Soapy Feet

We sat outside today for a little while, enjoying the breeze brought on by the impending rain. Blew a few bubbles, sat in our frog chair. Got a little dirty sitting outside, so cleaned up in the downstairs bathroom sink....

Eli's First Bday Party

Even though he doesn't officially turn One until Thursday, we had Eli's family birthday party yesterday. We ended up having to cook the hamburgers inside, since something is wrong with the grill. Made the kitchen area hot and Doug was covered in grease from being the fry cook, but they sure tasted good! Bought the meat in already-shaped patties, which means it was only 73% lean, not good for the heart but good on the taste buds that's for sure. Picked up the cake that morning, and had a little surprise - the "one" cake topper was PINK. The baker lady said she thought his name was "Ellie" and the cake was for a girl! I just laughed and asked if she would be able to change it, and she was very apologetic and obliging, she quickly made a new blue and green cake topper for us. I have never ordered a cake like this before, it was fun going to a bakery and discussing how it would look, etc. Well, I guess we did that with our wedding cake - so this was the first time for a birthday cake. Eli loved having all the cousins and friend Meredith over; they kept him running! He was so exhausted by the time we got to the cake part - you'll see how tired he looks in the pictures, poor thing! He only slept about 30 minutes after the cake session, I suppose because he could still hear all the people downstairs; later on when I tried to put him down for a nap (after everyone left), it was as though we missed the Nap Window, and he refused to sleep. Still on a sugar-high, maybe?! But, he did "sleep in" this morning until 6:30, so that was something! I didn't take as many pictures as I usually do, being the hostess and picture taker is kind of hard, but I think I was able to get a decent representation of his first birthday party. Enjoy the pictures!

The banner I made of pictures, one from every month since last September.

Saw on Etsy.com how folks made these "high chair banners," and was going to put it on his chair, but then figured he would just rip it off so it went on the mantle.

The cake! The bottom layer has edible paper on it - I emailed the baker a digital image of the paper I used on his invitation (and banner), and she made edible paper out of it. The white icing was smooth buttercream, much tastier than fondant in my opinion! The dots on the top layer were fondant, so just enough fondant to add some cuteness, but not mess up flavor.

The party favors were "one" shaped cookies.

This is such a cute picture of my brother and Eli, I just had to post it too.

Loved how the cousins would play with him!

Had to post the crying picture. Bless his heart. A very tired baby wearing a hat he didn't want to wear. He left it on long enough for us to sing Happy Birthday, then I ended the torture and took it off.

Hey! Everyone is singing and now there's a cake in front of me...this is odd...

Now that's some tasty stuff!

This toy (from grandma) was the biggest hit. He walked around the house with it several times, and later in the afternoon we let him walk outside with it. I think this is the toy that is going to teach him to walk sooner than later!

Concentrating hard.

Cute little feet! Guess it's time for shoes!

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!