I Feel Honored!

I felt absolutely honored this week.  A fellow blogger passed an award onto me.  First of all, thank you Emilee from Momma Made It for passing this onto me.

Before I go into the award I have a few things to say from the heart.  

I do this blog because I want to push my creative side.  I felt like I lost a lot of that when I had children. It is a very important piece of what I love and who I am.  I know I look at life differently than many people and I have a hard time expressing myself in words, so I do it in pictures, drawings, paintings, fabric, etc.  I believe that life is a delicate balance of finding yourself, your purpose, spreading love and caring for others. 

I didn't realize how much joy I would get out of blogging.  I have connected with other amazing people who share the same creative spark that I do and share is some of the same struggles I do as well.  Thank you to all those out there who provide so much inspiration to me.

So, without further ado, The Liebster Award.  

(BTW does anyone know where this originated?)

 

The Liebster Award spotlights up and coming bloggers who generally have less than 200 followers.

Upon receipt of the Liebster Award, there are a few very simple rules:

1.  Copy and paste the award on your blog

2.  Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you

3.  Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

4.  Hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

Now I will pass this award on to 5 other blogs that I truly enjoy.

 

1. Three Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

A blog started by a dear friend of mine to document her journey through the adoption process.  She is truly an inspirational person who tries to look on the brighter side of any situation.

2. Just a Girl with a Hammer

I adore this blog about a girl and her turning her first house into her home.

3. Reckless Glamour

I love this girl's style and she has some serious photo skills when it comes to capturing children.

4. Think Liz

This blog has a little of everything.  Cooking, crafting, toddlers, books and just living a better life.  

5. Being Brook

I just recently discovered this blog.  While she does have a larger following that the previous ones, she is new to me and I am loving this craft blog.

I hope all the recipients I was able to award this to feel as honored as I did in receiving it.  You ladies all deserve it. 

Favorite Photo(s) Tuesday: Halloween Edition

I took a lot of great photos yesterday to capture all the fun that surrounds Halloween.  I couldn't narrow it down to my single favorite photo, so I turned Favorite Photo Tuesday into a Holiday edition that will show off all my favorites.

Because I love pumpkins, we had to carve one up.  The problem down here in Texas, they rot if you don't carve them the day of or the day before.  My helpers weren't too eager to pull out the guts, until I pulled out a spoon.  Neither one of them wanted to be "gooey."

While we were getting the pumpkins ready, Colton decided to attempt and take advantage of my being distracted.  This is his up to no good face.

And there he goes...

Maben picked out the design to carve onto our pumpkin.  He came home from school today with a pumpkin he made and asked if I could carve our pumpkin like that.  Of course I can!

My little robot cowboy is showing off the uncanny resemblance the two pumpkins have.  I think I made Maben proud.

Maben was so excited about dressing up and going trick-or-treating he pretended to be many things today.  The one he kept going back to was a cowboy.  I have a very cute little cowboy!

Once daddy got home, we ate quickly and all got dressed into our costumes.  Colton ended up being a firefighter because he got Charlie Brown super dirty yesterday when we went to lunch.  We were taking advantage of kids eating free that came in costume. 

Maben chose the Angry Bird shirt for Matt.  The firefighter costume is a pajama costume from Carter's.  They use to carry quite a few when Maben was that age and I bought up a bunch of them because they are fun.  Maben ended up going as just a robot and I donned my owl.

The boys really enjoyed trick-or-treating.  Colton was a riot to watch.  He had no fear of strangers...he even walked into one of my neighbors houses when they opened the door.

Colton did catch on quickly to how this whole thing works.  I walk up, they give me candy and I say, "Dank Oooo."  Well, that wasn't good enough for this little guy.  Towards the end of our trick-or-treating, Maben would yell, "Trick-or-treat," both boys would collect their candy.  Maben would say, "thank you," and Colton would look all sad and say, "I have more?"  Of course he would get more candy and his face would light up and he would say, "Dank Oooo." 

What a little manipulator!  It is hard to say NO to that cute little monster.

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

I want to wish everyone out there a Happy Halloween.  I hope you enjoy this holiday as much as I do and have a very fun day!  I hope there are many children who bring joy to your hearts today and that you celebrate this time as a family and community.

This is me and the kiddos from last year.  I will share with you our new Halloween photos later.

Stained Glass: Class #2

Saturday night was the second class learning how to do stained glass.  I was able to create an awesome sunset/sunrise piece.

Even though I am new to this, I definitely caught on very quickly and all my experiences from art school helped in turning me into Speedy Gonzales.  Our instructor told the class he expected us to only get as far as cutting our glass and grinding it.  Well...I blew that expectation out of the water and not only cut the glass, but grinded it, tacked it and soldered it.  The only thing I have left to do is to create the loops to hang it.

Yay!  I am so excited and can't wait to go back next Saturday for my last class.  I will get to finish up this piece and make another ornament sized piece because I will have plenty of time to do it.  Stay tuned next week so I can show off not only all of my projects, but my husband's projects too!

The Most Useful Thing We Have Done

My husband and I have rented two homes together and are on our second home that we have bought.  One thing that never fails to amaze us is how odd the wiring in any given house can be...especially in our current house.

We have a light switch that cuts power to the dishwasher.  If my husband is using any power tool on the original outlet in the garage and I decide to blow dry my hair, we will trip a circuit and lose power to my master bath, the garage and half of the kitchen.  (the kitchen is on the opposite side of the house of the master bath and garage)

After that experience and many other odd ones, we decided we needed to map the electrical in our house.  This has not only saved us a lot of time, but money.  Anytime we have an electrician out, they no longer need to figure it out all by themselves and charging us $60-100 per hour to do so.  We bought a circuit tester, we had our cell phones, and a rough sketch of our house.  I stood out by the electrical panel outside and started by labeling every circuit breaker A-J.  Hubby and I were on our phones talking with each other and I would flip one switch and hubby would tell me what it controlled.  We did this until EVERYTHING had a label.  It took over an hour, but we now rely on it heavily.

To prove my point of how needed this is.  The switch that controls the overhead light in the garage blew out this week.  So, I pulled out my electrical map and looked for the garage light which is on circuit D.  When my hubby goes to replace the switch, he knows he needs to shut off that circuit and he won't get shocked.  (We ALWAYS double check, just to be safe). 

We now plan to do this in any house we buy from here on out.  It's too useful and money saving not to do it.

Below is the circuit tester we use.  You can pick it up/or one similar at any hardware store.  It beeps and lights up if there is power to the circuit, it does nothing if no power is present.



I have shared this over at the Trick or Tip link party happening at Sawdust and Paperscraps.