Archives for April 2012

Huddy’s new glasses = awesome.  He wears them so very well.

These guys = awesome.

Bath night + Harper’s Rico Suave look = awesome.  Check out that smolder.

My poor, broken & beat-up camera is about to bite the final piece of dust.  Finally, oh finally, buying a new camera = awesome.

Hauling a cousin’s birthday present all through out Target = awesome.  I adore his determination & upper body strength.

$1.20 for movie nights = awesome.

No look iPad play + under the covers iPad play = awesome.

Spur of the moment doctor’s visit that answered some questions and gave Huddy a new inhaler medicine = awesome.

Having to use the new inhaler medicine in the car = not awesome.

Rockin’ out a last minute baby gift for a friend…I like my friends… = baby decor awesome.

And maybe the most awesome of all, other than those wee Kelleys 🙂  Driving to Kansas this weekend with my cousin Rebecca for Craft Weekend = completely awesome.

Ready for the week, but most ready for the weekend.  Pretty stoked.

Hope your weekend & your day is full of awesomeness too.

Happy Monday!

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to do a weekly planned craft with the wee Kelleys.  I was getting really good at posting about them & then I got a bit behind and haven’t been posting about them…sorry!  So I wanted to make sure I posted our craft for this week.  We all love and need a bit of sunshine and we decided we needed some suns for inside the house as well.  I have seen versions of this all over Pinterest, but here is the version I used to do when I taught kindergarten.

To start this project we painted hands with orange paint and stamped them on paper.  I did a page for the left hand and a page for the right hand…per wee Kelley.  Then we let them dry.

I cut these out once they were dry and gave them each their own handprint pile.

For the rest of the project you will need…yellow patterned paper traced with a circle, glue, scissors and buttons…lots and lots of fun buttons.

First, the kids cut out their yellow circle.  I traced, they cut.

Next, they glued their handprints to the back of their circle…these are the rays.

You could easily stop here, but I like a little extra jazziness.

Next I put glue all around the outside edge and let them add buttons.

And after they covered the outside edge I added a glue swirl.  Harper may have squealed with excitement…she loves swirls and glue and buttons.  She was in her element.

This is a really great project that works fine motor skills as well.  I loved watching the boys concentrating so hard on lining all their little buttons up just right.

When everyone was finished, we had the most beautiful sunshines.  Seriously, I am completely smitten with these…keepers for sure.

Now to find the perfect place to display them.

And last night I finished up this 8×10 canvas.  I have been on the verge of making something with this verse for so long…and finally, yesterday was the right day to do it.  Oh the explosion of color + the anchor…so glad I finally made my attempt.

Hope you have a grand weekend and thanks so much for reading.

Happy Friday!

This morning Josh and I set out super early to get re-fingerprinted.  Yep, we’ve reached the point where our paperwork and fingerprints are about to expire, so getting re-fingerprinted was necessary.  It kind of hurt my heart.  I know there are plenty of adoption journeys out there that have taken longer than ours, but to me, it seems like an endless process.  Is the end even in site?  That’s the part that sucks about letting go and trusting that God has a plan…it’s beyond my capability to understand right now & it’s hard for me to see through this crazy haze.

My head is full of a high volume of thoughts right now.  When looking at the calendar, all I see our events my Mom & little boy are not going to be there for…not celebrations.  I want the way I used to view life and events back…I want that normalcy and celebratory factor back.  Things like Mother’s Day and Harper’s pre-k graduation and Mom’s birthday will be here before I know it and I feel like if I don’t prepare for them, then chaos in my brain and heart will take over.  So I am preparing.

A big step in preparing was to finally take the big step in going to therapy.  I know a lot of people don’t want to talk about the “th” word, but I’m cool with it.  It was quite the experience and I may have cried like a baby before I even said the first word and had a killer cry headache afterwards, but hey, at least I took the first big step in actually going.  And I even have a whole grief game plan…my friend Jessica would totally dig the charts and giant paper we used.  And I have homework…really good, yet hard homework.  I can see this is going to be a process, but at this point anything is better than what I feel everyday.  I like that my lady is a grief specialist…I feel in good hands and she totally validated me…yes, life currently is not a piece of cake and yes, my background is a tad on the dysfunctional side…and yes, I have the right to be very, very sad currently.  And she got extra points for being cool with me taking pictures 🙂

Mother’s Day is literally around the corner and that kind of makes me want to puke 🙂  I like to connect myself to my mom in different ways and had been thinking about what I wanted Mother’s Day to look like this year.  I know this year is going to be very different…not having Mom, but also because our next little guy is still not home.  So I decided to sign up for a Mother’s Day 5K on Mother’s Day morning.  I was pretty excited first of all that I even found such a thing on Mother’s Day, but was also pumped when I talked my friend Stef into running it with me.  We’re going to haul…and it will be good.  I think I may even make up a special tee to rock for the race as well.

