So did everyone have a good holiday? We did. It flew by faster than I would have liked, but boy am I glad we're into the new year now.

So everyone's made their resolutions, right? I have, well really its a promise. Resolutions are so easily broken. I'm promising myself to be better, in all aspects. Yep, the hubs and I have even already started.

We started Focus T25 the week of New Year's. We're into our second week and we're starting to feel and see results. Yay!

Second, I'm trying to not fall into "Mom Mode". You know the mode I mean. The sweats, no make up, hair not done mode. Nope, I'm going to take pride in myself.

I've got so much to share, now if only I'd remember to bring the camera upstairs to get the pictures off of it. :)

Here's a snapshot of what I've been doing though!
 I'm gathering measurements for the hutch I want to put on top of my buffet. I've got the plan sketched out. Now I just need to hop into SketchUp and design it there. Just to make sure my sketches work.

 Some headbands for Miss! Can you believe she's almost 12 weeks old!

 Bowties for the boys! Big Guy even wants me to make him one for school! Yay! I'm so glad they're easy to whip up.

 Two versions of the same hat. The navy blue one does not fit as well, so I'm going to give it to my sister. Love the hot pink one though! Oh yea, did you see my new glasses. Yep. I'm a glasses wearer now.

Another new hat. It needs to be finished. I haven't found the right button for it yet. I have another version of this hat for Miss as well, but it's not done yet either. Its missing its button as well. :)

Well that's my quick update! Hopefully I can get my act together to get an actual post written up here shortly!

Getting older sucks. There's no nice way to put it. It. Sucks. Sure, I can do more things than I did, and what I've learned has served me well. There's more to learn and that excites me, but what doesn't excite me is the slow deterioration of my body. Namely, my eyes.

I've had reading glasses for several years now, and I haven't always been the best about wearing them, but I had them and when I did absolutely need them, I wore them.

Then the headaches started. I kind of figured that it was my pregnancy hormones going crazy. So I wore my reading glasses more. Especially while working with fine-detail stuff. The headaches kind of went away, ok not really. Then I gave birth, and it seemed like every other phrase I was uttering was, "I can't see it, bring it closer," which wasn't entirely true. I could see things, I was just having trouble focusing on them. Very annoying, but I chalked it up to being tired, and not getting enough sleep. Ya know, a newborn will do that to you.

Then we got our eyes checked. All of us. All 5 of us at the eye doctor. Fun times. Not. For their part, the boys were very well behaved. Rae was behaved too, but really I was impressed with the boys. We all had our eyes dilated. I didn't see the boys get their drops, but I didn't hear any blood-curdling screams, and hubs said they did well, so I'm going to chalk it up to it went better than anyone imagined it would.

Then came the good news. 3 new pairs of glasses. It will be 4 pairs of glasses next year, but there's no way that glasses would survive Harrison and really there's no point in getting him glasses until he starts reading more. So 3 new pairs of glasses were ordered.

We got them in yesterday. Its kind of nice to be able to see. Dev's and my glasses have the same rule. If you're doing anything but driving (for me) or playing (for Dev) then your glasses are on your face. Sigh. Dev seems to like his. He wasn't too thrilled at the idea of glasses, but I think wearing them at school yesterday made him realize that he needs them.  He looks pretty darn handsome as well.

I was ok with my glasses, until I realized my lenses are thicker than my frames. What the crap? I know my eyes got worse. Ok, maybe a little bit lot worse, but still?!?! Ugh. So now I have to get better about my glasses. Oh and the doc said in a year or two, I'll probably need a different set of glasses for driving and basically seeing far. Awesome. Both extremes of my sight are going. And no, I can't wear the same glasses. They'd be different strengths, so two glasses. Ugh.

Selfie of my new glasses. They're not actually black or grey but purple!

