This morning Jerome was going out to the van to load up the little kids and told me to be careful because there was a mushroom on one of the mats. What? I thought something got in the garbage and there was grossness (damn racoons… size of small dogs around here…), but no! Look what is growing out of our mat!

Sure, sure, there has been enough humidity and heat that I’m amazed they aren’t growing out of our walls, but I am convinced it was a magical gift. Who’s to say that fairies, gnomes, or magical creatures aren’t galvanting around when we aren’t looking? Common sense says so, so you may be saying, well, to hell with common sense.

Anyway, getting on with it…I have been crafting away to build up some inventory for this weekend and here are a few goodies that could be yours if you stop by the Mt. Horeb Art Fair this weekend!

I never feel like I have enough ready for shows, but I know that at some point I have to call it ‘what I got done for this show’ and that is now. I finished pricing everything and making new signs (definately a sickness… I ADORE making signs).

Now, all that is left to do is pack everything up and haul it out to the van when Jerome gets home. Assuming I get all this done, we are going on a date tonight and then working on Craftacular stuff until bedtime, which considering what time I have to be at the show tomorrow should be around 8 pm!

xx’s and oo’s and remember, you still have time to leave your words of love, wisdom, or otherwise in the comment section to be entered into my blog love drawing!

Hello again bloggy world! I really do promise to check in with you more often than I have been, but life is just swirling around as usual.

However, it is swirling in such amazing ways!

I am busy busy busy getting ready for the Mt. Horeb Art Fair this weekend. I haven’t done this show in about seven years, but I adore Mt. Horeb, it’s close to home, and a good show from what I hear so I am trying to get a nice booths worth of Glitter Goods ready.

Here is a sneak peak of a few projects I finished.

Here are some new kitties I sewed on my NEW MACHINE!! I can not even begin to describe my love for my new sewing machine..

Then there are amigurumi finished while watching a TrueBlood marathon.

Storybook necklaces.. many more than what is shown here..

…and, fun coasters including fairytale and Star Wars. I was so excited when I found the Star Wars book at a thrift store. Ms. Violet was with me killing time before we went to see Eclipse (and after pie eating…) and trust me, I was excited.

On the Craftacular front, things are coming along quite well. I still can’t believe there will be 85 vendors. What was I thinking?? No, actually everyone, honestly is being super great to work with. I have all the ads out to the misc. printers / web peeps thanks to the amazingly talented Andrea of Space Oddities and donations for the goodie bags are coming in every day. How I wish they were all just gifts for me!

I also found a printer so we can get canvas bags for the goodie bags. It’s so nice to be able to do this. It uses up the last of the Craftacular funds, but I think it really is a good thing and they make super shopping totes long after the show is done.

On the home front things never really seem to slow down, which I guess is just life with four kids.

As of tomorrow, Ms. Luna will be nine months old! Seriously, when did that happen??

And, if that’s not crazy enough, this guy is almost two!

Don’t even get me started with Darby and Zoe… I just got Zoe’s middle school info in the mail! *sigh*.

I am frantically getting things together for Henri’s big party. It started off that we were just going to have cupcakes and gifts on the actual birthday, but come on, you all know me better than that… Forty invites were ordered (no, I did not make them this year thank you very much), and will be addressed tonight. I miss having people over and being social but with our gnome home, it’s hard to have a lot of people over. For the party let’s just pray that it is a nice day. If it rains… well, I guess we’ll figure it out.

AND, just because I love you all, I am going to be doing a blog giveaway for sticking with me through this dry blogging time. Simply leave any comment between now and Monday on either here or my Facebook page blog update, and you will automatically be entered for a drawing for one of my crocheted goodies. Of course, if I have no comments then I know that my mom truly is the only person who reads this.. hehe…

Have a super duper weekend everyone and trust me, I will be back soon! I”ll leave you with a ‘baby in the sink pic’ because really, who doesn’t love babies in the sink??

There is so much blooming around here lately, it is just beautiful. However, suffering from a nasty round of strep throat has not helped my creativity blossom!

Here is a little peek into what is blooming around here. First, my new headband designs, then onto the yard. Not feeling too wordy today but keeping my fingers crossed my medicine kicks in soon!

WOW have I neglected this lately. Well, with the end of the school year, tons of work, and our trip out to New Mexico I have barely had time to sleep much less blog! Hopefully I can make more time to get everyone caught up.

So as not to overload you all, I will start with our New Mexico trip.

I am considering it a success, all in all. Traveling with three girls (age 11,12,15…YIKES) isn’t exactly restful, but they were mostly tolerable!

It didn’t start off so great with a two hour delay leaving Madison, meaning we missed our connector flight in Dallas, but we were lucky enough to squeeze onto a 7:00 flight, as opposed to a 10 pm flight like we thought we would have to catch (our flight left at 2pm from Madison!).

