To kick this program off I have decided that one lucky sponsor will win 20% of my advertising sales.  Yeah you totally read that right!  One lucky sponsor will win 20% of my total profit from advertising sales. In order to win all you have to do is buy an ad and on March 1st I will randomly choose one ad to be the winner.

This month will be the only month that I offer this contest to ALL advertising.  After March I will offer this chance to win to my XLarge & Large Advertisers only. Deadline to order ad space is Monday, February 27.

You just got to love the South.

I started my layout with a freebie from Valorie Brown.  I used this card to recap the events of the week.

Right beside the journaling I added 2 photos from the weekend.  The first photo was of Aubrey sliding and the second was one of the tent that Aubrey and Riley made out of kitchen chairs and sheets.

Aubrey had her first eye appointment this week and I was extremely worried about how she would handle it.  Because I had to work JoJo took her to the doctor and he told me that she ROCKED IT!! She joked with the doctor, she played games with him and she did not shed one tear.  We rewarded her by letting her pick out a new Barbie.  The first card is one I created.  I wanted it to look like an eye chart but he reads “SO PROUD OF YOU FOR BEING A BIG GIRL”.  The second was journaling about her appointment with some of the Barbie packaging attached.

On Thursday night JoJo woke me up because he could not stop coughing.  At one point he started to cough up blood and I made him go straight to the ER!  He was sick right before the holidays and apparently he never fully recovered from it.  I used the same journaling card and attached his hospital band to it.  I also created this facebook card and recorded my status the next day about our ER visit.  psst you can download the card for free below.

The bottom 2 slots are just 2 more photos from the weekend – my dad and JoJo putting up a fence and Aubrey’s boots all muddy from an afternoon of Mud Puddling

The left side of my layout was my week four P365 page.

PRODUCTS I USED

FREEBIE

I finally created the facebook card to match the twitter card.  I have included all 4 designs on a PDF, I also included PNGs and the background as Masks in PSD, TIF, and PNGs.  You can mix and match, use as is or create your own by adding papers. Have fun!!

Download Here

Have you heard of Pinterest?  It is this awesome site that will totally suck you in and steal all your precious time inspire you. Since I signed up my boards have been filling up with some cute ideas and lots of hope that I would find the time to finally create them.  Over the past couple of weeks, I finally had the time and the need to pull from some of these inspirations.

Aubrey was special helper last week and that meant that she was in charge of the snack.  I wanted to do something with a Valentine theme but was completely lost for ideas.  That is when I hit pinterest and found this cute idea for fruit kabobs. I know mine look nothing like the inspiration but just FYI fruit is really hard to cut with a plastic cookie cutter and another just FYI apples will start to brown – QUICKLY!!!!!

I took my strawberries and cut them in half and cute a small V out of the top to give them the shape of a heart.  I then took cantaloupes and apples and used a small heart shaped cookie cutter to cut them into shapes.  To give the kids a little more variety I pulled out my heart shaped plastic bowl, filled it with cheerios and then sprinkled in some heart shaped sprinkles.  Ms. Lauren told me that the kids absolutely loved it. Score 1 for pinterest.

Since Aubrey only goes to school on Monday and Wednesdays her class will be celebrating Valentine’s Day today. I wanted a cute and crafty idea for her cards so once again I hit Pinterest and found these. I immediately hit the link button and found the blog they were pinned from and to my surprise I found those cute heart tags free for download.

I was able to locate the glow sticks at target for $1 (pack of 15).  After I printed out the hearts I took a small hole punch and punched a hole in the top and in the bottom.  I carefully slid the glow sticks through the holes (if you bend them they will pop and glow) and voila valentines are done!

Score 2 for pinterest.

A few things from the internet that I wanted to share with you:

1 . Just in time for Valentine’s Day a tutorial on how to make a super cute, glittered banner.  Check out My Girl Thursdays post here.

2.  Need a new blog to read?  Do you love gorgeous photography and even more gorgeous kids?  Do you love people who have a way of writing that makes you feel like you are sitting right beside them listening instead of reading?  Do you like amazing tea parties?  Then you will love Kelle Hampton’s blog.  To fully understand who she is and how amazing she is you will want to start here.

3. You all know how I feel about artist’s ripping off other artists.  Check out this blog post by Jessica from Design Seeds she really hits the nail on the head.

4.  You all remember my post earlier this week. I talked about my struggle with deciding what I wanted to do with my career and how it would affect Aubrey.  Check out this one mom’s thoughts. . . . LOVE THIS!

In the bottom right corner I printed out the email from Aubrey’s art teacher.  In it she describes that they finished up their 2012 calendars in art class and how they learned about shapes and dates.  I then snapped a pic of Aubrey’s calendar, it is about 17 inches tall, and I put the photo beside the letter. We plan to use the calendar all year and will probably come back and add the actual finished piece to the book but for now the pic works just as well.

