Are you a CRICUT too?

AAAhhhhh my Cricut Expressions. I love it. How did I ever live without it? I mean its a crafters dream. Scrapbooking, paper crafting, making home decor and even projects for parties. I remember when I first saw the Cricut Expressions. Marty and I had just decided to get Direct TV. I was searching through the guide list of shows on tv and I saw the title "Scrapbooking Made Easy" and I went to the channel.

I was hooked as the ladies who were hosting this infomercial spot spoke. I dont know how many times I watched this commercial for the Cricut. I mean I LOOKED for the spots on TV. It was the most awesome thing I had seen. It cut all sorts of things. Scrapbookers use it, you can cut vinyl, chipboard, make wonderful cards for birthdays, invitations, and yes EVEN CUT FABRIC!!! Oh happy day!!! I can use it to create appliques for my girls cheer pants, for their shirts FOR MY SEWING THINGS! Im so happy. BUT WAIT A MINUTE...I had to wait over 2 weeks. Yup...so Im like a sap stuck to the boob tube watching this infomercial over and OVER again.

I did order it, like I said two weeks later I waited. I still had to wait just over a week for it to arrive. I mean when they knocked on my door with the box in tow I was like a child looking at the best gift anyone has ever received. The girls and I took the thing from the post man thanked him OF COURSE and rushed to the kitchen. We couldnt open that thing fast enough. As soon as we opened it and put it together, we started to cut things out.

This thing is great. I have yet to use it with fabrics. I have, however, created 3 scrapbook pages for my daughters Kinder graduation. I also reused some glass jars, recycled them by etching them with its purpose and dressed them up and I created a bday/fathers day card for my dad. It was the easiest thing to do.

One of the great things this thing has is you can create boxes. You know little gift boxes you can stuff with candies for a childs bday party? Yeah those, it slits all the places for you so you dont mess up at all. I mean its fool proof.

The next thing I want to do, but I have to repaint my living room before i do this, is create the vinyl quotes you see all over the place now. Yeah I want to do that and put it on my front entrance door. Im so having fun with this thing. If you want one, there is a way to get it with payments. Just go to http://getmycricut.com/ It comes with a slew of things not just the machine. It has 2 cartridges to get you started, and the 12x12 sticky pad. Other things too like the etching glass chemical to do what I did there with my glass jars.

So dont wait to long get on the Cricut Expressions bandwagon!!!

Growing Up *Adult content!*

*this post is about puberty and the sex talk. Some words will be used that you may not want your children to read. So please make sure that they are out of the room or out of line of sight from the screen.





A really talented woman posted on her blog about a question her daughter asked her, and well it scared the nilly willies out of her. So you know what I'm taking about and you can catch up with what I'm about to write visit Amelia's Blog http://ameliasfb.blogspot.com/ by clicking the link there.



OK if you read her blog, the scary word is puberty. Yup, if you have youngin's (i think for us girls are more scary than boys for some reason) yes that word will come up. A lot of us are like our parents, we hope we don't hear that word or even the S-E-X word!!! OH NO!!



Thing is this, they are going to hear it eventually. T.V. Internet and the ever so knowledgeable FRIENDS will tell them what it is all WRONG.



I decided even before I had kids that I wasn't going to be afraid of the whole puberty and sex talks. My reasoning was because I had to learn by myself. My mom and dad were scared to talk to me about these things because they had the idea that I would want to go and DO these things. Well, lets just say that ideal plan didn't work. First off, when I got my aunt flow, I was FREAKING OUT!!! I mean sure, we went to school, my mom signed the form that let the nurse show us some cartoon movie about puberty and growing up. That didn't do the job though. I still had no clue as to what to expect. See I remember when I was about 12 years old, my back was hurting so bad. So was my lower abdomen. I mean I was crying so hard, I didn't know what to do. My dad was worried, my mom was working and my little brother was biting his nails because his older sister was screaming in pain from and unknown source! Then I remember seeing it...a dark brown spot. I THOUGHT I POOPED MY PANTS!!! I FREAKED OUT. I told my dad that I had pooped my pants and I didn't know I did it. It happened again several times. I mean I was freaking out, I thought I was going crazy!!! So my dad put bengay on my back and sent me to bed. Later on around midnight my mother comes home and wakes me up. She asks me to show her what I told my dad about and she said "OH you started your period" threw me some maxi pads and that was it!!! Nothing more!



