superbowl xv-pictures

our superbowl cake, in our small group in church we are outnumbered by the kids, Paul thought of having this cake made, I thought it was a funny, good, idea!


This is Caden and his trusty "stinkball" (a bit of baby blanket he like to rub his nose and suck his fingers with) he ignored it for about two months and now he is back at it (only at home at night). This is Caden's main girl, he just adores her!

so those are about all the pictures we took during the party, we were too busy to take too many pics. The kids made a super castle, mailbox included. The adults watched the game on a projector big screen downstairs. All had fun!

A True Valentine

"For God so loVed the world,
That He gAve
His onLy
BegottEn
SoN
That whosoever Believeth
In Him
Should Not perish,
But have Everlasting life."

John 3:16

superbowl xv

We had a nice party, our first in in this house, actually our first in Michigan! We had about 10 adults and 10 children. The children made a castle out of cardboard and we had games, food and lots of fun. We thought that this would help "heal" Paul's homesickness, but it just was fun while it lasted. It didn't put a dent in it. Don't get me wrong, we had a good time, but we miss the family parties that were had nearly once a month for not much of a reason. Paul hasn't seen his parents in over a year and it is getting to him. Now we had some discouraging news today, we are having troubles being all happy! sorry.

life

Our church has started a "Godblog", in which we communicate through journaling and praying with God, that is sorta like a blog-isn't it. Is is not what we do, journal our life experiences, our wants, loves and desires on our blogs? Well, life has taken an unexpected turn for us...we have been dissapointed. I guess we will see what is next. But life will march on, we have our health, (well sorta for me ;). So all I want to do is share some visual interest, what helps keep me happy.


another beautiful fabric and creation in the work bysix and a half stitches


of course another favorite from my favorite, Penelope for those of you who "know" my house, it would look beautiful, no? I love this painting.


and

by Mati Rose McDonough


This linocut is by the always talented Littlestflower from Australia

and finally

The always enjoyable resin encased works by Alena Hennessy

Hope this adds a little sunshine for your day, because I sure hope that the light at the end of the tunnel has not been shut off due to power shortage! hehe

medical mayhem

Brain scan:done,
Completely strange Sleep Study:done.
Prognosis: Who knows.
The sleep study was not an experience I recommend. I didn't want to do it.(who really would?) I have had another undocumented one during attaining my BA. It showed no REM. Guess what, this one, ten (ugh) years later, no REM. The technician slapped a C-PAP, (something that you put on your face to keep you breathing) for 6 hours. It did not help. She said I had sleep apnea. She was not qualified to make a diagnosis. Needless to say, I freaked out. I don't need another ailment. Luckily Paul had the presence of mind to call my neurologist, who was also appalled by this and told us that it takes 10-14 days for Doctors to go over the information and make a conclusion. This conclusion was something completely out of the realm of expectation and hopefully under further review completely false. I rarely snore, my husband has never noticed me stopping breathing at night, how could I have apnea. I don't sleep, that is all, who knows why....

So that is how my last two days went. But to make up for all of this medical nightmares, guess what found it's way to me?


that's right...
The local little bookstore ordered it and got it in super fast. This is the best! It makes up for a couple of crummy days, and so does having a loving husband and cute kid, and my new found cuddle-mate Zoe.

She slept in my spot last night during my testing, and was all out of sorts until I got home. Animals really make you feel loved pretty much unconditionally. (It is probably because I am the one who feeds her, but I like to think otherwise!)

print

This is the itty bitty print that Anna to me. I love love love it. So cute.
She sent it wrapped up in cute paper and contrasting ribbon. Her site is filled with cute stuff! I love her blog!


see the cute bears! I love the aqua and red combo!

hearts

Our crayon hearts...closup...and window view...


please excuse the poor picture quality, we have had poor lighting around here most of the time, but I wanted to share...


this is better! Our minolta took this, the card was attacked by some sort of something and we were able to fix it! Yahoo! This is a much better camera, small too!

Ok that is it, just wanted to share, someone may be getting one in the mail with their birthday card! Wonder who?

Introducing...

Zoe!!

