T stands for Tuesday

Hello and Happy Tuesday! The sky has been amazing this week, this sunset was so much prettier then the picture. We are free of camps and babysitting this week, YAY!! The heat is here and it feels like summer, a little too hot for me but not complaining. Sitting my our window a/c as I type this :)

Just sent Kristin and her new mission friend off this morning to join the other World Race friends and family. They are so ready and excited!! Please keep them in your prayers.

I'm using my same smoothie for Elizabeth's T Stands for Tuesday  link up this week. I kept forgetting to get pictures of both my dinners out this week like I wanted. Happy to be here again this week and sharing some pretty happy mail and icads with you.

Look at all these gorgeous flower ATCs, love them all!! So fun to finally get them.

here are my icads for the last 12 days. Click on this image and flower one above to see better. Still having fun just putting a little paint on each one. The bottom right one was for the SOC last week. I'm so happy for keeping up on them and know I can see it thru July too. YAY!!

One last fun art that I forgot to share earlier. Renee surprised Rich with a Father's Day banner, like she did me for Mother's Day. Love that she does and adds so much color and fun to them!

 

I hope you have a great week, thanks so much for the wonderful comments on my last post. I love sharing my art and Tuesday's with you. Thank you Elizabeth for hosting us!

p.s. I did do more inchies below if you want to see them.

SOC inchies and more

Hello,  how was your week? Mine has been good and busy with the kids last week of camps and VBS, next week it will finally feel like summer vacation. Look at my Renee in her cute DQ uniform, YAY!! She is at her second night of work right now, first night went well and she was super tired from it. I'm so excited for her and hope it continues to go well.

The garden is doing very well, Rich keeps telling me every day how good it looks, lol. Here is a picture of the first tomato coming in, Sienna and Colt can't wait to pick and eat them.

I made inchies using the SOC this week, LOVE these colors. Not so sure about that last one but I did have fun with the other ones. I can't wait to see what the next colors will be!

 

I can't believe June is almost over, went by so fast and I'm trying to slow it down. Will be back on Tuesday with a HELLO JULY post mixed in with T time and ICAD and maybe even some Project Life. Have a great weekend, hope it's sunny and warm or cool wherever you are.

Thanks so much for your visits!

See you on Sunday Nancy, YAY!!

MANDALA MONDAY AND T TIME TOGETHER

Hello,  I am back again ready to share some fun stuff today. It's been a crazy busy start to our summer vacation, busiest we've ever been in June I think. With Summer and I walking in the early morning hours before the sun comes out and she had to be at Driver's Ed my quiet morning time isn't as long now. I knew it would be easier if I just stayed off the computer all week,  things should be better after this week. I must say I've never driven around town so much in a short amount of time, it will quiet down after this week though and hopefully feel more like summer vacation and so some fun stuff.

 

Above is a beautiful Chinese Dogwood tree at my sister's new house. She is all moved in and setting up her house. It's been nice to have her nearby and have popped in several times to visit and see what is new and going on there. This tree exploded with these flowers last week and I knew it was a perfect start to a mandala. She had some other flowers growing around the house too but sadly I was too late getting to them so I used what few things she did have left and made one yesterday.

Here is my Mandala for Monday, so happy to have one this week. It was a little breezy so I hid behind the garage and worked quickly before it blew away. Click on image to see better if you need. Those are wild strawberries in the middle, so cute and tiny. I brought all this home and added it to what I could find in my yard and made a few more mandalas to share over the month. YAY!!

 

I've been in some personal swaps lately and am excited to share them with you, so fun to receive a bunch of goodies at one time of the same theme. I haven't made many ATC to trade so this was nice.

Here is napkins from a napkin swap. Who knew there could be so many pretty different napkins out there. I LOVE seeing these!! Click on the image to see these better, seriously some are like art work. I didn't think to put the ones I bought and used, will try to next week. The lady that hosted this likes to use napkins in her journals/artwork and wanted a variety without having to buy packs of the same style. I think this was a great idea for her and anyone who uses napkins. Not sure what I'll do with mine but I do love them.

