Just A Friday Post :)

This photo is how I started my day yesterday, A bit of hand sewing on a gown I'm making for Ashley and a bit of knitting on my Central Park Hoodie. Then for some wild reason I suddenly got a burst of energy and ended up doing some badly needed deep cleaning. It's a good thing though, I cleaned out the cabinet in the dinning room and got rid of a bunch of junk and made room to store some of my scrapbook supplies. So now our dinning room doesn't look like a craft room has taken it over. LOL! Not a bad thing at all... but the clutter of it was a bit much for plain open site.

It's all good though, my reward for the days worth of hard work was more knitting in my recliner and a 2 hour Episode of "So You Think You Can Dance" It was great. I so love this show, Next to Big Brother it's my favorite reality show.

I wanted to share with you the very first project that I finished on my sewing machine. it's something for me!

I wanted to get some photo's of me wearing it. I bought me a white t-shirt to wear underneath it for when I don't feel like going sleeveless. I think it's really cute and I enjoyed sewing the pattern so I already have the yarn I want to make my next one out of :)

Right now I'm working on Ashley's night gown and then I'll start something for Abbey. She needs a few more summer outfits :)

Not sure about plans for the weekend yet, We did talk about having a picnic/cookout somewhere though. Maybe at the lake or a park. we'll figure it out. The idea of sitting in a lawn chair and doing some knitting sounds fun :) hehe!

Until Next Time...

Gainesville Frank Buck Zoo

I could have SWORN that I'd already written up and posted about ou trip to the Zoo but I don't see the post, So I must not have :-P Ah well. Better late than never I guess :)

A few weeks ago we took the girls to the Frank Buck Zoo in Gainesville Texas. Remember we're trying to make our Saturdays with the girls more than just laying around the house, A bad habit we'd fallen into.

We got to the Zoo early enough so that Ashley could participate in feeding the Giraffe :) She did really well with the first lettuce leaf and he slobbered on her hand.. LOL! So I had to pass him the second Lettuce Leaf . .

Abbey was really enjoying her view from the stroller, she loved the animals and pointed and called them all puppies :)

Jake even got in on some of the feeding action :)

They had a little show/petting zoo of sorts, Ashley loved the turtle, She kept following the poor thing around and feeding it lettuce. Abbey wasn't too sure about the turtle though.

They had a Madagascar Roach that was HUGE, I forgot to take a picture but I just knew Ashley was going to say "Hey we kill water bugs in our house that size" ROFL!!! Aren't old houses great? ugh! Oh lord, I promise we're not nasty people, those bugs are thick around here.

Ashley even pet the SNAKE they brought out which I was surprised by! I sure wouldn't touch him! LOL!!!

We ate lunch in the park they have by the Zoo and before we left we rode the little train they had. it was a fund day, the girls really enjoyed it :)

Dodge Caravan - SXT?

Good News! Last week our insurance company finally took care of the balance we owed on the totaled Van and we were able to look for something else :) It only took them 4 weeks! ugh.

Picture me (big girl) with a husband (skinny butt) , a six year old, a 16 month old, a stroller and no airconditioner in 95 degree humid Oklahoma weather for 4 weeks.. you may know yourself.. it's not a good or pleasant thing at all....

But it certainly makes you appreciate the good things when you have or finally get them.. Here is what we got, we fell in love with it online before we even drove it, so when we drove it, It got even better!!

Our other Van was a basic 2005 Dodge Caravan. The New one is a 2006 Caravan SXT. This means it comes with a few more perks and rides more like a cadillac!

Here she is....

With Keyless entry.. (a god send with a diaper bag on one shoulder a kid on one hip and arm loads of random crap. ( unless it's knitting, that's NOT-CRAP)


The storage in the upper part there is new, we didn't have that in the other van you can store sunglasses and what nots in there. Aso there is a guage (you can't see here) but it shows what direction your driving, the temp outside, and what kind of gas mileage your getting as well as the lenth of you trip! SO KEWL! It's fancy stuff to us simple folk...

