Always Inspired

Moved blogs

2012-06-15T10:04:00.001-07:00

I needed a new blog, a change. I'm still not exactly where I want my blog to be but I'm going to work on it.

Please visit stinkbonejones.wordpress.com

Sunday

2012-05-06T19:30:00.001-07:00

Lately I just can't figure out which day of the week is my favorite. I'm torn between Mon, Fri, Sat., & Sun.
Yes, I do love Mondays. There isn't a speech session for my oldest son so after school the entire afternoon is usually free. I also don't have to run on Mondays which is always a happy moment for me.
Friday & Saturday are obvious as is Sunday but Sunday is great because it is so laid back around here. I usually wake up to a clean house because I make sure that Saturday afternoon it has been cleaned. This past Saturday I literally scrubbed my walls & baseboards with bleach. I was quite mortified at how terribly dirty our boys' bathroom was. They play in mud & dirt daily so you can imagine what it looked like. It needs a total bleaching once a week.

On Sundays, My husband gets me my coffee drink from McDonalds. My guiltiest pleasure these days. Hot cakes welcome the boys to the kitchen table as I savor my drink & watch the best show ever, CBS Sunday morning. After breakfast, The boys play inside for sometime before heading outdoors to the slip n slide which will be soon replaced by a summer membership to our local Y.

I try to make it to the 5pm Contemporary Mass with my oldest. I would be lying if I said we go every Sunday. I feel pretty badly when we don't make it.

Finally, when Downton Abbey returns my Sunday night will be complete!

So, I leave you with my oldest son having fun in his super clean room which makes me super happy.

Oh yes, and a lot of bug catching seems to happen in Sundays too.

Spring Break

2012-03-23T19:36:00.001-07:00

Spring Break happened around here recently. Lots of fun was to be had, most of it right in our front yard. The boys had some friends over from our preschool a couple of days during the week. They had so much fun on the slip & slide down our hill in the front yard. Popsicles were a daily must & addiction.

The beginning of the week started with a fun trip to the Jacksonville Zoo. We took off with a group of girlfriends & their kiddos. Colin discovered how much he loves riding merry-go-rounds & I discovered a fascinating position he turns his body into when he doesn't want go be picked up. He becomes limp & literally I cannot pick him up. Amazing how he does this!
Anyway, we have had a blast. We meet friends again @ the park tomorrow for a cook out & playground fun.

Oh did I mention Angry Birds in Space came out this week? We even had a daily countdown until the big release. My oldest has been playing it ever since.

Something Blue

2012-03-11T18:25:00.004-07:00

Recently, I had the pleasure of making a Spring Wreath for the magazine I work for, Family Times. Instead of going the Easter route, I decided instead to make a Spring wreath to keep up through May. I am very pleased with the outcome and cannot believe how quick and easy this wreath was to make.

You will need:

hot glue gun
Elmer's School Glue (blue)
spray paint
glitter
very thin steel wire
small frame (found mine @ Hobby Lobby)
chipboard letter
scrapbook paper
ribbon
any adornments such as vintage brooches and premade fabric flowers (again found @ Hobby Lobby)
Wreath (found @ Hobby Lobby)

Start by spraying your wreath with paint. Be sure to do this in a very open well ventilated outside space. Spray your wreath in intervals and let dry in between to prevent dripping.

Allow several hours for your wreath to dry. Then position your brooches and flowers before hot gluing on to the wreath.

Trace the paper insert from your frame onto the back of your scrapbook paper. Cut out and insert inside as a backdrop to your initial.

Before hot gluing your initial onto the outside of the frame, coat your chipboard letter with the Elmer's glue and glitter.

attach the frame with ribbon and hot glue onto the back of the wreath. To further secure your ribbon and frame, twist the steel wire around the riboon and make a small loop at the top for hanging.

Fun in beautiful spring like weather

2012-02-22T18:07:00.001-08:00

So I'm officially hooked to Instagram photos thanks to a friend introducing them to me. I am even going to start having them printed because it is everyday moments I haven't been catching. All too soon time will go by & I will soon forget even the small things we do every single week day... Play on our preschool playground as soon as school let's out.

Valentine treats

2012-02-13T12:34:00.001-08:00

So excited to have finished making his Valentine class treats. My oldest loves cotton candy so we put them in pink cones for the girls & blue for the boys. I made his personalized Valentine from the free template @ Album Cafe & attached them with Martha Stewart bakers twine. The teacher gifts are so cute too. I bought them personalized note cards & a roll of pretty wrapping paper. He also wanted to do Lego Ninja cards with some cute goodies to go with.

