Daily Blessings

So I missed a couple of weeks on my daily blessings, but I'm not going to sweat it!

I was so surprised and happy to receive a sweet card from my friend Mandie.

It was definitely a blessing and I had to document it - I used the envelope for this one:

Who doesn't love an envelope with a cute inside liner? :)

BTW, I linked up her blog, you must check out her husband Gabe's Halloween costume - the boy went all out! Even shaved his head to get into character.

This entire weekend has been so pretty! I'd say we deserve it after all the cruddy weather and rain we've had.

This ATC was made with some Crazy Daisy Kit Co. from November.

Life may not always be perfect, but I challenge you to find the blessings in every day this week!

daily blessings

using some October Crazy Daisy Kit! :)

Check out the entire kit here:
Crazy Daisy Kit Co.

Blessings & Thanks

I decided I've been mully-grubbing too much lately and have forgotten all the things/people I'm surrounded by that I'm so blessed with, so I'm bringing back my daily blessing ATC's. I actually started on Sunday and debated on whether or not I would post them this time around, but decided that maybe my daily thankfulness might inspire others to reflect on their daily thankfulness too!

So without further adieu here are my first five days of blessings.

I'll admit that I was a little intimidated when I took out that first card thinking that I might not think of original thoughts or designs, but then I thought how silly that was and that is not the reason I'm doing them anyway. Once I got started, it felt good to put one together!

Also, I'm loving all the suggestions for photo challenges!

Got another one from a friend on Twitter to have different people send you words that represent how they feel about fall. Then pick a word each week and photograph what that word means to you. Reminds me of the diptych challenge Mandie and I did last year. I love the thought of doing this in conjunction with the season.

Any takers out there want to play along?

If so I'll start gather up a list and we can get started this weekend.

slacker

I have been a total and complete slacker on my Daily Blessings! I do have several that I have not photographed and posted, but I will admit I did not do them last week or weekend with our busy fair schedule.

I am not going to fret though. Doing these "daily" crafty projects are not meant to be stressful whatsoever, in fact my hopes are that they will destress me a little. Just because I have not done them does not mean I feel any less blessed in my life.

I will share a few photos of my Uncle Robert and Jacob - my youngest cousin. (he and Joe, his Big Bro are pictured here during the fair after Joe won the talent show for his division...he does Elvis!)

I took these one Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago at Mom's after church.

I love photographing this kid!

Prayers for Mom please - she has a doctor's appt in the AM for a test.
Also prayers for my HS friend Donna's little girl Riley. They discovered a tumor the size of a cantaloupe on her kidney which was thankfully contained and removed, but she is in massive pain and needs lots of prayers lifted.

scrappiness

So I got to do some scrapping last night - which I thoroughly enjoyed! I have been planning to do the TAIF challenge {The Art is Found}.

You know it has to be special with Kristina Contes as the guest! Those girls are just awesome - each one of them.

Which reminds me to ask any of my readers to pray a prayer for one of the TAIF girls, Kimberly Brimhall. You can go to her blog and see a video she has put together. She is extremely sick and her doctors are testing and testing her.
She is an awesome scrapbooker and a sweetheart to boot!

I get sidetracked so easily! But that was an important sidetrack....

The TAIF challenge was to use notebook paper of any kind, used or not. So, I wanted to find one of Alex's many lists and do a LO about her obsessive list-making. The girl has serious issues really, but I couldn't find anything other than current lists and I knew she would kill me if I took one....I mean she needs all those lists!

I turned and saw this little gem hanging up on my fridge and knew that was exactly what this challenge needed: children's artwork! This is some of Jake's art from several months back. He actually drew me a full size page of one of these faces, then scribbled several on this torn sheet of notebook paper. They've both been hanging on the fridge ever since - just waiting for something special to be done to them.

This kid truly has a creative eye and in fact I gave him some canvases & paints for Christmas last year! I used a used manila envelope for the background and after completing the page had an epiphany!!!! I was slip any other artwork from Jake into the envelope then it would all be tucked away in one place.

Am I brilliant or what???!!!!

don't answer that~

Here is a closeup
the journaling reads:
The true artist is a mere child.
No inhibitions
No limitations
only art in its purest form.full page
the artist himself:

Onto to some Daily Blessings:

I'm still catching up - more DB's to come! pinkie swear!!!!

It's Birthday month

July is quite a busy month for the Whitten household when it comes to birthdays.
Today is Amy's big day - Happy Birthday Amy! If she is reading this...your gift is on its way. You know me - I have had the perfect gift in mind for months now, but the procrastinator in me didn't get it on time.

