We had such a wonderful holiday spending a lot of time with family. My husband doesn't get a lot of time off so anytime we can have more than the weekend hanging out is a bonus. As many of you know I get the Winter blues pretty bad and since I haven't left the house in 4 days it's starting. We have sooooooooooo much snow and I just hate it. I know so many people can't understand why but it's just the way it is for me. These are some pretty lousy pics taken from the warmth of my house!!
OK enough about the dumb weather. I spent most of the weekend cleaning and organizing. It felt so good to have all the Christmas stuff down and put away. My house always feels a little empty when it's all gone though. It's only because there is room to walk again!! Trying to stay tidy with a toddler is so hard. You would think I would get this concept by the third child but you tend to hope he will not demolish everything you put away just moments after you accomplish this! There were so many trying times this weekend where this happens and I find myself yelling the same things. Then I stopped to think about how much loss we heard about in just a few short days around here. A local little girl just 4 years old lost her fight with cancer. I have been following her story through a friend and that sweet girl touched so many lives with her story. My heart breaks for her family. I kept thinking as I would box stuff up, I wonder what they are doing right now? I am struggling to organize while my loud boys keep making messes and run through the house and they would probably give anything to hear that noise. Then another friend of the family died at only 20 this weekend of a freak heart problem. No notice and in the prime of his life. Again so sad. Another one was my cousins wife's mom lost her battle with cancer too. The situation reminds me so much of losing my mom and sister to that horrible stupid disease. I hate the word. I don't use it that often because it's like acid in my mouth. Time does heal and it has and I hope that these families will find some peace like I have. Some days are hard but I vowed to both of them long ago that I wouldn't let their sickness and death ruin my gift of life. God has taken and given me so much and I have to be thankful for that. You can't miss something that you never had and I would hate to have never had their presence in my life.
Well I told you that these were random thoughts from my last few days. Sorry to not have a real point here it's just what is on my mind.
I will leave you with one final snow picture. This is from one of our upstairs windows! My kids couldn't believe that the snow was more than half way covering the window. Brrrrrrr :D
The second project was a photo tile that I found on someone's blog. I of course can't find it at the moment but I will try and post a link later to it. It was very easy to do and came out so cute. I made one for my in-laws that I forgot to take a picture of. Mine I wanted to do very plain colors to go with the sepia photo. You basically just find a smooth ceramic tile and mod podge your picture on there, do the same with a nice piece of scrap book paper and then add some sort of decoration in between. They also showed them on a heavy block piece of wood that had been stained and those didn't require the easel because they just stood up by themselves. Very easy and fast craft to do!
