Tales of a Crafty Mama

25 random things about me...

This little tag has been circulating around facebook for awhile now, and after finally getting around to doing it today, I decided to share it here as well!

1. I love writing random lists like this.
2. I am horribly sentimental.
3. I really, really love wearing leg warmers, even though I almost always get made fun of for wearing them.
4. I met my husband when I was 17 at summer camp. For me it was pretty much love at first sight.
5. I always wanted to be a mama. So happy to be living my dream!
6. I wear dangly earrings almost every single day.
7. I make amazing chocolate-chip cookes.
8. I get really embarassed when I run into people I know at the store. Especially people I don't know very well and/or haven't seen in a long time.
9. I love taking pictures. So much.
10. Two of my proudest moments ever: the birth of my daughter after 3 1/2 days of labor + my successful VBAC with my son.
11. I am not a very good housekeeper. Wish I was.
12. Watching my kids make art makes me so very happy.
13. I am always reading more than one book at a time. It is usually more like 3 or 4 at a time.
14. I have never met anyone with worse eyesight than me, except for someone who was 100%- can't see any light- blind. I have really, really awful eyesight.
15. I blush way too easily.
16. I am horrible at returning emails. I really need to work on that.
17. I love to travel, especially to places that require my passport. Kind of hard to do now that we have kids, but we are planning a little trip for our 10th anniversary...
18. Doing something creative (scrapbooking, photography, art, writing, etc.) always relaxes + refreshes me.
19. I am so not a morning person.
20. I have gotten more shy with age. I was a lot more outgoing when I was younger. Not sure why.
21. I love finding beauty in simple, everyday things.
22. One of my secret wishes is to be able to sing. I could get by singing silly songs when I taught preschool, but my voice is really not great at all.
23. I got married when I was 21 and don't regret for a second. My husband is still my most favorite person in the world!
24. One of my goals this year is to let go of my procrastinating perfectionism. Such a bad combination.
25. I love my kids' names: Audrey Mae + Elliot Jacob. Erik and I chose both of them within one week of finding out we were pregnant and kept them a secret the entire nine months.

30 days of gratefulness :: 13

 

{me- circa. 1981, just after my little sister was born}

Me: Cuddling with my sweet girl tonight before she fell asleep, watching Survior with my mama-in-law, taking the kids to the library, Elliot having the best eating day ever, homemade macaroni + cheese, the kids taking super long naps today at the same time (always a miracle), this post (thanks mama!), getting Erik's home from work welcome from the kids on video, this reassuring and encouraging post, and showering before noon.

Erik: He is sound asleep in bed, but I am pretty sure he would say "peanut butter + chocolate ice-cream"

Audrey: "Picking up blocks + taking out the garbage with daddy". Now I know it totally sounds like we are on top of the kids' chores around here, but really we're not! She likes picking up the blocks because we sing while we do it and because Mister Elliot is in love with it so it is a little bit of a competition thing. She loves taking out the garbage with daddy because it involves a long walk down the driveway outside with her favorite guy in the whole world.

Elliot: Playing monster and being tickled, and eating- I still can't get over how much he ate today! Both of my kids are pretty picky eaters, so a good food day always makes me super happy and very relieved!

What are you grateful for today?

P.S. I know I said I was going to try to keep this up every day this month, but I kind of forgot about my little trip this weekend. So...I am not sure what the next few days are going to look like around here. I was going to try to write some stuff ahead of time to program to post while I was gone, but really I don't know how on top of it I am going to be tomorrow, what with all the packing and organizing I need to do. Whatever the case, I will for sure be back here Monday, with updates + lots of gratefuls from my happy weekend away!

30 days of gratefulness :: 12

 

{Are you getting tired of photos from our little autumn photo shoot yet? I love so many of them, it is hard not to post them!}

Me: (keeping it short + simple today) My little family. I definitely have long, hard days when this being a stay-at-home mama thing is tough, tough, tough. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. I am so in love with my sweet kids. And goodness gracious, I am madly in love with their amazing daddy. I am so blessed, and I try my hardest to not take a single moment of this lovely life for granted.

Erik: Going to bed at 10:00pm and "Talk of the Nation" on NPR

Audrey: I am totally kicking myself, but I cannot for the life of me remember what she told me besides "coloring".  I know it was coloring and something else...I will have to ask in her the morning. She will probably remember!

Elliot: Riding on our rocking horse. It was mine when I was a kid, made by my Grandpa Bear, and Audrey and Elliot love it. Although, Audrey refuses to let it sleep in their room at night...Anyway, Elliot has been really into riding on it lately and I have been quite surprised at how fast he goes. I am kind of afraid he will go flying off of it one of these days!

