all pictures taken around Christmas. Realizing that I haven't shared any of this with you I thought I'd share.

Be prepared for a few different blog posts.

2011 was the first time I had a child who was part of our Sunday School Christmas program.

This program is always so nice to watch and be reminded of why we celebrate Christmas.

The kids also do such a wonderful job singing and tell about Jesus birth.

4 months

This sweet little love is 4 months!

Where does time go?

Other ramblings:

We have made it through our first week. Feels like it's been a month.

Ryan says not to count on him for at least a minimum of 3 more weeks.

We are struggling to get into some sort of daily routine.

I am needing the routine. Even if it's naps, supper or bedtime at the same time every day.

We are floating through our days without Ryan here. His presence is really missed in so many ways! I can't even begin to compile a list. And you probably don't want to read them.

It's freezing here. Like -16 freezing.

I have the supplies to make some sort of car seat blanket for the 2 oldest ones. The kind that can't fall on the floor and get dripped on. Just need to pick a nap time to start them.

My battery on the van needs a jump but with how cold it is I'll skip it for now and drive Ryan's car.

Well I'm off to tuck the little ones into here bed.

We have been snuggling, while reading stories, in bed before lights out. Absolutely my favorite time of the day. Okay. I might have 2 favorite times.... Love my mornings with a baby who loves to coo, giggle, smile while snuggling in my bed.  





Happy New Year!

Wishing you a year

filled with happiness & good health.

May you have a fresh start to

 try something new,

tackle old & new challenges,

make new and lasting memories.

May your travels be safe.

Have a Happy New Year!