A Little Reading

At this very minute this is what is happening at our house:


she has pulled nearly every book off of the bookshelf for her reading pleasure.

Up Early

OK... so I am up early doing a little surfing and I come across La Plates. *OHMYGOODNESS* are these cute or what? They have a blog too. How do you choose? The plates are all so adorable.

(photo from laplates.com)

Life is pretty darn good!

I have been thinking a lot about the events of the last couple of years recently: deciding to have a second child, quiting my job of 14 years, working on my monogramming/paper biz full time, moving Lindsey to a new school... just to name a few of the more public things. I am so thankful for everything I have experienced during this time, you really find out a lot about yourself and those around you. Who you can count on and who you can't. I am in a really great place right now, it hasn't really been a hard road to get here just a road untraveled. Lots of new things to experience. I have lost some friendships in the process of all this, but have gained so many more, ones that I think are much better for me as a person. I am looking forward to *year two* of being home. I think the first year not working and being home full time was a learning year and *yes* I learned a lot. I often wonder how I did all this and work outside the home too, but you just do it, like so many great women do everyday. The bottom line is I will do anything for my wonderful little family. They are what make me strong and the person I am.

Lindsey's Closet & The Hip Hostess

Lindsey's Closet, my monogramming biz is sponsoring a giveaway over at my fellow *Crafty Mama* friend's blog The Hip Hostess. Become a follower of the Lindsey's Closet blog, grab our button and theirs and put on your blog for more chances to win. Visit their blog for more details.

Up For a Challenge?

A *sketchy challenge* that is. Half Full Martini is featured today on the blog, Design by Diana. Go visit her cute and creative blog for more details about her scrapping sketchy challenge. (there are giveaways involved from HFM)

It's Flippin' Hot

The little temperature widget on my desktop says it is 99 degrees outside, just checked and the heat index is 108 degrees. There is also an *Excessive Heat Warning* in effect. Well no kidding. We went to the pool yesterday afternoon and my bath water was cooler than the pool water, seriously. We stayed in today and did some crafting and then I worked for a few hours. I swear our a/c has not turned off all day, I am not looking forward to the utility bill this month.

Cooling off:

New items in the shop this week...

Finally! I am adding some new items to the shop this week. Lots of cool new paper goodies for your scrap/crafting projects. Here are today's listings:

Stay tuned for more...

D12

D12 is hubby's nickname, much like J12 became mine after we were married. Yes, it sounds very James Bondish I know. Anyway, when the girls and I were at the Zoo Monday I just so happened to pull into the *D* parking lot, all spaces are labeled so you can remember where you park I guess. (the older I get the more this will come in handy) so when I was driving along I spotted, you guessed it the *D12* parking space. Yay is was empty, so we whipped in there I pulled out my camera and tada...a cool framed photo for David for Father's Day.

Now, the next time we are there we will search for J12, L12 and M12. I see a nice and funky photo grouping in our future.

Office Space

OK, so I am sick of the hotness already and we are not even into Summer officially. Our poor second A/C unit for the upstairs can't seem to keep up. My studio and the girls playroom are upstairs and it has been really hot up there. I don't know if the previous owners of our house thought enough to put in the proper size a/c unit to cool the space or not. So after the a/c ran non-stop yesterday while I was trying to work and me just freaking out the whole time worrying about the utility bill, I decided to move my computer and a few things downstairs in a spare bedroom for the Summer. My embroidery machine is way to big to move by myself, (not to mention the spiral staircase I would have to bring it down, again what were they thinking when they put that in? I see a real staircase in my future... just not sure when) so for now I will monogram in the early morning hours and at night. I like the setup down here so far. Right off of the kitchen, close to the girls etc. We will see how it all works out.

Happy Birthday Mallory!

My *little cupcake* is two today!

We have celebrated all weekend with family and today we continued the celebrating.

First stop *Gibson's Donuts* yummo!

Second stop: *the ZOO*:

It was flippin hot, but the girls didn't seem to mind too much. Mally walked nearly the whole time and fell asleep before I could even get out of the parking lot.

She is still napping as I type this, otherwise I probably wouldn't be typing this :)

Happy Birthday Sweet Baby Girl!!!!

Mallory 2 weeks old (photo by Marci Lambert)

Gosh!

It seems like I had more time to blog with I was still working. I am still trying to figure that one out (no I did not blog at work). Life is great, girls are great, biz is growing etc. School has been out for about 3 weeks now. We have taken a trip to Ohio, been swimming a lot, crafting with Lindsey, playing and journaling some new business ideas for the fall/winter. I took a break from Lindsey's Closet after school was out just to catch my breath and to hang out with the girls, I set June 16 as my return to *some* work date. I typically only work on Tuesdays and Thursdays and maybe some on the weekends if we don't have plans. I really don't want to do more than that since the whole reason for me quiting my job was to be with my girls. I know on occasion I will have to work more than that and that's OK.

We have family in town this weekend to celebrate Mally's 2nd birthday. WOW can you believe it? I sure can't. Seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital. I have had so much fun being home with her this last year, she is keeping me young that is for sure!

I have a few crafty tutorials to post as well as some other things I have been working on, hopefully I will get to that next week. I am going to try some mobile blogging and see how that works out, maybe I can post more that way.?.