Sunshine!

Just updating for my Project 365...no big post today. James and I are going to look at a house for rent in Marshall tonight so we're going to be gone for a few hours. Wish us luck! We REALLY need to get out of my parents house soon.

Day 3:
January 4, 2013
I love it when there's snow on the ground,
but I missed the sun during
these last few days!

Do You Believe in Magic?

Wow! It's been a while! Life has been distracting.

Aiden is now seven months old. He's pulling himself up, testing the limits, and has actually stood by himself a few times. He's eating solid foods and oatmeal twice a day. His personality is constantly growing, and is a challenge and a joy. We're starting sign language with him...right now teaching him mommy, daddy, milk, more, and all done. He can clap and wave and high five.

My AJB Crochet business is taking off. I get an average of 3 orders a week and I have a Christmas craft fair coming up in two weeks. I spent most of today making a clutch for a gift and lining it (with my new found sewing machine skills! :) ).

I learned how to make button holes in fabric with my sewing machine. :)

See my FABULOUS labels from LuckyLu Creations.

James and I are doing an advent thing this Christmas. We have a little tree with Aiden's name train placed in front of it to place an ornament made by me on it every day. I made these mittens for yesterday, and tonight I have to make the angel to go on top of the tree. Then on Christmas day, we'll put Aiden's 1st Christmas ornament on the little tree.:)

Now to explain this post's title. I'm reading The Magic from The Secret series with some of my "associates" and thought I would share some of my own gratitude thoughts here.

"When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies within yourself." -Tecumseh

""Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings counting your troubles." -Maltbie D. Babcock

Here are a few of my ten blessings:
-I am truly blessed to have Aiden because he gives me a reason to wake up in the morning.
-I am so happy and grateful for James because he provides for us in both abundance and love.
-I am truly blessed to have found crochet because it allows me stress relief and the ability to take pride in my work.

:)

I Love Fall...

Okay...I lied. I'm a day behind on posting. But that's because I had SO MANY pictures from this weekend that I spent all day going through them and editing...and then my maid of honor came over to look at wedding magazines with me for like three hours after that. :D

Anyway...I was super bummed on Sunday. It was rainy and overcast all day long, I didn't get very good pictures because there was hardly any natural lighting, and it was only like 50 degrees. EW. Cold and rainy is not the reason why I love fall. 

I love fall because of...
color, pumpkins, carving pumpkins, apple cider, donuts (which I can't have), the smell in the air, Halloween, football games, baking, Thanksgiving, scarves, family get togethers, corn mazes, haunted houses and hayrides, and I'm sure many more that I can't think of right now.

I love the beginning of every season. When it's fresh and new. There are new smells. Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I say, "It smells like Fall". But it's hard not to notice the change in the air. Crisper air. And with all the new smells come the memories. Playing football with the family when we went to Arkansas for Thanksgiving about ten years ago. Carving pumpkins and having cider with James last year after looking at our first apartment. Going on the haunted hayride with friends my freshman year of high school. Homecoming at Olivet College. Hearing Aiden's heart beat for the very first time. I love the changing of seasons. 

Okay...I'll start with my photos of the day.

4.

October 5, 2012

The homecoming game at Maple Valley.

5.

October 6, 2012

My favorite shot of my gluten free chocolate cheesecakes. Right before I put them in the oven. And they are delicious! :)

6.
October 7, 2012
This was at the Country Mill in Charlotte/Potterville. Aiden had lost his shoe, and I thought this was a pretty cute picture. For anyone who doesn't know, this is James.

 I spent like two hours the night before making this hat for our trip to the cider mill. He had pulled too hard on the vine and completely ripped out all the stitches before we left. :/

I took some pictures of him in the hat before we left just in case I didn't get any good ones while we were gone. If you're wondering why the face in the first picture, he was trying to sit up. He does crunches all day long.

He wanted some of my apple cider slushy. He actually stuck his fingers in it at one point while I was holding him. :)

I absolutely love this picture. It looks like a computer background or something. This was the only picture I got that had the fall color that I wanted.

They had these face-in-hole cutouts on the playground.

Aiden got a little pumpkin of his own and got to "carve" it.

