Leather

My dad found this old leathering set while sorting through the garage one day.
It was my great grandmothers.
It's quite spectacular.


It even had paper notes written by her,
which I thought was special, considering we have never met...
it was almost as if we were. 


*****
So yesterday I attempted to leather.
I tried a few jewelry pieces that I thought I could attach to a necklace or earrings.


But there is so much I don't know or remember.
And man it's a super loud craft,
which means my normal craft hour when the little ones are asleep
just won't do.


But I really did love it.
It reminded me of being in summer camp.
Leathering was always one of my favorite crafts,
besides stained glass window making.


Happy Tuesday!

Sometimes I sit and try to remember what it was like to not have these characters in my life:

• Did I really enjoy a good drive through dairy as much as I do now? (I'll drive to another city just for one!)
• Did I really need coffee the way I do now?
• Did I wash, and save every single plastic cup that held my applesauce & pudding? (just in case I needed a quick snack cup for later?)
• Did I enjoy a bath in a quiet bathroom without a baby on my belly & a boy using the toilet with only a shower curtain  separating us?
• Did I love sleeping in until noon!?!

Thinking of what I was like without them seems almost foreign or alien. Like remembering is like trying to remember the face of a stranger. 
It's amazing how quickly we adapt to the circumstances & situations in our lives.


I'll tell you one thing I never thought I could survive going to the grocery store with 3 boys, let alone one with a broken leg?

Eight is pretty great

Time has really flown by with this boy of ours.
It literally feels like yesterday that we had him.


But now all traces of our squishy newborn baby are gone.
Which makes me really sad when I think about it,
he is our last, ya know.


We now have in our presence a crawler,
who will bite your toes if your not looking.


His favorite word is "DADA."
Go figure.
Forget mom who spends every waking moment with this boy!
Dad gets the first rights!


I'm okay with it though,
it makes his daddy really happy.




I'm just hoping that the last 4 months go by really slowly.

Brandon is really coming into his own.


He's 8, and sometimes that could easily get confused with 13,
but he's so much fun when we get to spend quiet moments together without the little ones.


Lately his passion is all things military.


My dad gifted him a wood toy gun from when he was a boy.
And he has slept with it every night since then.


He often tells me his dreams of being a pilot,
and that he'll be perfectly safe because his best friend will be right behind him.


I told him that more than likely his granny & mom will be flying close behind him too.
He laughed and told me: mom's aren't allowed in the marines.

(they made their own shirts, Brandon's however was a few sizes too small.cuteness! haha!)


Avatar is huge at our house.
Like top 2 cartoons of all time-huge (for me too, it's my favorite).


So when the movie came out, we couldn't wait.
And so we took a trip to the drive in.


But our usual Drive-in wasn't playing it, 
so we had to go to another town.


A not-so-good town.
A scary town.
A town I never want to go to again.
Or take my excited, happy, children to again.
Or my husband who gets really angry with disrespectful people 
AND all of sudden wants to turn into a vigilante! 
Ever see Falling Down?
That's my husband.


So if you take out the knuckle heads who tried hard to put a damper on our parade, the movie was good.


Except for a few things that they changed, 
like the names?
And they made chubby characters skinny?
So PC.


But it's "to be continued..."
, so there is still hope for the next chapters.




Happy Tuesday!

Lake Arrowhead (PHOTO OVERLOAD)

Saturday we spent the day in Lake Arrowhead.
It was so beautiful.
Brandon swam in the lake all day.
Ayden tried too. (his hands did most the swimming)
And I stayed on the shore where the ground doesn't rock & roll. 
Motion sickness really stinks.

Here is Ayden's current mode of transportation.
Thank goodness he has a big strong daddy!

I love that they have each other to share these moments with.
Even though sometimes Ayden wants his privacy :) 

Yesterday was rough.

It's almost funny now to be honest.

I only cried a lil' then I realized that I'm not going to let these things darken our family.

We can rise above this! 

A friend gave me some advice over the weekend:

that I need to start viewing myself as a strong woman.

Her advice really was what I needed to hear. 

A good kick in the fanny! Thanks friend! 

And so I got to work on our garden,

take a look at our zucchini!

They are humongous!!

We are going to have zucchini every night I think. 

Happy thoughts for me, scary for the boys. 

They aren't big fans of zucchini or any veggie for that matter.

But I'm no longer making meals that are unhealthy for them just because I do want a fight the dinner battle.

(Or threats of throw up...haha)

They need to eat GOOD food. 

Food that is from the ground, not processed in a lab somewhere.

I have a new food motto: if it didn't come from the ground or from a mother, then we aren't gonna eat it. 

After gardening, I made a blueberry/blackberry coffee cake.

It was really as good as it looks!

I also kept meaning to share my old journal with you that my dad brought out a few weeks ago.

It was so fun to go back & read all my old thoughts.

Like one of my favorite songs was from "Huey Lewis & the news (well I wrote blues)." haha! 

I'm a total child of the 80's!

I showed Brandon & he wants to start journaling before bed too.
I've read a few of his posts so far.
And they are awesome.
I can't wait until he's pushing 30 and I can pull them out for him to read.