before GI joe came home

i made these two matching aprons, one for me and one for the little one. but not without the help and companionship's of this lady and this lady. we've only met a a few times before they came down here to spend the weekend with me, but we knew from the start that we could be great friends. i love when you find friends you can be yourself with, laugh, cry, spill secrets too, show your not so attractive side to, and STILL end up walking away not being able to wait till the next time we get to do that again! ladies it was a blast. thank you for keeping me busy the last few days before GI Joe husband came home.

after picking up GI Joe husband and we finally got to come back to the middle of nowhere (we call home sweet home) there were yellow ribbons and flags (yes there were more than a few) in our front yard. love this community. seriously, if you ever get to live out in the middle of nowhere this should be the middle of nowhere you head to.

i do find it funny how i didn't really realize how tired i was through out this whole deployment. i mean i knew i was tired, and very spent, but now that's he's here, i find the feeling of needing to sleep for days and days and days. i think the adrenalin has finally worn off of "i'm all the kids got so i have to keep this going." i'm really tired, and so is he...but we have a little while before he has to go back to the job he left behind. i think we'll be chilaxing for a bit.

from our family to all of you

thank you all for the wonderful words and support you have shown our family.

for all you ladies of 142 who still have your husbands gone, when this moment happens to you, it will make it all worth it. we'll be there with you when they get off the plane in about a month. can't wait to see you all.

my legs are shaved and my bags are packed...

because yes, today is THAT day. we drive up north and i get my GI joe husband back. we have to stay up north for a few days because he has to do out processing junk, so i'll upload pictures when i can. have an awesome week. i for sure am.

9 years ago today...

you were born and threw me into the "i'm a mom" world.

here are some fun facts about you right now:

*you have an incredible imagination that just doesn't quit

*your siblings look up to you and you can make any situation exciting

*you and i have our highs and lows, but we also have some of the most tenderest moments

*you love love LOVE to collect things

*you are full. of. personality.

*you are quite the artist, and love to do anything artistic...plus you are quite good at it too!

*i've been told you should go into theater (we'll have to look into that)

*you are GREAT with babies

*you are my real life "dennis the menace" and have scared a few babysitters away

*you are so sweet to your little sister, and she ADORES you.

*you are an animal lover and quite the activist always making sure animals are not mistreated

*you and i are very alike in our "quirks", but you and i both know we can relax and breath soon because daddy's almost home.

i really can't wait to see who you grow into. you are so special and i know once life gets more on track there will be more peace, and happiness in your little body!

happy birthday kid

always know that we love you and think the world of you.

another first for me

i've been wanting to make these forever, well just for a few months actually and i finally got around to making them yesterday. i think these are better than any school picture up on the wall could ever be. i think i'll make one for each kid every january. i bought the frames one at a time when i went to walmart every week, they were $3 each (not bad) although i really wanted the oval ones but they were $8 each. the mattes were white so i thought i would spruce them up with some paint.

i decided on blue paint, i'm still debating wether or not i like the color, i almost went with a tan brown, or a sage green, i really wanted a light blue but out in the middle of nowhere you just have to deal with what ya got...i don't know i'll see how i feel about it in a week

oh and the quilt. since so many asked about it... actually it's just a fabric panel by MODA (of course) that looks like a quilt top and it's been made into a throw quilt...quite clever those MODA people...

have a good weekend, i'm hoping to catch up with some friends and relax a little and see if this cold thing goes away anytime soon, i mean GI Joe husband is coming home soon so i guess it'll be good to have the "sexy" low flem voice, but not so much the snot that goes along with it...

edited:: okay i posted in my comments area how i did it but i'll post it here cause so many of you keep askin'

i talked about a tutorial that i sort of used the method in this post here but i just did the magic wand around the kid's heads (so that the background was "cut away" and then traced it onto white paper from the computer screen, then i colored it in with a permanent marker and cut it out... a little wonky yes but it works and i thought it turned out good. next year i'll try paint but that just sounds harder to do!