Mommy really carved it for him, but he sure enjoyed rubbing his gums on the cold pumpkin pieces. :)

Even though it was nasty the whole time we were at the cider mill, we got home just in time. About a half an hour later, it starting sleeting/hailing.

I think we may make another trip on a weekend where it's not cold and wet. And where I can get some better pictures. We need to get a new pumpkin for James anyway. He got frustrated while carving his face on his because it was breaking into pieces, and threw it halfway out into the yard...

Gluten (And Dairy!) Free Peanut Butter Cookies!

Soooo....I won't have a photo of the day for today until we go to the homecoming parade and football game tonight. BUT I'm making gluten free peanut butter cookies and thought I would share with all of you (the recipe, not the actual cookies...sorry). :)

The recipe is from this book. There are a few others that I'm going to try soon too, like chocolate cheesecake. I chose this recipe today because I already had everything it needed, and they're things that you *should* already have in your pantry/fridge and it doesn't use very much of each ingredient either.

These four ingredients are seriously all you need. 1 cup packed light brown sugar, 1 cup creamy peanut butter, 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (it says to use dairy free for the dairy free recipe, but do chocolate chips even have dairy in them to begin with? I don't know about that one...), and 1 egg lightly beaten.

Beat peanut butter, brown sugar, and egg until smooth. This was as good as mine got and it started to clump together to the point where it was actually pulling itself off from the sides of the bowl. (P.S. I used a KitchenAid mixer, not that wooden spoon)

Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls. My first attempt at this, I used a muffin tin instead of a cookie sheet (you are better off using the cookie sheet). I got the idea after I read Amanda's post (Kevin and Amanda), where they baked cookies using a muffin TOP pan. It didn't work as well for me as it did for them.

You're supposed to bake them for 10 to 12 minutes, until they SET. Guess what...they don't set until they cool. So after 10 minutes, they are cooked completely even though they are still the same consistency as the dough. The brown sugar in the dough hardens once they start to cool. So don't let the recipe fool you like it did me. That's how I burned the first batch. By the way...they don't even flatten themselves out as they bake, so if you don't smush them down, they will end up coming out like the picture above.

Second batch, I used a regular cookie sheet and cooked only for time instructed. These were much better. The cookies from the first batch still tasted good, they were just a little burned on the bottom.

Then, I put the chocolate chips in the microwave and hit the wrong number. I went downstairs to check on Aiden, and when I came back up,  the whole kitchen was smoking. My chocolate chips caught on fire.

I'd say we need to try this recipe again on another day. Or you can just try it for me. Just please don't burn your house down. Anyway...I'd like to know how this turns out for YOU if you try it. :)

I got the nutritional information from Calorie Count Recipe Analysis. All you have to do is type the ingredients and the serving size into the required areas, and it will come up with an approximate nutrition panel for each serving (it will vary a little since the website uses average calories for each generic item, not the actual calories in specific brands). These you will only be able to enjoy one or two at a time, as they have a lot of calories and sugar for just one cookie. But if they turn out, they're WORTH it.


Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen cookies

1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup dairy free semisweet chocolate chips, melted

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat brown sugar, peanut butter, and egg in medium bowl with electric mixer until blended and smooth.

2. Shape dough into roughly 24 1-1/2 inch balls; place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten dough slightly with fork (I would flatten them until they're as thin as you want your cookies to be). Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set (you really should just bake them for 12 minutes, not question the consistency, and then reevaluate after they've cooled). Remove to wire racks (I would let the cookies cool a little bit first, otherwise they'll break into pieces as you're trying to move them); cool completely. Drizzle with chocolate. 

                                                                                                                                                                      

I also started testing this super cute Santa Pixie hat for Tanya from Hodgepodge Crochet. The pattern is not released yet as it's still in the testing phase, but I will try to remember to post a link for it when it's published and for sale. I have to finish the brim tomorrow after I get some fun fur yarn, but I should post another picture of it after I'm done.

UPDATE!: Since I'm finally posting this at 11 pm (almost 12 hours since I started writing it this morning!) I just thought I should let you know that I haven't had ANYTHING with gluten in it in over 48 hours! Not even the one noodle that made it on my plate Wednesday night when my parents made Chicken Parmesan, and even though I was SO tempted tonight when James got a hot pretzel at the football game. I even got some extra exercise at the game by carrying Aiden in a front carrier instead of pushing him in the stroller. I'm so proud of myself! And I already told James that he has to massage the knot out of my shoulder before I go to bed tonight because it HURTS!

