Chloe's dream come true

Chloe has begged me for years to have her ears pierced. I've been saying that she can when I feel she was responsible enough to take care of them herself and be diligent about cleaning,etc without me staying on her about it.

(But if I have to admit it: part of me wouldn't let her do it younger than I did-weird? Maybe...but I can live with that)

waiting......

After the first one.....


I love the continuous shutter on my camera
Click*click*click

She did SO much better than I expected. Only made a couple funny faces and that was it.

No tears-yea!

Some pretty little cz chips to show for her bravery. And at Target today she beelined it for the earring section and found a cute Christmas set for next year-her first danglies. Teeny little jingle bells and snowflakes. (and on clearance now dontchaknow) ;)

Merry Christmas

From our home to yours

image from here

Floridians in the cold

I mentioned before that Trav's aunt and uncle came to visit for the week leading up to Thanksgiving. Well, the week or 2 leading up to their visit not only did the 24 hour flu hit our house but headcolds did as well. Which to an asthmatic mom and 4 yr old it hit us the hardest and ended badly for moi seeing as I had an adverse reaction to an antibiotic I'd never been on before.

* That makes Thanksgiving F.U.N. when you can hardly eat or stand up straight d/t the pain...

Anyyyhow...I am finally feeling pretty darn good and will end up having to backtrack a bit to get all caught up.

They got lucky the day we chose to hit Abe Lincoln's home and walk around downtown it was a record high of over 70 that day. Not too shabby for Illinois at Thanksgiving.

{we're paying for it now!}

No, I don't let my kids run the streets...the neighborhood is blockaded.

Chloe and Bernie outside of Lincoln's home.

Lincoln's home. I don't think I'd been there since a 5th grade field trip.

I had to take a picture of the kitchen inside the house. Amazing how different things are now.

The fence outside. Had to get a few shots of the kids out there.



It was really so pretty out! if only the sun would have peeked out for a bit.

Too bad our last name isn't Robinson!

This was Lincoln's neighbor I guess.

Reflection on the walk downtown. I regret not getting the whole group in it now :(

{Maybe I couldn't think because I was lugging 40 extra lbs on my hip at the time...}

Down by the old state capital there are these bronze statues of Lincoln and his family. The kids are forever posing and wanting photos each time we go by there so they can see themselves growing against the statues...

The plan was to hit the Feed Store for lunch but sadly, they were closed :(

Bummer-love that place!

We ended up at Cafe' Moxo-a first time for me.

Note to self: don't go to a downtown cafe' on a Saturday right before they close-they'll be out of everything you try to order-lol.

Those were the best chocolate chip cookies though!

More photos tomorrow...

Scenes from an open house

This past Friday I held my (1st annual?) jewelry open house.

I was surprised at how many people came and found multiple Christmas gifts!

I decided to try an "island" formation to walk around. I'm not sure if I'm sold on that idea now... It felt like I had much less than when I'm set up how I am at art fairs...But it worked. I may tweak that in the future though.

A few different views...

All of my rooms got the switcharoo. The dining table moved to the emptied playroom. Photo taken before all of the wine came out ;)


Can you see a little hand resting on the corner of the table just waiting to snatch another cookie?

I decided to try something a little different and "group" like things together.
I usually just use the earrings stands as filler in gap areas but was told at the last show people didn't notice them as much. I grouped these and just as I suspected: they look like little gravestones all lined up-LOL.
(at least to me they do)



A few necklaces....

I worked alot this fall with heat treated copper and loved the results. I made quite a few copper pieces and they flew out of here. This was all I had left at the end of the evening. With silver prices at a crazy high right now I think working more with mixed metals is in my immediate future.

I want to thank each of you who came that night. You made the evening a success and made me happy to see so many friendly faces in our home :)

Thank you *Thank you *Thank you!

We "shook hands with Lincoln"

A little snippet from today~

Travis' Aunt and Uncle from Florida are visiting for Thanksgiving. Today we visited Lincoln's home and walked downtown to a cafe for lunch. The tour guide says by holding the rails on the stairs we were shaking hands with Lincoln...umkay...
Anyhow, I grabbed this shot of Chloe under a little bridge on the wayto lunch.

