Archives for December 2011

What a year.  Wow, wow, wow!  In one way I’m glad to see 2011 go.  We’re moving on to 2012 and hopefully, God willing, the year we will finally bring our son home.  In so many ways I am beyond ready for this new year.

And then again, I’m sad to see 2011 go.  The last time I saw my mom…loved on her, kissed and hugged her, heard her voice and did life with her.  That is a hard one to let go of.

But oh how I long for that sweet boy.  I went back and found a favorite piece from each month of 2011.  Of course, they just so happen to be our “waiting” giveaway canvases.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Each canvas an individual on its own, but made with the same little boy in mind and the 15th Tennessean newspaper…a celebration to being another month closer to him.

So here’s to 2012!

2011 was fun and sad and emotional and hard as hell, but not one thing surprised our God.  And His plan for our life is known totally to Him.  Because of that, I can ring in 2012 with a great hope…a really, really, great hope.

I’m ready for healing…I’m tired of crying…and ready for that phone call and that sweet face and more Kelley adventures.

“God is good, the world He made is extraordinary and His comfort is like nothing else on earth.”

Some of my favorite kid crafts are the ones that are mostly paper and fly-by-your-seat.  Harper has been asking me for a while to make some snowmen, so today we made that happen.  Super easy and the kids loved it.

The supplies we used were scrap paper, three different sized bowls for tracing, glue gun, glue stick, fabric scraps, buttons and glitter.  You could easily do this entire project with just paper.

I used three different sized bowls for tracing and let each kiddo cut out their own circles.  I like a craft where the kids do most of the work.  I trace…they cut and glue.

Then they glued their circles together…largest on bottom, smallest on top…to form their snowman.  Easy cheesy!

And then from here do as little or as much decorating to your snowman as you would like.  We ended up cutting out paper hats, arms and carrot nose for ours, along with a scrap fabric scarf (I did hot glue these), button eyes and buttons and a glitter smile.

And just so you know…hands down the best glitter I have found…none other than Martha Stewarts’.  So fine and sparkly and every color imaginable.  It is quite pricey, but I have only had to buy one set and I got it with a 50% coupon at Joanns.  Use their coupons.

There you have it.  Super easy and your kiddos get to be creative and crafty.  Good afternoon boredom buster.

And I have even been getting more and more back into the groove of creating.  Did this one yesterday…just because.

Can you tell what is impressed upon my heart?  If I only had a $1 or even a quarter for every time I said this or though it, well I could probably buy popcorn and Icees from Target for a year 🙂

And today I ran across a sweet little surprise.

One of the things my mom had me purchase for her while she was in the hospital was a notebook.  She wanted something just to have to take notes in and to have me write down things for her to remember, etc.

I ended up being the only one who even wrote in it.  She would have me write scripture and appointment times and details about surgeries and chemo and radiation.  I would write her little notes to make her smile or laugh.

I had actually completely forgotten that she had written in the notebook…just once.  And today I saw it again.

It made my day.  It was a piece of comfort.  I had to remember she was on meds, but it made me smile and cry and miss her like crazy, just as I do everyday.  But it was such a sweet, sweet surprise.  God gives us sweet surprises.

“God is good, the world He made is extraordinary and His comfort is like nothing else on earth.”

I missed this yesterday, but turns out it was perfect timing to skip a day of blogging because sickness has struck.

I give you, a random post for today.

There’s no getting around it…I do adore art and I love giving a good, thoughtful gift.  This is truly inherited.

My mom was crazy thoughtful…she bought greeting cards by the dozens.  She remembered every birthday, holiday, anniversary, celebration, sad moment, etc.  That was just her.

And she loved art.  I made her lots.  I now have a line of some of my favorite art pieces from her house sitting in our bedroom waiting to be hung.  Treasures for sure.

This Christmas I set out to make my gifts special.

I had lots of people to bless and I wanted to make these gifts were really special.

First up, My Brother.  Chris is a crazy Wilco fan and I knew his favorite lyric.  I also used pages from one of my mom’s old hymnals.  I wanted this to be a sweet reminder for him.  Love you Chris.

My Aunt Linda.  She has been here from Florida for about 2 weeks to help us with certain things with Mom’s house.  She needed a special gift.  She told me several times, “It is well with my soul.”  And again I used pages from one of Mom’s old hymnals, including my Maw-Maw’s favorite song, The Old Rugged Cross.  Thanks for everything Aunt Linda and Uncle Tom.

We drew names for Christmas in the extended Kelley family and I got Susan’s names.  If you don’t know Susan…she’s crazy fun, loud and full of color.