While reflecting on my poor eyesight and the changes I have to make, it got me thinking about other aspects of my life that I've gotten lazy in. So I'm going to make my New Year's resolution early. I'm going to resolve to work on me. Work on being a better mom, wife and person. I'm going to not live in my gym clothes, even tho I love them and they're comfy. I'm going to try and remember to put on some makeup, even if its just powder. I'm going to allot individual time to each of the kids. Obviously that latter is easier to do with Rae than the boys, but its going to happen, even if I have to put aside what I want to do or am working on. Or maybe just include them in what I'm doing. I'm going to try and stop obsessing that I still have a baby pooch and just work on getting back to where I want (and had) my body at before I got pregnant. Yes, I know its only been two months, but that logic doesn't help because really there is no logic with this obsession about getting back to where I was. I finally had gotten to a place where I liked my body again, and then BAM! You're pregnant. Not that I don't love Rae, because I do but I'm not so in love with what pregnancy did to my body. So that's going to get worked on.

So that's what I'm resolving to do. Oh and I'm signing off till the New Year. I'll be back with some of the Christmas gifts that got made and given!

PHEW!!!!!!!

Christmas took a whole bunch out of me. I got a crap ton of things made and I will be sharing, but first - I kind of need photos of everything I made, durn it! I knew I forgot something.

Then New Year's. Oh lord did New Year's take a toll on the family. We're finally recovering from a nasty cold that hit the family New Year's Day. So much fun.

Then there were the round of appointments. Eye doctors. Nutritionist and our GP. Luckily, everyone has a clean bill of health, even if the boys were angry most of yesterday evening at me, because  I opted to have them get flu shots. You'd have thought I was killing them - for over 2 hours - yesterday with all the racket and complaining they did.

So I'm going to share stats on my guys, cause I can. I'm their  mom and its my blog and I can gloat and brag a little if I want to. :) My big guy turned 7 on the 27th and I just can't believe  it. He's 7!!! Where the heck  has time gone??? Anyways, so here are the stats.

Harrison is a whopping 41" tall and finally weighing in at 32.2 pounds. He's 91% for height, but had been 17% for weight, and the nutritionist visitor. We can't get him to gain weight. He weighs what he did at 2. He's grown, a lot, but he's just getting skinnier. I can see that he's starting to chunk out in places which is good, but we've got to stay on him about getting the good fatty calories in him.

Devlin, on the other hand, is still huge. He came into the world huge and he's still  that way. Although, I don't have an accurate height measurement on him because he won't stand up straight when it comes time to get measured. We had his cardiologist appointment back in the middle of December, and all checked out. He's got a murmur back, but the Doc said that it was an innocent one. It was just turbulence in his heart because its still growing. The membrane is still stretched across his left atrium, right above the mytrial valve, but its only about the width of floss. So nothing to do about it, but still monitor it. So he's weighing in at 67 pounds, but at the card. appointment he was 51" and yesterday at his well child he was 52". I seriously doubt he grew a full inch in 3 weeks, and we'd have a better number for his height if he'd had his heels against the wall and was standing up straight. So he's 94% for weight and 97% for height. We're finally not off the charts!

Here are the boys and Dana at the Natural History Museum on Dev's birthday. Love the whole bunch of them!!!!

Hey all!! How you guys feeling? Me? I'm finally kind of back to normal. You see, norovirus came to visit our house.

For any of you that don't know or aren't familiar with said virus, you're so lucky this little gem is an awful stomach virus. This is our second bout. Our first go round was when Devlin was a year old and actually his first illness. Fun times I tell ya.

So now that I'm not feeling like death I figured I'd treat you guys to a fun photo comparison.



It's been awhile since the family has had a family photo done, try 5 years, and at the time I think you would probably see a family resemblance, but I feel like now that I'm actually trying to lose weight and Dana and I have adopted some new haircuts, which are scarily similar, but given our hair types look very different.


Alright, enough talking - time for looking.


I do have to say though... I do not wear glasses all the time. Just while on the computer or when working on something detailed. Dana, on the other hand, is as blind as a bat. Love you Dae!!!!!

