Monday Musings

So I've been absolutely terrible about writing on here. Which is sad. I really like opening up and posting designs and "meeting" wonderful people. There's such a wealth of information on the internet and I meet some of the most amazing people through here. At any rate, things here have been hectic. I guess that goes without saying. I've had two sick boys, a sick husband and a sick me to take care of. You can guess which one got put on the back burner.

I know my last message was kind of dark, well, really dark for me, but I guess you could say I had the world's most horrible birthday. It was pretty awful and I guess the real problem is that I had expectations. Whenever you set yourself up like that, you're bound to be disappointed. It wasn't that I wanted anything amazing or outlandish; just to be recognized. Without two sick kiddoes would have been great too. I hate when my babies are sick.

Speaking of sick, we're finally (KNOCK ON WOOD) over everything, I think. Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully. Took Link to the doctor today to check out his rash; in my opinion it should have gone away and not gotten worse over the weekend. They were calling it a medicinal reaction rash, but if that's true and his last dose was Wednesday, why was it so bad on Saturday and Sunday?!

We took him to the doctor today and he's not convinced that it's a medical reaction but he's not convinced otherwise either. Very helpful. (sigh) It's actually looking much better today so we're just keeping tabs on it. The doctor says that it most likely isn't anything else since he just had strep throat and scarlet fever so he shouldn't have any other bug. To me, that's ridiculous logic. I would think that his immune system would be compromised so it's perfectly logical that he could have something else (like fifth's disease). But our doctor is mostly..well, I won't go there because it just makes me upset. Going to go online today and request a new doctor. That should fix atleast some of our problems! Hopefully you all had a much better week of things!

Happy Birthday Drake!

I can hardly believe that four years ago my oldest son made me a Mommy. I feel so blessed to have him in my life and it's amazing just the depths of love that I have for him. He's been here just four short years, but it seems like I've known him my entire life. He makes me want to be a better person, one that is deserving of such a sweet little boy. On this his fourth birthday, we celebrated.

Can you guess where we went?

Bowling!

Anxiously watching the ball go down the lane (be it ever so slowly).

I'm so disappointed I wasn't on him for this shot. Still really cute of the moment when he knocked all the pins down.

Link's turn!

Eagerly awating the results.

Woohoo! I hit them!

Way too cute. Love this expression on his face after he knocked the pins down.

Today, Drake is FOUR!

Mommy helps Link and Drake bowl.

Cupcakes!

Blow out the candles...

Relight the candles, and this time sing Happy Birthday, and THEN blow out the candles. 

Every present was, "WOW!"

From his Uncle back stateside. He loves building.

Link doing what he loves: shovelling food into his cute face.

We had a wonderful day and I'm so thankful that I got to spend it with my two boys and my sweet husband. Happy birthday, sweet baby Drake!

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 9

This week's 20 Week Photography Challenge is "A Mess." Wow. That's so incredibly easy to capture around here. I have two children, aged 3 and 2. My house is always a mess. I guess maybe the hard part is finding a bit of the mess to photograph that's visually captivating.

Here's some of this week's messes:

Linking up to A Step in the Journey. Go check out some other lovely messes on Thursday!

Number Skills

Around here we had a very busy weekend of doing absolutely nothing. Well, a load of laundry and the dishes may have gotten done, but that's all. I've been battling this massive cold for over a week now so I haven't had much energy. One thing I did manage to do was creating a number recognition game for my oldest son. I got the idea from Pinterest. (side note, if you're on pinterest leave your link to your profile below so that I can follow you!)

As you can see, it's really very simple but tons of fun for the little ones (plus educational, and you can't beat that!). All it takes is a paper plate, a marker or two, and a sharpie. I divided the plate into ten different spaces and put dots ranging from one to ten into each space. I used different colors to make it more interesting. Then I wrote the numbers on each clothespin that corresponded to each dot. It was Drake's job to correctly match up each numeral with the correct number of dots. He had lots of fun counting the dots and using the clothespins.

