The best day ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What more could I really ask for? For starters, I got to take a shower this AM. You all laugh, but trust me, when you have kids, especially more than one, a shower suddenly falls low down on the totem pole!

Then I got all "cute", yet another rarity, and had breakfast with the moms from preschool. We went to Mimi's Cafe. Their food was fabulous!

After that we headed back to the school for their last day of school/graduation assembly. They were so cute.

Then as if that wasn't great! My bestest friend ever and Kate's bestest friend ever and birth buddy, came to visit. It was so spur of the moment and I"m just grateful to God, that we had this time together to enjoy ourselves and get caught up! I feel like a completely recharged battery now!!!!

Then after my delightfully cranky preschooler went down for her nap, my glorious Buddha girl just had me going! Who can turn away from a laughing baby? Their really is nothing better. Find yourself in a bad place? Just watch the video below. It will definitely turn that frown upside down!

The day of course ended with our family night at chickfila. Nothing better than some chicken nuggets and a balloon animal. What more could a kid want? Oh wait.......

ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!

I truly had a happy day!

Let the juices flow.....

I know all you loyal readers (well 1 loyal reader) have anxiously been waiting for a new post! After many many MANY months, I finally put on my creative hat again and jumped into the world of card making.

I was asked to donate some of my cards for a silent auction at church. As much as I love to create things, I typically steal other people's ideas for inspiration (sssshhhhh.....don't tell!). So on a pursuit to find my next victim, I came across this AMAZING site called Split Coast Stampers. It's like I found Mecca for stamping. You name it you can probably find it!

My adventures led me to a technique called "One Sheet Wonder". Essentially you take a sheet of paper (12x12 or 8.5x11) and stamp it. Then you cut the paper if various different sizes and use it to make many cards. It's a great concept because it allows you to have a constant theme, but with varied results.

Since I had little time, I passed on the whole "stamping the paper" part and just bought some really cute scrapbook card stock (it was double sided). I found a template for cutting the paper and got to it! A couple cute stamps and fun chotchkes later and the end result was SO CUTE!

Happy May Day!........a little late!

May? I'm sorry what? May like the month when Mother's Day happens? May like Memorial Day and swimming pools opening? I'm sorry. Have I been asleep for a couple of months?

It's amazing! Though I love this time of year, I find it hard to believe that in a few weeks Kate will be done with her first year of Pre-school, Claire will be turning 8 months, I will be doing Relay for Life and trying to figure out how I'll get back in my bathing suit! ACK!

On a good note, our garden is just lovely right now! It's like a continual wave of color. First it started off with the daffodils and crocus. Then the phlox exploded (REALLY). It's this wonderful carpet of color. Now they are starting to fade and the azaleas have popped! It's quite amazing to see all the beauty of God. I guess it is true that April showers bring May flowers.

The other day Kate's class went to Frying Pan Park on a field trip to see all the new babies. Despite it being 50 degrees, very overcast and extremely windy, we had a grand time! Though most of us were horribly under dressed!!!! We all huddled together as we rode the tractor around the park.

And just today, Miss Claire stood on her own!!!! (Again, I guess I've been asleep or something) When did she grow up! She's trying to figure out how to crawl, but her poor little belly hasn't figured out how to defy gravity yet. So instead she lays on her back and picks up her cute little booty and scoots backwards. It's pretty funny to watch.

These are days that you’ll remember. When May is rushing over you, with desire to be part of the miracles you see in every hour. You’ll know it’s true, that you are blessed and lucky. It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you. - These are the Days by 10000 Maniacs

THESE ARE THE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day! In elementary school is was the day we always planted a tree. Then there became more focus on recycling. Now it's all about "Going Green".

So I'm watching Oprah today. It was all about going green and what you can do to help Mother Earth. What I loved about the show, was that they offered options for those of us that either can't afford all the organic/chemical free products OR pointed out that you didn't have to do it ALL right now, but choose what you feel you can do now and do it!

I think we all would love to be able to buy all organic foods and products, drive hybrid cars or ride bikes every where. Have homes run on solar power and compost all our waste. However, the reality is, that just isn't possible for most of us and that's ok.

The good news is, there are things that each of us can do to help. We can turn off the light when we leave the room, stop using as many paper products, recycle more and cut back on all the plastic, take advantage of the warm weather (thanks global warming) and dry the clothes on the a clothes line, etc.

