Welcome to my News page. This is my little place to share life....a journal of sorts...dedicated to ramblings, observations, discoveries and cool new things. Find past postings in the Archive link above.

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Oct. 31: Happy Halloween. It is a beautiful day and we just got done carving pumpkins. Enjoy your day. May you eat lots of candy.

October 29th: A New Standard...

Yep, it's officially been done. There is a new standard in 5th grade boys birthday parties. It will be hard to top this one.

Connor was invited to a birthday party tonight that unbeknown to any of the invited kids involved a stretch limo. The birthday invite just said pizza and a football game at the local high school. The bday boy wanted to surprise his buddies and just have the limo show up when it was time to leave.

I think I failed to mention that the party involved 18 boys. Yep...I said the same thing. 18 boys at a birthday party. That is just brave of the parents and crazy. These boys are a great group of kids and very well behaved but you can imagine the energy that buzzes around in the atmosphere that includes this many hyped up kids. I wanted to hang around to see the kids faces when they saw the limo pull up. But before this happened, they all had pizza outside and a friendly game of soccer. It started out pretty laid back with kicking the ball while holding a piece of pizza in their hands.

But the combined energy begins to bind and expand into a large ball of power that is bursting at the seams. Soon the soccer game is taking on a new song that includes dog piles.

Soon after, the big reveal happened and the kids were in on the secret. I guess I don't need to tell you the excitement the boys were feeling and the words "floating on cloud 9" were very appropriate for the moment.

They all hopped in and the glamour of feeling like a movie star was still taking moments to sink in as they were all in the shock and awe mode.

So I'm leaving in a few minutes to go pick Connor up from his party and I can already hear him sharing the stories with bubbling excitement as he shares the remaining events of the night. I'm curious to hear his thoughts on how he liked the high school football game as he hasn't had the pleasure of experiencing one yet.

October 27th: I just had the unexpected pleasure of eating lunch with my first grader. Caiden got out of the car this morning without his jacket. While walking the dog, it felt cool to just be outside in a long sleeve t-shirt. So I hopped in the car to bring Caiden a jacket but as luck would have it, recess had just ended and they were filing into the cafeteria for lunch. I felt so bad but he said he didn't get cold. I'm still amazed that here it is just a few days shy of November and the kids are going to school with no coat. Connor still insists on wearing shorts to school everyday. I don't think he has worn pants once the entire school year yet.

I listed some beads on Etsy last night. This set is still available. It is very tempting.

October 24th: Trunk or Treating in the school parking lot...

It was one of those rare October evenings where the warm air hung heavily around the clear energizing night. The full moon sat low in the dark sky as clouds lazily drifted over it covering it in a thin veil of puffy lace. The kids joyously rounded up their friends for a fun filled evening spent traveling from trunk to trunk looking for that perfect piece of candy while at the same time taking in all of the ingeniously decorated car and truck trunks. There were true bouts of clever decorating that made me really appreicate the time and thought that went into each and every detail.

I happily positioned my chair by the trunk of our van right next to two girlie friends as we happily chatted and commented on each and every trunk or treater. Caiden was a Jawa from Star Wars again this year (although Randy admited to me later that he kept telling inquiring people that he was an ewok!) and Connor was the routine Phantom. Keegan gave up his Roman/Greek Warrier theme from last year to bask in the glory of being a tie die wearing hippie. Although, I laughed when he made the comment that all of the kids in his school are dressing up like hippies from the 80's.

I had to set him straight and even though the 80's has their own issues that at times are deeply embarressing to this previous 80's child (for instance when my hubby goes around the house singing "Oh Mickie Your So Fine, Your So Fine You Blow My Mind...Hey Mickie...Hey Mickie" I crunch my shoulders up to my ears and cringe in embarressment as he does this to annoy me.) So I had to point out to Keegan that hippies would be more like the late 60's and early 70's era. But he could care less. He just liked the Fly Guy glasses and his buddy Jack had this long flowing beautiful hair tied back with a head band. Have you ever noticed with pure annoyance glancing at a guy that has beautiful long flowing hair and wonder why he is deserving of such glorious hair? Then you think that I bet he doesn't even condition it or comb it. He just wakes up and it flows perfectly and it is a true injustice to the woman's race. Or maybe that is just a personal flaw that I'm jealous and coveting that perfect hair that as a woman you strive so hard to achieve. Although, I fear I have given up as I seem to have my hair in a pony tail more than I care to admit. But I have seemed to digress...

