Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Life has been hectic ...

When life gets hectic I always find that my personal blog is the thing that suffers the most.

Since my last post, the kids have finished school... Armando is an 8th grader, Giovanni a 7th grader and Emilia is officially a 1st grader!  Where has the time gone!

I am so proud of the boys, as they finished the year with Honors - Straight A's & B's.  They worked very hard this year and their hard work shows.

Armando finished up his season of C2 Soccer. They advanced into the State Finals but didn't progress any further.  We had some very talented players and it's sad to see the season end.

Giovanni is completely healed from his surgery and all is well with his mouth. Now we just have to wait to see how his teeth naturally align to determine if braces are in the future or not.

Emilia lost 2 teeth in a matter of 2 days.  Her top left front and one that is on the side bottom left. When she talks she she is making a  "SHP" sound... when she is upset and trying to vocalize her frustration it takes a strong hold of self control on my part not to giggle, run to get the video camera and record.  It's so cute.. almost like Elmer Fudd.

OH.. and I almost forgot Reina.. the puppy that is lucky to be alive after I found her making my reading glasses her new chew toy.  She has never destroyed anything of great value.. some kids toys here and there but she always kept herself entertained with her toys. She is now 7 months old and we have had her for 4 months and this was really the first time I recall being spitting mad at her.  She has house trained wonderfully and always goes to the door and barks.  She is a great puppy and my $300 glasses will just have to be a lesson to me to make sure they don't fall off my nightstand.  (but wow.. such an expensive lesson)

As a family unit, we are doing well.  Knock on wood that everyone is healthy. We have hit summer full blast.  Not only are the kids home and enjoying the freedom, it seems like it has gotten hotter than Hades too early in the season.  We have 93+ days for the better part of the week with 80+% humidity.  It's brutal.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Will and I gave the front yard landscaping a facelift and overhaul.  We haven't touched it (other than basic weeding) since we moved in in Dec 2010.  It was time for a revamp.  The bushes the landscapers planted were all wrong for the space and started growing out of control.  We snipped them back, replaced the mulch, added edging stones and replanted some of the flowers.  We didn't add any fresh flowers or color to the mix, we will do that next year after I actually planned for it.

We are in the midst of planning our first family vacation for the end of June.  I wouldn't really call it a vacation per say. There aren't any amusement parks,  mouse houses or water rides in our plans.  We choose to take our vacations to spend time with much missed family 1,200 + miles away.  We haven't seen most of our families in over 2 years.  I can not wait to see them all. I miss our families so very much. We have lived away from them for so many years that one would think that missing them wouldn't be as much.. but daily there is a reminder of how much they are missed and how lonely it is w/o them.  Definitely a void missing in our lives.

I'm out of time for now.. if your interested you can check out why I have been away for the past few weeks. I've been working on promoting a new lil notebook I created and then writing all about it here: Let It Shine Design Blogger Page. 

Love & Light!
=) Kristina

as promised.. some recent pics:


Em's last day of school before her Graduation Program.

Em feeding the white peacock at the Fountain of Youth Park in St. Augustine Fl. 

My  after Armando's birthday celebration.



Monday, May 07, 2012

A Girl's Only Weekend..

Emilia and I made an impromptu trip to the St. Augustine house to see my mom.  She was there for a week and with her being so close I decided to just go and visit her.  It was a tough decision for me as Armando had soccer tournaments that weekend for the State Playoffs the following week and I wanted to be there to support him.

But I had to see my mom.. So Will had a boy's only weekend and I had the Girls only one.

Here are some highlights from that weekend.  We met up with my Big Brother Stephen (who is also the guest museum curator for his display at the MOSH museum in JAx..http://www.themosh.org/victory.html )

My brother was a participant in Ve-Day remembrance gathering to celebrate the 67th Anniversary of the Allied victory in Eurpoe at the St. Augustine Fountain of youth so it was a great time to spend time with him. It was a great experience for Em to as she was exposed to history amongst people who loved it.

here are some pics of that great event:
Stephen, Mom and Emilia

Stephen and my mom (boy she looks more and more like her mom every tiime I see her)

 Stephen and his buddy Dan. 

 Emilia filling out her rations card. 

 Stephen and Dan talking to a War Veteran Mario. 

I simply loved her look.. such a classic timeless look.

Mr. Dan in front of his 1941 jeep. 
 Another pic of a lady dressed in the era's clothing. She was fun to talk with.

A 3-Star General's Dodge?


OH.. and did I mention the peacocks at the park?  Holy Cow.. there are over 90 of them roaming free.  They even ate out of Em's hands.  I will share those pics in another post, I took over 300 pictures of the peacocks alone! They are simply gorgeous.

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll share more soon!

=) Kristina



Sunday, May 06, 2012

The Organized Sewer's Notebook

I am soo over the moon to introduce to the sewing community: The Organized Sewer's Notebook.

It was a project in the making for a long time. The nagging need for something to organize my creative life was overwhelming and I had to do something about it.

So I organized my thoughts and created a 90 page notebook, including inventory pages, knowledge pages and logs of projects.  I have never sat so much in the weeks it took to create this.  I have never spent 8 hours at a time in front of a computer. My butt still hurts! But it's done and now I'm mentally working on project #2..  BUT.. I wanted to share with you TOSN..

Here are some pics of TOSN.





I was uber excited to read the reviews which have all been super positive thus far. Keeping my fingers crossed!

OH.. and I am also planning an Organize-A-Long on the yahoo group: Sew It Seams.  This is really going to be alot of fun.. come on over and join us!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SewItSeams/

Happy Organizing!