Life is an endless Developmental process. We all have unique Abilities and Disabilities. The Day we choose Awareness instead of ignorance, is the DAY we start to see everyone as equal. Gary Spears, DSP



Wednesday, December 29, 2010

*Knot Just Rags*


Welcome to my new business!
Soon I'll be opening an Etsy store, once I have enough inventory to post things on it, as well as possibly starting up another blog. I also have a Knot Just Rags album on my facebook page, that I post current in stock fabrics and items on as well.

Knot Just Rags are Handmade Rag(fabric) Garlands and Wreaths. The big item currently is a Valentine Heart. The heart is 12 inches around before, and after completion about 14 inches. It's very pretty! I will also be working on a Valentines Garland hopefully within the next week or so as well. My wreaths are all done on pre-shaped Heavy Metal wire frames or light wire frames that we shape. Garlands are done on Twine with loops at either end for hanging. This can be used anywhere, Draped over windows/curtains, mantles, baby or kids rooms, and entry ways. Your Imagination is the limit! They are PERFECT for any decor in your home, whether it's Country, Primitive, Casual, Contemporary, or a mix of all,  we can find a fabric to match and work with your specific taste.

I am looking forward to working on St. Patrick's Day themed items, and some Spring colors as well!

Custom orders are MORE then welcome. This can be from the fabric design/colors to the length of garland or shape/size of the Wreath.

 Matching Garland & Wreaths are also available!  

The Current Heart Wreath.

Monday, December 20, 2010

How are we doing??

So now that I am caught up until the end of November, I am only a month behind, I thought I would do an indivdual catch up post. So here goes.

We are all doing well. Mike has been laid off now for 3 weeks, but will thankfully be returning to work in 2 weeks. The kids (and I too) have enjoyed having him home. It's a much easier transition for them to handle, then going to a sitters house before/after school then coming back home etc. Much easier for all involoved. Since Mike's been home, he's been doing some dogsitting for my boss at work. She recently got a Toy Poddle, Fonzy, who is just SO adorable. He is all of maybe 4-5 lbs and a little fluff ball. the kids love him and he follows Mike around like he is god. When Mike leaves the house, the dog sits by the door and cries! We did have him for 4 days while Donna was out of town, then for the past week and this week as well, he gets dropped off in the morning and picked up in the evening. It works for everyone, and keeps Mike busy until he goes back to work. I know the boys will miss him terribly though! Once Mike goes back to work, Donna is hoping to get him into some sort of doggie day care, rather then bring him to work everyday, which is what she did until Mike came to save the day! Here's Mr. Fonzy coming out of the igloo Mike made for him.

Here's a cuter picture of the Fonz

I am going Ok too. A bit stressed with the lay off, time of year, and the fact that our babysitter quit on us due to Mike's lay off last week, but I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and I KNOW in the long run this will be a good thing. We'll get though it, we always do. In the mean time, the craft bug has bit me, and I've been making wreaths and garlands like crazy. Making these seems really theraputic to me for some reason and I HOPE to someday make enough to have stock and be able to do some small local craft shows or maybe have a small part of an online store etc. Other then that, Just keeping busy with work, the boys, the house, you know how it goes.

Courtney is going good too. Being a Typcial Teenage girl, whatever that might exactly consist of! She spends lots of time hanging out with her friends. During the fall/football season, she spent lots of time at the JV and Varsity Football games at school. Next year is the big move to high school, so she is still trying to mentally wrap her head around that now. We talk about it every so often. She is at the age now too, where she can babysit, so every so often, Mike or I can run to the store while the boys are napping and leave her with them. It's nice to be able to have her around for quick things like that! It gives her some extra responsibility as well. We had her cheerleading banquet last weekend too, those pictures again will again come later, But it was a really nice time. Each girl got an awesome scarf that one of the mom's made in the team colors. Courtney really improved her jumps this past season, so she got an award for that, and she also got a trophy. She had a lot of fun hanging out with the girls. Most of them won't see one another now until next August, so it's pretty sad for them as well! I know Courtney is ALREADY starting to plan her 14th birthday party for March as well! Did I mention too that Courtney and I are attending her 8th grade Class trip to Washington DC this coming Memorial Day weekend? Her and I both really excited for that! I am excited to go as an adult and learn and experience all the history that I ignored as a child. She is excited for a few nights away from home with friends in a hotel. :-) I am sure when her children go on their trip to DC she'll want to go experience it as an adult too!