Oh and my hair is actually longer than Dana's but because of how curly my hair is - you can't tell. My bangs are actually a good indication of just how long my hair is.

Tomorrow I will share my photos from the Maymont Flower Show. We had a lot of fun despite being a touch on the puny side.

See you guys later!!!!

I AM NOT MAKING ANY RESOLUTIONS!!

Ok, that's out there. :)

In July (the 26th to be exact) I joined a local gym, and started hitting it hard.

Since then I've lost 30 pounds, run a 5k and started training for a 10k distance.

Dana and I will be running an 8k in March and I cannot be more excited about it. :)

My thought on resolutions. Why set a goal for an entire year? That's hard. It even sounds hard. Intimidating.

What I've done? I bought a planner. A small one that fits into my purse and  it goes wherever that purse goes, so pretty much anywhere I go it's there too.

When I first started going to the gym, the daycare at the gym required you to schedule your times ahead of time. There was limited space, so I scheduled the times for the boys a week in advance and their scheduled times went into my planner as a play date. Thinking of these gym visits as play dates meant that I was less likely to cancel or talk myself out of them.

Harrison, at that time, needed socialization outside of Dev and me so this solved that problem. Now Harrison loves his time away from me and at the daycare. The gym has since moved into a new facility and the daycare facility is much bigger. Of course, it helps that he plays with children that he's seen and gotten to know over these 6 months. Its so rewarding to see him coming into his own and not constantly bullying everyone. We recently have had several weeks (not in a row) of hit-free behavior!

So now that I've got my mothering need and aspect of my gym visits out of the way - I think I'll share what I did for me. I went to classes. A lot of them. I was afraid of the free weights (still kind of am) and the machines. Not to mention the treadmills and bikes. Yikes.

So I went to classes - every day. For about a month. Then I got bored. So I scaled down the classes to my favorites (Zumba and BodyFlow) and then started at the machines and treadmills. I joined one of the challenges that the gym was running in September to further motivate myself.

I was still using my planner to record what I was going to work on that day. One of the three major muscle groups plus the two classes I was still taking and the schedules for the kids daycare at the gym. It was very satisfying to see all of my work written down.

Then the new gym opened up! Yay for new stuff! New machines! So shiny and new. Wait - no more scheduling. How am I going to keep motivated? It really wasn't a concern though. I was hooked. I am addicted to the gym and my endorphin rush.

So November brought some hiccups because of the hospital stay that Dev had, but when I finally made back to my normal routine it was time to train for the 5k in December. I started recording even more information in my little planner. I also signed up with the Daily Mile. I wanted to show off my work.

Its so gratifying to see my pace times go work their way down. I also like tracking how many donuts I've burned. :)

So December brought another challenge, that I did win one week. I ran that 5k and while I was disappointed with how it was run, I was quite happy that I finally competed.

Now here's January. I'm training again. 11 miles this week. I did 3 yesterday, 3 is planned for tomorrow and then 5 on Saturday. Can't wait. I haven't run 11 miles in a week yet, my longest over a week was 8 miles. Yay for new distances!

Anyways, that's my gym story and my un-resolutions. I make goals on a weekly and monthly basis and I write them down. I set time limits for myself. I am accountable only to myself and I had to disappoint, but this was not a journey I did by myself. I started this journey with a friend and she was invaluable to my staying on this path. A path that I had wanted to start, but was to cowardly to do it by myself.

To all of you who are resolving to lose weight, my first suggestion - find a gym buddy or at least a gym cheerleader. Dana is my cheerleader and my friend is still my gym buddy. I'm lucky that I have two, but I would definitely find someone that can be your picker-upper when you want to quit or hurt to much to want to go back. Having those people make all the difference in the world. At least for me it did.

Good luck and happy new year all!

So we've all seen these jokes. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones where you know you're from XYZ because of ABC.

When we lived in Jersey there were tons of them flying around about the Garden State, but I found one for Prince William County and it made me laugh, so I'm sharing it.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM PWC WHEN...

