Archives for July 2011

I have decided that quilting may be the most time consuming sewing project ever…at least for me.  Man oh man and I even chose a fairly easy quilt pattern since this is my first.  I can’t even imagine going with some awesome, crazy hard quilt…It would be fair to say that I may go insane.  This week I got all my 10″ squares and 7″ circles cut, sewed a circle onto each square and then cut each 10″ square/circle combo into 1/4s.  It made for a pretty crazy amount of small 5×5 squares of fabric.

And by the end of the weekend, all those little squares were pieced back into those big squares…a smorgasbord of color.  I kind of love.

Now onto finishing up the top of this quilt…it may be a good week.

Thursday, I just may have been apart of the first flash mob in our area.  It was so much fun.  I think I have decided I will be a flash mob junky now.  The only problem is finding other flash mobs to participate in…the whole secrecy part is going to be tricky.

And yes, we rocked our finger staches…while flash mobbing.

The whole weekend we yard saled.  We had a little sale with my mom and my SIL Jen.  My niece Campbell was so excited to sell a ton of her junk valuables and have a lemonade stand.  It was beyond cute, as kiddo lemonade stands are as always.

Campbell made tons of signs and even this lemonade girl, who really drew in the customers.

I busted Sol getting fresh with the lemonade gal…

I was really proud of myself for actually making a few extra bucks at the sale.  I only bought 4 things:  2 small Christmas trees for the kid’s bedrooms and some old napkins and a small framed boy silhouette that were both my moms…and let’s just be honest…I only really paid for 2 of those items.

I tried to sell these 2, but nobody made a good offer.  I suppose I’ll just keep them 🙂

I finished up my last official order.  These Taiwan goodies are headed to Meghan in Springfield, Tn.  Meghan and her family just began their adoption journey to Taiwan and she wanted a few items to show some love.  Thanks so much Meghan.

I also finished up several donation items.  This 8×10 canvas will be at Long Hollow’s Midnight Train event this week for a door prize.  I really love this saying and the event is about learning ways you can serve…I thought it was pretty appropriate.

This Africa tee is headed to an adoption fundraiser in Wisconsin.  I love doing donated items because I get to choose all the details.  I have been dying to use this color/fabric combo.  I think it looks so fresh.

And my friend Kelly’s little boy is a big Batman fan.  Kelly commented on how much Drew would love one of those tees and I just can’t not spread the Batman love.  Hope Drew loves it Kelly…it will be in the mail this week.

And how about a fun giveaway to start the week off right.

I was contacted by Kelly with The Sparrow Fund not long ago about hosting a giveaway.  I checked out their Etsy store and love all the cool jewelry they have for sale.  And I do dig buying items that support great things.

 The Sparrow Fund is a new nonprofit Kelly and her husband launched to support adoptive families specifically through grants to pay for preadoptive counsel and support including medical reviews of referrals and in-country and postadoption support.

The items in their Etsy store are made by Mary Magdalene, a fellow adoptive mom in Kenya.  She has been widowed twice, both husbands had been killed in the Sudanese war, leaving her with 9 children to raise on her own. But, what we would see as a desperate situation did not stop her from bringing 7 orphaned children into her home. Mary is a strong and faithful woman who trained other refugee women in her village to make beads and helped them learn how to sell them in the marketplace. They pool the money made and split it between them so that all are provided for.

So up for grabs is one winner’s choice of a bracelet AND necklace from their Etsy store. 

On more than one occasion this week I noticed on Facebook people making status updates about Christmas being just 5 months away…really?  Christmas talk already?  I was a bit perplexed and then I went into Hobby Lobby.

They already have like 10 aisles of Christmas up.  I bet I know what Hobby Lobby’s status update entailed.

I am almost done cutting out all my fabric for Harper’s quilt.  This is the most nerve racking thing I have ever made.  I mean, palms sweating and dripping sweat from my brow.  The pressure is on.  First block…

And I’m pretty sure I am a cheating quilter…I just couldn’t handle measuring out a million squares…my patience was wearing just thinking about it.  And everyone’s advice was, “Measure twice, cut once”.  I now have my own quilting advice, “Measure once, make a template from card stock and use it to cheat with.”  Should I copyright that?

This week Harper had her passport appointment.  When I told her about her “appointment” I got this…

I have not idea why.  Maybe because I used “passport appointment” wording and she had no idea exactly what that was.  After explaining she literally had to do nothing for the appointment, other than stand for a picture, she was okay.  Turns out getting a kid a passport is serious business.  Josh and I both had to go, along with Harper, which meant we were accompanied by two little boy yahoos to the tiny little local post office where we had to stand at one of 3 desks for oh, about 20 minutes during lunch time when everybody and their mom decided to mail something out.  Needless to say Josh and I could not get out of there quick enough.  I felt like the long line of people waiting should have applauded for us when we were finally exited.