Our six month old kitty. We saw a free ad for her and her sisters, we had to take a look. She now joins the notorious B.O.B. our boogie eyed goldfish as our pets. Kiwi, sadly, is so missed, but she went to a happier home for her, one with more dogs. We could see that she was one of those dogs who does better in homes with other dogs, and, we just aren't into having a huge amount of pets. We do miss kiwi, but she is so so happy in her new home. Sometimes the old cliche of "if you love something, you have to let it go" really makes sense.

Ok, on to Zoe, she is sweet, kinda shy and still acclimating. She wants to love and purr all night, and sleep all day. She hides when she hears Caden coming (she is smart too ;) But we think that it will take a few weeks for her to take over and run the house! She already had her first bath (she came from a "cat" house, meaning, in the nicest way ever, a cat-run furry place). She took it well.

We have been re-doing the spare bedroom. It was an awful pink, we covered it with tan that we already had. The pink came through, it was ugly. We picked a pretty sage and put in the futon for now. Eventually it will probably hold a queen bed, but right now we are using it as a sort of den.





Caden flopping around!


another pic of Caden showing off, he is a ham at heart!


I have been crafting. The curtains are too short in the spare room, so I have been thinking of adding length to them with a coordinating fabric. I tried to make some of those beautiful log cabin pillow like this:

by the so talented Lisa from http://www.birdinthehand.typepad.com, I hope she doesn't mind that I used her photo, but I had to show you how beautiful the pattern is. It didn't turn out so well. I think I really need so much more practice and probably the book that I have been wanting and dreaming of!



It isn't around here, and I don't like to buy it online.

This is my new pincushion that I created..I didn't have one. Now I do! It was inspired from the new Martha Stewart Living magazine.
I like it...it could always be better.

We are making crayon wax hearts today...picures to follow in an upcoming post...So that is that!

Enamored

Caden is enamored with Stephanie, his babysitter. (Honestly we may be too, it is just nice to get out once in a while.) I am truly enamored with the love of my life, my husband. My crazy, creative husband who planned a date night, and always plans our dates. He is so loving, caring and thoughtful. He put us up at the Amway Grand, in Grand Rapids and we had planned on going to a club. We went to said club, but it was packed, so we went to a couple of more, walking the freezing streets of Grand Rapids. Alone. Child, warm, safe and NOT with us. Hooray. We had the opportunity to dance the night away, but found ourselves, snuggled in at the hotel by eleven. Oh, that sounds so sad. We have lost our zest for the nightlife forever (many have wondered if we ever had that in the first place) and found that snuggling is much nicer. It was nice to sleep a night without our door opening, loudly, with the announcement that someone has to go potty, or he is awake, or needs something. It was sooo nice. We slept in. Thank you Paul.



On another note, we have another health stress, I have been remanded back to a neurologist for what is thought to be a pituitary gland problem, restless leg syndrome, whatever, who knows, it just isn't that I am crazy. Did you know that something like 25% of the population have tumor on the pituitary gland, but it doesn't create any problems? Scary. I have to admit, I have been nervous. It is on Wednesday.

I have been missing my true friends, in Oregon. It is difficult to find true friends. I have the ultimate best friend in my husband, but I must admit, it has been quite sad missing our friends. Good friends are hard to find. Everyone seems to busy to care. Unless it is scheduled (as in a church commitment), and on that day, we are to stick to the topic at hand, and not pursue friendships, it seems. We love where we live, our house, the small family life created here with my mother and our family and even extended family in GR. But I really liked Portland, but was unsure of Caden growing up there, no offense, just different growing up on Lake Michigan, small town yadda yadda is very nice. Who knows the decisions we make, but I don't want to move across the country again! But I miss you Meghan and Katie.

Good thing God gave me Paul. (and of course Caden, our constant source of amusement and energy) .

♥

♥

♥

that is that....for now...

Sewing along..

Our kitchen window, sorry about the flash, but it has been overcast for weeks!


Our couch is sporting some of the new pillows that I have been sewing, and behind are the curtains I am so happy with!