I learned other things on my own too. See when I had my oldest daughter (for those of you who don't know, I have 4 girls no boys) I swore that I was going to do things different. I had told myself that when I was about 16. I re-affirmed it again when I got married and when I had Rebekah (my oldest).



As she grew up she saw me pregnant 3 more times. I mean it was cute when she was 1 and she would pop out her belly and say "Bebe, Bebe" and point to her belly too. Then again with Rebekah and Erykah when I was pregnant with Monikah. They would pop out their bellies and say they too had babies inside them as well. I mean it was horror for my husband but I thought it was cute.



It wasn't until I was pregnant with my 4th daughter Jesykah when Rebekah asked "HOW DOES THE BABY LOOK INSIDE OF YOU?" That is when I got the book by Alexander Tsiaras From Conception to Birth . (you can click on the link to take you to Amazon).

So with this book I showed them how a baby is forming inside my belly. I went each month with them and showed them how the baby was growing and how the baby looked inside of mom. Then the question was asked "BUT MOM HOW DID THE BABY GET INSIDE YOU?"

Don't get me wrong, I did panic but then I remembered that I had a duty to do. I promised something long ago that I would never do, and that was hide. SO my daughter being a young age I tailored my answer to her age. At that time Rebekah was 6. Most of you wont have to deal with this until later on but don't wait till THEY ask...your gonna have to find a way to start this up. I recommend to start talking about this by 8 yrs old at least. So, back to the story. I told Rebekah "Well mommies and daddies love each other right?" she said "Yeah like you and daddy love each other". I proceeded to tell her that moms and dads love each other so much that the dads gives the mommy a special gift that makes the baby." That seamed to satisfy her until we moved back home.

So then, later on, while cleaning, my daughter came upon some of my stuff. She asked me what it was and I told her that mom was on her monthly flow. She asked me some questions as to why and how and what was the purpose for it. So I told her that every month a woman has this. What it was is that there was a house for a baby to move in. So the body build a house every month to wait for a baby. If a baby moved it then the flow would not happen. If there was no baby moving in then the body broke down the house and then would make another one again later on. I said the body wanted to make sure that the house was "brand new " for the new baby.

Then it progressed to (as she grew a year older) showing her what a woman looks like inside. I showed her using a book what the fallopian tubes were and what they carried. I explained to her now in better detail in some more real terms about ovulation, eggs, fallopian tubes and menstruation.

When she got to late fifth grade to early sixth grade i started talking to her about sex. She had asked. In my hometown, we have one of the highest pregnancy rates and she had already heard about sex in 4th grade except she never thought of it until she heard it again in 5th grade.

So yes, I sat down and talked to her about sex. I didn't tell her that it was a mommy and daddy loving each other anymore. She had told me what she had heard and I said it was true. I mean to her it was gross. However I told her that's how babies are made. She did freak out a bit but I told her that one day she will find a man she will love and she will not think it is gross anymore. I also did say sex was for a husband and wife ONLY. I told her sex is TO MAKE BABIES. That only moms and dads are ready to share the love for each other by creating something together that they both will share that love with. I then asked her if she thought teenagers were ready to or mature enough to take care of that baby. I said to her that unmarried people run the risk of not raising the child together because they did not plan out what the costs and sacrifice of raising a child was. A lot of the time young parents do not know the actual sacrifice it takes to take care of a child. I hate to say it but I did say that most boys are not willing to stick around so the mom is there to take care of the child herself.

