Blogger Award....

I recieved this Sylish blogger Award a couple of weeks ago, but am just now getting the time to post about it.  I got the award from what I like to call my "muse"  she is an amaing mom and always, always has a smile on her face.  She was my assistant at Maurcies when we got stuck with the store to ourselves.  She is an amazing person. Get to know her and her blog you will love it.  www.thenormpop.blogspot.com

The Rules:
1. Link Back to the person who awarded you the award
2. List 7 things about yourself
3. Pass along to 7 other stylish bloggers
4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about their awards.

So I can only tell you 7 things about myself so I better be picky about what I say.  Lol!  Somethings you may know already and somethings you may learn about me.

1.  I am a Christian,  Mother, Wife, Step-mom, Daughter, Daughter-In-Law, Sister, Sister-in-Law and a friend.  I like to say that I am a sylish mom but I've kind of lost that syle since my days at Maurcies but the love for everything stylish is still there, my priorities have just shifted a bit.

2.  I have 3 children of my own and 4 step children.  All 7 are fabulous in their own way.  Being a step mom has been one of the most challenging jobs in my life bc I want to be these children's step mom's not their mother's and there is a very fine line that you don't cross as I wouldn't want someone to cross that line with Drew.  It's a challenge everyday but I love each and every child in their own special way.

3.  I want 2011 to be the year I become a more organized person.  You know they say that crafty artsy people aren't neat and I think they are so right and I'm determined to change this about myself this year.  It hasn't came as easliy as I have wished but I'm working on it everyday.  My sink has been clean everyday.  (look at post above)

4. I love to plan parties of any kind.  Be them little teas for Emma or a wedding.  I want to get my hands on the plans and make them come true and make each and every dream a reality.  I love the end result and how fulfilled you feel when people see your work and are just amazed by it.  This is not a job for me but comes very easily, I would love to do this as a living someday.  Jeff has made all of my dreams come true so far so maybe this one will too.  I want to have a boutique where I can sit down with Mom's and Brides, Mothers to be and friends to help organize an plan the perfect party for their speical someone.


5.  Photography is a hobby of mine.  I love to take pictures.  I started out just taking pictures of my own kids and have been asked many times to take pictures of others.  I love taking pictures and editing pictures.  It's another passion of mine. 

6.  Yes I am a Pageant mom!!!  If you had come to me when Emma was a baby or even before and asked me what I thought about pageants I'd tell you they were bad for kids and that you shouldn't put your kids in them, that they were too worldly.  WOW how I have changed.  While I am open to that opinion still I have others that I have developed.  All 3 of my kids have been in pageants and all 3 love them.  That's the key that they love what they are doing and feel good about themselves afterwards.  You want it to be something they get to do not something that you make them do. That's the way I look at it for now.  Emma is on a roll and it has done nothing but boost her confidence.  She has made amazing friends that she will cherish for a lifetime.  Drew and Emma were both scouted my a modeling agency in Kentucky.  Drew had a photo shoot while we were there.  This made Drew's confidence in himself sky rocket.  I am very blessed with my beautiful family and I will never take that for granted but more than that they are beautiful from the inside out and it shines in their daily life.

7.  I love to cook.  For Christmas Jeff bought me all kinds of new kitchen gadgets.  I'm bound and determined to cook more in the next year.  I am a good cook.  It kind of gets old when people say wow I thought Shannon would be the cook in the family. Nope that's me...she has other great qualities that I aspire to have... like how organized she is or how she can make a budget and stick to it.  Yep those are my weeknesses and her strengths.  We are exact opposites and our kids are our exact opposites.  That's right...Isaac has my faults and Drew has Shannon's strengths. 

Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill

Ok so I always go overboard for my kidos birthday.  It's just something I love to do.  I love to plan and have parties of any kind.  This year though Christmas seemed to last so long and time just slipped away from me and it was time to plan the kids parties.  Since the kids were born I wanted to do a "Jack and Jill" themed b'day party since I had two small children.  This was the year.  Emma isn't old enough to say that she wants her own party and next year she will be 5 so we have to have a big blow out for that party. 

I sent out invitations with a vintage picture of Jack and Jill on the front and the nursery rhyme on the inside.  I wanted to change the rhyme up since it so perfectly fit that Emma would come tumbling down breaking her crown, but decided to just leave it alone.  I kept the party very simple this year.  One there wasn't a lot of kids and two I coudn't rack my brain for ideas for the party.  I tried to find scrapbook paper with nursery rhyme theme and that was a no go so the party kind of shifted to bright colors.  I found your typical party hat at The Dollar Tree and worked my magic.  I took it apart making my own pattern to cover the hat with.  I cut out scrapbook paper and covered the hats and added pom poms around the edge and one at the top.  SO CUTE!!!

So after I made the hat I started to get in the groove and started thinking up more ideas.  I was going for a vintage theme the whole time so I bought orange, grape, strawberry crush, and root beer in the glass bottles.  I covered the labels with the same scrapbook paper.  Just to add a splash of color and a more vintage look.

I used brown lunch sacks for the party favors and cut out  a back ground of the same paper and printed out thank you's from the computer and attached them to the bag.  I added tissue paper to add even more color.