what i did yesterday

lo and behold my first ever meandering quilt job done on betty. or ever, no wait i tried it once before only it was worse on my pinto sewing machine that i had before this Cadillac of a sewing machine...most definitely need, NEED more practice, but this year i'm trying new things, even if i'm bad at them at first or every time. sitting where it belongs, i think it serves it's purpose and makes the table home-y looking.

i felt pretty crummy all day long yesterday, and the only good thing about it was that i had a pretty sexy low voice but it got lost with all the snot plugging up my nose. oh what too graphic? here's to a good night's induced with NyQuil sleep, no worries i'll wait till night time...maybe...

things i love...

decorating with plates.
this one is in my daughter's bedroom and is my most favorite plate that i own. it's enamelware with little flowers on it. if anyone knows where i can get any more i will forever love you!!! i found this one around a year ago and i thought i had died or that i was on some tv show where they totally make a fool of you... but nope, it was for real, and i had tears when i turned it over and i read "75 cents" please, if anyone out there has any info or know where i can get anymore....PLEASE CONTACT ME...okay enough... onto the rest of the post.

plates... they are everywhere you look, in magazines, blogs, and displays. i've been in love with decorating with plates since we bought our first little townhouse way back when and we had no money to spare other than to pay for food and gas and the essentials. i decided i loved how plates looked on my wall especially when they were so cheap because they were in my cupboards.since then my collection has expanded from using my plates (we kept having more kids who needed to use plates to eat, go figure) to scouring second had stores and finding the perfect plate to go up on my wall or to be displayed somewhere...i can't get enough it seems. and since having my little girl it seems to of magnified the problem, er...love of plates for decorating. she has quite a few in her room, these are just a few of them.

there isn't a room in my house (minus the boys' room) that doesn't have a plate in it. GI Joe husband thinks it silly, but he doesn't press the issue too much except to say "that's just weird, but whatever." that's right you have no say in the matter.

there are so many plates out there floating around, from old english china to enamelware and they are just begging to be snatched up and displayed!

before and after::throw pillow

piping is scary to me.
i attempted it for the first time 4 or 5 years ago. it wasn't pretty. but then i was sort of new to sewing, really new to sewing, and i didn't have the right feet for the job. needless to say i was completely turned off by the whole process, but i love how piping makes a pillow look really that much better. so this is a throw pillow, like as in i could throw this pillow away because it's been with us since our wedding shower and it's been lactated, spit-upped, smeared with who knows what for about 9 years (yup my little guy's going to be 9 next week yikes!) so i really didn't feel so bad about taking off the cover i had on it already (didn't really care for it) making a new cover for it and if it turned out awful then i could just throw the whole thing away.

i made it into a slipcover this time because i switch my fancy from time to time, not often mind you, but if for some reason i want to i can totally change the total look of it without having to cut off or ruin the work i did.

turned out okay. i definitely need more practice. but now that i've attempted again something i tried once a looooong time ago (in sewing project years) i think i can actually feel a little better about trying to attempt the boys' decorative pillows, and i'm thinking i might try my first re-upholstering project this year. but that's a little scary and i'm not committing to anything just yet.

edited::p.s.: it's been brought to my attention in the past two weeks i've been awarded 4 awards from different blogs...blush...thank you for thinking of me. now if i could get my act together and find them again so i can make a link to them and you all don't think i'm making it up...sigh... thank you thank you thank you.

AHA! found one! thank you cottage lifestyle for my lovely award!

so i had fun

but i have no pictures to show you of "twilight" country except this one because i was a moron and forgot my camera. GI Joe husband was great to send me this picture that i took of "us" with his pathetic camera and he was kind enough to look up "forks" on the google map. as sad as i was that it was 3 hours away i think he was excited that it was 3 hours away, so no, i did not go to forks, but i got a taste of washington. all i have to say is that it's wet and green with moss,fog and a ton of trees. i got so used to it being over cast that when the sun did peek through at times it hurt my eyes. HA! no wonder vampires can live there! i tired to get GI Joe husband to go to the movie with me but he wouldn't have any of it. he was all, and i quote, "it's like she took anything that was "cool" about vampires and threw it out the window." uh 'xscuse me did you not see his hair? and how hot he looked in his puffy blue jacket? how is that NOT "cool"? HELLO?!