Here is my butterfly swap I received!! Look at these beauties! Love all the different styles and colors. Will be getting a flower swap soon from this same hostess, can't wait to see them. We are now in the works of trading for a State/Country swap which I am REALLY excited about. Working on mine and will post next week if they are done. They are also doing a alphabet swap but I knew that would be too much and am taking a break for now.

Before sharing more of my art fun, let me say HAPPY T DAY LADIES ! Thank you Elizabeth for hosting us again this week and making time even though you have been quite busy yourself. Today I'm sharing our first smoothie of the summer, love when this happens. There will be plenty more of these for us and maybe even here as my T posts. Today's was a mix of Greek Vanilla yogurt, some frozen mix fruit (bananas, strawberries, blueberries, rasberries) with some fresh banana added and milk. It turned out pretty good for not doing these in a year. The kids all liked it and had seconds.

Still going strong on my ICADs and enjoying them too. The bottom right one is for the SOC of last week, knew I wouldn't be posting this week so only did the one to remember the colors. Will share more next week. Hoping to keep going strong till the end, YIPPEE!! I am still writing on the backs, sorry I forgot to get a picture again of that.

In all this crazyiness I found someone who makes inchies and had to make some. Someone from T time makes these too I think, hope she visits and see these. Finally a place to put all the tiny scraps I like to keep. I tried to squeeze in a few each day when I could, told the kids to give me 15mts of quiet to get them done. Not sure when I will do more but will share them if I do, I LOVE THEM!!

I fit in some Project Life too, last couple nights and am almost caught up, need to do last weeks. Here is my intro to June page, totally was going to do bright happy summer colors but my hands kept going for these colors and I really like the way it came out.

This is for the first week of June, even has my SOC colors in there. Click on the image to see better. You will see a turtle on the right side, found that guy one morning while walking Lucky, he is hiding in the garden. thankfully Lucky didn't notice him, not sure what he would have done.

I'm sorry shared these in the wrong order, this one is the first week of June and the above is the 2nd week of June. These are the last day of school fun stuff and Renee getting a haircut and her driver's license. Click on image to see/read better.

 

Last week I did another Insta gram prompt for my friends, I picked TREES !! I love trees and really wanted to see some from all over the world. Well, the ladies did great and once I get them printed and in my PL I will share them. I thought it would be fun to extend this to you ladies as well. If we all took one picture of a favorite tree or any tree from where we live and share it next week on T Time. Let me know in the comments if you want to do this, no pressure just thought it would be fun.

 

Have to give a shout out HELLO NANCY!!! Miss seeing you again, hope all is well dear friend.

 

Thanks for visiting me and hope you have a wonderful week!!

p.s. I won't be able to visit till Weds due to babysitting all day then going out to dinner. Sorry but I didn't want to miss another week to link up.

AROUND HERE

 

 

Around here we are busy and I have no time for T time, sad face

 

Around here Summer is still in Driver's Ed and VBS starts this week

 

Around here I must get in my car 5 times a day to go somewhere

 

Around here Summer and I are walking the track before 7 each morning

 

Around here my free mornings aren't much now with bible and walking

 

Around here I'm sooo happy to have the kids home with me

 

Around here the garden is doing very well and we have LOTS of strawberries

 

Around here Renee is excited about her job at DQ, YAY

 

Around here I'm still making ICAD's and loving them

 

Around here I'm going to join Susan and doing a sketch a day, YAY

 

Around here I'm thinking of making "inchies" sooo cute

 

Around here we went to the pool today, YAY

 

Around here we went to watch the sunset and my camera didn't work

 

Around here the girls are excited for their new summer shows to start

 

Around here lots of bike rides are happening

 

Around here there is green everywhere and I can't stop saying it, lol

 

Around here life is good and I am so very happy and blessed.

 

 

I'm taking the week off from blogging, no time in the mornings now with walking with summer early before the sun is too hot and taking the kids to their things and reading my bible and study books. I don't like to link up somewhere if I can't visit back so I will be back next week when it should be a little easier, all 3 kids will be at either camps or work for the a few hours each day giving me a little quiet time. Will share then because I have some pretties to share and fun pictures.

Have a good week!! Hello Nancy!!