Finally, we arrive in Albuquerque, tired, but good. Not much was open as far as food so we ended up eating a Chili’s.

We finished dinner and made our way to Santa Fe to spend the night and wait for my mom the next day.

My mom met us in the morning and we headed off on our Santa Fe journey. Violet used to live there so of course she had her favorite places to stop (and it was her birthday…).

First, you have to stop at Jackalope. It is an amazing gift emporium with donkeys, prairie dogs, pottery,… the list goes on and on.

Next, it’s on to lunch at the Cowgirl Cafe. I adore the Cowgirl Cafe with it’s glittery walls and incredible food.

Then we headed to the Plaza for birthday ice cream and gift shopping. It’s a little touristy down there, but still nice and the weather was perfect.

Next, it was time to head up the mountain (literally) to my mom’s house. It is about a two hour drive pretty much straight up a mountain. Along the way are some incredible sites though including the town of Abiquiu where Georgia O’Keefe built her Ghost Ranch and did most of her later painting. On the way back we stopped for some pics by the Echo Amphitheater.

Once were at my mom’s house a lot of time was done exploring, relaxing, playing with the dogs and whining about not wanting to be back in the car!

But, after a day of relaxing, back in the car we were. This time the girls and I headed up to Colorado to Pagosa Springs to go to the mineral springs for the day. They didn’t love the smell too much, but the springs were amazing and they had even built a salt water swimming pool since I had been there last so the girls got in more swimming time.

We did take a trip over to Taos much to the dismay of the ‘I don’t want to be in the car’ girls. I don’t think they realized when we started the trip how far away everything is from my mom. Taos is about another two hours, again, STRAIGHT up a mountain. yikes… glad I wasn’t driving! We did go see the Earthship community, tour one of the ’ships’ go to the Taos Plaza, including Twirl which is probably the coolest toy store ever.

There was also a great solstice party hosted by my mom, a trip to her friend Diana Bryers amazing art studio, and walks down to the river to explore.

Here is a sample of Diana’s work.

So, now we are back home and getting back into the swing of things. We have all been sick (Luna and I still are) and are preparing the house for an open house today. I have also signed up for two sewing classes which I forgot started so soon, so part of yesterday was spent finding a new machine. I finally decided on this one, the Janome Magnolia 7330.

My first class starts tomorrow and I am excited beyond words. I have always been frustrated that I couldn’t sew better and would love to make clothes for the kids and myself. I found some wonderful simple patterns for Miss Eight Month Old that I am hoping to try out soon.

Here she is in her bath.

Hmmm… who do those pictures remind you of?

… that was Henri, about the same age..

Time to have some coffee, take some deep breaths, and get this day started… I’m glad to be back to all of you.

Today is definately off to a better start. THANK GOD (goddess… whoever.)

The kids all got off fairy smoothly this morning, Mommy therapy went well (no, not therapy FOR mommy… therapy on mothering.. worth a shot… nice lady, didn’t solve all my isssues in an hour. Damn.), no more ants (fingers crossed… knocking on wood…), new products listed online and sent out emails to potential sponsors for the Craftacular!

Wow, and it’s not even noon yet? Some days I even impress myself.. hehe…

I haven’t had time to catch up on the last week in photographs, so let’s do that next.

First, I forgot to put up the pictures of a few treasures Jerome and I found a couple weeks back while antiquing / thrifting in Rockton and Beloit. I found two jars of beautiful vintage buttons at a price I could afford and two super duper amazing vintage suitcases. The little travel size one even had the tray insert, makeup pouch and jewelry bag with it, all in mint condition! It is airing out since it definately has the um, older woman fragrance scent to it….

A lot of time the past week has been spent in water, around water, fighting with water.. This itsy bitsy cottage turns into quite the sauna in the hot weather! We do not have a big pool up this year (yet? Can’t decide….) so the kids used the neighbors tiny baby pool to splash in and we put up our tiny pool that was used to step into before getting in the big pool last summer. There have also been baby bath’s every night. That is a big deal for this hippy mama who believes babies are overbathed in our society (I said babies. Eleven and Twelve years old need to bath ALL THE TIME.. Yes Darby and Zoe, if you are reading, this means YOU).

I have also been spending more day time with the little kids. I adore every moment (fine. I lied. Sometimes they are mini monsters…) I have with them, but I am having a hard time keeping up with my work load. And, when mama’s production is down, mama’s money is down. But I am reminding myself how wonderful and precious these moments are. Here’s Luna just being a sweetie and Henri being a Big Brother and showing her the ‘proper’ way to play with her play mat.

I have started making some new necklaces to coordinate with my headbands and flower hair clips which I have to say I am quite pleased with. These are just a few things that I hope to stock up before next weekend and the Constructor Fair.

My leftovers are consumed, my break is over, and my phone is ringing so back to work with me!

Let’s hope the rest of day is such smooth sailing…
xxoo