A birthday give-a-way!

Today is my birthday, and, in honor of my birthday, I'm doing a give-a-way!  I embroidered this happy little sun and text and framed it - and it's yours if you're the lucky one! I made one for myself and I made an identical one for you.

My frame is on the wall right beside the chalkboard in our kitchen/eat-in area.

I see it as I leave out the door each morning.

The biggest and bestest gift I can give myself is the advice to sloooow down and take the time to appreciate the moment. That's what the saying, "Now is the time to be happy" means to me. Be happy right now. Don't be stuck waiting for something else to happen. Appreciate the here and now because it's pretty special.

Here's how to enter the give-a-way:

1.) Leave a comment {make sure I have your email address}

2.) For an extra entry, tweet about my give-a-way with a link to this post.

3.) For another extra entry, put a link to this post on your Facebook page.

{if you do the extra entries, please let me know in the comments so that I can count them!}

The give-a-way closes at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 2 

 

Some more shots of the piece:

I embroidered the sun and text onto linen fabric using yellow and black thread, stuck it to a backing board, put a mat on it and framed it. The sun and text is my own design. The frame measures 8x10 and is wood.

Good luck, and, take the time today to sit back and enjoy yourself.

Arlene wrote a story

We think she's quite gifted with her story telling!

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - home on wheels

It's warm out. It's spring. The flowers are blooming. 

It's time to enjoy the great outdoors in our tenement on wheels.

Camper sign

Koozies

Camping hankie 

Camper charm

Camper card game

Happy/Sad

Lydia made a hand puppet at school. One side is happy. One side is sad. 

She told me that she's going to keep it by her bed so that when she wakes up, she can put it on her hand to show me if she's happy or sad that day.

But, she said, "I'm probably always going to choose the happy side."

I hope so, my dear, and I will try to do the same.

Lego Fest!

We went to Lego Kids Fest this weekend and it was a blast! The girls had so much fun! We had a bunch of fun too!  We're excited the girls are into Legos because it means we get to play with them too!  Lots of exclamation points! !!  I didn't take my regular camera because I wanted to concentrate on having fun, instead of being behind the lens, but I did capture some cute shots with my phone! 

Chewy! The big Lego statues were pretty awesome.

My favorite - Harry Potter!

The girls love the new girly Lego sets.

There were group build spots throughout the show. The girls were busy creating little scenes.

My bearded man and a bricked bearded man.

We brought Legos home with us! 

My goodness Pinterest! You love my skirts!

I kept getting random anonymous comments on my old posts about my handmade skirts awhile back ... {I made 10 handmade skirts last year and took photos of myself wearing all of them - post here} ... so I checked my blog post stats and I was SHOCKED at how many people had come to my blog! A total of 7,783 people in a particular day. What?! Then I discovered that my skirt post was pinned and repinned a ton of times via Pinterest! Oh my! Holy crap! A whole heck of a lot of people have seen me in my skirts! Yowzers.

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - birthday

My birthday is coming up so this week's Etsy Favorites Wednesday list is filled with things that I'd like for my birthday. You know, in case any of you need any gift-giving encouragement, teehee.

Pyrex Friendship Bowl - I have a small collection of these bowls. Want to add one more!

I got 99 problems but a stitch ain't one - makes me snicker.

Ice cream pendant - I admire this seller's work and find this ice cream pendant to be incredibly cute!

Flower brooch - I had this in a previous ETW list. Still loving it.

Jack!

I don't have a teething baby but I feel as though I need this simply because it is completely cool to just display!

Heart earrings

I think these are fantastic and would match just about anything.

Losing it

It's time. I'm going to do it. I'm going to go on a diet and be more active. I'm going to lose the extra weight I've been carrying around for years. Yesterday was the first day. 

I'm counting calories by using the Lose It app on my Iphone. I am walking around our neighborhood very briskly in the evenings. I plan to become more active once I get my energy level up. My goal? To lose 75 pounds. I hope to achieve it by the end of this calendar year. I'm giving myself nine months. I realize I may not achieve my goal and that it's a bit lofty, but I wanted to set a high goal so that I made myself work really really hard at it. My husband is joining me in this endeavor, which helps because we can be accountable to each other for eating right and staying within our allotted calories. 

I set my goal weight of losing 75 pounds because if I do lose that much, I'll weigh the same as I did before I got pregnant with my girls eight years ago. Look how thin I was!

This photo was taken exactly seven years ago. The girls were six months old.

I think I look rather hot in this photo. That's how I want to look again. And isn't my mom a cutie? She probably won't like that I'm posting this photo, but I think we all look darling. I'm holding Lydia - she's holding Arlene. Wee little baaaaaabies. This photo was taken two months after the previous photo. 

