Papa's Birthday Party

My Father's Name is Rick, he is a very important part of my life. One of my few best friends in life. He's an incredibly talented human being. He is compassionate and very giving to his family. It truly means the world to me that he is helping to raise my children. We are all incredibly blessed to have him as the Papa in our family.



Every year now it is tradition that my 3 kids have each of their birthday parties at his and my Mom's house. It is our kids favorite place to go and so there is no real other logical place to hold a birthday party.
This year it just so happened that we were doing some upgrades to our home and wanted the whole family to come over and see the new carpet and decor. I scheduled it for the last week of July. My Dad knew that my brother and his family would be coming along as well but had no idea that we had all pitched in to throw him a little surprise birthday party as his birthday is July 31st.

I decorated with gold and red balloons to match his Guitar themed gift packaging. One of his many many talents is being a musician.
My Mom and Dad spend so much time on us kids and our families throughout the year that they don't get much pampering for themselves so together we gave them a gift certificate to a beautiful spa to get a couples massage.

We had pizza and cookie cake so no one had to cook and clean up. The kids ran around the house and had so much fun being together.
Days like this make life so joyful~!
Happy Birthday Daddy! We hope you had a good one!

Vegas

I ha taken an impromptu break from blogging. Didn't see that coming. But it was a nice relaxing little break. And now I'm excited to jump back in and share what I've been up to the past month. I'm currently in Las Vegas seeing some incredible sights.





Next week I am going to be featured on Jenny Doh's new site Crescendoh as a Guest Curator so I hope you all will check in over there and see some amazing friends posts I will be linking and how Art works in our lives.

It's taken me so long to post again I guess because I didn't know where to begin so I will start with these beautiful new roses that I've been making with a new supply to me. It is double ply crepe paper folds and they are so sturdy and beautiful. I think these will be perfect to sell by the dozen for anniversaries and Valentienes day. And they will be perfect as home decor around the house this Christmas :) Hope you like them as well~!

Cream and Pink Paper Bouquet

Over the summer , new Wedding ideas always pop up. This year I wanted to create a soft and delicate looking bouquet using coffee filters. The coffee filters are bought when white and hand dyed in a food coloring and coffee/ water mixture. Then baked in the oven and cut and wired into a rose.
I added in some cream crepe paper roses for variety and although it is a little less tailored looking, it still creates a fanciful bouquet. It would make a beautiful bridal or flower girl bouquet.

What's a Girl to do?

Now that Jaedin (my 6 year old son) has headed off to first Grade. My 2 daughters and I are left to spend the day together. I do work during the day every week day on my Etsy shop. Every day while they have 1 hour blocks of tv time I use that time to come up with product ideas, create new items for the shop or complete orders. All of the other hours are filled doing girly fun activities. I enjoy so much staying at home with these 2 little darlings! How did I ever get to be so blessed~! Alot of our day is spent changing, and I can't say it's a surprise. I have done this for 15 years to my mother. Clothes scattered about my room and as a teenager always covered my floor so that there wasn't even a walkway. So it's only natural that I would get back two fold what I dished out :) Tutus and leotards and swimsuits are their favorites.

Painting and Play-doh are another set of their favorite past times. Here we did it with a family friend that is their age. My mom and I save egg cartons to use as paint cups and i lay down a colorful table cover I got on clearance at Walmart a couple years ago. Doing this activity on the floor allows for more creative room to move about. Instead of sitting at a table where you may not be able to reach something, this allows you more room to move about and get what you need.



More dress up of course. With jewels and mama's shoes and upside down sunglasses. In the background you can see Valencia playing with ou all time favorite past time, a collection of houses and stores that open up. We have a whole town's worth with little people and furniture and vehicles. Purchased at a consignment shop for only $35!

July 4th Weekend

We started off our weekend right by heading to the "Water Park" it's our regular every season park that has a small area of water fountains to play with .
Next, we headed over to my Aunt's neighborhood pool. This pool had a fun whirpool feature and girlfriends for the girls to play with. The girls who were there just happened to have little barbie dolls they shared.
From one pool to another. This time going to a family barbecue on my husband's side of the family. We had so much fun this day with cousins!
My sweet husband and (an unsure about this raft) Valencia



Valoria was a little stinker all day and kept wanting to take her floaties off. Needless to say she didn't spend much time in the water since she wasn't listening :)

And finally to the exciting Fireworks event. We did some little sparklers and waited for the large city fireworks show to start.

A Happy Day

Some days just fall together. You wake up assuming it is just another day. With no real zest for life. Undriven and maybe a little unfocused. and throughout the day it gets progressively richer.
Conversations with loved ones are sweet, the children's smiles seem brighter and make my heart happier than the day before.
Some days God reminds me of how life should be lived. Today was one of those days and in the grocery store as part of the glorious day that fell into place, so there was a cookie cake that expressed it all. A day that had no particular meaning or theme but wound up being a refresher to life.
Such a Happy Day!