What are you grateful for today?

30 days of gratefulness :: 11

{photo via a picture is worth a thousand words}

Me: A super yummy super easy dinner recipe from my mother-in-law (will post with the bread recipe tomorrow!), a fun play day with cousins and auntie Amy- having them here all day definitely made the day go by so much faster, the kids are in bed sound asleep, reading about this sweet friend's happy news, and for two very special veterans in my life- my father-in-law Doug + my cousin Kyle.

Erik: "The kids being in bed when I get home. Is that too mean?" (I don't think so!)

Audrey: "Playing with Parker! I love to play with him and just be with him!" I think my girl has a little cousin crush!

Elliot: Playing with cousins, having Grandpa home all day, footie jammies with cars + trucks on them, and ripping mama and daddy's books off of the big bookshelf.

What are you grateful for today?

P.S. Please forgive me for being such an awful blog commenter lately! The rest of this week is going to be pretty crazy as I get ready for my big trip, but hopefully I will be able to get back into the swing of things next week.

30 days of gratefulness :: 10

{For today's photos, please see my ten on ten post...}

Today we are grateful for...

Me: (it is getting late so I am just going to stick with one thing tonight) I am so very, very grateful for my upcoming girls' weekend! I think I forgot to share about this before, which is crazy because I have been looking forward to it forever! This weekend, I am heading to Seattle for a little time with some sweet girlfriends of mine. Time to celebrate my big 3-0, time to just be together, time to be away from our kids (it will be my first night(s) away from Mr. Elliot ever). Oh, my goodness. I am seriously dying of excitement over here. And the timing is perfect. I have had kind of a rough couple of weeks with the munchkins and really need some time away to recharge as a mama. And of course, I am ever so grateful that my amazing husband is letting me go away for the entire weekend!

Erik: "Blue chips and NPR"

Audrey: "Talking to daddy and cousins coming to play tomorrow!"

Elliot: Dancing. I should try to figure out a way to get this sweet boy's silly little dance on here for you all to see. It is so stinkin' adorable and funny!

What are you grateful for today?

30 days of gratefulness :: 9

 

I know this seems like a totally random photo, but I guess that is what I love about it. It was taken on the same day as this one. I love that it makes me think about that lovely little afternoon- driving around in our car after church, trying to get the kids to take naps before we headed to the park to take pictures and play in the leaves. We stopped for coffee and lunch, driving through drive-thru's to keep the kids asleep. Once we got to the park, it was much harder to get the beautiful shots we were hoping for than we expected- it was cold and the kids just wanted to run around, not sit still for the camera. But we got some of my favorite shots of the year, even though it felt chaotic and impossible at the time. I love all the different colors in this picture and how you can see Elliot trying to run away. I love the little glimpse of my beautiful wedding + engagement rings, my stripey socks and my teacher shoes (practical Birkenstock gardening clogs left over from being a preschool teacher). I love how Audrey won't let go of her big leaf. Yes, it is a random photo, but it reminds me of how very blessed I am to be living this sweet little life. 

Today we are grateful for... 

Andi: For my sweet step-Grandma Pat, church this morning (the whole service was all about prayer and it was just so encouraging and challenging and beautiful...), yummy homemade chicken pot-pie + chocolate-chip cookies (it was totally a comfort food type of day), and most of all for my darling husband who is seriously the best husband ever. I am embarassed to admit this, but he seriously gets up with the kids almost every morning and lets me sleep in "just five more minutes" (that more often than not turns into 10-60 more minutes...). He is so great and I love him so much!

Erik: I completely forgot to ask him what he is grateful for before he headed to bed...but I think one thing he might say he is grateful for is that we actually made it on time for church this morning! We are nearly always late- please tell me we are not the only family that struggles with this...

Audrey: "Going to Parker's house and candy camping" (Okay, so cutest thing ever: she keeps calling "trick or treating"- "candy camping" and I have no idea why! But it makes me smile every time she does it).

Elliot: Playing chase and "boo" with Daddy, reading books before bed, brushing his teeth (when he does it himself- he pretty much hates it when I do it), and drinking milk with a straw.

What are you grateful for today?

one month left of my twenties

{Number 30 Cracked and Peeling via Flickr}

The other day  I realized that my 30th birthday is only one little month away. Yipes. The big 3-0...

I used to be so scared of turning 30. It sounded so old. I realize now that its really not, and I am actually pretty excited about starting my thirties. My twenties have been great, but I honestly don't wish to do them over again- although I wouldn't mind having my twenty year old body back!