I have also been brainstorming about Mom’s birthday as well.  She would have been turning 65.  I’m trying to think up ways to honor and celebrate her on that day.  I have considered doing 65 acts of kindness…that seems a bit daunting, but I think I could do it.  If it’s up to Harper, I’m sure we’ll be the creepers at the cemetery eating cupcakes with Grammy 🙂  Good ole’ Harper…God love her and her love for her Grammy.

And speaking of dysfunctional 🙂 I saw this on Pinterest and it literally made me laugh out loud.  This will be the wee Kelleys.  Maybe a little dysfunctional is good for you…that’s at least, what I keep telling myself.

And just because I thought this was way cool…a reader sent me a super sweet email the other day.  I didn’t ask if I could share her personal story, so I won’t, but she sent me a picture of a piece of sidewalk she passes several times a day and she said it reminds her to pray for our family.  Totally awesome.  Thank you so much Crystal.

Happy Thursday.

**PS:  I have had several emails about not being able to pin items from my site on Pinterest…that has been fixed.

And I have been getting several emails and messages on FB about not being able to leave a comment…if you can’t leave a comment, will you shoot me an email and let me know or even a screen shot of the error message you are getting.  Trying to still figure that problem out.  Thanks.

Have you ever doodled on your tupperware?  Last night I talked to my Aunt Linda for a while and found myself doodling on the top of some tupperware with a black Sharpie while we chatted.  It took me straight to my mom.  I watched her a million times talk on the phone and draw doodles on a piece of paper…it’s just what she did.  I loved that about her.

Today we had a playdate with Ms. Mary, my friend Brea’s sweet little girl.  Harper needed this.  She needed some girl playtime.  I loved having 4 kiddos in the house and I loved watching them catch the rain.

Huddy had a few too many encounters with his inhaler today for my liking…I’m thinking a doctors visit is in our near future.  Super.

Brea hooked my boys up this week.

A)  She bought them new swimming trunks which they slept in last night and wore all day today.

and

B) Well, I think the picture says it all.  Thanks Brea!

(Yes, that is the Batcave and yes, they just about peed themselves.)

Tonight I made Crispy Cheddar Chicken for dinner.  Pinterest is rocking my cooking world.  This is definitely a re-make.  Super good.

Source

My friend Alissa had her baby boy today.  Tonight after zumba Courtney and I went down to the hospital.  We picked up food for everyone at Taco Bell.  I forgot Josh’s window in his car doesn’t work.  The drive-thru gets interesting when your windows don’t roll down.

And baby Atticus was perfection.  So cute, with chubby cheeks and a little tiny baby body.  I inspected him and gave him the once over…I snuggled him a bit too 🙂  It was good to hold a baby…I had forgotten how small the wee Kelleys use to be.  Super congrats Alissa and Stetson…Atticus is pretty rad.

That is Jess…creeping in the background…AKA Smiling Photo Bomber.

Happy Wednesday!

Today I am choosing to be grateful…

for a note from my Mom

for grocery shopping at Aldis with Solomon

for a sweet, artistic 5-year-old daughter

for little boys who make life so interesting

for a family calendar that makes life a little easier to keep up with

for flowers from a friend and some from the wee Kelleys

for a good husband, like really good

for a little reminder of Ethiopia and all that it means to our family

for an amazing grief devotional book…highly recommended

for the crazy amount of superhero reading I do

for the anchor symbol and all it stands for in my heart

for the ability to create and do something I truly love and enjoy

and the list could go on and on and on and on…

Today I am grateful.

Happy Tuesday!

Oh Monday!  I wish Saturday and Sunday could have stayed longer.

