Trying to be a Christmas photographer.

I was playing on the floor with my daughter the other night and decided that the Christmas tree was really pretty and I wanted to take some pictures I don't really have a great camera but I think they turned out ok.

They aren't much but I think they are pretty I hope you enjoy!

Its been awhile...

I haven't written since Thanksgiving while fun it was very hectic the time frame I was given was cut an hour short that day after I had planned everything down to the drive time to get the turkey to the location while it was still hot. So needless to say I was being rushed the whole time by people that weren't even at my house. But the food was good and my original time frame was what happened to fall into place and it wasn't entirely my fault!

The Olivia party! It was so much fun. There were a lot of kids in my house, and it took me about a week to clean it all up. Sadie got a lot of books for her birthday which is wonderful because she loves books. We go in her bedroom to play and she has to go to the book shelf and pull off her favorite books and "reads" them. Oh and her cake pictures turned out so cute! She got cake EVERYWHERE! I have decided that I want to learn to decorate cakes...

I have decorated a tree but have not really put up any other decorations we meant to buy new decor this year but we ended up having to buy a new car and throwing all of our money at that plus my wonderful mother loaned us some money to get out from under our last POS car. The loan has still not gone through but we have our fingers crossed and really hope that it goes through on Monday.

Our anniversary is coming up fast luckily my wonderful mother that we owe quite a bit of money to is letting us have awhile to pay her back so we get to have a pretty decent anniversary this year. I am not really sure what we are going to do but I'm sure it will be fun whatever it is...

Well I should probably hit the hay... maybe do some light cleaning first... 

Happy Thanksgiving

Prepping food for the big day! The one day a year that it is socially acceptable to stuff your face until you have to loosen you belt.

I have been dealing with a sick baby all week and been totally stressed about it. She is acting totally normal until she decides that she has had enough and then she is just done. There is no consoling her she just cries for about 10-15 min... I guess its better than having a baby with colic. I was super lucky and she is a very, very content child she only cries when she needs something she has a smile on her face 3/4 of the time, even when she is sick. So the crying just makes my heart break.

So while I have a sick child my thanksgiving responsibility has been greatly reduced. The past 3-4 years I have cooked and hosted thanksgiving at my home. This year I am cooking the turkey, green bean casserole, and the main vegetable. I'm not even hosting... its a little odd but I am thankful for the extra time with my little family. This is my daughter's first thanksgiving and I am so happy that she is just the right age to have fun with it.

While I love the holidays they seem to be a time of odd decisions for my little family. Along with the normal thanksgiving, Christmas, and new years, we have princess' birthday and our wedding anniversary. Bad planning on our part maybe... but I am still enjoying it... it just takes a lot more planning in the finance department...

Well happy thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you holidays are filled with family, warmth, and love!

Feeling Crafty...

Tonight I was feeling crafty. I went to Hobby Lobby last night and bought some ingredients for some crafts. Some that I had been meaning to do and just haven't gotten around to; and some that I never intended but I saw something and I decided I needed to do it.

I bought the stuff to make my daughter a bow holder thing for her birthday. This is one of the things that I have been planning on doing for a long time and just haven't had the time or the stuff at the same time. To make the holder I needed about a 12" long wood plank, scrapbook paper that matched her room, ribbon, paint, and mod podge.

Here is how I made it:


1: I painted the wood because it had a decorative edge that would have made it really hard to cover in paper. Wait for paint to dry before moving on.


2: trace the shape of the plank on to the side of the paper that is NOT the side you want to use; Cut out the shape.


3: Working quickly cover the surface of the plank with mod podge and place the paper on the podge. Let it sit for about 3-5 min.


4: Cover the paper with podge. This will give you the nice clean finish on the paper. Let it dry and you can decorate with stickers, rub on decals, vinyl, really anything you want.  GO CRAZY!


5: The ribbon is what you actually connect the bows to so this is vital. Depending on how many bows you would like to store this changes. On mine I did three 1/2 yard ribbons hanging. Cut the ribbon double the length you want hanging. Sew together the ends so its a loop.


6: Once again this is personal choice. I chose to sew a straight line across the ribbon every 1-1/2 inches so if the bows slid they had their own little compartment that they would still stay in.


7: Attach the ribbon to the wood. I used a simple staple gun and it worked like a charm.


8: Be Proud! You made an incredibly cute bow holder. You can hang it by connecting a picture hook or even ribbon to the plank.

I also made a tissue paper poof to hang from the ceiling at my daughters birthday party I have 2 of 6-7 done now. Just FYI the soft tissue paper does NOT make good poofs. If it had, I would have had 2 done instead of just one.

Were do I want to be?

I think the main reason I started this blog was to sort though what I want in the future.

