We Love Busia

How cute is this little old lady anyway??  We are lucky and blessed every day that she is here with us. She is going to give up her apartment and move in with us in May. I feel honored that my children will get to be surrounded by her love each day.

Photos make a wonderful gift...

My sister brought her kids into town on Saturday early so we could sneak to the mall and get the first photo ever taken professionally with all four of Dad's grandchildren. I was so excited. I had a FREE 8 x 10 coupon so that was my contribution to the gift, and Mindy bought the amazing frame. It came out incredible. I cannot wait to see it up at his house. He used to be surrounded by photos of the grandkids when he lived with Mom in their house. Now, there are no photos of the kids in the new place. I felt happy that he would soon get to see their smiling, happy faces every day in his home.

While we were waiting for the people at Picture People to wait on us, the kids played with their props and I took a few photos.... 

Kaya is soooooooooo excited to turn four - she was THRILLED when she found the number four props! I cannot believe my baby is turning four in 15 days. How fast did that time go??

Rainbow Cakes Rock

We had a party at my house on Saturday to celebrate my dad turning 60. He was out of the country on his real 60th, but all the kids wanted to celebrate with him. It was a fun, relaxing day.

Check out the cake he made with all four of his grandkids....

Here is the link Shannon sent me to the recipe for this fantastic rainbow creation. And, we used SPRITE ZERO to make it and fat free cool whip for the frosting, so it was not even ALL THAT bad for us to eat.

I thought it totally looked like he was hosting a cooking show in his little Yellow Fence  Scrapbooking Apron in this photo

 

And I just loved this shot of the five of my little bakers

  

It was a fun day. Even my brother Matt and Rahul made it in for the celebration. 

  

More photos from it later...  just wanted you to see that rainbow cake.  

I love these trees....

A couple of people have asked me to post some samples of the different Wrought Iron Trees I have made in one place...  Here are my favorites with some text as to what they were for...

This is one I did for a few people to give a grandparent for Christmas. I did them in whatever color the customer asked for it to be - or I just sold them as they were out of my both at events - this one came with clear templates so it was easy to line up and cut the photos into circles OR rectangles.

This one was for an amazing friend of our family. It made me so proud to bring this to them as a hostess gift/holiday present. I had lots of photos of them, so I was able to compelte the tree for them photos and all.

This is a simple shot of one I did as a booth sample without any photos on it at all, and it sold right away. Wish I had a better photo.

And this one is ours. The one I have on our Piano. The intention was to change it for every holiday and let the girls redecorate it, but I love this gratitude tree SO MUCH I have not had the heart to take it apart yet. Looking at this everyday makes my heart feel happy.  This item seems to make people stop and look at my booth at fairs and shows. I love this tree.

So, let me know if you want a plain tree ($35 plus shipping) or if you want me to decorate one for you (Prices vary - but I sold the Grandparent ones for $50 for the holidays). I can come up with just about anything you need in the colors that work for you.  Templates are always included so it is super easy to cut your own photos to the perfect size.

I love this wrought iron tree. Once I get caught up with teaching and planning (yeah, like that is ever going to happen) I will try to create some TREE KITS for holidays and just offer those.

If you have picked up a tree from me (Tammy, are you reading this??) and decorated it, please email me a photo or a link to where I might see it as people are asking me for more ideas, and I have not done that many different ones. THANKS!

Pinwheels and Party Invitations

I am so surprised I never post anymore. It makes me kind of sad...  but I guess teaching and planning and life are overtaking the hours in the day. I am happy this year, and I have a balance right now. I wish my office and home were cleaner but I have been working out, eating better, trying to get some rest, and trying to stay planned for school and life stuff.....

Speaking of planning....  I did invtations to Kaya's upcoming little birthday party today. I am SO HAPPY to have that set up and off my list of things to figure out. I also ordered the Rainbow Aprons (we are having a rainbow cookie/cupcake party) and the favor boxes (for them to take home their cupcakes and cookies they decorate). Figured out the plan for the frosting, and Neil is on top of gathering music for the party.  So it is looking good. Now, if only I had not run out of postage stamps... 

I also made Pinwheels last night for dinner. It is an OLD receipe that we LOVED when my Mom made them for us when we were little. They took her a while to make, and she did not make them often. Matt thinks it has been about 20 years since we had them....  but, I have wanted to try to figure it out, and I did. They were fanstic. I made a mistake of putting in the ground turkey when it was still hot (which created a bit of a mess) but I know now to let it cool next time...  and they still turned out great. I ran some over to Busia to share the memory with her. It just felt nice to figure out something for our family that got lost with my Mom.  The girls wanted in on the PHOTO action when I got out the camera to show my siblings that I DID IT!

Hope anyone reading this has had a super year so far! Happy Valentine's Month!

KLSB

Lots of Snow...

Man, I always wonder why we live here....  my friend in Florida's son needed some snow photos for a lesson in school. Of course, she called me....  here are just a few that we sent her....

Could this little kid really be any cuter???

When you cannot afford to send flowers...

Make them!

The girls and I made Auntie Mindy a THANK YOU for taking us out for a super fun GIRLS DAY OUT yesterday. We are going to see her again tonight (to return my niece who spent the night with us) and are so excited to give these to her! Each girl painted her a thank you card as well.  Fun, thoughtful, and FREE. Triple bonus. :)

Featured in the Local Post Tribune Paper....