All in all I did this in stages. She knows why her body hurts, she knows why she feels so tired all the time now, she knows all that. She knows her body is getting ready to start ovulating, but she also knows that she is not ready for the responsibilities of certain action. I always tell her just because you can doesn't mean you should. Remember I said that my town has the highest pregnancy rate...well my daughter just finished 6th grade. Now I know this doesn't mean anything but a lot of her friends already have boyfriends?! She tells me they kiss a lot. My daughter tell them they are too young to have boyfriends. Now Rebekah isnt the most tactful young lady ( i mean what pre-teen is?) She makes fun of them and mocks them and says "Dating, what do you mean your dating? You cant even go out without your parents? Oh wow what a date?" She is pretty grounded for her age and I'm very proud of her. She has had boys ask her to be their girlfriend and she has always said "NOPE..I'm to young for that"

So guys, don't be afraid to talk to your kids. Again do it in stages. DON'T WAIT FOR THEM TO ASK. I failed at it once. Rebekah came to me and asked me what sex was because her friends had already told her about it. I know they are our babies and they will FOREVER BE OUR BABIES even when they are 80 yrs old!!! I say that to her. Sure you don't want them to grow up but its inevitable. The best thing to do is prepare them. Make them strong, THAT GOES FOR BOYS TOO! Teach them to respect girls. Make sure your husband OR YOU DADS dont make women to look like objects. Remember one day you may have granddaughters and you want your sons to treat girls like you would want your granddaughters to be treated. My FIL learned that the hard way. He once told my husband to "GO AND SOW HIS WILD OATS" then he ended up with 4 granddaughters by me and one other granddaughter by his youngest sons ex-wife. You think he wants some guy to 'sow his wild oats' with his granddaughters? You bet he doesn't.

Don't forget that while teaching all this, teach that Love Waits too. My oldest daughter Rebekah said she wants to take the Purity vow. How that came about is a whole other post. She really respects that sanctity of marriage and I do wish my mother talked to me about these things the way I talk to Rebekah about it.

Im back!!!

Howdy yall. I am back. Im sorry, I have been away for a while. I have let the cobwebs gather here on the net. However I am back.

Its been very intresting and sort of difficult at the same time here. As you all know there is an economic crisis in the U.S. Yeah I know, when did that happen and how??? hahahaha, I dont see it getting any better any time soon. It does affect us though. Dh is part owner in a business. Things started to slow down here so we are doing so so. Whats bad is that I've been sick. its weird how I found out I was sick cause it wasnt some kind of virus kicking my butt and stuff. Nope actually, I started going to the gym. I mean I had felt some kind of not so well sort of feeling for a while but chalked it up to being 50lbs over weight. So I chaged my diet and got my patootie to the gym. Well at the gym, when I had my first one to one work out with the trainer, it was starting good. I was actually keeping up and I was very surprised at myself. Then out of the blue I feel fait and sick. Just that fast the entire room, my entire world was BRIGHT AS A FOOTBALL STADIUM! Im not kidding. Then the trainers voice was fading into the background and I couldnt hear him...yup I was passing out. I DIDN'T, I hate loosing control, so I fought it off. Eventually I came out of it, it took me nearly 3o minutes for me to shake it off. After that, I just felt bad almost everyday. I went to the doc and talked to him about my ordeal. so he ordered tests...A WHOLE LOT OF TESTS!! It was as if I was donating blood, yeah about 10 viles of blood!

So I go back and Im thinking my dibetes got worse. Well, actually my A1C is a 6.7 not bad. What came out is my thyroid is underactive. My metabolism is out of whack. My heartrate slows down because of my thyroid. I feel like Im on fire because of my thyroid. I get these episods that are horrible. Its all because of my thyroid. sucks really...but the worse part is not having this thing thats afflicting my metabolism. Its not haveing the insurance that can provide me the help to get my other tests done to help me treat my thyroid issue. Nope. I have nothing. The first round of tests cost me over 2800.00. That was already with a 30% discount. The actual price of it was over 4K for all my tests. Now my next round of tests are 2500 w/0 the discount and thats if they give me a discount. Not to mention that they need to give me blood work for a few months when they finaly give me my meds.

I have my good days, but I have more not so good days. With this, I can't really plan ahead. I never know if I will wake up feeling good or not. Sometimes I wake up good and then during the day, I start to feel not so good. I cant really explain it.

However with this, i have decided that Im not going to wait to feel good. Despite my health I will start again with making and selling things. So, thats whats going on with me. right now.

