Baby? Where!

No, not here, not anymore.

Damen's not a baby.

There, I said it, maybe one day I'll believe it. He's three, almost four. He used to be a baby, but now he's closer to something else. Something new, maybe exciting and wonderful, but I miss my baby.

When did this even happen? Wasn't I looking, paying attention? Well of course I was, I just didn't notice it until it was too late, he's a big boy now. (sigh) I miss my baby. . .

I made a HAT

Well, I've made two by now actually. I saw this on Transformation Thursday and copied it, I'm really good at that! (copying) I shared it with the woman who originally posted it and she shared it on her blog so I'm going to put an attachment here. Now you can see how she made it too! Enjoy:)

T I double GG ER

The most wonderful thing about Tigger, is the same wonderful thing about me, there's only one.

I was made grateful and aware of that these last two days. Damen's been really sick, the first time he got off the couch in the past two days was today around 4pm. It was unusual for him and I was worried about his fever and his behavior. I laid on the couch with him watching Batman, Thomas the train, Teen Titans, UP, and many other movies. I got him apple juice and chocolate milk and forced him to drink. I took his temp and administered medicine. I mothered him.

I am incredibly blessed to be home each and every day. I am the only one, the only mommy he has. I am grateful for the call, for the opportunity, for the stress and the wonder and the joy. I realize it's not a reality for many other moms to be home, and it must be hard for them to leave. I hope I am always able to stay home with Damen, to be his only one.

Monogram fun!

I've been seeing a lot of these monogrammed things all over! Plagues, pillows, signs, picture frames, you name it. I also saw, two weeks ago at Shabby Chic, a really neat way to make a raised plaster looking relief with a hot glue gun. I put these two things together and came up with this:



Here's how! I started with this garage sale find shadow box. It originally had a scroll of the ten commandments, ribbons and fake flowers. Upon removing them I discovered that this blue material (50 year old felt maybe) was pretty much attached. Since it was just a piece of particle board I turned it over.

I printed out the letter H on the computer, used chalk to outline the back then laid it down on the board and outlined the upside with pencil leaving me an outline in chalk that I then went over with pencil. That's clear right?

To make the image raised I just filled it in with my hot glue gun, pretty simple! I really filled it in some places and other places not as much, for DIMENSION.




Once it was all filled in I started tearing up common white tissue paper and modge-podged it down. You don't have to wait to do this because hotglue is cool in like what 3.5 seconds? So, I covered the whole board and went over a few spots twice to add a good paintable space and for DIMENSION.


Next I waited FOREVER, I'm not a patient girl when it comes to crafty I want instant gratification! Ok, so it took a while for the glue to dry then I mixed some craft paint, off white and brown (very technical here) and just painted it on.

I printed off these words using different types and font sizes to paint around the letter H.

I used the same technique with the chalk for the words, you can see the yellow outline here. Then, using my grandmothers paint brush again, I painted the words in using the brown paint.


The step in between did not get photographed, weird, I took the brown paint and mixed it with water, then brushed it across the whole thing with a piece of cheese cloth. You can see how it picked up all the DIMENSIONS in the above close up.

After the words were dry I watered down the original background color and swiped it across the words, they were too bright for me.


After everything was dry, TA-DA put it in the frame and. . .

Hmmm, not so impressed, I think the frame needs something, yes yes it does. Bring on the color!

(first I sanded a bit, then) I mixed some different reds and a little brown, some water and kind of "whitewashed" it on.



That's better!




TA-DA!! A personalized monogram with loads of DIMENSION!!

I'm linked at the party below:




PS I really really really like all the dimension in this project:)

Yikes it's been a while!

