getting gas

Griffey was 'driving' his tractor around the room and said "Oh, I need to get gas."

"Oh you are getting gas?"

"Yes"

"How much was it?"

"It was six dollars"

My New Pillows


I am really liking yellow, grey, white, and dark blue together.  So, I started getting a bunch of unique pillows to go in this color scheme.  I bought the first two and then coverd two that I already had.  I still have some more old pillows of different sizes, so I'm not done yet. Here's what I have done so far:

I made the one on the right. I used fat quarters and trimmed one side to fit my previous pillows.



Each side has a different pattern.  The back has is light grey with a dark grey pattern, while this side is dark with a light pattern.  I sewed the ends of the ribbon/cord stuff in when I sewed the pillow together and then stitched it in place by hand after I stuffed it. 

pillow #1 fabric from Jo-Anns, #2 Target (on clearance!), #3 fabric from Jo-Anns, #4 Ross
I think I need a small, white lace one to finish it off.

This is the only before picture of my pillows that I could find. It's from May 2010.

I thought pajamas were kind of related to all the talk of pillows, so here is a picture of Griffey and I before we went to Pajama Storytime at the Springfield Library.  A girl came up to me and asked if I was Griff's sister because Mom's don't wear jammies to these things.  She was shocked that I was a mom and wearing jammies.  I thought it was funny.

Another related picture: Griffey fell asleep with his flashlight on.  He got it for his birthday and really likes carrying it around. His room was actually dark but the camera flash was pretty powerful.

My First Christmas Craft of the Year: Ornament Wreath

Ta da!

I got the idea from EDDIE ROSS.com, which has some great craft ideas.  The link for the tutorial on this wreath is here.

It was so easy and inexpensive because the wreath form is just a wire hanger, opened at the top and bent into a circle.  You just string on the ornaments (which I got at the dollar store and a garage sale) and tie a bow on it.  The picture below is a wreath from the tutorial.  It shows a different way to do the bow, and that the color options for the wreath are endless!

This was a great project because it took about 20 minutes and less than five dollars. Enjoy!

Oh, also, on the tutorial it says to glue gun the tops of the ornaments onto the ornaments so they don't pop off.  I didn't do this because the ornaments I got at the dollar store had different tops and this seemed pretty time consuming, so just check what kind of ornaments you get to see if you need to do that.

Veteran's Day

When Adam first came home

I can't believe Adam came home from Iraq only last year.  It seems like it was a different lifetime.  In a way, it kind of was.  I think I took myself out of my life for a little while.  I remember being sad sometimes that Adam was in Iraq, but most of the time I think I convinced myself it wasn't really happening.  People say that I was really strong then because I was able to push through our circumstances and stay in school and have a baby and hold it together, but I think I was just really disconnected from what was happening then.

My husband was gone for a year.  It was hard.  He wasn't just gone, but he was in a war.

I know I was strong when he was gone.  I know I pushed through pretty well and made the most of our circumstances, but I was only handling a fraction of what Adam was going through.

I had my family and friends and my home and my things and my environment and my school and my own bed.  Adam had a dirty cot in a tent with a bunch of rowdy, rough around the edges guys in their early twenties.  My husband was taken from everything that made him happy and comfortable and all of a sudden found himself in a surreal nightmare.

It did feel all of a sudden too.  I cried all the way home from dropping him off in Corvallis when he left.  I laid in bed and cried all night.  When I was finally able to talk to him after a few days, we were both in shock.  He was just here. At our home. In our bed.  Now he was in Georgia training for a deployment he shouldn't have been on.  We didn't know what the next year entailed or how we were supposed to get through it.

I remember talking to him and just feeling like this wasn't really happening.  How could this be happening? He was in class last week.  He was working at his job and eating dinner with me and going to school.  He was just here and then he was gone.

When he came home on leave and I touched his face in the airport for the first time in 6 months, it didn't seem like him.  It was weird to see him in person and I remember looking at him for a few hours convincing myself he was really there.  That week was very fast, but so important.

It was a long, challenging year.  There was bitterness, resentment, distance, and anger. Remember this and this?

It was hard, but we learned a lot and grew closer.  Our relationship is deeper now and we understand eachother better now.  That experience was going to either pull us apart or weld us together and I'm grateful we were both commited to the welding option.

I am so proud of Adam for coming through all that he faced during that year- and there was a lot.  He was strong and never gave up what he believed in.  More importantly, he kept his family in the front of his mind and the whole of his heart the whole time.

I am proud of Adam for being a veteran on this Veteran's Day because it signifies his strength during this time, as well as during his first deployment and the 10 years he was in the military.

Thank you Adam.

Healthier Changes

I seem to go through spurts of working out a lot and eating healthy and then getting frustrated because I don't see results fast enough so then I eat junk and don't work out and then I decide I should again.  It's been a lifelong cycle.

I have been doing P90X though and going to the gym a lot and I have been trying to find healthier recipes that I like so I won't feel like I'm "dieting" but just eating healthier food that I really like.

I started tracking my food (calories, carbs, fat, protein) and exercise on http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ which is a free, awesome website that helps you make goals and adjust your calorie and exercise amounts to meet those goals.  Plus, most food are already in their database so it's easy to put your info in.

Just thought I would share because it is a great website!

Smart Thinking

A couple days ago, Griffey tried turning on the hall light but he was barefoot so he couldn't reach it.  He ran over to his crayon box, grabbed a crayon, and put it down on the ground below the light switch.

He stepped on the ground and got the burst of height he needed, because he could reach the switch now.  It was pretty funny. I don't really think the crayon helped much though.

Castle Rock

Castle Rock Hike

• 2 miles round trip
• Up the Mckenzie Hwy near Blue River
• Great view! 

We spent half a Saturday [oct. 14] driving up here and hiking around.  Griffey had a blast hiking on his own.  It was pretty steep, so he was in the backpack for most of the time.  This last picture was taken toward the end of the trail when he was walking on his own.  Right after this picture, Griffey got going downhill too fast and Adam had to run ahead to catch him.  I love his little hiking boots that we got for free somewhere.

Griffey's So Cute

He has been calling me honey or mama or honey mama a lot lately.

I was sick today and almost every time I coughed all day, he said "bless you mama."

He loves the ten little monkeys song.  I caught him last week drawing circles on a piece of paper, at least 20 circles.  After each one he drew, he had his bear kiss it and made the kissing noise.  Then, he would draw another one and bear would kiss another one.  Over and over again.  I asked him what he was drawing and he said they were monkeys.  He also heard people doing construction outside our house and he thought it was monkeys. "You hear those monkeys Mama?"

A couple nights ago, he woke me up crying and screaming in the middle of the night.  I layed next to him and asked him if he was scared.  He said no.  I asked him why he was sad and he kept saying something that I didn't understand.  After he repeated it a few times, I realized he was saying, "Thomas doesn't want to play."  I said, " You were having a dream and Thomas wouldn't play with you?" He said, "yes," still crying.  He was sad because Thomas-the train- wouldn't play with him in his dream.

He loves going to the library.  Yesterday, we went for family story time and the theme was pizza.  They read us a few books about pizza and then we all made paper slices of pizza.  When we left, he seemed disappointed.  It was because he was expecting some real pizza too after all that hype.  So, he was being cute enough that Adam and I brought him to Costco for pizza.