Caden - Is doing really really well. He's grown TONS in his 6:1:1 class. SO much so that they are hoping to have him "visit" and interact within a typical Kindergarden class after the Christmas holiday! He just loves to learn, color, teach, play school, play work, boss around etc etc etc. his one big things, that drives me INSANE?? he is a HOARDER! He saves every gosh darn thing you can possibly imagine. He has piles, amoung piles amoung piles of things that YOU ARE NOT TO TOUCH. EVER. and if you do, oh he sure knows it. And school supplies? yea, he knows not to play in that closet, however we are now out of 8 boxes of crayons, 5 compositon notebooks, 12 folders, 3 bottles of glue, all the post its, ALL the sharpies, dry erease markers and highligters. not to mention the new found binders and loose leaf paper. *sigh* I love that he wants to learn and play, however I don't like that the $$$$ I spend in August stocking up on supplies is now GONE to NOTHING! In other news, Caden is pacifier free!!! For like 8+ days now! We had to "restart" 3 seperate times because you know he has his own secert stash. Each time got harder and harder. We had to re-convince him each night that the fairy came again to bring it to the new baby in the hospital who needed it more then he did. Each time was harder and harder, since he thought she just kept brining it back to him each Night :-). So. after over a week w/o it, he is still surviving. Before bed EACH night, he still asks us to looks for it for him, which we tell him, of course, but I am pretty such that little baby is really grateful that you gave it to him! I am so proud of him!

Colin - our cute little devil. He is SO lucky he is so darn adorable! He is just about 80% potty trained now finally! I only say 80% becuase he still won't go #2 in the potty, and he's not night trained yet. I could care less about night time, diapers at night are fine. But going #2 will be so much better in the potty when he chooses to do so. For now, he requests a diaper, then asks where he can go and hide to do his thing. he'll then come to you, tell you he's done and you change him. Any ideas how to transition that to potty are MORE then welcome! He also has the best bladder control of any toddler. He is scared to go in any potty when we aren't there, so he won't go at school. This means, from 8am until he gets home at 2pm, he doesn't go at ALL. And he doesn't have accidents either. He does however have to go pretty bad when he does get home and then he says   - whew, that was a long one mommy :-) He is doing really well in school and has been participating in group activies alot more as well. I am really quite proud of the small changes I have seen in him lately. He is sleeping through the night maybe 4/7 nights and the other 3 nights, I just set the timer for 5 mintues to lay with him, rather then staying in there like I was. I am hoping this way transitions him into sleeping a full night alone much better. Time will tell.

We are all pretty excited for Christmas this year too. it's the first year the boys have actually "got it" and are excited about Santa and opening gifts. This year has been a year of many firsts for them. On Dec 1st we got a pretty huge lake effect snow storm, that dumped 4 feet of snow on us in a 24 hour period. We couldn't get out, couldn't get to work or anything. We were in a state of emergency, had a driving ban in effect and the schools were closed for 2 days. Well my boys, who never in the past have EVER worn, boots, gloves or hats, wanted to go outside and play. We managed to get not only those items on them, but snowpants as well! If you got a christmas card from us this year, you'll see the picture of them all bundled up ready to go. It was so adorable and they had SO much fun! They've even been out a time or two since then,  and Colin even wanted to go out again after he fell into our pond! It was completly covered in snow from the storm, so you had NO idea where it was, he was playing and got sucked in by the water. Mike had to rescue him and he was done that day. It took DAYS for his clothes and boots to dry. Never mind the fact that he smelled like swamp water. blah!! So with all of these exciting firsts in the past few weeks, we are more then excited to see what 2011 holds for our little guys/Courtney as well!

