I just can't help it

My kids are just so darn cute. I had to share. Thanks to Jodi at MCP actions for these cute FREE Valentine's card downloads. I had them printed up and will be sending them out to family soon, since I missed Christmas cards all together. Sorry about that folks. Life doesn't always fit the "want to's" in. Enjoy these cuties.

What I want to do...

What I want to do is always so different from what I have to do. Do you run into that problem? I want to sit and sew. These lovely dresses from At Second Street are adorable and I want to make one or three. I have nieces that need cute things too. (Can I just say, I love Kalleen, even though I have never met her? What a generous and talented woman.) I also want to make those Valentines bags. I am cutting those out this morning.

   I want to edit some photos I took of my darling children the other day. Even with the big black eye, my kids are adorable. My computer is running oh, so slow and it's making me crazy to edit things right now. I really want it done so I can send out Valentine's cards though.

   I also want to work on some genealogy. I have gotten a few new leads and I am so excited to see where they go. I love seeing those connections made. I want to do better at my daily devotionals, do crafts with my little ones, overcome my glitter phobia and do fun things for my family like the Happy Home Fairy. She rocks. I also want to get started on my garden (we are in San Diego, it's almost time), go on a date with my husband sans kids and spend more time cultivating friendships. I am still feeling a little on my own here, with a few exceptions.

  So much I want to do. What stands in the way? Besides the stuff I have to do: get the kids off to schools, laundry, dishes, meals, cleaning, errands and general running of home stuff, mostly myself. It's like being a toddler and being too overwhelmed to choose something, so you just sit and cry about everything. I have never had any patience. I lack the balance I see in my Mother-In-Law. I feel like they are all good things to be doing and I am overwhelmed at choosing what I have time for. I recently re-read this talk Good, Better, Best. Nothing like direct, loving words to put you back on track. First I need to do things to strengthen my family and my relationship with my God. After that, things fall into place. There isn't time for every little thing, even if they are good little things and the best things are the things I am seeking after. How do you balance things? I could use some practical skills.

How Quickly We Forget

   In a few short weeks I will have been married 19 years. I have been with my husband longer than I have been without him. We have been through a lot as a Navy family and as a couple. For the first 6 months of our marriage, we did not live together, thanks to the Navy. When we did move in together it was in a far away place, with no family close and no friends in the area. We didn't know the area and we got a crash course in getting to know each other.
   For the past 19 years we have moved almost every 3 years. We don't move across the street or to a near by neighborhood, we move across the ocean. We have bounced across the Pacific Rim together meeting new people and having new experiences. Often we are many, many miles away from family and we learned to make good friends quickly. We still have friends all over the world, for which we are so grateful.
   For many, many years he has been on Sea duty in the Navy. I would guess he's been gone more than he's been home during these 19 years. {I have often wondered- does that count as only half the years of marriage, or double them?} We were blessed with children after almost 10 years of marriage and he was lucky to be home for the first 2 years of our son's life. He was home the night our daughter was born and left at 6 am the following morning for 3 months. I brought home a preemie baby after having been on bed rest most of my pregnancy with a 6 1/2 year old son at home desperately missing my husband.
   I have been looking back this week at all of the things we have been through. I have nursed sick kids, and my sick self. I have held jobs, done volunteer work, dealt with emergencies, extended family members, attended funerals and spent more time in the ER than I care to remember while he's been gone. He's missed first steps, lost teeth, school conferences, bike riding, funerals, furnace failures, car wrecks and so much more. We have persevered. We have made it through the hard stuff and lived to tell the tail. We have cried on our own, because the other wasn't there wipe away the tears, but knew we always shared in the grief and joy. This has been an amazing marriage.
  The past 10 months Justin has been on shore duty and has been home almost every single night. We had a little adjustment period. It was hard for me to give up my running of the family on my own, and it was hard for him to give up running a division. I had to remind him that I didn't work for him and he had to remind me he lived in the house too and stop jumping every time he came into a room. He took over the grocery shopping and meal planning. We eat a lot better. I get some time to myself now and then and a break from always being the "bad" parent. It's a good arrangement.
   Here's the point of this long, long trip down memory lane... Last week I got sick. I had an infection that was backing up into my kidneys and I was down for a couple of days. He happened to be working nights all week, not our usual arrangement. He wasn't home when the kids went to bed and wasn't home to help with dinner when I needed it. He had other obligations, which I wasn't questioning. I did get a little whiny though. OK- a lot whiny. I was sick, where was he at? Then it hit me like a brick in the face. After all we had been through, how quickly we forget. In the past, while he was in a deployment cycle I would not have batted an eye about being sick with kids at home. I would have taken it in stride and not lost my temper like I did. In just 10 short months my entire perspective has changed and I have forgotten how strong I can be and how much I can do. I forgot to call on friends and church members who would have been happy to help and lift me up. How often do we do that? How often do we forget how strong we are and how the way has been provided for us to handle anything that comes our way? How loved we are and how much the Lord wants us to succeed? There's so much to remember. I hope this is one lesson I don't forget.
 