Ok in my defense, I have none! It's been a month since we took our trip to Washington and I haven't blogged a word about it! Not because the drive was too long or the kids weren't fun or our biennial sisters weekend wasn't AWESOME, it's because I just have TOO MANY PICTURES! And it would be really hard to just select a few and too monstrous to pick them all. So I've been putting it off, but no more! First the low down, then the pics: We drove to Medford, OR and stayed with my sister for the night, went on to Washougal, WA the next day and stayed with my parents for the week. We played with my nephews, went shopping, and hung out with the family. Thursday my sisters and I traveled back to Medford for our sisters weekend. Which involves just us girls, all six of us, doing whatever we want to with no kids, husbands, or jobs to worry about. We had a great time "camping" (in yurts, basically cabins with beds and heaters), eating, shopping, touring the Harry and David's headquarters, and we had "sisters" pictures taken for our mom. Then Dustin (who stayed with my folks those two days) drove down with Damen and picked me up to head home. It was a great week and now, lots of pictures!!


Beautiful sun shot outside of San Bernardino (not really part of the "trip" but we were on our way!)



Handsome cousins, Kaden, Zack and Damen near Lacamas Lake, we took them for a hike. Isn't Washington freaking beautiful!


Great Grandpa Suggs, me and Damen



The semi-automatic lego rifle Dustin spent a day making. The boys were "booming" eachother with lego guns and Dustin had to outdo them, of course, what else was there to do?



Crazy squirrel taking a BATH in our ashes.



Harry and Davids tour bus!



MMMM Popcorn, delicious, scrumptious, Moose Munch popcorn!!



The following are pictures of my BEAUTIFUL sisters:)

Kari, Christi, Traci, Jodi, Lori and Me

Traci, Christi and Jodi

Lori and Me


Silliness around the campfire:




The next morning we took a ton of pictures in our "camp shirts" (shirts my dad had made for us) but none of mine turned out. ON that note here's one last shot of Damen and Robert, cute cousin buddies!





PS Stuff has happened since this, Damen had a gymnastics performance, we went to Disneyland and Dustin took Damen to Father's and Sons campout, but that's for a later date, maybe tomorrow:)

BUG sense??

Creepy, weird, sixth sense? You decide.

This is how it went down: Last night around 12:20am Damen got up, went to the bathroom, he didn't quite make it so he got me up to change his clothes and put him back to bed. About 40 minutes later he made another appearance in our room. He's crying, comes up to the bed and says, "mommy, get it, there's a bug next to me." I was confused (and mostly asleep) and asked him something,(I thought he'd had a nightmare) he responded and was upset (my memory's a little fuzzy about the specifics)so I told him to get Daddy. This is totally the right response at 1am when your child's crying about bugs. So sweet daddy gets up with him and I hear some excited squeals from Damen and a light comes on, then a toilet flushes. I'm still confused, but now Damen's back in bed so I don't really care. I did ask Dustin what happened when he came to bed and he told me, but again things are fuzzy.
This morning I found a DI-sgusting roach in the kitchen and had to dispose of it, which reminded me of our late night visit from Damen. I asked Dustin what happened and here it is: After they left our bedroom Damen ran into the kitchen and pointed to the island saying "there, get it daddy" Dustin didn't see anything, but wanting to calm him down moved the island (it's on wheels), and sure enough there under it was a roach! Damen freaked out shouting "Get it! Get it!!" Dustin of course did "get it", smacked it with a random shoe and then flushed it (this is our official "roach" policy, just to make sure they're dead and gone), and put Damen back to bed.

I'm fairly positive I put Damen back to bed before and that I heard his bedroom door open just before he came in the second time.





So, was Damen up that whole time checking out the kitchen floor? Did he just wake up and KNOW that there was a bug in the kitchen, under the island? Or does he have some kind of special Bug Sense?
Creepy and weird!

Mothers

". . will you rise to the challenge of being mothers in these perilous times, though doing so may test the last ounce of your endurance and courage and faith? Will you stand steadfast and immovable as a mother in Israel and a woman of God?" -Sheri L. Dew


My mother did, will you? Can I? I pray so every day. Happy Mothers Day.