Saturday was a fun day.

I ran a 5k on the treadmill for the 2nd time in a week ever. I did awesome, by the way. I got down to a 15 minute mile. Yay me!

So after said run, I come home and want nothing more than a shower. I head upstairs and turn on the shower, and just as I'm about to step into the glory of my ultra hot reinvigorating shower, Stephen bursts into the bathroom and tells me to turn off the shower.

I'm like, uh no, I want to take my shower and wash the stink off.

He responds with water is leaking into the kitchen. From the ceiling.

You guessed it. My master bathroom is right above our kitchen.

Weeeeeeeell Crap.

So I pull on a robe and go downstairs to inspect the damage with Steve. There are two pots on the floor catching the water and the tape, at the seam of the drywall, was separated from the ceiling and producing a calming stream of water. Right in front of my stove.

Greeeeaaaaat.

Did I mention that the very next day Stephen was leaving for the Dominican Republic for 4 days. At 7:45 am.

Luckily, we believe that the plumbing issue will fall under the house's construction warranty. The project manager for the development is stopping by tomorrow at 8:30 to bust into the ceiling and take a gander at the issue.

Thank god for new houses and their warranties. 10 year warranties, because we've been here 2.5 years.

Oh and just in case you're wondering, I did get my shower. In Harrison's bathroom. Which sucks. A lot.

I'm very stunted in my speech, because showering in a tub with no overhead light and infant bath toys is not fun.

I'm spoiled. I've had my own separate shower for 5 years now. I really like having my own separate shower. It has a bench! Do you know how easy it is to shave your legs when you have a bench?!?!?

Ok, I'm done whining. Maybe. At least until tomorrow. When a hole (a large hole) is put into my kitchen ceiling.

I know that I've posted about my dental adventures here and there, and there have been a lot.

You see, we didn't have good dental insurance or dental insurance at all for about 6 years. So guess what didn't happen during those 6 years?

You guessed it. I didn't go to the dentist. It was an expense we didn't need.

Unfortunately, this course of action left me with an extremely screwed up mouth.

I went to the dentist for the first time in those 6 years in March. Partly because Devlin needed to have his first cleaning, and he had to have two fillings, but I need to be brave for him. I also needed a reason, and there was no way I was about to let down my son.

So I went. I then found out that I had gum disease (and a moderately bad case). Along with that I had to have several root canals, a couple of fillings and 7 extractions total. You guys can totally use my story to tell your kids about the importance of dental hygiene. I already do. :)

So back to the 7 extractions - they were all molars. 6 of them were root tips and one was decay. Two of them were extracted shortly after my first scaling, which is a most unpleasant thing, but necessary because of the gum disease.

Tuesday, I had 2 more teeth extracted, root tips to be exact. One had to be surgically extracted, so I ended up with a couple of stitches. Nothing too bad, and I scheduled my appointment for next week to have the next two extractions done. I knew the decayed tooth was going to have to be surgically removed, so I got a referral for an oral surgeon.

Oh on top of all of these dental things - I suffer from TMJ. Fun, right?

So yesterday when I put Harrison down for a nap, I decide to lie down as well. I didn't every actually fall asleep - I just dozed, but I was jarred awake by a throbbing pain in my jaw. Great. The TMJ is acting up again, because I clench my teeth (molars, specifically) when I sleep. I usually only do this when I'm stressed or angry, but sometimes it just happens too.

So I get up and take some ibuprofen and then pull out a warm compress, per instructions from my dentist on  easing TMJ pain. Except that the warm compress does not work. Its making the pain worse. Craaaaaap.

Its not TMJ, its an infection. So I pull out my antibiotics (my dentist is very thorough and has prepared instructions for almost every inevitability) and take one.  The rest of the afternoon goes ok. The pain worsens   throughout the day, but I'm managing.

By 11 pm,  my jaw was swollen quite a bit. I go to bed, hoping that the swelling goes down a bit.