Some boys on a farm

2012-01-29T11:42:00.000-08:00

A recent trip to a friend's house inspired these snapshots of my boys. The youngest absolutely LOVES horses, tractors, pigs, you name it. He is going to be my country boy.

My favorite shot is the one where they are more preoccupied with a puddle than they are a camel standing off to the side. By the way, this is the first time they have ever seen a camel in real life.

Finally, there are pictures to his room

2012-01-21T19:18:00.000-08:00

So, I finally finished his room! Now, I have pictures to prove it. I got so many of my ideas for coloring and bedding from Pinterest, of course! I really love his room and I think it is a super fun space for him as well! His map really rocks! We found it online at mcmaps.com
His bed was found in an antique mall and it used to be like a camel color so my husband painted it this neat red. The letters in his name were boring and white so we spruced them up to match the bed.

Loss

2012-01-04T17:30:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my life, I took a gamble & lost. I found myself very unexpectedly pregnant. Irregularly pregnant from the start which is why I had no clue. Sure enough, even after the spotting my blood test revealed I still was. It has been an agonizing 2 weeks of high hopes & big time stress that came to an end so quickly with one quick call from the Dr's office today. My dreams of a china doll that looked like my mother or a new brother for my boys is no longer. I can still dream, can't I? I am so sad yet so relieved to have an outcome. I would have been a wreck with an irregular pregnancy as the stakes got higher, I would have so much more to lose than I already have.

The Magic of Christmas

2011-12-23T05:33:00.000-08:00

Awww, the Magic of Christmas does something to the soul, especially when one has young children this time of year. My oldest is just captivated by everything he sees. This is my favorite year with him for sure!

My tree is adorned with so many Christopher Radko ornaments, too many to count, but this very simple silver bulb with a small white deer stands out amongst them all. It is my favorite ornament. This bulb hung on my grandmother, Honey's tree, which means my mother hung it it too as a little girl. It is surprising it lasted this long because my mother did not care for antiques or anything old. I of course love everything old. So funny how opposite we were. When my mother was a little girl, she went to bed with nothing Christmas and woke up to a fully decorated tree and very few handmade presents. Her mother must had to work very hard all night and through the weeks before to sew and make all their presents. She was quite a talented lady and made everything they ate and wore.

Pinterest!

2011-12-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

If you haven't joined Pinterest, what are you waiting on? I cannot tell you enough about this site! Seriously, every party or shower or school function I have attended within the past few months as been greatly enriched thanks to Pinterest! What do I mean? Well, it seems everything I go to now has the yummiest desserts or the most beautiful crafts because everyone is Pinning. Just the other night I was at a Christmas party with such delicious food. Where did the recipes come from? Pinterest of course!

Merry Christmas Brothers

2011-12-09T17:54:00.001-08:00

Well, I never know how these boys are going to behave in front of the camera. I am still AMAZED that I managed to snap 3 great pictures for our Christmas card. My oldest of course had a stomach ache in the middle of Micanopy and no bathroom in sight. My youngest had no desire, what so ever, to be photographed. The weather was typical Florida winter weather and these boys are dressed for, well, not 80 degrees type weather. My husband just kept giving me this very irritating look, he wasn't irritated, I was irritated looking at him stand there watching it all happen. He pretty much had thrown his hands up with the boys but I was not leaving Micanopy after all of this fuss in ironing their clothes and driving 30 minutes there without some great pictures!

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Sweet Dreams Nutcracker Party

2011-12-05T19:13:00.000-08:00

Recently, I had the splendid opportunity to put on a "Sweet Dreams Nutcracker" themed Party. Pinterest was of course the first source of inspiration in which I found all my glorious ideas. Having a very small budget was a small source of contention but I found ways to borrow and improvise as I have done for each Family Times issue. In keeping with my budget, I outsourced to a few wonderfully talented friends that came to the rescue in the form of a fondant cake in the shape of a perfectly wrapped present as well as pink frosting sugar cookies.

It was beyond exciting for me to work on this pink laden party since I am the mother to two boys. I found myself covered in pink glitter as I adorned just about everything I could find in some perfect form of pink velvet ribbon or satin fabric. Wow, how many times have I mentioned the work pink?

Thank goodness I did not have to work alone in dreaming up all of these delightfully sweet party items and decor. Our friend and stylist, Cathy Clark, was just bursting at the seams with great ideas such as the snow on our cover. It just adds such a magical feel to it all.