Anyhoo.... it was a fun night and the kids got lots of candy but still seem to find the urge to complain and accuse so and so or so and so for stealing that one important savory piece of candy. And as luck would have it, Keegan found the empty wrapper as evidence that cute little Caiden had indeed raided his bag for that one special Air Head candy that is worth gold in our family because I don't allow it in the house (it gives them the worse case of stinky breath ever. Just plain gross!). Thankfully I just comment that Halloween is a week away and they will have more candy than they know what to do with. So move along doggy.

October 20th: Do you have those times in your life when you feel like the days are flying by and you are getting lost in the nuts and bolts of the daily grind? It just seems full of filler activities. But even within all the filler activites there are still moments where we slow down to breathe and soak in the family and special moments. Connor officially turned 11 on Tuesday and I think he felt like he had a very special day. While Caiden and I were reading our bedtime book, I had one of those moments where I just made myself stop and soak in the glow of his sweet shining face and his giggles from the stomach as we were laughing about certain things in the book. He loves those No David books. They have been his favorite for the past few years. We haven't read them for months and he grabbed them out and made a funny discovery on the David Goes to School book. When David got in trouble for drawing on his desk, he realized that the pig David drew on the desk was actually the little girl in the book that sits right next to him in class. The pig has red pig tails like the little girl and he thought that was the funniest thing ever.

So I listed a few new items over at my Etsy store. Check out the silver dome disc. I wrote an article for Art Jewelry Magazine on how to make these. It is slotted for the March 2011 issue if I remember correctly.

Ha, I was just channel surfing and there is the "Lock Down" prison show on that is featuring St. Louis County Jail which is in the heart of downtown Clayton and not far away from Randy's work. Which is very interesting because Clayton is an upscale, trendy area. I think I will just have to watch some of it!

Oct. 17th: What a crazy crazy week. I kept saying I would be so glad when it was all over. It was one of those filler weeks where there were things going on every second. But I must admit that it was a fantastic weekend. Connor had 3 buddies over to spend the night for his birthday on Friday night. We went to Six Flags Fright Fest and had a ball. The weather was perfect. There were very little crowds and we got to do a lot of fun activites. We didn't get back until around 10:30 p.m. and did cake and presents then. You can see from the photo that Connor was pretty tired and when we were singing happy birthday to him he had his arms propped up to keep his head up. Although, opening up presents is a great way to get a second wind.

It was the most stress free birthday party we have ever hosted. Everything just flowed perfectly and the 3 boys that came were a dream. They were so well behaved and such a joy to be around. It was a great time.

Keegan went off to a Boy Scout camp early Saturday morning till Sunday which left us with just the 2 boys. Connor wanted to go to the mall and eat at California Pizza kitchen so we did that on Saturday night and then today was a soccer game and then a very very delightful evening over at a friends house with 8 other couples and their kids. We all came home with house envy though and I was cracking up as even Connor was saying he wished we had their house. It sits on a beautiful piece of land with lots of acres and the house is huge and decorated so invitingly. It made for a perfect way to cap off the weekend. Although, I do believe that when morning rolls around, the boys are gonna be tired. Especially Keegan since he has to get up at 6:25 a.m. That is never any fun. Think I will call it a night myself.

Oct. 13th: I made two interesting revelations yesterday. One is that I've had a car seat or booster seat in our vehicles for the past 12 years. Wow, 12 years. Really? Where did the time go? I will probably keep Caiden in his booster seat for another year or so and then that is done. That stage of my life is over. Wow, how did that happen? I remember when the kids were young and how much of a pain it was to run inside the post office, or the hassle it would be to run in for a soda at the gas station. I would just think how glad I will be when it won't take an extra 5 min. to get the kids in and out of the car just to do a 2 min. errand. I'm now at the point where I can do those errands with no kids in the car while they are all in school.

The second one is that Keegan (my infamous 12 year old) and I can now wear the same clothes. Yes, he is a boy but lately I've been wearing his sweatshirt jackets and even tried on a few of his Hollister shirts I had bought him because I thought they were cute. Wow, once again...really... how did that happen? He was born a premie and only weighed 4lbs and 4 oz. His wrists were the thickness of my fingers.

