Everyone Has to Start Somewhere

With 4 boys aged 6, 4, 2, and 8 months, and then a husband, it is very hard to find time for the “girl things” to balance my day.  At our house anything to do with sewing, stamping, scrapbooking, or a plain old bubble bath comes long after all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and activities have been successfully completed.  Me time happens in the wee hours of the morning if I want it.  Most of the time I opt to sleep instead.  

I am venturing to share the daily grind of how I chose to balance the testosterone with "girl things".  Everyone has to start somewhere and so I am sure my blog will build it's character as I go.  With time I will learn how to improve my posts and hopefully share some laughs with you as you follow.

For now here is a sneak peak of what I hold dear and at the top of my priority list.  As they are cared for, I am promising to spend a little more time on me, and it starts here with documenting it as a journal I can look back on.  You will get the inside look at the projects I take on to energize me and at the same time give me tranquility.  Look forward to seeing posts on my vintage aprons, scrapbook projects, rubber stamping creations, cooking, organizing, and goofy things my boys do!

Enjoy and thank you for visiting,

Danine

Advent Book Calendar

This has been a fabulous idea for the past 2 christmas’s at our house.  Originally passed on to me as an idea from a friend who read about it at www.ohdeedoh.com   I rounded up all the Christmas books we had on our bookcase and started wrapping.  I did not have enough books to fill all 24 days required but that is where the library comes in.  A quick trip and I had all I needed.  

I wrapped the books using a kids craft paper roll from Ikea.  A $5.00 roll will wrap alot of books.  There was plenty left over, enough for maybe 3 years of wrapping books.  I marked the outside of the packages with an “L” for Library to be sure I used those books at the beginning of the calendar.  This way I was not going to pay for late fines once we reached our 3 week borrowing period.  

The kids then helped to stamp all the days of December on the upper right corner with Riding Hood Red ink from Stampin’ Up!  it was a fun way to get the kids involved without it being overwhelming for me (the oldest of my 4 boys is 6).  This project truly took an hour from start to finish.  There was the trip to the library but that is a regular activity for the kids anyway.  

It made it real easy to decide which book was going to be read at bedtime and now the kids look forward to the tradition of opening one book each night before bed during the month of December.   

Danine