And this is me now:

What can I say - fat and happy?  Yup, I'm pretty much fat and happy. But, I want to be thin and happy. It's time to work on it! I'm excited that my husband and I are doing this together. I know we can do it because when we set our minds to something we get it done. It's time to work on this right now, to work on ourselves. These past years we've been so focused on selling our old house and on moving and on our jobs and the kids. It's time to focus on us. Our jobs are going excellent, we are living in our dream home, and of course we'll still focus on the girls. Because this is for them too. We are striving to be healthy and to have more energy to keep up with them!

Wish me luck! This here blog is also a big accountability step for me. I wasn't sure about posting this weight loss/diet plan of mine and making it so public, but I decided it would help me really to do it. I'll do periodic updates as I lose the weight and hopefully nine months from now I'll be able to post a picture of myself many, many  pounds lighter! 

{And yes, I do realize this post is totally contradictory to the ice cream post from yesterday! We are going to enjoy ice cream in moderation. I'm not giving it up completely, heck no! I can't do that. But moderation is key. Moderation.}

We all scream for ice cream

Ice cream is a big time favorite in the P household. BIG TIME. We love ice cream. All flavors. All kinds. When we moved into our new town last fall we were delighted to find out that there are four ice cream shops nearby - three mom and pop shops and a Dairy Queen. We were quite deflated when we found out that the Dairy Queen is seasonal. It closed in October, but thankfully, it's back open now!  We have frequented two of the four ice cream shops in the past week. It's ice cream season for sure.

We were all just minding our own business on a quiet Sunday afternoon, with the windows wide open because it was a beautiful day. What's that?  What's that noise?  What's that beautiful music we hear?! It's an ICE CREAM TRUCK in our neighborhood!! We were jumping up and down for joy. We frantically rounded up all the change we could find and sent the girls out to get their goodies. 

We've never had treats from an ice cream truck because we lived on a super busy street before. Our new neighborhood is a cul-de-sac street! Perfect for ice cream trucks!  In fact the ice cream truck man told us he'd come back frequently this summer!  HOOORAY!  Honestly I think my husband and I were just as excited (and maybe a little more) than the girls were! 

They are patiently waiting across the street for the ice cream truck to turn around at the end of the street and come back.

Glorious glorious ICE CREAM!

We've been having some wonderful weather around here. I hope it stays! We bought the girls new shorts and new flippy floppies this weekend because they've both shot up like weeds since last summer and outgrew their old summer clothes. Probably from eating lots of ice cream!! 

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Easter egg cup holders!

I was chosen to participate in the Scribble Shop Craft Challenge. The premise: I got a free box of craft supplies and I had to make something out of those supplies. 

Here's what I got: 

The stash included:

Stencils

Glitter dot stickers

Colored pencils

Glass Marbles

Modge Podge

Raffia

Stamping ink 

Paisley shaped stickers

Wood craft sticks

and

Ferreror Rocher chocolates!

I made egg cup holders! 

Instructions for making your own egg holders:

Materials used:

(almost of these materials can be purchased at Scribble Shop!)

Wood craft sticks

Raffia

Plastic eggs - I got mine at Wal-Mart for $1 a bag

Glass marbles

Acrylic Craft paint (I used green, teal and pink)

Glue gun and glue sticks

Candy to put inside the eggs - add your favorite!

Directions:

Soak the wood craft sticks overnight in a large bowl filled with water. Make sure to soak more sticks than you will actually need to make the egg holders because some of them might break when you're trying to bend them. {You need three sticks for each egg holder.}

Bend the sticks slowly into a mug or glass. Work slowly so they don't break. The wood should be pretty pliable but some will splinter and break; just discard them. The wood needs to completely dry, so let it sit overnight inside the mugs.

This is what they will look like when they come out of the mugs.

Paint each stick. Let dry completely; about one hour.

Now you will begin constructing the holder. Put a glob of hot glue in the center of one of the sticks.

Place another stick on top to make an X.

Place another glob of hot glue in the center of that stick.

Place the third stick on top of that, and press to hold until the glue cools.

The glass marbles act like feet for the egg holder. 

Arrange three marbles together as shown in the photo above.

Put a glob of glue onto the bottom of the egg holder.

Set the holder on top of the glass beads and straighten it out onto the marbles so that it stands up without tipping over. Let the glue cool.

This is what the bottom will look like once the marbles are glued on.

Add a few more marbles to the middle of the egg holder with hot glue. They will help to weigh down the holder so it won't by tippy.

Scrunch up a ball of raffia. I rolled the raffia in my hands for a few minutes to get it into a ball shape. Place the raffia inside the egg holder. You can use a few dabs of glue on the inside of the wooden sticks to keep the raffia into place if you'd like.

The deliciousFerreror Rocher chocolates went inside the plastic eggs!

Aren't they cute?!  My egg holders are going to adorn our Easter dinner table. 

I would like to thank Scribble Shop for hosting this challenge and providing me with the craft supplies and additional compensation for this project. The egg holders are my own creation. 

You can follow Scribble Shop on Twitter, on Facebook and on Google +.

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