So you know what all of this is boiling down to...I'm getting old! And my darling hubby is 7 years older than me! Well, as they say.."Time flies when you are having fun". And I have had a lot of fun these past 12 years. Life is good but I sure wish it would slow down so I could take the time to enjoy it more. I feel like I'm in the battle mode and just trying to make it through all of the 400 activities that pop up each and every day.

So I've still been working on the cosmetics of my website and have been learning some more html along the way. I still need to add a button link to all of my pages but you will find on my home page a new link for my Etsy store that will take you to a page on my website and show 25 items that are listed there without even leaving my website. And...I finally changed my "news" link to say "blog". I guess that would be a more appropriate term. I still don't have it hosted on a real blog website and it is done with all html but I'm good with that. I still need to add new items and update items but baby steps are all that I'm taking these days.

I've got more items to list on Etsy and have 2 more really cool silver bezels to list too. So keep your eyes open for them.

Until then, I will leave you with a pic of my 3 sombreros that never give us a moments rest. It is school picture day tomorrow. Maybe I should have them wear the hats to shake things up?!

October 5th: Yesterday was our 13th wedding anniversary. We had celebrated with a date night on Saturday night but we did sneak out for 45 min after all the kid activites to spend some time alone. Of course we had to come home to chaos with all sorts of stuff going on with the kids, the dog having an accident on the floor, and by the time we went to bed, we were just shaking our heads and thankful the day was over! I just had to remind hubby how boring our lives would be without 3 kids and 20 animals.

So the other excitement in the house (well at least on my 12 year olds mind) is that he now has a girlfriend. I know. What? a girlfriend? Which doesn't really mean a lot except they text each other constantly. He says "they are going out" but when hubby asked what does that mean and where are you going out at?" We gather that is just what the kids say. So of course we asked, what do you say when you break up? Then you are "no longer going out". So I had to upgrade his text messaging to unlimited yesterday which required me to change our plan and now hubby and I have unlimited which is no big deal as we maybe use 50 texts a month. But we were laughing and saying that now we can be like the kids and just use up a dumb text to say "LOL", or "hee hee" or "hey" and then the replies back are "hey". I mean, they don't really say anything. "Oh there is a good song on the radio". Or, one of Keegan's sent messages said, "they (meaning hubby and I) kicked me off the ps3 to make me go walk the dog when I didn't want to and now my dad stole my spot".

Or the best one is that Keegan told me over the weekend that all of his friends say that I'm too protective of him and that I don't let him do anything. He is in middle school after all. What? you've got to be kidding me. So I ask, what friends are these? Of course, they are all the new kids from other elementary schools as I know all of the kids that is his core group have no more freedom than he does.

But I had my normal coffee date with all the mom's yesterday and it was good to know that all of the boys are going through this trying to find their new identities and seeing how they fit in at the new school, and trying to be cool and normal all at the same time. It is a rough road for them and all we can do is love them and keep steering them to make the right choices and stay on the right path. Just think of the Diary of A Wimpy Kid movie and that seems to cover the entire middle school topic in a very funny manner.

So I just listed some incredible flower beads on Etsy. These are to die for. Wire wrap them up into a pendant and they would make awesome inexpensive necklaces. The holidays are comin ya know. Even hanging on a leather cord looks fantastic.

October 1: Hey guys! Happy Friday and Happy October 1st. We've had incredible weather and I'm hoping it stays like this for a long time.

I've just been doing the normal busy routine and still not getting Mount Everest Climbed but I did rewash a load of laundry that was neglected in the washing machine and needed another round. I know, isn't that bad? But it is was it is.

Hey, I posted on my Glassbeadle Facebook page 2 simple videos on how I photograph my beads. If you are curious and want some photo tips, head over there. The link is at the upper left hand side of this page.

For those of you who have tried to order on Tickle Me Beads.com this past month, I'm sorry for the ordering troubles. We kept having issues with it and finally realized earlier this week that the site had a virus in it. But my extremely intelligent hubby spent many hours getting it all cleaned up and I think it is all back on track and working fine again. What a pain that one was.

So I'm in the middle of listing some new things on Etsy. I forget how long it takes to do all of this photo and listing stuff. Can I just say that the lavendar bezel is beyond incredible. It is a tad larger than the other ones and so so yummy!!!