Tuesday, October 30, 2007

This is what keeps me sane

So this is what I've been up to since late April. I started making little stretchy bracelets for Anna and Julia and it morphed into this! After crunching some numbers, I think I've made a grand total of 96 bracelets. I've given quite a few away because I'd rather give them as gifts to friends and family instead of selling them. So I'm sure you're wondering why I'm posting them here. Well, I've had TONS of people want to know how I lost weight. This is how! When I had the craving to eat or felt overwhelmed, I would sit and make a few bracelets. Sometimes it only took making one or two, but other nights it took making five or six. I've really enjoyed making them and searching for new and exciting beads. Any excuse to shop is always a treat!! :-)


This is what I call the blue man group. Here are the bracelets that are mostly blues.

I'm not a huge fan of brown, but here are a few that I've put together.

Black isn't a popular color either.


Here are some of the really cool colored ones. Dice, stripes, and rainbows have been my favorites lately. I just made the two on the right side tonight. I love the gumdrop beds.


Red, red and more red. I love red! Anyone that knows me knows that my favorite color is red. I really love all of these!!


It's the Pink Ladies! The big bracelet right in the center with the purpley-pink beads is my new favorite. The beads I got from http://www.ornamentea.com/ They are a super cool store in Raleigh, NC. I should have ordered more, but I wanted to see how well I liked them first. :-)

Sunday, October 28, 2007

A glimpse into the future?

I recently found this picture that Anna had drawn last year in first grade. On the back was a picture of the boy that she liked, so I'm thinking that she had help drawing this one. Here's what I noticed that makes me worried about her! LOL!

1. The Nose Ring (I don't know anyone with one...not sure where she got that idea!)

2. The Belly Button Ring (Again, I don't know anyone with one, but I'm sure she's seen them!)

3. The Rainbow Striped Hair (Eh, I can live with weird hair colors!)

4. The Gold Tooth (What the hell? She's gone GANGSTA on me?!)

5. The Bustier Top (Ok, so that could me something she got from me and my Madonna-loving days)

6. The Super Long Dangle Earrings (Yeah, that's totally Anna already!)

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Blowing Horns and Wagn'Coop goes 6-0!!

So, my wonderful sister, Theresa decided to take the kids to the first Muskegon Fury hockey game tonight. Well, Anna couldn't find her giant PURPLE horn. Ugh! Like I know where the damned thing is! Each person has at least 500 things in this house and I need to remember where they are all at, at any given moment!! Well, my Mom Super Powers apparently are running low as I couldn't find the horn (or Cam's shoes for that matter!). So I gave my sis $20 for the kids to spend at the game. I tell Anna, "Don't blow all this on food either!" Anna looks straight at me and replies, "I'm going to blow it on a PURPLE HORN!!!" I thought Theresa and I were going to lose it. I never laughed so hard! Anna has got the best sense of timing.

Oh yeah...today was the last day for soccer. I'm sad to see it over. I was having a good time!! Anyways, we beat the Willick team today 5-0. YESSSSSSS! Mike and I decided to get the kids trophies for their hard work and going undefeated! Tomorrow we have the banquet for the fall soccer season. Then it's on to spring!! Cam had a great time playing and I was thrilled to see the teamwork that he inspires in the other kids. I wish he could be playing rugby! ;-) (Oh yeah, Springboks won the World Cup today in France, if anyone cares!!)

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The Pumpkin Patch and Storm Clouds




















Today was our day to head to Majors' Pumpkin Patch. I've been there at least 4 times with Anna and now it's Julia's turn to enjoy it. The kids always seem to have a good time running around through the corn maze, finding the lost gourds, taking a hayride and doing the pumpkin roll. I posted a ton a pictures of Julia, none of me. YAY! They didn't turn out. HAHA! I also took a ton of photos of some cool clouds that rolled in tonight. I'm going to have to email them to my friend Darrin who works for NOAA in Raleigh. He used to live in MI and gets a kick out of my Michigan weather pictures. I'm a nut for storms and for cool clouds, so get used to seeing them here a lot.
In unrelated news...from my counter I can tell that I've had over 12,00o vistors to my blog. Imagine that! I'm thinking that I'm going to send out a present to the 13,000 vistor. I've got like 30 bracelets that I've made that I need to get rid of. It's become my newest addiction. I'll post some pictures of them later this week. :-)



Sunday, October 14, 2007

Camping, Soccer and Julia's 4th birthday!








































































Phew! I think it took me like 30 minutes to upload all these pictures (and not because I have slow internet either, I've got high speed baby!) and now I've got to do a little write up. We went camping at Poncho's Pond this weekend. It's the annual Halloween weekend and the kids had a blast getting all dressed up and trick-o-treating around the campground. We also had our 2nd to last soccer game. We beat the Lane team for the 3rd time! Wooohooo! Wagn'Coop is still the U-10 champs at this point. We have one last game on Satuday against the Willick team. They usually have a good team, but I think they got the shit end of the stick and we should easily beat them. Coach Cooper and I got the kids trophies for they efforts and I can't wait to see them. :-)
Today was also Julia's birthday! It's a day to celebrate and a day to mourn a bit in my mind. I'm beyond thrilled to have such a beautiful, smart and funny little girl as my daughter, but at the same time I know there is a mother grieving for her daughter that she will never see on her birthday again. Plus, I don't really know if today is her birthday. It was estimated by the orphanage and so this is the day we celebrate. Either way, we had a great time at Grams and Pop's house. Julia got tons of gifts and loved opening every one. :-)