This weekend we celebrated my amazingly sweet friend Courtney and her soon-to-be-wedding.  For you locals…we ate at Tavern in Nasvhille and it was delicious.  I had the Tavern burger and Jess treated us all to the s’mores.

Why yes, those are halved Reeces cups you are seeing and hiding behind the burner is a pile of strawberries.  So crazy good.

While we were eating Reba McEntire came in.  She was later joined by Kelly Clarkson.  We were all rather enthralled.

My Friend Courtney Fun Fact #23:  On her 11th birthday she had a Reba cake.  Yep, her birthday cake was adorned with Reba’s face and red locks.

Court was a bit bummed when the man with Reba’s party turned her away for a picture with Reba.  Yes, she was after Reba, not Kelly.  Poor Courtney, but the rest of the night was full of celebrating and quotes like “Fancy was her name.” and “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  Solid.  Courtney was so worth celebrating…thrilled for you Court.

I also packaged up some canvases…these headed out this morning.  Pretty packages are the best packages…Green Lantern concurs.

I tried a new recipe.  Salted Caramel Shortbread…ummmm, these are pretty darn good.  Josh and I have eaten a few too many already.  Definitely a repeat & I doubled the recipe to fill a 9×13 pan so we could share 🙂

And lastly, the most unfortunate thing happened to Batman.  What I like the most about Batman loosing his legs is that Sol didn’t freak he just said, “Mom now you have to hot glue his legs back on.”  Yes, my son, hot glue is the answer to just about everything…including Batman’s broken legs.

Hope you all had a good weekend.

Happy Monday!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered our 17 Months Waiting Art Giveaway.  I so enjoyed reading your comments…what an encouragement.  I’m committed to praying boldly and I’m anticipating what God is already working on.

Now for the winner…

Comment #38 Shannon Stinson.  Super congrats Shannon and check your email for a message from me.

Hope you all have a good weekend…like superhero good 🙂

Happy Saturday!

One of our New Year’s resolutions was to do more individual date nights with each of the wee Kelleys.  I’m sad to say we have totally slacked on it.  We’ve done a few dates, but not as many as we had hoped to by now.  We’re making a conscience effort to pick them back up.  Last night I took Harper out for dinner.  She picked Wendys.

While eating I asked her lots of questions…like what’s your favorite book, TV show, store, game to play, etc.  She loved it.  My favorite question ended up being, “What’s your favorite flower?”  To which she responded with, “Lilly of the Valley.”  Wasn’t expecting that 🙂  She is totally her father’s child when it comes to the gardening and plant species factor.

The 20th always makes for a rough day…So hard to get myself out of bed.  Once I finally rolled out of bed today I noticed I was surrounded.  It made me smile.

You guys rocked the “Who is Captain America?”  Steve Rogers is now stuck in my brain, along with all the other alter egos.  Now who wants to tell me Human Torch’s alter ego name? 🙂

They found a busted egg in the yard this morning…Huddy ran as quickly as he could to get his new bird book.  They were serious investigators trying to get to the bottom of what kind of bird egg it was.  They are killing my heart.

We ate a fun lunch with Ashley at Chick-fil-A…I’m so glad we did.  Turns out Ashley is much faster ice cream cone eater than I am.  Some very good useless knowledge.

I discovered how Sol washes his hands.  I really like him…like a lot.

And I may have cried a little extra today because Huddy got de-curled.  When he was little, little we would buzz his hair or give him a mohawk.  My mom always asked us to “just let his hair grow” and then just like that…he has not had a haircut in well over a year.  His curls were amazing, but he recently got called a “her” while he was with Josh.  Tuns out Josh wasn’t too thrilled about that.  I could give him a really cute pony tail.

A plane flew over soccer practice yesterday advertising Super Cuts’ $6.99 haricuts.  This morning Josh took Huddy to cash in on the deal.  Oh my heart.  Josh said Huddy rocked…sat very still and just totally rocked.  Of course he did…I expect nothing less from this kid.

He looks a bit too big for me now, but oh so handsome.  I like his cute little duck tail in the back…I’m hoping we have a chance at a few curls coming back as that lengthens.  The hairdresser said he also has a double crown…some more good useless knowledge 🙂

And don’t forget our 17 Months Waiting Art Giveaway ends tonight.  CLICK HERE to enter.  I will post the winner tomorrow.

Have a great weekend & Happy Friday!