coming out of the f o g . . .   March 27, 2010

well, last week was challenging at best!
momma was still fighting a fun virus that had found her.
2nd grade was in full swing with mad hatter tea party preparations, and we were so thankful to other parents who stepped up to help out!
and my dear mom came down, and helped with one of the sewing parties!
yay! an annual 2nd grade tradition at our school- is well underway, and as head room Mom, i so wanted to be there for it all:)
thankful that by friday, i was well enough to pitch in, and see the fun chaos for myself and how much the kids just loved it all!

when momma didn’t feel well, we rescheduled our playdate and, we spent time outside:
chasing bubbles
playing on scooters
practicing golf swings
rehearsing dance numbers for upcoming recitals
and more bubble time
we also did our work:
while momma was working on thank you cards on behalf of MLS,
the girls decided they would join me and do their “work”:

once our “work” was done, the girls’ enjoyed making easter bunnies homes:

and since momma didn’t make the frosting correctly, they used store bought frosting instead:
hoping the bunnies won’t mind…

we went to the store and brought home these:

and worked on a big breakthrough- to get miss m to start
using the BIG potty.
she has been waking up dry first thing in the morning, and will be dry until naptime, sometimes even through naptime.
but, making the transition from toddler potty to BIG potty has been a source of stress for her:
so we’re very proud of you miss m!

on friday night, we went scrappin!!!

and when our dear friend miss k stopped by,
can’t quite put into words how happy i was,
how happy we all were!
and so thankful wragge had her camera…

and how much we’re looking forward to CE 2010!!!

today, daddy got his “work” hat on for spring cleaning at church,
so of course, so did miss e and miss m:

and then after some family nap time,
mommy and daddy went out for a dinner we won at our school auction,
and the girls had a blast with miss h!
thank you, nicole for sharing her:)

so thankful for my family, friends, and finally feeling like myself again:)
and for little happy emails like finding out i won a rak from miss nora!

and seeing this project,

on the LILY BEE blog under friday faves!
um…yeah, i was so thrilled!
thank you, lily bee!
i so LOVE your products:)

happy weekend!

xoxo,
erin

around here…   March 14, 2010

happy sunday all!
we have been enjoying this gorgeous sunshine and nearly 70 degree days the Lord has brought us this weekend!
and here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to:

miss e has been working on her leprechaun trap!
it is due tomorrow…
what do you think so far?

i’ve finally found some mojo…
and started my MLS assignments thursday…

with this one i shared earlier:

ok, you guys are too funny, instead of leaving comments here, you email me:)
yes: the card is a mixture of the front and back sides from FLYING HIGH, one of MLS’ new winter releases.

friday and saturday, i worked on and almost completed the remainder of my march MLS assignments. i’ll share shortly…

and while daddy and the girls worked on potty training, sharing, playing, and having 3 and 7 yr old fits that daddy squashed [while cooking, cleaning the kitchen, including dishes and cleaning up all toys], mommy spent the day with some dear friends:) we laughed, shared, ate yummy stuff, laughed, shopped, and did a bit of scrappin…
oh, and caught a movie afterwards!
i feel so incredibly blessed on days like that.
to have a husband who gets that mommy needs girltime.
to have a group of women that totally get me and love me anyway.
to have two beautiful sassy and fiery girls that test me daily and that i couldn’t imagine my life without.

and for the glorious sunshine days of the bay…
to capture moments like this of my emi girl!

oh Happy DAY!!!

blessings,

erin

hodge podge   January 31, 2010

hello and happy sunday!
hope you all had a fabulous weekend:)
aside from the laundry, cleaning, and regular house stuff, we had a full and fun weekend:)
daddy had to go out of town for a church seminar.
while daddy was away, we:

painted, danced, celebrated our birthdays all over again, and danced some more!

we also:

baked some raspberry pretzel hugs, oh yum!

we took photographs of mommy’s rocio rockets’ challenge this month:

for january, we needed to:
add paint, felt [does velvet count?], bling, and glimmer.
3 out of 4 isn’t bad right? LOL

and for the cards, we made some thank yous:

and then used them right away for our xmas thank yous!

and last but not least, this is a layout that i did for a becky fleck sketch:

this is featuring basic grey’s sugar rush collection…yum!

we also:
enjoyed a girl night out with the brownies, at their songfest event!
had a fun visit from grandparents
created a beautiful class by debby schuh
soaked in all my girltime during class and over a delish dinner + dessert!
caught up and relaxed with hubby
back to church as a family of four
took a fabulous cardio sculpt class
toured another preschool- top choice for all so far!
had a pretty uneventful dinner out, yippee!

and off to create cards or clean my scrap stuff…

happy sunday all!