Summer of Color and more ICADs

Hello and Happy TGIF!!  It's the first week with Summer of Colors, YAY!! This first week's colors are perfect for kicking off the start of summer I think. The colors are aqua, yellow and a pop of hot pink added in. Having a third color is something new this year and I am happy about it.

Our wonderful hostess Kristin does a great job picking colors and inspiring us to have some fun with color. She even has giveaways each week to make it that more fun, thank you Kristin for hosting us again this year!! I decided to use the colors each week on my ICAD to make it easier for me, summer time means we are busy so combining them makes it possible for me to do both projects. I especially like that several of you are doing one or both of these projects too,  YAY!! Now for some sharing...

I wanted to use a little of every medium if I could just for fun. I did this last year too and enjoy it. The bottom one was my first one on Monday when she announced the colors, on Tuesday I made the other 4 and one more I will post next. Click on the image to see better, the yellow looks a little green here but I assure you it's yellow. I really love these colors!!

here is a flower doodle with sharpies, again the yellow looks green but its yellow. So that is the first week of SOC and now I can't wait to see what the colors will be next week.

here are my ICADs for the week using red/orange again, still loving these colors. That last one is a special one just for Renee because she got a job at Dairy Queen this week, YIPPEEE!!! I am writing about our days on the back of these, forgot to get a picture to show you.

 

I can't say enough how fun and easy it is to add a little art time each morning by making these.

 

In other news, Summer got her braces off and looks so pretty!! I still need to get a picture of her. The weather has been just right and a mix of clouds/sun this week which I am fine with. My sister has pretty flowers growing at her new house that will make for a pretty mandala, hoping to do that for Monday. We have survived this first week of summer break, lots of driving around and pick up/drop offs and Summer and I have walked the track each morning this week, YAY!!

Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting! Remember to stop by Kristin's to see more SOC fun from others. If you haven't joined in the fun you should.

T stands for lasT day of school Treats!!!

Hello and Happy Tuesday, you know what happens today! We head over to Elizabeth's  and share what's in our cup today. I'm not sharing a cup today though instead it's ICE CREAM from our last day of school DQ tradition. So, last Friday was the last day and it was a hot sunny one and perfect for getting a treat afterward. We've had some years that it's either rainy or cold and we have to go thru the drive-thru, not as much fun as sitting outside and eating it. The last day couldn't come quick enough for these kids, they are happy to be out and start having summer fun!!

Can't believe these two will start 7th grade in a couple months, YIKES!! They had a good first year of middle school and I hope it continues this way for them. Love these two together, Sam and Cam!

I love this cute one of my mom, HI MOM!! Look at Ryan smiling and not sure about Summer in the back, lol.  The kids aren't that thrilled to get pictures so I have to get what I can get. This was the first time my mom got to join us in this tradition. My sister Annie had to work otherwise she would have been here too. Maybe for the next celebration since she lives close by now, YAY!!

Here are my 3 that morning before leaving. Can't believe in a year Renee will be graduated and Summer will be starting her senior year next. Time goes so fast! Love seeing Sam between the girls, it gets me each time. I always wanted a brother and am so thankful they have one, even if they don't think so all the time, lol.  Let's hope we survive this summer without too much fighting !!

Last but not least by any measures, is this beautiful young lady!! Sienna is moving up to first grade right now and my heart is filled with so many emotions about this. She may not be mine but she is soooo dear to me and loved so very much!! I'm blessed each time I get to babysit her and be a part of her growing up. This was from last Monday which was the only day I watched her and had to pick her up at the bus stop. She had such a great year and this bus driver was so good and Sienna loved her. I made sure to thank her and tell her how appreciative we were for that!! She is so ready for summer because of swimming ( her favorite thing to do) and it will be her birthday next month. Can't believe Sam was starting first grade when I started babysitting Sienna, in a blink of an eye it's her that's this age now, no more blinking for me! Happy last day Sienna!!

 

I want to say a BIG THANK YOU for all the sweet comments on my mom last week!! Remember those shoe shots I was telling you about from my Insta-gram friends. I added them into my Project Life for that week and the pictures are in the post below if you want to see them.

I'm about to announce what the next photo challenge will be if any of you would like to play along, let me know. You don't need IG to play, will just do it thru my blog and have you share it with us here. Let me know in the comments if your interested.