This line from an Avett Brothers song, “Be loud, let your colors show”  is totally Susan.  Rainbow Perfection.

And with all of last month’s craziness, I hadn’t had a chance to get two of my friend’s birthday gifts.  One being my friend Ashley.  When we did our 13 Months Waiting Art Giveaway, she commented on how that piece may have been her favorite yet.  Lightbulb!  Happy Birthday Ashley!

It was great to be submersed in this art that I love, but still very weird and hard.  Mom was my investor and encourager and she gave me that loving affirmation.  I miss her more than words could ever say.  She would always come over to see what new pieces I had created.  I adore her!  But it was nice to be creative again.

I am still closed for new orders…just not ready yet…still taking some time.

Hoping I will be ready again soon.  Thanks for reading and stopping by.  Completely appreciate it.

Well Merry Christmas from the Kelleys.

It has definitely been interesting and fun and sad all rolled into one.

Life is surprising like that.

It turns out this was the year of violent toys 🙂

Guns and knives and swords and shields all around…minus Harper.

Harper was thrilled with all her artsy goodness.  Two of her favorites…

Yep, that is a snail tape dispenser and those wonderful, longed for fine tip Sharpie markers.  She was in heaven.

Little brother needs to get home quick because we’re bursting right now.  We need him…like a lot.  And this Christmas was super hard without him.

And it was definitely hard without Mom.  I know it seems every single post contains this grief I’m carrying, but that’s just me right now.  So today I made a to-do list.  Anyone else have a to-do list for Christmas?

So for a big chunk of the day, Josh and the kids were at his parents and I got busy with my to-do list and cried along the way.

And one of those items was our Random Acts of Kindness Advent.  Today was our last day.

We gifted a gas station worker a Christmas surprise.  And she was quite surprised.  I always get this nervous feeling in my stomach right before this all goes down…so fun.

And the rest of the day was just a hodge podge of different things with some tears on the side 🙂

How crazy this has all been, but truly thankful for our Savior…an amazing Savior, who lives and reigns and just spent Christmas with my Mom and holds my son when I cannot.  So crazy.  Thankful for His mercy and crazy, awesome love.

Bring on the New Year.

Well, it’s Christmas Eve.  I can’t believe it’s actually here.  We have been counting down the days.

Today we doubled up, since we completely forgot our Random Act of Kindness Advent yesterday.  So today we handed out food gift cards and we bought a Christmas Eve drug store worker a special gift.

The Walgreens worker was probably my favorite.  I bought some decaf coffee for Josh and one of those American Express gift cards.  While he was ringing me up I asked, “So does it suck to work on Christmas Eve?”  He responded with, “Yeah, you have no idea.  I just can’t wait to get out of here and home to my family.”  I paid, he handed me my bag and then I handed him the gift card.  He said, “Are you for real?”  It was fun to bless someone like that…especially someone who is working Christmas Eve night.

Tomorrow we will be…

gifting a gas station worker with a bit of Christmas love.  I’m excited about this one.

Every Christmas Eve we would spend with my mom.  So today we headed up to her house to eat lunch and spend time with my Aunt Linda and Uncle Tom.  They have been in from Florida and staying at mom’s house.  My mom was amazingly thoughtful.  She already had all her Christmas presents bought up for her grandkids and almost all of ours bought as well.  It was hard to watch the kiddos opening gifts and being so excited, just knowing she would have loved to have seen their faces.

Today was sad, like really sad, but also filled with sweet blessings from friends and strangers.

Someone left the cutest tree on Mom’s front steps with tons of ornaments for the kids to decorate with.  Along with Christmas bears for each kid.  Melt my heart with crazy, cool kindness.

Friends even brought special presents just for our wee Kelleys to Mom’s as well.  And when we came home there were gifts on our back porch and awesome packages in the mail.  Treats and gifts cards, books and gifts for our children…each one remembering that today and tomorrow and each day to come with be harder without Mom.  It’s nice to know others are thinking about her too.

I also went to her grave today for the first time.  Aunt Linda and Uncle Tom went with me…way harder than I expected.  Her sweet friend Roy had already been earlier this morning and left flowers and a card.  Let’s all do the ugly cry together now.  A card.  Insanely sweet.

And with all the pain, there are always those bright spots.  Those moments of goodness.  Moments I know my Mom would have wanted to see and enjoy.  Like her next grandchild coming home.  We’re still waiting and oh, how the waiting is hard.  Another Christmas without our boy, but we’re hopeful…next year, yes, next year there will not be a “waiting” sign, but another sweet, little boy in this picture who is going to bless our socks off.