And Josh and I are very confident authorities will think we abducted this little brown haired child and are trying to smuggle her out of the country based on her picture alone.  We had a mighty good laugh.

I’m still working on random house projects.  It really pays to have friends with quirky connections.  Like how about…oh say…a wonderful family friend who just so happens to be good friends with a man who collects old junky bike parts…Jackpot!

I am working on lots of donation items this week.  And I was contacted by Kelly with The Sparrow Fund to host a giveaway from their new sweet Etsy store.  You should definitely check out their store and check back Monday for a chance to win some of their goodies.

And I should probably end on a “Hud Climbing” picture.  Sounds good.  Happy Wednesday!

Kind of sad the weekend is over.  It was a fun, productive one for sure.  I finished up 2 more orders.  I’m really bad about making my friends and family usually wait to get their orders completed…it’s a good thing they still want to be friends and family.  This 10×10 canvas is for my cousin Lynette.  Lynette runs an amazing videographer business-McNeal Wedding Films.  She really is fantastic.  Lynette wanted a special lovey canvas to do a giveaway with.  I really like how it turned out.  Thanks so much Lynette.  You know I thinking you’re pretty rockin’.

And this 8×10 canvas is for my friend Brea.  She needed a special gift for someone.  I listened to a speaker online recently and the main point was “I am here to serve with love”.  I LOVED that and ever since have been dying to use it.  Brea gave me the okay, so I was pretty excited.  Thanks so much Brea.  PS:  You need to start blogging again.

Our weekend kicked off with Harper receiving some special mail from Arlene at The Rosey Posey. 

Yes, this sweet little hat came so perfectly made just for Harper and she loved it.  The boys loved it too.  Thanks so much for your kindness Arlene.

We also attended my niece McKinley’s 6th ballet beauty shop birthday party.  It was all small ladies and it was the quietest party I have ever been to.  All the girls loved it.  Harper had an absolute blast.  We love you sweet McKinley!

Sol also got stuck in his own shirt this weekend.  This may quite possibly be my favorite picture of Sol ever.  I’m sure you can’t tell at all that is he totally ticked off at the circumstance he got himself in.

Josh and I have also been working on things around our house.  We recently took Harper’s full bed out and just adjusted her rails down to a twin size…We wanted to give her a little more room.  The sad part was the headboard she had was this old antique wood headboard that Josh and I bought at an auction in Cookeville our first year of marriage and I love it.  We purchased it for a whopping $11.50 (headboard, footboard and rails).

Can I just tell you about this little auction house first?  Ummm, it is quite possibly the best thing about our first year of marriage…we loved it.  We would go every Friday night and it was as if you entered a whole little separate world all on its own.  We would stay until wee hours in the morning because all the junk priceless items we wanted were never auctioned off until no later than midnight….hence the old antique bed for $11.50…starting bid $11.50.  And we would eat Frito chilly pies from the little make shift concession stand out back and mini-homemade chess pies.  Those were the days.  I have parted with very few items from the multitude we purchased…I may have to take pictures and show you all the goodies that came from there…they are some beauties.

So back to the lack-of-headboard story.  I was quite disappointed that my favorite headboard had to be put up for now and I wanted to have a new one, but keeping with the comparative price of $11.50.

Well how does a $5.01 headboard sound?  Ummm, pretty freakin’ fantastic to me.  The key was the green dot wood at Home Depot.  Yes, the green dot = .51 for each piece.

I picked out all the random pieces I wanted to use, handed them over to Josh and let him set to work.  The boys were quite the assistants.

14 screws, some white trim paint and a tish of dark stain later…Harper had a sweet new headboard.  I will probably have to keep this forever as well.

And for above Harper’s headboard, I was inspired by this Pinterest pic here.

Some paper, a few pieces of fabric and some twine = loveliness.

And I am also officially cutting into Harper’s quilt fabric today…pretty nervous about this one.  Hoping to get quite a bit done this week…we shall see though.  And my next house project is our patio table and chairs.  I love finding them eating breakfast together in the morning…

but the table and chairs need some color.  I think I can handle color.

Happy Monday!

I am actually nearing the end of my order list.  I am pretty excited to just take some time off and make some fun stuff that I have been dying to make…the list is actually quite long.  And I think I have nailed down a quilt pattern (thanks for all the recommendations) and I took the plunge and ordered the fabric I want to use.  Amy Butler…be still my heart.