I was so excited that my recent "10 things I love about you" class was featured in the local paper. It was about 3/4 of the Front Page in the Neighbor section. My friends Jen and Michelle even had photos of their kids in the article. I wish they had mentioned my website (I asked them to) but it was still awesome to know that people might have thought about making something when they read this:

Link To Article

Finding JOY in 2009

It is day 17 of a wonderful year so far. I have worked out daily, gotten back on track of counting my points and really watching what I eat, trying to get more sleep (not happening so far, but I have a goal to do that) and I have lost 8.9 pounds already, too. I also have committed to the Project 365 concept of one photo a day and one memory from that day stored in a simple way. I did this a couple of years ago, but I did not have a super simple system to organize it all. My husband was diligent and picked up a Becky Higgins 365 kit for Shannon and myself. It came yesterday, and man it is great. I have printed out my photos daily (on my little mini printer I love love love) and just have to stick them into the pockets.

I find great JOY and PEACE in taking a photo a day. I love that my family is looking at every day with me deciding what part of this one day is the part we want to never forget. I love looking at simple life moments as wonderful memories. I love the idea of the girls and I looking back at this Project 365 in 20 years and LAUGHING at our hair, our clothes, and other little funny things. I cannot imagine how much I would enjoy something like this from when Matt, Mindy and I were little. I feel blessed to have found out about this concept the day before they went on sale, and I feel very lucky to be one of the few to have gotten one because they sold out so quickly. I feel like I am adding to an heirloom every day, and it makes my heart feel happy.

Here are a few of my daily photos so far (I do not plan on posting them every day because I am ALL ABOUT simple this year, and that would stress me out). I will try to post from time to time. I feel 100% certain that I will stay committed to this and to working out and eating right. All of that will bring me great JOY (which is my word of the year for you Ali Edwards fans).

Trying to get together a newsletter about Make Something Monday, but I had my first Parent/Teacher conferences this week, and I had so much to do to prepare for those... I will get that rolling by February.... and I hope it will inspire some people to make something.

I hope anyone reading this is finding JOY this year. :)

And a special thanks to those of you who emailed me asking if I was OK because I had not blogged in a while. Teaching is sucking up all my time, so there will not be as many blog posts this year, but I will do them once in a while to let you know about simple ways to capture memories, classes I am teaching, and Once Upon A Family sale items.... in fact, the AWESOME Lessons for Little Ones full set in the box (all 12 months) is on sale this month for 1/2 off - only $49 for all 12 lesson kits PLUS the box. Never going to get a better deal than that! I simply love doing these lessons with my girls. I love helping them understand important life concepts like Gratitude, Honesty, Family and so much more by completing simple fun projects just once a month like a family!

And, January is DOUBLE HOSTESS POINTS so if you want to run a quick book party, let me know and I can get you out some catalogs.... you can easily earn wonderful things FREE for your family with DOUBLE HOSTESS POINTS!

Hope you are all having an amazing start to your year!

Looking forward to a new year....

Hi. I hope anyone that reads this blog had a happy new year. My girls were both ill, so we spend a peaceful night at home snuggled on the air mattress in the basement with a fire in the fireplace watching movies. It was peaceful and at 9 PM we pretended it was midnight..... did the countdown and everything. My friend (whose house we were supposed to go to with the kids) brought over hats and horns which was SO NICE! And sparkling grape juice. It was fun. And they are feeling much better today.

Ok, now for a work based thing (sort of work based...)  I want to MAKE SOMETHING this year. And I want to help anyone who needs motivation MAKE SOMETHING, too. There are so many people I know who REALLY REALLY want to MAKE SOMETHING, but they get too caught up in being super organized, being "caught up", or wanting everything to be perfect before they make anything. Please, get over that need with me and MAKE SOMETHING for your family this year. I will help you.

I am working on a newsletter I hope to mail out a newsletter (you can sign up for my newsletter on the right tool bar of this blog if you are not on my list already) which invites you to MAKE SOMETHING this year. If you want to get things made rather than worry about perfection, you should sign up for this (by commenting on this blog post). I will happily email you every Monday night in 2009 to see how you are doing. I am a big fan of "Make Something Monday" which I tried to do in 2008.  It does not have to be Monday, it does not have to be fancy, it can be anything at all. Printing one photo, writing one story, uploading photos, adding memories to a digital book, simply capturing one memory....  week by week, one at a time. No pressure, no big expense....  just people motivating each other to MAKE SOMETHING for their family.

If you want to join my little MAKE SOMETHING group, email me at klsb@comcast.net OR post a comment on this blog (PLEASE put your email address in the post because I cannot usually find your email otherwise). I am not exactly sure how I will be able to set it up yet, but I will figure that out this weekend. I just wanted to let you know I was planning this to start next Monday.  So be starting a list of little things you can make. Just one little thing every week and we will all have 52 little things by this time next year. Ahhhh, that idea makes me happy.

I think I had success (when I counted points and showed up for my weekly meetings) on weight watchers because someone KNEW I was supposed to be there weighing in at my meetings. Because someone wrote in a little book if I had a successful week or if I needed to try a little harder.  I loved it. It worked for me when I stuck with it. (by the way, when you STOP counting points, STOP working out, and begin eating everything in site, the weight comes RIGHT BACK ON!).  I want to be your check point...  I want you to let me know what you are working on and how I can help you MAKE SOMETHING this year.  I think I will ask a couple of friends if they can donate a couple of prizes that will be raffled off to those trying to MAKE SOMETHING.... I think I will try to create a pdf of a check box that allows you to print it out and then you can put a check mark or a small sticker into the boxes for every week you MAKE SOMETHING. I am not sure yet. If you have an idea of how I could help you get motivated, let me know. I just wanted to let you know what I was thinking about today and invite you to MAKE SOMETHING this year with me. I look forward to seeing what we all create together.

Happy 2009. It is full of potential and anything is possible.