I work a typical 8:30-5:00 job. I work for the same company as my wonderfully smart video game playing husband... He loves what he does. He is a programmer. Its like he speaks a million different languages that I have no comprehension of at all. ($admin = "MYSQL USER NAME";)Yeah I have no idea what that does. He is very fluent in programmer. While I can pick out a few words here and there but mostly his side of the office just confuses and bores me. ANYWAY! the point of that rant is I want to find that love for something. I would like to do something that I can have the freedom to go outside on warm days and just lay in the grass. I want to be home with my baby girl that isn't going to be a baby for much longer.

I love being creative and obscure. I started a scrapbook for my daughter that I was planning on giving her for her first birthday. I didn't think I would like it as much as I do. Every new page that I do I find different elements that look so great together. But what I have noticed the most is how much I love photos. I have always loved taking pictures and going on adventures. With Christmas just around the corner all I have asked for is MY camera. I want a Nikon d90 it is not the lowest end SLR but its not the high end either I think it would be great for practicing and perfecting what I really love doing. I think what I would really like to do is photography and event planning.

Over the next year I think I am going to practice and take some classes. Maybe I can figure out how to get what I want out of life. But for right now I am going to concentrate on my baby and my husband and all of our events these next two months. We have a birthday, an anniversary, and all of the other family holidays. 

Party Planning

So I have started planning my daughter's first birthday party! We are doing an Olivia the Pig theme. I chose Olivia because of the original book. I love the colors. Shades of gray and shots of red. I figure with a color scheme like that I can make the party adult friendly too, after all I don't know many kids...

Like many parents I began party planning when I first had her. Up until about a week ago I was dead set on a Dr. Seuss party. As her birthday drew closer I realized that while Dr. Seuss is wildly popular the stories that were my favorite growing up have become less and less known. The one Sneech stuffed animal that I found was $35 and I was so not paying that for a toy that my child will probably play with once or twice and then end up outside in a rain storm and have to be thrown away because its covered in mud and had been half eaten by whatever animal got into the backyard. So I wanted to find a little more wallet friendly theme. While I was thinking about what to pick I remembered my last trip to toys r us and my daughters reaction to an Olivia doll that happened to be within her reach of the cart... so I started looking around online and found that while easily accessible the toys were also not so outrageously priced I can handle an $11 doll being thrown away due to neglect. And so my decision was made.

I purchased some invitations today and have decided to make some tissue paper poofs to hang from the ceiling in shades of gray and red. Maybe I can find some black and white patterned tissue paper that might add a little somethin somethin. I tried making one for the first time tonight and it turned out really well and as it turns out they are really easy to make.

We have also decided to do some trash the cake pictures! I am so excited for these! I am almost positive that it will be the biggest mess that my house has ever seen. Oh it will be great fun. Now I just need to find a bakery that can do the cake that I want for a reasonable price.

As of right now this is about all I have planned... I am sure I will have more to write and sort though and I'm sure I will post pictures later on.

My First Post...

This is my attempt to organize my thoughts in a way that might make sense to someone.  I have this tendency to complain about the same things but never really fix them. I think my life would be a lot easier if I would just fix my damn problems as apposed to wallow in self pity.

My husband, like with many people I have realized, has a love affair with technology. It is really hard to pull his mind out of what he is doing even for a minute. He is the smartest person I know and yet lacks the essential skills for making and keeping friends that are "real." (not internet people that are only there on chat and occasional xbox live chat) This plain and simple fact makes our life together very hard. I was always a social butterfly and surrounded by everyone.

We met on myspace. He was drunk and started to send me messages. I had just moved back from school and was feeling lonely and out of my element. So we talked for a while and I noticed a friend on his page that I knew from an old job so I finally agreed to go see a movie with him.  That night we watched two and a half movies... Yeah I know I'm horrible but about half way though the 3rd movie I turned and looked at him and said "OK! I need attention" This statement lead to heavy making out and eventually a really good time ;) if you know what I mean. As the time went on I didn't know what to do I thought this was solely a physical thing... But it turned on me. Things somehow changed. I was torn between two great guys... One lived about 800 miles away and the other was about 10 from my parents house and 2 from work. I really struggled for a few months about what I wanted out of life and where I needed to be to do it. I took some time off from my now husband and did some... lets call it soul searching. In that time I realized that there was only one person that made me want to lock myself in a bedroom just us, away from the noise and the commotion, away from all the people that I felt like I had to impress and be part of. That person I am happy to say married me a year and a half later. While our life is  insanely hard and some days I would rather kill him than look at him, I am still desperately in love with him.

I don't know if this post will mean anything to anyone but I think it is what I needed to write. We have been having a hard time as of late and I need to continually remind myself how much I really do love him.