Ok I had time to create a couple more layouts this week. Again of my littlest niece who just turned one.

I loved having a chance to play with SAS Designs’ Natural Symphony kit this last weekend.  I stuck with the basic idea threw in stitches and some ribbon in the background, used one of SAS Designs’ Grungy Photo Edges and basically just cut the photo out with it making a mask instead. Clustering and a curvy text area complete the layout.

Reminder: I am on SAS Designs’ creative team, something that I feel very honored to be part of! That said, I do receive her kits for free in exchange for creating layouts with her work and posting them online. I am not in any way required to post these on my blog but choose to do so simply because I love her products so much.

Saturday the boys were outside playing and Monkey comes marching to the house and announces…

“You know it’s raining because it’s dripping from the sky”

When he was told to go outside and play some more while he still had the chance, he replied…

“Well, the sky’s leaking on my head”

I love it!

Finding toys that aren’t going to end up in next week’s trip to Goodwill, because the children are tired of them can be a bit of a challenge sometimes.  So when I found out about Growing Tree Toys and their educational toys that inspire creativity, imagination, learning and fun I definitely wanted to give them a try.

We received the Transparent Marble Run and the twins couldn’t wait to get it out of the box and set it up.  It was a little difficult to keep them occupied elsewhere, or for them to be patient while I assembled it and in order for the marbles to go the right way you do have to spend a bit of time making sure that each part is setup in the right direction.

That aside though, once it was assembled the twins loved it and spent quite a bit of time playing with it. I have to  admit I enjoyed playing it with them.  The time spent to assemble the toy also was fine with me because it offers many different ways to assemble the run for even more fun.

I also love that they have toys for a wide variety of age groups and even some that my children from 4 to 11 and maybe even the 14 year old could have dun playing together. This is quite a feat since their interests and age groups vary so much.

Oh and one last thing before I send you off to visit them…I really appreciate their prices. They are actually affordable and make amazing gifts!  Ok, now you can go…have fun!

Disclosure: I always provide my honest opinion on the products I present to you at A Frog In My Soup.  Growing Tree Toys sent me a complimentary Transparent Marble Run for my family to try out. You can see my full policy here.

That’s right, Scraphappy is back!!! WooHoo! I cannot tell you how much I have missed my digiscrapping but not that I have the new program installed on my computer I can resume that creative part of my life once again and that makes me very happy.

Here’s one of the two pages I added to my Digi-Scrap Gallery today…

This fun layout features one of SAS Designs’ newer kits…Song of Spring. Fonts are Rockwell Extra Bold and Segoe Script {I haven’t had a chance to get out all my fancy fonts but fell in love with the simplicity these two created}.

Ok, so just a word on what I did…this is pretty much an homage to paper scrapbooking. Yeah “old school”. But I love it!  I just couldn’t resist with the pics and colors just really playing with it all in a way I would have back when I scrapbooked with paper. I hope you enjoy it.

Expanding on the information about health, wellness and feeding your family I have joined the writing team at Mom Central Food. My first post went up today and it’s all about starting good eating habits young.

Feel free to hop on over and share your thoughts too…see you there!

When I had all boys it honestly never occured to me that some of them might be what I have come to refer to as “talkaholics”.  After all, girls are supposed to have the need to use a lot more words than boys each day.  I have found however that this is not the case for ALL boys…and somehow I got more than one that is a talkaholic.

I honestly do love to hear what they have to say….most of the time.  Sometimes it is a little (or a lot) overwhelming but often, it’s amusing or even shockingly insightful. 

From our resident Salesman, we have Mr Fix It mentality.  You have a problem he has a solution.  Yes, be afraid…be very afraid.  When an 11 year old (who happens to know everything about everything) decides to tackle a problem or issue (regardless of whether he should have been involved in the conversation in the first place) the solutions are…shall we say interesting to say the least.

Monkey will often begin the day with a statement like “Mommy, I need to talk to you”, or “Mommy, I have something to tell you”.  He literally demands your full undivided attention at that moment not a second later. Of course this is a bit unreasonable considering that there are 5 other boys vying for my attention but he doesn’t see it that way.  He honestly believes that the world revolves around him and only him…problem is each and every sibling of his believes the same thing.

Bugs, though not as talkative as Salesman and Monkey still has to chime in with his ten cents worth throughout the day. 

Sometimes, my ears are just tired by 6pm…TIRED!!!  The brain goes into overload mode and there is no turning back the tide. I like to listen to them, but I have to admit that on the particularly loud days I’m not always sorry to see bedtime roll around.  I suppose that’s terrible but hey, I have to be honest.

I wish I had the ability to document everything they say, in the fray of the moment though, there never seems to be anything to write or record with.  I always just hope and pray that I can remember a tidbit again when I have a way to write it down later…sadly this doesn’t happen nearly enough.

