August is the month of birthdays in our family.  Not only do we have friends/family member birthday to celebrate, both of our kids were born in August!

4 years ago today, I was blissfully biding my time in the hospital waiting for my baby girl to join the world.  She was not quite as stubborn as her brother would prove to be 3 years later but definitely took her own sweet time!  36 hours from start to finish and she was in my arms.

Clearly, my kids are all about the screaming and crying at birth!

August 2008



May 2009



April 2010

August 2010

February 2011

May 2011

Happy Birthday to my favorite daughter, H!

One year ago today, I was angry…and in pain…and yelling at people.  I had been in labor for over a week but never far enough to actually go to the hospital.  An entire week of contractions and discomfort and waiting. Waiting on my little boy to join the world.
You see, he is stubborn (like his daddy mommy) and he just did not want to come out.  First, we waited and waited.  Then, the doctors said: induction.  So, we waited some more and then got some drugs.  The drugs didn’t help but actually made things worse.  Baby E hated the drugs and so he rebelled, refused to come out and even showed his disdain by continually dropping his heartbeat with each contraction.  The drugs went off.  Finally, almost a full 24 hours after the induction began (over a week after I went into true labor!), my beautiful, Baby E joined the world.

He looks thrilled right?

Time has flown over the past year and he has grown so much!

August 2010

September 2010

October 2010

November 2010

December 2010

January 2011

February 2011

March 2011

April 2011

May 2011

June 2011

July 2011

 Happy Birthday to my Baby E!

95% of my weekend was spent in the car!  I had a funeral to attend and an adorable blond toddler to pick up so I spent a bunch of time here:

Then, Saturday (late night!), me and the blond toddler (in her pjs!) spent the evening here:

We made it home around 12:30am and proceeded to crash here:

Well, I had sheets on mine!
Sunday, we all spent more time sleeping which was definitely good for me.  Then, we headed out to pick up some clothes for the kiddos (mathlete and I did get a few things too).  Thanks to these guys for making shopping painfree and tax free:

I posted here about participating in the Pinterest Challenge. (You probably also read about it here or here).  Well, today is judgement day…er, completion day. 

The rules of the challenge were simple: Pick something you’ve “pinned” and complete it (with your own spin if desired) within a week.  The only stipulation (other than time) was that it had to be home decor related. Easy peezy lemon squeezy as H says.

First up was picking which of my pins to tackle.  If you’ve been on Pinterest, you probably know how addictive it can be and how quickly you rack up pins.  I picked Paint Chip Art inspired by the blog How About Orange.

Then, I made a few trips to Home Depot to scout out my paint chip colors.

I picked mostly Behr paint chips because I knew some of the colors I was looking for in their paint.  I also threw in a couple of Martha Stewart precious metals too (the smaller ones you see in the picture).  Then, I broke out my tools for the first part: paper cutter, exacto knife and ruler.
Since Behr puts the paint color and the code on the front of each paint chip, I had to first cut those off. The paper cutter made fast work of those cuts.

Once I had all of my chips sans labels, I was ready to measure out my triangles.  This is where Mathlete really came in handy.  He had such pride on his face when the answer to my question “What is the easiest way for me to get these triangles the same size” was “MATH”!

We took each paint chip and measure off 1 1/4″ across. We figured, for the larger Behr Strips, we would be cutting them in half. Then, we drew lines from each dot diagonally to the other to form triangles.

From there, we just sliced and diced until we cut them all into the pre-measured triangles.

The triangles were placed together to form the artwork.  I just used the piece of paper that came in the frame.

I had planned to use spray adhesive on the paper to secure the traingles but I discovered my can was all out. So, I used a combination of adhesive dots and double sided tape. Once they were all secured, it went in the frame.

Now it is time to head over to Pinterest for some more inspiration. Oh, and be sure to head over and check out the other Pinterest Challenge Projects from Emily, Katie, Lana and Sherry.  Some of the ladies are hosting link parties for you to share your projects too!

Have you ever lost your home?  Not in the proverbial sense but in the real and physical sense.  Can you imagine that loss?  I honestly can’t.  A home is so much more than material possessions and decor.  A home is where families come together, good (and bad times) occur, where you find comfort and safety…where your memories are made and kept.
Yesterday, a family in my neighborhood had to watch their memories go up in flames with their home.  In just over 4 minutes, everything they had was gone.  Thankfully, they are safe but the loss of the memories and possessions will undoubtedly run deep for a long time to come.  A picture frame seems like such a trivial object until it is lost to tragedy because then the picture that was in it is lost too. 
As true neighbors who strive to help the people we know and even those we don’t, the people of our neighborhood sprung into action.  In less than 12 hours , a Facebook Group was created to get the word out about how to help, the HOA was contacted to arrange for drop-off of donations and everyone began searching for more information on how they could help this family cope during a time of intense loss and need.
Right now, as we all wait for more information about this family and what their eventual needs will be, the group is asking for gift cards to places like Target, Bed, Bath and Beyond, the local shopping malls, etc.  In a time of loss, we cling to the familiar; something that provides us comfort and reminds that it will all turn out ok.
We, as friends and neighbors, are hoping to help provide a little bit of that familiar for this family to help ease the pain of their loss.

If you would like more information on how you can help this family, please feel free to contact me and I will provide information on how and where to donate. Everything single thing makes a difference for this family as they have lost everything familiar to them and all of their material possession too.

UPDATED
If you wish to donate virtually, a donation site to collect monetar donations has been set-up here.

I would love to come in today and regale you with all the exciting things I have done since my last post.  However, all I really have to show for the last few days is this:

See you in a week…we’re headed off to catch some rays!

4.27.2011

I am officially obsessed. I know that most people develop lots of mini-obsessions (hello, royal wedding!) and that becomes their only focus. For me, my obsession began after reading an innocent newspaper article. You see, I read a lot of news and a lot of online articles. However, until one fateful day, I had never really gotten into reading BLOGS. Yep, BLOGS are now my obsession. It started as a harmless click from the link in the Washington Post article about the fabulous bloggers at YoungHouseLove. Then, it turned into a daily ritual of reading their blog and then linking to several others as the days went past. Of course, the blogs I linked to also offered links to others so my reading material grew and grew with each passing day.

So, why am I starting a blog when I could very easily just be content reading the words of others? It’s simple: I love the idea of having something that chronicles things that are happening in my life. I am so amazingly blessed to have a lot of people around me that help create and shape my memories. I think it is so easy to just let the days go by without trying to really capture any of them. I could do it in a plain diary but what fun would that be. I’ve had a lot of fun and learned a lot from reading other blogs…maybe someone will have some fun with this one.