Introducing.....

our new fun home blog called At Home with K & A! My friend, Kim, and myself decided to start a new blog to post all of our home projects to. We just got it off the ground and are still working out little kinks like how to add buttons and all that fun jazz.

http://www.athomewithkanda.blogspot.com

Over the 6 years we've known each other (but have never met in person!!) we are constantly trying to motivate the other into getting a room done, painting that one piece of furniture we've been meaning to for months, sending lots of before and after pics and links of neat things we think will work in each others homes...

I thought one day- hey! Why not put it all in one place! Challenge and motivate each other to finish neglected projects, find some cool stuff, meet some new interesting people....

I'm so excited!

So.....go check us out! Check back often since I know it will be added to all the time :) Don't forget to say hi when you come by!!

How cool is this??

I can't remember where I was that enabled me a couple minutes of magazine time last week-but I came across this awesome place I had to share.

They're dubbed bed-n-breakfasts in the trees. "Tree-sorts". How totally cool? I would definately have to stay in one if we ever went to Oregon. Unfortunately I don't see that in the near future...so I can just root thru their website and dream.

i * heart * hydrangeas

I'm so glad we decided to plant these out front last year. They're the most beautiful deep periwinkle color...I had to cut a few and bring them inside. Makes me smile everytime I walk through the dining room.

Sometimes it's the simplest things that make us feel good. :)

The 2nd summer birthday has arrived...

This must mean I'm getting old or something. Chloe turns 8 years old today! I just can't believe it-it really feels like yesterday that she was taking her first dip in the baby pool.....
And now here she is-all tall and leggy. Her head touches my chin. She's ridiculously tall, pretty, loves to play outside all day with her friends, helpful, super-sensitive, a great soccer player and talks non-stop...

Happy Birthday sweetie! We love you. :)

Glass*glass*glass!

I had no idea when we planned to go to the Indianapolis Children's museum that they had a glass display by artist, Dale Chiluhy. I've seen many people pay homage to his work by using his pieces to inspire some really cool wavy disks and funky shaped beads. I had no clue how cool his pieces were until I standing there with my jaw gaping open in awe.
Yes, that's a guy all rigged up dusting each piece with a long duster thing. That "chandelier" was 4 stories tall!
A couple pieces in cases along the wall...
Aren't the colors gorgeous in that piece?
This was taken from underneath the chandelier. There was glass ceiling with a revolving bed you could lay back on and gaze up. Very cool. I have an all new appreciation of glass blowers everywhere!!

We're baaaack!

Last week we went on vacation to Tennessee with Trav's aunt and uncle. On our way home we stopped in Indianapolis for a couple days to go to the children's museum (wow!) and the Zoo.

I'd never been to the Gatlinburg area. I was surprised at how BUSY it was in areas. You wouldn't think this little mountain town could hold so many people-then you go down around the corner and you're in the middle of peaceful woods and streams and waterfalls. So interesting.



A few highlights: hiking a couple miles UP to see a waterfall, going to the Ripley's aquarium (Gabe was in awe),one of the biggest loudest rainstorms I'd ever heard,sliding backwards on the steep yet teeny tiny gravel road heading to our cabin, Sawyer learning to wave, getting lost trying to find a covered bridge on the property of a Sanitorium with very scary people all around us (I've been googling but can't seem to find info on that place!), seeing a bear and it's cub in the woods during a cool hayride, getting to touch a shark and spending time w/ JR and Bernie.

While in Indy we went on a drive to find this pizza joint Trav had found online and it led us to this little town on Indy called Carmel. I think we both decided if we were to ever move but stay in the midwest that would be the ideal town to move to. It was so quaint, clean, had a neat little arts district downtown with cool statues scattered all over town and a great bikepath. We found the coolest abandoned old church for sale and talked about how cool it would be to rehab it and live there-lol. Here's a shot of the church...



It was 100 degrees the day we went to the Indy Zoo. Sure makes me appreciate this weather we're having right now! After a storm the other night it's perfect out-sunny and mid 80's. LOVE IT!