So what are we doing at Hokiecrib? I try to buy organic on the crucial things when I can, like produce or at least the ones where we eat the skin (though they had a great solution on Oprah to drastically decrease the pesticides on produce that you can make yourself). We've turned off the lights and other things that take power when we don't need them. We don't buy bottled water. We do have a water service, but we've been trying to use our Eco friendly water bottles instead. We've been much more conservative with our paper products and tonight, I'm really excited about this, I went and bought reusable grocery bags from Trader Joe's. I had a $10 gift card, so I bought 10 bags. They are SOOOOOO CUTE and I love the thought that I won't have to store those stupid plastic grocery bags any more on top of helping to reduce waste!

If you haven't thought about what you can do to make a change, I encourage you to sit with your families and talk it over. Just think of the change we could make if every single person TODAY decided to make just ONE change! HUGE!

http://www.ban.org/

http://www.epa.gov/earthday/

http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/homepage/

http://www2.oprah.com/world/enviro/green/informed/informed_resources.jhtml (for other great resources)

It lifts and separates....

Let's get down and dirty (but hopefully not xrated!). So I've given up on feeding Claire from what God has given me (trying to avoid using the "B" word, so I don't end up on some crazy searches). I just couldn't keep up with the demand. So now I have my "friends" back.

I had an afternoon free and my mom and I decided to hit a consignment sale and a community yard sale. 30 mins later, we were done with BOTH! So what better to do than go shopping for a new bra!!!!!!!!!! What more could a new mom dream of?!?!?!

Macy's was having a great sale, my mom had some coupons, things were looking great! Now of course one of my dilemmas was not knowing what size to shop for. Last time I was measured (totally recommend going to Norstrom, they rock!)I was a 36 G! Do you know how ridiculous that is! Any who, I knew I wasn't that big, but just didn't know. So my mom and I grabbed 34's and 36's of various sizes.

Who thought that trying on a simple bra (or in my case SEVERAL) would be so exhausting! I got really hot, very thirsty and even ended up with a few scratches! WHAT? No I wasn't playing flag football, I was trying on about about 100 bras (No joke!).

Thankfully in the end I bought 5 bras (Yes! A mere 5 out of 100.) and they were all on sale. So I got them for a whopping $50. You would even have a hard time doing that at Walmart.

Now I can proudly flaunt my "friends" as my beautiful bras helps to lift and separate!

Make new friends, but keep the old......

I've had so many friends in my life. Some that are still part of my life and others that have moved on.

I never cease to be amazed by how I meet people these days. One of my dearest friends I met in a birth class of all places! Another I became friends with because we were the last couple to be married at the church. Another I met on freecycle, shoveling river rock out of her back yard. Thanks to these wonderful ladies, I have met several more phenomenal friends. How AWESOME!!!!

I sometimes find myself lonely and then I stop and think about these incredible people who impact my life in such inspiring and uplifting ways!

Today, once again, thanks to freecycle (which I would know nothing about, it it weren't for Bounceriffic!), I met another wonderful woman. She was in need of an exercauser and I had just the one for her darling 4 month old. We started talking and found we had a lot in common and even workout at the same gym!

It's amazing the community God will offer to us, if we will just stop and take the time to open the door! I find myself incredibly blessed and full......but never too full for a new friend, and ALWAYS holding the old ones close.



Friends are God's way of taking care of us.- Author Unknown

Side by side or miles apart, good friends are always close to the heart.- Author Unknown

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.- Author Unknown

Friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.- Author Unknown

I love you all!

My spring beauties

So I haven't posted anything in a while. The past several days have been crazy. Planning my cousin's "after baby shower" (which turned out great!). Wood has had a bout of the stomach flu, Kate always seems to be sick and now poor little Claire has joined the party. Knock on Wood (his head is kind of hard), I haven't been blessed with the sickies!

Despite all the "excitement", we did take a moment to enjoy the great weather and all the blooming flowers. When Kate was around 6 months old we took a great picture in our front yard that to this day is still probably our favorite.

Of course I thought it would be fun to try and reproduce the same picture, but wouldn't you know I can't find the hat and that would require me diggin out the swimsuit, etc. Too much work! LOL! So I pulled out the cute outfits that I got from Target for the girls, matching of course. The result was Wood, Kate and I making all kinds of crazy sounds, making fools of ourselves, all to get the attention of one little cutie, with our neighbors wandering if we should be committed. After close to 200 pics....NO JOKE....we didn't get something quite as "Gerber" worthy, but it was a fun memory!