SWEETEST LOVE

Y Since I didn't get around to taking any cute matchy V.day pics of the boys this year, I'll share some pictures from Valentine's past. All for fun, of course. My poor boys...what their mother puts them through! :) And later, I'll post the pics from our fun day & all the LOVE-ly details!

Y SWEET ANGEL Y

Drew. 2005. 11 months

Y EAT YOUR HEART OUT Y

Drew. 2006. 2 years

YCOOTIES!!!! Y

Drew. 2006. 2 years

YLIFE~SIZE HERSHEY KISSY

Jack. 4 mo. 2007

YSWEET BOYSY

Drew & Jack 2007

D-3, J-4 mo

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

These are my little sweeties that give sooooo much love to their mommy!!

Happy Valentines, Day!!!!

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

...and a sweet day to my lovin' husband, JOHN. Love you, babe!!!

Still Goin' Strong!

AND A HUGE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TO MY GRANDPARENTS IN GA!!!!

HAPPY 82nd, Grandpa & HAPPY "45th," Grandma (hee-hee...can't reveal the truth...but she is younger!!!!) ;)

I am so thankful for the godly heritage I have in my Stercay grandparents. They are both still so strong in spirit & body. God has blessed us all in letting us have them around for awhile longer! Would you ever believe they have 8 children, 15 grandchildren (with one on the way) and 3 great-grandchildren!!??!!

Catch Up

Lots going on here but I wanted to do a teeny tiny bit of catching up. So this post is going to be kind of a mish-mosh of stuff going on.

~This last weekend 8 of us ladies headed down to CT for our annual ladies seminar at Emmanuel Baptist Church. There were over 400 ladies there this year and the 3 speakers did a fantastic job. I want to gather the highlights to post over at a slice of life (oh yeah, remember that blog??) plus a recommended book list. It was a much needed refresher and refocuser for my life right now.

~WE GOT A MAC!!! Ok, I know I'm a nerd, because I'm still typing on my PC. Right now the PC and Mac are neighbors. They don't quite belong in the same neighborhood, well, at least room, but the Mac is being understanding. But we are loving the Mac. It is truly amazing in every detail! Although it's mainly for John's graphic work, he is so kind to share it with me! :)

~Speaking of John, when I came home EXAUSTED from the ladies weekend, our kitchen floor was perfectly clean. I had postponed the washing of the floor too long with all the basement work going on. Needless to say...it was the best gift he could have given me! After the welcome home kisses, of course! ;)

~Basement. The study is nearly finished. John has everything wired, the cable is in for the internet, he put in a drop ceiling, and in a day's effort placed a floating wood floor. It is looking awesome. This room is our #1 priority so to get the office out of the dining room and John a quiet place to be able to work.

~IRONY: look who's baby brother is on the maranatha page talking about maranatha/northland rivalry. Look HERE to see a picture of my not-so-little brother, Ryan. (The one in the yellow shirt cheering his heart out).

~Everything else is going toward celebrating VALENTINES DAY around here. Baking & decorating heart cookies, filling cupcake liners with candy, making candy cane hearts, painting hearts, finger print hearts, etc. We love to celebrate around here.

~Check out my brother/sister-in-law Doug & Crystal's web page and you'll get a glimpse of my adorable nephew, CODY as well!!! They are HERE at pixelsandrubies. Doug designed their beautiful webpage.

~I think I may be skipping last weeks art page. The word was BALANCE. Lots I could do for it...just haven't even sat down to think about it. Maybe I'll play catch up later.

SORRY no pictures. If you made it this far...you get a **happy blogger reader award** from yours truly. {I admit, I often skip over the wordy posts to look for the eye candy first} :O) Hope you all are well. HAPPY HEART WEEK! Give some extra love this week to those around you. May we not forget how blessed we are to be surrounded by those we love & the ultimate gift of God's love.

{art journal #4}

The new word is (was...since it's been well over a week now...) YOW. What??? I thought maybe it was some kind of Aussie slang since Emily is from Australia. But she kindly explained it to mean Your Own Word...We got to pick this week's word!!!

Well, a thousand words jumped around for possibilities but a picture of a little girl looking out a window I found in a magazine I was tearing through caught my attention and so I went from there. Then I got a catalog from anthropologie and they kindly left a model out on one of the pages so I could use it as my background page (the tree paper). I also used up one of the left-over paint chips cut it into a heart and painted my favorite bird on top. Ribbon is tied to painted & now chipped washers (anyone have any suggestions to the best way to glue metal down on paper??? still need to do that...) and everything is aged with brown shoe polish.

I picked the word WONDER for this page layout and added some pixie dust for all the dreams that a girl holds.

The final product. Wonder. page 4.