It's funny how anxious I always become on the way home from a trip. I start getting all these wild ideas of things I want to get done at home and can't wait to clean, do laundry and organise. No idea why...Maybe it's caused by the chaos of living out of a suitcase-lol.

Happy Father's Day, Trav!

Trav,
This year I thought we would try a slideshow for you. The kids helped me find some of their favorite photos...
Thanks for all you do-you're the best! We love you!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Sugar Highs

Thank goodness the leftover cake is almost gone. The arguing over who gets James and who gets Percy on the cake picture is about to do me in. I can't rid of this sugar headache either-lol.



We had a nice long weekend. My brother and nephew came in from North Carolina to visit. We also had Sawyer's 1st birthday on Saturday and had family come by for a cookout. The weather turned out really pretty.

I was able to get to the workbench and solder some earring backs as well. It was nice to feel like I was able to accomplish something! I'm hoping to have a few pair of earrings to list on etsy soon-maybe after vacation...:)

Don't you love giveaways?

http://lindseycheney.blogspot.com/
Go pop by Lindsay's blog The Pleated Poppy for a great giveaway. Don't forget to wish her a happy birthday!

Wow. It's been awhile! I swear I feel like I can't tell if I'm coming or going anymore! It's only going to get worse once school is out (next week). That means I'll have to create a whole new schedule for the younger ones to adapt to all over again...

I created a new little pendant. Chloe had a couple little girl birthdays to attend and we were pretty clueless about what to get. A kid can only use so much sidewalk chalk and webkinz-ya know? So I whipped up these little cuties to give as gifts. I plan on offering these pendants for custom orders...On these I put little flowers on the back but I was thinking a polka dot background would look cute too...the possibilities are endless I suppose!



The price is for the pendant alone. I made the loop big enough to fit over the end of most standard chains that most people have laying around...

In other news: there has been little done to the foyer renovation. Once I got sick a couple weeks ago I lost steam and am still pretty worn out. This one really wiped me out! I haven't been sick like that for quite some time. It's still needing a 2nd coat of paint and all trim painted. Fun times...

My brother and his little boy come later this week from North Carolina! I'm so excited to finally meet my nephew, Mason. I can't believe he's 18 mo old already. I'm sure Clif will be busy showing him off to everyone he knows...Then we've got fireworks at the Carillon festival and a little 1 year old's birthday party on Saturday....!!! (*sigh*where does the time go?)

Celebrity sighting?

I totally forgot mention this the other day!!

I swear I saw Robert Duvall at the art fair. Call me crazy-if it wasn't him it was his twin-with the identical voice to match ...

So I'm walking along in the center area around the Old Capital carrying a box lid full of bottled waters-delivering them to artists as I was heading to the next booth I was sitting for...and there was a man strolling in front of me talking to a man next to him. I was needing by but didn't want to squeeze between them and there were too many people milling back and forth at the edges. So I slow up and walk behind for a few seconds and see him turn to the side talking to his friend and it strikes me immediately that this man looks exactly like Robert Duvall! Finally they see me and step apart to let me through and he chuckles and says something about "see, this young lady is even bringing me water! How nice!" I just turned to him laughed it off and made some stupid joke, squeezed through and kept walking-then hesitated and almost turned to say something to him.....then his voice hit me and I freaked out and couldn't-lol. What a loser! :P

What a great day...

The weather turned out absolutely gorgeous for the art fair. I worked from 11-3 booth sitting and going on water runs for the artists. I feel that I learned quite a bit today- but the best part was the conversations with these amazing people! A couple of them just sat and gabbed with me like they'd known me forever.

It was so cool to hear about how they started, how long they've been doing art fairs, what they think of the economy situation and their goals. It gave me a tiny taste of what hard work it is to man a booth. I felt awful for the 4-5 booths whose tents were destroyed. I guess saturday morning it was just windy enough that it tore a few of them apart-but they still set up-just without their tents.

I am watching the season finale of Desperate Housewives wondering why the heck the picture went all pixelated but there is audio still? The picture finally came back on but it's not timed right and I feel like I'm watching a bad japanese movie....so I guess I'll have to watch it online later. Fine by me I need to go to bed-I swear I have the worst sinus infection I've ever had-blech!!!

