Fatigue and back pain...

is just all part of being a Tanti for 24 hours. After days of preparing my home to receive this 13 month old ball of fire, Trevor arrived on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. Daddy put him down in my front yard, barefoot, and he was a happy boy. Even happier when he discovered the new rocks in my unfinished garden make-over area. Big, white rocks. He carried them around. He shared them with us. He threw them cause after all, that's what rocks are for, right?

Mommy educated Tanti on the ins & outs of eating, sleeping, diapering, etc. and soon we were together....just the two of us. All was good in Trevor's world until Tanti picked him up to go in the house and made him put the rocks back. Oscar award winning drama, scene #1.

I fixed him lunch and soon, just like a little man, he was all happy again. Time to play and play we did. Played until the eyes became heavy laden with sleepiness and Tanti rocked him to sleep for the afternoon nap.

Awake again....played some more.....ate dinner and decided to go visit cousin, Caiden for awhile. Oh so many toys at Aunt Julie's house and wouldn't you know it, both boys only wanted the toy the other boy had in his hand. Toddlers! Then it was off to visit with Aunt Maggie. There was no other little boys there to hog all the toys. Well, there really weren't any toys but Trevor soon found the collection of stuffed bears sitting under the table and soon they were scattered on the livingroom floor. Starting to rub eyes & ears Tanti knew it was time to head home and draw a bath. Time to put the bears back. Oscar award winning drama, scene #2.

Trevor is in full blown snot & tear mode by the time we walk through the door. I grab the pacifer and he continued to cry through the pacifer. Ummmm, this is gettin' ugly was what I was thinking. I drew the bath hoping it would help. Nope. Trevor is going for an Oscar in more than one category with this scene. I left the hair untouched....washed & rinsed the body, especially feet, as fast as I could considering my back was in spasms at this point [bent over the tub].

Bath over, PJ's on, pacee in mouth, sippy cup of milk in hand as well as Mr. Blanky, cartoons on TV and in Tanti's lap rocking. Ahhhh, tears all gone. Off to dreamland by 8:15!! Rewind to before bath.....had to give him allergy meds with an eyedropper. I don't advise attempting to give a child who is wailing & flinging arms medicine. My carpet was well medicated before it was over. We made attempt #2 after we were calm again.

Tanti awoke in wee hours of morning barely able to move from pain in lower back. Hmmm, Lord, don't let Trevor wake now. I managed to get off the couch and into the recliner where I slept a bit longer before resorting to some meds of my own to help the pain. It was now 3:15 a.m. or there about.

Little fella woke at 4:30 a.m. with a very soggy diaper which Tanti gladly replaced with a dry one. I took him out to the couch with me and gave him his sippy cup of milk which he did not drink before going to sleep the night before. Tanti dozed off & on [lightly] and by 5:30 Trev was sound asleep again and slept until after 7:00.

I soon realized church was not going to happen. There was no way I could see lugging Trevor & his diaper bag to the car, from car to church, from church to car, from car to restaurant, you get the picture. NO WAY! So, we ate breakfast, Grandma & Grandpa came over the visit, then it was time to get dressed and play until morning nap time. Thinking I only had and hour at most, I gathered up all the toys, clothes, sippy cups, etc and started to load up the car. I sat down and made a phone call and by the time I was done I figured Trevor would be waking up soon but I laid my head down anyway. I was in the zone when my phone woke me up. Two hours had passed. They boy slept 2 hours!

I shoveled some peaches & goldfish crackers in him and we soon were off to meet Mommy & Daddy at Denny's in O'Fallon for the switcher-roo!

Here are a few pics from our 24 hours together!


The pacifier is not something Trevor has all the time now. He only had it now because remember the drama scene after removal of rocks from hands? Yeah, he needed some extra comfort. He discovered the door stop in my livingroom and had a blast watching it go "boing" back & forth.



You might be inclined to think he is pitching a fit here but he wasn't. He was just having fun climbing on & sliding off my recliner.


I was sitting ont the floor when Trevor saw my cell phone sitting on the couch. He looked at it, looked at me and just grinned cause he knew he wasn't supposed to pick it up. He did, however, see just how close he could get his fingers with OUT touching it. Such torture!


Mr. Blanky!





