I LOVE this series from Showtime...
Run don't walk to Netflix, Blockbuster, Hollywood or where ever you rent movies lol and get this series! It's a must see! Once you watch the first EP you are hooked! Trust me! I just started watching the second season on showtime and it is just as good as the first!
Well today is my birthday, I am 29. Nothing special going on just a normal day with a HUGE TODO list of cleaning and what not. On this day last year is when we announced to everyone we were expecting child #3. So here's to Adriana...
This pictures was Dustin's idea lol, he put my sprite can in her bed at the hospital the day we were bringing her home to prove how tiny she was, her head was half a regular 12oz sprite can size. She had her 4.5 month check up yesterday. She is doing great. She is now at 11+ lbs on her way to 12. The Doctor said she will probably always be petite and tiny. She can now also start on cereal.Okay well I have a long list of things to do. TTYLNikki
AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Ever just feel like screaming? Sadly I could only do it here, if I try doing it out loud here I may scare one of my children, so here I will do it! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!Do I feel better? nope! To say I have had a sucky last two days is an understatement, it's been horrible! It all started yesterday when my DH told me something that I am not sure he was suppose to, it was a rather harsh comment made by someone close to us about my parenting skills or lack there of (believe me I have gotten plenty of these through the years from a couple different people). Apprently after cleaning house all day I am not suppose to relax and take a break and read a book for 10 minutes in my room while keeping an eye on the baby who I am also trying to get to sleep (multi-tasking) when my older children are in the house, in the living room watching tv and coloring in their coloring books, because they may get the urge to sharpen those very crayons on our carpet for the 100th time that month instead of in the trash can and said person gets to witness it , did'nt you know?... a good parent is glued to their child 24 hours a day, I wonder if I would have been a bad parent if I was not reading and in fact was maybe going potty(yep I said potty lol, hello mother of three here)? would that excuse it? Even though I think this was ridiculous, that it was even brought up to my husband (It feels like I am being tattled on, treated like a child) and I honestly feel like I did nothing wrong, I read a damn book for 10 minutes, my kids were not burning down the house (and might I add we were all waiting for said person to get here so it was not like the visit was out of the blue, we were all waiting around for said person who was running late) I still feel bad, why I have no idea, am I a bad mom for doing that, nope I don't think so. I was very angry about this yesterday, it got to me so bad that I cried over it! I always feel pressure like this from some family members because I am the one who stays home, I feel like I get less respect, like they think this is all a cake walk (I have even been told by someone that this is a free ride for me (being a SAHM that is)), that I am sitting on all things that are wide and eating bon bons all day. Little does this person know that my day starts at 6:00am and does not end until early hours. I cook and clean and take care of 4 people.Being a SAHM is ALOT of work! I get up two-three times a night to feed, change and try and get a new baby back to sleep, I am up again for good at 6am with my hubby, get all things in order so my son gets off to school okay, when I return home from that (oh and this is were it gets good, it's like groundhog day the movie on permanent repeat everyday) I get online and make a TODO list for the day at an online community (I am often called Wonder Woman because of how long it is lol), most days it's the same or almost same list, it lists all the things I need to clean, the laundry I have to do everyday, it is a LONG list of hours worth of cleaning, on days I have all three kids with me (weekends, or weekday nights this happens) I will clean one room and move on to the next, once I finish that the first room is a mess again.) Some days I run errands, most days not, do you know how hard it is to take three kids ranging from 4months-6 1/2 years old out anywhere? I can tell you that even when it is my DH and I we have a hard time. Even when my own mother calls to see how I am doing 90% of the time my answer is "cleaning something", she is here almost every week and knows what this takes, what I do, what I put into our family, what does she say? She says I am great at this, I am a good mother and both her and my dad are proud of me. That is what I cling onto when I am given comments like the one I started this blog post out with. I KNOW I am the best mom I can be, I put 110% into this and I can not tell you how happy I am that I get the chance to stay home and see my children grow, that I am here with them during the day and here when they are home from school, that I am the one who does homework with them, or teaches them how to write their name, I feel so lucky, so blessed that I get to do this, I just hate that others see it as me getting a free ride in life or not being good enough in their standards of what a good mom is, so in their eyes I not only have to be Wonder Woman, but I have to be supergirl, Shera and all the other female superheros out there, but all rolled into one. It takes two, both my hubby and I to equally run this family, he works outside the home for us and I work inside the home for us, we are a team. So why the heck do I get ridiculous comments like the one above? I suppose it is because said person only comes around once a week or sometimes every other week and only see's the 10 minutes in my day that I can relax and take a 10 minute break to read a book while getting the baby to sleep (remember multi-tasking, it's the SAHM's word of the day) while my children watch TV, color in their coloring books and sharpen crayon shavings on the carpet. ;0)Well I did have a couple more things to vent about, there is the mess that was today lol and of course me turning 29 on Wednesday, but I think I am going to go relax and read my book (New Moon by Stephenie Meyer).....because the kids are all asleep of course :)Night,Nikki
This months October kit from Little Red Scrapbook is amazing! It featured the new paper line from October Afternoon. This paper was so much fun to work with, and all the matching goodies were perfect with it! Here is the kit...Main kit
Addon embellishment Kit
Stamp Kit (by October Afternoon)
Ribbon Addon kit
Here are my DT designs using this kit (4 layouts and 2 cards)
This first layout is one I did for the Design Team challenge which I hosted this month. The challenge was...CHALLENGE- Incorporate some kind of shape throughout your layout (make it a main focus of layout detail and structure.) So you can use circles, squares, rectangles, swirls,flowers, waves, hearts, stars etc, but it has to be through out the whole layout not just one circle, or one heart.I handcut out with my xacto knife, the blue and orange flowers and leaves from the October afternoon patterned paper. I also use a cuttlebug flower diecut (the white flowers), it took some time to cut but I like how it turned out.
This is another layout that took some time to make. The bottom border pattern is all hand stitched by me, so that alone took about two hours to stitch. I know a long time but for those of you who hand stitch you know how hard it is and how often you have to stop to tie and re-thread the needle. I got to use my cuddlebug here again and I even got to try out my Cricut :) I really like the elegant feel to this layout. And it's semi Shabby chic (a clean shabby chic if you will).
I love this picture of Adriana and Aidan. I love that I got to use a piece of Aidan's art work on this too :)
This was a simple and clean layout to make.Here are the two cards I made...
I had so much fun with this kit this month :)Nikki
Kara has a new weekly sketch challenge going on at CX. This was the first week so I thought I would try the challenge out (I love sketch challenges and am actually doing the sketch a day challenge at LM with Melissa , I still have to finish a layout and get caught up with them and get the ones I do have done scanned in). If you like making layouts from sketches you should give this one a try, it was awesome! Here is my take on the sketch...Here is Kara's Sketch...
Here is my layout I made using the sketch...
I had so much fun doing this, I can't wait for next weeks sketch.Nikki