Oh ya-the painting in the foyer is about 1/2 way done as of tonite! It's been trimmed in and I'll roll 1st coat tomorrow. It's looking so good! I guess the plan is for the floors to be sanded this next weekend.

*New*

It's funny how excited I get to actually post a piece of jewelry on here-concidering that's why I started this blog to begin with-lol.



I made this for myself last week and love it. It's tiny and shimmery and simple. I've been wearing it everyday and can't even feel that it's on. The pendant has been stamped, hammered and oxidized for texture and depth then tumbled and polished for sheen.

In other news...something made it's way into the house and I'm not liking it! Gabe had a fever for days but (knock on wood) no fever overnight and is back to himself. I -on the otherhand- feel like crap. Trav says it's probably allergies but it's all just too coincidental. Yesterday I felt feverish (went away-whew!) sore throat, no energy and just out of it in general. Blah! I am booth sitting this Sunday at the Old Capital Art Fair and hope I'm feeling back to normal by then!

Let the painting commence...

I was finally able to attack the foyer today with primer...about an hour into their 3hour nap Gabe was calling me. So I got him up and snuggled on the couch to watch some Einstein so I could get back to work for a bit. 10 minutes later the phone rings, wakes Sawyer who never was able to fall back asleep. I did get most of the trim and the big mirror primed.

I was able to get back to it once Trav got home and took the kids outside. The weirdest thing tho-they came inside from playing and Gabe went to get in the shower with Chloe. He started crying-then just couldn't stop... Afterwards I dressed and held him on the couch with me. He said he was cold but he was burning up then fell asleep on me. That was at 6:30 so he missed dinner and has been out ever since. :( I've said it before and I'll say it again-when that kid gets sick he gets SICK and it comes out of left field just like that. He was perfectly fine playing outside, happy, energetic,etc...So I immediately called the neighbors who were out playing w/ them to give them the heads up.

I have a feeling this means not much paint will get on the walls tomorrow. I was looking forward to a few good days in a row to get this knocked out...we'll see.

Wacky Wednesday

She asked why can't every day be wacky wednesday?
This week was spririt week at school so each day they got to have a different theme per day. Wed was dress wacky...Here's what she came up with. It originally had a short dress over the top of it as well but she nixed that idea-felt too bulky. She arrived home after school with her shirt flipped backwards as well.
Funny how when we went to Sam's Club later that night I realised in the parking lot all of a sudden she was wearing shorts w/ her tshirt. She said well,duh mom it's only wacky wednesday at SCHOOL not everywhere else! I don't want everyone to stare at me! (insert big ole eye roll w/ attitude)
And she's not even 8 yet......

Yeek!!

I'm not sure which of you caught The Doctor's tv program today...I caught a few minutes right when the boys were getting up from naps and turned it on just as it was gettin good!!

http://www.thedoctorstv.com/main/procedure_list/269

There's the link if you didn't catch it. I guess since I didn't see this coming I was just shocked! I sat up with my hand over my mouth saying ohhhhhh myyyyyyyy gawwwwwwwwsh...Dr Travis really went OFF.

Now I can see from both sides and it brings up alot of interesting bits about vaccines, our envirionment, foods, etc that really do scare me and make me wonder about what our kids (and us) are putting into our bodies. I commend that Jenny McCarthy has done her research on the matter and all. What I don't care for is how she tends to act like a medical doctor these days when in fact she is not. There are unfortunately too many parents who have autistic children who have done their research and I just hate how this country puts her up on the pedestal to listen to because of her celebrity. Ugh.

Steppng off my soapbox now...

It's a love/hate thing

The lack of sleep that comes when the creative juices start flowing......But it's when all my best ideas come around...

I woke around 1am to feed Sawyer... while in my zombie stupor (Zyrtec really zonks me) this necklace idea flashed thru my head and made me wide awake dissecting all the different possibilities on how to make it happen....it went this way and that way and all around.......an hour after Sawyer was in bed snoozing away I was laying there wide awake fiddling with this design in my head. I think I've got it figured out (I really hope so! It looks so neat in my head!!!) I may have to fit a bead session in today or I may just burst. I'm anxious to see if this is going to work or not! Even tho now I feel like a nap is in order-lol.