My wish was not answered. Here's what I looked like this morning when I woke up.
I apologize for the blurriness and quality, but it matches the feeling.

Yep - those three remaining extractions had abscessed. Really it was just the top back extraction that had abscessed and then it spread, quickly, to the other 2 {bad} teeth.

So this morning I went to see the oral surgeon (miraculously they had an opening for today) and they pulled out the last 3 teeth scheduled for extraction. They ended up having to clean the gum tissue on the top along with my upper jawbone. The infection had gotten everywhere it seemed.

Well  - I'm still swollen, still on antibiotics and pain killers, and not crafting. I've been ordered to take it easy. Until TUESDAY! Argh. Do you know how hard it is not to do anything? Very. We'll see how I fare.

On a brighter note - This is the last major dental thing my poor mouth needed. My dentist has seen me almost every week since March, but no more! We're on to the fun stuff - like whitening. :)

See you guys tomorrow for FFF!

I've decided to grow out my hair - if only it would listen as well as it did this day. :)

So I saw this cute post the other day from Along for the Ride, and now I want to do one.

So here goes!!!

For some time now, my girlfriends and I have been commiserating about our kids' behavior.

We didn't get it. Why were normally well behaved children turning into demon spawn?

Well, I introduced more chores for Dev, and that seemed to work, but only partially.

A girlfriend introduced a behavior chart and her son has been improving a lot. So I decided that I would also incorporate a behavior chart, but I also wanted a way for Dev to track his chores and what he'd done that day and so on.

So the scrapbook folder and Photoshop was busted out.

I've been digital scrapbooking for almost 5 years now, and I have amassed quite a collection.

So I went through and picked out a kit that had the colors and elements that I wanted. I ended up using Elementary Grammar from Peppermint Creative. I love their kits. :)

So after playing around for a couple evenings, this is what I came up with.

The paper size is 11 x 17, which is oh so helpful, because I have an 11 x 17 frame that I'm no longer using. Funny how that works. :)

Here's the chart in action.

The bottom portion is on the wall so that Dev can reach it, but not Harrison. Stephen or I will fill out the top - based on his behavior.


So far Dev is stoked about his chart. He loves marking stuff off on it. He's also easily influenced by getting all smiley faces. :)
If he goes a week with doing most of his chores {without being told} and having mostly smiley faces, then he's going to get rewarded. He's already told us he wants money so he can put it in his savings account. :) Such a good kid. :)

Have a great day guys!
Heather

So I still have nothing to post about or to even share. At least nothing that I'm ready to share.

I feel like such a bad blogger.

I've been very busy. So has Steve, and even Dev.

Harrison has been busy, but his business causes panic.

Case in Point -

After lunch I had a major attack of the naps. I laid down and went right to sleep. I didn't mean to, but it happened. I had dental work done yesterday and woke up with pain and sinus pain this morning, but I know if I take the vicodin and an allergy med then I will be uselessly conked out, so I only took a vicodin. Two hours later the tooth was starting to throb again, so I decided that I'd take an allergy pill, figuring that it was the sinus pressure. We'd just eaten lunch, so I figured I'd be good to go. Nope! About 15 minutes after taking said pill, I'm sprawled out on the couch mouth-breathing and potentially drooling.

A phone call from Mom wakes me up. Then Harrison comes down with about 6 gummies in his hand. Where'd you get these? We don't have any gummies in the house.

OH CRAP! They're the vitamin gummies. So Steve and I race upstairs, and there at the top of the stairs is the empty bottle of Gummy Vitamins. When full this thing holds 150 gummies. It's empty. The cap is a childproof (hah!) number and its lying in Harrison's bedroom.

"Devlin, how did your brother get into the vitamins?"

"I don't know. He opened it, I guess."

"Are you sure you didn't open them? Did you eat any?"

"No and No."

Steve and I are now frantically trying to figure out how many of the gummies were left in the bottle. We figure between 1/3 and 1/4 of the bottle was left. So I call our doctor's office. They tell me to call Poison Control.

