This past week, we have celebrated the 5th birthday of our oldest girl, Gianna Belle. We have 5 children, and it never ceases to amaze me the speed at which they grow.

My daughter, was it not but recently when we wrapped you snug as a bug in the blanket your great grandmother knitted for you?

[...CLICK for more article goodness!---->] Gianna Turns 5

This past week, we have celebrated the 5th birthday of our oldest girl, Gianna Belle. We have 5 children, and it never ceases to amaze me the speed at which they grow.

My daughter, was it not but recently when we wrapped you snug as a bug in the blanket your great grandmother knitted for you? I did not know then how obsessed you would become with the color purple…or unicorns…or random fierce animals that some little girls are afraid of.

[Gianna has always had an affectionate place in her heart for alligators, snakes and dragons. I can assure you that she does not get this from me. I am actually relieved to see her just starting to grow out of those things, so now it is all about unicorns...something that I can get on board with a lot easier than the others, even if it DOES drive me crazy at times.]

So we had a small, friendly celebration at Amelie’s French Bakery this week. Joined by a few friends [some long time out of town friends and my good friend, Steph], we chatted and dined on wonderful sandwiches and the most delectable treats. And the birthday cake for Gianna? OH WOW. I can’t begin to do it justice by describing it to you, but will just say that it was wonderfully soft layers of vanilla chiffon cake with rich chocolate mousse and diplomat cream sandwiched between…masked…covered in buttercream and then topped with a perfect ganache. I admit it – it was heavenly. And we had ordered so many treats off the menu for our guests that there was no way we could eat it all in one sitting. Everyone got a good sampling of food, and a good bit of it [not pictured] still sits in our fridge and freezer, waiting to be devoured. In addition, Amelie’s gives you a free eclair on your birthday, so Gianna got one of those and it’s packed away in the freezer, also waiting on her.

Part of our family had to stay home that day because some sick stuff was just starting to play out. Oh goodness, what a mess! We don’t get sick often, but this was extra annoying to happen during a birthday celebration week when we had lots of fun stuff planned. In the end, we’ve just tried to make the best of it. So we did! It was pretty much a girls’ day out for our family – so…

…Ruby Jane got to be there, and she was pretty happy about THAT.  =-D Don’t know if you could tell…

…And then Sarie Beth was stoked about being there, too. She loved trying a sampling of as many different things as she could!

We’re so proud of our oldest girl. She is getting so big all too fast, and is turning out to be such a lovely, poetic and artistic little lady. Happy 5, Gianna~!

When I first saw this, I thought “How awesome! If only everyone had that kinda attitude!”

…But then I quickly remembered several peeps who get kinda grumpy or illogical or in denial over their birthdays, so I decided that this can’t possibly work for everyone! However, if you’re one of those people who actually enjoys your

[...CLICK for more article goodness!---->] Start Each Day…

When I first saw this, I thought “How awesome! If only everyone had that kinda attitude!”

…But then I quickly remembered several peeps who get kinda grumpy or illogical or in denial over their birthdays, so I decided that this can’t possibly work for everyone! However, if you’re one of those people who actually enjoys your birthdays and sees it as a good thing – then this is your ticket! I’m gonna try this – beginning tomorrow.

And def check out Red Stamp for some stylish correspondence!

We recently celebrated our oldest daughter’s 3rd birthday. Yep, I’m still sitting here wondering how she could be that old already, reaching up for balloons and being so cute with her messy smoothie-face…and I have a feeling that I will feel that way for the rest of my life each time on of our kiddos

[...CLICK for more article goodness!---->] Easy Handmade Birthday Table Mats

We recently celebrated our oldest daughter’s 3rd birthday. Yep, I’m still sitting here wondering how she could be that old already, reaching up for balloons and being so cute with her messy smoothie-face…and I have a feeling that I will feel that way for the rest of my life each time on of our kiddos has another birthday or milestone event. They don’t stay as babies forever, do they?

Not too awful long ago, I used to feel pressured to put on a big shuhBANG or a shuhZAM or a shamWOW [no, wait...that's something else, I think] for my kid’s birthdays. I used to put my sanity on the back burner as I’d scramble to do anything and everything I could do to make my child’s birthday party be the best one around. Looking back, I really have no idea how I got suckered into that vicious cycle of every passing birthday needing to be bigger and better than the previous! Augh! Let me repeat: It. Was. Awful. Please don’t get me wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong with planning out extravagant birthday parties for your youngsters if you can handle it all and if the birthday kiddo feels just as special as they should on their big day, but in my case it was really starting to wear me out!! It’s hard to bake 3D cakes from scratch, make icing from scratch, spend several hours assembling them and piping on icing, making invitations and mailing them out, coming up with games and gathering all the ingredients to play ‘em, cleaning the house or wherever to prepare for guests, making the whole meal for everyone, wrapping presents, decorating…Oh my word. Just typing all of that out surely made my heart fall into my stomach where it’s now floating around. [Don't worry. I'll fish it out later.] When I used to be that mother, I was so stressed out and BUSY that I couldn’t even enjoy my birthday kiddo on their big day! There was WAY too much to do! “Yeah, yeah, hon…I’m trying to finish this up in time! I will see you in a little bit~!” Uuuum…WHEN?? Okay. I finally realized that something was not right when in looking back on their birthday celebrations, I couldn’t so much remember the memories that I had created with my child, but instead all I could think of was all the stress and chaos surrounding the planning and execution of this elaborate party. And I hate that.