And, at last, the curtains which are framing our snow flake windows. I love how they turned out, they warm up the house, literally! The window should be sporting some wax hearts hanging pretty soon in celebration of Valentine's Day.


This is a picture from our banister to the downstairs. The sail boat is hand made by my dad. I fell in love with it, and of course, he gave it to me!


This is my sniffle pack, a tissue pack and a cough drop carry case. Really the case was a mistake, but I liked it and decided it could be put to a good use too. The tissue holder has a little monkey charm, I have always liked the charm, and finally put it to good use.

Tomorrow will be date night. Paul has planned it all. We haven't gone out, alone, for a while. It will be really nice, I am excited!


Finally, a little cuteness from last summer...

the little bunnies born under our deck, discovered while gardening. They all grew up and hopped away one day. I cannot wait till summer. Working on the pool yesterday got my excitement up, I have never had a pool in my backyard, it better be warm this year!

it is sunny!!

Ok...we have had less than one measurable minute of sunshine in like 28 of the last 30 days. Needless to say..I am outta here! We have been wandering our yard...the snow has melted and we are discovering what lies beneath! I have found a hydrangea and rhododendron as well as a sump pump to take the pond that has formed on top of our covered pool. (Well, Paul is doing that). I will probably blog tomorrow with pics of some finished projects. My ceramic supplies are coming closer, I just can feel it, then I can start of some of the main works of art I want to accomplish.

a day with the trains..

Caden: "no more pictures, stop the papparazzi's" a typical picture of Caden. The ham that he is, he is more of a turkey though and will not cooperate with any of mom's picture taking.


They actually staged an automobile collision on one of the train tracks.


The boys, they love the trains.


This is the airplane that Paul built for Caden out of Caden's tinker toys from Santa Claus. It took three hours to constuct and about......er....2.5 seconds for Caden to destroy. As we all know, Caden takes everything apart. It was a beautiful airplane (that is why we so quickly snapped pictures of it!)


This is my favorite picture, this year, of my boys!

♥

oh happy day...

On the good side, I got to get some of the material I needed to finish our curtains.
On the bad side, I have to go to a neurologist. Ugh. Not again. They got me in fast, that is nice, but this was completely unexpected. A completely new problem, not really related to my back injury at all. hmph. Oh well, I am going to forge on, no worries.

We have our small group here on Tuesday night, so I need to get my curtains done! I was thinking of making a stencil for the bottom of the linen curtain. The stencil is hopefully going to evoke the same feeling of this:



and



We found some sticky clear paper that will work great (I hope) to create a cut out stencil and stick it to the material and paint in the design with fabric paint. This will probably be one of my projects this weekend. It looks like we will be venturing to a HO train show. Ever since we found out we were having a boy, Paul has always dreamed of sharing his love for scale trains. We are now slowly building our own small collection. They are in the spare bedroom, which has nothing else in it yet, so why not? They have such fun!

new year clean-up

We are slowly coming out of our post-Christmas slumber around here. Real-life is emmerging just around the corner. Paul is to start his new job on Tuesday, and preschool comes back from vacation Monday. Oh how I will miss sleeping in and afternoon naps. But life always marches on.

We have completely put away all hints of Christmas and organized almost everything from the move. If we had two cars...we could put both of them in the garage. We do, in fact, have two cars..actually three, but only one is on the road. We still haven't figured out what to do about the mechanic-abused car that needs 1700 dollars to repair his mis-mechanic doings. Ugh. The other car is all fixed..all 7000 dollars fixed, but is sitting on the lot to be sold or paid for by us if we so decide. I don't know. We have a plan, now it just needs to pan out. We will see.

I have spent too many hours dreamind of purchasing this book:
it has the cutest patterns for sweet little stuffed animals, but alas, it is in Japanese and Paul insists that it would be silly for me to get a book that I cannot read. But I hear from so many sources that the pictures speak for themselves and you can figure out the patterns quite easily. The major problem is that I haven't found anywhere locally that carries these books and online shopping seems to mess up my account everytime I try it. One day we aspire to have a separate credit card just for online, but right now, I am quite happy being credit card free.