Have I mentioned that this makes my stomach all crazy feeling, like Black Friday shopping stomach feeling?  It really does, but I’m excited.

A sweet friend, Amy, from our church has been looking high and low for a Batman tee for her little boy Caleb.  She finally found one, but it was pink…bahahahahaha.  She was ticked, but decided to buy it for Harper.  I just couldn’t stand that sweet little Caleb had no Batman tees.  I then ran across some awesome Batman fabric…problem solved and he now has plenty for rotation as well.

Speaking of super heroes…I have never found them very ‘cute’ per se…until now.  Love little bums, in little boyish underwear.

And then speaking of small tushes…I’m on a roll here…Huddy loves visitors in the bathroom when he’s going #2.  His sister and brother are too good to him.

Harper is my morning pancake kid.  She loves pancakes.  I’m a pancake person myself…and we are big on adding food coloring…you should try it.  Harper called these, “Good Morning Sunshine” pancakes.  I concur.

We tried out our new library’s bathroom this week before story time.  They have a hand dryer called the Xlerator.  This is one powerful hand dryer…like moves your skin it’s so powerful.  This may have been better than story time to the kids.

Story time was great and Harper was the last kid done with her craft.  She is my very deliberate, takes her crafts serious type of child…and I love it!

And how about we end on an obscure mustache sighting?  While putting on some powder today, Harper said, “Mom, why is there a mustache in your makeup?”  I of course said, “There isn’t”…thinking to myself that maybe our mustache love has gone a bit too far, but then I looked and clearly she was right.

Happy Thursday!

Thank you guys so much for all the great entries for our 8 Months Waiting Art Giveaway.  They were all crazy encouraging and I so enjoyed reading each and everyone.  I’m feeling better now…I promise…and I know that ‘The Call’ will come eventually!  Okay so who was our winner this month…drum roll please…

#309 Leanne.  Super congrats Leanne.  Check your email for a message from me!

And again thanks to everyone who entered and who shared their stories and encouraging words.

And how about we just not even talk about a 9 Month Giveaway until the day before?  I think that sounds nice.

I have finished up a few more orders.  These sweet camera straps headed out to Lora Joy in Knoxville, TN, Ashley in Winchester, Tn and Tiffany in Memphis, TN.  How about all you Tennessee ladies…totally diggin’ it.  Thanks a huge Tennessee thank you!

And these key fobs were ordered by Alicia just right down the road…seriously.  Thanks so much Alicia…will drop them by today.

Also mailed out 2 giveaway key fobs.  Thanks so much for entering Aaron in Pennsylvania and Heather in California.  You guys rock!

So that wraps up today.  I have decided to make Harper a quilt for her bed.  We recently switched her from a full bed to a twin and I’m in the mood to try something new.  Anyone have some suggestions for a first-timers quilt?  It makes me super nervous thinking about it.  Now just to figure out how to quilt, what pattern, what fabric and what terms like ‘baste’ and ‘french fold’ mean…hmmmmm, that sounds easy enough…sike!

Happy Tuesday.

The other day my dad brought my kids some of those Purity individual ice cream cups (thanks Dad)…you know the ones…

They are like gold to my children…seriously, they absolutely love them.  So they get to have them every now then for a treat or after they eat a good meal.  Today while they ate lunch, I told them if they ate all their carrot chips they could have an ice cream cup for a treat.  And yes, I know you are not suppose to bribe your kids to eat their veggies, but hey, you do what you have to do sometimes…just don’t tell our pediatrician.

I gave them a measly 5 carrot chips and that was it.  I have mentioned before that Huddy is truly passionate about his food.  I really cannot put into words how seriously he takes his eating…the boy just loves to eat.  But unfortunately when faced with a pile of carrot chips and knowing that an ice cream cup could await him…he ended up in tears.  He threw this all out huge crying fit.

  BIG, BIG tears and lots of “it takes too long to eat the carrots”.  At this point Harper had completely finished her lunch, not one crumb of food left, Sol was almost done and Huddy had two wimpy carrot chips left to finish.  He had both carrot chips clinched in his fists…he had previously put them both in his mouth and attempted to eat them and taken them back out, so they had been slobbered on, cried on, snotted on and clinched in his fists…they were nasty and there is no way I would have eaten them.