So, as I try and challenge myself to come up with ways to be a more creative mom, I thought I would share with you as well. 

The Challenge…

This week’s challenge (should you choose to accept it) is to spend a few minutes each day looking for a cute, funny, inspirational or simply interesting statement from at least one child and write it down. 

Take it a step further by buying a cute journal at the store just to write these sayings down in. Make sure you write which child it is and the date they said it. 

Simplify it…if you need it to be a little simpler, you can choose one child per week and even only write down two things that child said. That still is a lot of sayings when you add it all up through the years.

As usual ladies, I encourage you to chime in.  Have a great week ladies.

So as you know, the twins are an endless source of craziness, and laughter. They have the funniest ideas, translations and dreams. When they wake up in the morning it isn’t uncommon for one or both of them to have a lot (and I mean a lot) to say. The subject matter is different all the time, but they are not to be interrupted or ignored…that would simply be unacceptable (to them of course lol)!!!

The other day Monkey was following me around the house as I did the morning routine and decided I needed to know about his dream from the night before. I believe he was the only one up and here’s how the conversation went…

Monkey: Mommy, there was pizza in my dream last night.

Me: Oh? Pizza huh?

Monkey: Yeah, and ice cream and cake too.

Me: Oh really? Wow, that must have been a yummy dream.

Monkey: (sigh) Yes mommy it was really yummy.

Just another tiny snippet from my less than boring life.

Moving into a difficult season in life isn’t something that anyone ever hopes for or dreams of…but most of us understand that it is likely to happen at some point (or several points) in our life.  There are many things for me to be thankful for, though I tend to forget them in the middle of the daily grind.

Sometimes, as with me, the situation arises unexpectedly and unavoidably. No, there was no one thing that happened, but there are many many things that basically overwhelmed me but were/are completely out of my control.

Moving into self-preservation mode is probably a normal reaction, this is the point where having a little conversation with myself was completely necessary. Remembering that I need to find balance…the balance that works toward getting me healthy but also remembers to keep an even keel in the home for the family.

Not an impossible mission, but I found it to be a very difficult one.  I struggle with our culture’s need to focus solely on self and do whatever necessary to make self happy. So possibly in rebellion to that attitude I (and many other moms I know) buried myself in my family.  No I don’t feel that I lost my identity…it was altered yes, but lost…no.

Once again, I am reminded that as with everything in life, finding balance is the key.  Finding a way to take care of what I need to be healthy right now, as well as the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of my family. It’s the basics, easier said than done but how often do we make a mountain out of a molehill.

So in the process of balancing I’m also remembering to simplify. Again, much easier said than done but I’m tired of making life too complicated and difficult. There’s enough of that out of my control so why add that in where I do have a little say?

As I enter what I hope will be a new season of refreshing, balance and simplicity I hope that you can also find joy and fulfillment in the simple things in life.

If you have children that are school age, there’s a very good possibility that you wore green yesterday.  Maybe you even had to rummage through several drawers to find something green. And maybe, just maybe, when you did find something green it was a shirt that you don’t mind hanging around the house in but won’t go out in.

No? Well, ok, maybe that was just me.

But as I walked into the grocery store last night, wearing the green shirt I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing outside the house in, I realized that sometimes we do things as a mom that we simply wouldn’t do if we didn’t have children.

I wouldn’t ordinarily worry about wearing green, even on St. Patrick’s Day but for the sake of the kids and their love of holidays I wore it…took a deep breath as I walked into and through the grocery store and chalked it up to one more day of life as a mom.

Yes, after a few months of being quiet I suddenly feel like the fog is lifting and I want to talk again.  So if you’ve noticed that I’m suddenly blogging again…you aren’t mistaken.  I’m just doing it a bit differently and still kind of ‘going with the flow’ of whatever is on my mind, or when I have time. In other words I’m back but things might still look a little different.

I can’t say that the process of what I’ve been dealing with lately hasn’t been without side effects. My normally happy and optimistic nature has been…well…not so happy or optimistic much of the time.  The idea of sharing what I was going through was very difficult for me.

Honestly not because of pride, but because it felt wrong somehow that my normally encouraging and uplifting blog would be tarnished by difficulties beyond my ability to completely explain or handle in every day life.  To be in a place in my life where I didn’t feel like I had anything encouraging to offer was foreign and frustrating for me.

I’m not going to tell you that I’m back to “normal”, in a way I’m not sure if I ever will be. I don’t mean that in a negative way, but everything we go through in life will shape us and transform us just a little (or a lot). But the constant haze I was in seems to have faded a bit, the light at the end of the tunnel is finally visible and while I still have bad days, there are good ones now too.

Thank you all so much for standing by me through this…I have great friends, many of which simply email me when they read posts here and I appreciate you all.  I wish you all great blessings today!!!

Hugs…