heavy heart.

so. I am postponing my Isaac birthday present post because I am not in the party mood.

A friend of mine and her little sister, who is a close friend to my little sister lost their parents yesterday.

It has been ruled a murder...in fact my little brother who is a sheriff is over guarding their home where it happened right now as I type this.

If everyone could please keep them lifted up in prayer, I can not even begin to imagine the pain their family is facing.

I am praying peace and comfort that only GOD can give for the Martin's, please won't you do the same?

Birthday Month...

in just 2 days we will be in August...Isaac's birthday month! Where has the time gone? I couldn't even begin to tell you what a blessing Isaac has been to us. In fact...I don't even think I will try to articulate those feelings because they are just too big for words to convey them.

BUT I will talk about birthday presents. Because I LOVE shopping for my boys and shopping doesn't make me get all sentimental and want to cry like thinking about Isaac turning 1 does! For Isaac's first birthday I wanted to get him special gifts that I felt would grow with him. So I might have went a little nuts shopping for everything...I think I will have to write a couple posts to cover it all, but I will start with one of our favorite activities: reading!

If Isaac is going to make it in this family he is just going to have to be a reader. :) We ALL love to read here, it is one of the things I first loved about Billy; having someone to geek out with me at Barnes & Nobles and I am happy to see that love passed down onto Colby and Micah who have quite the library collection.

Isaac doesn't own too many books so I decided his birthday would be a great excuse to expose him to the wonderful world of reading and art! Children's books have the best illustrations.

I purchased all of the books from Amazon, they never let me down!

Up late...

...or an I up early? Hmmm.

Printing the last invitation on an order right now...plus my evening kind of got off schedule when I had to sit in the ER alone with Isaac for 2 plus hours because Micah decided to stab him in the eye with an Iron Man toy while I was swishing salt water around in the bathroom (yes just another lovely thing I get to do because of the jaw surgery). And Isaac will be fine, thank God.

Don't let those little faces fool you!

Other than that I think I have house fever...the way some people get baby fever, lately I have had homes on the brain. We know eventually we want to build our own home with a decent sized design studio and I am just dying for that day to come! Don't get me wrong...I am so grateful to have a roof over my head and I am trying to be a good steward with the home God has given us now...but that doesn't mean I can't dream a little right?

So. A few pictures I have been saving up for inspiration...

Love is...

spending your day off taking your wife to Roseville...for shopping? no...for dental work...nothing lovelier than have your jaw bone scraped and chiseled at and then having your gums stitched back together..pure bliss I tell you...no really, don't take my word for it. :)

But nonetheless, thank you Billy for spending the day taking me because I was too much of a baby to go alone. But we might have sneaked in a little tiny bit of shopping (for the kids, go figure).

In other exciting news, Colby finished VBS last week and this week Micah's age group is going. They are so freakin' cute running around in super hero capes I absolutely love it. I will have to post a picture of that, I just need to figure out how to get pictures from my phone sent to my blog..hmm.....

okay. that was all. gooooood night!!

the old adage...

I'm sure we've all heard this one:

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."

Well, when I was sick again for the last couple days I kept thinking about that. Billy was on vacation this week and there were so many things we wanted to do and wanted to get done but we kept finding reasons to put them off because we had no idea I would get sick and so we kept thinking we had all this time...

Then I got food poisoning and I really started wishing I had just done them. I think that is true of lots of things, not just projects around your house or little goals like "let's have a date night while my husband is on vacation...".

Sometimes it seems like the task is too giant (like sorting through all the mail or starting/finishing up the boys' scrapbooks) but the truth of the matter is you just have to start.

It's also true for me that I over estimate the time things take. I think something will take forever but in reality it doesn't take THAT long so I really need to work on fixing my mentality to start getting more accomplished.

It would have been nice to had a peaceful mind while I felt sick but instead I felt sick AND kept worrying about all the little things I didn't get done...and then it felt like I was working double time trying to catch up.

So if any of you have any tips for staying focused I would love to hear them!