Caiden thinks he is the remote control god and that he and ONLY he can have it in his possession. Here he decides to tease his cousin a little. If he could I think the Remote Control god would be saying "nanna-nanna boo-boo, you can't have it!!"

Oh no you don't Trevor.....it's MINE!!!!

Caiden was happy to report he was about to show Trevor his wrath by sentencing him to the kennel for unlawful touching of the remote control.

Trevor woke with huge smiles on his face Sunday. He has the most adorable little piece of hair sticking out over his right ear [his right, not yours]

Ahhh, yet another new discovery for Trevor. My computer chair in the kitchen. I tell ya, the boy will one day host The Discovery Channel!!!


And here we are shortly before our time was up. Doesn't he look so stinkin' cute in his little over-all short set???


So, is the back pain & fatigue (I have yet to take a nap since I arrived home childless at 3:15) all worth it? Oh yes, most definitely.

Thanks for stopping by and reading all about the fun weekend I had! Have a great week. Layouts to follow later :)

Helen

Longing for Tybee Island

(Sigh) With each day that passes. The longer the to-do list gets. Every new bit of stress and concern....wells up in me a stronger desire for it to be (insert date) the day we leave for vacation. It is strange how something you have never given much thought to can suddenly be the one thing you can't stop thinking about.

For me, it's a vacation on the beach. While I have desired to see the ocean for years it never tickled my fancy to spend several days on that very beach. I did get to see The Gulf in 2002 while attending my cousin's wedding near Galveston, TX. It was March. And let me tell ya, one can freeze one's buns off on the beach in Texas in March. I was grabbing seashells with numb fingers and if you look closely enough at the photo Dad took of me, you can see the goosebumps. That has been my only glimpse in all my 39 years. I am still 38 but in 19 days I will be 39 so I might as well just start saying it now (insert another sigh).

So, how is it I am vacationing on the beach this year? It all started a few years ago when I asked my mom to tell me the one place she has always wanted to see but never has. She said Savannah, GA. It started out as a trip I said I would take her on if she had her knee replacement surgery done. Well, she is just dragging her feet something terrible where her knees are concerned so I decided I really want an "out-of-state" trip with my mom like I took with my dad a few years ago. It will only be about half the length as the trip I did with my dad but I can't take that much time off this year at once. It will be just me and her from Saturday to Thursday. And I am just so stinkin' excited. For one, I am hoping beyond hope the fall foliage is at its' peak since we will be going in October. Oh, what an AWEsome drive that would be. (big sigh)

And now, as if I wasn't craving the getaway enough already....I am even more so now. (head tilt, one last sighhhhh) I will leave you with a photo....

Isn't it BEAUTY-full????????????

Creativity on the light side....

Not been doing a lot of scrapping lately. Getting ready for my 13 month old nephew, Trevor, to come spend the night with me Saturday. I have to Trevor-proof my home!!! But, here are two layouts I did this past week using a fabulous kit by Tracie Stroud Designs called Spring Cottage.

The layout above was one I used to submit/apply for a position on Tracie's CT over at Scrap Orchard. I won't hear back until August 31st.....what seems like an eternity away! I have never been a big fan of the chunky styled frames but I absolutely LOVE these distressed frames. Maybe because they closely represent what I would use in my own home decor. The photos were from my trip to Marion KY last month with my mom.

Here is another layout using the exact same kit as above. I was browsing through the Scrap Orchard gallery the other day when I came across a layout by another member using these colors. Totally took me back to my Junior year prom in highschool and the dress I wore. It was this gorgeous buttercream, off the shoulder dress with a pink sash & tiny pink rose bud accents. I will have to dig around for some photos from that prom.....I was out of this world skinny, lol! Anyway, the dress also required 5 or 6 hoops under it.......YIKES! I felt like a fairy princess. I decided to do a LO using the same color scheme and this is my end result. This was the old barn I photographed while driving through Amish country in KY. I love the window frame....gives it a neat perspective.

So, that is about all for now. Told ya, not much. Have a great day in the Lord!

New Blog Design

I just love Blogger! How easy it is to manipulate to make your blog "pretty" & the fact it is FREE are my top 2 reasons why!

