FREE Pillowcase!

I'm giving away a FREE hand embroidered pillowcase using any of my fabric in stock. Visit my dream maker site to see choices. Can be made for kids or adults and is a great gift item!

Simply post a comment with your email address or check back on Sun. Feb 3rd to see if you won! Contest will close Sat. Feb, 2, 2008 at 11:59 p.m. US Residents only please.

Here is the direct link the the fabric. Sorry if the other one wasn't working!

Go the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival site to see more stuff up for grabs!

Be sure and enter my sister's contest at her site. Most of my designs come directly from her creative hands!

Fighting like cats & dogs...

Or just wrestling like them! Most people don't believe us when we tell them that our 45 pound dog and 11 (ok, more like 14) pound cat wrestle with each other! Here is a short clip of the action. Usually the match lasts a few minutes and I have yet to see our dog win. Kobe, the cat, is fearless and will chase after Tucker to have the last word (or bite).

***It's not a very good video. Tucker was distracted and Nate kept pulling on the camera!***

PJ's & Crawling

Lucy had Pajama Day at school and was so excited to wear her pj's all day! She didn't know what to expect (and sure didn't believe me when I teased her that they were going to take a long nap) but was happy to go along with it all!


Nate is almost crawling... He gets up on his knees and can scoot around on his tummy. However he only seems to go in reverse! Here I found him backing up under the chair!

Congratulations...

to Mark for completing his Biblical Counseling Certification at Southwestern this past weekend! I am so proud of his discipline and diligence to accomplish this goal and humbled at his desire to truly help people by sharing with them God's healing word.

The next American Idol

Here are some videos of Lucy in action doing what she does all the time. Last night I videoed her dancing and singing to High School Musical 2 songs. I wonder if they'll still have American Idol in twelve years... Oh and can you tell she's from Texas with that twang?
(Sorry about the clicking sound - I still haven't figured out why my camera does that!)

Siblings

Love this picture! These days Lucy only calls Nate "Brother". Not sure why or where it came from but she never says his name anymore. It is always, "Brother, look at me!" "Stop crying, Brother! That's too loud!"

Legs

This is one thing I don't like about winter time: not getting to see these chubby legs and feet!

A Rough Day

It's only 7 pm? I feel like this day has had about 36 hours in it. Of course everything gets skewed when you don't get good sleep. Thanks, Nate. I'm not sure what's going on with him (everyone says teeth but we'll see). He wakes up around midnight crying so hard and will only go back to sleep if I'm holding him. If he's not all the way asleep when I put him back to bed, the same thing starts again. It's so hard to know if something is wrong or if he knows exactly what he's doing? I am not a nice person when my sleep is interrupted and I've had to ask forgiveness of my baby boy more than once for not being sympathetic to his plight.

We tried a small group Bible study at our new church last night. We were the only ones under the age of 50 but it was okay. Everyone was really nice and welcoming and kind and that's what matters. I'm really praying God will use us to draw more young families to this place.

With hesitation, I'll write and tell you that Lucy and I were so sad today. We had to return High School Musical 2 to the library. She cried and cried and I did too (on the inside). I think we watched the songs from that movie every day for the past week and she is singing the pool break up song even now as I'm writing. "I just don't belong here I hope you understand..." Yeah, it's for teens or even younger, but it is the perfect amount of cheese and fun and so clean to watch. We'll have to check it out again for sure.

Natey and I are off to Tennessee tomorrow to celebrate Amy's baby shower. I'm so excited for the trip and time with her and I know Mark & Lucy will have so much fun together at home.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Picture Perfect

Nate & I were shopping for a baby gift at Babies R Us today while Lucy was at school and they asked us to help train a photographer and get a free picture! This is the 2nd time this has happened to us since he's been born. The first time was in TX and Lucy was with us. Of course neither time did I dress them in picture attire - I should learn my lesson because he had carrots on his shirt today. Oops! You can see his pictures here.

New site

My business website has been fabulously recreated by our good college friend, Steven. Check it out!

www.dreammaker-designs.com

A Cold New Year

It is 17 degrees outside right now! I took Lucy to school and bundled us all up: hats, gloves, mittens, coats. When I dropped her off, I noticed the other kids had coats on (not zipped) but none of the other attire I consider crucial to surviving the chilly air. At least we still have our Texas plates on our car so they know we're rookies at this sort of thing and definitely not used to anything below 35!

I love the start of a new year. Beth Moore has a great spiritual outlook on her blog. But right now I am thinking more on the practical side. I have a lot of things I am wanting to do better and like the idea of having a time to start fresh with it all.

1) Our budget. Now that we have been in Missouri a few months and know generally what things cost, I'd really like to be able to track every dollar that we spend more accurately. Mark is so great about managing our finances both short term and long term and trusting me with the spending of it all. But there is much need for improvement on my end and I'm challenging myself to see how far I can make our money stretch. I already use coupons but if anyone has any other special ways of savings I'd love to hear about it!

2) Managing my home. More specifically, cleaning. I was not blessed with the clean gene and I mean in regards to both cleanliness and clutter. Sure, I have two kids at home but I know several other mothers who manage their children and their homes. Lucy is willing & able to help and I need to take advantage of that now. Again, anyone have a good system for keeping things up? I tend to do one day of major cleaning and it wears me out. I have tried breaking it up with a little each day but I don't have the discipline to stick with it.

I won't list anymore because I feel overwhelmed just looking at those two! I am grateful that one I have had listed in the past is accomplished and that is in cooking. I hate to cook (probably because I am such a picky eater and don't like to eat many things) but with help from friends and a great free subscription to Kraft Food & Family, I can organize my meal planning a month at at time with one trip a week to the grocery. And we don't eat the same meal again for another month! It's not always fancy eating, well ok, it's never fancy (we just had homemade bacon wrapped corn dogs the other night - yum!) but it's better than nothing.

So happy 2008 and happy goal-making!