BLOGIDAYS WEEK 1

Hello!!! Hope you all had a very blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving!!  I am rested, very full, and extremely BLESSED!! I am thankful for my family, my home, my job, my health, and especially my wonderful hubby!

I am going to attempt to do a daily blog of my holiday prep and ideas. So far we have taken out the Christmas Decor, put up the tree, which I have yet to decorate. I still have some things I plan to do/make/buy. Plus this year, we are planning Christmas dinner at our house. I have so many plans and ideas I want to share, so stay tuned!! 

Seasons Greetings....

Michelle

2013 Resolutions

First of all....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! My hope is that 2013 be full of hope, faith, love, and endless blessings. 2012 was a good year for us and although it ended a little rocky with my hubby being in the hospital, all is good and we are truly blessed. We have our families, wonderful friends, and this little guy, my nephew born 1-9-12. LOVE HIM!!

Like every year, we start our year off with resolutions.... most forgotten by February. But still New Year's is just a new start, kind of a clean slate, I feel the same way in the beginning of the school year. I really have always had the same resolutions.. To lose weight, Be more organized, and have a baby. Every year since I was 23, those same 3.. geez..
Not that I want to blame everything on the CANCER... but that threw my life in a loop and just turned everything upside down and it has taken me this long to finally feel a little normal again- the 18 pills a day doesn't help, but I have come to realize that it is my normal now, and that I have to swallow my big girl pill (literally)!!

My only resolution this year is to be happy and HEALTHY and I think after that everything else will fall into place. I am notorious for breaking resolutions, but I'm determined and really I kind of have to...we both do ( myself & hubby). Being sick seriously sucks.
Here are some of the things I want to do to be more healthy..

1. Drink more water and give up soda all together. Which will be so hard for me, but it needs to get done.
2. Eat better- eat more healthier, home-cooked stuff, eat out less, which is hard when you both have full time jobs, but my food binder ( when I finish it) will help and keep us organized and ready for meals.
3. Exercise- EEK!! I used to love to run, but now not so much.... My sweet hubby gave me something this Christmas that will hopefully help and I'm determined to start on Monday, if this damn cold subsides....

YES, Zumba!! Don't laugh.. but it's something fun I can do while it's cold outside, at least I'm doing something. My hubby walks and runs, but since it's cold.. he promised he would do it with me.
4. Sleep better- I've been known to crawl into bed at 1 am on a weekday... not good! Messed up your whole day!! So I'm vowing to have a better sleeping schedule.
5. Take my pills and vitamins on a regular basis... sounds easy, but it's not!! but I'm writing down my schedule and putting alarms on my phone to remind me to take my pills

Like I said, maybe, just maybe if I  start to get more healthy other things will fall into place... I can maybe start losing weight and help me get pregnant. I've also brought a few books to help me along the way, one of them highly recommended by a friend. She says a lot of the stuff worked for her.. it's worth a try..

Also with healthy comes more ENERGY!!!!and maybe I'll have the energy to whip this little house back into shape... sneaky how I managed to put in my 3 original resolutions in there. I've become a fan of organizational blogs and You tube channels and often find myself saying "wow, why didn't I think of that" or "Gee, that's a great idea" but just tucked them all in the back burner that is my brain.... So while hubby rested I went back and to the blogs, channels, magazine file, and even my pins and started writing all the ideas in a notebook....

Slowly, I'll be doing what I can.. I've come to realize (and it took me awhile, without beating myself up) that my house will not look like those in a blog in one day, one month, or even one year.... my house is by far what I want it to be, but I've come a long way!!! and I'm proud of myself!! I keep adding To-do lists, ideas, and other stuff into my notebook & I love that I have it.
My hubby's other resolution is to be more organized with our finances, so we decided to add a finance tab in our home management binder and make a budget.

And now for the HAPPY LIST....
Just to spend more time with my husband (DATE NIGHT-movies, shopping, once a month & game night once a week!!)
Spend more time with my family ( thinking like a weekday dinner)
Don't sweat the small stuff
Blog more- I love blogs and I have grown to love writing mine!
AND CRAFT MORE... which makes my heart dance!!

I had some Christmas stuff that are too late to post, so I'll have to be mean and post them up till next Christmas, but I have one on organizing your Christmas stuff and another on documenting Christmas memories that I want to put up later tonight and this week...
What are your resolutions???


Have a great year & GOOD LUCK,
Michelle

Xavier's First Birthday!!!

TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY---- WOWZA!!!!! My posts were long over due!! Chose to put up this post because today is my friend Cori's baby boy's 1st birthday!!!

Happy Birthday, sweet boy.. You are a wonderful blessing to your family and to us!! May God bless you...

Well this weekend Mr. Xavier had a birthday party... A monkey theme party for mommy's little monkey!!

My friend asked if I could make him a birthday hat. She bought some felt and other supplies and threw some ideas at me of what she wanted. I worked with felt before, during Christmas when I made personalized stockings, but this was my first try at making a hat. We started with a birthday hat, Cori got at the dollar store.. for... yes- a buck!! Don't you just love dollar stores?? Well anyway, when we put the felt on the hat, you could see the design show through the felt, so we put a plain white sheet of paper around it. It worked pretty good as a coverage and made it more sturdy. We then put the felt around it using our trusty friend- the glue gun!! 

