The Lord Truely Blesses!

I feel so blessed today. Last week we took Kaiya to her 3rd swallow study in Topeka. She is such a little trooper and she did GREAT!! We were pleased that she Passed and we are now transitioning her to thin liquid. This is a big step and pretty much a final one! Yesterday I was priveledged to host a shower for my sis-in-law, Shana. It was a lot of work but I was pleased with the result and we had a good time. Shana is a super fun person and I am thankful that she is my sister. Chris' sister came to town yesterday also so we will be able to enjoy Brenna and Lydia before they leave for Italy in a couple weeks. Benji LOVES playing with Lydia and they really play well together. I have been spending some time with a couple really great girls a few nights a week working out. This is much needed and it has been great to get out of the house and start something. At the end of the month we are going to be house sitting again, it has been over a year since we have and we are looking forward to it. Oh, and while we are staying there, Chris will be working hard at our house. We are putting on a new roof, putting in new windows and walls and making a new room upstairs for our little man. Just feeling very blessed today!
Love love!!!!!
Kim

A new chapter

Sparkles is an e-course that I just signed up for. I was in need of some help to make sure that I spend just a little time everyday being creative. This class is designed to help.
This course is put on by Jamie Ridler Studios. This photo was from day 1. Say cheese! Having fun just doing little things. Will post some other things that I have been working on soon. I have been picking up some things at the thrift store to re-purpose! So fun!!

Creative Everyday Challenge...more projects

I had this old bulletin board just laying around the house. I really didn't want to use it because it was just SO ugly. So, I decided to give it a face lift.

I sanded the frame and painted it black whit acrylic paint. I did not draw the picture, it is actually wallpaper that I found at the thrift store a few years ago. I hadn't used it yet but I thought that this was a perfect project to use it on. I am going to hang this in the kitchen over my desk.

This is a flower that I made out of paper. I was really just experimenting. It turned out ok, the paper is too thin and it did not stay curled up like I hoped.

These flowers are made out of satin. They turned out really nice. They look beautiful (sorry, the photo does not do them justice).

Having a TON of fun!!

My Baby is 3!!

Little Benji is 3 years old. His birthday was 2/20 so this is a little late but I wanted to show you how much he has grown up. We had a small party for him at Pizza Hut with family and Benji had a great time. Kaiya even ventured out for an evening, I think that she was happy to get out and see everyone! I am sure that she will be very social and I can tell that she likes to be around people so being shut in the house all winter is taking its toll on us all.

Benji's Grandam Sue made him this Lightening McQueen cake. She borrowed the cake pan from our local library and then decorated it herself, well I "helped" ... really I watched her but I am saying that I helped because I learned a lot about decorating a cake. I am considering this as a creative activity for my challenge. The cake was super yummy and we are so thankful to Sue for all of her help.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Benji! I love you!!!

Creative Everyday Challenge...recent projects

This is a background that I started working on a while ago. I am planning on doing a fluid painting on this one but I have to sace up some money for some good paints. Fluid paintings are really cool but you have to get the correct kind of paints so that you have very vivid colors otherwise they are a little lackluster. I am sure that I will paint over this three or four times before I decide on a good background, I just like playing. This is actually three small canvases put together.

This is another background that I have been playing with. I have since changed it because I tried to do a fluid painting but it did not seem to workout. The colors flowed but they just all mixed together too much and did not look interesting.

I have been working on these quite a few days. They are Bible bookmarks. My mother-in-law asked me to make these for her for gifts. They were a blast and I was able to get them done pretty quickly. The biggest problem is that I had to wait till the kiddos were in bed. Benji thought it was great fun to mix all of my piles together. I also just finished some for myself to give as gifts. I just thought that it would be nice to have something around the house for when I need something for someone.

I will post again with a few more things that I have been working on.

Wanted to share a recipe that i will be making this weekend. This is my FAV meatball recipe! My sister gave me this recipe and I believe that she recieved it from a lady we went to chruch with growning up.

Barbecue Meatballs

3 lbs hamberger
2 cups quick oats
1 cup chopped onion (I don't use that much, we don't like much onion)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Sauce (can be doubled if putting in crock pot after baking)
2 cups ketchup
1 cup brown suugar
2 tbsp liquid smoke

Roll meatballs into walnut sized balls and place on a flat pan. Put sauce on top of meatballs and bake at 350 F for 45-60 minutes. Be careful not to over bake them.

This really is a good recipe and pretty easy. The best way to mix the meatballs is to use your hands, this is the worst part of this recipe. I hate it becasue I don't like messy hands and I hate it when my hands get cold and it seems that the meat is always cold. Anyway, hope you have fun! Enjoy!!!

Despite my lacking of proof...I have been...

Despite my lack of proof, I have been working on being creative everyday. I have been working on Bible bookmarks for my mother-in-law and I only have 19 left of 96. They are a lot of fun and very relaxing. I normally work on them while Chris is watching basketball or some other sporting event on TV (I would rather be creative then watch a game even though I enjoy college basketball). I have also been experimenting with some backgrounds to some fluid paintings. I am excited about these but will have to wait as the paints that I need for these are VERY expensive. I will wait till this summer for those probably because I need some more space and they will be so much easier to clean up outside.

I have also been doing a lot of brainstorming. I have been playing with the idea of doing paintings for my children with their names. I wanted to get started on them but we are planning on moving Benji upstairs this summer and I am not sure what colors we are going to paint his room, and Kaiya she will have her own room downstairs and we may just have to paint her room too. I just don't know yet. I thought waiting would be best. I did finish one the other day for my newest niece. My step brother had a baby a couple of weeks ago and I was not sure what to get for her. I found a canvas and decided to just paint a name painting for her. I think that it turned out pretty cute. I will post later with photos of all of these projects. Another reason that things have been slower the last couple of weeks is that our laptop just quit working a couple weeks ago and we had to go get a new one, which we have been talking about anyway. The problem with this is that I am not able to get onto my other laptop and there are all kinds of ideas that I need to move over to this computer. I guess I will have to call our personal IT guy sometime. I am excited because I have a ton of ideas...now I just have to get all of the stuff that I need and I can get started! SO EXCITED!

One piece of good news. My biggest struggle is that I really don't have a place to be creative. There is no place in this tiny, little house for a studio. There is a basement but I refuse to go down there unless to get food from the freezer or to flip a switch in the breaker. My mom and step dad are building a house and she offered to let me us a room in the basement for my studio. I am so pumped. It will not be done till this summer but it is something to look forward to and she said that she would help me with the kiddos while I am painting. I will not move everything over there (I will need to keep some things at home so I can still work on things here). What a blessing this will be!