*love it*

Random Wednesday

*Been taking an online "class" to teach me more about my camera.
*The above shot was my fave from this week's aperature assignment.
*My 4 yr old is trying to play WII right now-a little unsucessfully i might add.
*Chloe just called to inform me we forgot about picture retake day.oops.
*It's her first day back after being sick.
*I'm sick of everyone being sick.
*I think I'm getting sick.
*I'm sick of getting 9 allergy shots each week.
*I think I'll get out of shots today since I'm feeling like I'm getting sick.
*yay?
*Made some cuuuuute pendants in metals lab last night.
*Little things like that make me happy.
*Been readying the house for Christmas.
*Getting ready for a holiday open house for my jewelry.
*Stressing out over little things for the open house.
*Trying to let go of those little things. Not easy but I'm working on it.
*Excited that Trav's aunt and uncle from Florida will be here on Friday for Thanksgiving!
*Stressing out over my hosue since they're coming-lol.
*Again, trying to let that go.
*My coffee was perfect this morning :) But now I need to brush my teeth again.
*I have a visitation to attend tonite that will be very hard to go to.
*I know they're all very hard but it's for a child.
*I need to go hug my boys now

Not my family photos-for once!

About a month ago I was asked by my friend & neighbor to take some photos of her children.

I was honored!

With her permission I thought I'd share a few of my fave's...

Above: probably my absolute favorite.

Below: Mr. tree monkey-finally got him to do some great smiles. There may or may not have been talk about boogers or something else gross...lol.


Thre's just something about this shot-I just love it.


Sigh...the sunflare-the smile...He was loving on mama.

The chalkboard says it all ;)



*Squeel*

{sunflare!}
I love when it happens like this!



I think this was one of mom's favorites. Her sweet patient look-she's a great big sis.


It was so much fun running over to the park to capture these (and about 500+ more!)

Panther Creek

I have a few shots from Friday's sale at Panther Creek for the medical society fundraiser.

Last year I was set close to the entrance along the main area. This year I was in the center circular area of the room. Unfortunately for those of us in the center-there was only 1 way in and out and we felt some avoided the area or just didn't realise we were there. Bummer.

I was thrilled that I had repeat customers from last year and had great conversations and caught up.


The "wish" necklace from my last post was one of the first sales. Snatched right up by a wonderful woman who came back to chat with me a couple more times before we left. I love meeting new people and hearing stories of their lives...


Travis made my new earring tree-a triple decker. I think where I set it got a little lost. Front and center from now on I believe.


I can't count how many comments I had on my little tabletop trees. "I don't suppose you made them and they're for sale?" I kept hearing-lol. Nope, you can find some at Gordmans...

I was so happy to find my new little silver tray! A score at a second hand store. I wanted something vertical to put little incidentals on. It worked great for my pins and little pendants :)

Tonite I've got to work on my inventory sheet and choose which goodies get dropped off over at the Art Association tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to their preview sale on Friday evening. The sale starts Sat for the public.

Sneaky peek

Tomorrow I'll be participating in an art fair held at our local Panther Creek Country Club. Last year was my first time to have a table there.

I'm really looking forward to it. A good friend has a table close-by and my friend Cindy will be coming to assist me again this year. It should be a good time.

Here's just a couple shots I took yesterday--bunches of sterling and copper earrings all lined up...

A simple stamped pendant I whipped up the other night-so sweet!

Halloween 2010

A bit late on my halloween pictures...a bit late on alot!

I had to take a break and work on items for an upcoming show.

Without further adu here are the kiddos this year...

Gabe's owl costume I made from scratch and it turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself!

Nana found some retro thread in a trunk in the basement and thought Chloe could probably fit in them. (nothing a little glue gun won't fix!)

She was a cute little hippie.

I still can't believe my mother in law wore this. Ever.

Sawyer's outfit I'm ashamed to say didn't have any thought put into it but he sure was cute anyway! The train conductor hat and scarf pulled from the play clothes and smudgey little cheeks...When he first saw a picture of himself he freaked out! "oh noooooo! dir-dy!!"
lol.
Ya, he doesn't lke to be dirty. He's that kid.

We still have WAY too much candy sitting around here
{calling my name...}
I've gotta get rid of it- before it lands on my butt.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween.

:)

Around the house yesterday...

Crisp fall leaves are are starting to fall in our front yard~

Sawyer looks around to match the leaves with the trees and tries to reattach them~

I love the crunching sound when I walk outside~
{but my allergies hate this time of year!}


Color in the backyard~


View from the front yard pointing up~

The biggest spider I've ever found at our house has taken up residence on our porch...

eep

What's in front of me when at the computer~

Just look at how much Chloe's face is changing!

Amazing...

What I see when I'm torching~

Pretty colors all organized~

The retro halloween decor Chloe dug up in Nana's basement~

Cracks me up-it's all over the house...

One of my favorite antiques~but it scares the bejeezus out of the kids.

Flip doll-it has Grandma on the other side of the Big Bad Wolf and Red Riding Hood is at the other end when you flip it over. I thought it would be fun to set out for H'Ween...

A huge vat of veggie beef soup w/ a crusty loaf of italian bread for dinner...

mmmmmmmm...

It was a great day for being outside, leaf piles, having friends over and just chilly enough for soup to be perfect!