Wordless Wednesday...

Busy Bee

So...they aren't done and it's not when I said I would post them...but again, I slack :)

I am REALLY trying to be frugal this Christmas so I thought I would try and make some gifts. My nephew is totally obsessed with the kids show Yo Gabba Gabba so I made him (am making him) a set of felt ornaments for all the characters. I still need to finish sewing them and stuff em, but that can't take too long, right?!? And my oldest son is in love with Thomas the train. I mean L-O-V-E kinda love. So I thought I'd make him one as his 'special' ornament for the year.

hope they love them :)

Once these are done, on to making the next items on my list. I am not super sewing savy, so it should be interesting! I'll be sure to share my successes and many more inevitable failures here too, as a diary of sorts.

Are you making any of your christmas gifts this year??

To Do List...

I am trying to be super organized this holiday season and when I just wrote up my to do list, I about passed out!! So much to do, so little time!! After coming home from work all day and then once the boys are finally in bed, it's me time...And that time is mostly spent relaxing from to recover from it all. Now I have to figure out where to find the spare energy I am going to need every night to get this all done!!

Last night, I had some Mariah Carey Christmas music playing while I worked on my first craft of the Christmas season...some ornaments of my boys favorite tv characters. (I will post pics of them later today, if they come out ok...)

Somehow, Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas always puts some pep in my step, a smile on my face and makes all my worries go away. (corny)

Halloween...

i L-O-V-E Halloween. I am not sure what it is, but I love it and I always have. Now that I have the boys to share the experience with, it has made it so much more special, and exciting. There is a certain magic in the air and I think it all begins with Halloween, and now I'm already thinking about Christmas and when to put up the tree!!

This year was the first that we have taken Luke out to trick-or-treat. Obviously, he loved it!! He was so stinkin cute as Thomas the Train (duh!) and Mr. Ethan went as a bat (poor kid is doomed to get all the hand me downs...) We went with my sisters and nephew - THE cutest dragon you'll ever see!! Here are some of the photos we got of the action....

Can you tell we had a blast!?! :)

I made some decorations too...I love a festive home....

The Halloween Advent Calendar I made for the boys...

Our table top display...Even with the Cake Dome on our cats still managed to make a mess of all that spanish moss....oye!

I hope you all had as fabulous a Halloween as we did.

Now, onto Thanksgiving and Christmas. Do you feel like Thanksgiving tends to get lost in the mix?? I tend to jump right to Christmas (I'm planning on doing our tree on the 13th of Nov...cause I am nuts)

Do you have any special traditions for Thanksgiving or decorations you use? I was thinking of a thankful tree....but as of now, it's still a though....we'll see!

Slacker...

Ok, so I am going to give one more go at my blogging pastime....up until now, I have failed. Miserably. Please forgive me. :)

Tah-Dah

Presenting....

Lucas' first painting

Isn't it great?! I hope he can carry this with him forever...a love of being creative
and expressing himself. Now he keeps asking me to go painting in the grass with mommy ♥
I love him!

Busy Bees...

♥ Ethan at 5 months old with mommy ♥

I really thought I would be better at keeping up with this blog :) In my defense, we had to move in about a weeks time (had to find a new place, pack and clean the old one and move into where we are now...in a week....NUTS!!!) and it's summer so we have been spending any leisure time out on our new decky porchy thing with the boys. Life is good. In just a few short months the boys have changed so much!! Lucas is getting so much better with his speech and Ethan has started to develop a personality. He can sit up for a bit on his own, roll over and is eating solid foods. They love they have for each other already though is such an amazing thing. Ethan smiles whenever he sees Luke and Luke will lay down on his play mat with him and hang out or go over and kiss his feet. What an amazing feeling, melts my heart! Here's to hoping things will slow down a bit and I can keep up with this. :)

Lucas finger painting for the first time! I would love for him to be an artist some day ♥ I will have to post the final piece and where we hung it in our new place!!

Plain Days...