I can't pass up a deal like this...

I do love a good deal. Especially on something I know I will use or I really love. While wandering around a store I hardly ever go into anymore the other day I found some of their fabric on the clearance rack. It was Christmas flannel, and it was marked $.86 a yard. Yep, Eighty six cents a yard. Amazing. I have been known to stand in line at JoAnn's Black Friday sale for flannel at $1.75/yd for hours. Really- hours. I took all there was- a little over 5.5 yds for less than $6.00. There's always a use for cute Christmas flannel and I will find a place to stash it. Can't wait to find it again next Christmas sewing season and be happy about a great deal all over again. It's easy to make me smile.

Cute new dress

I have posted before about Dear My Kids patterns and I just finished up another one. This is the reversible tunic pattern, although I didn't make it reversible. I love that her patterns are so easy to modify. I tried it on my little one for size before she went down for her nap and she was very serious when she told me "I need a pocket on this before I will wear it. And it needs a button." She loves, loves buttons. It did call for a button on the back, so she was lucky. I think I will try and whip up a head band to go with it soon. I can't believe she's so particular about her clothes already.

   The pattern comes in tunic and dress length and one of the alterations I did was to add some more length to it. Dad wasn't satisfied with just above her knees the way she plays and pays no attention to her underpants showing or not showing. I also wasn't wild about the elastic in the arms, so I just made straight sleeves, which I like much better. I didn't have enough of the contrasting fabric to make it all reversible, so I just made an inner yoke to make it all lay right and look cute. They are very easy patterns to follow and very easy to change up to meet your needs. Love that.

   Can I say one more thing about my new sewing machine, which I LOVE? I never in a million years knew there were so many presser feet or had a clue what they could do. I put on the overcast foot and found out I could do nearly perfect top stitching. That is amazing. Love that. I am going to try the specialized foot for pin tucking next. I have always wanted to learn how to do that. Stay tuned. While I am adding one more thing... a big thanks to my Grandma Cozette who encouraged me to learn to sew and even bought my first machine a million years ago. She's a hard teacher who will not tolerate "good enough" in her sewing.  I have ripped out as many seams as I have put in, but I have learned so so much from her. Thanks Grandma. Love you.

I tried to make a skirt today too but darling daughter wasn't crazy about it. I guess it needs some modifying. She's just fun to sew for, even when she isn't crazy about my creations.. The big kid isn't crazy about me sewing anything for him to wear. He's so over that he told me. Sigh...

Gifts of Christmas

I admit I am a crafter. I like to create, I like to make messes and I like to see the reaction people have to my creations, good or bad. I love to learn new things and in the crafting world it's easy to learn things one step at a time. I also have a dark side. {no comment from my family, please...} I am a procrastinator extraordinaire. I have the best of intentions and worst follow through ever. I started making Christmas gifts in July. Really. I finished the last one Dec 23. Ugh. My other real problem is that while I am amazing at taking an idea and making it my own, I am lousy at coming up with my own unique idea. So thanks to all of the wonderful crafters out there in blogland. Your ideas helped make a great Christmas for my family!

Christmas gifts I give have criteria to meet. I don't just give any old thing. First, it has to be fit for a variety of age groups. Nieces and Nephews range from 2 months to 12 years old. Some of the parents are bigger kids than the kids. It has to be a family strengthening gift. Toys don't last, memories do. Also, some aspect has to be handmade. It's better if I can come up with a plan and make it for each family (9 in all + grandparents), but I am happy to do different things for each family too. Lastly, it has to be affordable. Lots of people, we don't draw names and we have to afford Christmas for our own kiddos too.