On Wednesday there will be another birthday: Cody. If he is reading this...{NOT}....you know your Dad is in charge of your gift! ;P

Then a week from today will be the hubs, James.
(Any help with this one is greatly appreciated!!!!) :\
Why are men so hard to buy for?????

Crapola that is a lot of birthdays crammed into such a short span of time.

Another birthday passed by on Saturday, July 12th: Case Lee Whitten,
Cody & Amy's son who was an angel on earth for five days.

Case we still love & miss you - you are always and forever in our hearts.

July has always been a great month - one I have always loved with the 4th of July, sunshine, camping, vacations, barbeques, and all the fun of summer, but it is also hard for our family...
My prayers for Cody & Amy and all our families is for positive thoughts and continued healing; and mostly for the chance of having another child in the near future.

I have tried to be positive and focus
on the blessings of the day-to-day
instead of harboring the "crud" of life
that we all face.

I have enjoyed my little daily blessings
and it gives me a feeling of thankfulness
using my creativity in the process, which is so satisfying.

I hope you will also check out Lynne's "Simple Pleasures" . Lynne is a high school classmate of mine from Conway High School - Class of '88 - Go Wampus Cats!! Seeing as it's been 20 years since graduation we are going to have a proper reunion...finally...in October.

Lynne & I made a connection by discovering each other's blogs through our reunion website - pretty cool I think! Lynne has a lovely family and now lives in Illinois. She is choosing to record her "simple pleasures" each day through photography as a way of recognizing the things she deems precious in her everyday life, much like my daily blessings! I'm stoked to see her work, as she has some gorgeous photography on her blog.

Oh, and the little stinker tagged me for six random things....I promise to post those this week. Most of my family & IRL friends know I'm an open book and pretty random as well..we'll see what I can come up with for that. :)

Here are the past few days of DB's.




over & out....

Mud - Water - and the 5th of July

so I promised pictures from our continued fun on the holiday weekend...
this group of photos sums up July 5th.
We rose early to go to some Mud Bog thing - got there - canceled.
I was not disappointed to be honest - I wanted to be in the water not watching mud.

Well, needless to say Cody knew some other people who showed up the same time we did to the canceled event, so they all decided to go to another mud track....
again didn't tip my fun scale,
but I did enjoy taking pictures of these idiots!

I cannot believe people do this to their perfectly fine vehicles: to each his own I suppose.
It's like any other sport/event/race see how far you can push yourself or your vehicle in this case.
Here is the crew waiting for the next mud slingin' -
pretty redneck I suppose but I guess we cannot deny who we are!!! :DI absolutely love this picture of hubs (middle), Cody (my stepson right) and our friend Tony. Obviously they are loving every minute of the mud slinging action!on to the next event.
well, that is after a good hardy lunch of leftovers and a quick change into bathing suits.
We drove down to the river.

Walker and Tara are too darn cute!

and so is Amy!!!

This is Clay, Amy's half brother who is here for the summer from Kentucky.
And here is Lane - Amy's cousin...this kid cracks me up!
The biggest kid: literally is Cody! He had a blast playing in the river with the little kids.

Look at that grin: ear to ear!

We kept hearing it thunder and it was cooling off fast. All of a sudden the sky opened and poured down rain on us. Luckily there was no lightening.
Brody looks like a drowned rat...bless his heart!
It was a delightful day spent with friends and family.
I love days like that.

Okay so I'll catch up the blog with my daily blessings:
They are pretty self-explanatory.
off to the State 4H horsehow bright & early tomorrow-I will try to keep the blog updated with event results!!

check-check-check me out

My "prend" came through with some new shades + a case! She is good!I had a delightful lunch with Judy and her Hubs, Carl *wink*wink* and Alicia, Sam and Jarrett. It was weird because I had never met Alicia IRL,

but feel like I know her as well as
I know some people I see everyday.Aaaahhh that Judy and Carl are so precious!

So my sunglasses problemo is ovah! Yay for awesome DIL's and prends and 16 yo step dd's, {even though the little rascal had me looking like a complete dork for a couple of days in her safety glasses. (see post below)}
Oh, I also had promised my DB (daily blessings) several days ago. I cannot seem to stay caught up on these or posting these rather.
First up is this cute, new little sandwich I tried at this great place: Afterwords.

This one is a long story, that I won't go into, but this girl Julie is incredible and even though I don't know her IRL, she has a heart the size of....Texas...I was going to say Arizona since that is where she's from, but that didn't make much sense. Anyway, she had gotten married back several months ago in Vegas and purchased several decks of cards to giveaway to those of us on SIStv who make ATC's and I was a lucky winner of the M&M cards - I started using the deck over the weekend and helped her out with a little project so this DB is in honor of her.

Ta-Ta for now!