Beautiful flower

I have been blog hopping this morning and found the instructions for making a flower. The blog is Bad Girls. I am not sure how to add a link any other way so.... http://wendyrago.typepad.com
here you go! She originally made them of silk napkins. I am going to try ribbon and of course, paper. Go take a look!

Christmas gifts

I have been working on several projects for Christmas gifts. I am going to photograph them and then after Christmas will post them. I hope they will be liked.

I have been trying to learn how to make digital scrapbook kits for about a year now and have decided that I am totally unable to "get it". I do not know if it is because I have hated computers ever since my husband went back to college to get a computer science degree while our children were in lower elementary or just because I am totally illogical and cannot follow the logic of the computer but I am a dismal failure at it. I so wish I could create them and use free kits with ease in order to enhance the photographs I want to scrap. I would never give up making the scrapbook pages or mini albums but would love to be able to add things to the photos....

Oh well, I guess it is not to be but I feel like I have wasted a year of my life pursuing the impossible dream.

Well, I am dreaming of a white Christmas but it will be probably be white only at the beach.... our family lives on the coast and snow is not much of a possibility.

Speaking of weather. I have heard from some people that still live in my hometown this week. The lows at night have been around 20 degrees, the highs during the day have been around 70 degrees and they had a major sandstorm. All since Monday....... there is a saying,"if you do not like the weather in West Texas, wait about five minutes and it will change! There is no place like home!

Happy Thanksgiving

So glad to be able to travel to Roscoe to visit with all the Westbrook side of the family. We are a large group. A loud group. A loving group. And a crafty group.

We are going to do a "Yardcrashers" of our own for my mom. She works in her yard quite a bit but since she is now alone, cannot do a lot of the heavy stuff. Sooo we are going to do it for her while there. The pond is a favorite of the children. Josiah would love to go swimming in it. I hope for one nice day that is not too terribly cold to be able to get the work accomplished. At Thanksgiving in 2007, it snowed, wonderfully large, fat flakes that just hung in the air. It eventually snowed very blustery and was quite beautiful. I think it snowed a couple of inches and for West Texas, that is quite a bit. Avery loved it. She and Brady played in the snow all day. The other little ones were too little or did not care for the cold. It would be fun for it to snow Saturday late evening but I doubt that will happen. I lived there for 18 years growing up and remember it snowing before Christmas, once.

I will try to post some before and after photos. However, it will be next spring and summer before the change will be very obvious!

Happy Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for!

On the mend

It has been awhile since I posted because of various things. Like having a two year old at our home for a week, going to Houston to tend to my daughter after surgery, taking my husband for surgery and tending to him afterward but..... I think everyone is doing well and headed toward wellness! Thanks to the good Lord above!

I have been busy working on some little Thanksgiving books for all the women who will be at Roscoe for Thanksgiving. It has places for menus, recipes, photographs and journaling. I thought they would come in handy once the photos are printed and the recipes swapped. I guess I should not bother putting a recipe section in mine......

I am also working on Christmas gifts for Eddie's side of the family. The great nieces were easy, they all have American Girl dolls and love clothing for them. Our grandson is the only little boy. I do not think he cares since he plays with his sister's Bitty Baby a lot more than she does.... at least all those clothes I have bought and made are being played with, eh?

I love old ephemera and buy it when possible. I like old flash cards and decided to make my own for use on some projects. They are about the simplest thing in the world to make and print out. I used a Manila colored paper to print on so they look more authentic. I think they will work just fine and no one cares that they are not vintage.... they are just the ticket! I guess I might be able to make my own tickets, too......

I am off to make some more things for the holidays......

Thoughts on children

Because of the job I was blessed t0 have for fifteen years, I met some of the most amazing children and their families. Some of the children had what we know as "birth defects'. Some of the children had suffered some type of trauma such as car accidents. Some had been shaken so badly that there little brains were turned to mush or abused in other ways. Some were children that had visible issues and some did not. Some were exposed to drugs while they were forming. Some had had strokes in utero for no apparent reason, some had strokes due to some type of stress or trauma that the mother suffered while pregnant. Some were born way to early. Some were wealthy, some were poor. The thing that they had in common was they had an issue that qualified them for our program and a spirit of resilience that was amazing.

Great intelligence, extraordinary athletic ability or beauty is greatly valued in our society. Many appear to believe that if you have any or all of these that you are somehow superior. Some also appear to believe that the parents or caregivers have something to do with the person having that trait. The belief or attitude that people that have these attributes are amazing is an odd belief or assumption. Where did that ability or beauty come from?

As I watched those little infants and toddlers struggle to achieve the developmental milestones that we all watch for in children, I decided that those children were the super heros. They were the ones that had adversity that made development laborious and at times, quite impossible, but they kept trying. They kept getting up when they fell. They kept trying to form words when all we heard was verbage like Pebbles Flintstone or just vowels. Some had to learn to be mobile without the benefit of sight and some had to learn sign language because they could not hear. These children were little warriors that rose above their circumstances.

So I have to ask, who is the more amazing? Who should we be more awed by? The person that was given a gift of good intelligence, superb athletic ability or great beauty? Or the ones that were told they could never achieve milestones that met them ? No matter how long it took? Even if it will take them forever?

I believe that those precious little children that struggled to achieve are the ones that we should proclaim as amazing. Because they are.

Idea for outdoor decorating

I was in Fredricksburg after the first of the year and went to the Christmas Shop/Store. They had taken old window screens and painted christmas images on them. I do not remember exactly what motifs were on them but they were Christmas symbols. They had left the wooden area all chippy and hung them on the wooden fence around the property. They were really cute and may have even been for sale. I do not remember.

I am really aggravated that I just now remembered them because Eddie and I just disposed of six wooden screens that were just laying around looking trashy. What a waste.... I think there are some more in the basement so I am going to go look right now....... ta ta for now.

New Idea for holding clear stamps

I did not like the ziplock baggy sooooo I thought of another idea. It is a much better one. And the stamps are not sliding out. I put them in sleeves meant for CD's or DVD's. There are two openings on each side. You can buy them in most office supply places. They have holes for three ring binders. You can also purchase little notebooks that zip closed to house them. My husband has these little dandy's for all of his CD's and DVD's for the computers. I happened to think of them during the night. I tried to post a photo but it never allowed me to. I hope that I can post it later.

I am off to watch the Texas Tech vs. the University of Texas football game. UT is ahead but until the buzzer sounds, anything is possible.