Who knew mastering our numbers could be so much fun! You can check out the original post (and my inspiration for this game) here: Naturally Chic Mama

Fall Wreath

You know all those cute photos that are blowing up blogs and pinterest of adorable yarn wreaths? Yeah, I just had to get in on the action. I actually created my yarn wreath about 4 months ago but just now got around to creating the flower embellishments. It's a really simple thing to create so I definitely recommend doing it if you're in a crafty mood and want a cute wreath. Here's my final creation:

I used a couple of different types of felt flowers. The four petal ones are from the Martha Stewart tutorial which can be found here: Martha Stewart. The large rosette in the middle I did following a friend's tutorial, which you can find here: A Bird and a Bean. Both were super easy.

Here's my quick tutorial for creating your own wreath:

1. Buy a skein or two of yarn (depending on how big your wreath is going to be). Purchase a wreath form while you're at it. And if you can find some fabric or felt to create the flower embellishments while you're at it, you're good to go.

2. Start wrapping your wreath form with your yarn. This will take loads of time and is the hardest part of this project because it requires loads of patience. I wrapped mine twice so that the white form didn't show through. I secured the end by a dot of hot glue.

3. Create your flowers. As many or as few as you want. Follow the tutorials on the websites linked above as those two wonderful women will explain things much much better than I ever will.

4. That's it. Enjoy!

Here's my wreath as part of my motley wall composition:

If you create a fall wreath (or any wreath for that matter) I'd love to see it! Send me a link in the comments. I'm always looking for new crafty ideas to steal inspiration.

The Spider in the Doorway

I am deathly afraid of spiders. Cold hands, goosebumps, heart palpitations. The works. Lest you judge me, I will tell you I wasn't always this way. I used to be okay with spiders. I even used to "rescue" them from our house and set them free in the wild. My brother and I once had a wild tarantula (found on our front door one night) that we kept as a pet. I used to handle it all the time.

Now, I recognize that spiders have their purposes (like killing other pests/insects and being a creepy factor in a haunted house). But they have absolutely no purpose in my life. After I got bitten by a brown recluse (TWICE) and my skin puffed up and then died I've had a bit of  a totally insane fear of spiders.

So fast forward to last Tuesday. I had the house to myself and I'm cleaning and getting things done. I've taken out the recycling out to the garage and cleaned the back yard up. I'm on my way into the garage with a box full of paper recycling and I stop dead in my tracks. There's a MASSIVE spider on the doorway. So I did what any sane person would do: I dropped my box, screamed like a little girl and promptly backed up ten feet or so, because we all know that spiders can easily jump nine feet. Especially when you're the grand-frickin-daddy of all spiders. This thing was easily the largest spider I've ever been witness to outside of the zoo (and keep in mind I'm an expert since I've once had a comparatively SMALLER tarantula as a pet). And this wasn't a cutish spider with fuzzy legs. This monstrosity was evil incarnate, complete with eight skinny hairless legs. It was the size of my open palm, and I. AM. NOT. EXAGERRATING. Oh how I wish that I were.

I quickly wracked my brain for ways to dispose of the spider. I can't get close to a spider, that's absolutely out of the question. And a showdown between a normal sized shoe and this monster of a spider could have gone either way, plus I wouldn't wear the shoes after that so I had to find another way to murder him. I thought about hosing him down off the door jamb and then smashing him in with a rock, but that also brought about the possiblity of getting too close. Plus, I stood a great chance of just hosing him into the garage, near where I keep my craft supplies. That would not do. I've had great success just putting a jar or tupperware over eight-legged offenders before and waiting til my hubby gets home to do the deed but this sucker was on the side of the doorway and I'm pretty sure he could have carried off my entire stash of tupperware, all at once. There was nothing for it, I'd have to phone the husband and ask for advice.