One of the things I am looking forward to about turning thirty is the self-assuredness I witness in so many women I know who are 30+. While this is not a universal thing of course, it seems like there is a certain new confidence that comes after you leave your twenties. Like you are more sure of who you are and who God has made you to be. I don't know. Maybe I have just been lucky to see this in people that are in my life and it doesn't happen to everyone. I feel it happening in my own heart though. I am really excited to see what God has in store for me as I enter this new season of my life. As a dear friend of mine told me last night, 29 felt like she was saying goodbye, while 30 feels like hello and new beginnings. I love that.

So, hello 30. I'm really excited to get to know you better.

random me

I was tagged by my sweet friend Chelle to post seven random things about myself, and you know how much I love lists, so here goes...

1. I really, really love loading the dishwasher. I love the organization of it all- trying to fit in as much as I can, yet still putting everything where it will get clean. I have a definite system for my own dishwasher; I always put things in specific places. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone other than myself loads my dishwasher. I usually end up going back through and reorganizing it before I run it. However, I really don't like unloading the dishwasher- just loading it.

2. I always, always watch dvds with the subtitles on, even when I am not watching a foreign film. I do not remember when or why I started doing this, but now I find it really hard to watch anything without being able to read along. I like it because we usually keep our volume turned down pretty low at night when the kids are sleeping, and this way I do not miss anything that was said even if I could not hear it. Using the subtitles also works really well when you are watching a film in which a lot of characters have strong accents and it is hard to understand what they are saying.

3. I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I will just never be a true morning person; I am a night person through and through. I am a grump in the morning (unless I get up after 9:00am...) and I can honestly say that I hate getting out of bed. I do get up around 7:30am most mornings and force myself to be cheerful- I really don't want my kids remembering their mama in a bad mood every morning, but it definitely does not come easily to me. Whereas, find me around 9:30-10:00pm, and I am wide awake and ready to get stuff done. In fact, Erik always tells me that I am the most productive between 10:00pm and 12:00am. It actually works out nicely, because usualy I am the only one awake in the whole house during my peak time, so I get time by myself almost every night. Of course, the downfall is that I always stay up way too late, and then that makes for a difficult morning...

4. I really, really want to have one of my layouts published in a scrapbooking magazine someday, but I am not brave enough to submit anything!

5. I have used Noxema face wash since high school. I try out other brands every now and then, but always go back to Noxema; it just seems to work the best for my skin. Plus I love the smell of it and it is super cheap.

6. I am so not gutsy when it comes to changing my hair style. In fact, I think that I have had the same exact hairstyle since the end of sixth grade when I decided to grow out my bangs because I couldn't figure out how to do those crazy early 90s curling iron tricks. Oh, wait. There was that time nine or so years ago when I cut it to my chin, but other than that, my hair has been long, curly, with no bangs for going on 18 years...that is so sad! My friends laugh at me because I always say that I wish I could be braver and do something wild and crazy like get it highlighted or something, but I never can. Maybe someday...

7. I have the worst eyesight of anyone I know. Seriously bad. I started wearing glasses when I was seven or eight and my eyes got worse every year until I was about 25. Technically, as far as blurriness goes,I am legally blind- I am both nearsighted and farsighted. But thank goodness for modern medicine- I have 20/20 vision with my contacts and almost 20/20 with my glasses. Ever since I was a little girl, I have prayed that my children do not inherit my eyesight- so far so good, but it is still kind of early to tell...

and just because it is on my mind right this very second...

8. This parenting thing is so so hard! I love being a mama so much, but it is definitely the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life, especially now that I have an almost preschooler. Audrey is 2.5 now and to say that she has a will of her own would be a serious understatement. Discipline has been a huge issue around here of late- what to do, what not to do, what works today might not work tomorrow, on and on...One positive thing to come of it though is that it really keeps me more dependent on God because I am in constant need of His help and guidance in how to handle all the little things that come up. I am really excited because in the women's Bible study I go to, we decided to read Grace-Based Parenting next, a really great book I read last summer. I feel like the timing for this couldn't be better!

No pressure to play along, but if you're interested, I tag: Amy, Aleah, Kari, Shawn, my mama, Vale,  Mandy, Rebecca, and anyone else who wants to join in!

P.S. And a big congratulations to my sweet blogging friend Samantha, who just had her baby boy yesterday! I am so excited for you and can't wait to see pictures of the little guy!

things i love about eastern washington :: family and a little attitude adjustment

One big side note to start things off:

This picture is from Halloween- my little elf and sweet princess on the left, Amy's Superman and bumblebee on the right. Audrey was a princess because princesses have become one of her biggest passions of late, and Elliot was an elf because, well, he kind of looks like one! Especially when his ears are sticking out of his hat and his mama dresses him in cute handknit overalls from a dear old friend. These pictures will most likely embarrass him when he is older, but I am sure I will still think they are adorable, even then.

