My Little Baker Girl

My girl loves to be in the kitchen with her mom. And I love having her there.

I am as addicted to baking as a person can be so Mia has grown up with an appreciation for things like homemade scones and lavender truffles.

When her cousin Max gave her a cooking set for her birthday she couldn't wait to try it out. The next day she donned her apron, got out her kiddie sized pans and utensils and declared that she was going to make brownies with white chocolate chips and marshmallows.

And she did!

Way to go Mimi...they were delicious!

Get your DOODLE on!

This is fantastic...if you are feeling in a creative slump you should check this out...

Surprise...

We were expecting Mia's biological Grammy today for lunch and she just called to say that Mia's birth mom (her daughter) has decided to come as well. This is a huge shock. We have only met her once 3 years ago when Mia had just turned 2.

Needless to say I am in a panic. There are so many emotions that are spinning around my head right now. First and foremost, you just want everything to be right...no lulls in the conversation, no awkward questions being asked or answered, everyone getting along and having a wonderful time.

Most importantly I want to do everything right for my daughter. To teach her acceptance, love, gratitude and compassion, to help her feel comfortable and secure. To MAKE SURE she always knows that no matter what choices the adults in her life have made she was always considered and the choices were made with love and respect for her.

Anyway- I could ramble forever on this topic but I have to go and clean my house.

Wish us luck!

Halloween Blog Candy!

It's Trick or Treat time...Check out the yummy goody giveaway at Scrapz N Stuff!

October Guest Designer Announced

And it's me! Wow!!!

I have only been scrapping again since August. Life got crazy and I stopped for about a year. I decided- against all odds- to put my hat in the ring for a DT or GD position at the great site http://www.scrapbooksuppliesdirect.com/. It is a small but growing site with a lot of wonderful women participating and I felt at home from the first day I logged on. I am really excited to get my scrapping ramped up for the month of October and hope you all come over to the site and check it out. If you are like me and prefer a small pond with people that really support you and listen to your comments and suggestions then SSD is the place for you!

Come join us. There will be a call for the November Guest Designer running from October 1-15th!

Visit's End

Well I am getting ready to take my dad to the airport this morning. He has been staying with us since the end of June and it seems that time has gone by pretty fast this visit.

My dad has always been able to come and stay with us a couple times a year since my daughter was born and she always loves the special times with her Papa. He has helped me out in many a childcare pinch over the years, sometimes getting on a plane in a matter of days to be here.It is great to see the close bond he has with my daughter, they had a special "thing" between them from the moment they first laid eyes on each other. Love at first sight I guess. I know that she will remember the times with him forever, just like I remember spending time with my Grandad.

This is the first time that she is really grasping the fact that he is LEAVING though. It will probably be a rough day for all.

My dad will be 76 this year, is probably in better shape than I am, but you never know what life brings and I hope and pray that we will be blessed enough to have him here again soon.It is important for me to sit and write about how much I love my dad.

We are very similar and he aggravates me a lot...sometimes on purpose. It is hard to appreciate our time together sometimes and I feel guilty about it. I have been craving alone time all summer and I wonder how much I am really going to like it once he's gone.

Anyway, here's a big thanks to my dad for :

Always washing the dishes for me!

Helping me clean my house all summer.

Making the trips to the freezer to get more bread.

Playing with Mia when I am swamped with work.

Picking about 40 pounds of berries with/for me this summer.

Always helping me make jam.

Changing my flat tire in the middle of the highway 2 weeks ago.

Always forcing me to go to Costco for the hot dog meal and sharing his frozen yogurt with me.

Putting up with my moods.

Just being there.

I'll miss you dad...come back soon!

Tired

Will I ever get enough sleep again?

I can honestly say that I have been tired for 5 years now. It started when my daughter was a baby. SHE NEVER SLEPT! I can vividly remember wanting to hit other moms when they told me that their kids slept through the night when they were 6 weeks old. Never say things like that to an overtired cranky 40 year old! NEVER.

I was able to restrain myself from physically battering them but in my head I always heard the refrain..."Liar, Liar, pants on fire!" I think I had lost it by the time she was sitting up.

So fast forward to Fall 2008. I've had house guests since June, changed jobs this summer, been nursing a heel spur that refuses to go away and has crippled me to the point that I can barely get around and been up most nights with my daughter who has recently been experiencing growing pains, started seeing monsters under the bed and having nightmares about giant pinching insects (nice). Once I am up I can't get back to sleep. Too much to think about in the middle of the night.

I have also had a falling out with my brother, and had my heart broken by someone I thought was my best friend of almost 5 years. Talk about stressful...

In August I made a drastic move. I rearranged my bedroom and set up a scrapping areas just for me. I have always been creative, went to art school and love anything that I can make from nothing. I loved to scrap and had been going along at a nice clip until about a year ago. Then life got too hectic, the job had turned into a nightmare, my daughter was requiring more time and the first thing to go was scrapping quickly followed by yoga. I made the big mistake of letting go of the things I needed to do to keep me sane.

So, I am scrapping again. I can not believe all that has changed in a year. I was horrified to see that all my papers & embellishments were sorely outdated. I just had to start shopping for supplies again...there was no choice! I also started doing some online tutorials and visiting scrappy sites to get myself reacquainted with the scrap world. There is so much to see online that if you don't watch out you will be so busy reading and watching that you will never have time to scrap again!!!!

After visiting a ton of different sites I stumbled upon www.ScrapbookSuppliesDirect.com and found a wonderful community of scrappers. In the few weeks I have been lurking around there I have yet to see one thing that would make me want to turn tail and run. In fact it is everything I was looking for in a support site for scrappers. Hey...there's support! But not just that there are great contests, tons of great tips & tricks and a gallery that is jam packed with creativity. Oh did I mention that there are women there? Real women who love to scrap and don't feel the need to be anything but nice and respectful to the others in the forums?

I decided to try out for their Design Team Call. There are 2 positions they are trying to fill right now. One is a Guest Designer for October 08, the other is for a long term designer with the position lasting 3-6 months. I thought that throwing my hat into the ring would be a good way to challenge myself and get busy scrapping again. So starting about 2 weeks ago I began working like a mad woman trying to get some work done to submit. The cutoff was last night at 10p.m. my time. I had a couple very late nights leading up to the end of the call but it was so worth it. I am not sure if I have a chance at the positions or not but I do know that the call was the spark I needed to get going again. They will be picking the new DTs by the 20th. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

And go check out the site if you haven't already.

I'm off to sleep at my desk for a bit!

September 15th 2008

Five years ago today I woke up, got dressed, went to work, went out to dinner, had one too many for a Monday night and went to bed. All without knowing that my daughter had been born at 11:24 that morning. I found that out three days later.

One random phone call and my life did an about face.

You would think that I would have been somewhat prepared, but I wasn't. My inherent defence mechanism of self preservation forced me to accept that I would never be a mom. Being on the list to adopt made no diffence. It was the only way that I could get through my life, day by day, without succumbing to the black hole of infertility.

As I reflect on the past five years I can't help but think of all the ups and downs we have in life. Parenting my daughter has been a challenge, full of wonder, tears of pain, joy and heart stopping love. One hopes to always learn from and never to repeat mistakes made. A pipe dream for the most part I think. I can only now appreciate how much my parents did for me and the struggles they faced.

One day, when my daughter is much older, I will try to explain all this to her with the full knowledge that she will not understand any of it until she is a mom.

But for today, I will hold her, tell her how much she is loved and wish her Happy 5th Birthday!

Mia, the day you came to me was the best day of my life. No words can describe how blessed I feel to be your mom.

Always-