Now....GET SOME SLEEP! Because I'm going to. My bed is calling my name............

:)

Project 365: Day 2

As you can see, I'm running on Blogger now instead of Wordpress and working on moving all of my posts over. Don't even get me started on how frustrating WP was for me. :/

So, I had said before that I wanted to do Project 365 (I can't find the link right now. I will try to remember to come back and link later). I started yesterday...

1. 

October 2, 2012

Aiden was laying on my lap watching TV. This is from my phone and originally taken with Instagram.

2.

October 3, 2012

The trees in the woods across the street from my parents house are changing.

Here's an extra one:

This is what I stepped on while walking out to take my photo of the day today. It looked like it had had a heart attack because it was frozen in this position, with it's tail hovering about an inch above the ground. However...it was already dead before I stepped on it at least. 

I'm kind of excited for the pictures I can take the rest of this week. My high school is having their homecoming this Friday (so I have parade and game photo ops), I'm hoping to convince James to take me bowling on Saturday since my brother is going with some friends instead of going to the dance, and on Sunday, we're taking Aiden to the cider mill. I can't WAIT for all the color! :)

Also....I need to buy a new memory card this weekend. Mine has had a crack in it since before Aiden was born (like March-ish) and as of today, is almost broken down the middle. I don't even know how it has lasted THIS long.

Getting My Priorities Straight

So...after almost five months (yes, I can't believe it, Aiden will be five months old in only six days!) it's about time to get this weight off. I was able to lose some before I got pregnant, kept the weight off for two trimesters, but then gained 40 pounds in the last three months of my pregnancy. Was able to lose about 20 pounds after I had him while breastfeeding, but now that I'm not breastfeeding anymore, I haven't made up the difference with exercise/diet and I've gotten lazy. I have 80 pounds to lose total. :O

I don't even want to think about that number. 80 is a lot. BUT I've already talked to James about it a little bit, and he's going to help me reward myself at certain loss milestones (with something other than food). At ten pounds, I'm going to have him buy me a couple skeins of yarn for a project that I'm not getting paid for. Just for fun yarn. :)

I'm once again going with my handy partner, Herbalife. I love the shakes, the tablets never fail, and it helps that I get a discount on it. I just haven't made it a priority and haven't ordered any products recently. :(

So anyway...I need your help. I need ideas (relatively inexpensive) for rewards for myself. I have 13 other milestones, and I would like to do something different each time. For my final reward, James will probably take me up to the casino, or if it's after my 21st birthday, we'll probably save the gas and just rent a room at Firekeepers for a weekend. My birthday is 10 months from now, and I'd like to lose the majority of the weight by then with my final goal reached by August for our wedding if we keep it on our original date. :)

Showing Some Love...

...to many people...(this may be quite a long post).

First off...to James. He doesn't get nearly as much love and respect from me as he deserves. He works 60 hours a week most weeks, hardly complains about it, and comes home to only 3-4 hours of free time to spend with us before he has to go to bed. And he has to put up with me. Which is a feat in itself. He will hate me for saying this, but there is a wonderful, gentle, and caring man behind that wall that he puts up, it just takes a while to see it. He is the biggest mush around Aiden and it warms my heart to see how much he loves our little man. I will never forget the way he looked at me only minutes after Aiden was born. :)

Aiden. My poor miserable little boy who is teething and wakes up screaming. I hate when he's in pain. He makes every morning better just by smiling at me, and reminds me of how amazing I am that I can create something that wonderful. I am so proud of every little thing he accomplishes, even if it's only getting an inch off the floor while trying to sit up (which is his new thing).

My parents. Knowing we're struggling, they've offered up their home for us to stay in. They've been there for us countless times when we've had absolutely no idea what we're doing and needed a reality check, and sometimes just to help us out without making us feel guilty about it. I don't know if my dad agrees with this, but my mom has agreed to give me things for my wedding that I didn't know if I would get otherwise (i.e. catering). I know I frustrate them (A LOT), but they always have my best interests in mind, and even though they may not have wanted to, they accepted James into our family. If it weren't for them, we would not be making this work right now.