Oh and the girls started a new cheer company. The other one started to get a bit weird for us. They started to have favorites and they were forgetting my girls (and other girls) and stopped teaching them tumbling techniques. The new gym is a lot closer to my house, just about 5 blocks from here and the owner is really nice. She had me make the first set of cheer bows for her girls. I will be making the cheer comp bows too. So, Im glad for that. I have to look at the positive of all of this. Right...best foot forward.

economic crisis!

Ok so..we are all probably going through some economic hardships. We (I) have cut some 'fat' from our monthly expenses. No cable,which sucks cause its Spring Break..and no internet...so I won't be on line as much. I still have my web capable phone but its limited. It can't run java and most places now run on java. It will give me more time to make stuff...so hopefully later onwhen I get my internet back...ill be posting a lot of stuff for grabs AND inexpensive too. So we just have to keep on praying for some help here...to bad we are not failing banks,huh? The government would have helped us out for sure hahah so see you on the flip side!!!

Lets get learning!

I have always wanted to learn how to create sewing patterns out of scratch.  Well, I live in the boonies.  They don’t have classes like that here in our Community College or our University.  I asked one time if they offered design in fashion and they said and I quote "We only offer classes that have value to them, not hobbies"  I WAS LIKE "WHAT!!??" So New York offers only Hobby classes?  Shoot, I should go tell Vera Wang her million dollar business is just a Hobby right?

Well I cant just move to New York and go to a fashion school.  I have a family and my husbands job is (unfortunately) here, in this bum town.  So I give it up.  Well sort of.  I try my best to make some patterns a bit bigger.  It can be frustrated, I mean I have ruined I don’t know how many yards of fabric because my measurements are wrong. 

So imagine to my surprise when I go to Journal Modiste and I find an ad that has "CHILDRENS FASHION WORKSHOP!" ( just click on the name there and it will take you to the site) hey it peeked my interest. So I go and check it out.  Wow I'm blown away.  They have classes so you can make patterns bigger or smaller.  I mean from tops to pants, to button down shirts...they have dresses and so much more.  CLASSES TO HELP YOU CREATE YOUR OWN FROM YOUR OWN HEAD PATTERNS!!!  I'm so stoked! 

I'm so happy that someone took the time to do this.  I am going to sign up for some classes. I hope it meets my expectations and of course I will come back here and let ya'll know if its worth the money.  So far...I'm liking the site.

Lessons in Life are not FREE sometimes

As a mother or even just as a parent, we take certain precautions to protect our children from anything that may cause them harm or even just from pain.  Sometimes we cant do anything at all.

We try to teach our children hard work brings good fruits.  WORK=POSITIVE.  Thing is sometimes we get so caught up with teaching our kids that working hard will yield them plentiful bounty, we forget that sometimes we can work our tails off and sometimes we don't get that good "harvest"

My girls had been out of their cheer teams for over 2 or 3 months.  We were moving so I had pulled them out but then the national economic security blanket was pulled away from us and we all started to feel the bitter cold of an economic down fall.  So we didn't move. However because of that my girls were not able to rejoin their teams.

Well as "luck", "un-luck" for other, would have it, girls were leaving.  Parents couldn't afford the tuition let alone the expense of traveling for the upcoming competition season. My girls were called up in Early January and were asked to be a part of the team again. In less than a month my girls had to learn the entire routine for the end of Jan. They did it and they did good! My oldest team received the highest ranking and the "coveted jacket" everyone strives for.  However that was just a "warm up" competition.  The big one is called NCA or the National Cheerleading Association Competition.  That is the biggest of the biggest the Superbowl of cheerleading. Teams from all over the country came and competed there!

