Feet Up Again

Yay! Day 2 of the 3 day craft show I'm participating in this weekend is behind me now and I'm currently home with my feet up on the foot stool again!

Today was another long but successful day so I really can't complain. Tomorrow is the shortest of the 3 days so it shouldn't be too bad. I plan to start it off by hopefully sleeping in a bit.

With it being the last day of the show, I don't look for it to be quite as busy but I could be wrong. My thought is that the shortest day of the show will feel like the longest though if it isn't very busy. Only time will tell!

Feet Up

Awww.....it feels so good to be sitting on my loveseat with my shoes off and my feet up on the footstool.

Today was day 1 of a 3 day craft show I'm participating in this weekend. It can be a lot of work to initially get your booth set up but usually the reward of sales in the end makes it all worth it!

I'm definitely glad day one is over though. One down, two to go. Wish me luck!

New Business Cards

Awhile back I purchased a package of paper for a great price to print my own business cards on. The paper was already perforated so once you printed your business cards, they just pulled right apart. Easy peasy right? Or so one would think!

So with Fall craft shows coming up, the other night I started working on my business card design so I'd have them to hand out at the shows I'm going to be participating in.

Well, after a few trial and errors, with some printing out right and some not, I enlisted the help of my hubby. Between the two of us, we FINALLY came up with a design that worked! Yay!

I used the cute doggie avatar that you see here on my blog, on my Etsy shop, and on my MadeItMySelf shop. It is just such a CUTE picture that I can't bring myself to change my avatars so why not use that same cute picture on my business cards!

I'm looking forward to passing them out at the craft shows and mailing them out with my Etsy orders! Between all the ones that didn't work quite right and all the ones that printed nicely, I now have like 290 business cards. I think I have plenty, don't you?

Thomas The Train Treasury

My daughter and I have a New Year's resolution to make a treasury a day this year on Etsy. So far, except for a few occasions, one of us has made one each day and on the days we missed, two were made the next day.

A lot of times I am the one who makes the treasuries but on occasion my daughter still shows interest and either helps or does all the picks. Just kind of depends on what mood she is in and what else is going on.

Tonight I thought it would be fun to let my son who is 3, almost 4, help me make a treasury. Knowing he is really liking Thomas The Train here lately, I decided the theme for today's treasury would be Thomas The Train. My son picked out each of the featured items.

I think he really enjoyed picking out all the Thomas The Train items. Once the treasury was finished, he wanted to make another one with one of the other trains from the Thomas The Train collection. It was really cute. Maybe tomorrow he and I will make another train treasury!

Working On The Car

Tonight hubby was out in the garage working on one of my displays for my upcoming craft shows. Our son decided to go out in the garage with him.

In our garage we have an old car that hubby is restoring. The two of them left the door open that goes from the kitchen to the garage so a little while after our son joined daddy in the garage I hear our son's little voice say, "I'm going to work on the car."

Right after that I hear, BANG, BANG, BANG, then my hubby saying, "Don't hit my car with a hammer." I think the little guy thought he was helping, just not the way daddy wanted. It was one of those moments that we'll have fun telling to our friends and family.

Early Bedtime

My hubby and I often say we are going to put our kids to bed early, especially when they have been misbehaving, but we rarely follow through with it.

Well, tonight we did! After they were both in bed, I was sitting on the love seat enjoying the "kid free zone" and having a little snack.

Right about the time my hubby was walking through the living room and into the hallway, our son started hollering out from his room, "Mommy!" Hubby stopped in our son's doorway and told him to go to sleep.

To which our son replied, "You're not mommy. You're daddy."

It was one of those cute moments that brings a smile to your face. Gotta love what kids can say sometimes don't ya?

Feeding The Fish, Buffalo, And Elk

Today was a busy day for us. It started out with a trip to the grocery store then hubby got called into work for about 4 hours.

As soon as he got home, he quickly changed clothes and out the door we went. We were meeting a friend and her kids at the marina at one of our local lakes to feed the fish.

After feeding the fish, we headed over to another one of our local lakes to feed the buffalo and elk carrots. I think we all had a lot of fun with this outing and the weather today was PERFECT for it!

Once all of us ran out of carrots at the second lake, we parted ways with our friend and her kids. They headed home to their house and we headed home to our house to meet my mom. She was coming over so my hubby and I could help her with one of her displays for the upcoming craft show she and I have booths for.

I also made one of our favorite meals for supper tonight, shrimp alfredo, made from scratch. Mmm! Mmm! Good! Now we're going to be getting our kids to bed and enjoying the quietness after such a long, busy day. Going to enjoy kicking my feet up and doing some crocheting.

I'm A .....