Zoe Pearn offers these great "Blog In A Box" digital scrapbook kits complete with the blogger HTML code & instructions. I have had this for awhile now and been waiting to do it. I knew it would take some time from start to finish so I needed to make sure I had the time. I sat down tonight just to design my banner & sidebar labels & upload everything to Photobucket. That was supposed to be all. Of course, I could not stop at just that. I should have because now it is nearing 9:30 pm and I have not done near what I needed to around the house. Ugh! But, I do have a pretty blog, LOL!

I spent about 15 minutes just plugging in all my "favorites" links and wouldn't you know it, I closed out the configuration box without saving all my work. Why did they NOT design it to ask you if you are "sure" you want to close without saving changes??? Oy, I am not starting over tonight. I have some laundry I need to get put in the dryer yet.

Well, I hope you like the look of my new blog. I do not plan to put all my blinkies back on. I want to try and keep it a little "cleaner/simpler" than before.

Thanks for stopping by! God Bless <><

Do you have FLAIR????

Flair is so much fun! I get mine from fb (Facebook) and use them as my avatars on the many digi-sites I frequent. There are thousands of different flair to choose from and you can choose the ones that best fit YOU which is the most fun. You can tell alot about a person just by reading their flair. What do mine say about me??? BTW, these were uploaded in random order so go with me.....


These 3 say: I am a ferocious, coffee drinking woman who wants to be a kid again!

These 3 say: I am a friendly, introverted, child of the King!

And these say: I am an uncomplicated fruitloop that loves Gerbera Daisies!

How about these? I love flip flops & chocolate....oh yes I do indeedy!!!!!!

And finally.....I love taking photos to cherish the memories!

If God is for us.....

who can surely be against us? If you don't know the answer, read on. If you do, read on.

This was taken from It's Almost Naptime and I read it at 2:45 a.m. this morning. Yes, you read correctly. I fell asleep earlier than usual and woke about 2:09 a.m. to go to the bathroom (darn bladder). My four-legged darling has been scratching & scratching for days. No fleas but I put the meds on her anyway. Well, I could not stand it anymore, I gave her a bath at 2:25 a.m. to see if possibly that would help. She is lying peacefully next to me, still damp from the bath, on the arm of the recliner as I type. I digress as this post was not supposed to be about my itchy dog. Here goes....

Psst - Paul wants to tell you something
By Missy @ It's Almost Naptime

Beth emailed me today, Have you ever read Romans 8 in The Message? Wow!I hadn't, not in The Message. So I just did. And Beth summed it up - Wow. You need a Wow this morning? Read on:

With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!

That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mmmmm, good stuff, huh?

Blessings on your day,
Helen

A very fine weekend!!!

Well, this was a full weekend. Saturday I walked out the door at 7:30 a.m. and drove to my "2nd home"....WalMart. I had a list of things to pick up for sorting/organizing the t-shirts we are selling to raise funds for our singles conference in September. That list consisted of large rubbermaid containers, sharpie markers, large rubber bands, box tape & 2 school folders for the paperwork we need to keep track of. Finished at WM....check!

I cannot be that close to Starbucks and not get a mocha & blueberry scone. So, I drove through and got my caffeine fix....check!

I drove on up to Edwardsville to the printers to pick up the shirts and as usual, I was far too early. [I have a horrible sense of foretelling time]. So, I parked and liesurely sipped my mocha & nibbled my scone. A Venti size SB's drink usually lasts me up to 2 hours but this morning it was gone in 40 minutes. Hello? There had to be an invisible caffeine addict in the car with me stealing gulps of my mocha...no way did I down that in 40 minutes. Atleast that is the story I am sticking with.

The printer's opened at 9 a.m.....actually 8:59 a.m. according to my vehicle's clock. I walked in, handed over a check for $1000+ and walked out with 2 heavy boxes. I could not believe there was over a thousand dollars sitting in my trunk.....100% cotton shirts at that! I reached the church at about 9:30ish and started to lovely task of making 5 trips to/from my vehicle to unload the WalMart purchases & the $1000+ boxes of shirts into the church foyer.

The next 3 hours was spent making stenciled posters & sorting out the tshirts. Then I filled up the large rubbermaid containers and proceeded to load them on a flatbed cart and haul them up the elevator to the 2nd floor & unload them in our Sunday school room for the next morning. It was now 12:30 and I was very hungry & very tired.

