First Award!

I got an award!!

Sandra at Saw dust and paper scraps gave me this award! Sandra and I "met" each other over our blogs due to the fact that we were separated at birth. Don't believe me? Look at our foyers.

See?!!

Now hers looks much better. I long for the day I can have wooden stairs when I do not have to worry about going to the ER daily. Then again, with boys will that ever happen?

Turns out that we also live very near each other, I foresee lots of shopping trips in our future.

So as apart of this award I am suppose to send this award to 7 other people/bloggers.

I decided to pick people whose blog I see that gets updated in my google reader makes my heart skip. Cuz I am so excited to read it!


1. First are my sister in laws. I just love family blogging. It is the best way to keep up with each other...especially when we are spread across the nation. First is Kat.
They recently moved to Seattle and are in the process of adoption from Rwanda! Of course I can't forget their fun 19 month old son Griffin who has a million nick names.

Second is Jenny. Jenny and Reid live in TN close to mom. They have a 2 and a half year old son, Eli. Whom my boys miss dearly.

3. Beneath my heart
I started reading Traci's blog when she was featured on another blog (can't remember which) over her awesome knock off ballard designs cafe shelves. I love me some ballard knock offs! 

Not long after I read about these shelves her mom passed away. She expressed her emotions so eloquently. She made it clear that she didn't blame God for taking her mom at a young age yet used this as an opportunity to encourage other women to trust God in all circumstances. When dad passed it wasn't long before we began emailing back and both. She has been such an encouragement to me and a help to me when I didn't know how to answer Wild Man's questions or how to deal with the emotions I was and am feeling. Thank you Traci.


4. Kim at Small words blog lives in TN. Love my TN people! I love the canvases she creates. You really should check them out! They are amazing.

5. I know Melissa from Puddin pops Designs from TN. She is an amazing woman. She has 5 kids, ages 4, 2, and 1!

She is also so creative! She makes the cutest dolls that she sales and she makes a lot of her kids clothes.

She also throws the cutest kids parties. Seriously, you should check out her oldest daughter Red Riding Hood party.  What great memories she is creating for her children!

6. I heart naptime is a new blog I am following. I just love what she did for her son's first birthday party.

7. Amber on It's Greener over here is also a new blog that I am following. Her mom also passes away at an early age. It is such an encouragement to meet ladies that know the emotions that I am going through.

Amber is also another creative gal in the blogosphere. Look at this cute picture frame she made for her daughter! She has a great tutorial on how she made it too.

 

That's all I got folks! Hope you all get to visit these great blogs! 

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

While my mom was here I had to take advantage of her decorating expertise!

I never was completely happy with the decor on the mantel, and I was just stuck. I didn't know what to do with it.

Then JJ came to the rescue!

Remember what the mantel looked like before?

Well here it is now!

I actually put something in the frames!

A verse that dad would continually remind me of was 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.

"Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances."

I wanted a constant reminder of that verse so I just got photo paper and printed it from our little printer, then Presto for less then $5 I have four portraits that I can easily change out.

My Sister in law introduced us to the wonders of Anthropologie! I will forever be grateful. Mom got me this W sign from there. I just love it.

And this little church reminds me of the church Mr. Genius and I got hitched in.

Normal?

What does

17 cars and trucks

1 Alvin and Chipmunk toy, "Hello Gorgeous!"

2 Thomas the train engines

7 books

3 stuffed animals

2 stick horses

1 ball pillow

1 large pillow

2 blankets

and this little dude...

have in common?

Well they all fit in here twice a day.

I seriously have no idea how he sleeps in there.

And then guess who wasn't ready AT ALL for bed tonight.

Now do you see why I called him Wild Man?

Goodwill trip

Yesterday I ran into Goodwill (Mr. Genius was keeping the boys so I didn't have another incident like that last one).

I got some fun stuff!

See...

I had plans for the little candlestick but I can't find my cheese dome. Wanna see what I had planned?

