sometimes, you just have to let go....

......like when your kiddos learn how to ride a bike without their training wheels! the last straw for me was seeing a 3 year old in our neighborhood riding a bike without training wheels. so i told the hubs to take them off brandon & bryan's bikes. he said both at the same time & i said yep! i'm glad i did becuase it took brandon less than 10 minutes and bryan in 15 minutes. my partner to train was brybry and i would let go and he would be ok for  3-4 seconds but i would grab back on cause i was afraid of him falling. so by that time, eddie had already taught brandon so i told him to takeover bryan. and wouldn't you know it, eddie let go of bryan and there he was, riding all by himself. he did fall while trying to stop and he scraped his elbow. but we're so proud he got back on his bike to try again (though he was pretty mad he fell). so moms----- you just sometimes, have to let go.

brandon above
bryan below

we took advantage of the great weather last weekend. took a trip to the farmer's market. the boys love going stand to stand & trying new fuits.

yum! we left with a flat of strawberries.

succulents....want to have this in the backyard.

 

we went out to the great park too over the weekend.

the boys on a (fake) rock play structure

i think my heart skipped a beat when bryan did this! he's such a dare devil. he's the type of boy who jumps off from the 6th step on stairs.

we tried a new cupcake place, casey's cupcakes. when i saw the cupcakes, i thought they were a little on the frou frou side. i must say, i prefer sprinkles over these. i don't care how pretty your cupcakes are, they have to taste good. give me an ugly cupcake that taste good and i'm happy! :)

i'll be taking a break from crafting and blogging. so you may or may not see me in bloggie world. thanks to those who stuck around with me. i've been so tired lately and decided giving up some things in my life is more important. and spending time with my boys is number 1. they're growing up so fast and i don't want to miss a thing. i want to be an awesome mom. ;) i'll be posting random pics now & then.

thanks teacher

 this past week has been teacher appreciation week at our school. i made several simple sets to give to the teachers. the card below was a free printable from here. i just added my own punched out apple. fast & easy. i have a teacher who has made a permanent impression on me....her name is mrs. fujiwara. she was my 3rd-4th grade teacher. what i learned in her class are still the best memories i have of elementary school. do you all have a teacher that has made an impact in your life? please share---i'd love to hear!

 here is an idea for using up leftover paper: cut them in to strips in varying lengths, fish-tail the ends and stamp a fun sentiment and you have a quick card. i made a couple of these to send to moms i think that are fabulous, for mother's day.

 here is bryan dancing to "elvis" at the farmer's market last weekend.

 i dragged the boys to the antique market before the farmer's market. these were the "me wants" but were too much moolah. one day....

 the boys didn't leave empty handed. i'll show you their treasures & mine on another post. nothing too exciting that i bought but fun finds. thanks for stopping by! have a great weekend and to all the moms out there---happy mother's day!

card class samples

 hello! sorry for the repeat picture on the 1st card above here but just wanted to share my 3 cards for my card class coming up on 5/12 @ 10am at stamp fever. this class will focus on making embellishments for your cards and projects. more details can be found here.

 made another gift card tin. similar to this one except i changed out the butterfly. got some new dies and wanted to use them.

 made some 'just for fun' cards using lawn fawn.

thanks for stopping by today!

be unique

hello! sharing a few cards today. this first one up uses lawn fawn. hard to see in the photo but i glossy accented the eyeglasses. made it for the spectacular spectacles challenge in the moxie fab world.  i can never get my act together but happy to have had time to get this challenge in.

this card below also uses lawn fawn. just a fun sping card.

i have fond memories of farrell's....anyone else? i remember going there was a huge treat as a kid. i never did have my birthday party there but glad to have given bryan his 4th birthday celebration there. we just go there for our ice cream fix.

this is called the pig's trough.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

anyone who finishes this gets a ribbon. i cannot tell you how many of these we have! the waiter handed us a sharpie & told us since we finished this, we could also write our names on the trough.

this past sunday, we went to the LA times festival of books.

highlight was seeing scooby and max (from max & ruby)

ah.......the mystery machine! super cool!

bryan is absolutely crazy about watching scooby doo right now & reading the books. the boys ended up with a bunch of comic books and stickers & tatoos. me...i ended up with a bunch of reusable tote bag freebies :) 



this is a card using hero arts. inked up with markers and finished off with some washi tape. a fast a quick card in under 5 minutes.

thanks for stopping by!

aloha

hello. finally getting caught up on things after spring break. can you guess where we went? ;) i vowed that on this trip, we would eat-a-shave-ice-everyday-while-in-hawaii. that was our challenge!
Day 1:

Day 2:bryan....future iron man?!

i was eating so much good food the 1st 2 days we were there that i loaded up on fruits. had lots of papya. i had beef stew, beef curry, ox tail soup, portugese sausage, and rice almost every meal of the day.

Day 3:

i had the fantastic idea to take the boys out on a whale watching excursion. exciting, right?

it was a breakfast whale watching cruise. 2 hours long. as the boat took off and we were eating. bryan started "not feeling good". then it was eddie. then brandon had to sit out. and then it hit me too. there was sighting of a whale or 2 but by that time, the whole family was sitting inside trying to keep our breakfast down. they had a guarantee that if you didn't see a whale, they'll give you a voucher good for a year to come back on the cruise. don't worry, we won't take them up on that offer! i coudn't believe how sea sick we were!

back on land but you can see bry bry still looking a little green!

we weren't too sick to have our shave ice though!!

the valet at our hotel was such a good resource! one of the guys told us to take our boys to this little lagoon that not too many people know about. there are often seals & sea turtles. after our long day, we stopped over there to see if it was worth it to go back. and there it was, a monk seal basking in the sand. the boys have no respect for endangered species and were clowning around as usual. we met a man named robert over on the beach there who voluteeers to keep the seal & turtles safe when they come to shore to rest. he told us to come back early in the morning and the sea turtles would be around. he even helped the boys dig for some sea shells. you can see brandon with his hand in his pocket, full of shells. and bryan has a handful too.

Day 4:

back to the small lagoon early in the morning and sure enough---sea turtles!! what a chance of a lifetime to swim with sea turtles!

the monk seal was back on shore to rest. i'll have to find the picture of the boys feeding the sea turtles. what a treat! and one point, there were 4 sea turtles!

Day 5:

made leis with brandon in the morning at the hotel. i was sad to leave it there and didn't bring it home.

shave ice. yum yum!

Day 6:

Easter!

the egg hunt was great! bryan found more eggs than he knew what to do with! next, year, he'll be with brandon's age group & it'll be more challenging!

they loved the beach!

our last day of shave ice

dinner at roy's. bryan and his fine dining talent! LOL

we had a fabulous time! thanks donna for meeting us again and for putting up with the boys! i'll post pictures of that next time!