Innocence

Last weekend we took the kids to Santaland at Chestnut Ridge Park. Colin's been wanting a blue tow truck for christmas for months, it's all he talks about. So we are waiting in line for santa, and he keeps repeating what he wants. We get up there, and Caden sits on his lap and tells him he wants his (flatbed) tow truck and poor Colin is scared to death to go anywhere near the guy. So he stands there, anxious and paniced, but manages to say behind his gloved hand, ever so quietly he wants a blue tow truck. So Santa continues to give Caden his gift bag and hands him one for his little brother as well. We go sit down at the table to see what we've got. Caden a little matchbox car, Colin an audio storybook for the car. Colin looks at it and almost in tears says
"Mommy, I told santa I wanted a blue tow truck?!?" 
My heart broke. I then had to explain to him, that this wasn't really santa that brings the gifts, just one of his helpers, and that the gifts we ask for don't come until Christmas eve night. He was SO confused and upset that he didn't get that blue truck. I SURE hope Santa pulls though with that Blue one, or man, We're going to have one sad little boy in 5 days!

Turkey Trot 2010

Since we went away for Thanksgiving this year, I wasn't able to run the 8K Buffalo YMCA Turkey Trot. I was pretty bummed since I had already paid and registered for it as well. I told Mike the only way I would go to Olean for the holiday, is if we found a race for me to run that morning. So... he did! Good Job honey. It was free, exepct for a canned good to the local food pantry, so I didn't feel so bad about paying and missing the Buffalo one. this one was only a 5K (3.1 miles) rather then 8K (5 miles) which probably ended up for the best, since 1- I hadn't ran in almost 3 weeks. 2- It was a different area that I wasn't familiar with and 3- I ended up sick and figthing a pretty yucky cold the whole weekend. So it all worked out in the end. I still finished in an OK amout of time, I am pretty consistent with all of my time. This one was 39:43 I believe. that was what Mike timed me. Exact time really isn't known, since they don't have a clock there, and it's not chip timed. Oh yea. It was snowing when we woke up, pouring rain by the I started running and only about 34 outside. Brrrr......

Here is my super cute turkey ribbon I got for the holiday! If anyone has any little girls and is looking for some super cute hair bows, let me know and I can send you Belly's Bow's info. Too cute! She even has Christmas Trees for Christmas! 

The race course was all along St. Bonaventure University In Allegany, NY

There I am running past Student housing.

Coming up to the finish line. My pants, which I have never ran in before really ended up weighing me down. The wet from the rain made them way heavy, and they were too long wet, and I kept stepping on them. lesson - never wear new pants in a race when it's raining.
Before the race. I was pretty bundled up. It was COLD!

Future Mechanics?

What happens when there are problems with your little tykes car?? Call Colin & Caden, your certified LT Mechanics. they are available as needed, and do a pretty through job too.  :-)

Here is Colin doing his job.

And later on that day, Caden needed to get in on the action as well.


Working hard.

Photo Shoot!

I am always trying to get some good pictures of 3 kids together. Anyone with more then one or two kids understands how very difficult his is. espeically with 3 or more. Good Luck trying to get 2 let alone 3 all looking at you at one time, oh and you want them to SMILE too?? Yea, not so fun. So here's some from our shoot a few weeks ago.


I LOVE this one! Colin was actually sitting this way, and it looked good, so I made them all roll over.


My FAVORITE!! Courtney, Caden and Colin November 2010

Free Night Out!

In Novemeber I was offered a free night at Either the Seneca Niagara or Allegany Casino. Free room, $75 in food and $50 in gaming! How could I pass up that option?? So since GG lives so close to the Allegany site, we chose that one. GG kept the kids overnight for us and off we went!

