Potty Training, Soap, and Trains

One small boy with NO interest in leaving diaperhood behind, who hates soap, and LOVES Thomas The Train. How on earth would I ever get him interested in potty training and going to the bathroom IN the bathroom EVERY time? Thanks to my friend Judy W., I am in the process of reading, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Hill is quite the amazing writer with a lot of great information and encouraging biographies.

Well, dear Mr. Hill began writing about our minds accepting anything we tell it over and over so I decided to take his advice and apply it not only to my fledgling business but also to my son's slow attempts to potty train. We began telling him over and over that he COULD put all his pee pees in the potty all the time. Thankfully Mama didn't give up after a day of mishaps and now three days into determined potty training we are getting somewhere!

Now soap....getting my son to wash his hands thoroughly is quite impossible. We have the most wonderful foaming hand wash at our sinks, but alas, he would pump it onto his hands and then directly into the faucet flow and rinse them off and considered himself "washed" and ready for his "go potty in the potty, have dry pants, and wash my hands!" reward (imagine that in the sing song voice of a toddler :) ). For some reason I decided to have him check out my Bella Bar (not your typical bar of soap) on day two of training and wahla! we have a winner. This boy will suds himself to the elbows if I let him, he even cleans the sink while he's at it, "Come back here you silly slippery soap! I'll get you slippery soap!"

It's definitely been an interesting few days of a potty training journey, but it's very encouraging as he is getting prouder and prouder of himself.....I don't have a thing to do with how proud he feels. :P So, hanging on a hook in our wee bathroom is a new Gordan Train Engine for the day he gets it 100% right all day. He was SO close today and I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow IS the day!

So, who would have thought a wee train, some extreme encouragement, and great soap would be the key to potty training success! :-D

Time, Time, Time....

Where on earth does time go? It's been three months since I last posted. Am I a busy person or simply don't think about blogging? Maybe a combination of both. :) It's been an intersting winter and start of a new year here in Pennsyltucky. Most of the big storms which have been crashing through the "south" have drifted by us with hardly a few flakes blowing by here. I've missed the big piles of snow but my husband has appreciated the "not plowing/worrying about snow removal" part of less snow.

My life as a mom/wife/business woman has become a whir of Thomas The Train, Potty Training, Candles, Roller Skates, learning to communicate and grow a marriage, powerpoint presentations, and house cleaning/organization....what is THE key to organization anyway!? It's my goal EVERY year as people are talking about "New Year's Resolutions" to become more/better organized, yet I seem to fail at it most every year. Here's hoping/praying/working at making this year a success at becoming organized and on top of things....which means doing away with procrastination, oye, procrastination-what a curse!

So, enough "blogging" for me already. :) Stop procrastinating and get your day moving already Bev! :)

Missing my Scrap Room.....

I just realized how much I have missed my scrap room. A friend asked to borrow a stamp and a few stamp pads last night along with an idea for making Thank You Cards. I got in there (boy is it a MESS!) and it hit me how much I've missed creating and playing with all my inky fun stuff!!!

I know part of me strayed away from scrapping and my room because I got overwhelmed attempting to sell Scrapbooking products with a direct sales company which resulted in some creativity drainage. Now that I've stepped back from the selling I'll be getting back into my room to play, create and have fun for me and my family! Yeah!

I have jumped back into retail, selling some FABULOUS petroleum free, sootless candles made right here in Pennsylvania. I love the company, the friends I have made, and the wonderful people that I get to work with! We had a good Summer open house to start out our candle venture, made it through the summer and just recently had a great Autumn open house including a dozen vendors the beginning of November and are planning an awesome Winter open house on December 7th and 8th which will include craft vendors, retailers, and direct sale vendors.

Only a few more weeks and the Cider Mill will be closing for the season. As much as I love to drink Cider and have fresh apples right on hand, I'm looking forward to the end of the 12 hour days that seem to surround the Cider Mill. :) Which brings me back to where this entry started....more time to get into my scrap room and get to playing! :-D

Tractors and outdoor stuff....

Oye, wishing I had more time indoors to play these days, but alas, I've been outdoors learning all kinds of new things! Just yesterday I learned to plow a field. I was also told that I wouldn't be able to get the tractor stuck....:-D Guess what....I DID get it stuck. In an attempt to line up with the plowed furrow I turned the front tires perpendicular to the tractor and sunk them into the soft field soil. Woops! Had to drop the tractors bucket in an attempt to slightly lift up on the front of the tractor, taking some of the weight off the wheels while rocking the tractor frontward and backward and attempting to turn the steering wheel to get the tires turned. Finally got it and then stalled the engine out in a new section where old shumac had grown for the last 20+ years. So, my Dad and I switched jobs and I spent the next two hours "dragging" a different field while he finished up plowing. Dragging (rake like apparatice attached to back of tractor, drug over and over and over and over a field to level it out and prep it for planting) is SO very much easier and A LOT more fun than plowing. In a week or two we'll plant the three fields with winter squash and pumpkins to harvest in the fall and sell at our Roadside Fresh Cider Stand.

