Balloons Make Everything Better

Balloons make everything more happy right?  After a hard time falling asleep because of a bad case of 1st day jitters, she woke up to a room filled with them.  It was a great way to start the morning.  As I drove to the grocery store to pick them up early this morning, I started tearing up, so nervous for her.  But I stopped myself, took a big breath and just said "have faith."  And so I did.  And it couldn't have been better.

 It also helped that momma finally learned to french braid, right in time for the first day. 

 When we got home she we had fun playing with her bouquet of balloons and we snapped some silly shots

It was a really great first day.  She seemed so happy, almost giddy the rest of the day.  She said her teacher is really, really nice and recited the Golden Rules they learned in the classroom today.  One of her best friends from last year is in her class and I know that helped so much.  I couldn't be happier.  Today she loves school.  She loves her friends, she loves her family and she loves God.  Really, what more could a momma pray for?

Thank you so very much for your kind words on yesterday's post.  I appreciate all the love and support for me and my girl.  And thanks for inquiring about her first day!  You guys are amazing.

Wishing you all a happy rest of the week.

Images From a Friday Night

I have a confession to make.  I sort of wish I could take back the words I wrote in Friday's post, the part about looking forward to the start of school again.  Because it's here, tomorrow, and last night tears were falling in my piles of unfolded towels and picnic blankets.  TRUE. STORY.

Relationships between mothers and daughters take a bit more work I'm convinced, especially if the two are as alike as myself and Taylor.  I just started realizing it.  So often, and I don't think I'm alone, but I fall into this thinking that these kids of ours should just do what we ask them to do, no questions asked because "I said so."  And while of course there has to be respect of parents, of rules, of requests, but does it always have to be doled out with an authoritarian discipline style.  Do what I say or else?  In this moment, today, I know that's not the case and I hope I can remember it often.

Let me back up a bit.  My sweet Taylor has been a finger sucker since she was eleven weeks old.  I remember the day well, actually the night well.  I snuck into her room at night to give her a "dream feed" hoping to top her off for a bit and get a good stretch of sleep myself.  I found her gloriously sucking on two of her fingers, happy and content as can be.  I literally ran out of the room jumping up and down saying to Art "she's found her fingers, she's found her fingers!"

 Taylor was never a pacifier baby, hated them from the start, and if you're a new mother you soon find out that one of the quickest ways to soothe a fussy baby or get them to sleep and stay asleep is to cue that inherent sucking reflex.  My girl had found a way to self-soothe and suddenly I knew things were gonna turn around in our house, and they did.  Whenever Taylor started to get the least bit fussy (granted she wasn't hungry) she'd just pop those fingers in her mouth and settle herself down.  And I never had to do the dreaded waking up in the middle of the night thing to go in and stick the paci back in her mouth because she had lost it and couldn't find it.  She always knew where her fingers were.

Fast forward 6 years and my sweet girl was still sucking her fingers at a now alarming rate.  She held it in all day at school, but by the time she got home from school she was jonesing so bad for her fingers that it was all I could do to force them out of her mouth to eat dinner.  It was starting to affect her bite structure and it was just really annoying for me to see my 6 year old sucking her fingers all the time, and of course she still sucked them at night to go to bed.  It was a problem, and I especially knew that it had to stop now before it became even more engrained.  I, my friends, sucked my thumb until I was almost 13 years old, not by choice but out of sheer habit.  I begged my mom as I got older to help me stop, it was awful.  I could see that Taylor was on the same path and we wanted to help her stop now before it got further along.

So for the last 4 weeks we've been using this special nail polish that basically makes her fingers taste so awful she doesn't want to put them in her mouth.  I can best describe it as very, very strong and bitter tasting ear wax.  Disgusting, I know.  She wants to stop and is ready to stop, but it's been a tough 4 weeks.  She hasn't been sleeping well because some nights out of habit she'll stick her fingers in her mouth and then wake up and have to wash her mouth out, or it will take her an hour to fall asleep as opposed to 3 seconds flat.  She's tired and she's cranky and oh man has she been defiant, which is what led me to that whole "I can't wait for school to start again" statement.

Later that day after I wrote that post, I started thinking about Taylor's situation as I watched her play in the sand.  Here she is, giving up a habit cold-turkey, that she's done hundreds of times a day for 6 years now.  It's been her first source of comfort when she is tired, sick, sad, grumpy.  And I'm expecting her to just give it up without a hitch.  Meanwhile I see and hear grown women bitch and complain about having to give up one can of Diet Coke a day.  I myself bitched and moaned about giving up one cup of coffee a day.  I think I was expecting a little too much out of my 6 year old little girl, sadly I usually do.  The defiance, the nasty attitude she'd displayed pretty much most of summer all came back to slap me in the face.