Girls Day Out

Our "home-grown" missionary, ANNA, is home for winter break from teaching in China. So we had a girls afternoon out before she has to head back. We started out with lunch at our very new Panera Bread...so delicious!!! But no pictures. We were too busy devouring our food...once we decided what we wanted (right, Mere!).

Then we headed off to North Street in our fancy-smanshy downtown.
There are a couple of cool new stores that we were able to hit. The first one was TWIN HEARTS HAND WORKS which is, I quote, "a magic little store in an unexpected place! [Full of ]unique artisan made gifts and gorgeous over dyed wool and fibers." Then off to USBLUES WARE which is this great clothing store. The owner started out as an eBay seller and now has overflowed into a retail store. You can still find her on eBay here which is bursting at the seams with top of the line brands she picks up in NYC on the weekends. We had a blast trying on some of the unusual and way too cool stuff in there. The prices are still a bit steep for my pocketbook...but greatly discounted compared to the original.

And what better way to end a day of shopping with something hot to drink. On our way to the coffee lounge at the end of North St. we happened upon this strange wooden... "ART SHANTY???" This very one was actually in NYC and people would "stop in" and write a poem to hang on the wall.

So we had a try for ourselves. These poems were suppose to be about love...

We were already freezing and as you can see this shanty didn't provide much shelter and the metal table did not help...but it was fun. Meredith used a quote she came up with the other day, "Spring rain is a symphony in the garden." (sorry, Mere, if that's not exactly right...) and Anna pulled out a verse in Chinese dialect. I sketched out a love bird, of course.


And FINALLY a much needed HOT cup of....latte, cappachino, and caramel hot chocolate! We had TOO much fun getting these pictures!!!

Here's to a fun-filled afternoon with the girls!!! Thanks to my hubby who willingly watched the boys all afternoon!!! A cup of warmth to you today...

Teen Winter Camp

This past weekend John was able to preach for Brian & Amber's teens at their annual teen winter camp. It was at Camp Keswick only about an hour south of us which was nice. John preached 4 times and joined the kids on snow football, skiing and tubing. I was able to join him Friday for dinner and stay through Sat. John's parents took the boys so it was a nice little get away...with 40+ teens!! :) I was moments in front of an ice storm and made it to camp safely only to get stuck on the last steep hill. Thankfully John was just inside and came to my rescue. We did end up losing power Friday night during the all nighter...but we just hung out by the fireplace in the lodge. It was so much fun and reminded me so much of all the camps and outings we did in youth group back in the day. I even jumped in on a game of upset the fruitbasket...with 40 kids! The tubing was fantastic since it was sheer ice and although we didn't get a picture, Amber & I got to go down tube-less a few times!! It was great, as always, to spend time with Brian and Amber and they are doing such a fabulous job with their teens. They are a great group of kids and John and I made some new friends.

{art journal page #3}

SO...do you want to see it???

Are you sure???

IT MIGHT BE KIND OF SCARY!!!!!!
OK...YOU ASKED FOR IT!!!

Here is my art journal page #3!!!

The word is CONNECT.

I had so many ideas running through my head & finally one afternoon I just sat down and started drawing. Of course, the rough draft then stared at me for a couple of days until I finally sat down & did the final tonight! 'Thanks' to my artistic hubby who taught me some cool techniques (I've only ever played around with watercolor) & for letting me tear into his art stash, including his brushes, transfer paper & watercolor paper. I haven't decided if I am going to include the word CONNECT in my picture. I was planning on it...but now I don't want to "mess it up."

{rough draft}

I used a charcoal pencil on newsprint paper. Then got an idea of colors with watercolor pencils. You color first then brush on the water to give the watercolor effect. The more you brush, the more you wash off the color. {side note...In the beginning I was going to have a phone with the cord spelling the word connect, as you can see here. When Drew saw this he said, "HA! Mom, there's a phone in the tree!!!" Funny how things evolve in art.)

Then I used the transfer paper. (It is a large sheet of tissue like consistency but is black, one side containing graphite...This stuff is GREAT!!) You then place the transfer paper over the paper you want for your final copy. Then place your rough draft on top. Lightly pencil sketch over the lines on the rough draft that you want and you have a basic outline & great guide.

{details}

my inspiration & favorite mug

I originally had the steam "solid" but John said it would be more realistic to have it see-through. I am SO glad I did it this way! I had to paint everything behind the steam separately since it needed to be a much lighter shade.

I LOVE THE CITY!!!

(CHICAGO being close to my heart, but NYC is a close 2nd)

What better way to CONNECT than over a cup of coffee...if that's your cup of tea!

~Good thing I had a looooong nap this afternoon~ This is really not the norm! Although I tend to be a night owl, I no longer have the privilege of sleeping in. :) So tomorrow may be, well, interesting.