Then Harper, who was waiting very patiently for her ice cream cup, said, “Huddy I will eat your carrot chips for you.”  I turned a quick look at her and was like, “Whhhaaattt?”  She said to me, “I will eat his carrot chips.”  Harper is a pretty good eater, but really, she was going to eat these 2 nasty, soggy carrot chips?  My immediate thought was, “No!  Hudson needs to eat these carrot chips.  They are his and he needs to eat them.  He has thrown this huge fit and there is no way I am going to let Harper bail him out of this one.  If he wants the ice cream he needs to eat those dang carrot chips.”  And then Jesus came to my mind.

He would have eaten my nasty carrot chips too.  I don’t deserve His grace and love and mercy and I am often times throwing an all out fit, but He is there to extend grace every single time.

So I let Harper eat the carrot chips.  Huddy gave her a very sincere “Thank you Harper”.  Then while they all enjoyed their ice cream cup I tried to explain is the most simplest form, how what Harper did for Huddy was similar to what Jesus did and still does for us every day.  Not sure if they ‘got it’, but I sure did…all through 2 nasty carrot chips.

And since I don’t like ending on a sappy note, I won’t.  Here is a glimpse of how we occupied our time on our drive to the Tennessee Aquarium.  Whhhaaattt…you other moms haven’t taught your kids how to get truckers to honk at them…well, you should.  Makes for at least a good hour of entertainment.  Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lx7p4PLvHM]

Happy Monday!

PS:  Our 8 Months Waiting Art Giveaway ends tomorrow night at midnight.  A sweet 8×24 canvas is up for grabs.  Scroll down to the post below to enter or CLICK HERE!  It’s a good one.

We have officially been on the wait list for 8 months now.  I honestly never thought we would be at this point.  Yesterday we got some not-so-encouraging news from our agency.  We received an email saying that we would now probably be looking at a 12 month wait.  WOW!  Not exactly the email I suspected would be coming.  I’ll be honest, it sucks…completely and totally sucks.  I was really, really, super bummed all Friday night.

This morning I called my mom–side note about my mom…she is this amazingly, godly women who is our #1 prayer warrior and everyone should be blessed enough to have a mom like mine– I talked everything over with her and cried a good cry and she reminded me of what I needed to be reminded of.  We need to praise God in good times and in bad and all the while in between.  THAT was what I needed to hear desperately.  So I’m good now.  I will continue to pray and petition God to let us see that sweet face soon and have him home asap, but first and foremost I will praise Him because He is good and great and faithful and we are truly, truly blessed.  And I really like that His ways are not ours…I would have one very messy life if “my way” was always had.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

Now for the fun stuff.  Our 8 Months Waiting Art Giveaway canvas is a 8×24 canvas with “Where you invest your love, you invest your life” -Mumford & Sons

Funny story about this piece and this may say a little something about our life and my mind lately.  I totally made this thinking we had been waiting 9 months…I have no idea why.  So I used this quote because I loved it, but also because it had 9 words.  So this piece has absolutely nothing to do with the #8…oh well, I do the best with this semi crazy brain I have right now 🙂

So I love this song, but specifically the quote.  As always I used our newspaper from the 15th and I will ship the piece directly to the winner.  This canvas is the largest size I have done for our monthly giveaways so far, 8×24, so it may not be as prettily wrapped as my packages usually are…I like to recycle, so if you win, don’t be alarmed when you receive some wonky box at your front door…this inside is what counts, right?

As always there are lots of ways to enter to win this piece.

PLEASE leave a separate comment for each entry.

-Leave a comment about a person who has really invested or speaks into your life

-Blog about the giveaway

-Share the giveaway on your Facebook

–Share the giveaway on your Twitter

–Become a fan on Facebook HERE

–Follow on Twitter HERE

-Subscribe to receive PPA updates by email in the right side bar

Giveaway will end Tuesday, July 19th at midnight and I will announce the winner on Wednesday.

So there you have it…I’m a little crazy right now, but hope everyone will like the 8 Months Waiting piece.  And maybe, just maybe, we won’t make it to 9 months!

And how about a few random pictures from the Kelleys before I end this post.

My kids love to play school and house.  They were busy playing when I noticed this little business going on…Harper was sleeping in her “bed” under our desk and Huddy was…well…climbing on top…I swear he shall be the death of me.

Sol has recently really been into cars…specifically lining them up in a row.  He really melts my heart.

Harper is the dancer of the family…unfortunately her dance moves take after me.

We are officially wave pool addicts, thanks to my dear friend Ashley (thanks Ashley).  For real…we have logged some serious hours at the wave pool this summer.  The boys got some major attention and laughs yesterday…I cannot imagine why.

And it’s official…nothing says ‘sexy’ like a dad babysitting his “grandaughter” while perusing the internet on his IPad.  I kind of like you Josh Kelley.