This year was the year of games. I loved this idea from a blog I read. I have posted about it before and the same warning still applies. Every family got Yahtzee games with a hand made drawstring bag with their name on it.  The idea was to be able to add personalized games to them throughout the year. I have cousin memory coming up by Easter I hope. I also saw a version of Family Go Fish I liked a lot too. We shall see what actually gets done.

I borrowed an embroidery machine from a friend of mine. (It's actually for sale. Contact me and I will fill you in on the details.) I forgot to take a picture of this,although hopefully Dad and Annie will send me one to add.(Thanks Annie.) It was a bird tablecloth with matching gold napkins. Each corner of the tablecloth had a bird from a different season on it.

 It was really pretty when I was done and quite a learning experience. It fit the criteria in that it's only them living there, she loves to cook and entertain so it brings them closer together.

I also did a couple of quilts. For my FIL and his sweet wife I did this fun quilt.

I got the idea from Crazy Mom Quilts. Good for cuddling on the couch after a long day of horses and chores on the ranch. I decided that one quilt per year for was going to be my limit, but then this one fell into my lap. The same friend who had the machine I borrowed also had a rough outline of this cute quilt done.

 It didn't take long to finish it up, since it was all cut out and had all the pieces together. A lap quilt was perfect for this Grandpa.

For my grandmothers I made tater bags. They both loved them. Good for re-heating rolls, heating tortillas, baking potatoes or apples, these are fun and easy. Both of them have everything they want and love something new and different, so this was the perfect gift for them. No photo of that either. Think bright lined flannel with a bright yellow lining. Cute and functional.

No Christmas cards were sent out this year, I just didn't get to it. Maybe for Valentine's Day. Lots of cooking, lots of sewing {and with a brand new sewing machine, who could resist?} and lots of errands. We helped two friends move away in December, which was sad, but we know they are on to new adventures. I participated in a Christmas Choir, we had illness visit our house and Meg started Pre-school. I did 3 family photo shoots and 2 sweet babies but didn't manage to get our own family photos done. We also celebrated two birthdays and made lots of cookies.

 I traveled to WA for the funeral of my Grandfather

and returned to the biggest storms So Cal has seen in many many years. Here's our unofficial rain gauge for the 5 days of rain. There should be another almost 2 inches but my son emptied it out. Crazy, isn't it?

Still reading? Wow. That was long and involved. There were other gifts this year too. Gifts to me personally that made a difference in my life. Gifts of mercy, when I needed it most, gifts of patience, gifts of self reliance, endurance, music, creativity, hope, family and testimony. Without those gifts, where would I be? We hope you had a wonderful Christmas season and feel ready to take on the New Year with joy and energy. 2011, here we come...

Traditional Irish Blessing

 

Duane Francis Colwell passed away this week. He was my Grandpa, and a Great grandpa to my kiddos. He was full of optimism, even when life was hard and his greatest joy was to bring smiles to the faces of those around him. He loved to joke and always had a zinger waiting for you when you might not have expected it. His life was not easy, and he didn't expect it would be. He lived and died on his own terms and in his own time. 2 years ago when he was told his cancer was extensive and he might only have 4-6 months left, he laughed at the doctor. "What does he know, anyway", he said. "I have things to do. I want to go to the casino, who's taking me?" One thing I remember vividly from my childhood was him walking through the orchards or just sitting outside whistling. He loved Irish Folk tunes and when I ran across the video below, it reminded me of him. We enjoyed the time we had with him and the things that he taught us. Miss you Grandpa.

My wish for youI wish you not a path devoid of clouds, nor a life on a bed of roses,
Not that you might never need regret,
nor that you should never feel pain.
No, that is not my wish for you.
My wish for you is:
That you might be brave in times of trial,
when others lay crosses upon your shoulders.
When mountains must be climbed and chasms are to be crossed,
When hope can scarce shine through.
That every gift God gave you might grow with you
and let you give your gift of joy to all who care for you.
That you may always have a friend who is worth that name,
whom you can trust and who helps you in times of sadness,
Who will defy the storms of daily life at your side.
One more wish I have for you:
That in every hour of joy and pain you may feel God close to you.
This is my wish for you and for all who care for you.
This is my hope for you now and forever.

-- anonymous Irish blessing