Monday...

It's Monday ... what more do I have to say? My Monday has already consisted of:


6:30 - Kevin wakes me up ... so early!
7:30 - Remy and Myla arrive and play with Buddy
8:00 - Read Remy's Mickey Mouse book
8:30 - Rest but not nap. According to Remy, his legs and head aren't tired!

Remy playing with our "ipie"

9:00 - Color pictures. Buddy eats a crayon Myla dropped on the floor. I hope he doesn't get sick from that! I think I caught him right away.

9:15 - Call the vet to check on Buddy's blood work. It looks like everything is just fine. He may have picked up a viral infection that caused his vomiting. He has been okay all weekend! Now we need to very slowly add his regular food back into the food we've been giving him.

9:30 - Play with the toys while Buddy sleeps.

9:45 - Watch whatever is on Sprout. They LOVE this channel. 

I still have a long day ahead of me since they will be here until 6 tonight! Uncle Kevin can't wait to get home from work to play with them.

Enjoy your Monday! I am so far! :)

Fun with Pinterest

As I was looking at ideas on Pinterest today, I thought about all the things I have made from Pinterest and I have made quite a bit so I am going to share them with you. Enjoy and get inspired!

 Wrapped presents with pictures on them ... easy for the recipient to find!

http://pinterest.com/pin/223631937716233595/

 Ok, so this wasn't a pinterest idea, but I did post it on pinterest. I made this for the kitchen.

Also, made for the kitchen and I pinned this to pinterest, as well.

 We had a picture of downtown GR that Kevin got in college and we weren't able to sell it, so I made this picture collage with it. It's foam board and I spread out the pictures enough where you can still see a little bit of the city between the pictures. It's a great piece of "art" for our basement.

http://pinterest.com/pin/223631937716219802/

 I bought this container from Target and separated my scrapbook paper by color. Now I can find the color I need in no time!

 I used an old file box I had from high school and used it to organize my stickers for scrapbooking. This also makes it easy to find what I need!

http://pinterest.com/pin/223631937716209598/

 I organized the stickers by theme or occasion. As you can see here, I have files for zoo stickers, school stickers, vacation stickers, etc. I also organized them by holidays.

 This was the very first project I made from pinterest. I LOVE it! My recipes are organized by category and recipes are so easy to find. The page protectors help with food spills. I use this on a daily basis. It is the best recipe organizer I have found thus far.

2 recipes from Pinterest. One of which I will be making tonight for dinner, chicken & lasagna roll-up. These, of course, are in the Main Dishes section of my recipe binder.

 Picture Christmas Cards. We get several of these each year and when I found this idea on Pinterest, I was excited to do this project. I set it out this Christmas season and guests that came over enjoyed looking at all the Picture Christmas Cards from past years. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/223631937716156169/

 This was a fun project to do and we made 2 of these as a Christmas gift for Peter this year. His were two different pictures that he picked out. This is a simple project but does take a little bit of time to do. You just need a block of wood, some pod modge, gel medium (I had to order from Amazon because Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, and Michaels didn't have any), a picture printed on plain white paper (you will have to flip it so it's printed backwards), a washcloth, and water. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/223631937716156207/

We made this for Kevin's mom for Christmas. It's a Family Birthday board. We painted the board and made the stencils ourselves. My dad made the discs for us. It turned out great and Sally really likes it. This was a fun project to work on as well. Some of Kevin's family members have interest in one, too. :)

http://pinterest.com/pin/223631937716169631/

I made this for my grandma for Christmas. It was a very simple project. I ordered the picture from Shutterfly or Snapfish (I can't remember which one, but both are great sites). I bought a canvas from Hobby Lobby and simply mod podged the picture to the canvas and viola! My grandma loved it! 

http://pinterest.com/pin/223631937716239718/

I hope you are inspired to be creative! Let out the inner crafter in you! I am so glad I was introduced to Pinterest! :)

Winter

This has been one weird winter. First, it's 56 degrees in January and doesn't really snow until the middle of January, then we get a thunder and lightening storm, and now it's like 40 some degrees. There hasn't been any school closings around here and I'm not sure if there will be any this year with the way this crazy weather has been. It's been the strangest winter I have ever experienced in my life (that I can remember). 


Kevin has been very busy at work with trying to rewrite The Dunes (the alternative school he works at through West Ottawa Public Schools) handbook. He has had some interesting experiences since he started. This is the first year for The Dunes and Kevin is one of 2 of the teachers who get to experience it. He does really enjoy it, though and says he wouldn't mind doing it again next year (as long as he has a teaching job). He does a lot of work and, I think, is developing a great program for the students. He has had a lot of positive feedback from other teachers and principals about the great work he is doing. My husband is a hard worker and he loves his job! 


