Mommy. Tooth. Hurt. Bad.

SO SAD!!!! This is what Brodey said to me yesterday after a totally sleepless night! Poor guy! He's teething his second molar and it's all swollen! When he eats he sticks the food in his cheek until it's soft and then he eats it! :( Motrin has been a big help! Hopefully it'll break through soon!
Can't wait for Halloween! I'm doing a photo shoot at Just 4 Keeps on Saturday and they are launching the new Creative Cafe! Lots of fun stuff goin' on!
Brodey has become a little chatterbox! He can pretty much say whatever he wants to. He can combine almost any word he wants into five word sentences. It's so amazing to think about how much brain effort it takes to do that! He's growing up so fast! Today we went to the mall and I bought him some warm pj's. They are so cute! They are green and have bats all over them. After I washed them tonight I was putting them on him and he raises up his legs and says "Mommy! Cool!" Well I think he's pretty cool!
I have so many scrappy projects I need to get done. I have to do Design Team stuff, class stuff, and I would love to get some layouts done for a few calls that sound fun!
If you have the November Creating Keepsakes I'm in it!!! It's my first how-to article so I'm pretty excited! The layout is called "First Days of Fall." Look for me!!! Hehe!!
Well I better go to sleep! Hopefully tonight will be a better night for my poor little man!
Goodnight!
LOVE APRIL

Rainbow BRIGHT!

Hahaha! I LOVE sending in photos to the weather stations! They just showed the photo above on the 5:00 news! This is the third time for that but it's so much fun! Rick Mitchell on channel 5 said "Wow what a great picture, April! Thanks for sending that in!" LOL
We had some pretty severe storms today! It hailed and rainy super hard! Right after it moved through, this beautiful rainbow showed up! It was a total complete DOUBLE rainbow! We were too close to it so I couldn't get the whole thing in my photo, but it turned out pretty neat anyway! I just love rainbows!
It was a pretty exciting day for me today! I picked up the new Fast and Fabulous idea book by Scrapbook Trends!!! I have two cards in it! SO excited about that!
Even more exciting is I also got the December Creating Keepsakes! I have another layout in there for Christmas! It's so special to me! The photos on the layout is our Christmas pajama photo from last year! My brother, my sister, and Brodey are all in the photo with me! SO special!!! I can't wait for my sister to see it! She will probably say she looks bad....oh sure! She never looks bad! ;)
Well I'm off to start dinner! It was pizza last night so I better cook something decent tonight! I went to Just 4 Keeps and bought all the new Basic Grey holiday stuff! Hehee!
Have a great night!
LOVE APRIL

Orr in Moore!

We went to the Orr Family Farm in Moore Friday for the second year in a row! It was more fun than last year! Brodey had a blast! He rode the horses, fed the animals, did the hayride, rode the carousel, and picked his own pumpkin! And I have 75 pictures to prove it! Haha! I edited three so far!!
Eric is telling me to go get ready. We are going to the RV show today. Hehe. Eric wants an RV so we are going to go check them out. We go to the lake almost every weekend in the summer and it would be nice to have one. So I guess I'll go get dressed. :)
LUV APRIL

Thanks Trisha

I read this on Trisha's blog and she read it on Karen Russell's blog. LOL It made me cry because I can totally relate! Thanks Trisha!

I'm invisible.

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?" Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?"

I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?"

I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please."

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going ... she's going ... she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just returned from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean.

My unwashed hair was pulled up in a clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this."

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

(1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.
(2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
(3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
(4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof?

No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees."
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "You're gonna love it there."
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

God Bless You as you build your Cathedrals!

-Author Unknown

HOLY MOLY

Oh wow I am SO excited! I hung out at my fave scrapbook store (Just 4 Keeps) for about an hour BRODEY FREE (which rarely happens) and came home and ate dinner. Well I came over to the computer to check my e-mail and WOW!!! Simple Scrapbooks requested a layout for the March/April issue! I was jumping up and down like a fool while Eric was laughing at me! It's been a goal of mine to get into Simple Scrapbooks so you can imagine how stoked I was!!! MADE MY DAY!
I just had to share my happiness! :)
LOVE APRIL