Milkweed for Mom

Today, I spent some time out at a friend's pasture, taking some pictures for a project they are working on. I kept seeing these tall white flowers everywhere, and come to find out, they are another version of the Milkweed plant. My mom introduced me to the Milkweed (Butterfly) Plant a few months ago, and I have one in my front yard. However, our plants have tiny, orange/yellow/red-ish type flowers on them. The ones I saw today were white, and so pretty! So, I snapped a few pictures of those and thought I'd surprise my mom by posting them here on the blog. So here you go, Mom!

Apparently THIS is another kind of milkweed as well. I had no idea there were so many variaties. I wonder if all of them attract butterflies.

This is NOT a milkweed (just in case you were confused or something....;) Just had to take this huge grasshopper's picture! right there on the side of the scarecrow's face.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

My mysterious niece

My niece is into reading the Nancy Drew books. Well, while on a scrapbook retreat last month, Laura (my sis in law) and I saw a neat idea for a Nancy Drew birthday party invitation. We took that idea and made our own version for Rachel's party! I had a lot of fun playing in photoshop with this one.

First I took a picture of the cover of the book that they wanted to use:

Rachel put on a long-sleeved, pink shirt, and parted her hair on the side, like Nancy in this picture. Rachel also grabbed a piece of rolled up notebook paper to hold.

It was harder than it looks trying to copy Nancy's head position! But we got as close as we could.

I put both images in photoshop, and cut Rachel out of her picture and pasted her onto the picture of the book cover. I did a few other "fine tuning" little things, such as trying to clean up the edges of the cut-out Rachel, and making sure to get rid of Nancy's hand. We left Nancy's skirt. I also took out a few of the wrinkles in the book cover. Last, I changed "Nancy" to Rachel's" in the title. Couldn't match the title font exactly, but found something close. Also tried to closely match the color.

Here is the final product!

Hee hee! Isn't it fun? I used a piece of digital notebook paper to write out all the details of the party, such as date, time, etc. It's on a separate document. So now, Laura can either make a folded invitation with this picture on the cover and the notebook information on the inside, or put the notebook information on the back of this picture. Fun stuff!

My helper

Why are these dog toys in the basket? Doesn't mommy know they should be scattered about? Much better visibility for the dogs.

Silly mommy! These big black things don't belong in the dishwasher! How am I supposed to play with them if they are inside that box? Good thing I pulled them all out!

Hmmmm, I don't like how these baskets are arranged. Better pull them out and change them around.

Ok, I'll put this one...right here. Maybe I can open that black bag.

You're welcome!

31 - the adventure begins

I have found myself being quite restless lately. It's been a year now that I have had my career as a Stay at Home Mom. Financially, overall, we've made it just fine; there's not a lot of money for too many "extras," but it's ok. However, I have not enjoyed seeing our savings go down due to boring purchases such as a not cheap evaporator coil for the air conditioner, and not being able to rapidly replace those savings. I have been able to pick up a little money on the side here and there with my photo gigs, which has been nice; have been able to do some of the 'extras' like getting my hair highlighted, that kind of thing. All this to say, I started thinking about going back to part-time work as a speech path, probably contracting with a school district doing testing. Really want to build back up those savings. But I just haven't been able to do it. Found plausible (ahem) excuses for not being able to dust off the resume (it's on the upstairs computer that is unplugged, I'd have to plug back in all those cables, clear off the table for it, it would just be toooo muuucch wooorrrk!) Would have to research child care, and from the little I've found out, it's expensive, and wait lists abound. Not completely sure I'm ready to leave little dude in someone else's hands for two whole days a week, consistently. Would have to probably find a contract agency. Not to mention this little fact: I am SO. Burned. Out. The thought of doing therapy makes me want to put a fork in my eye. I did therapy for 15 years, poured my soul, so much energy, time, creativity into those children and therapy sessions. Attended numerous continuing education courses. I'm proud of what all I accomplished, and feel guilty that I simply don't want to do it. The only thing that sounds somewhat appealing is to do testing/evaluations; by doing just testing, I can still use my skills - (I actually LIKE testing and reports) - and do not have to become so emotionally invested in weekly therapy. The past 3 (or was it 4?!) years, I didn't even do as much therapy, since my role evolved to the therapy team leader position. That would take a whole other blog post to talk about my feelings on THAT; let's just say, glad I did it, learned a lot, wouldn't do it again. Even with that 'break' from full time therapy, I still was not, and am not, in the place where I want to do therapy now. Maybe eventually. Maybe even early next year. We'll see. All of this to say, I found another opportunity for making some side cash.

