Trying to decide

I desperately need a new hairstyle. I've been putting it off for a while because I just didn't know what I wanted. Since I've pulled my hair back in a pony tail everyday this week I decided now is the time to do it, only I can't decide. I don't want to spend a lot of time on it and my hair is extremely thick and a tad wavy. Here's what I'm thinking:

Style #1

I love this. I'm not sure I have it in me to go this short. But it's super cute

Style #2

I like this, just not sure my wavy hair will comply.

Style #3

Not as short but cute. I love the sweep bangs.

Seriously I need your input. Your comments are appreciated.

Thoughts on Homeschooling

I recently attended an evening session about Homeschooling where they shared this message by Voddie Bauchan. It has been something both Marvin and I have talked considerably about recently. To be quite honest I'm really excited about it, but also a little nervous, thankfully we'll have a few years before Calvin is surpassing my knowledge.

I'll always remember when I went into labor early and we called another expat nurse to get some counsel on what to do. She told me that God entrusted this baby to us and even if it was nothing it's our responsibility to protect it and He'll be with us the entire way. Those words have stuck with me, she's such a wise lady.

I do think that it is our responsibility as parents to protect and guide our children the Lord has entrusted to us. Something that stuck with me through Voddie's message was this concept, "when we send our children to Caesar, don't be surprised when they come back Roman soldiers." Wow I had never thought about education that way. I feel I was reminded once again the importance of training up our children in righteousness. It's such a big job, but I long for Calvin to develop a Biblical worldview and to be able to make his own decisions based on this.

I have no desire to enclose him in a little bubble because I feel that is very unbiblical. But how is he to be salt if he never learns how to be salt? There is still so much I'm trying to process in regards to homeschooling. It's been challenging for me to view my chosen profession, the one I spent several years studying for to be seen in a different light. I haven't really come to any clear decisions other than this is what God is asking our family to do. It's been good to process this before the Throne, just like our sweet friend told us He'll be with us the entire way. What a great God.

I'd love to hear from you guys and your thoughts. I highly encourage you to listen to Voddie's message. It will make you think.

Maybe one more

Calvin loves to play with stickers. We have a couple rules with stickers in our house that Calvin sort of understands, they go on paper or shirts, which Calvin translates to any part of your body. He kept these stickers on his face until he went to bed. He also likes to put stickers on my legs. I'm pretty sure I've gone to the store with something stuck to my backside and not even realized it. Oh the joys of motherhood.


I love this picture because he's showing me his belly. To do this he sticks it out. We had finished breakfast one morning and he was a sticky mess so I took his clothes off and threw them in the wash and all of a sudden he came back into the kitchen looking like this.

Priceless! You better believe I'm keeping my eye out for cheap stickers.

Sewing Calvin's Naps away

Since I prepared all of our meals ahead of time this week I've had extra time to sew. Here's a peek at what I've been working on.

I've been needing to make a few plastic bag holders for a long time. I was able to clear out all the plastic bags in a container today and I've already put that container to good use. I also made one for Calvin's Room only in a monkey Fabric. Had I known how easy this would have been I would have done it a long time ago. Seriously I think I had both of these done in 10 minutes.

My first little girl's apron. I love how it turned out. I hope to sell this one in my Etsy shop. Let me know if you want it and I'll give it to you my friend's and family discount.

I love this flower and I've fallen in love with making fabric flowers recently.

This apron I made per the request of a friend. Jamie, it turned out great and I can't wait to give it to you. You're going to be the cutest stay at home mom in this.

I also tried a little applique. I loved how this turned out and of course I made Calvin wear it today because I was so excited.

This was a project I did a couple of weeks ago but I thought I'd throw it in here. My mom requested embellished tea towels for a wedding gift. I checked the bride's registry for her kitchen colors and tried to match fabric with her tastes. I hope she likes them.

I have several other unfinished projects going on right now, but I'm out of the color of thread I need for both projects. I don' t know how that happened. I'll keep you updated on how it goes. Keep me posted on your creative projects. Ideas really motivate me.

More Uppercase Living Fun

Okay if you don't know about this stuff yet, you need to. I've had a blast decorating using this lately. It's funny I'm finally decorating now that we will hopefully be moving in September, but it's all coming with us. I love how easy these vinyl expressions are to apply, that they come in a variety of colors and my favorite thing is that they are very affordable. I'm looking forward to seeing these in our homes through the years. (I say homes because in the almost 7 years Marvin and I have been married we have lived in 9 different places not including all the hotels we've dragged all our stuff in and out of, and when I say all our stuff I literally mean all our stuff.)

Okay so here's a little tour of my latest Uppercase Living Creations:

This one is in Calvin's room. It's a scrapbook frame that I added this expression that I custom created to the glass. I love how the look of this can change by a simple piece of paper, which I've already done. I'm a girl who loves change.
I ordered the tin and expression. I loved this one and it turned out pretty fun. I think I'm going to add a messy fabric flower to the top of the ribbon.

This was what I created during the make and take at my party. It's been nice to have a place to hang my to do list.

When I saw this I wanted to put it in the guest bathroom/Calvin's bathroom. Since I hosted a party I got lots of perks and was able to order this frame and expression at a great price. It came with 3 other inserts so I can change it out.

I love how this turned out and it is so light weight, which makes Marvin very happy. It's crazy but we often decide on whether to buy things or not now by how much it weighs. You'll be surprised at how quickly those pounds add up. I've been looking for cute decor to bring back overseas and this was the perfect fit. I created this by covering wood circles with scrapbook paper, gluing them together, adding a few flowers as well as the word Family.