So Friday night after we were all cozy from a warm shower, I sat down and talked with her about this experience.  It took some prodding but eventually she told me she just feels so tired all the time.  And she feels jealous because we aren't making Syd stop sucking his thumb yet (yes, we've been blessed with 2 anti-paci finger sucking children).  I told her that when I was pregnant with her, I was jealous of her daddy because he didn't have to deal with morning sickness or swollen feet and she thought that was pretty funny.  She told me that she couldn't be around her special blankie anymore either because it just made her want to suck her fingers even more.  I listened and encouraged her to open up.  She talked to me for an hour.  For weeks I had been asking myself "what happened to my little girl?"  She was there still, I just had to dig her out a little.

Funny thing is, since that talk of ours on Friday night, she's been a joy to be around and we've had a great few days together.  I've learned that it's not just up to Taylor to define our relationship, but it's something I have to develop and mold with patience, gentleness, kindness, not just a demand that she act obedient and respectful because I said so.

Today's our last day together before she officially becomes a first grader.  A friend of ours is taking Syd for a few hours and I plan to take Taylor out to lunch and to get ice cream.  She's also requested polka dots be painted on her nails for the first day of school.  I think we can manage that... 

Unstyled Life

This is what my summer has looked like; family size lunch bags always out, ready to be packed and unpacked.  Beach bag, keys and sunglasses ready to go at a moment's notice, dirty picnic blankets and wet towels waiting to be washed.  It's lovely, and happy and good and they're the markings of memories being made.  There are hours spent at the beach and in the pool wrapped up in these items.  But let's be honest for a sec too; for a mom it's a bit tiring and a lot of work.  I think it will always boggle my mind just how long it takes to pack a lunch for a small little family, or to clean out a car after a trip to the beach.  At the end of the day after my heart is filled with love over watching two kids have the time of their lives, there's always this.  It makes me smile and it makes me sigh at the same time.  How is that possible?  

It's the last week before Taylor starts back to school.  She goes to an "off track" school, only receiving 6 weeks off at summer, but 4 weeks off at Christmas break and 3 weeks off at Spring Break.  I wasn't sure we were going to like this schedule, but we're turning out to like it just fine.  It's been a good summer, a great summer really.  We've made it to beach every single week, swam almost every day and spent long days at home just the 3 or 4 of us.  But you know that line in It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas where they sing "And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again"?  Well, yes, I get that now. 

For the first time I'm participating in Unstyled Life; a series that Jules writes every week.  It's supposed to help you look at the positives in your home surrounding you everyday.  Only me would manage to turn something positive into something negative.  Teacher, I think I missed the point of the lesson.  See guys, I told you I can be negative.  Help!  And of course Jules' post last week talks about slowing summer down, forcing it to stop.  I swear I love my kids :)  Maybe I'll redeem myself with my Thoughts of the Week post tomorrow.

Make Your Own Arm Party - DIY Time!

It was fun putting together all the arm party looks I've sported in yesterday's post, and I'm now even more excited to send out my friendship bracelets to my swap partners.  I hope it inspired you to get creative with your arm gear and have a party of your own.  If so, I've created 3 new friendship bracelet/arm party tutorials to share with you all.  The best thing about these bracelets is that they're easy, cheap and fast to make.  Feels so good to have some creative juices flowing again, but I've gotta tell you my fingers are sore!  I think I'll be putting the bracelet making supplies away for a little bit and give my fingers a rest.  In the meantime, here's some ideas to help you get your party started.

For this one all you'll need is your leftover chain link & cording from this tutorial.  Cut 2 pieces of cording (per bracelet) about 12" in length so that you have plenty of room to work with.  FYI, total cost breakdown for this project was less than $6 and so far I've made 6 bracelets with my supplies!  Total time spent on each bracelet is less than 5 minutes.

 

This bracelet is my personal favorite because I was finally able to find a way to use these geometric square beads I picked up a while ago.  This bracelet is just as simple as the first one, requiring you to just do some knotting.  You'll need about 22" of cording and some cool beads, but make sure the bead opening is large enough to fit the cording through.  I gave mine a cleaner look by attaching a lobster claw & jump ring closure to the end, but this is purely optional.  You can just use the same loop and knot technique as seen in tutorial #1 above.  Total time spent on each bracelet was about 15 minutes and total cost was less than $3 each.

