Since our son was born, I've decided that I wanted to be that mom who would do fun activities with my children and go above and beyond with my crafts and projects.  I felt that I shouldn't give up my hobbies just because I became a mom.  In fact, it's been great for relieving stress and keeping me sane in the early months of motherhood. 

My first big project since Jackson's birth was the creation of our first family Halloween costumes - Star Wars themed!  In my search for themed costumes, I saw pictures of a cute family that dressed their stroller up as R2-D2, and I loved it!  It looked like something I could do, so I got to work on my family's costumes...and here's how they turned out. 

Halloween Day was just a lot of fun!  Brandon and I both had classes, and I had TA office hours, so we spent most of our day on campus.  In between classes, we walked to the Wilkinson Center to buy lunch and we were stopped countless times for pictures.  In fact, it took us over an hour to make our 'quick' lunch stop.  However, it was one of my favorite days!  I met a lot of people who were dressed up in amazing costumes and that made me happy.  

At the time, I didn't think about writing a tutorial for the R2D2 stroller costume, but I probably will very soon.  I might even start selling them locally since they are so inexpensive and easy to make.  For now, I'll be finishing our UP themed costumes for Halloween 2014.  

Count Your Blessings

I recently felt the need to write this down, mostly for personal reference, but hopefully this will also help demonstrate the many ways in which blessings come. For instance, just this past week, our rather reliable 2003 Honda Accord wouldn't start. After a few phone calls in the very hot afternoon, we figured out that we needed to replace our car battery ASAP. Initially, I saw this as a very unfortunate waste of my day, but quickly found out that we were in the same block as Costco, where we soon purchased our battery. Brandon returned to the car with our $80 battery and informed me that we needed to install it ourselves, but that we would be refunded $9 if we returned our old battery back to the auto department. Believe me when I say that I felt the desire to complain and be grumpy for the rest of the day! However, our car lived long enough for us to pull into our parking lot at home. By this time, my mood changed considerably and I was grateful to make it home safely. Also, Brandon had our new battery installed within 15 minutes and I was happy to know that I could count on my husband, not only for his obvious handyman skills, but for his overwhelming patience and optimistic attitude. He keeps me going through tough days like this and I absolutely love him for it!

Another blessing that came to me this week was from a bride I helped on the 4th of July. Since her parents were in town, she decided to begin her search for the perfect wedding dress. Little did she know that the first wedding dress she tried on would be 'the one'. The dress she found was recently marked down from $700 to $450, and they were able to get an additional 35% discount on top of that (20% for the holiday and an extra 15% for military personnel). Needless to say, I enjoyed helping their daughter find her perfect wedding gown. She was literally glowing and so incredibly happy! Many hugs later, I was additionally blessed to receive a really nice tip, which was actually more than my compensation for that day. I didn't receive it until after they left the store, so I never got a chance to thank them, but it made me feel good about myself. I appreciate the fact that they know I genuinely care about them and about everyone who comes into our store. It's people like that who make it all worth it to me.

Doodles