This was from Thrift Decor Chick. She is amazing.

Since I couldn't find my cheese dome due to my problems with organizing, most people would use this opportunity to organize the cabinets so one could actually find things. But that is not fun to me so instead I went on with another project. I am sure none of you would have guessed that.

So I painted the tall candle stick.

Then I distressed it.

Then I glued the dome/vase thingy on top.

This morning I found a place for it!

Yes I do realize the medium size jar has fake snow in it. But I can't figure out what to put in it.


Easiest project I have done in a long time!

It only cost me $4!

The glass vase was $1.99 and the Candle stick was $1.99!

But the best part was that no saw required for this one!

25 things about me.

I thought I would join a linking party at 5 minutes for mom.




In honor of the bloggy linky party I thought I would introduce myself. For anyone that was on Facebook a couple of months ago. I am sure you remember the 25 random things about you that was all over Facebook. I thought I would introduce myself in that way.

So here goes:

1. I think I am the only person in American that doesn’t watch American Idol and Lost.

2. I have learned to never underestimate the power of Hot Wheel band-aids and M & M’s for a 2 and 4 year old.

3. While in the workforce I had the WORST bosses, which in turn has giving me absolutely no desire to go to the work place again.

4. After college for 4 years I went through a spell where I randomly threw up. Most of the time it was in my car while driving too and from work. There was no warning.

5. Dr.’s all thought that I was pregnant when I went to them about the random barfing and my response was always “Unless God decided he wanted a girl, I am not pregnant!” They never believed me. Still don’t know what was wrong with me.

6. I cannot stand to feel my breath on my skin. I have to have my arms covered at night so I won’t feel it.

7. What is even worse to me about feeling my breath on my skin is feeling someone else’s breath on my skin. Shiver

8. My first car had a personality all on her own, I named her Nancy the Nissan Stanza. She was crazy! She would lock certain people in my car and lock others out of my car. The windows would randomly roll down, coincidentally it was only when it was raining. The radio stopped working so I had a CD player in the passenger side seat and whoever sat there was the DJ.

9. Whenever we get a new electronic device in our house Mr. Genius has to sit me down and give me a training session and I then ask him for the next 3 days how to work said device.

10. Before college I moved 14 times and changed schools 7 times.

11. I have an obsession of dressing my boys in matching clothes.

12. I love couponing and I don’t think that I will be able to grocery shop “normally” again.

13. I have a mental block that I cannot by anything that is not on sale.

14. I am fascinated with the Duggar family (the one with 18 kids that live in Arkansas). I wish I can talk and act as calm as Michelle when there is chaos around her.

15. With the birth of each boy my foot has grown a half a size.

16. I don’t think I will ever be able to stop picking my nails.

17. I LOVE my minivan! I don’t think I will drive anything else until the boys start to drive on their own.

18. I learned while trying to deliver Wild Man that I was not built to have babies the natural way and that I am allergic to morphine... I blew up like a balloon.

19. I learned while delivering Romeo that I am allergic to metal staples, which explains the serious infection I had when Wild Man was a month old and the fact that my c-section scar was 3 inches thick.

20. I have truly tried but because I was attacked when I was 4 I cannot like big dogs, especially when they are in my face.

21. I have short stubby toes that look like they are swollen. When early in my pregnancies, people would make comments about how swollen they looked I just agreed rather then explain that is how they look all the time.

22. I love having two boys.

23. On December 2nd of this past year my perfectly healthy 53 year old dad had a massive heart attack and went home to be with the Lord.

24. On December 2nd of this past year I truly felt God's love like I have never felt before. He took care of me in so many ways that day that you can read about here.

25. One thing that I have learned about myself is that when I am sad, missing dad, or upset my outlet is doing home projects. You can see some here, here, and here.

All gone

Like I have said before. My birthday was a couple of weeks ago. Most of my family just sends money (which I greatly appreciate) due to it being easier to send in the mail.