 

Using the same wrapping technique from this tutorial, I added these round beads to some leather cording for more of a clean look.  You'll just need some beads, embroidery floss and leather cording.  Of course you can just as well use the cording from the previous tutorials, but I love the color and texture of the leather against the smooth & shiny beads.  I cut my cording & embroidery floss 24" long.  Total time spent on this bracelet was about 20 minutes (it takes a little longer to carefully wrap the string of beads) and total cost was less than $3 each.

So which one is your favorite and are you most likely to try?  I made a total of 8 bracelets in less than 2 hours, and that's with me taking photos along the way, so you can easily have a few of these done in a weekend afternoon.  I hope you enjoyed these DIY's and please let me know if you try any!  

Linking up to Today's Creative Blog Get Your Craft On Tuesday

Arm Party - The Best Of

What a difference an adjustment in attitude makes!  After a few weeks of being unmotivated and uninspired, it seems yesterday's post helped me spin my attitude around a bit.  I've had bracelets on my mind, with Jen's Friendship Bracelet Swap & the Bloggers Do It Better Arm Party challenge coming up, but I've been paralyzed in being able to create anything.  Well it seems last night creativity sparked and while sitting down to watch a little RHONY Reunion part deux, I came up with about 5 new bracelet ideas; pictures and tutorials coming up tomorrow! *UPDATED TO ADD TUTORIAL LINK HERE!!

I also started looking through my pictures and found plenty of arm party inspiration shots that I've already worn in the past few months.  So instead of creating a whole new look for the BDIB challenge, I decided to just gather up the best of the best for a little look at all the ways I've been having an arm party lately.  What is an arm party you ask?  Really it's just the idea of throwing on a stack of bracelets, sometimes worn with your watch to create a multilayer, textured way of accessorizing.  So here we go...

I wore this look with a very lady-like jacket seen here so I didn't want to get too crazy with the arm party.  I'm wearing bracelets from Forever 21 and a Michelle watch.

Pretty much the same look as above, but I added the sequin leather wrap cuff to glitz up the camo.  All bracelets from Forever 21 and watch by Michelle.

Ahh, my first bracelet tutorial pieces that I love so much!  Just a simple stack of satin and sequins wrapped bangles add instant glam to any look, and is a fun juxtaposition to the masculine camo.

Another fun tutorial, this friendship bracelet was inspired by the ones I have from Forever 21.  Surprisingly, I got almost as many comments on my nail polish as I did on my tutorial (polish is Mermaid's Tears btw from OPI :)

I love this stack for the EBEW lace challenge look last month.  Bracelets are a mix of Stella & Dot, DIY by me, Forever 21 and J. Crew.  Watch is by Michael Kors

Simple look for a very preppy and casual outfit.  Sometimes you have to know when to hold back a little on the arm party, and this look was definitely one to go easy on.  

Again, I wanted to keep the arm party simple here to highlight the fun brightly colored shorts, so I just added my leather wrap cuff from J. Crew and my gold Stella & Dot chain link bracelet.  The gold Michael Kors watch is chunky and heavy, so you have to keep functionality in mind when getting ready for your arm party.

The best thing to do when assembling your arm party is to just have fun.  If you're feeling adventurous and your day allows your arm to be a little more weighted down, add a few more bracelets.  But if you start to feel ridiculous and are afraid you'll never be able to get through the day taking care of kids and/or work, minimize the look.  It's all about making it your own.

So with that, I'm off to take some shots of the bracelets I have in store for you tomorrow.  They are all cheap to make, and can be made in a matter of MINUTES!  I'm so excited!!  Have a great day everyone.  BTW, I'm also linking up to Lindsey's WIWW!

P.S. If my over use of !!! and positive attitude starts to annoy you, go ahead and tell me.  I'm a big girl, I can take it ;)

Postive Me

My Meals On Wheels partner is 82 years old.  Age has slowed her down a bit, but she remains mobile and gentle in spirit, passing out hugs freely whether requested or not.  Two days a week she delivers meals to people as much as 20 years younger than herself.  Each time she gets back in the car after dropping off a meal she updates me on each client and let's me know how they're doing.  Today Roxy was showing a lot of signs of dementia, acting confused and disoriented.  Manuel could barely make it to the door to get his meal.

I usually have the kids with me while delivering, but the last 3 weeks for one reason or another, I've been by myself while they're off at a playdate, VBS or Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Anyhow, it's given Carmen and I a chance to talk more without the constant interruptions of the kids asking for another snack or to use my phone to play Angry Birds.  Each week we open up a little bit more to each other.  Today out of the blue I asked her "Carmen, why do you think you've been able to stay so healthy at your age?"