 

Today also starts the SOC for week one, did you stop and see the colors??WOW they are awesome! Click on the Summer of Colors badge on the side of my blog to see more!

 

Thanks for visiting and have a great day!

Project Life, flower art and ICAD

Hello Project Life!! I wanted to share something fun I did on Instagram two weeks ago. I'm always taking a shoe/foot picture you know, usually out in the grass or in the snow or leaves or at the track. Well, this got me thinking how cool it would be to have others join me in doing a "shoe shot" each day for the week.  So I posted my first one and announced my idea for anyone who wanted to join and tag my name in it to see when they posted it. Right away others joined in and some did a few that week. By the end of the week, I had tons of shoe shots and started working on my photos, of course that made me think how neat it would be to include the ones from others too. I ordered them and added an extra insert for this week to include them all. I kept the ones from myself on the right and left pages for the week and the insert is just for my IG friends. I love how it came out. Close up time..

I didn't do any of the journaling yet for this but couldn't wait to share it here. In the top left one, I purposely took this shoe shot with the negative space in it for writing on and adding the dates. The next one is from my date with mom, the middle row starts with Summer and I at the track, YAY. The next one is my shoe shot/boot shot, the grass is still wet in the mornings so sadly my boots are still being used. The last one is with my grandma, YAY!!  The bottom row is from my bible study group on Monday nights, bless their hearts for not thinking I was totally crazy when asking for this one. I LOOOOVE this one so much, see that sun and shadows on it, yep that is my very favorite!!

I LOVE THIS SIDE!! All the black and pinks make me happy. The top one is from Jo a dear friend in Australia out with friends, the top right is from my cousin Jennifer who lives in Florida and we found each other on IG, YAY !! The middle row first one is cool because it has shoes and the weather where she lives, the middle one is a dear friend walking her dog, the last one is a mom and her son, love this one. So blessed to have such sweet blog friends and IG friends. The bottom row is from Angie Bloom and her daughter, the next one is so COOL, a perfect shot of her sprinkled ice cream cone and sandels, the last one is from my awesome California friend Andrea. This is the front side of the insert, at first I squeezed in the photos but then decided to space them and add the journal cards.

Here is the back of the insert and the right side of the week

close up of the back of insert. Top two our from ATC, PL, bible study, from USA and Australia again. I seriously loved seeing these shoe shots pop up on my IG each day. I only used one from everyone for my pages but like I said some did several. I am liking the pink/black combo again.

Here is the right side and my first plan was to fill it in with the shoe shots I did with Rich. Then I realized there were still some of just me. So I put them together and added this perfect card.

And that is my week of shoe shots, I can't wait to do more like this, with different themes. Already starting a list and will be asking my IG friends and blog friends to join in with me.

Here are some flower doodles I've been making over this last week. I started with these half sheets of paper from my mom. My goal was to fill the page and not over think them. I use to try and get every petal the same size and every flower the same amount of petals, this time I just drew and didn't think. I love how they came out and just made some duplicates of these on ATCs and sent them out.

Here are more of them, my flower class with Alisa Burke has inspired my flowers along with my own joy of drawing them. Same goals here, just to draw and not overthink them.

I have also started my ICAD, all of you know what these are. The awesome Tammy at Yellow Daisy hosts this even each June and July. Create anything you want on one index a day is all you have to do. This year I'm keeping it very simple, just adding paint to any way that strikes me that day. I might add some pen/marker to them if I want or just paint only. I'm writing about our days on the backs of them, thought it would be a fun way to capture our summer. Day four and I'm up to date, YAY!!

 

So as you can see I've been busy with some creative fun and on Monday starts the Summer of Colors, YAY!! Our sweet host Kristin will be inspiring us with 3 colors each week for 6 weeks. I have her button on the right side of my blog, feel free to check it out. To make it easier for me, I will use the colors she picks on some of my ICAD and into my PL for those weeks. It's going to be a fun, colorful creative (simple) projects for me this summer. I'm happy to see most of you doing these too!!

 

Hope you all have a great week and I will be back this weekend or on Tuesday for T time.

Thanks for visiting, makes my day to see your comments here.

