FINALLY!!!!

We've sold our home. The papers were signed today! Tomorrow we sign the papers to buy the new home in Frisco. It is really happening. I admit that I doubted if this day would come, but I'm so happy it has. Saturday is moving day, hope to see some of you (or your husbands) there. Look for new home pictures in the next few weeks.

Crafting

I packed all my crafting and sewing items into boxes thinking I'd be without them for about 2 weeks...well, it's been over a month now and I really miss being able to make stuff. Unfortunately I didn't pack anything so that I could get it out easily; even to hand sew I'd have to find and open three boxes. So, what is left to me? Window shopping for new craft stuff of course! I've found three awesome crafting tools I thought I'd share with you. Do I need them? Not really. Will I get them? Probably not, at least not anytime soon. BUT they are super cool.


It all started with an infomercial I saw for the Cricut. I'd heard of these before, but I'm not a scrapbooker so what did I need a dicut machine for? The infomercial opened my eyes. You can cut wall vinyl with it (something I want to add to Jovi's new room). You can make stencils with it. You can etch glass with it. AND you can cut fabric with it. I could make AWESOME appliques with very little effort. The initial price, while high isn't terrible, about $250 BUT you, of course would want to buy lots of cartridges to go with it and those cost $40-$80 a piece. There is software you can get that can turn any true type font into something the cricut can cut called Sure Cuts A Lot, but then that adds to the price too. Even with all the costs it gets a place on my wish list because of all the cool things you can do with it.


The next cool thing I found is a Xyron510 machine. You can make stickers or laminated tags or magnets with it AND it is easy and safe enough for a kid to use. Can you just imagine photo magnets for grandparent Christmas presents and homemade stickers out of magazine pictures for Jovi to use. This one is actually reasonably priced if you get it on sale, about $20, and the refills are sold at Joann so you could always get them for 40% off.


This is the one I think I want most of all, it is a yudu, a (relatively) easy to use screen printing machine. I've wanted to get into screen printing for a while now, but adding yet another hobby to my plate and the start up costs that go along with it just seemed like too much BUT since I'm window shopping it gets a top spot. Screen printing can be a pretty messy and unless you have a lot of fairly expensive equipment you aren't always guaranteed great results. The yudu stuck all that equipment into one big box, took away most of the messy chemical application and it only costs $200, of course you still have to get the ink and the stuff you want to print on, but, oh the possibilities! This would be the design for the first screen I would make.

Another Delay

Well...after a hard three days of not knowing if we were going to sell our house or not, it has been delayed yet again. At least this time it is only a week delay. We should (crossing our fingers) sell our house next Wednesday and move next Saturday. I'm feeling very zen at the moment about the whole thing, if it is supposed to happen it will happen, right?

A kid update

Jovi has her own sense of style. This is an outfit entirely put together by her from her brother's tie to her brown leather church shoes (with mismatched socks that you can't see in the picture). It made me laugh so hard when I saw it, she would have done great in the '80s.


I left the top off our sandbox the day before it rained. The next day we went out and found a wet, sandy mess. Of course, Corbin jumped right in. It was a fun afternoon, the kids played in the sandbox then I turned on the sprinkler which got most of the sand off them. Then they got a final hosing off right before going in the house.
Corbin is such a little boy. Dirt attracts him like a magnet to metal. Jovi's first instinct when confronted with any bug is to tell us to kill it as she runs away. Corbin wants to touch and probably eat every bug he comes across. A few days ago we were waiting in a gravel parking lot and he started playing with the rocks, then started digging in the dirt below and then he decided to pop some of those dirty rocks in his mouth, yuck!
Corbin has started saying lots of words and even strings a couple together occasionally. It's so fun. One of his cutest words is please which he says and signs at the same time. It's so cute I just can't say no, but he has good manners and always says thank you after he gets what he asked for. He also shakes his little finger and says no, no, no when he does something he knows he isn't supposed to do. It's hard to be firm and not laugh when he does that.


Jovi requested this photo. She wanted to show what a big girl she is swimming in the big pool by herself (with lots of friends around and mom nearby).


Yes, Jovi does have a bowl full of vegetables on her head, but that is not why I'm showing this picture. Jovi, since she was a baby, has hated wearing clothing to bed. She might start out with pjs on, but by morning they always ended up on the floor. Lately I've been feeling that she is getting too old and needs to be wearing something to bed, but Jovi just didn't seem to agree. Then she found a cupcake nightgown at the store that she just had to have. An expensive nightgown, but she promised she would wear it to bed and keep it on all night long. I was sceptical, but I thought it was worth a try. She kept the night gown on all night for two nights in a row. I asked if she would wear other ones and she said yes so we bought two more and I plan on making a couple more once we have moved and are unpacked. So this is a picture of Jovi in one of her new nightgowns.

Our house of boxes

I am ready to move. If this deal doesn't go through I think I might cry. Most of my feelings stem from the way our house is right now. Everything that is "unnecessary" and a lot of things that are necessary are packed in boxes that are on walls all over our house. Most of our bookshelves are empty, but an empty bookshelf is an open invitation for junk. I'm SO tired of opening boxes to find stuff and then having to pack it up again. After having a ready to show at anytime house we have fallen to this...





I am praying really hard that next week will be the last week we have to live like this.

Our trip to the zoo

My sister, Eden invited us to the Fort Worth Zoo last week. We all had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Garden Update

The garden has been growing and growing. We've harvested all our sugar snap peas and I pulled out the brown stalks just a few days ago. The tomato plants have lots of green tomatoes on them and I'm just waiting for them to turn red. Were even getting a decent strawberry harvest, about 1-2 a day. They are always eaten immediately off the vine. We've been pulling up our small baby carrots regularly. Jovi loves to pull them, but not eat them. I think they are pretty tasty though. Our second set of radishes is ready to harvest too, which is fun.

Our potato plants suffered some sort of blight with all the leaves turning brown so I pulled up all the plants and dug out the potatoes. This is the first time I've ever grown potatoes and I have to say, it's so much fun. It's like digging for treasure in the dirt and you never know what you find, a tiny baby potato or a big full sized one. Here are some garden pictures from over the last few weeks.