Merry Christmas!   December 25, 2009

from our home to yours…
and Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

the bell.   December 23, 2009

i stumbled across this, while blog hopping…

THE BELL
I KNOW WHO I AM
I am God’s child (John 1:12)
I am Christ’s friend (John 15:15 )
I am united with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17)
I am bought with a price (1 Cor 6:19-20)
I am a saint (set apart for God). (Eph. 1:1)
I am a personal witness of Christ. (Acts 1:8)
I am the salt & light of the earth (Matt 5:13-14)
I am a member of the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27)
I am free forever from condemnation ( Rom. 8: 1-2)
I am a citizen of Heaven. I am significant (Phil 3 :20)
I am free from any charge against me (Rom. 8:31 -34)
I am a minister of reconciliation for God (2 Cor 5:17-21)
I have access to God through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:18)
I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6)
I cannot be separated from the love of God (Rom 8:35-39)
I am established, anointed, sealed by God (2 Cor 1:21-22 )
I am assured all things work together for good (Rom. 8:28 )
I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit (John 15:16 )
I may approach God with freedom and confidence (Eph.. 3: 12 )
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13 )
I am the branch of the true vine, a channel of His life (John 15: 1-5)
I am God’s temple (1 Cor. 3: 16). I am complete in Christ (Col. 2: 10)
I am hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).. I have been justified (Romans 5:1)
I am God’s co-worker (1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor 6:1). I am God’s workmanship (Eph. 2:10)
I am confident that the good works God has begun in me will be perfected. (Phil. 1: 5)
I have been redeemed and forgiven ( Col 1:14). I have been adopted as God’s child (Eph 1:5)
I belong to God
Do you know
Who you are?

many blessings,
erin

my heart is f u l l . . .   November 8, 2009

for so many, many reasons.
friday, i was invited over to a dear friend’s to scrap:) i always enjoy time with her, she is such a love:) pure heart. generous. supportive. was all prepared to work on some MLS assignments for next month, until another friend arrived. and she, being the amazingly talented girl that she is, simply blew us away.
she attended CE with me, along with four other dear friends. think carol wingert + vintage + christmas. i’ll share photos soon:) thank you so very much, rocio, what a generous and creative gift you are! after we wrapped up that session, i did tackle the start of mls…and i’ll be sharing that soon as well.
saturday, my dh took care of our two lil ones, including dishes, laundry + potty training, while i made a trip up to oakland’s childrens hospital to visit with tanner’s mom, my friend i’ve known since kinder, and one who i cherish dearly. we had grown apart from eachother’s daily worlds, since her move to reno. and kept in touch over the years as our children grew. and that time with her…there are just no words. there were no judgments. no doubts. nothing but embraces, love, understanding, smiles and tears. she is so grounded in her faith, and threw out the why me? when her son was diagnosed with this rare JXG disease a year and a half ago, and has strengthened her walk with Him daily through the toughest decisions a young mother would ever have to face for her dear son. my respect for her has grown, and while the Lord has chosen to take many of my own babies up their to heaven with him, the time spent with wendy only validated why you can NEVER ask why me? and i thank Him daily for trusting my dh and i with our two miracles, miss e and miss m right now:)
after some lunch and rest time, it was time to get all pretty for our xmas photo shoot with my talented friend, krista. we chose to wear non traditional colors, and i just cannot wait to see how the shoot turned out! we met up in ohlone park and it was a bit chilly, but gorgeous out! thank you krista for taking time away from your precious family to be with mine:)
we had some yummy chicken, rice, and fruit…before dh and the girls headed out to a basketball ice cream social, complete with bouncy houses, face painting, balloon animals and just running around with friends! what a trooper dh, they had a ball! my mom friends threw me a lil bday get together…and i had no idea how much some of us have in common. they are all so unique, strong, independent, and beautiful ladies i am honored to call my friends:) thank you so much, k, for opening up your beautiful home for us!
today, we enjoyed early service, sunday school and bible study. and had a yummy togo’s feast, and then chillaxed!!! and i got a much needed nap in, given sat’ party went til the wee hours of the mornin- 2am was it? miss m and i hung out and got alot of laundry done and some dancing and coloring while dh and sister went to basketball. and we met my parents, brother and his fiance at our fave spot for my bday dinner.