My friend and photographer, Kristie Griggs, of Pure Joy Photography dreamed up the entire cover. It is as if we all happened upon these beautiful ballerinas hosting a tea party in a secret garden. The ballerinas in fact are the actual Nutcracker performers in our local Marion Ballet production. Their hand sewn costumers are just divine.

Needless to say, things were a bit stressful when trying to pull of the details together but once again it all paid off as you can see.

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Christmas is approaching

2011-11-30T05:37:00.000-08:00

Christmas is approaching it seems these days at a much faster rate or maybe it is just that my list of things grows each year. There is much fun and excitement in our home with a five and a half year old tracking Elf on the Shelf's every move. That Elf has gotten even more mischievous this year, doing things like fishing in the toilet! Anyway, thought I would share a cute picture of my cuties taken the other day in Micanopy. Not exactly what I envisioned, rather wanted them holding one another smiling, but this is the wall I had in mind. Anyway, I have decided the younger one is impossible to photograph but now the older one seems that way too. They are still so stinking cute.

Halloween

2011-11-09T17:34:00.000-08:00

Wow, Halloween has come and went so fast it seems unreal. My oldest wanted to be Toad from Super Mario brothers which was quite a success. Toad was my favorite character when I played as a little girl and now it is his. He had 2 costume parties and a costume parade to attend the weekend before Halloween and so he was apprehensive about wearing his costume. Needless to say, we got into quite a fuss about him wearing this costume that I tracked down and purchased and he was so glad he did! The second party we attended, as soon as we walked in, a little boy was dressed as Luigi. He approached my son with a smile and said, "Hi Toad, I'm Lucas, what is your name. Oh and my brother is Mario." And so, a new friendship ensued and off he left me and his little monkey brother to play pretend with Luigi and Mario. All that was missing was Princess Peach

Social Life

2011-10-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

So, it is a new reality for my husband and I, we have no social lives! We find ourselves invited to many things here and there but it is so much work to get a babysitter and go that we would rather not. That being said, my boys' social lives have increased greatly since the eldest started preschool last year and so we I find myself constantly attending their events. Birthday parties are constant as our any Holiday type of gatherings. This past weekend I snapped some very cute shots of them @ Coon Hollow, a local corn maze chalked full of fun old fashioned activities for the kids. Here I will share a few pictures of my boo's (yes, you read that correctly, it is my new term of endearment for the boys). I will leave you now to go finish cutting out ghost eyes for the big Halloween party on Monday.

2011-10-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I starting working as a contributing editor for a local magazine, Family Times. Each month, I get to choose a craft and then write about it. I have the pleasure of working with a dear friend of mine, Kristie Griggs from Pure Joy Photography. She is the amazing photographer behind these gorgeous Thanksgiving pictures. Kristie and I had a blast with this session since we chose the perfect family and location, the Fore's. Jill and her mom Cathy set the entire scene complete with haystacks and pumpkins and opened her gorgeous home to us to use for our shoot! The little ones pictured were so easy to work with and really enjoyed getting to eat the sweet treats I made too.

For your free printables, visit Shindig Parties to go on Facebook. She had all of these wonderfully free printables and ideas.

Two May Babies

2011-05-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

My oldest son has an OBSESSION with Angry Birds and therefore my iPad gets hijacked often. So, I decided to do an Angry Birds party for him. I found a free template online for the balloons and ordered his invite through Etsy. I also ordered some digital images to make banners with to hang from the door. I wish I can say I took pictures of everything but I didnt! I even had angry birds aligning our front walk way with balloons attached. I also forgot to snap a picture of the favors but each child got an angry bird balloon attached to a beach pale and candy inside. A friend made the wonderful cake for Angry Birds.

Funny how it was so much work but so worth it because my five year old was so happy and so many of his friends remarked that it was the best party ever. They just loved that water slide. A very good friend and neighbor let me set the slide in her yard since she had more room. She even supervised inside the bounce house the entire time!

Oh yeah, Angry Bird cupcakes were sent to school the next day since it was his real birthday. The kids loved them!

For my one year old we just gave him his very own cake in the front yard. It was a photo shoot and I had a blast with it! I ordered vintage bloomers from sweetlittlepeach.etsy.com and made a vintage style birthday hat that he really didnt want to wear!

I ordered this invite from Etsy for my son Christian. It was perfect!