I have never, ever had to call Poison Control, but I'll tell you what. The lady I spoke to on the phone was super nice, and completely put me at ease. Since our vitamins did not have any iron in them, the only thing we have to look out for is vomiting and diarrhea. So far we're clear. Oh and his pee may be oddly colored for a bit. Phew.

So now, I'm cleaning hiding in my sewing room, while he screams about the injustice of having to take a nap.

I may need another nap.

I have nothing to share. I mean, I have stuff in the works, but nothing is done.

Why is nothing done? Well, there are a couple of reasons. Want to hear my excuses reasons? ;-)

So I told you yesterday that I'd share more on our eventful evening.

Let me start off with saying that its a shame such a wonderful evening ended this way, but here's the preface:

Mom and Dad invited the fam over for dinner on Sunday evening. Steve was not feeling well, so only the little guys and I went.

We had a wonderful dinner. The boys were well behaved, and Dad got to spend time with them. Harrison especially liked being fed some succotash from him. :)

So then the plan was to get ice cream, which we did. We stopped at the Carvel Ice Cream stand and all had some small cones, and Harrison crawled around the table and helped all of us eat ours. It was super cute and he got super messy and got me super messy. Oh this is also why a project I was going to share this week is going to have to get washed first. He got chocolate ice cream on me from my shoulder down to my pants. Gotta love that kid. :)

So after ice cream, I suggested we all get some coffee (shocking, I know) and that I'd get the tab while the boys played  on the playground. Well en route to coffee, Dev pipes up from the backseat that he has to go potty. So as soon as we get to the restaurant, Dad hops out of the car and pulls Dev out the very back and takes him to the men's room. Meanwhile, the rest of us are getting out of the car. Mom's got Harrison and I've got purses and the sippy cup and we proceed to cross the parking lot. Well it was dusk, and none of the lights were on yet. Mom and I didn't see the pothole in the parking lot. Her foot found it, she lost her balance and her ankle turned. On the way down, Mom twisted so as not to fall onto Harrison, but in the process her knee and lower leg find the pavement. Then her right arm does - with all 26 lbs of Harrison on it. She's hurt. I drop to the ground with her and get Harrison off her arm, but quickly realize that she's really hurt. I put Harrison in her lap and run to the men's room to get Dad.

Dad comes out and tells me Dev is still in the stall, so I run out with him to get Harrison and call 911. Mom's arm is really hurting. I run back in, only to find that Dev was no longer in the restroom, and some very nice gentleman told me that Dev had left, after I burst into the men's room looking for him. As I come out of the restroom, Dev passes me on his back to the front of the restaurant. I grab him, and go back outside.

There's now a small crowd around Mom, Dad is with her and he tells me to put the boys in the car. So I open the liftgate and tell Dev to play his DS and to let Harrison watch so that he's occupied as well. Well the one time Harrison doesn't want to be distracted by the DS is now. Great. Out comes the cell phone. I tell Harrison to play with that and to not move. Dev is in charge. I go back to Mom. The ambulance has finally arrived.

They load Mom up and take her on to the hospital. I take Dad back to his house to get his car, then we all hightail it to the hospital, while calling Steve to tell him to come out here so that he can get the kids.

After some time in the ER, the kids visit with Mom and distract her quite well, but then its time for them to go to bed. I stay with Mom and Dad. Mom is not a good patient. We find out that she's dislocated her right elbow and has fractured her arm.

So after 4 hours, we finally leave the ER with Mom in a splint and directions to see an ortho specialist the next day.

Today we find out that Mom's arm is broken, but in a week they'll be able to tell if she's going to need surgery or not on the bone.

So I'm only asking for some good healing vibes from all of you readers. Mom needs them. She's doing much better today, but its her right arm and she's right handed. No sewing, knitting, or embroidery.