After my last order I thought I was going a little overboard but as I look around nothing looks overdone, just classy. If you want to know more I'd be happy to give you the contact of my favorite UL Demonstrator Janae. (Happy Birthday Janae. I hope you had a great day.)

What a Boy!

Calvin is such a little boy. He LOVES mud, bugs and being outdoors. Yesterday he finished he snack and I went to grab a wash cloth to clean him up and this is what happened. Of course I grabbed the camera instead.

Let the humor of bodily functions begin.

River Run Fun

We had so much fun Saturday morning at the River Run. I really didn't know how things would go. My jogs last week went well and I was feeling good, but since I haven't been in a race since field day in grade school I didn't know what to expect. It was fun to be around other families and be motivated by all the joggers out there to keep it up. I was able to keep a nice pace the entire race and finished in 23:12, but we had to walk the first couple minutes because there were so many people. I had aimed to finish under 25 minutes. Next up a 10K in July. I'm a bit nervous about this one because it's July and it's hot in July. We'll see how the training goes the next month and a half. It seems I'm going to have to drag myself out of bed in the mornings to run before it gets too hot if I am really serious about this.

Pre-Race

Post Race, Even Calvin got a Medal (Marvin humored me and put it on for a picture)

Other News!

My dad is in the hospital again. He went to KU med in KC Friday for heart surgery and they discovered other problems during surgery. His heart stopped, they had to give him compressions and shocked him once before his heart started again. Now he has to wear an external pump until after he gets his transplant to help normalize the pressure in his lungs. Right now he has some issues with this pressure being too high and his heart is working overtime because of it. Calvin and I had planned on being there for the surgery but thankfully my mom called and told me to stay put because of flooding. Sure enough I turned on the news and parts of the turnpike were closed as well as 254 that takes us to ElDorado. We certainly wouldn't have gotten very far. So we went up in the afternoon on Saturday. It was a long day but good to see my dad.

Here are a few pictures of Calvin enjoying the bouncing thing in the Kid's area.

He Loved it!

A Cowboy Wandered My Way Today

I finished Calvin's apron today and we both love it. He insisted on wearing it while we were inside this morning. I lined it with a vinyl so it's waterproof too and I already know we are going to use this thing a ton. I hope to make 3 more of these and sell them, so let me know if you want one. I'm give friends good discounts!!! I really haven't given much thought to how much to sell them for.

I'm excited to work on the next apron that has been rolling through my head, but first I have a couple of orders I must finish. I just love being creative.

I also love this little guy. Even cowboys need to accessorize! Marvin suggested we go splashing today in the parking lot next to our house, since it would be a nice clean puddle due to the rain last night. Ummm not much luck with the clean part but Calvin loved splashing and his green boots were prefect splashing boots.

I'm looking forward to this summer. There are so many fun things to do now that he loves to play outside. Last summer was fun, but he's exploring and interested in his environment now. I'm sure we'll have a bleach blonde boy by the end of the summer.

Make sure you guys enter my giveaway, I haven't had too many sign up, so your chances are good. All you need to do is comment on this post.

From Head 2 Toe is now OPEN!

Well this afternoon I finally got the bulk of things uploaded. Hooray, From Head to Toe is officially open! I feel a little silly because after all my frustrations I finally figured out a way to use the pictures from flickr.

Make sure you check out Effortless Savings and enter my giveaway for a cute pair of topichkiis, Russian for slippers! I also am willing to do custom sewing, let me know what you're wanting and I'll try to do it for you. Right now I have an order for some tea towels and a couple weeks ago I made some hooded towels.

I'm really excited about doing a line of aprons, these have become my newest love. I seem to have new ideas daily about what I can do. I'm focusing more on items for little boys right now because I seem to have more little boy ideas and there really are limited cute things you can buy for little guys compared to the plethora of little girl items out there. If I have time this week I'll sew some little girl's aprons too.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me. It's been fun showing my friends what I am up to.

Creative Fun

I had so much fun today. I love creating with friends and I love Uppercase Living. I have so many ideas every time I look at the catalog. Thanks Janae, I had a great time. I added some pictures below, I have a couple more Uppercase Living things to post but they aren't quite finished. If you want to order something let me know, I'm closing my party next week and would like to have all orders by Sunday May 10th.

My Etsy shop is going slow. I have my nursing covers posted but it took forever because I had some trouble loading pictures. It wouldn't let me upload the pictures I spent hours editing on Flickr. So I moved the pictures from Flickr to our computer and tried to upload them but they were too grainy, grrr. To make things worse when I tried to add the pictures from our computer they were too big. I took a few days break from it so I wouldn't be too frustrated. So I hope to spend some time tomorrow to get things up and going. I'm really hoping to have a giveaway and free shipping this week in honor of Mother's Day.

Here's a few pictures of the day.

Yummy Food

Calvin's Artwork Displayed

I spray painted a cookie sheet, added an UL custom designed 'create', and hot glued a ribbon. It makes the perfect place to hang Calvin's art work. This is his first water color picture. He loved it once he got the hang of it. You'll notice he favored the red.

Our celebration plate! I've always wanted a "You're Special Plate" to use for birthdays and special occasions. When I saw this expression I knew it was perfect! I love it. I added it to the back of the plate, so we could use it for food.

These are some of the cute creations that the ladies made. Our make and take was a lot of fun. I love seeing how others use things.

I'm inspired to do something creative how about you?