Friday, June 27, 2008

Family Vacation

Our family has been blessed by the little perks of Brandon's job lately. He has to go out of town a lot more - this past week he had to go to Houston and San Antonio - so we decided to make a little family vacation out of it.
The first leg of our trip was to Houston. We made it out there, checked into our hotel, then made our way out to Galveston Island - all I can say is that I must be spoiled living by the beach in California for 21 years :)


This was the best picture I got of them. They were too busy looking at all of the shells.

It was the first time the boys got to stay in a hotel and they simply loved it. Cole was amazed that he didn't have to make his bed in the morning! Another one of the boys' favorites was the huge breakfasts - they loved having so much to choose from and the Texas shaped waffles (they eat like this now, what is it going to be like a few years from now!!!). And of course, they loved getting to play in the pool so much - that's what kept us busy while Daddy was out working.



On our second day of Houston (after Daddy was done working) we went to the Johnson Space Center and we LOVED it. Definitly take the tram tour and make sure you get off where you can see the space shuttle. We're hoping we can take a trip to Florida this October to see the next space shuttle take off. How exciting would that be!!!

Before bed the boys were deciding which planet they were going to travel to. So cute!

Our third day we drove to San Antonio and that evening went to the River Walk. While we were there we took the boat ride and you guessed it - walked along the River Walk.

I love that we got to sqeeze in a little family get away in the midst of Brandon being so busy with work. Letting go of all the day to day stuff at home and focusing all of my energy on family is always a nice vacation for me.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Gallery

I've made a little picture gallery of some of our latest creations. We have so many products that arn't up on Etsy (mostly custom orders)that are so cute I couldn't resist to not show them off.






























Go to Needleinascrapstack.etsy.com to view all of our products.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Summertime!

With Cole finishing school, this was our first official week of summer. We did a lot of stuff together as a family that we normally wouldn't have time to do during the week. I took the boys over to the Gaylord's Summerfest where they got to walk around and explore, we took plenty of bike rides, we all got to go to Cy's award class at WinKids, we went to Going Bonkers, swimming, Daddy took Cole and Chase to the driving range, and we took Dakota down by the lake for her first swim.


It was a good ending to Cole having a great year at school and a good kick off for the next couple months of summer.

So . . . I was going to write this blog yesterday and include how excited I am about our trip to Yosemite while we're in California. Yesterday was the three week mark till we were going to leave. Now we have a change in plans. We found out Brandon's best friend is getting married July 5th. Of course, we can't miss it. That means reservations for Yosemite (the ones I made back in February that are almost impossible to get) for July 2nd and 3rd are now cancelled. I have been waiting so long, I means YEARS to go camping in Yosemite. I have some of my best memories of camping there and I couldn't wait to let my kids experience the same thing. I know God has something better for us, He is always giving me what is best for me (as He does with everybody) although I may not see it. The point is that there will be a better time . . . later.
So our trip to California is pushed back about a week and we are so excited. I can't wait to see family and friends (it's been over a year now!). We're still going to be there for Brandon's family Lobster Bake, we're going to San Diego to go to Sea World and we'll probably still go camping at Sequoia National Park (it's the only place where you don't have to have a reservation and still have a good chance of getting in during the week). I can't wait!!!

Hope you all have a great weekend! We're off to the Red, White and Blue Festival.


April requested more videos so here they are :)






Monday, June 2, 2008

Green Sleeve's (& blue)

This past week I had an order from a photographer who wanted something pretty and scrappy looking to give to her customers to keep their CD of pictures in. I love making sleeves whether it's for invitations, cards or to put on a scrapbook page. So here's an example of what I came up with.
It was actually the first time that I sewed a button hole (yay - I love learning new techniques!) and it's actually inspired me to make a wedding invitation similar to it (I think my next project is going to be to make a wedding invitation line). I have so many ideas for so many things just waiting to be made. Very exciting!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Out with the Old, In with the New

The transition from Spring into Summer has brought along a couple of changes for us. Today was Cole's last day of Pre-K at Lakeland Christian Academy. We had a big end of the year party (my last job as room mom - which I loved doing:) and we had to say our goodbye's to everyone. This fall he'll be a kindergardener at Highland Village Elementary. He is growing up so fast. Even as a baby, Cole opened my eyes to just how much children can learn. Cole has such a good memory, the possibilities are endless! I'm so excited to see how he's going to do in the coming years.