A few body parts and some worm hunting

At least all this rain is good for something~ it's bringing out the worms for our little wormhunter to dig for. His latest obsession is to find a skinny stick and swoosh thru any puddle we happen along (quite a few) and play with "wormy worms". He's graduated to letting them crawl on his hand now then letting them go under our hostas.

I try to get random shots of their eyes now and then. Chloe's eyecolor has changed 3 times already and she's only 7. Gabe's has gone from deep blue to gray and now a brown ring is starting around the center. I wonder if it will continue to go brown or stay this way?

Had to get a closeup of that toothless grin...

And share some happy eyes. Sawyer is just such a happy kid... :)

I'll take all the help I can get~

So last night we were all hanging out in the living room before dinner and all of a sudden I got this bug to go to the sunroom and make me a silver ring. I made a few for myself in metals classes but they're wider and not what I want right now...I just want something thin and simple for summer. Maybe even stacking rings-we'll see...

Gabe follows me in and shimmies up on the barstool I've got at my workbench. He starts asking me what's that? and why? etc...you get the picture-he's 2. So I made sure he was way at the other end of the bench while I torch fused the silver together. He was facinated of coarse by the fire but stayed put-still asking questions. So I gave him a mini lesson on making rings...I was surprised at how intently he listened and never acted bored to run off for toys.

Today we retrieved the ring out of the water where it was set to cool last night and he got to hammer it. He was so happy to get to "bang bang bang" let me tell you! He actually did a VERY good job of getting the hammer to hit the ring and not the ring mandrel! Now that they're napping I'll tweak it a little more. Hope it fits...I told him it could be his Mother's Day gift to me since he helped work on it. :)

Random babble

Today I'm kicked back on the front porch-happy that we chose to get the deep seater furniture so I can sit sideways and be cozy. Thanking Travis in my head for the forethought of the extra outlet he installed "in case I ever want to sit outside on the laptop" lol. Never thought I'd see the day...Thanks, Dove chocolate, for showing me I need to sit and chill every now and then :)

So I sit here thinking about how some big ole ferns would look pretty...2 I think. We also still need house numbers for our address, mailbox and entry rug (all left over from last summer's OPAM-lol) Maybe I'll cruise some websites while out here. Although I'm itching to get back to reading my new book...hmmm...

Here is our yearly birdnest in our side Magnolia tree-right outside of the dining room window. Yesterday the eggs hatched and Gabe and I got to watch her feed the babies for the first time. Interesting to talk to a 2 yr old about how they feed the babies as we ate lunch. He looked at me like I was crazy (they're eating worm puke?) lol...Ya-did wonders for my appetite. Sure are cute tho.

It was time

I made it legal. :)

Now no more sitting and thinking about it...no more wishing I was doing more but not...I decided that only I could make it happen. So here I am.

All I've wanted to do for years is participate in art fairs and have a website-I would LOVE that! (even if just a couple here and there...) This is my first step-and it's checked off of my to-do list. Currently I'm sketching out new ideas, pounding out the beads as often as possible and working on a couple of earrings prototypes that I haven't seen out there....I'm honestly not anxious to really do anything this year as far as fairs are concerned with the economy the way it is (too late for most fairs this year anyway) but this gives me plenty of time to do my research and get my ducks in a row.

Ok so don't hate me for this but....look at the name to the left of my DBA-I was glancing through to see if it was run this week and my eyes instantly went to that ladies name! Now i can't get that "Thong Song" out of my head!!!!!

Wish me luck!

Terrible 2's are showing up a bit late...

This rotten little stinker has been running me through the ringer lately. Man-I'm whooped. If you can imagine-this is the look I get all day long-it's meaning either "I'm up to something" or "You need me but I am going to turn and run and hide" or "I didn't hear a word you said".

*Prince Gabe*

The little turkey is so cute about it though that it's hard to really get mad at him. Especially when he's wearing princess crowns upside down.