This is going to be a very long healing time for her, but I think Dev and I are going to make her some sling bling to brighten up that ugly blue sling. :) By the way, there was not a scratch on Harrison. Mom protected him from the fall. I just wish it hadn't been at the expense of her arm.

Thanks so much for reading my story guys.

So I'm hiding from the kids right now. Small fry is beating up on his brother {again} and Dev is too nice to fight back. I wish he would. Small fry is getting to be a bully. At least to Dev. The Rat.

Anyways, while I'm avoiding my children and the impending screech-fest that will happen. I want to ask plead with you guys to go check out Straight Stitches Facebook page. Its had 89 'likes' for forever, and I'd be super duper excited and happy if we hit 100 'likes' over the weekend.

What do you say? Do you think I can get 11 more likes? Pretty please? I'll even throw in a cherry. :)

Have a happy weekend all, the hubs furlough starts tonight. Terrific. Yippee even.

I was expecting to see a Friday Food Frenzy post today. I was looking forward to my weekly recipe fix, but there's not one here.

Have any of you seen my sister? She seems to have disappeared.

I have posts I could share, but I don't want to yet. :) They're for next week.

So instead I'll share things that have been going on around here.

Dev has three loose teeth! These are his first, so I'm really excited about making a tooth fairy box for him. :)

I haven't been to the dentist in 6 years...I know, I know. I'm already castigating myself over it. I have cavities...a lot of them, and I need to loose a few teeth, but I also found out that I inherited my mother's gum disease. Yay for that. Dana has it too (I'm sure she'll love me sharing that, but she's not here today, is she?). Luckily its not too bad yet, so after some smile fixing, I get to tackle that hurdle. You guys wanted to know all of this didn't you? :)

Let's see - what else has been going on? Oh yea, I added a couple of new pillows to the shop.

See the rest of the pictures {HERE}

I have two of these little beauts. I have more planned, but I'm waiting on some of the set to dry, and then I'll get them added this weekend.

Oh I wanted to make banana bread this AM, but I had no sour cream and the butter wasn't softened. Sadness. I guess I'll have to make the bread later. :(

Ok guys - well hopefully Dana shows up, but if not I may have to come up with another post. :)

BTW - HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY!

So cruising a discussion group for crafty moms and a question was posed as to whether or not your Mom was crafty, so I got the thinking. How did we all first get into our crafts?

My mom and grandmother taught me to sew, but my great grandmother also sewed and she got her skills from her mom (my great-great grandmother) who was a seamstress in the early 1900's.

So that's how I got into crafting, that and a need. Clothes are expensive, so are bed linens and table linens and curtains! :)

How did you guys get into your crafts?

So remember this post? You know the one where our evening went to hell in a hand basket in about 5 minutes. So the next day was the zoo. It was an epic fail. I mean like #fail. We were there a total of 2 hours. There was no parking, we ended up parking in a residential neighborhood and hoofing it. Then it was packed. P-A-C-K-E-D. DC schools were out and everyone was at the zoo, so we saw the big cats. That's it before our good mood was shot and we said...we'll try again in a week or two. But here are some shots of our short 2 hour visit.

So I have another reason to not like St. Patty's Day. It will probably be a funny story tomorrow. Well maybe  not, but maybe on Sunday it'll be funny. I'm sharing/venting so bear with me. :)

Today was cleaning day. Top to bottom cleaning day. So I had just given the upstairs the final stamp of cleaning approval when I started vacuuming the stairs. When I made it down to the first landing the vacuum decided to viciously attack me, probably because I made it clean up the dogs' bed area. Well I dodged his attack, yes our vacuum is a he, and knocked him to the floor, but also screamed like there was an eight foot boa constrictor coming at me.

Said scream draws the attention of the hubs who comes to the bottom of the stairs to make sure that I'm not strangling the vacuum, and I inform him that I'm fine. What we both missed was that Harrison had come up behind Steve right next to the corner of the stairs, and Steve turned and H fell and knocked his head on the corner of the wall busting his eyebrow open.