Tonight my daughter left her purple headband with a purple flower on it out on my hubby's desk. Hubby, my daughter, and myself were busy pricing my items for an upcoming craft show I'm doing.

Out of the blue, my son goes over to the desk, gets the purple headband, puts it on, and says, "I'm a girl." Oh my goodness! It was SO funny! I'm sure it is probably one of those moments that you had to be there to really know how funny it was though.

Another funny thing about it is my daughter pretty much immediately asked me if I was going to blog about it. Yep, I was! She knows me too well! :-)

Birthday Treats With The Class

This afternoon my son and I walked to my daughter's school to have birthday treats with my daughter and her class. The school is now involved in some sort of program that promotes healthy eating so the treat we took couldn't be anything sweet like cookies or cupcakes. :-(

I debated back and forth before finally deciding upon taking cheese squares and pretzels for my daughter to share with her class. I also took a big jug of Sunny Delight for the kids to drink. My daughter really liked the idea I came up with. Her class seemed to enjoy it as well. Yay!

I was SO glad to have gotten to go to the school this year for my daughter's birthday. Last year I didn't get to share the experience of her celebrating her birthday with her class and was upset about it. I'm the type of mommy who enjoys these types of moments. We only get so many of them!

Sending Sick Kids To School

This morning my hubby had to leave extra early for work so I was the one who took my daughter to school. Since it was a nice morning, we walked of course.

After walking my daughter to her class, my son and I started on the walk back home. When we reached the edge of the sidewalk to cross the street where the crossing guard was, we walked past a mom who was talking to her daughter. They were headed TO the school.

This mom was basically telling her daughter to go to school and try to hang in there until at least 1pm or so then if she still couldn't do it, she'd come pick her up.

As we walked across the street, I commented to the crossing guard, who is also the school's gym teacher. We were both basically floored that this mom was telling her kid this. The gym teacher said that the girl would probably be bugging to go see the nurse all day. I said that depending on what was wrong with her, she might get others kids sick too.

It's crazy that parents send their kids to school KNOWING they don't feel well! Really? Just keep them home especially if you know they are feeling bad enough that you tell them you'll come get them early. Obviously they need to just stay home to begin with if that is your plan. Why make them suffer through part of the day at school possibly passing along whatever ails them to other kids or teachers?

Falling Behind

Life has been so busy lately that I'm falling behind on my New Year's resolution to blog daily. Now I'm two days short! Yikes!

Yesterday I thought about blogging at different times during the day but kept thinking I would do it later. Well, by the time later came, I was just tired and ready for beddy by!

I've been trying to get in as much crochet time as possible as I have two three day craft shows in the coming weeks that are on back to back weekends so I need A LOT of items in order to fill my tables for both shows.

On top of that, our daughter's birthday and our son's birthday are this time of the year too so that adds to my things to do list. Not to mention, just everyday life in general things like housecleaning, laundry, and being a mommy and wife. Busy! Busy! Busy!

I do plan to do more than one blog post a day at some point to catch up on the days I've missed. I know that means that in all actuality I won't have blogged DAILY, but I do plan to still have blogged 366 times for the year of 2012! So stay tuned to keep reading! :-)

Crazy Weekend

Wow! What a crazy, busy, full, and did I mention BUSY weekend we had!

After waking up earlier than planned on Saturday, we were pretty much none stop on the go, busy with SOMETHING basically ALL weekend.

Saturday morning I did my online things first thing since I knew the rest of my Saturday was going to be busy. Didn't want to miss making my daily treasury or miss writing my daily blog post.

After that, I had to finish getting things ready for our daughter's birthday party which included decorating her cake that daddy had baked the night before. Thankfully this year the cake was EASY to decorate. Just took two colors and neither had to be made because the cake shape was a puppy paw and our daughter wanted brown and white so I just used white and chocolate frosting. Easy peasy!

After we got everything ready for the party, the guests started to arrive. When the party was over we went out to supper with hubby's parents and our niece who came in town with them then sat around visiting the rest of Saturday evening.

Sunday I spent the morning and part of the afternoon out with my mom and my mother in law. After that my hubby, the kids, and I went to my grandparent's house for a bit then off to Wal-mart to pick up a few things.

Sunday evening was spent canning pickles. What an experience THAT was! I'll have to blog about it sometime soon. Maybe I'll even include photos of the finished jars of pickles.

With all that we had going on, last night I was ready for bed and just didn't get around to writing a blog post for yesterday.

To make up for my missing blog post, since I do have that New Year's resolution to blog daily, I plan to write two blog posts one of the days this week. I'm thinking I might blog about two fellow Etsians tomorrow but you'll just have to wait and see, or should I say read? :-)

Wanted To Sleep In

So I had hoped to have slept in this morning but alas that did not happen. There was no one to blame but myself either. Grrr...