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend and remember giveaway will end Tuesday July 19th at midnight and I will announce the winner that Wednesday.  Happy Saturday!

Thanks so much for all the kind words about Sol’s Gotcha Day and for entering the print and key fob giveaway!  We will have our 8 Months Waiting Art Giveaway this Saturday, so make sure you check back then.  I’m really praying and hoping there will be no 8 month piece.  A girl can hope right?

Okay so the winner of the custom print from Dana at Lifelines Design and the custom key fob is…

#36 Aaron.  Aaron I will be emailing you shortly and super congrats.

And thanks so much again for sharing with us Dana.  Totally appreciate it.

These past 2 days have been crazy fun so I have actually taken a few days off from my order list…tsk, tsk!  I did finish up this sweet little bunting for Michelle in Indiana though.  Thanks so much Michelle…totally appreciate it.

I have made very little bunting, but had recently made up some for our family.  I wanted a strand to hang for celebrations other than birthdays…such as Gotcha Days, etc.  I kind of love it.

And speaking of Gotcha Days.  Last year we did a family party for Sol, but this year we wanted to do something with just our little family.  Sol specifically asked for orange cookies for his day and it just so happened that I wanted to make Africa cookies anyways…so orange Africa cookies it was.

I got my Africa cookie cutter a while back from Erica (fellow adoptive mom).  Not sure if they still have them, but someone on Facebook said that you can also get them at cheapcookiecutters.com.  I have actually used the cookie cutter site before, but had never looked for an Africa because I already had one, but sure enough they have one HERE.

And just in case you were wondering, I used this cookie and icing recipe.

They turned out just right and yummy…super pleased.

So we started our day off with cookies…does this = bad parenting or really cool parenting?  I’ll keep telling myself ‘cool’.

And then we headed out early in the morning to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.  Josh has taken off, like negative days this year trying to save up for Ethiopia, but we figured this was the perfect occasion to use one of his days.  We wanted to do something fun and something the kids would really get excited about.  We have even been counting down the days and yes, the calendar had to be orange.  Can you guess Sol’s favorite color yet?

We had an absolute blast and spent the entire day there.  The kids were in love and did so well with all the driving and with tons of walking…we’re no stroller kind of people.  There was so much to do.  Here was everyones favorite part from smallest Kelley to largest:  Sol’s favorite were the sting rays and he was the only kid that pet one.  He was so proud.

Huddy’s favorite were the turtles…big and small.  They even fed the huge sea turtle while we were there.  Apparently feeding a sea turtle consists of tying large broccoli stalks and pieces of lettuce to a PVC pipe and dropping it down into the water.

Harper loved the river otters and penguins, but the butterfly garden came in at #1.  She loved it.  She said she felt just like Fancy Nancy.  I love her.  This was a little, lame butterfly that had lost part of its wing.  Is it sad that I just smiled after typing that last sentence?

Now I loved the river otters, but my favorite of the day was a jellyfish exhibit they had going one.  It was really, really amazing and colors were out of this world.

And Josh’s favorite were the alligators.  Fun Josh Kelley Fact:  When I first met Josh when we were 15 he was a huge fan of The Crocodile Hunter and every time we hung out that’s what we watched.  He has just always had this thing for alligators and crocodiles.

The rest of the aquarium was great as well.  They had huge tanks of fish, tons of exhibits, a great gift shop, food, fish you could touch and water play outside.

Needless to say it was one fantasticly fun Gotcha Day.  And all the kids slept like rocks.

And yesterday we had our family pictures taken.  We always like to get pictures taken before adding another sweet kiddo to our family.  I like to document how we were right before.  Really praying we will see our sweet little boys face soon, so I had scheduled pictures with the amazingly talented Cheyenne of Shots by Cheyenne.

Let me go ahead and write about a million things I loved about Cheyenne.  She was super nice…way too nice.  She was so good with the kids and Huddy was especially smitten with her.  She was quick, precise and got the job done.  Her ideas were awesome.  I’m not really into the whole different clothing changes for pictures, but I do love a good prop.  She said I could bring whatever I wanted.  I brought our ‘Waiting for You’ sign, frames and mustaches…of course, but I had no idea what do with them.  She rocked the props.  She was so fast and so wonderful and her creativity is crazy good.  And it is always a plus when the price is RIGHT!  I cannot say enough how much I loved working with her.  Totally recommend her.  She took the pictures yesterday evening and had a preview up of just a few of the pictures that night.  Good gracious…she is just plain good.  I will let the preview pictures say the rest.

My OH My…I am in LOVE…and that was just the preview.  Thank you so much Cheyenne!  You my lady are really something special.

Happy Thursday!