Homemade/Small business Gifts for my Man

when thinking about making gifts for Jones I stuck with my strengths, so I made him a few items to go in his corner by his desk and then a few items of Fashion as well.

Acrylic mountain painting. Free. Had the paint and the canvas. Otherwise it would have been between $16-$30. He need something by his desk that was snow capped. 

               Gold stegosaurus plant holder. free. I had the dinosaur, paint and plant. If you had to buy the parts to make it I would guess-timate $9 at the top end. Which is totally worth it :) Stegosaurus is his favorite Dinosaur.

 Campfire cologne was one of the most spendy gift I bought him $18.95 after shipping. Again so worth it because the wood that you burn to get said cologne is from the Northwest, so he smells like home.

 Anthropologie inspired Chalkboard map. My map is made out of construction paper. The last black piece I had actually. I hand painted an outline and then filled it in with chalk. Then I did a zig zag stitch around the edge and bought a vintage hanger for $3.

 Skinny ties. For the fabric the ties ended up costing about $3 each. I looked around online for Tutorials and adapted them to suit my needs. I used an old tea can to hold the ties.

 radio on sale at Restoration Hardware $24, my big purchase not so small business or handmade buy.

 Target T $7 freezer paper Bear shirt(should have been a Man bear Pig!). Freezer paper is spendy, like $5-7, but the fabric paint is cheap, about $1.89 each (or if you are lucky like me, on sale for 50% off) I cheated and asked my SIL MelancholySmile to cut my freezer paper stencils for me. She rocked it making this gift the easiest of them all. THANKS!!!!

Freezer paper moto sweater. $8 sweater from (dun dun dun) Wal-mart. I searched high and low for this style sweater for a good price. Second best price I found was h&m for about double the price. (Again thanks Melancholy smile!!)

 All that is left is to wrap them up and just like that I had Christmas/ birthday presents all ready for Jones.

Happy Birthday Jones

Nothing says birthday like meat cake, followed by real cake right?

 Yes that is a meatloaf cake covered in mashed potatoes with ketchup and peas.

Love you babes. Happiest of happies to ya.

Mostly home made Christmas

Today I spent the morning trying to finish Jones' Christmas gifts. We are making most of our gifts this year. I have done pretty well and been on top of it, getting things done on time and feeling really happy about them all. Today however for some reason or another I am having a hard time juggling it all. I want to go into my office and work on Christmas and come out when I am ready to. Not because somebody has pooped, or because they are fighting or because they are hungry again, or getting into the fridge. I also DONT want them to come in and see their gifts, mess with my sewing machine, get paint on them or steal the chocolates that a friend brought over this morning!!!

There I said it :)  It's not all rainbows and butterflies all the time. Sometimes I get frustrated. Sometimes I threaten if they come in one more time I will throw away all their presents.
Sometimes I have to breathe count to ten, imagine I am punching someone in the face, before I can decide I need to take a break, maybe make some cookies with the kids and remember why I am putting in the effort in the first place.

Or take the rest of the chocolates and go take a long hot bath. That could work too.

Litty bitty update

It happened. We have officially lived in Maryland for one year. It would be nice to be able to say we have lived in the same place the whole time but sigh, we have still never lived in the same house for more than nine months. If we live here another 5 months we will break that record! Should be easy right?

Jones and I passed our 8 year anniversary :) we celebrated by barely remembering and sending quick texts to each other. I was traveling cross country without him at the time.
We have since made up for it with a couple of awesome dates. Including him smuggling me in pecan pie when we went to the hobbit :)

We are working on a mostly handmade/small business Christmas. I am really excited to share about this, it's been really fun.

Between church, kids, homeschooling, Christmas and a vitamin d deficiency I feel like I have been kicked in the gut hollow kind of exhausted almost all of the time, but it's hard to feel down about it because I feel so blessed.

I am blessed to have my whole family under one roof, and that it happens to be our roof. I am blessed that our needs are taken care of, and whatever funds are left over can be spent in Christmas.
I am blessed to work with and know amazing women at church who inspire and touch my heart.
I am blessed that to know The Lord has faith in me. That he believes in me more than I do myself and  is pushing me and giving me opportunities to serve and to grow. I am blessed to be able to be creative. Despite being soooooo busy I have been tinkering with more pattern making/ and photography, that I am not sure how I have even had time for (oh yeah I haven't done the dishes for a
few days... That will give me some extra time :)

So despite feeling physically weak and like I am over spent, I still feel like I have more to give. More to give my family and other people in my life.

Late night itty bitty update.

Alfred, The Blue one

{ I call these two the twins because when I look back in my rear view mirror they often have their heads together looking at me with their big blue eyes and sandy brown hair, I love it.}

My little boy has changed so much in the last few months. 

He has become very interested in colors will go around saying he's the blue one, because he is wearing blue, Sissy, which is what he calls Tober {and so we all have followed suit}, is the pink one and Tahk {Clark, he has been upgraded to tahk, he use to be that guy} is the red one. Every time he says something new and we respond he becomes ecstatic and has to say it a 1000 more times

The last few days he has decided my lap is the best place to be 90% of the time. I mind, but the n I don't because He is still such a baby, even though his position as the baby in our family was usurped by little chubs.

I think he will be the first to start pulling away and wiping off my kisses, so I am going to try and enjoy every last hug and cuddle he has in him. {Even if I am trying to do twenty other things as he is climbing in my lap}

A heart felt month

So we just got back from a spur of the moment cross country trip.
It started when we got a text in the middle of the night from Jones' brother colt telling us Pops had had a heart attack and had been taken to a hospital. The next few days were tense as we waited to find out how serious it all was and trying to figure out a way to get there. Jones was really stressed out by the idea of all of us going. I kept trying to be ok with the idea of not going to see Pops, but I wasn't ok with it. Whether he likes it or not he was my Dad now too. He has been there a lot for me over the last 8 years as his daughter. Whatever happened we knew it had been too long since we had seen them and once Jones was able to get leave we packed up the car and left all together.

We made it to northern ID in 3 1/2 days. Amazingly everyone survived the trip.
It was so good to be there and see them in person. Pops was ok, and we were all very lucky that he went in when he did.
We spent the week there preparing for halloween and Thanksgiving which we had decided to do on the same day {zombie pilgrims} Hallowsgiving turned out to be really brilliant.

                                                      Pippa rocking the blouse dress I made her

 Mama H was adorable and sent us all home with something we loved playing with while at her home.

 Pops took us to see his work, which was really cool.

Jones had to be home sooner than we could possibly drive back so we flew him home and stayed in Utah with my parents for the next 10 days. My Mom was amazing and agreed to drive home with me. I am so grateful for her and all that she did for us while we were there and on our trip home.

 While he was away he grew himself a Movember mustchache.

  And I took some pics of my sisters in Utah

We were able to stop in Nauvoo, and Carthage IL, which was a really beautiful and spiritual experience even though it was a quick stop.

Joseph Smith was such an amazing man and I am so grateful for his legacy.

We named Everest, Simon Everest, the simon part is after my ancestor Simeon Dunn whose house we got to see. He lived right down the street from the prophet.

Alfred's hair might be wet because he bent down and tried to drink the puddles...more than once.

Such a crazy month. I feel so blessed to have been able to see family and go so many places. I also feel so blessed to have such a nice home to come home to. Coming home made me realize just how much we have and how blessed we are and how much gratitude I feel for my Heavenly Father.