Random fun

James's reflective vest

I used to fit in this tub...

Landonzilla

Did you find my purse?

I had to laugh when Landon put my purse on his arm just like I do. James just groaned when he saw this picture.

Life has gotten back to normal as far as James being here. We are just going with the flow as far as his schedule changing during his training. He is working nights from 6pm to 6am and has had quite an exciting career so far. He has arrested quite a few people, given lots of tickets, had a rape case, auto accidents, a few high speed chases and has even had to pull his gun once. One day he didn't even come home because he had court the next morning and he didn't get out until 12pm, so he just slept on a cot at the office.

I am doing so much better than I thought with all of this. I am so proud of him for handling everything so well. Like I said earlier, we see him now more than we did with him working a 9 to 5 job. We don't really see him while he is working for those 3 or 4 days, but Landon takes a late nap on those days so he at least gets to see him. I have gotten used to sleeping alone, so it hasn't been a big deal for him to work nights. On his days off, he goes to bed at 2am and gets up at 9am, so it hasn't been too bad. It has been an interesting experience and I am so glad that he loves it!

Sewing room make over

To the left of the wall is our guest bed. We don't use it that much and decided to wench it to the wall. James pointed out that I can use it as a design board and a back drop to take pictures of things that I have made. Right next to the door is my stash of minky and satin for my baby blankets.

Here is the one wall with windows. I got a clearanced wall sticker dry erase thing and it was my fill order list. I am happy to say that it is empty now. In between the windows is supposed to be my fabric cutting table, but I am using it as a desk for my other job right now.

This is my favorite wall. I love having the bolts and ribbons displayed for easy access. Also, the camera wouldn't get the entire wall, but it is my merchandise wall as well. I even have a mail center and yes, there is a customs form in there! :)

Where is the sewing machine do you ask? Why it is in the closet of course!!! I am really excited that we got it to fit in there. Now I have so much more floor space for those big projects. I have a peg board on the wall in there for easy access to my tools and we have two thread spool holders, but I might have to get a third. I have three containers for my embroidery threads. The sign above the closet James made for craft shows.

I used to be so overwhelmed when I came in my sewing room. I have so many ideas and lots of things that need to be made and when I went in there to start on something, I would just look at all of the projects I had and get overwhelmed. Now, I go in there and it is so fun to be in there and projects go so much faster because everything has a place and it is all so easy to access.

I love my sewing room make over and I have had so much fun making things since we did it.

I wouldn't have done it without the Australia order. I am so glad that She found me online and decided I was worth paying shipping for. I am excited to see where else my business takes me.

A day at the playground

Wee!
Not ready for him to drive yet...

Look at the excitement on his face!

At the Elementary School that James went to they have two playgrounds. One is near the gym and the other is near the soccer field. The one near the soccer field is more of a work out center if you ask me. Everything out there is meant to build muscles. They even have these elliptical like things. In the last picture, Landon is hanging on to this thing and James is walking around in circles. Can't remember what its purpose is, but Landon loved it.

James's work schedule has had him working nights. He works 3 or 4 12 hour shifts and then has three or four days off. It is weird, it seems like we see him more now than when he worked a regular 9 to 5 job. Of course, he is in training, we will see how much over time he gets when he is official.

We are trying to do lots of family activities before the weather gets too cold. Having so much fun!

Fun doing yard work

Don't worry, the lawn mower isn't on
Landon thought it was so cool to push the lawn mower

Can you see me?

Can you see me now?

Landon loves the crunch of the leaves when he runs around

Big smiles

James spent most of the day outside raking the leaves. I had a project that I needed to do, so at one point, him and Landon were outside by themselves. I told James not to let Landon jump in the leaves without me and the camera outside. Landon had a lot of fun.

Oh and some of these pictures were taken on a different day...

Trick or Treating

I got Landon in the house and then went back to the car for a second and I came back inside to the picture above. He just knew something good was in the bag even though I did not show him.
We only went to four houses, so he didn't get much.