The interior is a light beige and tan the other van was plain grey

Big perk we love is that the second row of seating is 2 bucket seats!!! WOOHOO! hee! The other van had a bench seat we weren't to crazy about. Also the back set is a split seat which means we can only take half of it out if we want to.

So pretty... I love her....

... and my husband still loves me :)

Card Making Day :)

Me & my VBFF Danette decided to get together last Friday and have a card making/stamping day. We had a great time, we had Chinese for lunch and Danette brought me an ADORABLE birthday gift :)



It's a music Box as well!!

Sadly it was taking me awhile to get into card making mode, It took me 3 hours to make this first one and I'm still not too fond of it.


The Other two I like much more :)




We decided we need to do this more often!

Kindergarten Graduation & Summer School/Bus

Last Friday Ashley had her Kindergarten Graduation. They sung some very cute songs and the Teachers gave a special award to each child, Ashley got the Best Friend award, For being friendly to everyone, especially those who didn't have anyone to play with :) I'm very proud of her for that... So here are a few photo's from her Graduation ceremony . . .


The proud Sister, Nanna & Step-Dad . .


Two Kindergarten Classes Ashley is on the right end middle row . . .

Ashley loves to sing . . .

Getting her Best Friend Award . .

One last picture with her Teacher Mrs. Allen . . .

Yesterday Ashley started Summer School, it's being held at a different school than where she went to Kindergarten, It's a nice new building though it's called Charles Evans. Yesterday I drove her to school and had plans of taking her everyday, But it seems everyone else is riding the bus and with Gas being $3 a gallon and Ashley begging me to ride I decided to walk her around the corner to the bus stop this morning. I think I'm way to overprotective because I bawled while she was getting on the bus :o( I just pray that she is safe for everyone bus ride. I told her if she didn't like riding the bus I would still take her to school. But she said she though she would like it. So we'll see. If it works out for us it could save us a months worth of gas driving back and forth everyday.

My Birthday! :)

I'm so behind with Blogs, I have a lot of photo's so I'm just going to start with my Birthday which was way back on May 16th :) I turned 33, I do feel older than I did last year.. Mom warned after 30 it all goes downhill but I refuse to believe that.. well at least not completely.. LOL!!

My birthday was great! Celebrated a few days late though :) Of course my gift from Jake and the girls was my sewing machine which I have been getting a little use of, but later on that. My gift from Mom/Jake was running a bit late so we waited to celebrate until it arrived,

I had no idea what it was . . .

and boy was I surprised and SOOOOO happy with it :)

Mom/Jake pitched in a bought me a pair of PINK shaded Leppard Print Birkies!!!!!

OMG!! Im in LOVE with them... My 3 favorite things all in one!! I love these so much, Mom said she bought them because she knew I loved them but they were something I'd never buy for myself. She was right, when I buy birks I always buy colors I can wear with anything... but as it turns out these shoes actually go with a lot of my tops!! Awesome! I love them :)

I got my Traditional Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Icing with Chocolate Ice Cream :) & Flowers from my sweet Sister :)

So it was a great 33 birthday :)

I also treated myself to a fold away table for my sewing/crafting :)

Mothers Day Stuff . .

I hope everyone had as wonderful of a Mother's Day as I did. We had a great day. My gift for Mother's Day/My Birthday is a sewing Machine, This is MY first new Sewing Machine, I've used my Mom's at her house and I have a very OOOLD singer sewing Machine that belonged to my Grandma Tipton that I've tried sewing on a few times and I can't get the settings to work right. I just asked for the Singer Simple, I'm not a fancy sewer afterall, I'm still learning :)

Jake took me and my Mom out to dinner at El Chico and we had margarita's :) We had a great time. Here is a picture of the goodies I got from Mothers Day, From Ashley and her Daddy and Jake and the girls :) I was spoiled I feel :)



Not too much exciting stuff has been happening really, I feel like I'm running all over the place. It's hard only having one car after being used to having 2. I'm of course grateful to have the one car, If not I don't know what we would do. We turned in the paperwork on the van and we're waiting for the insurace to pay them off before we start looking for a replacement.



