Happy Mother's Day!

Today has been a wonderfully blessed day. I woke up to healthy children, a loving husband and Christ in the center of our family.

I am spending the afternoon organizing my craft room. When it is all done I'll try to post some before and after pics... or maybe just the after pictures!

In the meantime, here are some Mother's Day cards I made.

My mother took a picture of the one I made for her.

I took these next two pictures with my cell phone so they are a bit blurry.

Here is the one I made for my grandma. And here is the one my mother made for me. How are you spending your day today?

I Still Love Being a Mom

I do, I really do. I've just been a bit overwhelmed lately. The baby is now 14 months old and has been walking since 10 months old. Now she is practically running. It has been quite a challenge keeping up with her and her antics while also managing the other two. My little guy is full of little boy energy and the ideas that come into his head always catch me by surprise. The oldest just turned six and seems to have that confused with 16. The moodiness is just off the charts!

These signs of growth and life in our home have also been accompanied by lots of celebrations. We had a Christmas Eve dinner with about 17 folks over. The baby's first birthday was attended by a total of 32 family and friends in January. Lil' Miss' birthday a couple of weeks ago was smaller, with 8 little girls, 2 little boys and 9 adults. And now we are gearing up for Easter Dinner. Phew!

I am trying to figure out how to keep everything together. Dinner, laundry, homeschooling, cleaning, outside activities (a must for the little guy), my own hobbies of scrapbooking and sewing, church, Bible reading, prayer time. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day!

I am thankful however to have such busy days and a full life. I am always surrounded by family and friends and I know that is not the case for everyone. I am truly grateful for all that I have been blessed with. I just need a little help learning how to be a good and faithful steward of all these blessings!

Oh, and of course, I'd really like to keep up with my blog as well! Any advice?

Gifts

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It's time for my yearly ritual of making a huge list of gifts to make and waiting until the last minute to begin. I know it is so stressful to wait until the last minute but it always seems to work out that way. Even if I start making my gift list in March or June, I can't get myself to actually begin sewing until December! Oh well, here is my list for this year and links to the tutorials I am using to make them!



Checkerboards for the boys

Cloth Napkins and coasters for the grandparents

Felt Foods for the younger kids

Bookmarks for the tweens and a few friends

Shoe bags for my dad

Fabric Hopscotch mat for the girls

Apron and Chef hats for the godkids and a couple of aunts

Fancy rubber gloves for some friends

I can't list what I'm making for hubby and my mom because they occasionally read my blog!



Whatdya think? Will it all get done by December 24?

Look Ma no pineapples!

I ran out of pineapples so I used peaches to make an upside down cake. This was my first time ever using peaches and I think it didn't turn out so bad.

Giveaway Day

We just returned from long trip celebrating Thanksgiving with family. Spending time with family was lovely, traveling was not. We had difficulty getting a cab to bring all five of us to the airport and once there, realized that we left Lil' Miss' violin back at her grandparents' house! We had no time to go back to get it since we were already running late, thus we had to have grandma pay $111 to ship it overnight to our house so she could bring it to her lesson the next morning. No, it did not make it in time for her lesson. Yes, of course we are paying grandma back. After flying we had another two hours to drive before finally making it home. The kids were fussy most of the way and cried themselves to sleep about half an hour before we reached our house.

After all of the stress of traveling, I was grateful that we all made it home safely and found our home as we left it. And this morning, I was even more pleased to wake up and realize that today is GIVEAWAY DAY on Sew,Mama,Sew!'s blog. Sew,Mama,Sew! coordinates one day when everyone with a shop or blog can give something away, spreading the holiday spirit. They list all of the participants on the blog to create a master list, and leave the lists up for several days to give readers a more relaxed browsing experience. They also provide some structure with categories and international shipping info.

Last year I had a lot of fun browsing all of the wonderful blogs and even won a prize! This year I hoped to participate myself by giving away a small handmade item, but with our travel plans having us away for NINE days, there was not an opportunity for me to get anything together before the deadline. Oh well, there is always next year! For now, I'll just enjoy all of the fabulous blogs to check out and maybe win something!