Cousins, egg hunts and fun

Our day started with baskets overflowing with sidewalk chalk, bubbles, jellybean trails and games. Then we headed to Papa and Grandma's for lunch and the first egg hunt with cousins. Gabe had a blast-but it's a good thing we practiced how to do an egg hunt or he'd stop at the first one and sit in the grass and eat the candy out of it.

After Papa's we ran to cousin Jill's for another egg hunt then to Nana's for dinner.

We took a walk out by the field behind their house to take a few pictures. It was full of dead weeds but was a nice backdrop. Here's Chloe and cousin Olivia.
I decided to play around with some different photo finishes-this was a 1960's edit-kinda fun! :)
Chloe glancing out of the window while going through her eggs...
I love this of Gabe out in the field for some reason.
He loves to find "pig noses" (walnut shells) Yesterday was a no-nap day since we had so much going on (and too much sugar anyway!) so he wasn't cooperating for the picture. You get the idea-lol.

New bracelet design!

It's been awhile...

My friend Cathy came up with a color combo for a set of beads~I got to work and made a boatload of them. It was hard to choose which ones to use ~and I love these colors together!! All cobalt, teal and transparent pink and added a smidge of lime green. The whole time I was torching all I could think of was Hawaii-maybe the fact that she's heading there soon put that in my head...



I'll tell ya-it takes me forever until I'm happy with something. I think I remade this 3 times until I was happy. And happy I am! I love this design! I think it's a keeper-whatcha think?

It's official:

Spring is springing...we'll get a hot day with mosquitos and bees then back to jackets and gloves and snowflakes. Goofy Illinois weather.

Yesterday we ran outside for an impromptu easter egg hunt in the front yard. lol-not many places to hide eggs concidering some landscaping we planted last year is just starting to sprout a few leaves but oh well...

I had to run across the street and get a shot of the magnolia tree in bloom-Chloe's so lucky-how her room is situated she's got the front magnolia tree and the side magnolia tree so out of all 4 windows right now you see nothing but pink fluff. Gorgeous.

Note the finished porch :) I'm so happy to have that to enjoy all summer now!!


You can see by Gabe's feet my hydrangea's are popping up! Yea! Now...how to keep them and all the neighbor kids out of that area....hmmmm...

My goofy egg I just had to make after seeing some similar ones in a store. It's made from window screen. Any idea how hard it is to "sew" w/ wire? Not real fun... A little blood involved. In any case-I started it well ahead of time-then forgot about it-then messed some more-then forgot again. So it was hung only a couple days before easter-oh well. Better than nothing-which is what I've always had since the house was always such a work in progress.

It doesn't take much...

to make me feel my age. Ugh!

So Trav and I were asked again to sub for adult indoor soccer. I was doing just fine til Mr. 7 foot tall decided to take me OUT with a body slam. Sprawed like a big ole loserrrrrr on the astroturf...Astroturf burn down the whole leg? Sexxxxxxxxy -lemme tell ya.

{{I am still feeling it in my bone-ow.}}

I'd take a picture of it but then I'd feel like even more of a loser-lol. Ya ya ya Kim...and you wanted me to take my camera tonite-ha! That would have been the million dollar moment Trav would have snapped you know... :P

Playdate

I love facebook. I can't believe I had it for 2 years and totally forgot about it. It's been so long since Cindi and I have seen each other. The internet can do amzing things. It's found a long lost friend for me.

Sweet little Jonas~


Here's my Gabey swinging~gave me some good toothless grins today...
Jonas again before the squirrel came to eat all his leftover cheerios~

Her other boy Isaac who poses the same each time he saw my camera~couldn't sneak it by him-lol.

It turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day so we grabbed a pizza, strawberries and cheesesticks and hit the park.

:)

Holy cow!

The dr just called again to keep me informed of final test results. He said definately a bad UTI (so continue on the med prescribed) and wants a follow up and retest in a couple weeks. At that time they want to discuss an ultrasound to rule out bladder reflux.
We had a nice day in the park today visiting with my old friend, Cindi. Once I go thru and upload photos I'll post em up. :)

Updates

I just LOVE our pediatrician.