How did I get this you? The Marketing department I guess offeres this to their customers 1-2 times per year. I typcially don't even read these emails, Boy am I glad I read this one. I am the contact/Marketing person for the casino for my charter customers. I take care of booking all of our busses that take trips to the casino with their marketing dept. I was excited to be asked, and it was really cool to be taken on a "tour" of the casino/hotel area. Our room was so beautiful and classy. We were able to have amazing dinner, delicious breakfast and sleep ALL night long with out kids! Of course I still woke up 3 times, but that's ok. After we ate dinner, we spent some time in the hottub relaxing before, we went down and litterly BLEW though all of our free money in a matter of mintues. Never spent a dime of our own money (how perfect!) If not for the free money part of the deal, I dont' even think we would have gambled at all. Mike and I are KNOWN for having the WORST luck possible, and we proved it by zippping though $85 in less then an hour. I could never justify that if I was my own money. I could DO so much with $85!! All in all though, we had a nice relaxing night out, which is pretty far and few between. Thanks GG for keeping the kids for us, and hopefully we'll be giving this opportunity again and can visit Niagara next time! :-)

View of the Casino/Hotel on the outside

The falls outside. so pretty!



The inside of the hotel almost reminded me of the inside of a cruise ship, with all the statue's and huge things hanging from the ceiling everywhere.

Waiting to be able to check into our room.

Our HUGE bathroom!!

View of the room from the Foyer. Yes, there was a separte foyer!
View from the other end.

The Dressing area/cosmetic area and foyer. that's our bathroom to the left. Which was just huge. There was a open all glass walk in shower on one side, then the sink area, which was bigger then our one bathroom at home, then behind a seperate sliding door was the toilet area! geez! All ceremaic tiles as well mind you. We didn't get any other pictures of the pool/casino area or anything else, we just enjoyed our time alone!

Toilet Paper Party!

Have you ever heard of House Party? You can visit it HERE and learn all about it. I applied for a BUNCH of fun ones, and what was I chosen for?? yep, Toilet Paper! Quilted Northern to be exact. So I made do with what I had to work with and planned a fun party. The hosts were given a couple things for the guests, $1.00 off coupons, a 6 pack of toilet paper, Poopouri (LOL) and re-useable grocery bags. So We took it to the next step and had some fun! We saved empty toilet paper rolls and filled them with Candy and wrapped them up in Quilten northern colors. Then I bought extra toilet Paper and wrapped them up as well, and attached a coupon to it. I also got everyone a toilet brush, Air Freshner and hand soup. They all went into the gift bags with another coupon and everyone was set! For some game prizes we had Toilet bowl cleaner wrapped up in a hand towel with another coupon and A plunger with yet, yes another coupon! I had a lot of fun prepping for this party. We decorated the house with toilet paper and Mike TP'd his truck and the garage as well for the coming guests. We had a TON of yummy food as well, chicken wing dip, a veggie tray, Quilted northern colored cupcakes, Sweet and sour lil smokies, and some dill dip with bread! Yum, Yum, Yum. So here are some of the highlights!

The guest bags!
All full and ready to go.

Some TP decorations.

The Candy favors and Poopouri

Cupcakes.

Party Signs!

TP Fun!

and the garage.



And let the fun begin! The guests... Amanda, Shevone, Mom, Pam

Heather, Tasha, Joy,

Uncle Bob, Aunt Norma, Not pictured are Gina, David, Jason, Mike, and Jack. We had a house ful!

Here we asked how you "did" your Toilet Paper. Do you fold or ball? We used examples as well.

Shevonne, below,was the best, She balled, and folded, which made a very pretty Flower!


Here are the boys, hanging out by the food!

there's Gina!

Here we played who can unroll the fastest as a team. One person, unrolled, one held. it was quite amusing.

In the end, Gina and Shevonne really got theirs going!

Joy and Heather were second runners up.

With their prizes! Did you have any idea how dusty toilet paper was?? Man it sure was!

Clean up time. Colin had fun with that.

We also did a work search From the words QUILTED NORTHERN. Jack by far blew everyone away, I think he found over 80?!   they had to be 3 or more letters.

He won the coveted Plunger and sash

Ms. Joy won the crown, for not only teaching her man to put down the toilet seat down, but how to wipe too! Go Lester!

Caden has fun wrapping up Amanda

And more!


Amanda, Kinah and Mason kitty.

And our little guys love Joy as much as I do! Here she is playing SUPER Fast with them!

Gina playing at the end of the night too.

We all had a great time and can't wait to host another House Party!
"When a loved one becomes a memory ~ That memory becomes a treasure"