So I called him at work, in his office. He was busy, I could tell from his tone of voice and the many voices in the background, but I didn't care. He had to be witness to my death from spider if it all didn't go to plan. He'd have to know how it all had gone down. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: "THERE'S A HUGE FRICKING SPIDER IN THE GARAGE."
Him: "Okay. Just leave it there. I'll take care of it later."
Me: "No. I don't think you understand. It's seen me. It knows I'm here now. It has to die."
Him: (laughing) "Okay. So get a shoe."
Me: "I don't think that'll work. It's too big. I don't know what to do. Should I just throw a rock at it and hope to hit it and smash it in?"
Him: "No. Your aim is terrible."
Me: (whining) "but then what?"
Him: "What about a flyswatter?"
Me: "That might work, but I'll have to get close. And I'll have to throw the flyswatter away later. I won't be able to use it again. I don't know that I can do this."
Him: "Really? Throw it away? Just wipe it off."
Me: "HELL no. It could come back from the dead or something. I can't do this. It would be easier to just concede defeat and buy a different house."
Him: "just do it. I'm waiting."
Me: "You're going to have to clean it up when I'm done. I won't be able to dispose of the body or the flyswatter. I can't touch them again."
Him: "Really?"
Me: "K. I'm doing it. 1....2....EEEEEEK."

The eek part was really just me screaming, loudly. Like a little girl. I did manage to kill the spider, one swat. After swinging, I dropped the flyswatter and ran. Just in case, you know, I had missed or angered the beast. The evidence is still in the doorway. I couldn't bring myself to get any nearer again. The husband urged me to "check to see if it's really dead." Are. You. Kidding. Me? Absolutely not. It's down, curled into a ball. I refuse to get any closer a second time. The first time took an incredible amount of strength. I'm not made of the kind of stuff that allows me to get near to death twice in one go.

PLEASE ONLY SCROLL DOWN IF YOU ARE NOT DEATHLY AFRAID OF SPIDERS...
I'm going to post photos of the beast. Mainly because he was pretty impressive, but you also need to understand how close to death I came. And survived. These photos are not for the weak of heart. You've been warned. You still have time to look away. Go, run now.

Okay so he looks smaller in this photo, because it's out of context. The width of that door jamb is a standard CMU (concrete masonry unit) and that's approximately 7 5/8" thick, so he's about 1/3 of that in diameter, which puts him at about 2.5" diameter. SCARY. Even the husband conceded that it was the biggest spider he'd seen outside of the zoo.

Top Ten Tuesday - Things You Don't Know About Me

Here's the top ten things you {probably} don't know about me. You also probably don't care, but I thought I'd share anyway. You're welcome. =P

10. I've never taken a single photoshop or computer editing software program class. Shhh! Don't tell my clients that I'm self-taught, they'll get crazy ideas like thinking they can design their own holiday cards and business logos too. Well, I suppose that's not an entirely bad thing. I'm a firm believer in knowledge is power.

9. I do a wicked Kermit the Frog impression.

8. I'm only 63 inches tall, which sounds much more impressive than 5' 3". Okay, okay...I'm 5' 2.75" but you round up, right?

7. The Dark Crystal traumatized me as a small child growing up. {No worries, I absolutely love it now and plan to terrorize subject my children to it later in life.}

6. I once drank ate and drank an entire large (64 ounce) jar of dill pickles. Because it sounded like a good idea. It wasn't.

5. I've wanted to be an architect since I was in third grade. My childhood hero was Frank Lloyd Wright. I think Legos had a huge impact on me wanting to become an architect.

4. I no longer have any desire to be an architect. Crazy how life changes you.

3. I have an addiction. I'm afraid it's pretty serious. I. Can't. Stop. Pinning. Things. On. Pinterest. I think I need a 12 step program, or just more hours in the day. Yes, that'll solve it.

2. I watch really dumb comedies and giggle all the while. I'm pretty sure atleast 40% of my brain is used up by useless movie quotes. Some of my favorites: Super Troopers, Dodgeball, and Tommy Boy.

1. I've never had much of a backbone. I have a hard time with conflict and standing up for myself. I've gotten better over the years, but it's still something I struggle with.

Linking up to Oh Amanda for her fun Top 10 Tuesday. Check out more Top 10 lists at her website!

