Can't resist a steal

We'll be traveling this month and we're excited.  We really haven't been on many vacations, Superman and I, in the 11 years we've been married.  Maybe three?  And I don't count our honeymoon.  Which was like a two day thing a few hours from home.  

We'll have others with us on this trip including littles so I decided to make some "busy bags" for them for the long car ride.  

I found these bags at Best Buy of all places.  They were UGLY, to say the least.  But sturdy and perfect in every other way, including the fact that they were a penny.  Yep, one little cent each.  So great.

They are made of an extra heavy-duty felt.  I have lots of felt, fabric, ribbon, and buttons in my stash, so when I discovered that I couldn't remove the icky embellishments off the bags I just hot glued stuff on top.

I started with large rectangular pieces of felt that I glued fabric to.  These were glued to the bags.  I cut out big felt letters and glued those to the bags.  Then I made some felt flowers and glued those to the girly bags, and added ribbons.  I glued some colorful buttons to the boy bags. I think the kiddos will love them and probably use them the whole week, not just in the car. I spent a whole four cents.  That makes me smile.  That means that I can use the money I saved to fill them up. 

     

Photos of friends...

Here are some photographs of some close friends from church. Their girls are ADORABLE. Totally and completely. I thoroughly enjoyed this shoot even though I prefer taking pics outside, or with as much natural light as possible.  These were the first real pics I took with the new equipment that Superman got me for Christmas. He was so excited when I opened my new backdrops and lights. I have to say that I was excited too. So, though the set up depicted here is not optimum, I think the pics turned out really well. What do you think?  Okay for inside, in my living room, in the evening, dead of winter? 

         

The joy of learning something new

Just a quick post tonight.  I really wanted to share this with someone.  Everyone really.  It is so funny.  And now you know why I love her laugh.

Perfect medicine...

I spent some time outside today.  I haven't been feeling well lately, actually that's an understatement, and the fresh air was wonderful.  I read a little.  I painted a little.  I did a little homework.  (Crazy I know.)  But the best part of my day was when Sweet Pea came outside to play.  She walked over to me and told me she was sorry I was feeling sick.  She told me I was a good mommy.  She also told me I was soooo beautiful.  It was very hard not to laugh at that one.  I've been in bed for two days straight. 


But I will take her unsolicited and unexpected offers of affection and expressions of love.  I will hold on to them and keep them safe in my heart.  I will treasure these moments because I know that someday there might be other moments.  Ones that are more difficult.  Times when we might disagree or even say things we don't really mean.  She is my daughter after all.  And I know what it's like to be a daughter.  


Her sticky hugs and kisses, her smile, her laugh, the way she snuggles up to me...by golly she is the best.  No medicine I've taken over the course of the past 48 hours has made me feel better than hearing her say "Momma, I love you, soooo much."  

And then she painted my nails for me. Best. Manicure. EVER.  :)

   

Back up...finally

So, thanks to my beautiful sister, over here, I am back up. There will still be some adjustments to the ol' blog as my past posts are a bit messed up. I will get them edited as quickly as I can. Thank you for stopping by even though I often seem to drop off the face of the planet for extended periods of time!

Tomorrow is the last day of school, at least in the district I work in. I love the opportunity the summer provides me to focus on my own work. I think that there are people out there who think that teachers just kick it back and play the summer away. I don't think I've had a single summer "off" in my entire teaching career. And while I may not be in front of a class lecturing, demonstrating an art technique or process, reviewing terminology, teaching about commercial advertising or computer animation, I am working. I'm painting, taking classes, doing some photography, sewing, teaching adult art classes, reading, creating new lesson plans, updating my professional portfolio...there is so much that needs to be done. I will have fun too, don't get me wrong. We like us some serious fun around these parts. Sweet Pea is sooooo excited to have Mom and Dad around and we're excited to be able to spend more time with her. So, here's to summer! (My favorite time of year!)

Please Forgive Me...

Hello, I feel like I need to reintroduce myself. Even to close friends and family. It's been longer than long since I've visited these parts. I wanted to apologize for that, and for the fact that I'm updating the ol' bloggeroo. I can't seem to figure out how to get it offline while it's under construction so please just understand that while I have had this here blog for several a year already, I still know very little about blogland. Thanks and I'll see you soon...summer is coming and I'll have a little more time to visit. Bye for now!

Helloooooo? Anybody still out there?

WHOA...has it been ages since I posted here or what?? Embarassing. Things just got a little crazy for a while. And it's not like their slowing down any, I mean it's December people. So I guess you won't be able to expect much for the next month or so either. Sigh. But you don't mind do you? Because you'll be too busy with festive fun, friends, and family, right? To show I still care, very much actually, I will quickly get you up to speed. This will be a very abbreviated version of the past two and some months.

First of all I have to tell you that I love my camera. Superman and I had a bet going this past summer. It went something like this: If I could make it approximately three months without shopping (you know the unnecessary kind) then he would get me a camera (you know the awesome kind). Well, I did it. And it IS AWESOME. Way awesome. I love it. It's like a second child to me. Here is what comes out of this baby. I took these on one of our family walks this fall:

Next, we had a great Halloween. Sweet Pea is
getting older now and is beginning to really understand how this holiday works. We decided to be a whole family of Waldos from the Where is Waldo books. Technically Superman was Waldo, I was Wenda, and Sweet Pea was a little version of us. It was fun. We all dressed up for trick-or-treating. We also dressed up again for our church Halloween party. Yay! Sweet Pea is very good at saying "Twick or Tweet!" After our nice neighbors tossed the candy into her bucket she smiled her cutest smile and exclaimed, "Fank you SO much!" And raced to the next door as fast as possible for more delicious candy.


In November Sweet Pea turned four! Can you believe it? Squeak! four years old. Holy buckets of crazy. The time is whizzing by so fast. She is an amazing, curious, fun, energetic four year old. She is also getting SASSY. With a capital SASS. But we love all of her. So much. She wanted a rainbow party so we had one. With rainbow decorations, a very huge rainbow cake (six layers to be exact), a rainbow sweatshirt, pizza, and loads of fun. The highlights of the party were the very tall cake and the swing that Daddy put up in the basement for loads of swinging fun all winter long. The best.

And that is all for now. I'm signing out. Because I'm tired. And my arm and back really hurt. Know that I've missed this place. I've missed you. But I hope you'll stick around for my sporatic (at best) posts. Please say you will. You will? Well, fank you SO much!