Recently I came to the conclusion that I am going to have to accept the fact that I will never get a good photo of my kids when I really want one. Take Halloween for instance- this shot is pretty much one of the best of the night (from my camera, anyway), and it is not that great! I seriously tried all night to get a shot of Audrey alone in her princess costume and it was impossible! The girl was moving nonstop all night long. Yet whenever I pull out my camera to take random shots with no pressure to get "the perfect shot", I always come away with something I love.

Note to self: Take more every day pictures and do not be so stinkin' idealistic about the holiday ones.

Now on to what I really intended this post to be about...

what i love about eastern washington :: family and an attitude adjustment

Last week I had a few "woe is me" kind of days where I just missed Bellingham and my life there so much. Change is just hard (there is no way around that) and I have been through so much of it the past few months- having a baby, becoming a mama of two, moving across the state, going from city living to country living...I think if I just had one of those changes to deal with it would be difficult enough, but all of those things combined is just pretty rough sometimes.

Last Tuesday (the 6th) was a really hard day. I am not really sure why it was so bad- nothing stands out in my mind as being the reason the day was rough; it just was. Erik was gone all morning and when he came home in the afternoon to grumpy old me, we both thought that getting the family out of the house would be the solution to ending my blues. But it didn't make it better. Ice-cream and Target didn't work (I know, I can hardly believe it myself. Two of my favorite things and it didn't work). As we were driving home in the dark (Day-Light Savings Time, you are evil), NPR on the radio and two munchkins crying together in the backseat, I thought, "This really kind of sucks. This parenting thing is so incredibly hard. This living in eastern Washington thing is so hard." Erik took that moment to interrupt my thoughts with, "So you really want three kids someday." He always brings that argument (I want three, he wants two) up at the perfect moment. But at least it made me laugh.

And that night, after everyone was in bed and I had the peace and quiet of the house to myself, God reminded me that things were really not that bad. That really the reason my day was so hard had nothing to do with my circumstances and everything to do with my attitude. Yes, change is hard and adjusting to my new life, our new normal will take awhile. But I can choose to have a better attitude about it all. I can choose to make the best of what I have and be a happy, kind person to the people I care about instead of a big grump. And that is something I think God wanted me to learn that I could not have learned back in my content little comfort zone in Bellingham.

And God reminded me of how incredibly blessed we are to live by our family. It is so, so wonderful to be able to see them so often. They are incredible, amazing people that I would choose to have as friends if they were not family. We have so much fun together and I love the fact that Audrey and Elliot have all of them in their everyday lives. Of course, I miss my own immediate family like crazy- they are now all about six hours away- but I feel so grateful to at least be by some of my family rather than none at all.

This post is becoming quite novel-like, but I want to include a few more of the things I love about living by family:

Our Thursday night Survivor dates with Erik's parents. Dad makes yummy popcorn and we sit around and watch and talk about the show.

Audrey and Elliot getting to grow up with their cousins. I never lived nearby any of my own cousins, so I think it is so special that they will all know each other so well.

Getting to hang out with the girls- my sister-in-laws and my mother-in-law. Such beautiful ladies whose company I enjoy so very, very much.

Learning more about my husband's family and childhood. It seems like almost every day I learn something new about Erik or his family, and it just makes me love him and them all the more.

Being surrounded by people who I feel really "get" me. Because Erik and I have been together for a long time, I have also known his family for a long time- eleven years to be exact. It is so comforting to be around people who know me. Who I share tons of history with. Who understand me.

things i love about eastern washington :: autumn

"Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter." - Carol Bishop Hipps

(I don't believe that summer is a "misery" by any means- it is one of my most favorite seasons! But I thought this quote was really lovely just the same.)

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." - George Eliot

I am so thankful that God had us move to eastern Washington in time to enjoy autumn here; it is truly beautiful. I have always enjoyed autumn- the leaves changing color, the crisp, cool days, the smell of the changing weather, school starting, lovely sunsets, and the sudden urge to bust out my knitting (I truly am a seasonal knitter- I only really spend time with my needles and yarn when the weather merits wearing a sweater and socks). But autumn here is AMAZING! It has taken my love for the season to a whole new level. I have never seen so many leaves changing color. I have never spent an autumn with so little rain and so much sunshine. I am struggling with finding the words to adequately describe it, so I am just going to let the pictures do the talking...