Everyone had a place at the table and I had place settings set.  I used extra white sheets to cover my chairs and tied them off with tulle.  I've done this since Emma's 2nd b'day.  It makes for great pictures and gives you a blank canvas to work with.  Each place setting had a plate, fork and spoon wrapped in a napkin with a ring of paper and a pom pom attached to close it.   They had a Jack and Jill coloring page.  The neatest thing of all though was the little pales I found at Dollar Tree.  I wrapped them with the same paper and filled them with crayons.  Here's a picture of the place setting.

I made tissue paper pom poms and a homemade banner to hang from our lighting fixtures.  I couldn't think of any other decorations other than pictures of nursery rhymes so I just left it simple.  Sometimes less is more.

Now besides the kids there's one thing missing....THE CAKE!!!!  I've done the kids cake every year but this year and I thought they deserved the best so my cousin Amanda made their Pale of water.  The pefect center piece for the table.

She did a great job on the cake.

LETS GET THE PARTY STARTED!!!!!

Birthday BOY!!!! 

Birthday Girl!!!

Baby Cousins!!!!

Playing "Ring around the Rosey"

 The party was a hit!  I could have done a lot more games with the kids but it was cold and a lot of the ideas I had involved things that needed to be done outside.  Didn't want any sick kidos.   I hope you have enjoyed this post.  I'm always up for planning a party so if you ever need help just hollar at me.

Angela

A crafty closet for now

I have a basement just waiting on me to create the most amazing crafting area, but right now this "purging the house" comes first.  SO...instead of spending endless days on the basement I decided to spend a day on a craft closet and be done with it for a while and then later on I can adjust it to my Scentsy closet.  So this closet is our coat closet which I had turned into Emma's closet since Emma's closet was a dress up closet.  You got all that???

Let's just say Emma get's her neatness from her Aunt Shannon.  HA!!!

I started the day by completely emptying the closet.  Which leads me to another project for tomorrow...Emma's bedroom.  I gathered ribbons, scrapbook paper, my cricut, and lots of other odds and ends that needed a home away from the corner of the room and made a place for them in this closet.

The boxes at the top are 50 cent boxes from wal-mart that I just added scrapbook paper to the front of.  I have big plans for these in my craft room.  I put ribbons in one.  I collect all kinds of ribbons and bows.  If a blanket comes tied up in a bow you better believe I'm keeping it for some use later on.  The other box is for our bags that we take shopping with us.  THAT'S RIGHT WE ARE DOING OUR PART.  :)  I used sweater dividers for my scrapbook paper and scrap material.  I found and old shoe divider and turned it into a mail slot/magazine container.  Everything else is just your basics.  I can't wait to get my craft room done, but until then it feels good to at least have all of this in order.  Medicine cabinet next...

Thanks for reading!

Angela

Purging...

Ok so this is a lot for me to just come out and show you the pictures of my not so organized life.  This I think we help make me more organized.  I got this idea from a blogger...www.abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com. I'm going to do a different variation but keep the same concept.  Today I had tons of laundry to do so I decided to PURGE my laundry room.

Like I said...tons of laundry

To get the complete idea of purge...I TOOK EVERYTHING but the washer and dryer out of the laundry room.  True it made an even bigger mess but the end result was no less than MR. CLEAN.

After cleaning everything out I dusted and mopped the floor.  I reorganized my canvas bins and added labels so that the hubs would know where everything went.  This really got me in the mood to do laundry and I'm just about done with it all.

Back in busniess.  Next post will be more detailed.  Have a party to plan.  Hope I've inspired someone to do the same.

Angela

Goals for 2011

So I have a few goals and asperations for the new year. Ok so I have A LOT!!! My life right now is chaotic to say the least. I have 3 kids of my own and 4 step kids. I need to get organized for my sake and for the sake of the famiy. So they say if you right it down your ten times more likely to follow thru with it so here it goes. I hope this gives you some ideas too.

*Put your shoes on...which means Angela, get up out of bed and get dressed and ready for the day even if your not going anywhere.

*Count your BLESSSINGS...  start each day with a prayer thanking God for all of our many blessing.  I can't think of a more wonderful way to send my kids off to school.

*  A Day for this a Day for that....  I want to actually have a day set aside to do certain cleaning. errands, and crafts.

*  What's for DINNER...I want to plan at least 5 meals a week to make from scratch.  I want to make grocery list accordingly and make one trip to the grocery store for those ingredients.  Along with this I want to start using coupons and comparison shopping.

*  Shine the sink....keeping a shiney sink means a clean kitchen.  I want to end each night with a shiney sink and a shiney floor.

*  Where does that go?.... have no tolerance for toys left out.  Be it mine or the kids.

To me if I make this a law everyday to live by then our life will be far more organized.  Continue checking in.  I have weekly and monthly goals to set too.

For interesting reading check out http://www.abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com/.  In the weeks to come I plan on purging my house and she has done and hope you will follow.

Thanks for reading!

Angela

Christmas Baking

So all season long I looked forward to baking with my kids during the holidays.  I had plans to make all kinds of candies and bright festive cookies and just amaze people with all kinds of fun stuff.  Reality struck....time slipped away and it was the day before my birthday and we had made a few pretzals and that was it.  Time to get cooking!  I even cheated with the sugar cookies and used a mix, but the kids were none the wiser and Santa loved them.  Here's just a few pics of our not so baking season.  Hopefully this winter will bring lots of cooking.

Baking corner

Baking Station