So now our party celebrations are simplified. Even though we don’t do a whole lot, what we DO do has more meaning and things are much more peaceable around the homestead. I still love the idea of planning parties and making things special, but I guess you could say that I’ve learned my limits. This year for Gianna’s birthday, I decided to do more party decorations in the dining area. I haven’t done as much of that in the past couple of years, but I did it for her because she really gets into that sorta thing! I mean – REALLY! You have no idea. She absolutely loved it, too. In fact, she loved it so much that I’ve yet to take down the decor off the chandeliers in there. Anyway, in learning my limits, I tried to come up with other ideas that would be easy to do – and that I could customize especially for them and make them feel extra special inside. Something that is a pretty big hit here are our birthday table mats, and they are so easy to whip up. You can decorate this however you want to, but all you need are:

• cardstock or even just plain paper
• clip art/digital scrapbooking elements/etc. on your computer
• regular scrapbooking elements [papers, stickers, rub-ons, etc.]
• clear packing tape

1. Design/print out your child’s table mat and be sure to include their fav colors, animals, etc. Write on special notes and phrases to them…
2. Using your packing tape, start taping across the paper, overlapping the edges so that no paper is visible. When you get done with this part, it will be taped to the table, so peel it all up carefully and turn it over to repeat on the back, too. This step makes your table mat waterproof to last through several meals!
3. Press down the tape all over, front, back and edges, and then cut off the excess tape all the way around. Don’t cut right next to the paper; instead leave a small gap all the way around so that the tape will stick together and create a nice sealed off edge [of course, if you have one of those fancy laminating machines, then you can just use that instead!]

Then place it at your birthday boy’s/girl’s spot at the table. Put a balloon and ribbons on their chair and make their favorite foods for the day! Seriously, you have no idea how much younger children just love this to death! It’s the simple things, folks…but it means so much to them. I never let my kids see their table mats until their birthday breakfast, so it’s a nice surprise for ‘em. Sometimes I will use cardstock or scrapbook paper to make up quick crowns or hats for them to wear, too. They also love that!

We are also pretty big into homemade smoothies right now. It is SUCH a treat for breakfast and is so easy to make! For Gianna’s birthday, I made a yummy raspberry banana smoothie – and we also had the Lemony Blueberry Muffins that I’ve shown you before. To make Gianna’s place setting extra-extra special, I just took a flower design off of a greeting card that a friend had made me a year ago [I save all those things so that I can reuse them]. Then I glued it onto a toothpick and then glued on a piece of circle-shaped cardstock onto the back of THAT with a handwritten note for our girl! She LOVED it!

So I know that every family has to do what works for them, and THIS is what works for US! Click HERE to go straight to our current fav smoothie recipe!

Have you entered to win my current giveaway yet? It’s pretty fabulous! And there will be multiple winners! It’s called The “I Never Win Anything” GIVEAWAY – With Lisa Leonard Jewelry! Yeah, Lisa rawks. And so does her jewelry.

Click the pic below to go straight to the post to enter…

Do you love hand embroidery? I love to just LOOK at talented embroiderers’ work. In all honesty, I’ve done very little hand embroidering myself.

However, once I borrowed a book from the library in hopes that it would encourage me to branch out in that area, and to this day – I still haven’t.

Recently, I stumbled

[...CLICK for more article goodness!---->] 39 Squares

Do you love hand embroidery? I love to just LOOK at talented embroiderers’ work. In all honesty, I’ve done very little hand embroidering myself.

However, once I borrowed a book from the library in hopes that it would encourage me to branch out in that area, and to this day – I still haven’t.

Recently, I stumbled across a blog by Amy who has been doing a block of hand embroidery a day to celebrate her 39th birthday. The blog is called 39 squares and do check it out! She’s even recruited a band of other crafty women to create their own blocks of hand embroidery!

Isn’t this such a cute idea? And isn’t she fabulously talented? I love her work!

I wish that I could proudly display one of these badges on the sidebar of my blog, but alas – my plate is too full to take up a new hobby like this! However, it might be something I could put on my never-ending list of things that I want to try before I die!

Will all of the hand embroiderers please stand up?

[...CLICK for more article goodness!---->] Glitter is for the birds. Yeah, it happened. I have used so much of this really fine glitter for the birds that I feel like I’ve been sneezing it. [And NOT on the banner - - just so you know!] But I am quite happy with how this one’s turning out and may need to make one like this for my own girl’s bedroom!

Drawing on the backgrounds…

Pulling it all together…

Can’t wait to show you the finish! Stay tuned!