I haven't returned to work yet but am hopeful to do so soon. In December, on Christmas Eve, I had another ovarian cyst rupture (I was almost completely recovered from the one that ruptured in October) and I am still recovering from that. I never know what each day will bring as far as feeling well or not. For the most part, I feel good but there can be times where I feel nauseous or dizzy or fainty (yep, not a word, I know) feeling. I get hot really easily (hot flashes, perhaps, but I'm not old enough for that) when I'm with a bunch of people, like at church. All I want is for all of this to go away and for me to be completely better. I really need your prayers for a full recovery soon. Buddy is keeping me pretty busy during the day and I do enjoy being a homemaker right now and taking care of Kevin. I know he appreciates all that I do around the house as far as cleaning and cooking. I do take good care of him and in return he takes great care of me and I am really thankful for all of the hard work he does to provide for our family. :)


Buddy is doing great! He is the cutest puppy ever (of course I would say that since he's mine)! He really is though...haha. He is growing really fast and enjoying his new home. We have had him for about a month now and he is about 15 weeks old. He will get his third round of shots in a couple of weeks and then he'll be good for about a year! We're excited to introduce him to other dogs, like Pippa, Chico and Rocky. He is very playful and he brings a lot of joy to our family. My niece and nephew LOVE him! They even asked to come over today to see him while their dad took care of some business. Buddy loves them,too. 


Buddy had his first grooming experience this past weekend and when we went to pick him up afterward, we were amazed at how well he did (he likes to move around A LOT and has a hard time sitting still, it must be because he's a puppy). :) He was sitting still and letting the groomer trim his face. WOW! He doesn't like us to mess with his face unless he's really tired. We were glad that he did so well. We also caved in and bought him a sweatshirt, something we never thought we'd do. However, it's been so cold and we wanted to take him for a walk. He does like wearing it, surprisingly! It really does keep him warm and I think he has realized that. We love our little Buddy! :) 

 Buddy in his new sweatshirt!

Happy little bugger! 

He did it!

Kevin decided he was going to grow his hair out since I have never seen it long. He only made it a couple of weeks before he decided to cut it. :( I wanted to see it long and spiked up. I do have to admit though that I like it better shaved. It's like getting my man back! 

 This was the longest he could go.

 After he shaved it.

Half of his head shaved. It did grow a lot and it was pretty long. The longest I've ever seen it anyway.

Buddy Update!

Buddy is doing great! We are still house training him and I think it's going to take awhile before he gets completely trained. We put a string of bells on the door and when he needs to go out, he rings the bell with his nose and usually goes to the bathroom right away after we let him out. Sometimes he rings it so he can go out and lick the snow or eat the ice. Who knew something so simple would work? We got the idea from our neighbor who also just got a new puppy. Buddy is the cutest puppy and brings us a lot of joy! He is very good being locked up in his crate all day. We leave music on for him so he is peaceful and calm. He has been such a good boy. He loves to play, bite, eat, and sleep. We can't wait until his baby teeth are gone so he won't bite as hard. It is so funny watching him eat. It's like he's never eaten before. He gobbles it all up really fast and then lets out a loud burp after. I am glad that Kevin agreed to getting a dog. Buddy is great!

 Buddy eating the ice on the deck.

The snow and ice tastes so good! :)

 Buddy sleeping on the floor. So cute!

 Remy and Myla wore Buddy out and he escaped to his crate (his home) to sleep after they left. Look at his little button nose! Precious!

Buddy has the cutest floppiest ears! He is so adorable when he is sleeping! We leave the crate door open in the evening so he can freely go in and out whenever he pleases. He usually goes in right before we go to bed. He must know our bedtime. :)

Buddy the Dog

How was your Christmas? Ours was pretty good! The best part of it was getting a puppy! We named him Buddy. I was very surprised Kevin agreed to getting a dog since he was very adamant about not getting one but Kevin loves Buddy! Buddy is very playful and is full of energy. He also likes to sleep a lot! We are currently crate training and potty training him. He is doing pretty good. Hopefully, he will be trained quickly. Our families love Buddy and he is excited to be a part of our family! :)

Christmas Break

It is almost Christmas Break! I started mine by watching my niece and nephew. Kevin will be home soon to start his. He is so excited to have 2 full weeks off. We have a lot of fun stuff coming up and we can't wait to spend time with our families. Only 9 more days until Christmas!

Pinterest

In case you haven't discovered Pinterest, it is a great site for pretty much everything from (cost-friendly)DIY Crafts to Fashion to Recipes. I have been getting sucked in. I swear every time I get on it, it takes me FOREVER to get off! I guess you could say, I am addicted! Oh, well. At least it is allowing my creative side to come out. I have taken several ideas from Pinterest and created Christmas gifts. I will share those crafts after Christmas ... for obvious reasons of course. Today, I found several more DIY Crafts that I want to try. Here is one of them (I need to raid Kevin's t-shirt drawers first).

Here's the link for this craft.

I went to Hobby Lobby this morning to get a couple of t-shirts to try the following project but I just couldn't justify paying the price (okay, so the t-shirts only cost $3.99 each) for a project that I don't know will turn out right or not. I think I will have to try it on some of my old t-shirts before I spend the money on a new t-shirt that I will just cut up.

Here is the link for this project.

Basically, I want to try and make EVERYTHING on Pinterest! I know that will never happen. I have, however, found myself to be much more creative and crafty since discovering Pinterest and I am happy that I found it. If you haven't joined, you really should. Let me know and I will send you an invite.

Happy Crafting!