I also have been drooling for this book...
But I haven't found it locally, but I just came up with an idea...could it possibly be at the library...hmm I need to check that out. Our scanner just broke, so it would be difficult to save any inspirations to my computer.

I have been wanted to try my hand with paper collages sort of like these..

by Ana (http://www.papeisportodolado.blogspot.com/) sorry being a lazy blogger...

and these


and


by Camilla (http://www.camillaengman.com/misc/index2.htm)

I have the materials, I just need to get off my duff and get around to it! I have all my stuff ready to order for the ceramics, but decided to wait until Paul starts his job. I did, however, but eight yards of heavy muslin fabric to use as liners for my new curtains I made. The idea is that they will be reversable, and I am going to use fabric paint to stencil on something simple on the bottom. Maybe something like Lotta (http://www.jansdotter.com/). That would be nice! Oh, and one more thing I want to work on, a sock dog! Yep that's the list. Let's see how much I accomplish between all of my medical appointments and etc!

blah blah blah, but leave it to me, I registered for the prescription benefits wrong and I have to wait another month before my insurance will pick up prescription costs...ugh!! I got a confirmation on the internet, but was lazy and didn't write it down, if I did, i wouldn't had to wait this long probably. But it works out because I had chosen the wrong plan anyway. Isn't this just the most interesting post ever? ;)

A Happy New Year

This new year is going to be very different and exciting. Paul will be starting a new. very different for him, job. We are quite excited and a little nervous. As with any job, this will be stressful, but we hope not as stressful as running your own business, and being responsible for so many employees and families. In this economy, we are quite blessed for this opportunity.

Also, when (and sometimes it feels like "if') Spring comes, we will be doing a lot of yard work. We really haven't had to deal with the yard yet. We moved in and the next day it turned into winter, literally-with snow and everything! We have almost an acre of lawn. We to create more perineal areas and perhaps a hammock between some of the trees. We also get to learn how to care for the pool. Quite exciting. The other day, we say a bald eagle fly through the back yard! We have deer that come to the front of the house, the seem to like to munch on something near Caden's window.

We have already started on the inside of the house. We need to update the main bath, it doesn't look that bad, it just isn't very functional. It will be nice to put a nice big tub/shower in there.

I have been sewing alot. I finished the denim throw pillows and I want to actually make a quilt. I have no idea what I am getting myself into! I am really inspired by Denyse Schmidt's quilts I want to do a modern quilt something like these:


or



I also like all of the beautiful log cabin pillows I have been seeing. Like these...
at Lisa's blog
Down to every detail, just beautiful.



Isn't this an adorable idea, to make a small art quilt from your baby's old clothes. These are by Lori joy (Her site is http://www.lorijoysmith.com/studio/blog.asp) You just might want to look at her entire site, she is such a talented artist.

And, as always, I am excited to be able to start using my kiln, once we have financially recovered from the house and car troubles. I am so excited to make ornaments, pendants, tiles, anything thay I can fit into my little kiln!

Penguin tales and such...

Ok, I must make one correction, the car that we bought is a Passat, not a jetta, ok whatever close enough. Right now, all I care is that it has four wheels, is safe, and will go throughout the snow. Our poor abused car (my Saab) has been diagnosed. It is not good. It would have been fine, but we decided to be responsible adults and bring it in to have routine maintenance. That was a mistake, a BIG mistake. The mechanic changed the timing belt (er...let us just say wrong) and returned to us a sputtering shadow of my car. The once running car can now only sputter. It has been diagnosed (two mechanics later) and it is not good. We will see, it was so nice to have TWO whole days with TWO nice running cars. What to do, what to do. I know what I want to do, but we all know it wouldn't be nice.

OK, onto better subjects. We have unwittedly scarred our child for life. How? You may ask. I will tell you: The March of the Penguins..Yes, the terrific, heartbreaking documentary has turned our child into a perpetual penguin. Caden wobbles around all day holding his "egg" gently on his feet, just like a penguin. This is not the bad part. You see, the problem is that it seems this movie has equipped Caden with a great curiosity of the birds and the bees, where did I come from ,how did I get out of there, etc etc those kind of questions. It has been a cute and sometimes funny addition to our daily life.