Other than that I am happy to have my good health back and so happy we made it to church tonight. While I don't always love being challenged I know that I need to be because I always have room for improvement.

I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend! I'm off to check the target ad online! :)

*DISCLAIMER. PRETTY PICTURE FOUND ON TUMBLR AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS POST. :)

11 months

So. I figured since I was sick when Isaac turned 11 months old and I never posted anything I should do a quick little update.

At 11 months Isaac...

has 6 teeth

says "no"

shakes his head no

holds up old photo slides to the light and pretends to look at them

makes the cutest pouty face when you tell him "no"

is still nursing...but honestly I am so ready to be back in a normal, non nursing bras!

loves to climb up to the bricks around the wood burning stove

sleeps in his own crib!

loves messing with Billy's guitars

no longer will eat just anything but he is obsessed with trying to get big people food!

likes to growl and laugh at Kramer

SO...boring no? Well, what can I say? All moms find their own babies fascinating and I guess we are no different with how we feel about Isaac. I love him SO much and I can't believe it's almost been 1 whole year since we brought him home!

Vacation...

We were finally able to join the boys at the pool today. Usually the two older boys go with my sister while I stay behind with Isaac because it wouldn't be fair for Billy to miss his first swim of the summer, but today we ALL made it. Isaac loved it and I hope we make it out again while Billy is on vacation this week...

Also plan on meeting up with Josiah and going through which photos we want for our canvas order (I can't wait!)...other than that not too much planned besides meeting with some clients and finishing up some design projects. I think my sisters are coming over to make hair pretties though I know they will be no match to Miss Jacklyn's...we needed a fun girl project to work on together and my sister Tamiko thought it would be fun to raid my craft supplies and make some hair pretties so we'll see. I think I might be more of an observer than participator, but I'll let you know how it goes!

I hope everyone had a great weekend and that you found a way to beat this heat!

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has a great weekend... What's everyone doing? I think we might try and brave the heat and go to the Peach Festival. Last year I was so pregnant and hot it was awful...I even bumped into my obgyn who told me I was "brave"...more like stupid! :) But this year I am not about to give birth so we may just give it another shot.

Other than that it will be church as usual and I have a lovely massage scheduled that I'm sure my back and shoulders will thank me for...plus we will get to debut the new look for Cakes By Request, the best bakery in town, and some sweet little twin girl baby shower invitations!

Happy Friday everyone!

*photo found on tumblr

guess who's back?

back again...Tiffany's back...tell your friends....guess who's back guess who's back guess who's back....guess who's back

Are you annoyed with me already? Maybe your wishing I was still sick with the flu?? Well, sorry! I'm back! And it feels so good to be able to vacuum and clean my table and catch up on orders/emails and all that other good stuff.

So today was not exactly a great day. In fact, if I think about it lots of it was pretty darn awful, but all in all my life is pretty great so what can you do?

I am so grateful for my mom for keeping Colby an extra night. Just the shift from 3 to 2 is so much easier when trying to clean. Not to mention she took him shopping in Roseville and now I don't have to buy him over priced shoes for school. Thank you mom!!!

So what has everyone else been up to? I hope life is finding you alive and well. :)

Oh yes. And the above photo I asked to be taken by and I was so thrilled he was able to do it, the one and only Josiah Michael.

sick :(

spent all day yesterday throwing up and am finally entering recovery mode. Seriously. Not sure if there is anything worse than the stomach flu plus 3 kiddos to look after.

Thank God we are at the end of it...just wish I could shake this yucky feeling and throbbing headache! :( Luckily my mom kept the boys for a few hours yesterday because I had really reached a low point bawling my eyes out while trying to nurse Isaac and not throw up on him all at the same time.

Not my most glamourous moment, for sure!

Today Billy and I are feeling much better and Micah bounced back like nothing. Lucky! I can't wait to be back to normal just to catch up on housework alone. It's amazing what one day out can do to your home!

Sorry I didn't have anything more exciting to blog!!!

Happy 4th!

Marked the invitation boxed sets down to $15 for Independence Day. Happy 4th of July everyone!