i had a wonderful time just talking and laughing with him. i got the opportunity to almost miss the kids... we're both in shock that we only have around 11 days left without each other. i say around because we have a hint of a date that he'll be home but nothing is set in stone, so till then i will continue to sew, read, and organize like a mad woman. thank you for your kind wishes, yes i had fun, thank you for the comments about my quilt, yes i love it too, and hello to all you new followers to the blog, you are not unnoticed! ;) shall i start on some projects?

so sweet

to say that i'm not happy with this quilt would be lying, to say that i'm happy that it's snowing right now would be lying too. i'm from southern cal i have a reason to think snow should be "visited" and not lived in...so all you snow lovers go out and get cold, i'm staying indoors and pretending the ocean is only a few miles away.

oh and i have a secret: a week from today i'll be together with GI Joe husband for the weekend. no kids involved. so i'm taking a week off of blogging i want to be all primped up and rested so i have no bags under my eyes, i'm also going to focus on "no sewing" for a week i know kind of stressful to do that to myself but i want to work on some other things so i'll be back monday the 19th. take care and see you soon!

better than i thought

yeah i like it a lot. so much that i think i'll put in the little one's room on display when it's not out in the living room for valentines day.

now if you'll excuse me my laundry has gotten the flu. that's the only reason i can see explaining why it has thrown up all over my bedroom. seriously clean laundry is harder to deal with than dirty laundry...ugh.

my valentine quilt

first off thanks for yesterday. really i love your guys' comments. :) second off lets get on with that valentine quilt i mentioned a while back that i thought would be a good idea to make. here are scraps of fabric i have collected over the years with good intentions of using, i always have good intentions when i go to the fabric store it seems and well you've seen my fabric collection. so this year i'm working on dwindling my stash so that i can....yup, go buy some more.

fabulous friend who just so happens to be a professional quilter and i got together last week a couple of times, i finished two quilt tops (one you already saw and is patiently waiting to be quilted on my "betty" the other one is patiently waiting at her house to be quilted). she got started and finished her valentines quilt top. yeah i was a little green with envy so we got together yesterday and i flaunted that it was going to have more blocks and it was going to be bigger than hers. she just rolled her eyes while she worked on a measly little pillow. so i spread out like no body's business and gave her a little corner to work in. she finished her pillow (totally cute by the way) and i'm still up to my eyeballs in this mess. that's what i get for bragging and doing the "do you want a piece of me" and the "in your face" dance at her.

the valentines quilt looks a lot like the little ones blankie i made for her which she has recently gotten attached to much to my pleasure! poor thing looks like a rag-a-muffin in the picture, she had just gotten up from a nap, i swear i don't let her run around town like that. well not all the time at least.

i think it'll be cute. but we'll see how much progress i get done in the next few days. it's really cold here and that makes it really easy to stay indoors, not go anywhere, and sew.

soul searching...

with GI Joe being in the states it makes it that much more "real" that we are almost at the end of this year long deployment. this last year i have gotten a taste of how it is to be a single parent. i salute those women who don't have "just a year" alone. this last year has seen me more on my knees in prayer and in tears. but one thing is for sure, i'm really lucky to of experienced it because i feel like i'm walking away a much better person (a little rough and frazzled around the edges, with smoke coming off of my singed hair, but still better). sure i can say that because it's almost over and hind sight is 20/20. my heart goes out to those women and their families that are just starting or are in the middle of or that just got notice to get ready for deployment. i can feel the anxiety, fear, pride, anger all mixed into one ball all over again for them. just know you are not alone, as i have found, those wives left behind to live their lives without their spouse become some of your best-est friends, those women who have already been through a deployment or many deployments will become your pillars to lean on, use them. and lastly those wonderful women who have never been through a deployment and know nothing about the military lingo, who don't know what a MOS is, or how it is to be a military wife, will give you love, support, cookies, babysitting , and words of encouragement, take them.