I signed up to be a consultant with a direct selling company. Yep, sure did. I came across the website for 31 by browsing random blogs (ever get sucked into reading blog after blog, linking to them from other blogs?) and really liked the stuff. And thought, what the heck - it's not that much to get started, I like this stuff - and, not that many people in Houston area sell this stuff, so the market here is not saturated with it. My starter kit came in today, and the stuff is soooo cute! 31 sells all kinds of totes, bags, purses/wallets, that kind of thing, that can be personalized. I have found myself actually excited about doing something new and different - from home - without paying for childcare. Because I really like this product, it's been easy for me to talk to my friends and neighbors about it. Going to have my "debut" party next week, and hoping to book some parties off of that; already have a few parties booked. I figured, might as well hit the ground running and see if I can hit some selling goals in these first three months, get some of the incentives they offer during the first months. Can't hurt to try! With the shopping season approaching (Fall/Christmas), timing couldn't be better. If I can make some extra money, great. Do I think I'm going to rake it in? No, not really. But if I can make enough from selling this stuff, and my photo gigs, to help us pay for 'extras,' build up savings a little more - it's worth it. I love the items in my starter kit and had them personalized for me (well, just one item has my own initials), so it's not like I'm stuck with items I'll never use. I know these next few months will be a little tougher on Doug, as he will have to be parent-on-duty during the times I'm hosting these parties, but he's on board. Thankful for a supportive husband! I snapped a few pictures of my stuff today, so thought I'd share:

Love this thermal lunch tote. My favorite so far.

Had "yummy" put on the picnic tote. Could have used this at the pool this summer!

The "spread" and pink box it came in. Can't see it all. But trust me, it's all cute.

So, gotta end this post with my website plug: www.mythirtyone.com/cherylgraves. (cuz you can order directly from the website). Wish me luck! Here we go!

sneak peek

So, I looked through etsy.com and saw some fun ideas for first birthday parties. And I thought, "I can make that!" And for once, I actually COULD make some of the things (often I think I can make something that I really can't). So, I'm just showing a partial preview of some of the fun decorations for Mr. E's birthday party coming up! Can't wait to show them off once the party comes!

Favorite Place to Be

This is Eli's favorite place to be these days.

On the stairs, playing with Maggie.

Maggie is the epitome of patience as Eli tries to climb over her, use her to pull up, grabs at her feet, her collar, etc.

Lucy, on the other hand, not so much.....

the invitation

Almost forgot to post Eli's birthday invitation! I made it from scratch, and am quite proud of it. I am starting to get the hang of digital scrapbooking, and I really like it. It takes a lot of time just like regular scrapbooking does, but it's fun (so far, anyway). I am having fun using it for making things like this invitation, have made a few collages for friends, that kind of thing. Even though we're just having a family birthday party, I still made invitations. My friend L has me almost convinced to also have a kiddie party on another day, but I'm not quite decided. Anyway, here it is:

Originally I wanted to make one with 12 pictures, one from every month since September. I started kind of stressing trying to plow through all the pictures, so I ditched that idea, and am just as happy with this one. Only thing I would have done differently is perhaps used a different font. I keep meaning to download more fonts, but then forget until I actually need to use one. This one is fine, but there are soooo many cute fonts out there...there will be more opportunity for fonts!

