Been Oh, So Very Long!

I haven't posted on here in such a long time! Life took a crazy turn and I ended up going through a short bout of depression/anxiety...something I haven't had to deal with in a few years. So anyway, I took some time to get things together and unfortunately, blogging was at the bottom of my to-do list. I'm feeling so much better now and ready to jump back in!

On the pregnancy front, I'm almost 29 weeks. I just had an ultrasound done and I am so happy to say that she is still a girl! Woohoo! I was nervous--we have so many pink clothes already and we're in love with the name that we've chosen. Plus, we're just plain ol' stinkin' excited about welcoming our new *daughter*! Even Cade is set on having a baby sister...he's always saying, "I just love my baby girl," and also, "I just want my own baby sister!" Too sweet! Here's a {blurry} picture of her sweet little squished baby face.



I haven't done too much with crafting. I did get a new printer hooked up so now I can start scrapping some pages with journaling. Yay for that! I'm also working on a simple little birthday calendar that I'm hoping to finish up today. I need to keep up with birthdays (I never remember til last minute) and I decided to use up some of my old patterned paper. It's bright and fun. I'll post pictures next time. I also made a card for my husband's cousin and his wife because they passed down a *ton* of baby clothes to us. I used a sketch from Mojo Monday and I love the way the card turned out. As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to use a bunch of these sketches to whip out a bunch of cards. That way I can have them on hand when I'm looking at my handy dandy birthday calendar. See how that works?! lol Anyway, here's the card:



Cade is doing well...making steady progress. And his two front (top) teeth are finally staring to come in! It's been about 7 months now and I was getting a little worried. They're both coming in, hopefully nice and straight. He'll be starting swim lessons soon. I'm looking forward to that. He also says that he wants to go back to school next year. Not sure how we're going to work that out. I don't have a problem with him going back to school as long as he has a teacher that is loving, patient and understanding. (He wants to go back to his old school so we might end up doing that.) As a matter of fact, if he goes back to school I'll be able to join MOPS again and I would love that!

Alright, getting off here for the moment. We need to go play at the park before it rains again!

Lyrics of the Day

Praise Him, praise Him,
All you little children,
God is love, God is love.
Praise Him, praise Him,
All you little children,
God is love, God is love.

Thank you, Jesus, for the abundant blessings you have poured down on Cade. I am so eternally grateful for the progress he's made. I give ALL the glory to You. Job 8:21 says, "God will let you laugh again; you'll raise the roof with shouts of joy." Father, they will here me shouting on the other side of the Earth when Cade is recovered! I will always proclaim of Your mercy and goodness and Your faithfulness. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.


***Putting language together and having it sound "normal" is something that is a little bit of a challenge for my son. Lately he has been saying more and more things that are just so amazing. For instance, last night he was playing Ratatouille and getting a bit frustrated. He said, "stupid crab!" I giggled a little because it reminded me of his dad (lol) and Cade looked right at me with a pout and said, "stop laughing about it." May not seem like much, but let me tell you, that was HUGE! Such a typical 7 year old moment. I can't praise God enough for His blessings!

Catch-up

A momma tomato and a kid tomato were walking together down the street. What did the momma tomato say to the kid tomato when he was lagging behind? Ketchup! lol

I haven't posted in forever. Been so busy. Actually, posting and reading other blogs was taking up a big chunk of my time so I had to take a short break to focus on other things. Balance is the main thing I crave in life and balance is the hardest for me to obtain. I tend to get a bit "obsessed" with things. :)


So, last week I really focused on homeschooling with Cade. I found tons of awesome blogs that have activities but they're mainly geared toward preschool age. Cade's 7 and quite bright so I ended up using the hands-on activities but adjusting things so they were more at his level. I bought a white board and would make a list of "lessons and activities" that we were going to do that day and then he could check each one off as we completed them. Great idea--he loved it! And...he loved the fun activities so much that when we were done he wanted to do more. As a matter of fact, he said, "I can do school work forever!" So that kept me very busy. Here are a couple of the blogs I got ideas from: Adventures of a Flake and Hey, I'm Just the Nanny. Cute projects! So Cade's been learning but it takes a lot of time for me to decide what lessons we'll be learning and then plan the actual activities. Then I have to sit and do the projects with him. How wonderful it would be if he could sit and do independent work but that's just not the way he learns. Oh, and I bought these...they're so much fun! Cade loves to make up sentences, they're great for reading and will be perfect when we start working on nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. I highly recommend them!


Second new thing--we got a Wii! Finally. Cade decided he was tired of playing Ratatouille on the PS3 and wanted to play it on the Wii. His dad, who is a total sucker and loves showering Cade with gifts, and who wanted a Wii as well I'm sure, hopped right up, traded in the PS3 at GameStop and came home with a brand new Wii! We have the sports games that came with it but we haven't played them yet. We've been playing Ratatouille. It took me just a bit to get used to the controllers but now I love it! I can't wait to play bowling!