Grandpa Snook. He is such an amazing, strong man. He's been through so much losing his soulmate and companion for 35+ years (what seems only yesterday, but was really over 5 years ago). My family came too close to realizing what it would be like to lose him only a couple of weeks ago. I was scared to death to go see him in the hospital. A man with such a strong personality looked so small and weak. With a breathing tube needed, he couldn't talk at the time. I mask my emotions and I was trying to be strong for him because I knew that's what he needed at the time, but, man, did I just want to break down. He sure knows how to melt your heart though. Telling him "I love you" before we left, he mouthed it back to me around the tube, and I was so happy, I about cried. Made me realize how much of a grandpa's girl I really am. I don't need any more close calls like that anytime soon.

Diane: She has been so careful not to step on anyone's toes in the family. I would hate to think that she still feels the need to do this. After watching her help my grandpa get through all the crud and rebuild his life without grandma, she is absolutely amazing.  I know we tell her, but I'm not sure if she understands exactly how grateful we are to have her. Her shining presence these last few years has lifted the whole family's spirits and seeing how much grandpa cares for her is inspiring. As the "outsider" first coming into our family's crazy dynamic, it had to be intimidating, but she handled it gracefully, and she's become a very important person in our lives.

Grandma and Grandpa Fountain: I know it hurt them to take a backseat when Grandma Bon passed away. I never meant to make them feel like that, but I spent entirely too much time mourning her loss, instead of realizing what I still had left. My Grandma Fountain is just as strong, if not stronger, than her after some of the decisions that she had to make early in life. She also lost both her parents when she was around my age. How much I would love to sit down and pick her brain one of these days. There are so many things I want to ask her about, but I feel like some of them would be hard to discuss. Grandpa is a man of few words, but you can tell that he loves his family, and he's very protective of us.

The rest of the family is always here when you need them, and I'm thankful for that. I know that not very many people have an extended family that is as tightly knit as ours. I know that I always have someone to lean on.

After leaving college and having Aiden, I don't have very many true friends left. So it means a lot to me for each and every one that stuck around despite me pushing them away.

I've been going through a lot lately, emotionally. My first instinct is to push everyone away to protect myself, because if there's no one there than no one can hurt me, right? I don't really believe that much anymore, but I know in the past I've hurt a lot of people, especially family, trying to fix myself. I don't feel like I tell them enough how much I appreciate and love them, and how much I really look up to them. This is a start.

Return From My Long Hiatus

Soooo....it has been a crazy couple of months.

We just got done moving into my parents' house to save money while we look for a new place, my grandpa had surgery on his lungs to remove cancer and we almost lost him (very unexpected complications during surgery but now he's doing GREAT after only a few weeks! :) ), and after some issues that have been resolved, James and I are starting to plan our wedding with hopes that we can move it up to early next year instead of the end of next summer. Life has been completely turned around in any way possible multiple times, but today is a good day, and today is a start. All I can say is thank God that I started crocheting since it seems like my craft and the love for my son are the only things that have stayed constant during this amount of time. And it's an awesome stress reliever. If you haven't started some sort of craft or hobby...now is the time to do so, especially if you find yourself constantly wanting to pull out your hair.

I have been pulling things off my hook left and right recently to prepare for a sale that I was going to be a part of, but James got sick, so we had to cancel at the last minute. :(  I have a large inventory of hats, winter, and baby items now though so hopefully when I enter a sale at the beginning of this fall, I don't have to work so frantically to get everything ready. But that also meant a lot of unfinished personal projects that I started and didn't get a chance to finish.

Right now I'm in progress of:

1. A diaper soaker for Aiden

2. A Swiffer sock

3. Ripple blanket

4. Granny blanket for Aiden

5. A hat for myself (Callie Hat. Not free but it was included in the September edition of Inspired Crochet Magazine)

6. A hat for James (I forgot how stinkin long it takes to make an adult hat now that I make so many baby/kids hats)

7. Aiden's cowboy booties

8. About 3 orders that I have to work on.

Once I finish all this in progress "stuff", I'm resolving to only have 2 personal projects and 2 orders in progress at one time. Otherwise, I would never finish anything before I start something else.

Make it a great day! :)