I drove through Taco Bell and grabbed a bite to take home and I tried to nap before leaving at 3:30 to go to a Premier Jewelry show at 4:30. I did not get home from that until nearing 8 p.m.

Sheila & Ashlee came by to pick up Chandler-Bing [I dog-sitted for them while they were on vacation the past week] about 9:15 p.m.

Now, that was all just Saturday! Today I left the house at 7:50 a.m., went to McD's to pick up breakfast for class because I thought it was my day for it (it wasn't). I arrived at the church about 8:15 a.m. and started carrying chairs to our classroom while I waited for Ursula to arrive and help me prepare the t-shirt table. Then we lugged those containers filled with the $1000+ 100% cotton tshirts to the table and set it all up. I was sweating before 9 a.m.....at church.....in church clothes....how gross! We had several people come by & pick up their pre-ordered tshirts and even sold 7 or 8 of the extra shirts we bought just to have on hand to sell.

Church service was great....Reggie Joyner from Northpointe Church in Atlanta, GA did our services today. I was so excited when he said where he was from and that he works with Andy Stanley. I have talked about Andy before and how our singles group spent over a year with Andy as our Sunday school teacher on DVD. Can't say enough great stuff about Andy and his way of bringing God's truth to light through his awesome visualizations & wonderful speaking voice. Reggie was much the same in that respect....very much grabs your attention and keeps it. At times I found myself not breathing while he carried on several sentences without taking a breath. I am serious....I had to make myself breathe, lol. He, too, used some visuals and he kept out cameramen busy as he rarely stood in one place for more than a few seconds. He spoke about how if we have a spiritual goal we want to reach (or any goal for that matter) we need to strategize what needs to be done to reach that goal and then do it....keeping that end goal in our focus at all times. It is similar to how I learned to drive a car at age 15. I got behind the wheel and started slowly down the road with my eyes focused intently on.......the very front of the car. Looking up briefly to the road ahead but most of the time just directly at the front of the car's hood. It was very awkward and I remember asking my parent (probably my dad) how you keep from veering all over the place? He could tell what I was doing and explained I needed to look further down the road.....toward my goal. It seemed so very odd to hear that but sure enough, when I kept my eyes looking forward, that is when I was better able to "keep it in the middle of the road". Same with out Heavenly Maker....when we keep out eyes focused on Him, we will find ourselves on the path of His perfect will and not tripping & falling because we took our eyes off. Wow! What a great God-bit to take in to the new week.

After church we lugged all those containers of shirts out to my car and lugged myself home to rest. After all, isn't that what Sunday is supposed to be....a day of REST? Hello? Can I get an amen???

My weekend of course is not complete without some kind of scrapbooking layout. Below you will find something out of the ordinary for me to do in sb'ing. This style of sb'ing is called Fantasy. This is far from my style of doing layouts but I have to admit, I was drawn to this piece of artwork I found on Feed Your Soul....a place where artists can place their artwork for people to download for free. The hot air balloon in the layout below is from this website and was designed by Ellen Hozyra Currier and the moment I saw it I knew I had to use it in a layout. The balloon my my LO is a bit different as the flowers trailing off the basket did not extract well so I removed them. I added Trevor's little head popping up from the basket and then began the task of laying in papers & different effects to create the sky, ocean & beach scenes. I extracted another photo of Trevor to sit on the beach. Like I said, this is not my style but could not pass up the chance to use the balloon.

That was my weekend. It has been raining for a little while now and I decided rather than take a nap I would blog. Thanks for stopping by today.


CREDITS:
You Don't Know Me by Shawna Clingerman of Sweet Shoppe Designs
Summer Oasis by Cara Mia Designz at Natural Designs in Scrapbooking
Summer Sampler Week 5 from Sweet Shoppe Designs
Sand Pile by Lorilei Murphy of Rosey Posey Studio
Digital Compilations,Ocean Breezes, by Cinda at Faith Sisters
Rainbow's Touch by Laitha

Link to Feed Your Soul and the artist's original piece.....
http://indiefixx.com/Feed_your_soul/downloads/EllenKozyraCurrierl_fys.pdf