I gave him a huge bag to trick or treat with. (A Wegmans Christmas bag)

Landon was Shrek

Counting his goodies

Landon LOVES the movie Shrek. So when I found a costume online for dirt cheap, I had to get it. When it came in the mail, we tried it on and Landon loved it! He had so much fun trick or treating. We had a trunk or treat at the church the night before Halloween and it was pretty crazy. It seemed like there were three wards there and everyone was going different directions. Landon had fun just watching the chaos. Unfortunately, James had to work both nights, so we did it on our own. Halloween night, we went to my Sister-in-laws neighborhood and went to about four houses. He had so much fun. He kept looking around for Shrek when people said, "Oh what a cute Shrek!" After the fourth house, he was more interested in the gravel and mulch at peoples homes, so I decided it was time to go home. I missed having James there, but I am glad that I still went out and made it a special memory for Landon.

Carving the jack-O-lantern

The finished product
I love the faces he is making

Grosssss.....

You want me to touch that???

Landon loves to help us in the kitchen, especially if James is doing any cooking. We decided to do our first Jack-O-Lantern since we've been married and we new that Landon would love it too. Well, I forgot all about how yucky it can get. I laughed so much at his facial expressions. I am glad that I got a few on camera. All in all, it was a great time.

Anxiety

Yes, I am actually sitting down to blog. It has been a long time. Well, I am going to talk about what I went through this summer. And no, it isn't about James being gone and having a hard child to take care of by myself. I actually have an amazing toddler and he was very easy this summer. I went through a stressful couple of events that brought on acute stress syndrome. I basically fell apart. I wasn't even able to go outside my house with having a panic attack. I took a brown paper bag with me everywhere I went and I had to ask friends and family to do the basic grocery shopping for me. I felt horrible to do this, but I would have felt worse being away from home and not being able to function with a toddler that is more helpless than me.
Thanks to a very wonderful friend, she told me to get help. I did and even though it took some time, some medication and some counseling, I am almost 100% better with a goal of being an even better person in the long run.
I was terrified to get on medication. In fact, I was so terrified, I had to have another friend "slap me in the face" (over the phone) because I got hysterical about it. Thankfully, I had wonderful friends and family (one brother in particular, and one amazingly loving, patient and supportive husband) to support me, and wonderful Doctors to help me. I am really enjoying my therapy sessions and have even gotten to the point of looking forward to situations that might cause anxiety to see how I deal with it. I have had anxiety my whole life and I am really glad that this happened because I learned the most valuable thing through my therapy sessions: How to cope with anxiety and get it under control before it gets out of control. Medicine cannot do that for you 100% of the time.
I have learned so much from this experience and I have had a lot of fun working on things. I just wanted to post this for those of you that might be having a hard time and don't know what to do. Trust me, I did not want to ask for medical help, but I knew that I could not be a good mother to my son if I could not take him outside in our own yard among many other things I wasn't able to do this summer.
If anyone would like to contact me, please do so. I feel that I have learned so much that I am very willing to share and that is why I have posted this.

Trip to see James

I feel like I never have time to blog and when I do, it feels like I just vomit up a post... Does that make sense?
Anyways, we had planned three trips this summer to break up the 17 and a 1/2 weeks that James is gone. The first trip would be for 4th of July weekend. We would drive to SC and stay the night with Scott and Jes and then leave the next afternoon to drive to our friends James and Andrea that live in GA to break up a long drive into two shorter ones.
Well, the night that we got to SC, Landon had a fibril seizure. I was a mess. It was the most horrible experience of my life so far and I hope to never have something like that happen again. Here is where I say that I am so thankful to have a healthy son and not have to live in hospitals like some families do with sick children.
For those of you that don't know (like me), a fibril seizure is where they get a fever that comes on so quickly that they have a seizure. My pediatrician said that if your child is going to have a seizure, it is the kind that you want them to have. He has a higher risk of it happening again, but it is something that he can grow out of and hopefully this is the only one that he ever has.
We went to the ER (cause we didn't know what happened to him) and got home around 2am. He had the beginnings of croup and a possible ear infection.
The next day, after lunch and naps (I very much needed more sleep before getting on the road again), we drove to GA. Landon looked like death. We were on a pretty busy freeway and he looked horrible and to me his breathing was pretty labored. I had an anxiety attack while driving but luckily I got a hold of my good friend Candy who helped me to calm down and distract me with some good conversation.
Once we got to GA and had a good night sleep, Landon looked and acted much better.
Friday night, Andrea and I went to see Eclipse (not a disappointment, thank you) and when we got home, my James was there. He looks so different! He is super tan, very slim and super buff. It took me and Landon a day to get used to him, and I think it took him a day to unwind.
We just had lots of fun and ate great food and hung out. (I'll post pics later)
Luckily they did fireworks on Sunday night and we didn't have to go anywhere, all the neighbors were doing some great illegal fireworks, so we got a great show. The kids slept through the whole thing, I was really surprised.
James left in the afternoon on the 4th and we spent the rest of the week there. Then we drove back to SC on Friday afternoon and got to see James for the next weekend and Scott and Jes's. On his way to their house he got a flat tire. The next day we went to the mall and dropped the car off at Sears and just walked around. They had a great indoor play area and Landon had a blast. Sunday we made our yummy burritos and then James left. I feel bad, but I had a cry when he left. I don't know which goodbye was harder, the first one or the second... I am thinking the second one.
We left the next morning and took our time. We stopped 4 times and I was so excited to get onto our dreaded I-95. We stopped at Wal-Mart and bough a ridiculous amount of groceries and then got home.
Two night later, I started feeling dizzy and weird. Turns out I have a sinus infection (which I am pretty sure I started feeling on vacation) and now have vertigo and am having tension headaches as well. I finally went to the Dr. and got antibiotics. Then five days later, I realized I hadn't been taking enough pills per day. I am pretty sure that the vertigo affected my reading the label on the bottle correctly. So today is my first day taking two pills a day and here's to hoping that in a few days I will feel awesome!!!
There is so much more going on, but Landon is needing me now.

