it's been almost 3 months!

I'm a very bad blogger. I've just been too CRAZY, happy busy to sit down and rewrite it all.

On top of all that goes with being a Mommy, wife, and childcare provider means...I've been (thankfully) close to swamped with my home based business, Spell It With Style.

I'm not complaining, but whew! I've never worked so hard in my life, but never been this fulfilled, happy, and at peace. If that makes any sense.  Having Spell It With Style as my main JOB feels fabulous.

I've gone from keeping extra children 5 days a week to 2-3 days AND I am getting to take Ella and Eric to school 2 days a week! I've been a stay at home mom for 4 years, but I've never been able to do the things that stay at home moms do b/c I've been happily taking care of other peoples' children.

I never thought driving around town during a weekday would feel so liberating! Lol!

Life is good.  I'm looking forward to the new year!

PS: I will have a new post at least once a week!

Trip to the zoo

Saturday I took the kids to the local zoo. It was in the 60s and felt fabulous!

 We rode the train, too

 And played at the zoo's cool playground

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 Both kids are now into dressing themselves on the weekends...their ensembles are very unique!

Scott had to work 10 hours on Saturday...missed you babe!

Next weekend I have a booth at Lufkin's Fall Market at St. Cyprian's School. Come see me Friday 4-9 or Saturday 10-5!

Man I love this little guy!

Eric can be such a toot, but his little face always makes me smile.

 I kept saying, "Eric. Smile!!"

 I got lots of silly faces instead.

Happy Wednesday! Life is good!

I love this song! It has her mama and new husband in it!

Fall is in the air!

Jordyn Gourley

One of my customers (Kim) just found out this week that her 3 year old daughter, Jordyn has cancer:


Little Jordyn was taken to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital on September 7th after a CT scan found a tumor in her skull. She is currently going through the process of tests to determine what type of cancer is involved and what treatments are needed to help with a safe recovery of this beautiful child.”

Less than a week ago they were a normal family and now their world has been turned upside down. Jordyn has an older and younger brother.

Please pray for Jordyn and her family.

Send me an email (spellitwithstyle@yahoo.com) if you would like to send cards or care packages to her.

balancing act

I am so thankful that Spell It With Style is doing so well! I am getting orders every single day. I've shipped to Japan, Australia, UAE, Canada, and about half of the US. It's pretty cool to earn income doing something that 95% of the time doesn't seem like that awful 4 letter word. "Work".

I feel content and productive. I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
I don't know why it's taken me 31 years to realize that creating and designing are what make me happy.

As a child, I l loved art projects, making place cards and menus for Thanksgiving dinners, creating birthday cards, writing poems, arranging vegetable trays, making up songs, etc.

With all that being said, I'm also still trying to figure out how to call it a day from Spell It With Style. Working from home is harder than it sounds!
I keep children til 5:30, dinner, bathe kids, bedtime routines, and then work on spellitwithstyle nonstop til 10-11, go to bed with my mind full of too much information, my feet hit the floor at 6 am and then I do it all over again and again and again. 

And I've had my first rude customer encounter....I knew it was inevitable. Her chalkboard was damaged in shipping.

I know that no one wants to receive damaged items and I will always replace items. But her email correspondence about this issue was just plain rude. Sarcastic. Blunt. RUDE. Many not so nice thoughts raced through my mind, but after counting to 100 10 I chose not to take her rudeness personally.

Long story short, I'm staying up later tonight to make her a new chalkboard so I can ship it to her first thing tomorrow morning. She will not appreciate it, but that's part of retail/dealing with the general public.

Random Kid Updates:
Ella LOVES kindergarten and her teacher! I'm so thankful. I love that she comes home smiling and tells me so many wonderful details about what she learned.
Eric LOVES his mother's day out teacher and is talking in class!! Last year he didn't say 1 word!!
Potty training day 416: still not happening...pee is 80%, poo is .005%...go ahead judge me people. I once judged and God gave me a boy who doesn't care about using the potty.  But God also gave me a sweet little boy who says (on non-mother's day out days), "You the best Mommy. I'm soooo glad I stay with you!"

First Day of Dance

I think this has been the best week of Ella's life! She loves kindergarten and was sooooo excited to go to dance for the first time.

My parents will get a kick out of this....It seems Ella has inherited my "trying to concentrate tongue thing". When I took gymnastics when I was little, I would always stick my tongue out. Ella did the same thing!!!

Her class is in the evenings so I get to take her and watch!!! I'm loving it!