I heart faces…

This weeks theme is tooshies, this picture did make the Christmas card, and since it fits this weeks theme, I thought I would share it early!

Lack of blogging for a reason….

I have been busy!

Busy with my photography business, I opened up less than 2 months ago! I was pleasantly surprised with all of the business I got, and so thankful.

The money I have made is allowing us to take a short family vacation on the beach in a couple of weeks. We missed two planned family vacations due to Ezra’s cancer..so we desperately need one! Not to mention we will be celebrating the beginning of Ezra’s last phase of chemotherapy, long term maintenance. They call it long for a reason. Only 2.5 years left of chemo! Hooray??

So I thought I would share some of the pictures I have been taking..since I haven’t been blogging as much!

I did a wedding, and sounds like I may be doing another one in couple of months!

 

And then I have been busy shooting pictures of families and adorable children..and babies…oh the babies.

 

 

 

   

 

I have 2 more sessions lined up for December, and then I am sure things will die down a little. I can’t thank all my new customers enough!

Stay tuned, on Wednesday I am finally going to post another part in my Manic Mother Memoirs. You can find part one here, and part two here, in case you are new around around these parts.

Adorable Little Boy Overload!

This Thanksgiving we spent it at home..just the 4 of us. I made a scaled down traditional turkey day feast, which the boys ate none of. They had tatertots and apples…*sigh*, I try.

It was a really good day together. Really good.

After we ate, we took the boys to some train tracks (trains are all the rage right now). This would be my second attempt at a Christmas card photo. This time I didn’t even try to get my husband or I in the picture.

Why is it that my children are the hardest to photograph..ever?

Here are some that didn’t make the card.

Traditionally on Thanksgiving night, we go to a Christmas tree place and pick out a tree. This year because of Ezra’s immune system we had to do a fake one. Which didn’t seem to matter at all to them.

Ro pretty much decorated the whole tree himself. I love him.

 

I love this one too.

And when you let little people decorate your tree, you end up with ornament clusters..such as this.

I was going to go back today and rearrange it all, make it look perfect, but than I saw Ro was rearranging ornaments again this morning. My little Christmas baby.

So I pretty much decided to be lazy leave it as it is. After all Christmas isn’t about perfection, its about the little people.

When do you get your tree?

My Xmas Blog Design, Add Snow to Your Blog, and Free Twitter Badges!

I have really been enjoying teaching myself how to use Photoshop, and how to combine it with digital scrapbooking elements, to redesign my blog.

So check out my new Christmas design, and watch it even snows! It may take a few seconds to load the snow. To add snow to your blog go here, and follow the directions (really easy just click on the button and it adds a page element to your blog for you!)

I added a Facebook badge to the left, in case you are on there and want to friend me. Also I designed a couple of Twitter badges free for you! Mine is on the top right sidebar, if you want to follow me on Twitter also. I should clarify I don’t draw these designs, I buy the elements and than arrange them , add text, etc.

Here is the first Twitter Badge, will only work on a colored background(It says Twitter in White, hence why you can’t see it on my blog!).

<center><a href="http://twitter.com/manicmother"><img border="0" src="http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww47/manicmother/birdy.gif"/></a></center>

To use, add a HTML gadget to your blogs sidebar, copy the above html and paste, and replace the first highlighted link with your twitter profile link. Ignore the other link it is the link to the image. And save.

Here is the other one.

<center><a href="http://twitter.com/manicmother"><img border="0" src="http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww47/manicmother/twitterbird.gif"/></a></center>

Enjoy!

Giving Thanks To Little Things

Instead of making a Thanksgiving list of all the things I am thankful for that would be the usual list of family, friends, roof over my head, blah, blah, blah. Boring. You know, and I know I am thankful for those things. I know you are thankful for those things.

But what about the little things? The little objects in our lives that make our lives easier, or more enjoyable? What 5 little things are you most thankful for? Here are mine.

1.  one is easy…..

I am thankful for disposable diapers..can’t say this one enough. I so admire parents that cloth diaper….but it is soooo not for me. I have a good friend that cloth diapers, and I asked her how you get the poop out…she said they have a poop stick they use to scrape it out. Gag. No thanks. Love me some Huggies.

2. Soft Cheese

I think the picture pretty much says it all. I only buy this stuff very occasionally, because a whole wheel has been known to go missing in less than 24 hours. So sinful. So thankful.

3.  Carmex

I have to use it every night, or I end up with nasty chapped bloody lips. Thank you Carmex.

4.  Hand Sanitizer

Never thought I would be thankful for this one, but you all know why I am. What did cancer moms do before it??!