We went down to visit the inlaws yesterday to celebrate my hubby's 29th bday (Happy Birthday Chris!) and it was nice. We had my father in law pick up a train table for Lucas that we found on Craigslist super cheap and he played with that most of the day.

And I spent my time taking pictures of my little chunky boy :)

Can you blame me?? :)

With these two cuties taking up pretty much all of my time once I get out of work everyday, I can't help but feel like I have lost myself. My personality doesn't shine through any more. I need to remind myself that not only am I a mother and a wife, but I am an artist, a friend, an individual. I have just recently come upon the blog world and it has been amazingly inspirational. Like I said before, I am an artist. Art was my world before my family. It's what I went to school for and what I wanted to be when I grew up. I have lost that. But exploring this world of blogging I have stumbled across the MANY crafter blogs and artists blogs and I cannot help but sit online at night for hours and read and collect ideas and be inspired. It is my goal to find myself little by little, begining with the artist within. Now only to find the time :) I hope to get creative and share my adventures here. I hope you don't mind :)

Look at these faces!! Lucas is now a little over two and is getting much better with his words. He started talking later than most (just like he started walking later...) and is begining to really pick up everything we are saying. It's funny because he has always been 'slower' with his milestones than most kids, but he is smart as anything!! He already knows his alphabet, the order and the visual letters, he can count to 15 and he knows his colors already. And he has known all of this for months!! So I may just have a genius on my hands :) (considering Albert Einstein had some speech issues early on, I don't really worry... LOL)

And then there is that ADORABLE little chunk, Ethan. Oh how I wish I could just eat his pudgy cheeks!! He has been a chunk since birth, born at 11lb 12oz and now around 16 or so at 3 months. (How come the chunk is so much cuter on him than on me?!?) He, completely the opposite of his brother, has already started cooing and talking away to us all. It's totally wild to think that he was just born three months ago and far he has already developed.

And the two of them as brothers just melts my heart. Luke runs around calling him his Brover and is always kissing and hugging him. I can't even begin to put into words how lucky we are to have them. They are amazing....

Warmth...

It is so nice here today! Made it easy to get up and outta bed this morning, but also made it a lot more difficult to come into work :) I am quite jealous on days like to day of my husband who is home with the kids during the day and works at night. Throw some shorts on those boys and head outside for the day....must be nice!! I find myself irritated that I have to work with two little boys at home, but at the same time I am also thankful for it. Irritated that I get home after a long day at work and am left with only 2 hours before the boys go down for the night. Irritated that I can't take them outside on gorgeous days and watch them play at the park or in the sand box. But thankful that I have adult interaction. Thankful that when I go to work every morning I know that my husband is there taking care and loving up on them while I can't. And thankful that I have a job. That we are making money and staying afloat. It's hard to see so many families losing everything with the loss of a job. It has happened to us before, but not with the kids around, thank God!

Such a little boy

Thanks to my mother, or as Lucas calls her, 'Ammy', Luke has discovered his immense love for 'Thomas the Train'. It's really cute and kinda wild that he is such a little boy and totally knows what he likes. He will sit by himself and line his trains up and play for hours on end. I don't really see the appeal, but boy does he love him some Thomas!! I have to say it is quite nice to have a distraction for him at times when we are taking care of Ethan and it is so fun to watch him. And of course, as his parents, Chris and I want to buy every little Thomas item we see. So much so that I am pretty sure you can consider our entire home to be in a complete train theme. It is so worth it though, to see everytime he unwraps a new toy or outfit with his favorite guy on it, the excitement on his face. Sometimes we even get a squeal ;) and he is starting to say "Cooooool" He is growing up WAY too fast.

Two little monkeys

Chris and I count our blessings every day to have the boys. No matter how many times I have to wash the crayon off the walls (and washer and stove and floors...) or how many times we have to watch 'Thomas the Train', we thank God every day for every single second we have with them.

It's a bummer that we don't have all of our family close enough to enjoy all those small moments with us and since I am so photo obsessed I thought it might be nice to start this blog to show 'em off! :)

Easter Sunday I got to dress them up and can't even get over this picture!