We have a couple acres of "forest" on our property and a few of the trees have lived their lives to the fullest and needed to come down: rotten centers and leaning over the property line into the neighboring school yard. What an experience that has been. We actually were in the middle of removing one tree on Earth Day...the irony! A large group of 3rd graders came over to the fence to watch and ask all kinds of questions. Mainly, "Why are you cutting down trees on Earth Day!?" We explained the trees were rotten and showed them the inside of the rotten tree pieces. We assured them that we would be planting more and had in fact already planted some throughout our property. That settled the crowd, but one poor lil' boy was completely distraught as he told us that animals make their homes in rotten trees and we were taking away animal homes. He ran off into the school yard in tears. Poor lil' guy. If only he would have stayed to watch the effort we put into cutting and very carefully removing a 6 foot section of the tree that is home to a large hive of honey bees and trucking it to a friend's farm where it will thrive and pollinate there.

Saturday night was our last public roller skating session of this season! What a year! I still can't believe my parents ran the rink for 25+ years! And I certainly can't imagine doing it year round. We MUST HAVE the summer break from all those kids and the drama (OH! MY! THE DRAMA! :p) I'm looking foward to an occasional Friday or Saturday evening out if the weather and our other businesses cooperate. :p

Got our small backyard cleared up and had a small bbq with our RLG (Real Life Group-Small Study group from church) on Sunday. Was so nice to get out and relax outdoors with friends. And the weather? Oh my goodness! It has gone from 30 to 80 in a weeks time. Just silly for this time of year! It APPEARS as if Winter has finally headed North, not sure if Spring has come or if Summer has just pushed right in.

Hopefully sometime in the next couple days I'll get some scrappy fun time in and will share some bits. I am in the process of creating a fun altered book, making some memory pages that my Grandmother requested, making swaps for IFS@yahoo, and hopefully getting enough goodies together and made to set up at a flea market either this weekend or next. But for now, Sleep. :)

Finding time to get back in the scraproom....

One of my swaps this month was creating a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card with a recipe inside. This card has a delish recipe for a "refreshingly fresh strawberry pie" inside. A very simple card, but it was fun to make.

I apologize for the photo quality...this time my camera was out of batteries so I was forced to use the phone camera again. Ah well...
This swap was a "Treasure ATC"..Creating an ATC that had to be opened to find a "treasure" inside. This one was quite fun. Though as I'm looking at it, I'm thinking the front closed is quite boring..... The brads 0n the front are actually plain ordinary brass brads from the local office supply store that I heated and covered with a black sparkly embossing powder a few times. The brads are then wrapped with a piece of brown embroidery floss to keep it closed
Much more interesting inside as you open it up. The top flap has postage stamps stamped and a "for real" canceled stamp on it. The middle's background is made by sponging over a piece of paper lace I had laying about. Very hard to see, but there is a real skeleton leaf from our woods layered over the paper and then layered on top of all that is various bit and bobs from my "bits and bobs drawer". :-DThe bottom flap has a tea bag envelope attached and inside is a lil' tiny teacup stamped and attached to a piece of embroidery floss which is then attached to a scrap of paper with a "Keystone Brand" label for fun. All kinds of lil' things to open and find.
Tonight I intend to get back in the scraproom and make a photo cube for the boys Grammy. "Please to go sleep lil' boys please go to sleep!" ;-D

Whiff Of Joy...

Wish I could take credit for this adorable little guy, but he is just a link over to Whiff Of Joy as part of a promo for the new stamp sets. But he IS super cute!

Whiff Of Joy is about to release their newest set of medieval stamp sets on February 14th (what a great V-day celebration!). Absolutely adorable. You can enter for a chance to win their new set FREE! Check out their blog here (http://katharina1704.blogspot.com/2009/02/whiff-of-joy-preview-1-chance-to-win.html ) and directions on how you can enter to win the newest Whiff Of Joy set. Whether you enter to win or not, the blog is full of inspirational ideas and links to follow. Check it out, and check it often as Katharina is going to be uploading new samples daily.

Wedding invites and other bits of creativity

As part of a wedding gift for a very special friend I offered to make her wedding invitations. They are finally completed and she and her finance' really like them! I was SO nervous, from the time I shipped them out to the time they arrived and she sent me the message that she loved them. Whew!

I created the invitations starting with 12x12 Close To My Heart Sunkiss Yellow Cardstock cut down to 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 cards which I randomly stamped with daisies in CTMH's Sunny Yellow. I then layered vellum printed with the wedding information on top and finished them off with Prima's Iced Got Flowers? Summer Fun Paper Flowers. They were actually alot of fun to make and even with 150 of them I still think I can handle playing with some more prima flowers and can honestly say I still like the color yellow! This wonderful project explains all the yellow scraps around my room.

This morning I created two ATC's for fun. I played with creating my own background paper and randomly stamped a flourish three times on each card, embossing each one with a different color powder (clear, brown sand, and sparkly black). Then I layed some fun bits I had laying about on the background and covered it with some torn vellum and a torn tag with some fun fabric ribbon wrapped about it. Then I topped it off with a cute lil' rose colored using distress inks (my very first attempt using Tim' Holtz's Distress Inks and a water pen). Very collagey......I'm sure that's not a word, but I'll take some creative license and use it anyway. Hmmm, no yellow scraps here-how'd that happen!?!? I finished of card with some chocolate brown ink to distress the edges and DONE! :o) That's all the scrappiness for today. This is quite impressive-months and months with no posts and then a dozen in a few weeks. Now I have to continue living up to the challange of timely posting.