Yesterday morning I had to be up earlier than usual as I had to be somewhere so I set my alarm for an earlier time. Last night when I went to bed I was thinking I had disabled my morning alarm which I usually do after it goes off on Fridays unless we have somewhere to be early on a Saturday morning.

Well, yep, you guessed it. I only THOUGHT that I had disabled the earlier than usual alarm setting yesterday morning because bright and early at 7:45am this morning it was ringing!

I was snoozing and dreaming away when it went off too! *sigh* Maybe I'll get to sleep in tomorrow. I know for SURE that I disabled the alarm this morning!

Busy Day

Oh my goodness was today a busy day for me!

Got up and went to work then to my grandparent's house for lunch! Boy, was lunch tasty!

After that I had to go to the doctor's office then headed back home.

Once my daughter was out of school and hubby was home from work, we started decorating for my daughter's birthday party tomorrow. We didn't get everything completely done before it was time to go up to my daughter's school for the back to school picnic night.

The teacher talked about what the kids are learning in class then we went to the book fair in the gym. I got both my daughter and my son a book then we went to have supper in the school cafeteria.

PTA was sponsoring the evening. They had hot dogs, chips, bananas, grapes, and cookies to choose from with water and lemonade for the drinks.

After we ate, there was still time to go to the gym so my daughter could have her face painted and my son could get a tattoo then we headed outside for the last part of the school event so the kids could jump in the bounce house and play on the playground.

Once we were done with the back to school picnic, we went over to Wal-mart to get the last of what we needed for the party along with some other things we didn't really need but wanted. Lol.

Shopping took awhile. I think we were all getting tired and ready to go home by the time we paid for our items we purchased from Wal-mart.

Once back home, we began to work on getting more things ready for our daughter's party.

Now that I've made my treasury for the day and I'm writing this blog post as my blog post for the day, I can FINALLY go to bed! I'm tired! It's been a long day and I'm nearly falling asleep while sitting here typing this.

My Seventeenth Featured Etsian

Minutes after making a treasury I refreshed the page and already had a comment. This comment was left by a shop who was not a featured shop in my treasury so I decided to shine the spotlight on the shop owner who took time to not only look at my treasury but also comment on it even when they were not in it.

My seventeenth featured Etsian is Desi from SGArtworks. Her shop can be found here, full of vintage and handmade affordable jewelry, photography, earrings, wire rings, bead rings, wire bracelets, necklaces, vintage collectibles, paintings, prints, and a few supplies ~ unique, chic, modern, unusual, artisan crafted, moderately priced, and mostly one-of-a-kind.

Desi is a self-taught jewelry designer since 1983 who admires creativity of all kinds. Art is her passion and creating things never seen before is what she loves to do. Only quality products are used and some are bought straight from supply shops on etsy.com. Isn't that great that she is helping support her fellow Etsians?

She always try to make her customers feel special so if you have a special request, please don't hesitate to ask her. She also loves to work with small groups and organizations, weddings and bridesmaid jewelry, showers and party favor jewelry gifts. 

Of course my FAVORITE color is blue so that is why I chose the items in the photos for this blog post but don't let that fool you. Desi's shop has MANY other colors of items too so go have a look why don't ya? Who knows? Maybe you'll find something you just CAN'T live without!

Fresh Fruit

Mmmm! Mmmm! Good! Don't you just LOVE fresh fruit! I know my family and I do! It's so yummy tasting and so healthy for you!

On our Labor Day weekend trip we stopped at a roadside stand to purchase a musk melon and a super huge watermelon. Both for really great prices!

We ate the musk melon up within a few days of buying it. Boy howdy, was it GOOD! We wish we would have purchased more than one now.

As for the watermelon, we waited a bit longer before cutting into it. It was good too but not quite as good as the musk melon was.

I love it when we are able to find fresh fruit for reasonable and affordable prices. It just doesn't happen too often now a days thus making it a bit harder to eat healthier. 

Homemade Banana Bread

Just got done drinking a large glass of milk and eating a warm piece of homemade banana bread that my hubby baked. Yes, you read that right. My HUBBY baked banana bread! Got myself my very own Betty Crocker and I'm not sharing him!

We buy bananas frequently but seem to hardly ever get them all ate before they ripen too much, no matter how green they are when we purchase them.

Well, this time hubby decided to not throw the over ripened bananas away. He looked up a recipe online and got to baking.

Mmm! Mmm! Good! So glad he decided to bake! Banana bread is one of my FAVORITES! Pumpkin bread and zucchini bread are high on my list too. Wonder if I can get him to bake either of those?

Toy Phases

Isn't it funny how kids go through phases of what they like and don't like?

My son started out liking Disney Cars Lightning McQueen and all his "friends", especially Mater.