I was at the grocery store last night when Travis called me. It was around 6 pm and said the doctor just called to fill us in on labs as they come in. I had already spoken to the nurse earlier as well-I think it's great that they want to keep us informed as more come in and that he actually sits and calls HIMSELF to discuss. You don't see that often. He's great!

Well, as it turns out her final urinalysis results don't show glucose! Whew. The blood test showed high blood sugars over the last couple of months-but the overall result is no diabetes!!!! Thank God.

I also called on Gabe's chest xray. They want a repeat in 6 months with 3 different views as opposed to 2. The radiologist is questioning whether or not it's a nodule. Ok-so what does that mean? He didn't mention comparing it to old xrays...so I get to stew about this one for 6 months.

I've got an old friend coming over today who I reconnected with on facebook. We met in 5th grade and hung out til after high school then lost track of each other. It's been about 15 years since I've seen her. So hard to believe so much time has gone by! I'm so excited to see her again and meet her boys. They're got about a 2 hr drive so they should be here soon :) Yea!

Breaking point

I used to handle stress just fine. In fact-I thrived on it-I worked better under pressure. Still do-depending on the situation.

But once I had kids-and those stresses came in the form of medical issues-that does me in. Not to mention that anything bad comes in 3's for us.....so I hope to God there isn't anything more coming my way or I may just crawl in bed for the next 2 weeks and not show my face.

Two days ago I took Gabe for an appt w/ the ped pulmonologist for a checkup. Everything was fine as he listened to him and all then he looked at his chest xray and kept looking at it at all these weird angles (was waiting for him to stand on his damn head to look at it) then kept doing hmmmmmmm...hmmmmmm...omg spit it out man! "i don't like this area right here-see this?" um no not really but...he says looks like some kind of nodule or something. Probably having to do w/ fungal stuff in our air here in Illinois but I want to talk to the radiologist first and I'll call you this afternoon to discuss. Greaaaaaaaaaat.

Gabe was sick last week (the only good about that is it's the FIRST time he's been sick where it didn't require antibiotics, nebulizers,etc to get him out of it-good sign!) BUT-he passed it to Sawyer. He wasn't so lucky. I kept waiting for it to be on the downhill slide but each day seemed worse than the last.

Yesterday morning I woke to him screaming. Thinking his leg was between the rails I rushed in there to stop short at the wall of stench that hit me at his door. Up to the changer and off goes the pj's to have me standing in stunned silence while he wailed. I've never quite seen anything like the diaper rash he had. The diarreah he'd had (from being sick I suppose) had evidentally sat in there all night (can't believe it didn't wake him!!) and had just burned his whole front and inner thieghs...So heres me-crying and panicing and getting him into a cool bathtub since wipes hurt him too bad. As the morning went on he was choking on the mucus, lethargic, fever and wheezey sounding. Their ped is great-got us in at 1 pm.

So I'm changing Sawyer to go to the dr appt and the school calls. Great timing. The school nurse is telling me that Chloe's in pain when she goes o the bathroom and is actually having quite a bit of blood when she pees. I had just enough time to grab her from school (of coarse on the other side of town) and get back over to the dr office w/o a minute to spare. The dr was great and went ahead and did a urine specimen. Now more stress...

So he was saying the little dipstick tester showed elevated everything...including sugar. I'm like ok...so what? He says well...concidering you shouldn't have any sugar in urine that's not a good thing so...
hmmm
So he says well, I doubt she's got diabetes but...
oh great.
So after talking it over about waiting for the urine to go thru lab testing, etc I decided to have her blood drawn (after asking what would YOU do if it were your kid?). She cried so bad while they drew her blood-I think more scared about what this meant that pain from the needle. She's got 2 good friends her age who have diabetes and has watched all the finger pricks and insuline shots.

So 2 calls I need to make today. To find out if my son has something weird growing in his lung and to find out if my daughter has diabetes.

This is great-2 minutes ago my phone rang and caller ID says it was the American Diabetes Assoc. Please tell me that's not a sign.