Another goodbye we had was to Cole's spring season of baseball (it was his first season of coach pitch). He's always had fun and we're on a great team but Cole really doesn't seem to be into it. He can't stand being in outfield (he's the one kicking the dirt) and he says he doesn't like to sweat (ha! . . . there were a couple of hot game days towards the end). We'll see if he wants to do it again in the fall but in the meantime we want him to tryout for LAC swim team. We'll probably do that after we get back from California so it will be towards the end of July.

Next, we finally found a big boy bed for Cy. He had been ready to be out of his crib - we just hadn't found the right color bed at a reasonable price. So when Daddy put together that big boy bed he went to sleep with a smile on his face. It's been a few weeks now and he hasn't gotten up once (except to turn his closet light on because he wants a night light:).


Another big change we made happened this week. Cole and Chase have shared a room since Chase was just a few weeks old. Well, after night after night of them messing around, getting hurt or constantly getting up to tell us something we decided to seperate them - just for the time being. It's been a really good change: they go to bed easier, bedtime routines are easier (they'll actually listen to the book that I'm reading instead of being distracted by each other), and keeping their rooms clean is a lot easier (for some reason the playroom was always so hard to keep clean!!!).
Chase is so excited to have his own room and of course, he loves the train theme (we kept the train table in there). The only thing we didn't like about seperating them was the bonding time we know that comes along with sharing a room. That's why I said it's just for the time being and Brandon and I decided to let them have a campout in one of their rooms once a week - I think it'll be fun - we'll see . . .

The final change was re-doing the landscaping in the front yard. Here's a picture of our house when we bought it just a little over a year ago.
We wanted to get rid of all the bushes (a lot of them were really prickley and grew like weeds so they were a lot of work to maintain) and we also wanted to make the planters smaller and give them a little more curve.
After a lot of digging, tilling, pulling and rearranging we were finally ready to put in what we wanted. (actually Brandon did all the tilling - I just wanted to look strong:)

We wanted to go with a tropical theme so we put in a pond, two little palm trees, elephant ears, tropical canna's, dwarf lillies and we still need some little flowers to go in front of the pond for some color. On the other side of the house we planted three royal crepe myrtle's (that will be bright pink when they bloom!) and more dwarf lillies. Eeverything right now is really small but I can't wait for it all to bloom and fill in!


So here's the after picture.










That's enough change for now! Now we'll see what the summer holds for us.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Baby Isabelle

This weekend was my very pregnant friend Christen's baby shower. She is almost ready to pop (she is so tiny but she has BIG babies). This is her third child (someone else hopped on the wagon!!) and it will be her third girl so I wanted to make a bunch of stuff to help make this shower extra special. Isabelle's room is all purple and yellow which made quite a quest to find fabric for the quilt but I did it! The quilt turned out great and after a few more washings the minkey used on the backside should fray up a little more.
The onesies were a great success. It was my first time using my die-cutter on fabric and it worked! As for the bib, I use the printable fabric and I love how it looks. I was going to put her name on the burp cloth too but our printer decided to stop working the other day :(




Christen also wanted something to put up on a shelf in Isabelle's room so I made a jar filled with yellow candy and put "Sweet As Candy" around it.

I hope you enjoy all of it Christen. I can't wait for Isabelle to arrive!

Go to http://www.needleinascrapstack.etsy.com/ to view all of our new creations!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Happy Mother's Day!

With Mother's Day this past week there seemed to be more moments with my kids to make me think just how blessed I am. I know every mom has their bad days (or weeks or months!) and with a 5, 3 and 2 year old they are at the ripe age to throw me challenges evey day. It was in the midst of some of these challenges that I was reminded of how much I am going to miss this. Really? Yes, never again will they be this age, the way they speak will change, their reactions will change, the way they play together will change and someday I will just think,"remember when?"
This past Friday Cole had Muffins With Mom at school where we were treated with songs from his class, flowers, and, of course, muffins. I love having individual time with all my boys so I was just eating it up.
Sunday, we went to church, enjoyed Mimi's for lunch with Joanne, Kristin, Nick and Erin (Grandpa was out of town) then everyone came over to our house later. The boys each gave me a new workout shirt and I also got to pick out some new running shoes.
Again, I missed spending time with my mom. I wish I could fly her out here (or me out there). For her present (that I still haven't sent to her yet) I made Wall Art that matches her room. Her bookshelf is full of pictures so this should make a good addition.














Thank you mom for being such an encourager, teacher, friend and most of all being my mom. Happy Mother's Day! I love you!


More examples of Wall Art
www.Needleinascrapstack.etsy.com