Then he went through the phase of really liking the Toy Story characters especially Woody and Buzz Lightyear.

Now he is really getting into Thomas The Train. All of these phases in just a short time too! He's only 3, almost 4 years old!

He still plays with his Lightning McQueen and Mater cars quite often but doesn't really play with his Toy Story toys too much anymore. That might change though since he is about to have a Toy Story birthday so I imagine he'll get some new Toy Story toys as presents.

He doesn't really have any Thomas The Train toys yet. Key word is YET. I'm sure he'll end up with some soon!

He'll play with them for a bit then it will be on to the next toy phase. Hmmm...wonder what it will be? Only time will tell!

Purple Cauliflower

Both of my kids like to eat veggies and dip. My son likes carrots, cucumbers, and his favorite veggie with dip at the moment is broccoli. My daughter on the other hand usually just likes carrots and on occasion she'll eat cucumbers with dip too. She'd turn up her nose if you mentioned cauliflower or broccoli.

The other day hubby stopped in at the store and they had purple cauliflower for a reasonable price so he picked up a head of it. When we mentioned it to our daughter, once again that little nose of hers turned up. She didn't think it sounded good.

Well, tonight, hubby cut up that head of purple cauliflower and had some ranch dressing to dip it in. My daughter decided she would go ahead and try it. Lo and behold, she liked it!

Hubby and I think she liked it well, because it was purple. Purple happens to be one of my daughter's favorite colors so it is pretty obvious that is why she liked the purple cauliflower considering she won't eat regular white cauliflower. Hubby said the purple one tastes the same as the white one too so we're pretty sure it WAS the color that made her taste buds all of a sudden like it. I wasn't really hungry at the time so I haven't tasted it yet.

Hey! Whatever works and gets her to eat more veggies is fine by me! Unfortunately fresh fruit and veggies can cost SO much now a days that sometimes you just can't always afford to purchase them. We do as often as we can though since they are such a healthy food choice!

Technology

Isn't is just CRAZY how much a lot of us depend upon the internet and our cell phones now a days?

What would we have done if we had lived back in the day when these two things didn't even exist? Well, I guess we would have managed but to even think about not having them is just mind boggling huh?

I bet that the first thing that most of us do when we get up is either check our e-mail or our phones for new messages. Go ahead! Admit it! I'm right aren't I? I'll admit that on some days I'm guilty of this too!

Still Missing The Train

This morning we stopped in at the car rental place to see if they happened to have found our son's new train that has been misplaced. We've been searching and searching and just cannot find it anywhere.

The only other place we could think of that the train could be was still in the car we had rented. Well, it wasn't in the lost and found cabinet at the car rental place and it wasn't in the car either. The guy working there was nice enough to unlock the car so we could have a look around in it. No train to be found.

Soooooo, I think we're going to add the train to the list of "we don't know where it went items" which is starting to become quite a long list thanks to our little guy! Gotta love little boys don't ya?

The Missing Train

Tonight, right before heading out the door, we realized that our son might have left his brand new train that he got on our Labor Day weekend trip in the rental car we took back yesterday morning. We have searched the house more than once and have yet to find the train. If it is in our house then it is hiding really well!

We tried to call the rental company tonight but all we got was an automated system. We're going to stop in the morning while we are out and see if they happened to have found our son's train when they cleaned out the car to get it ready for the next person to rent.

We're hoping they found it and set it aside in a lost and found box but we won't know until in the morning when we stop in. Don't you just love it when kids misplace/lose their things, especially when they are brand new?

Returned The Car

This past week we rented a car for our Labor Day weekend mini vacation. We picked the car up last Wednesday and returned it this morning.

It was the 2012 Dodge Charger with a hemi that I had posted about driving last week.

I think hubby was sad to have to return it. He REALLY wants one now and felt so strange having to drive his work van again after cruising the highways and interstates this past weekend in the Charger while on our trip.

Since I really liked the car as well, I think we will wait a year or two and maybe try to purchase a used one so it won't cost SO much.

The Dodge Chargers are super nice but they also have a super big price tag attached to them! Right now our checkbook can't handle that super big price tag! Sure wish it could though!

Quote For The Day- 9/4/2012

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Crazy Train

Tonight while driving back home from a weekend trip we took, our son asked where we were going.

My hubby, trying to be funny replied back to him, "Crazy."

To which our son asked another question: "Can I go too?"

So hubby told him, "Hop aboard the crazy train!"

It was so cute and funny I just had to blog about it. Yes, I know it would have been cuter if I had recorded our son's little voice and posted that but I didn't so you'll just have to imagine it!

Quote For The Day- 9/2/2012

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote For The Day- 9/1/2012

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.
Confucius