I have been doing my best to stretch out my birthday money as far as possible. I have bought a bench, patio set, cabinets for our laundry room, and a cubbard. All purchased off of Craigslist and all purchased for less then $250! Whoo Hoo.

Well I should say that as far as the patio set goes we haven't gotten the whole set yet. We are having a little issue in that area. I took all the seats out of my trustly minivan and could only fit the patio chairs in the van. The table is really big and round and was two inches to big no matter how we tried to fit it in. Soooo, unless we can find someone with a truck. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Mr. Genius gets back from CA tonight so we talked about tying it on top of the big ol van and slooooooowly make our way back home.

Once that happens I will have a patio set.

Fingers crossed

Then a couple of days ago my mom and I loaded the boys up in the van and headed to Ikea and I spent the last of my birthday money by getting a a countertop and fabric to freshen up the laundry room.

So now that my money is all spent I can start on the projects from my birthday money!!!

My first birthday project is my bench that I got for $20.

I know I want to stain the top part a dark walnut but I don't know exactly what I want to do with the bottom part.

I feel like I have reached my limit with white paint and would actually like to paint a color... like red or I would love to do a turquoise but I do not think it will go with my den/kitchen area. Oh well. More then likely I will just see what I have in my garage and that is what I will use.

So I got my boys working hard on sanding it down for me.

They thought it was fun for about a minute. But they helped none the less.

Hopefully in a few days I will have a new bench to show you... and patio furniture that is still in one piece.

I think I can, I think I can

Do you remember right after we moved here we joined a play group? I was so excited to get out of the house since we didn't know anyone and the boys had little friends to play with.

Well, the group wasn't as excited about us. After just being in the group for a couple of months, we got kicked out.

I will be honest with you. I was crushed.

I cried for hours.

But what is really sad. I really didn't care to be friends with any of those girls outside of the group. We didn't have anything in common.

Every time I got back from the group, Mr. Genius would ask me how it went. I would reply, "Well...the boys had fun." Meaning ... not me. But to anyone that has moved to an area where you didn't know a sole. You know that you just long to get out of the house to talk to someone... anyone. As women we need that interaction with other people.

What also hurt was that they just sent me an email to tell me I was out.

I felt like I was back in middle school where I would have gotten a note passed to me between classes and I would have heard snickering and whispers as I walked down the hall.

The reason we were kicked out was because they thought Romeo was too aggressive.

Yes, Romeo is a boy who can be aggressive. But at that time Romeo was 19 months old. He was use to playing with a big brother who is very aggressive. So when you stick a 19 month old little boy around girls who think your little 19 month old boy looks like a baby doll and wants to play house with him. the 19 month old will push the little girls out of the way so he can go down the slide and not play house. In their defense Romeo did push the little girls a lot, and I corrected him every time. Even moving him to other areas of the park but the girls kept migrating towards their live baby doll.

So that is the reason we got kicked out.

I have run into one girl that is in the group and apparently the rest of the group didn't understand why we left. So it wasn't a group decision. 

Now fast forward to today.

I signed Wild man up for story time at the Library.

As I rounded the corner to take Wild Man to his room there she stood. The leader that kicked me out and her son.

I may or may not have asked my mom if I could run over there and just mention to her that her son is a pansie and then I possibly could have texted a friend and said if I sit on her, you can slap her around.

But what I did do was nothing...not. a. thing.

Which as I went on with my day I realized doing nothing is almost as worse as doing what I wanted to do.

I remembered in college when I was going through a rough time my dad told me that everything happens for a reason. Usually for us to learn a lesson. Whether it be to forgive someone, deal with temptation or whatever the situation is I should try to learn the lesson now of the lesson will get harder and harder to deal with til I do learn the lesson.

Like what Matthew 6:15 says:
"But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

I know that I have done far worse things in my life then kicking someone out of a play group. So who am I to not forgive her when the Lord has forgiven me of so much more?

So next week when I see the play group leader I do not know what I will say to her. But I think I will just start by just saying a simple, Hi.