Without a single hesitation she answered me with this: "A positive attitude."  Not regular exercise, not healthy eating or a glass of red wine every night or even a healthy sex life, although I'm sure that helps ;)  It was simply a positive attitude.

"Crap, if that's the case then I'll be dead by 60" is what I immediately thought.  You see, I'm not the most positive person.  I am a glass half empty, cynical type of girl and it sucks, plain and simple.  I internalize a lot of my negativity because I know it's not healthy, and who wants to be around a doomsday type of gal all the time?  But some days, thank goodness not everyday, the negative thoughts and feelings can really weigh me down.

I now can see clear as day when I am putting a negative spin on things but somehow after so many years it's so hard wired into me that it's hard to stop, even when I recognize it.  I used to say I worried and fretted about things as a way to control situations and get a positive outcome, but I know now that it's a bunch of BS and a very screwy way to achieve a good end result.  My mother and father are the same way and I'm not sure if all this negativity is just a result of crappy DNA or dysfunctional childhoods.  Either way, I know it's got to stop or I will send myself to an early grave, I have no doubt. 

So right now, I pledge for myself, my family and my God that I will start to think more positively, by looking at a few situations that have been going on lately that have been getting me down.

-Soccer season commencing - Negative attitude me is dreading twice a week practices and having our Saturdays occupied with games.  Positive attitude me looks at this as a great opportunity for the kids to learn team unity, a new sport and to stay active.  Plus, we're giving them opportunities we never had when we were young.

-Lack of time lately due to summer vacation to work on my own interests and projects: Negative attitude me feels resentful of my lack of free time.  Positive attitude me feels happy that I have this time to reconnect and bond with my kids now that they are home.  But next summer, I will think about enrolling them in a couple of more camps ;)

Okay, so there we have it.  Right now this all feels very much just like talk, but hopefully if I practice spinning negative thoughts into positive thoughts, it will eventually come more natural to me.  So are you a glass is half empty or half full type of person?  Luckily I'm married to a glass is half full man, so he often helps to turn my thoughts around and shows me the positive in things.  I'd like to eventually be able to do that on my own though...wish me luck!

DIY At Home Photo Shoot Set Up

Summer has officially taken my motivation, or maybe it went with the coffee addiction?  Never before have I accomplished so little in such a long amount of time.  All weekend I seemed to find other things to do beside stay inside and craft.  Finally, in the last few hours of Sunday afternoon I decided to sit down and try my hand at a few new bracelets, but I didn't even finish one.  I think the swim I took with my family was a better accomplishment in the end though.  I did manage to set up a nifty little indoor photo shoot area though using nothing but some tape and a roll of poster paper. 

I've always loved the look of a clean white background used in product and close up tutorial shots.  I started looking into at home tabletop light boxes but dang, they're not cheap.  I found one online for $199 but it had sketchy reviews.  There are plenty of DIY light box tutorials out there but most of them are way over-complicated.  This tutorial that Melissa sent me from Nicole over at Making It Lovely is about the easiest and best one I've seen. 

In true Tim Gunn "make it work" fashion, I gathered what I already had at home and came up with this little set up.  Since I didn't have poster board, I went ahead and used the roll of poster paper.  We have very limited wall space in our house that has good natural light, which is why I had to use the kid's table and chair.  I set the area up next to our sliding glass door, the best source of natural light in the house.  I then just rolled out the paper making sure to leave a curved section in the back, which is what helps to give the product photos that never ending infinity background that I love so much, and then just taped the paper to the wall.  And voila, an easy at home photo shoot area to help with product shots.

Obviously this set up works best in daylight, but I might go out and buy just a couple of those cheap table top lamps to help take product shots at night.  We'll see, if my ambition, or lack there of, continues I doubt it :)

Here are a few shots using the white background versus my usual background.  With my usual workspace, I have a large bay window behind me so I have several factors to contend with while shooting; background color, surface color and harsh lighting from the background window.  It can be distracting when you're just trying to focus on the one item or the tutorial instructions.  But with the white background all you focus on is the piece you're shooting.

 The only problem with this super ultra-white background is that the photos sometimes tend to look a little cold and I usually like a warm looking photo.  Nothing a little soft light layer in Photoshop can't help with though.  Here are a couple of before and afters:

I like the set up overall and I think I'll keep using it.  But what do you think, are plain white backgrounds super boring, are do you like them?  Would you rather focus on the singular item being shot, or is it fun to see a background and get a sense of other surroundings?