Some family shots

We ate lunch with Aunt Laura and family up in the Woodlands last week, for Phil and Collin's birthdays. Do I have this kiddo trained or what, he can look right at the camera and smile!

Stair Conquistador

This past week, Mr. E learned a new motor skill - climbing stairs.

A little cautious at first, keeping one foot on the floor.

Confidence is growing...

Confidence is really growing....

Fast forward to later in the afternoon, that same day. I'm sitting at the computer in the kitchen; I can hear E crawling on the hardwoods, near the front door and stairs (he likes to crawl with something in his hand, hitting it on the ground as he goes). I thought, let me just finish up (whatever I was doing, couldn't remember), then I'll go get him; it was literally less than 30 seconds. When I rounded the corner, this is what I saw:

Do you see him, AT THE TOP?

I'm not sure my husband (or the grandma's) would be too happy realizing I actually went and grabbed the camera first before getting him down! He was so confident and happy up there. To be honest, I think it's a great motor skill he's developing. Although, he still needs supervision of course! (Especially now that I've learned how speedy he is!)

I feel Cheated and Used

Dear Caterpillars - I planted this Milkweed Plant (aka, "butterfly plant") just for YOU. I knew you would enjoy its tasty leaves, and once your bellies were full, you would transform yourselves into perfect chrysalis', hanging contently from the branches. Oh, the pictures I could take of your loveliness! I planned on watching and documenting your transformation, hoping I could catch the moment when you emerge as a gorgeous winged creature, ready to explore the world.

Here you are, munching away....

Here is a tiny, baby caterpillar! See him in the middle?

Can you spot all the caterpillars in this picture? There's three. Answer below.

A week has passed. All the leaves are gone. And SO. ARE. YOU. Dear Caterpillars! What did I do to cause you to leave my plant? Too many pictures, invading your privacy? Where are the beautiful chrysalis', that I know are out there SOMEWHERE? Why did you choose to NOT hang anywhere near my plant? Are you hiding? Did you just use me for FOOD? Don't suppose I'll ever get the answers. Unless I try to google them, which I haven't. I'm still in mourning. Maybe when new leaves grow, I'll get a new batch of more appreciative caterpillars, that will stick around until they are butterflies!

11 months

My baby is 11 months old today. Sooooo close to the big milestone of "one year!" Wanted to record a few things while they are fresh on my mind.
-just yesterday, he imitated my exclamation of "oh no!" as the bubble bottle rolled down the driveway. He didn't say the words "oh no," but totally made his own exclamation and threw his hands up. I was delighted.

-at dinner tonight, he initiated his own way of signing "all done." I show him the sign for "all done!" a few times a day, and every once in a while he apears to be trying to imitate it, sometimes with just one hand. At dinner, Doug casually mentioned, "I think he's done," and lo and behold there he was in his feeding seat, waving one arm sideways in his "all done" signing attempt! So very cool.

-he stacked blocks today! I stack up blocks for him all the time, but today was the first time I have seen him deliberately balance a block on top of another block.

-he waved "bye" to the Walmart cashier, and to his grandma today, using a whole arm movement! I've been waiting for him to wave "bye" for what feels like forever!

-still pulling up on everything, and at times sits up on one knee, but doesn't stand by himself yet.

-loves pulling all his books off of his shelf and flipping through them, on his own.

-discovered that he really likes watching the Nascar cars race.

Here are some pics I took Sun morning - I have used them on his birthday invitation, can't wait for my family members to receive their invites in the mail! I made his invitation in photoshop and am very proud of it. Even though we're just having a family affair, we're still having invitations, balloons, a fun cake - shoot, we may even have a pinata! Well, we'll see. Anyway, on to the pictures....

Ok, this one isn't on his invitation. But it sure is sweet. He sacked out on his daddy.

Once I think everyone has received their invitation in the mail, I'll post his invite here. Don't want to ruin the surprise!