once we were home, and the girls were in bed, i found an email from my cousin about a little boy named noah:

he has been battling cancer since he was 3 years old. he is now 5, and the drs say he will not make it until xmas. when asked what he would like for xmas, all he wanted were cards. he is trying to get 1000 of them. if you are so inclined, please send noah a little love, encouragement and hope for his xmas party that his parents are throwing him this weekend:

Noah Biorkman
1141 Fountain View Circle
South Lyon, MI 48178

and i’ll leave you with this photo:

taken by krista, during our first shoot with her in january.
x0x0 + blessings,
erin

an amazing day…   November 4, 2009

for this little boy, tanner bertauche! loving Him, and loving you, tan tan!

please, please, take a moment to pray for him, his drs, and all health care providers at oakland’s childrens hospital:)

blessings,

erin

our community.   October 1, 2009

driving home today, from dance, i started thinking about how blessed we are to have the community we do:

this past week;
monday, while running errands, ran into two women i met scrapbooking over 4 years ago, and hadn’t seen since. it was like running into an old friend, yet realistically, we had cropped maybe twice together that long ago.
had a great speech meeting, and appreciate how far we have come with the resources available. even though our current therapist is our 4th, miss m is doing amazingly well, and has no delays anymore! and i know if we have problems down the road, that i can call 3 friends who have similar issues and can get a referral in a heartbeat if needed.
ran into more moms from school with older siblings and caught a glimpse of what life is like there.
a dear friend sent a sweet card, just because. so, i did the same x 3.
miss m had a low grade fever and cough, so she stayed home from swimming.
miss e and i had a great time! she has come a long way, and we chatted it up with two friends there, from different areas in our life.

tuesday: miss m and i ran some errands, and saw our favorite bagger at the grocery store, who just adores her. and vice versa. the nice lady at the bakery handed her a cookie, oh yum! so, we picked up some more to bring to teachers at school, current and past:)
miss m had a GREAT speech session, and that always allows me time to catch up on laundry:)
we were laying low, seeing how she was, and just had lunch inside, and then she took a big nap!
miss e greeted us with a giant smile, she had a great time at school, specifically with science! love our science teachers!
miss e then started and finished all 12 remaining pages of her homework, and was very proud of herself! granted she didn’t have to turn it in until today, she is that excited about homework and school, GOTTA love that!

wednesday: both girls in school, and i get to spend those 3 hours with a very sweet baby! oh, what a love she is! while running errands, we ran into a dear friend r, who had just returned from teresa collins’ event in vegas! sounds like quite the gathering. and she was happy. full. inspired. just like we all were, when we returned from CE. so what it is about!!!
spoke with a dear friend, had her and her family in our prayers…thankfully, they were answered!
miss n brought a wonderful salad for lunch, and miss m crashed again…must be going through a growth spurt! she slept in the car, wasn’t going to attempt the transfer, and then, slept while picking up emi, driving over to emi’s class, and didn’t wake up until i had to to get miss e to class on time! marathon nap over 3 1/2 hours for miss m, who definitely needed it! she had a ball in playcare, while i chatted with another mom friend while we watched our girls do all kinds of fun tricks at class! daddy cooked dinner and mopped the floor and cleaned our bathrooms for us. thank you dh!
we had a ball with the wiggles dvd and reading before bedtime! i started and finished OCTOBER’s MLS assignments, i’ll be sharing soon!

thursday: since i had stayed up too late working on assignments, i was tired. shame on mommy, i was on such a roll getting to bed early, too.
miss m and i ran a bunch more errands, found costumes on sale and deals for school gear at 60% off for next year, and then we just hung out at home. played on the bike, scooter, trike, and with bubbles, and then our cousins came over for a yummy lunch playdate! my cousin and i caught up and had a great lunch while the two played trains and danced to the wiggles:)
after school, we were invited to join friends for some fro yo, and i just LOVE that miss e truly lights up when she plays with k and j! she hugs them when she sees them and the three of them are so very excited to have another playdate coming up! miss e had dance later this afternoon, so after miss m ran around with their brothers and hopped laps of my mom friends, we packed it up. my girlfriend’s salon is next to miss e’s dance studio, so after class, we got a quick trim since bball photos and school photos are coming up!

and my dh has been seriously killin me the past few nights. he is on a roll, soo funny:) love you dh, love you girls, love you dear friends, love you school, love love love our community.

blessings,
erin

happy easter!   April 12, 2009

He is risen!

Good Friday   April 10, 2009

Gracious Father,
as I sit in this Your house of prayer, I ask that You send me Your Holy Spirit.
Move me, by Your Word that I may walk through Tenebrae with my Savior.
Remind me of His passion and the great cost He paid for my eternal salvation.
In His name I ask this.
Amen!