Valentines Week

Valentines day isn't all that big here.  On one side I'm kind of glad.  On the other side I'm a little sad.  I want my boys to know some traditions that I grew up with.  They won't get to go to the grocery store to pick out valentines for their classroom friends.  They most likely won't make a special bag or mail box to receive all of the others valentine cards.  I'm a little disappointed about that.  So I decided to try and decorate a little and talk about it with the boys.  It's not much, but it makes me happy.

The boys think they are fun.  But they quickly lost interest and went back to playing boy stuff.  I'm alright with that.  Adrian told me they looked nice and Ryan said, "Cool mom!"  I figured it was worth it just for those two comments.  

Happy Valentines day planning!

Cookie Monster

I've recently discovered a new chocolate chip cookie 

lover in our home. 

I made some over the Christmas holidays and I'm pretty sure he ate most of them.  

Here's to my very own cookie monster.

A Wedding Order

Shortly after I opened my Etsy shop I received an order for 8 of a particular bag I had for sale.  I didn't have the fabric on hand.  I figured that wasn't going to be a problem.  I'd just order more from the place I'd ordered from before.  What do you know?  It was back-ordered.  AND it was back-ordered EVERYWHERE!!!  What it in the world?  I started doing some more research and realized I had ordered some popular brand name fabric without realizing.  Huh! Who knew?  Not me, that's for sure.  After some initial time of panic and sweating, I finally found it and ordered way too much.  It seemed like it took forever to arrive at my doorstep (where I had to pay another fee in border tax...geesh).  I got all of the other supplies I needed and went to work.

Here they are all ready to go.  

The order is for a wedding.  They'll be gifts for all the bridesmaids.  What a cute idea!  So I wrapped them all up, stuck in a few of my new business cards and mailed them off.  

I also put in a little bonus gift for the bride.  A matching clutch for the special day.  

I'm pretty excited to hear the reaction from the bride.  I hope she's happy.  I am.

Christmas Week

We've had a nice Christmas vacation.  I've really enjoyed spending time here at the house and being together.  Poor Adrian has spent the majority of the vacation sick.  That hasn't been so nice and I had a cold.  However, we made the best of it.

Here are a couple of pictures from earlier in December.  Adrian started asking in October when we were going to put up the Christmas tree.  

 Christmas Morning.  

It was pretty quiet.

 Adrian was still sick with a fever.  But he perked up when I said it was time to open the gifts.

 Thanks to everyone who gave them such great things.  They enjoyed each and everyone of them and David and I were very blessed just to watch them have a great Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

doodad

I think I've been doing pretty good with my Etsy shop.  Since I've opened it I've made 9 sales on the site itself and a few from friend that weren't recorded.  I was a little discouraged for a little while, but things have picked up some.  I've sold three scarfs this week.  Yay!  But that also means I need to get back to the sewing room and replace those 3 scarfs.  

 This week my new business cards came in the mail.  I'm very pleased with them.  Pardon the bad lighting.  It hasn't been particularly sunny lately.  It makes it difficult to take indoor pictures.  Thanks to photoshop, we can fix a lot.

They came in these cute little boxes.

 One side has the shop name and the other 

side has my name and information. 

So far I've only been able to use them in a couple of orders.

It's a little bit difficult to see here, but they have a high gloss finish.

I've ordered a few supplies off of the Etsy site.  It's interesting to see how others package their things.  I got one order that had a sticker with the shop name on it.  

I liked it and that's where I got the idea.  

Cute, right?

I think it adds just a little something to a bag.

So that's the news for the Etsy shop.  Stop by and check it out.

www.sweetpeadoodad.etsy.com

And We're Back!

So I finally just broke down and paid the crazy monthly fee.  

On to things past...Thanksgiving.  We had a nice one.  David and I invited all the Americans we could think of and had them all over for a turkey lunch the following Saturday.  It's not a holiday here you know.  Usually about a third of the people we invite can't make it.  However, only one person canceled.  This meant that we would be having 18 adults and - get ready - 12 children eating in our home!  Where were we going to put them?   It worked out.  The kids never really sat down, so that solved that seating problem.

Here are a few good pictures of the day.

Centerpieces 

 The tables

All the guests 

(or most of them.  Some were still filling their plates)

We had a nice day and it was a nice Thanksgiving.  The food was great and the company was even better.

Happy late Thanksgiving!

Picture-less

It's been a while since I've last posted anything.  There's a reason for this.  Last week I went to update my blog with some pretty pictures of our Thanksgiving feast.  As I was getting ready to load my pictures, a message popped up on my screen informing me that I had used all the free space they were allowing me to post pictures with.  If I would like to post any more I could kindly pay a monthly fee.  What?!   Not sure what I'm going to do just yet.  My writing skills are not at a level where I can post without pictures.  And really, what's a blog without pictures?  Boring.  So this will be a picture-less blog post just letting you know the scoop.  Hopefully I'll figure this out and be back to posting pictures soon!