Again our girls did well.  The my oldest team placed 3rd over all for the first day and well the youngest had some errors and hers were in 6th. Rebekahs team had a good chance.  They practiced some more and "fixed" what the judges said they needed to fix, at practice.  Erykahs team also did the same.  Rebekah's team goes first.  They are doing so well, but they did wake up so early and slept late the night before because of meetings they had to attend.  They were so tired.  All the moves were there, they were hitting their marks and then "OH NO" you hear me say GASP my husband goes... a team member trips and falls to her knees while they try to get her stunt up on the air.  Then as my daughter is about to do her tumble  pass ( a series of cartwheels and backhand springs across the floor), SHE STOPS DEAD IN HER TRACKS in the middle of one of her backhand springs!  She just freezes...one of her team mates started her pass to late and they would have crashed if Rebekah continued.  So she posed and blew a kiss to the judges.  There were other mistakes but not as "grave" as those. 

Awards near...they were in 3rd the day before..maybe they were able to hold on to that spot.  They called the 12th place teams then the 11, 10 and so forth... then you here "IN 6TH PLACE WITH AN AVERAGE POINT OF" well I forgot the points they got "FROM LAREDO TX" I head that and My heart sank "TEXAS GEMS EMERALDS!"  They dropped 3 spots.  It was a good shot.  They worked hard. They were tired all of them.  Still they were able to pull it together at the end.

As I walked out I see a bunch of sobbing little girls (and one young man..yes there is a boy in the team) and lots of mothers crying with their kids.  It is the hardest thing to see your child be so disappointed.  Feeling like it was all their fault.  You see Rebekah things that it was her fault because she stopped dead in her routine.  I told her no, she prevented an accident.  Still she cried and I cried.

Then it was Erykahs turn. I TOUGHT THEY DID THEIR ROUTINE PERFECTLY.  I didn't see any errors but I'm no judge.  Erykah stuck her moves and she did everything right.  Still awards came around and out of 7 teams...they got 7th place.  That was the hardest blow of them all.  Sure Rebekah's team dropped 3 places but they competed with 12 teams.  Erykah's team got last place.  My heart broke for my girls.  They had worked so hard.  In less than a month they learned the routines.  They practiced at home, when shopping anywhere they could they practiced. 

We always teach our children "HARD WORK BRINGS GOOD REWARDS!" We forget to teach them that sometimes we can work hard and do our best but sometimes someone else beats us out.  I know I'm guilty of doing that.  Still, this was a time for me that life had given me.  That one chance to "teach" values and morals and lessons on life, the HARD KNOCKS OF LIFE.  As parents we don't want our kids to learn the HARD WAY.  We want them happy.  That's why we tell them not to do this not to do that.  We tell them that cause WEVE DONE IT and we know the outcomes...PAIN...HEARTFELT PAIN. Yet some things are left for them to learn on their own.  Sooner or later they will get their hearts broken, their spirits down, their confidence shaken.  It is up to us to rise at that moment and help them stand back up.  As much as it hurts us to see them in pain..we need to be there to help them back up.  I told the girls there, the team not just my girls "HEY YOU GUYS DID AWESOME!!! AND WHAT DOES NOT BREAK YOU WILL MAKE YOU STRONGER!!! YOU GUYS ARE STRONGER BECAUE OF THIS AND YOU WILL DO BETTER NEXT TIME AND BE SHARPER AND BE ON SPOT "

I tried to focus on the positive aspects of the trip.  They made new friends.  Erykah met a team from Maryland and she was all excited.  Rebekah got to spend time with her friends that go to other schools.  She never gets that type of time with them.  It was FUN! Sure the loss is hurtful, but I know they will bounce back and next time will be fierce.

Sometimes lessons in life are not always free of pain.  We can take the advice we are given or not but we will always learn one way or another.  Its harder when we see our kids learn "painfully" but we can cushion it just a bit so they can bounce back and say "I CAN DO THIS"

De-stashing fabric!!

I am clearing my stash-o-fabric...  I have a lot of scraps, some fabrics I bought on impulse that I never used and STILL in one continuous length...usually 5 to 10 yds each.  Some have been cut here and there but is still usable.  I will be de-stashing more soon but I need to get rid of this first.  This is just as it, you can pick through it when you get it, but its non refundable.  I have loads of pinks, and other stuff, I took a pic hope its good enough.  In there is about ayard or yard and a half of black tulle. Total for this is 25.00 not including shipping...it will be priority flat rate cause it is a bit heavy and that will be around 10 bucks for that.