After putting on the felt we decorated it with felt letters to spell his name and lime green feathered  boa to trim and top the hat. To make the monkey, I went on google and googled " monkey clipart". We picked the cutest one and that looked like the monkey she was using throughout her party decor. I copied and pasted it to a word document and sized it to the size we needed. I first traced the monkey head on the brown felt and then cut it apart and traced the face and ears on the tan felt. I put it together,, adding the eyes and using a piece of brown felt for the mouth . Wish I had pics of the process.... But here it is my very first birthday hat for Xavier's very first birthday...

Here are some other pics of Xavier's party..

Here are the centerpieces...Cori bought almost all the stuff at the dollar store and the balloons and dowels

 ( or whatever they are called to hold the balloons) at a party supply store. The mini palm trees were in the party section for a luau- themed party and the monkey plates were in the grocery section where they had the plates, cups, napkins, etc... This was all Cori's idea... The palm tree had a hole at the top so we slipped in the dowel, using a hot glue to secure it. We then sandwiched the dowel between two monkey plates. The balloons were added at the party.

The cake was ordered at a bakery, but mommy, aunt, and grandma lovingly made each cupcake. You can find instructions here.

Here's a few more shots of the b-day boy!!

Happy Birthday, little monkey!!

Michelle

Weekend Fun and Shopping Finds!!

This weekend we were in the Austin/ New Braunfels area, I love it there! If I ever moved it would be to New Braunfels- my sis and her family live there and so do my very best friends, Adrian and Erika and their baby girl, Liana. I also love Austin, when I was younger I wanted to move there, but of course that was not to be.. God knows why things don't pan out sometimes. We had a great time visiting family and doing a little shopping. Most importantly I got to see my little man.. my sweet,  adorable nephew!!! LOVE HIM!

While my hubby visited with his brother, I headed out with mom and aunts to the thrift stores like Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Saver's. One thing I learned from my aunts is to take my time and look at things. They always come back with the most fabulous stuff! I found the boy and girl rabbits at each end at Goodwill for .59 each. The three in the middle were bought as a bundle for .99. I have some plans for these come Easter time! Stay tuned... 

I found the frame for 3.99 at Goodwill. I'm planning on using the frame for a project here in the office. I also found a big pack of 12 x12 red cardstock for 1.99 at Saver's. Also at Saver's I found my biggest find of the day, The Singer Sew Quick Handheld sewing machine, the exact one I almost bought at Amazon for 13.99, for only 7.99.  :)

We also took a trip to Ikea. I have three Expedits shelves and an old desk, that I love. But I needed a desk, to take all my stuff I was working on, off the dining room table!! So I got this: AND I LOVE IT!! Plenty of work space!!

Ikea.com

I also got a JULES chair, four large KASSETT boxes, and a rug for my classroom. Thinking about using it in my Library center.

Ikea.com

I have been doing a lot of organizing and cleaning around the house and there are so many projects I want to finish before school starts- with very little time!! EEEK.. wish me luck!!

Michelle

Summer To-Do List Update

Here's wishing everyone had a great 4th of July!!

We spent the evening watching fireworks and eating hotdogs in our backyard. Nothing like family and summer fun- great combination!
So here's how I did with my weekly To-Do list

THE ORGANIZATION/ CLEANING LIST

1.  Clean and organize upper kitchen cabinets

2.  Start cleaning up spare room

3.  Clean up bookcase & expedits in office. Also stuff on floor.

4.  Clean and Organize Marc's desk

YES!! I was able to do almost everything on my list. I finished organizing my upper cabinets, I cleaned up my book case, and Marc is finishing cleaning up his desk as we speak...um I as I type, I mean. I also tackled the spare room and should finish by today or tomorrow. I still need to reorganize and re-arrange the expedits in my office.

THE CRAFTY (FUN) LIST

1. Work on my niece's senior album

2.  Work on project life

3.  Make 1-2 scrapbook pages

4.  Put together Christmas planner

Yes, I stayed up way past my bedtime two nights this week, working on my niece's senior album. All I need to do is print some photos and journaling blocks, and finish the title page. I'm also waiting on some pictures from her graduation and some big envelopes from Becky Higgins and I'm done. I also organized all my project life memorabilia. It had been collecting on a shelf and I put everything together according to date, along with pictures. My Christmas planner is still not printed and extra scrapbook pages have not been created... :(
Gotta say I'm a little disappointed... & I also want to start making activities for school. And the crafty things are just not getting done. So, my very good friend, Corina and I are going to meet every Wednesday until school begins to make activities for centers and small group instruction. It will also give us a chance/excuse to pig out and watch all those scary ghost/paranormal shows on SYFY. LOL!  While we work of course, it will be our own "Make and Take Wednesdays"....I also want to take a day off on Fridays from all the organizing and cleaning and craft for a good 2-3 hours or more & see how it goes.  Well I'm going to go have dinner and work on my pinterest challenge project. Tune in on Tuesday to see how it went, keep your  fingers (& toes) crossed! Asta Luego... Thanks!

Michelle