Wow, things have been quite busy around here lately with my oldest turning 5 and my youngest turning 1. Such opposite birthdays of course and quite stressful getting everything together but in the end very worth it.

loved ones lost

2011-03-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered if loved ones that have gone before us try to speak to us? Maybe it's through a whisper in the wind or a note carried on the wind to a tune in bag pipes on a gloriously cool spring evening. I believe they do and they never stop loving us.

Coming up on 8 yrs together

2010-10-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

My husband and I are getting ready to celebrate 8 yrs of marriage this October 19th. My goodness so much as happened in this time. I look at this picture of a 24 yr old girl and think, "who is this?"
I certainly don't identify with her frivolous spending habits on herself or her ability to sleep in past 11 am on a weekend. This is a girl long gone by now and instead has been replaced with a fretful mother that hovers over her two small sons to keep them from harms way. A mother like most mothers that does everything first for her children and then herself. I sometimes miss the freedom this girl had but in between the chaos of life from picking up my son's trains and changing dirty diapers there is happiness. A crazy happiness that only a mother knows.

a journal entry

2010-09-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

I found a journal entry that I particularly like from a while back. It reminds me of how far I have come in my grief. Never did I think it was possible for me to live without my mother. What is so amazing, is that I have, and I am doing so well.
Before I leave you with the entry I would like to share something. My mother kept telling me that I would trip over her when she was gone. She would be everywhere. She is. The other day I was walking into Church with my boys when crazy gusts of wind came out of the middle of nowhere! At least two people near me remarked about it and how it would be such a great kite flying day. Kites are something related to my mother. That's a story for another time. Then, as fast as the wind came, it was gone. While in Church, I was alone with a 4 month old and a 4 yr old. It was rough and I was handling it pretty well. Colin was screaming and Christian was fine so I had to keep walking around a bit. Near the end, this woman behind me, an older woman, tapped on my shoulder. I thought, "Oh great, she is going to tell me what a pain, we are, or that Christian needs to stop looking through all of his books, etc..."
She instead leans into my ear and says, "You are SUCH a good mother." I was blown away. For me, that is the best compliment in the world. Ever since my mother passed away, I have strived even harder than before to be an incredible mother. It wasn't until I got home that I put it all together. Magic isn't necessary. Signs can be subtle. This was my sign, from my mother, telling me somehow, inspiring this woman to tell me that I am doing a good job. That was all I needed.

Feb. 6, 2010

Every day I wake with a lump in my throat which is the ache from my heart. I look out and see the sun and his swing set and think of spring. Then, the lump gets bigger because I know she most likely won't be here.

a picture of my mother a week or so before she died...

1st Day of Preschool

2010-09-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

So, today was his first day as a greendbird at preschool and I was super excited. I even had my husband paint the trim and wash the front door for our pictures this morning. Of course, his outfit was already last night and he could give a hoot what he wears so at least that is easy. His favorite part of the day? Saving the creams? as a superhero with the other boys.

This was meet the teacher on Friday, before school, and she is so sweet! I love her already...

And last, among other firsts, Colin tried baby food over the past week or so but today, he actually seemed to like it. Sweet Potatoes!

Cupcake

2010-08-24T10:55:00.001-07:00

I just made this cute little cupcake for my cousin's daughter, Jillian, who is turning one. She had a cupcake themed party that I cannot wait to see! I also bought a little princess puzzle and sparkly knit hair bands, not pictured to go with. Then, I dazzled up a pete pot, (bought a ton of them on ebay awhile back), and tried my hardest to make it look like a cupcake inside the pot. I hope she loved it. I also handsewed the little fringe on the end of her sleeves. I do hope it fit and that Kari, her mommy, loved it.

A Little Sweetness Blog giveaway

2010-08-19T20:09:00.001-07:00

I was so lucky to stumble upon this blog a month or so ago and I check in on it often. A Little Sweetness is this wonderfully adorable and inspirational blog hosted by Tasha. She too has an Etsy shop full of wonderful things. Hurry over because she is hosting a blog giveway with some of her new paper items...

Brothers

2010-08-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

When I think of the word brothers, I smile, and a song comes to mind from my FAVORITE childhood Christmas movie, Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas, "Brothers." Below is a picture of my little otters that I took recently in Colin's nursery. Christian is so fond of his little brother and so gentle with him. Again, the lighting is not so great because I can't keep my shutter speed up with these fast moving otters without a total blur.

Ofcourse, the proud mother that I am, I just had to share these pics of Stink Bone since he was so good. Well, I did promise him a new toy from the Tractor Supply store. He just has that look in one of these pics like hmmmmm.... I think I might be good so I can get a new tractor toy.