Craft Night - Week 1 - Pumpkin & Ghost Glo Jar

Tonight was kind of hectic as is pretty much every night in a house with full time working parents, 2 full time students, a preschooler and a dog...and a partridge in a pear tree ;)

Mike has had the flu for the past 2 days so I came home from work and took the kids out to Wal-Mart for a pumpkin carving kit and some ginger ale for the big man's tummy! We decided to grab some McDonald's while we were out and then headed home to get ready for bedtime.

When we got home I busted out some supplies for our first weekly craft night with the kids...the project? Lantern style decoupaged jars! They were all over this like a fat kid on a purple smartie ;)



Behold! the supplies...and Caleb!

So the kids started in with painting the jars with Mod Podge with foam paintbrushes while I tore up pieces of tissue paper to slap on. I couldn't find orange tissue so red it was but I was hoping once the little flameless candle was in there it would give off an orange glow....here's hoping anyway.

Very focused!

Making a ghost!

After I did some touching up with the Mod Podge to seal any tissue edges and make sure we had sufficient coverage we let them dry on the table for a little bit.

While we were waiting the kids covered the lids of the jars with green paint for the pumpkin top and white tissue paper for the ghost head.

Nothing like some big sister help :)

Excuse the messy house. haha

To speed up this process as bedtime was seriously approaching and I knew they desperately wanted to see the finished product I busted out the hair dryer and they were ready in no time. Taylor and Rachel then drew their faces on their creations and we were almost ready for the finishing flameless candle!

So proud!

TA DA!!!! We turned out the lights after Caleb put the candles in the jars, screwed their lids on and this is what we saw!!!

OOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhh!!!

We were so happy with how they turned out and the kids can't wait to put them out on the porch for Halloween!

Craft night #1 was a success and a great way to break up an always crazy work/school week!! It feels so great to enjoy doing things like this again :) Can't wait for next week!

Thanks for dropping by!

Lightbulb moment today!

So as I was busy at work (sort of) I saw on Facebook that my SIL had made these cute little Mind Jars for her kids...jars filled with water, glitter and glitter glue and it got me thinking...#1 - I totally need to make some of these for my little man since they are supposed to be awesome for calming the minds of children when they may be afraid, anxious or just having a rough day and need a distraction to zone out to...and #2, and most importantly, just because I don't have the opportunity to be at home with my kids on a full time basis doesn't mean that I still can't do these fabulous little crafts with them!

It's easy to get caught up in the "Life is crazy", "I'm too busy", "Must be nice to be able to do that" type of thinking, but as I learned at my last therapy session - Your feelings affect how you think which in turn controls how you behave. So, even though you can't necessarily control how you feel about something, you can certainly change how you think about these feelings and behave in a positive way.

Still with me?? Ok, so instead of me settling into the resentful feelings of "well, I'm not a stay at home mom so there's no possible way I could do that stuff", I had a LIGHT BULB moment and have decided to pick one SIMPLE craft that I can do each week with my kids. Not one a day or one an hour or anything ridiculously overwhelming like that, but something attainable that will help break up the weekly routine of school, work, repeat...

Enter Dollarama...we all love this store...it's amazing how much stuff you can buy for super duper cheap. So off my friend Tacy and I went on our lunch hour to make the most of it in the short time we had. I picked up enough supplies to complete 3 separate crafts with my kids and I can't wait to start!

The plan was to do the Mind Jars tonight but we had Halloween costumes to buy and figured since we are all under a severe snow warning I should probably get boots for the little 2. Needless to say, we didn't get back home until late so the jars will have to wait until tomorrow after work and before Parent Teacher interviews...oh the fun never ends!!

Crafting pics to follow when they are completed :)

Thanks for joining me!

Totally Getting this Fitness Thing

Today my fabulous friend Heather and I did a Zumba class. She was a Zumba virgin and I had only been a couple of times but we had a BLAST!! Once you get over the "I look like a moron" feeling, it turned out to be a great workout and we were sweating like crazy by the end of it!! We were definitely not coordinated enough to do some of the moves which involved shuffling feet to a rhythm, moving your arms to a rhythm and doing who else knows what, but we shall grow in time!! By the end of it we were the masters of the cha cha bum shuffle so we are going to adopt that as our signature move. We rocked it! LOL.

I am having so much fun with this fitness regime this time around...so far this week I did my run yesterday, Zumba today, run tomorrow (dressed warmly because BRRRRRR), and either another run on Thursday or a Total Body class at the gym!

Just wanted to share with you guys some of the stuff I have been up to and for the first time in a long time I am actually sticking to something...not just all talk! That's a great feeling!!

Next week marks our Anniversary/Rachel Birthday/Justin Bieber/My Birthday extravaganza but it is also the week that I start Kickboxing with my friend Meredith! Seriously ready to kick some butt. It's always something I've wanted to do so there's no time like the present :)

It's been a great week so far my friends, hoping for many more :)

March it is...

Good evening! First of all let me just acknowledge my epic fail for blogging the past month. But anywhoo, onward and upward my friends. There's really no excuse besides the fact that I can be a bit of a procrastinator.

On with what's happening with me and my journey...at the beginning of February I had my annual meeting with my endocrinologist Dr. B, or the physician otherwise known as Cancer Doctor. Mike and I went to see him and he informed us that my ultrasound came back clear, my bloodwork was great and right where he wants it and if I was any other thyroid cancer patient he would let me off the hook and call it a day with me...GREAT NEWS RIGHT???

Wait a second...here's the kicker! Because I didn't just have your run of the mill papillary thyroid cancer I am a bit of an exception to the rule he says...if you recall (and I seriously don't think you would) I was diagnosed with Papillary Thyroid Cancer Tall Cell Variant. Because of this variant which is known to be a little on the tricky side and unpredictable he isn't dropping me from his doctor roster just yet.

What's up next??? Thyrogen injections once again. This means I get to try and track down this IMPOSSIBLE drug from somewhere and pay a BILLION dollars for it (thank goodness for benefits) and have it injected into me twice. Thyrogen has been on a massive shortage for a very long time and therefore very difficult to get. If I don't get this drug, the alternative would be to take myself off my Synthroid (fake thyroid) for 3 weeks which would result in me probably feeling like I have been run over, again and again by a MAC truck.

WHY in the world do I have to do this?? Because we need to see if there are any pesky thyroid cells left lingering in my body that could turn into cancer again...by getting the injections it would immediately raise my levels to where they would need to be to get an accurate Thyroglobulin reading to see if there are any detectable cells lurking...without the side effects. But I might not have a choice but to feel like complete junk and completely useless because I am having ZERO luck with tracking down this drug...but the upside I guess would be it would give me an excuse to just lay around and sleep since I probably won't be able to do much else :)

If the bloodwork comes back from this with a detectable thyroglobulin level then he really wants me to go for an MRI to see what we can find...yippee eh?? Ya, not so much! If you think I freaked out with the ultrasound of my neck, stay tuned folks cause you ain't seen nothing yet! LOL

So, now that you are all up to speed on the thyroid cancer situation, I have also made a decision to stop striking against the medical profession and have booked a physical! WHOO HOO!! This may not seem like a massive thing to many, but it really is a positive step in healing for me!

Never a dull moment my friends...never...thanks for stopping by!