Top Ten Tuesday - #!@#$ Edition

I recently have a friend remark that I have a, um, colorful vocabulary. Especially when it comes to curse (cuss) words. I have two little ones in the house, so believe me when I say that I try my hardest not to curse or yell anything inappropriate lest they become little mockingbirds. I remember when I was around fourteen and fifteen and I used to curse like a sailor (when out of earshot of my parents of course). Ah, back then I thought many things were cool. I was wrong about most of them, as it turns out. I find that I still have a sometimes penchant for strong words, but I've learned to switch them up. Here's some of my favorite, more colorful phrases:

10. Son of a pharaoh! This is my pretty standard response to when things go poorly, whether I've stubbed my big toe on the table again, or I've dropped the groceries or am just generally frustrated with a situation.

9. Oh for crying out loud...This one is usually reserved for the kids. It's for times when they've left their toys out in the yard again, or they're fighting..again (or still..sometimes it's hard to tell).

8. Well, schnikeys! A nice way to say, Well, crap. I figure crap isn't much better than its four letter S-word counterpart. I definitely don't want my toddler yelling about crap, so whenever I feel the urge to call a situation like the dung it is, I revert to schnikeys instead but really any unusual colorful word will do. You might also try, well, hoodlums! or well, galoshes! or another favorite of mine: well, muckluck! Not sure if that last one's a real word or not but it's loads of fun to say. Go on, give it a go.

7. Flippin' A nice inoffensive substitute for a similar F-word. Used as an adjective. Like, "that flippin' lady just pulled out without looking!" Usually only reserved in extreme cases where I'm caught unawares and have just the briefest of moments to PG rate my dialogue.

6. Good gravy. Good old Charlie Brown gave me this one. Well, technically he said good grief, but good gravy is just so much cooler. A phrase best used to express your particular frustration with a situation.

5. Holy guacamole! Rather than exclaiming that dung or crap is holy, it makes much more sense to claim that a certain green dip is saint-like. Don't you agree? Okay, maybe it makes no sense at all, but again, it's one of those phrases that's fun. I mean, who doesn't like to rhyme?

4. Bozo. A term of endearment for someone who's acting like a fool. This one I stole from my mother. She often reserved it for other drivers on the road, like those people that insist on tailgating or switching lanes without regard for the other cars. "Did you see that BOZO!"

3. Fiddlesticks! Again, an exclamation for frustration. This one I tend to reserve for when I personally do something silly like spill an entire box of spaghetti noodles on the floor.

2. Son of a biscuit-eater! A step up from Son of a Pharaoh. This is reserved for extreme cases of misfortune and I only just catch myself in time to lighten up my foul language.

1. Goofball. Another term of endearment for those acting silly. This one really is pretty harmless though and I catch myself calling my sons goofballs whenever they're in a particularly spunky or goofy mood.

So how do you avoid using the unmentionables when you're around young ears? Any silly phrases? Feel free to share them. I'm always looking to expand my vocabulary!

Linking up to Oh Amanda

Friday Musings

While I was doing dishes earlier, I let my mind wander. Doing dishes is terribly boring and tedious and only somewhat enjoyable if you don't think about it. I passed a large part of my time wishing I had magic, you know, like Harry Potter magic. I would definitely be a Mrs. Weasley, waving my wand about to conjure meals, tidy the house, and definitely do the dreaded dishes. (I'll stop right here and admit to the fact that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, both the books and the movies and if you have no clue what I'm talking about, then please kindly exit this website and pick up J.K. Rowling's masterpieces of literature. They are definitely worth a read, no matter what age you are!)

I would alsolove to have one of these magically enhanced clocks!

So, my question to you is: if you had magic what would you do with it?

Ah, Germany, land of strange music

So now that I've lived in Germany for over a year, I consider myself an expert. No, not really. Just yesterday I managed to buy seven euros worth of salami from the grocery store next door, after trying out my German on them. Apparently I had said something along the lines of, "Yes, please. Give me all the salami you have in store and take all my euros," rather than "three hundred grams of salami, please."

One thing that never ceases to amaze me about this country is the random taste in music. I myself have pretty ecletic musical tastes. But this country, well, atleast what they play on the radio, is pretty bizarre. I mean that in a good way. I like it. A lot of the songs are upbeat and fast, and very catchy.

Here's one such case that's been getting a lot of radio play. It's called Barbara Streisand (for obvious reasons) by Duck Sauce. If you can't see it here, just click the youtube button to view it.