Wel, I guess that's about it for now. Until next time!

Time Coming & Going...

It's late, I'm tired, I've had a rough week and so I'm going to start this blog tonight and may finish it tonight or another day. It's a rambling type bloggie I think.

We got a call on wednesday that our Van was a total, The adjuster said the exterior damage and the damage to the transmission alone were enough to total it plus the Motor apparently had other major damage. Have I mentioned how sick I still feel about it? Still. Then we got a call today with the quote for what they are giving us for our van. It's just a little over enough to pay it off we think. I'm grateful if it is enough to pay it off. It will be next week or later before the paper work is all taken care of and debt is taken care of. Then after all of that we'll start down the road to finding another family vehicle. Truly, I'd rather just be driving away in my Green Van :( Going from 2 cars to one has been a hard adjustment... I feel sick.

Onto other news, it's been a rough week, seems like one thing after another. Ashley's Teacher has told me that Ashley is not ready for first grade because she is still struggling with learning to read. Ashley is 6 years old in Kindergarten, Holding her back is going to make her that much older than her classmates for the next 13 years or so. Somehow I feel if I'd known she was THAT far behind where she needed to be we could have helped, but I was unaware, I was not told. So now, we're working with her everyday on sounding out words and sight words. We're looking at Summer school and something called T-1 next year instead of regular first grade.. then the year after that it will be first grade... Ashley will be 7 when she starts the 1st grade and turn 8 1 month after. I feel sick about this too.

Jake and I have been stressed and worried about all of this. It's been hard.. an uneeded stress for sure.

To keep myself busy I've been surfing a lot of crating blogs to see what people are doing these days. I love crafts. I Love handmade gifts and things. It makes me happy when someone takes the time to sit and enjoy making something for me in the fast paced world that we live in now. I think Crafts can bring us closer to the really important things, Like Family, Friends and our Homes. So far in my life the only crafting I've done are some wreaths, I did plastic canvas years ago. Scrapbooking & Knitting is of course something I'm very passionate about and I've been taking these crochet lesson's to learn out to crochet in the last week. Now quilting is something I've always been very interested in but I've never tried it before. But now I have a reason to try my hand at quilting. I have all of the flannel and cotton baby blankets left over from when Ashley was a baby and Abbey so I'd like to take those, and make the girls a quilt a piece :) For mothers day and my birthday I've asked for a sewing machine, nothing to fancy since I'm just a beginner it's a Singer Simple. I'm excited to get it and learn it inside and out. I've helped my Mom a little bit with sewing projects of hers, so I'm not a complete sewing dummy but there is a lot more to learn especially if I'm going to be starting on a quilt :)

In knitting news, I haven't finished a project lately. No surprise since most of the projects I have going are big projects that take longer.

I've been cooking some new things, very few things worth posting to the recipe blog though.

Okay maybe that's it... hrm... boring blogg eh??

Really Bad Week...

It was a wreck and I mean that literally.....

I'm pretty sick about it... It was pretty much my fault.. A nice guy stopped in heavy traffic to let me out of a parking lot onto a busy road.. the cars were bumper to bumper, I couldn't see anything I pulled out and someone coming along in the lane next to him hit me. Jake & Abbey were with me, No one was hurt. The only injuries were a few bruises across my chest from the seatbelt and a sore head the next day...

Nothing for sure yet about if it's repairable or totaled. and so we wait....

Sunday Ardmoreite!

Our knitting group here in Ardmore made it in the paper!! Woohoo!! Front pages of the Lifestyles section and continued story for the second page even!!! I'm so excited I hope this brings for people to join our meetings.. :) BTW I'm the girlie in the light pink top :)

If you'd like to read the article here is the link for it...

http://www.ardmoreite.com/lifestyles/x883027491

Last Friday . .

Last Friday Ashley's school held a Field Day at our Noble Football Stadium for the kids, The entire school was there, All Pre-K and Kindergarten.. A LOT of kids. So I left Abbey with Mom and went with Ashley it was from 9am to 1pm. . . . Here are some pictures from our fun Day!!