Hello Nancy, thought you would like a fun post so I made sure to squeeze it in. Hugs and prayers for you dear friend, and see you on Sunday I hope!!

T stands for second daTe with mom

Hello and Happy Tuesday! I couldn't be here for T time last week so I'm glad to be back today. Today I'm share pictures from my second date with my mom, thank you for enjoying the first one I shared with you. In that post I had said this was a special for the first 3 Tuesday's in May, we missed the second week but went for the last one. Really wishing we had gone to the second one to see what the food was because this last night wasn't very impressive as the first night.

 

My mom loved the flowers in the above picture, forget what they are called but they are pretty!

We stopped by the Tastefully Simple vendor first, the same lady was there and remembered us. She is so nice and fun and helpful. We tried the samples she made and liked them ok. It was a bread mix and here it's shown how to make it as a dessert and an appetizer. That's what I like about this brand, many ways to use one item and they have recipes that show more then one way to use each of their items. Her new ideas when hosting a party is to actually have us cook 10 dinners that can go in the freezer. It's kinda expensive but I like the idea. We didn't buy anything this time but enjoyed talking with her.

They had wine again but no other drink choice, not a good sign I thought. I was hoping for another flavored water drink to try. Mom didn't try the wine this time either. The vendors that were inside here last time, were not here tonight. We didn't get a call saying we won a raffle either.

Here is the food table they had for us. The meatballs were already gone and that was our favorite from last time. I wasn't impressed with the food this time, my mom liked some of it enough but man I would have love the meatballs and dip they had that first night.

I do like the pumpkin roll and these brownies were made from the lady with Tastefully Simple. The crockpot had the meatballs that were now gone. Click on the images to see better.

we walked around a bit to look at all the knickknack things and flowers. Fun to be out together again!

I was doing a shoe shot challenge on my Insta-gram that week so we took a few fun ones.

 

Thank you mom for another fun night out with you. Wish they had more things like this around town we could go to. Will have to keep our eyes open so we don't miss any that might come up.

Here are my flower ATCs for a personal swap I did. Love the summer colors on them, it's fun to make a bunch like this at one time. My next swap is a country/state one with 22 people so that will be my biggest one yet. I'm playing with a couple ideas and will start on them soon and show you.

 

I have my HELLO June post below if you'd like to read it, so fun for me to write these. It's the last week of school for us and we will be FREE for the summer, YAY!! It's felt like summer the last couple days too, hot and muggy! Now the rain is here again, YUCK!

 

Thank you Elizabeth for hosting us again this week, stop by and say hello to other T Timers like me at Altered Book Lover  have a great week everyone and thanks for visiting.

HELLO JUNE

 

HELLO to only 5 more days of school

 

HELLO to Ryan's first field day

 

HELLO to Sienna's kindergarten picnic

 

HELLO to having DQ on last day of school

 

HELLO to Summer getting her braces off

 

HELLO to check up and dentist appts

 

HELLO to Renee officially having her drivers' license

 

HELLO to Summer starting Driver's Ed

 

HELLO to Sam's last 2 games of soccer, worst season ever :(

 

HELLO to the garden being planted

 

HELLO to sleeping in

 

HELLO to Renee's new babysitting job

 

HELLO to going to the track daily

 

HELLO to summer weather

 

HELLO to watching sunsets, like the above one

 

HELLO to Kristin's last month at home

 

HELLO to VBS x 2

 

HELLO to Annie officially moved into her new house

 

HELLO to Heather's last month here before moving

 

HELLO to swimming

 

HELLO to being OUTSIDE

 

HELLO to bike rides

 

HELLO to maybe new baby frogs again this year

 

HELLO to Father's Day

 

HELLO to grilling out and picnics

 

HELLO to a busy month

 

HELLO to trying to be lazy

 

HELLO to ICAD and SOC

 

HELLO to a messy house

 

HELLO to kids home everyday, all day

 

HELLO to going to parks

 

HELLO to tennis and baseball throwing

 

HELLO to weeding and mowing

 

Hello to JUNE and all the fun, laughs, sun, tears, noise, mess, adventure, new, hugs, giggles it will bring. We have waited a long time for you to come and are ready for you!!

 

Happy June!! Thank you for the sweet comments on my last post about Diamond. HUGS!