i've been asked time and time again "how do you do it?" my answer is "you just do, you don't have a choice, except one, it can either be hell every single day because you make it that way, or you make the best of the situation and put a damn smile on your face." sometimes it works other times chocolate works with some crying, and a couple of good army wives to nod and know exactly how you are feeling. but all in all it's in the attitude.

and now we are embarking on a new journey, the "getting used to having dad around" journey. i'm glad to be getting ready to "get on with it" but i'm also finding that i will need to re-adjust my daily schedule to include the man i married back into my life. i will have to get used to not sleeping on his side of the bed, i'm going to have to get used to not reading till all hours of the night and i think the hardest one is going to be having to get used to cooking more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or cereal for dinner!

so i'm getting on with it, i'm making dinners, actual dinners (the kids are not happy), tonight i'm attempting to sleep on my side of the bed, i'm in full force ahead mode to organizing the house and my time. i'm making myself slow down in the reading dept. (seriously 4 books in 5 days is a little over board) and i'm getting ready. getting ready to finally have him back in our lives.

things i love

salvation army finds: tall glass hurricane $3 medium size $2

50%-70% off "christmas" decorations that can be used all year long

finished quilt tops: i finished two this last week and was suppose to quilt this one but the boys made...

this fort around my computer and sewing area so i got nothing creative done this weekend but i did enjoy a very relaxing time saving the republic with the boys in our own little blanket fort world, well until i got kicked out of the "club" which then the little one and i enjoyed listening to the boys' "battle plans" while we watched girly cartoons and read some books under the left over blankets and quilts that weren't being used.

ps:got the phone call sunday morning that GI Joe husband is now on american soil. i.can't.believe.it.

sytyc: perfect gift for the "little mother"

something that this little quilt has made me realize is that i really miss making quilts. it's been a super busy year for me, and i haven't really been able to focus on bigger projects like quilting in a while. this year i promise myself to change that. i'm making at least a few quilts this year.
yes.i.am.
i have some ideas and i can't wait to see if they work out.

but for now lets talk about sytyc.
Got a little one that wants to mimic everything you do?
well here's the gift for that "little mother" in your life.
this little quilt is just right for your little one to baby her little dolly.
this quilt is also the right size to tote around anywhere, whether it be at home or on the go, this little quilt is perfect.

surely her friends will want one too, and would be the perfect gift for any "little mother" you know.


i've moved on to the next round thanks to your votes in keeping me in the game. ;)
you can vote for this weeks craft for the theme "new years" here.
and check out dana's awesome candy bag tutorial here!
and i promise to make the tutorial for this little quilt by friday. ;) here's to another round! wish me luck!!!
and we'll talk soon!!!

new fabric and the monthly ickies

if you haven't been to jo-ann's lately, oh my it's not the jo-anns i knew a few years ago. or maybe being out in the middle of nowhere really does a number on you and you think anything other than walmart flannel is hip happening and gives you butterflies in your stomach when you see it and gives you acid reflux when you go closer and "pet it". whatever the case, i walked away very happy. these will be transformed into little hand bags for the little one and i to match. yes go ahead an make puking sounds.

these lovelies are the start of the boy's room. they will be transformed into wonderful decorative pillows for their beds. they will be thrown around, sat on, booger smeared, and farted on within days of being put in their rooms but that's okay the fabric was 50% off and i'm making them into slip covers so i can wash them as they get "saucy".

i'm at that wonderful time of the month where all is wrong in the world and i want to crawl under my covers and hide in my room for the day. read books, sleep like a cat and eat chocolate for breakfast. i'll be back on monday all nice and better. but until then watch out for dragon lady.

this year...

i'm going to:

*make my house my sanctuary by keeping the world out and inviting spirituality in.

*laugh more, create more, learn more, cook more, sleep more, relax more, volunteer more, and excersise more

*keep my car clean (shudder)

*paint the inside of my house

*enjoy my family being whole again

yeah i think that's good for now...

happy new years. ours was quiet, just how i like it.