Here are a few things we have done for the holidays, and some of the things just hanging around.


clove and citrus. This is one half, the other half turned moldy. Why doesn't Martha warn us of these things? :)

Our snowflakes have been hung...as you can see, we don't really need to make paper snowflakes, we have plenty of our own outside! But they are cute anyways!


Our stockings are hung...


and granny is hung! I made this ornament a long long time ago. It has made it through four cross country trips! She deserves her prime spot front and center on the tree.


This is such an adorable picture of caden! This was his present to us at "family day" at preschool today. Such an "angel" (he is supposed to look like an angel, with chenille stem halo and all, the body of his angel is made from a tracing of his foot) A very cute idea!


I just had to share this pic. It is a picture of a photocopy of "my boys", hands. I just liked it. :)

Tis the Season..

to be busy for too many reasons...We have put an end to our car trouble and bit the bullet and bought a new to us car. It is an all wheel drive Jetta wagon. It is nice and we are thankful to have two cars that will safely travel from point a to point b. My Saab (which is now Paul's primary car) had been in for routine maintenance and came back to us sputtering and with the engine light on. Not happy. No no no, you don't take a perfectly good car to someone and expect to get back something that cannot even idle. Five hundred dollars later, all seems ok. We hope.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, we have misplaced the charge cord for the camera. I should be able to get one of the camera's to work.

Tomorrow Caden will be going to a school Christmas party. It is an annual party that the kids have, which gives mommy and daddy time to go Christmas shopping. We have been very behind with this whole Christmas stuff, we haven't even designed cards. This year, we are purchasing cards. With the new house and the car drama, Christmas just snuck up on us.

I officially "retire" from filling in at the architect's office on Wednesday. We fired Caden's daycare last week, so Caden has been coming to work with Dad. This will not work for much longer, and I cannot work too much as it is, so it was great while it lasted.

The nerve blocks that I have been doing have been deemed ineffective, so meds have been doubled. Maybe one day, when the total disc replacements become more reliable, this will be a better route. This is our only option right now. We have been thinking about getting a spa later. The doctors seem to think that this could help a little. Our pool will be great in the summer. It is difficult to talk about this, but it does majorly effect the way we live, so sometimes you just have to get it out.

The craft room is almost set up. All I need to do is to buy the ceramic supplies. This will be happening in a few months. I can't wait! In the meantime, I have some sewing to do!

I will try to post some pictures of our Christmas decorations and festivities, not to mention the snow...

I Finally Figured it Out!

That's right folks, I have finally figured out my sewing machine. I spent hours and hours reading the manual and trying over and over. I went through an entire spool of thread! It is one of the simple Singer drop in bobbin. Apparently I was using the wrong bobbin. The lady at the sewing store was like "duh!". I felt so belittled and stupid. I was like "you know how it is when you are just learning to sew on a different machine...." and she was like "no...I don't" Well, wouldn't it be nice to be as perfect as she apparently is? I know I will not be returning there again. I am so happy to start sewing again. I am working on turning my Crate and Barrel shower curtains into regular curtains (they are not made of shower curtain-like material, just a normal curtain material. I went to the Crate and Barrel outlet a few months ago right as they were discounted from $40 each to $4.95. I got four of them! I finished one, it looks pretty good. I'll post a pic when I finish them.

Caden has been home sick from preschool, he has had a perpetual runny nose. Hopefully a little time off and away will clear it up. We made paper snowflakes for the window, ala Martha Stewart

We have had a large car dilemma. Paul's car blew the engine. We have been down to one car for about two months. It isn't working well. We need to make a decision. It looks like we are going to purchase a car (used) and get back to paying a car payment. ugh! It just isn't worth paying for a car to get fixed when fixing it costs as much as another car. We have it at the dealership (a friend). It will be fixed and then sold and then we will split up the profit (not much, but at least not a complete loss) It seems to happen all at once. The engine went out during escrow on our new house.

It has been snowing lots here. Nice and cozy! That about sums it up.