In my last post I told you how I excited I was to work out a trade to get a few necklaces that were personalized. One thing that most people learn about me rather quickly is that I am horribly impatient. I started to wonder how exactly the necklaces I was waiting on were made so I did lots (and I mean LOTS) of research. I read, I watched tutorials, I read some more. I looked into where to buy supplies and was shocked at how expensive the actual stamps were. Of course, that did not deter me. I had to start making my own!
I bought all of the necessary things and could not wait to get started. The first thing I made was for my oldest daughter. She picked out which stones she wanted and I got to work. I stamped, domed, and wire wrapped my very first piece of jewelry. My daughter was thrilled.
Since I made one for her, my other daughter NEEDED one too, right? Of course she did! So this is her design:
Not bad for my first two pieces ever, if I do say so myself. I have since opened an Etsy shop for my jewelry and I'm happy with the results so far. I made a piece a few days ago that I really love and wanted to share. A friend of mine's child was diagnosed with CDH (you can find out what that is here) when she was 20 weeks pregnant. All of her friends and family were as supportive as possible throughout what, in my opinion, had to be the hardest thing imaginable. Her child was safe while in her womb but once she was born, precious Penelope had to fight a very hard battle. A battle I am sad to say she did not win.
My friend had to watch her child fight that battle for 31 days and be able to do nothing to help her. There has not been a day that I have not thought of Penelope and I wanted to do something special for her mommy. I decided to make a necklace for her. I had been searching for charms and I saw the most beautiful angel wings. The moment I saw them I knew I had to get them. As soon as they arrived I made the necklace and mailed it to my friend.
Until Penelope, I had no idea that CDH existed. I was shocked to find out that it happens as often as spina bifida and cystic fibrosis but so little is known about it. To learn more about CDH or to donate to CHERUBS, the organization that helps with funding research, raising awareness, and supporting those who have had to deal with this terrible disease, please click here. I continue to pray for my friend and all families that have had to deal with such tragedy. I hope you will do the same.
I have a couple of friends that are adopting special needs children from Eastern Europe and I feel very strongly about helping them in any way that I can. You can read about their journeys here and here. I am amazed by the miracles that God performs in their lives every day and I can not wait to meet the new additions to their families! One of the fundraisers lead me to an awesome Etsy shop that had the following listing, The Carringon Necklace. The family receives $25 from each necklace sold towards their adoption!! How awesome is that!?! This month's family is bringing home two sons! Anyway, I fell in love with the necklace and ordered one. I loved the necklace so much that I checked out all of the other listings on her site and fell in love with a few more.
I sent the shop owner a message about doing a custom piece and she replied that she saw I had an Etsy shop and asked if I'd be interested in a trade. A trade!?! I had no idea that such a thing was possible. I mean it makes sense when you think about it but I obviously hadn't thought of it. There is this whole group of Etsy sellers that offer trades! If you haven't checked it out yet and you're an Etsy seller, you should! Go here to find out more about it! I am getting three beautiful, personalized necklaces in exchange for three hats! I'm really excited. I'll show you pictures of the hats after I make them and my necklaces once I get them.
Think about buying your own Carrington for charity. You can also enter to win a vacation here (the winner will be drawn on Valentine's Day) and all the donations help bring a daughter home to her family. I am very passionate about helping the orphans so I'm sure there will be more posts about them in the future.
My daughter's lessons are going really well. Since this is my first year homeschooling, I am always second guessing myself. When I was first getting started a friend of mine recommended I get a copy of "What Your Kindergartner Needs To Know" by E.D. Hirsch Jr. While out and about this past weekend I found a copy and picked it up. Looking through the book I saw that I was on track with a lot of the things it had mentioned and there were some things I was lacking.
With the help of this book I can now be sure I am going to include everything she needs to know! There are some really fun ideas in there too. We blasted off in a rocket ship to see what Earth looks like from the moon and she loved every second of it! It even gives me a list of books I can check out at the library to go along with each lesson.
Now this is more of a "how to piece your own lesson plans together" kind of book. It is not something that has each day made out for you so if that's what you're looking for, I'm afraid you'll have to keep looking. If you're like me though, and you want to make sure you haven't left anything out with the curriculum you have already pieced together than this is the perfect book for you. There is one for each grade level so I went ahead and got a copy for 1st and 2nd grades too!
It's been a while since I last posted. The girls are both doing so well with school but I am still horribly unorganized. I guess I'm not surprised. I started college this December so I have even more on my plate now than I did before and I'm glad to say it's going well.
During the holidays I thought it would be nice if I were able to contribute toward the funds for Christmas gifts so I started making and selling crochet character hats which has been really fun. I like the challenge of looking at a picture of the character someone requested and then turning it into a hat. For example, someone asked if I could make a "Toodee" hat so I pulled up a picture of her.
This is what I came up with. I really like how it turned out.
I'm thinking about writing down how I make my hats in the future. Maybe there would be some interest in the patterns. We'll see. For now, I'm just selling the hats.
Today has been awesome! The schedule I made worked really well for us and the girls did amazingly well!! Alaina told me that she didn't know school was going to be so fun!! I have to admit I was a little worried they wouldn't adjust to a strict schedule well or they would butt heads with me because they didn't want to take instruction (especially my Taryn) but it was the complete opposite. They were begging me for more!
Not too long ago, Alaina saw a picture of one of her friends with a sign for her first day of the school year and of course she had to have one too. She was so excited to color in her sign and pose for the camera. Here she is on her very first day of kindergarten.
The day wouldn't be complete without Taryn wanting to do everything her sister does so here is her picture.
I can't wait to see what tomorrow will hold. I am so proud of my girls!
I'm so excited! Alaina's books came today!! I already got the workbooks I'll be using with Taryn for preschool so we're all set. I was planning on starting school Wednesday but now I'm thinking Monday! I can't wait to get started. The girls may think differently since this will be their first school experience but they were as excited about the books as I was. Alaina immediately asked to look through her books and of course that meant that Taryn needed me to pull hers out so she could go through them. I think that's a good sign for the year to come.
I'm really hoping to make this as fun for them as possible. I've already come up with a schedule for the school days. It will probably have to be tweaked a little since we're new to this but for right now it looks good. I've seen talk of work boxes and I want to do them next year since we'll have more books but for this year I'm using binders. I guess it's kind of the same thing. It will let them know where they are in their school day so they can keep track.
Alaina's so eager to learn! She wanted to start today but I need time to go through the books and get my lesson plans in order. It is going to be so much fun teaching her! Taryn is another story all together. She is very, very smart but not quite as eager to take direction so I'm hoping the preschool we're doing will get her more adjusted to the idea. Wish us luck!
As part of my plan to get organized I have decided to make a list of daily chores as well as extra chores to do each day. I am very hopeful that this will help eliminate the days where the bed is so covered in laundry that needs to be folded that it can't be slept in. I will post my list once it's done and let you know how it's going but for now it remains a work in progress.
Since I don't yet have a system in place, I spent most of the morning folding clothes from a pile very similar to the one I have just described. I felt very accomplished because I was almost finished but my Taryn decided it wasn't meant to be. She thought it would be fun to take the clothes I had folded and throw them around the room while I got lunch ready. I came back into the bedroom to find complete chaos instead of the neat piles that had been there just a few minutes before. Now I get to fold all the laundry (again). Yay!
No wonder it takes forever to get anything done around here!