And this is my latest obsession. I never thought I'd hop on the bandwagon for this one because I'm really not that into vampires. I mean, they drink blood. Eww! Saturday, hubby rented Twilight and I watched it. It actually wasn't all that good. Kind of cheesy. But for some reason, it drew me in. I wanted to know more about the characters and more of the story. So Sunday after church we went to Barnes and Noble and I bought the first 2 books. I was finished with the first one on Monday and the 2nd one on Tuesday. Tuesday evening my husband brought home the next 2 books. I'm trying really hard *not* to finish the this book in one day. lol They're not great literary reads but there is something that just sucks you in (no pun intended!) and I cannot put these books down. I've been struggling with completing and entire book for a long time so it's nice to kind of get lost in a book again.

Last, but not least, my friend Monica over at Home is Where Your Heart Is have decided to really start scrapping again. We both used to live in Phoenix and our husbands worked together in the Air Force. Her older son is about a year and a half older than mine and her baby boy will be 5 months older than my baby girl. I miss her! :( She lives in Japan...kind of far. We used to scrapbook together and make altered art together. We would give each other challenges and it was a lot of fun. Anyway, we've decided to start doing challenges again and I'm really excited about it. We have our first one picked out and I'm going to make myself put my book down and work on scrapping today. I'll be sure to post the results soon!

And that's it, I think! Oh, I'll have to take a new belly shot on Friday. I'll be 24 weeks and my belly has gotten big! Miss thang likes to practice her kickboxing in my belly...lots of fun!

Taking a Short Break

I've been busy with homeschooling and life in general. I plan on enjoying my weekend with the hubby and Cade and I'll be back on Monday to post updates and pictures. Have a blessed weekend!

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Have you seen the movie 21? Love it!

So, here are the winners of my book giveaway. *I used random.org but I have no clue how to capture a screen shot so yall will just have to trust me!* ;)

The first # that came up was 28. Congrats Rachel from One Day at a Time--you won a copy of The Love Dare!

The second # that random.org gave me was 24. Congrats Shannon from Just a Girl--you won a copy of The Strong-Willed Wife!

Thanks to everyone else for stopping by and playing! Have a blessed weekend!

Shiners? Raccoon? Masked Super Hero?

What in the world made my crazy child think that using a marker to color his eyes purple was a good idea?! And look at that smug little expression on his face! {This happened on the same day that he stole my white, fuzzy craft fur that's about 3 feet long and stuck it between his hiney buns because he "wanted a tail"!!!!} Thank goodness for little boys and laughter! :)

I'm a Scrapper!

Back in the day (which would be oh, about 3-6 years ago), I was just a teeny bit addicted to scrapbooking. It was my passion. I absolutely loved it. I loved taking pictures and even journaling, but most of all, I loved putting a layout together. The sense of accomplishment I had after completing a page really gave me a rush. I was proud of my layouts and I thought they were pretty darn cute. I got so involved in it that I started designing layouts for a couple of design teams. I would submit my layouts to magazines and they would get published...I actually got paid to scrap! I was posting my layouts to online galleries where other scrappers would leave comments about them.

Then it happened. I started comparing my work to others. My "art" which I loved so much. I started to feel inferior. I wanted to measure up--to be as good as the "famous" scrappers. I started losing my mojo. I started disliking my layouts. Scrapbooking wasn't enjoyable anymore. So I quit. :( I took a very long break. Like an almost 3 year long break. I had no interest in scrapping. No desire.

A week or so ago, I happened to go through a couple of my old albums that are being stored at my mom's house for the time being. I truly enjoyed looking at my old layouts. They were cute! And the journaling...some of it actually brought tears to my eyes while some of it made me laugh out loud. I am so happy that I preserved those memories. I had actually forgotten some of those things. {Advice--write things down. You just know that you'll never forget it--but you will.}

So all this got me thinking. I haven't scrapped or journaled in a super long time. That's a lot of memories from my son's life that I've missed out on recording. I'm going to be having another baby soon. I've gotta get busy! I absolutely must start scrapping again. I have to. And this time, I will not compare myself to others. I will make layouts that I love...I will make layouts for myself and for my family. And I'll share a few of them here with my bloggy friends! No more trying to be as "good" as others. I want my hobby back!

In honor of that, I'll share a layout I put together yesterday. The pictures are of my son about 2 years ago. I love his dirty little pig face! And I'm happy to say that I actually loved creating this layout (super simple, just my style!). So, on this Thursday, the thing I love is scrapbooking!



I like this little meme. I get to think of all the things I'm appreciative of and then share one (or two!) with yall. See what everyone else loves over at The Diaper Diaries!