Big News

Yeah, I know, I still owe a bunch of posts... BUT...
A woman from Sydney Australia contacted me through my www.quiltsbykista.com website and wants to sell my stuff out there. First she ordered eight things to show around for about a month and then she will let me know if she still wants to do it. I am really excited, but shipping is pretty expensive and when I mailed it today, the post office worker told me that she will probably be paying some kind of fee at customs since it is merchandise. So, obviously she has to love my stuff enough to make it worth paying for all that extra stuff. At first I thought it was a scam, but we have been talking for three weeks now, and it is for real! She said that she found my stuff online and has seen nothing like it.
WOW! Okay, so yes, I am really excited and a little nervous... I have a lot of blankets to start working on in this next month, because if she decides to go with my stuff, she is going to order bulk! Crazy!
But even if she doesn't, it will have given me the opportunity to get ready for the next craft show season without using James as my sweat shop :)

New toys are Awesome!

Joan and Bailey gave Landon this awesome wagon
Grandpa pulled Landon around in it and Landon thought that was the coolest thing ever!

Then, they played with blocks . Look at those faces! They must be related!

Such concentration!

I even got in on some of the fun!

Grandpa sorted all of the foam blocks just to make sure all the pieces were there.

Whoa! I have the coolest toys ever!

Smashing the cake... or not?

I don't know what to do!
James was trying to figure out how to use the camcorder and Landon was ready to go

He took his finger and went right for the eye, don't want to fight that kid when he gets older!

Love this picture! You can just see him thinking about what he put in his mouth.

Haley, Caitlin and Bailey were some good cheerleaders

Warning: This video is pretty long...

Cinco de Mayo party

Having fun at the party
Daddy feeding Landon some yummy Mexican food

The only picture of the food I got

We had a sheet cake for everyone to eat since the other one was purely for smashing

Singing Happy Birthday

Opening gifts. James loved this book when he was a kid, so he got really excited when Grandma Marker gave it to Landon for his birthday.

Haley giving Landon encouragement

All done! What a great night!

We were in Joan's basement which is where James and I lived for a long time before we bought our house. It was weird to be back, but it is such a great and open space for parties! We had two kinds of enchiladas, home made beans, salsa, guacamole and some Brazilian soda. I feel like I am forgetting something, but all in all, it was fabulous! Oh that is right, James insisted on making tortillas as well. (Yes, we make them from scratch as well)

Presents before the party

You want me to do what?
Like this???

I think I got it...

Why don't we do this everyday?!

UH! This one is hard to rip...

These pics were from my mom's camera...

Over head shot

He loves this book! (Peek a Boo, I love you!)

Some cool toy that I can't remember what it was...

Okay, so these are foam blocks and they are AWESOME! He loves them and I love them because when he throws them around, nothing gets hurt or damaged. I highly recommend.