During one of my many trips to Target I discovered that Morning Star was AGAIN offering their veggie dogs. It was as if the skies parted and the sun shone directly on me.  I was so happy to see these little green box sitting in that freezer case, I have missed them so.  I am not really sure why they stopped making them and honestly that doesn’t matter because they are back.  Once I finished eating them ALL I cut the box and added it to my 4×6 slot.

This week we also celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday.  While searching google for the perfect quote I discovered not only that quote but that quote on the perfect poster! I immediately scaled it down, printed it out and added it! Next to that I used one of my facebook freebie cards and documented Ayden’s, my step-son, birthday

We also welcomed JoJo into the club this week, the iPhone club.  I took the cover page of the iPhone handbook and wrote a little note on it.  I then used paper from my Love, Unbounded kit and added one of the apple stickers that comes with the phone.

In the top right corner I created a 4×6 card using this blog post, she is such a ham! I used the chevron paper from my Love, Unbounded kit as a background.

I finished this page off by printing this FREE 4×6 card I download from Gina Miller.I finished this week by adding my Project 365 layout. I am still loving the idea of adding my P365 layouts to PLife. I feel like it is feeling in the details of our story.

PRODUCTS I USED

Change, especially sudden change, has never been an easy thing for me. I am a creature of habit and I enjoy that about me.  I live by my schedule and when things happen and cause me to have to stray from that schedule I get frazzled, I start to stress out and I get real bitchy. I have no idea where this comes from and what makes me this way but I own it.  It has taken my husband years to understand my NEED for structure but after countless arguments and tears he gets it and has fully accepted it.

A few months ago I mentioned briefly about going back to work.  I was contacted through a headhunter who found my portfolio online and felt I would be the perfect person for this contract job.  It was right around Christmas and the thought of having 2 incomes coming in made JoJo and I very excited.

It was a perfect opportunity.

The contract was for 2 months and after that they would open it up to permanent status. This would give me a chance to test out the idea of becoming a Work Out Of The Home Mom. If I loved it I could apply for the position in January and if I hated it I could gracefully walk away.  Then 2 weeks ago the company made the announcement that they would be laying off the entire graphics department, except for the freelancers and the contract employees.  This now meant that I had no option to go permanent and I was placed in an awkward position;  I could still walk away but I would leave them helpless or I could stick around and each week I would be notified on whether I would be needed the following week. To say being in this position sucks is an understatement.

JoJo’s income plus my business income pays the bills.  We weren’t hurting for anything but this job is allowing us to pay off debt and build a nice little nest egg.  It is giving us the opportunity to plan family vacations, put Aubrey in dance classes and buy stuff that we want and not necessarily need. So we decided that I would stay on a few more months.

Since I am not guaranteed that I will have this job in a month or even a week we cannot really commit to putting her into daycare, even if I wanted to do that.  On the days that she does not have school my mom watches her, that is 3 days a week.  My mom lives about 40 minutes away from me and I hate the idea of her spending so much money on gas or having to get up so early to get to my house.  To help my mom out we have been sending Aubrey to spend the night at her house on the nights she does not have school  As a result, Aubrey is home on weekends and 2 nights a week.

Neither Aubrey or I love our current situation.  We both struggle everyday with being away from each other.  She cries when I walk out the door and I cry as I drive to work.  She refuses to let me out of her sight and even sits in the bathroom with me as I take my nightly showers.  She has become scared of the dark, she is acting up and refusing to listen, she insists that I do everything for her and refuses to let JoJo do anything. Other moms are telling me “Oh don’t worry she will get used to it, this is just her way of dealing with the change.” I keep asking myself what this sudden change is going to do to her long term.  What is it going to do me?  I struggle with trying to maintain my business and keep it growing. I struggle with balancing the job, with the business, with the husband, with the kid. Is it selfish of me to want the extra money? Would it be more selfish of me to ask my family to live on a budget so I can be home with her and have my own business?

I would love to hear your thoughts.  Are you a working mom?  Are you a stay at home mom? Do you have experience with any of this. . . .

If you would like to be featured be sure to get your images in one of the above mentioned galleries, you could be March’s Featured Artist.

When life gets busy and this project stops being fun and starts being more like work then you should stop, walk away, and come back later. These pages can be finished whenever you have the time. This is about documenting your life not keeping you away from it.

I am off to work on week 5 now.  I will see you all next week and if you have not signed up for Katrina Kennedy’s photo a day newsletter then you are missing out.  Opening my email every morning and seeing her lovely pictures keeps me inspired!