5.  White Noise Machine

We all sleep with one, in fact I can’t sleep with out it. I like the waterfall noise the best. Best part is, it is small enough it can go everywhere with us!

Wanna play along? List your top five little things you are thankful for and come back and leave your link. You have plenty of time to post it only 3 days till Turkey day, and 31 days until Christmas…but who is counting?

Noise and Space

Let me preface this post by saying, I never thought I would be sharing what it is like to live with bipolar disorder. I feared people would misconstrue my words and wrongfully judge me.

I have found the complete opposite to be true. You all have been so supportive. And I now realize so many of you are learning what it is like to live with this disorder, as it affects so many of you directly or indirectly. I just wanted to say thank you for your encouragement. It has helped me to continue to write and share it with the world. Thank you.

When I am amidst a hypo-manic whirlwind there are two things I am acutely sensitive to.

Noise and space.

Because there is such an inner cacophony playing out in my mind, external sounds can border on tortuous.

I can’t be in the same room with competing sounds.

For example, if the TV were on and then the boys decided to play with dueling noisy toys.

Or if I am near someone eating something crunchy. Or if Ro is eating with his mouth open.

I try to reason with him, I ask him nicely to please eat with his mouth closed.

I try to explain that it hurts mommy’s ears.

But how do you explain that to a child, or even a sane adult?

Too much noise literally hurts me, it is beyond a physical or mental pain. It makes me want to scream, to drown out all the other noises.

And so, I often have to displace myself. Move to a quiet space…gather myself together. Breathe.

And that brings me to the space issue. There doesn’t ever seem to be enough. Not so much in the physical sense.

I still love all the little boys hugs and kisses, and embraces from my husband. Maybe I don’t seek them out as much.

But the four walls of my home become cramped. The cupboards, closets, and garbage can become confined.

I have been trying to organize our home, I went to Walmart and spent 50$ on storage boxes. Because maybe if everything is in its place, confined, then I too will feel harmonized.

When the organizing loses it appeal, as things abruptly do right now. I will leave the house. Usually at night after at least one child is in bed.

Nonsensical trips my husband calls them. He is right, there is no rationale to them.

I will find an excuse to get groceries, or wash the car.

Or I meander off to random places, the bookstore, craft store, Target, wherever my manic spark takes me.

It is as though I am trying to outrace the race.

Because, maybe if I keep in motion my inner mind race will cease.

Only it never works, it only acts as a temporary diversion.

A fruitless facade.

And once again I am faced with the obnoxious reality that I am mentally ill.

And I will always be.

I should clarify that I am not depressed right not, merely manic.

Fear not my friends, I go in on Wednesday to get my prescriptions.

Until then, I will persevere…it is what I do.

Great Christmas Gift!!!

 

Dear sweet Robin is still running this special, go check it out. I can’t say enough about how much I love my necklace.

I am not even sure how Robin stumbled upon me, but I am glad she did! Robin is an amazing jeweler who makes beautiful personalized jewelry with fingerprints! She offered to make me a piece of jewelry, and of course I took her up on it, and its a really cool process.

First she ships you a little kit like this, so you can make your fingerprint impressions.

You take two different clay like materials and mix them together and then press your finger of choice into it. I made four impressions, both of the boys thumbs, and pointer fingers. So that there would be a print on each side of the charm. Really simple, and I sent it back out in the mail.

I had to pick out which chain I wanted and the length for my necklace. Robin also makes bracelets, and earrings.

And then I received this……

Beautiful. I knew I would love it, I just didn’t know how much. It means so much to me, because it is the boys little fingers, and they are right by my heart….aw…cheesy I know, but I mean it. Here is another picture so you can see the scale of it.

The smaller charm is Ezra’s fingers, and the bigger one is Ro’s. I find myself actually touching it a lot during the day, I run my finger over the ridges of their prints. The little heart is something special she is doing for Ezra.

Imprecious jewelry is great for so many different ideas. You of course could have your children’s prints, or how about a print of your sweethearts finger, or maybe you have someone you love far away, it would be a great way to keep a piece of them close. You could also do your parent’s prints, grandchildren's, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc.

So now that I have you convinced that you absolutely need a piece of Imprecious jewelry, you need to click on the button below.

And the best part, 25% of your purchase will go into Ezra’s fund! How awesome is that. So not only would you get a really beautiful piece of work, but you also help my family out! It would also include the little heart seen in mine.

So click here to order, you have to order through this link in order for it to go towards Ezra.

If it isn’t in your budget now, you could help by grabbing the button (in my sidebar), and placing it on your blog. Blogging about this, tweeting, facebook, etc. It would mean a ton to me!

Thanks again Robin!

PS. I forgot to include that this fundraiser will only last for the next 30 days or so.