He just cannot get here quick enough.  My heart completely longs for him.

And now I sit here and think about what this holiday is really about.  About that baby…that wonderfully, awesome baby that came to save the world.  My pain is great, but He is truly greater.  And He knows exactly how my heart feels and how it hurts.  But He is so great…clearly big enough to bear my pain and the pain of the rest of the world.  He is God.  And He is good.

I want to rest in that.

“God is good.  The world He made is extraordinary and His love is like nothing else on earth.”

Soooo, today went by fast and we actually completely forgot to do our Random Acts of Kindness Advent.  We stayed at home the entire day in PJs.  So tomorrow we are doubling up.

We will be attempting today’s again…

Plus we will be giving an all night Christmas Eve worker a special surprise.

So 2 things tomorrow…we can do it.

One things we did accomplish…other than not leaving the house…were sugar cone Christmas trees.

My dear, sweet Dana at Lifelines Designs surprised is with all the supplies and today we got down to business.

Dana rocks so check out her store…it’s perfectly splendid.

Everyone was thrilled to make a yummy, sugar filled Christmas treat and I loved watching them create their very own.  I really like all three of them.  Thanks so much Dana for the crazy, cool surprise.

These three, well, they make my day.  They delight my heart…three bright spots for sure.

Especially when they eat their Christmas trees like this…

Did I say that I like them…make that love.

Cannot believe Christmas Eve is tomorrow.

See you tomorrow.

It was one of those days…like I could only find one cruddy black Sharpie marker, when I have a million perfectly good Sharpies somewhere.  Just one of those days.

For Random Acts of Kindness Advent we delivered coffee and doughnut holes.  We originally planned to do this for outdoor workers, but today it rained, so no workers were out.

So we headed out on a mission…to find some people that would like some coffee and doughnut holes.

No outdoor workers, but we did find people waiting at the bus stop, a Salvation Army Bell Ringer, some Contributor Newspaper sellers, one mail lady and some employees out on their smoke break.

Coffee and doughnut holes all around.

Tomorrow we will be…

handing out food gift cards.  The gift of food…just can’t get much better than that.

And tonight Josh and I had a little date night…Sherlock Holmes + photo booth = good for my heart.

I have elected to just give up on makeup currently…there’s just no point 🙂

Only 3 days left.

I think I will be a little sad when it’s over.  We might just have to do this year round…shouldn’t we anyways.  Yep.  Keep the kindness up…it’s fun, oh so fun.  See you tomorrow.

PS:  The winner of our 13 Months Art Giveaway is…

#67 Mandie.  Super congrats Mandie.  Thank to everyone who entered…totally loved reading about all your Christmas memories.  Thanks for sharing.

Blogging a little late in the night.

Today for Random Acts of Kindness Advent we took some yummy treats to our local post office workers.

Ms. Betty and Mr. Ricky are always so kind to us and we wanted to say thank you.

This picture should have reflected what we encountered inside the post office.

What happened when we went in may have gone a little something like this:

Super long line, so we waited and waited.  When it was almost our turn Harper dropped one of the tins and the cookies spilled all over the floor of the post office, with a big long line of people behind us…watching us.  What did I do?  Well only what any other completely sane person would do…cry, put the post office floor cookies back in the tin, hand over the cookies, say our Merry Christmas and hit the door.

Yes, I cried in front of an entire post office full of people and then handed over dirty cookies with a “Merry Christmas.”  This is currently a very good depiction of my life. 🙂

Tomorrow we will be…

taking doughnuts and coffee to some outdoor workers.  This may take some seeking, but if we seek, surely we will find.

And here are some random Kelley tidbits that made me smile today.

Sol going #2…I know I never poop without my safety goggles either 🙂

In front of all those heads is a ladybug…a very liked ladybug who was stalked for quite some time today by three wee Kelleys.

Gooey Butter Cake.  One of my most favorite things my mom would bake.  My Aunt Linda made some for my small group Bible study tonight…It was a big hit.  I’m thankful for aunts who love on me…so well.

The gift of TOMS.  My friend Jess bought these for me and it made me smile…Jess likes me, like a lot

and I like her too, like a lot.

And last, but certainly not least, a workout “mix tape” from my sweet friend Ashley.

And it’s good, like real good, like so good it makes you cry.  Thanks Ashley for keeping the “mix tape” alive and well.

And thanks for all the kind comments and prayers.  Seriously, Thank you!  Taking each day one day at a time.  See you tomorrow.