Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Sponsor Me at March for Babies!




On Sunday, April 26th, my family and I will be participating in the March of Dimes, "March for Babies" walk in Minneapolis, MN. I am looking for sponsors to help me reach (and hopefully exceed) our family goal of $250.

If you have a few bucks you can spare, please donate under one of our names (see the links below). I pledged $100 each for my spouse and I and $25 each for my 2 kids.

My sponsor page

My husband's sponsor page

daughter's sponsor page

son's sponsor page

Anyone who donates $25 or more can recieve 50% off any item listed in my etsy shop. Please feel free to contact me at artladymanor@comcast.net for more information.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

The best gifts are from the heart

Sometimes the best gifts are from the heart. Recently my daughter gave me one of those types of gifts. First I have to tell a little back story...

A few weeks ago, my mom emailed me at work to tell me that she and my dad are going to Hawaii. She's afraid of flying over the water and is very nervous about going. (Does it really matter if you are over water or land? You're likely to die either way, right?) I didn't tell my mom that, but instead, I wrote back to tell her that if she chickens out I'd go in her place!

Later that day, I'm picking up my 2 kids at daycare and my husband calls me on my cell to tell me that my mom had called at home. She wanted to know if we wanted to go to Hawaii with them. Immediately I yell "YES!!" into the phone. Then my husband says, "Tickets are $700 a piece." Yikes, $2,800 for the 4 of us to go! Dang, not going to happen. After I get off the phone I say out loud to my kids, "Mommy is sad that we won't get to go to Hawaii"

After a moment, my 4 yr old daughter says she is going to make a surprise for me when we get home. I managed to get her to tell me what the surprise was going to be when we got home, but when we got home we all got sidetracked. Until a few days ago...

That day, I was working late trying to finish up a big project. My kids were still up when I got home though and all excited to show me something in the living room. I was instructed to close my eyes as they dragged me upstairs.

When I opened my eyes, the living room was transformed and my daughter announced "We're in Hawaii!" My sweet adorable daughter created Hawaii for me because I was sad about not going for real!

The first thing I saw was her bedspread spread out on the floor. "That's the ocean" my daughter tells me. Next was another blanket draped over the arm of the couch. "That's the waterfall." A stack of baskets with another blanket draped over it was a coconut tree and the 2 balled up belts on top were the coconuts. The stack of cushions with a red fleece blanket on top was the volcano.

Her eyes shining with excitement, she then brought me over to the dining room area (which isn't actually used for dining as we have no dining room table). She informed me that we needed to go on the plane to fly to Hawaii. She had her Ikea table set up with cushions on it (our seats), her sit 'n spin was the "wheel" of the plane. She also had her magnadoodle propped up against a chair to display the picture of a plane that she drew on it.

My daughter and I sit on the table/seats while my son got on the sit n spin/wheel and "flew" us to Hawaii. I let them stay up way past their bedtime so we could enjoy our "vacation" take lots of pictures.

When I finally got them off to bed, I told my daughter that was the best gift ever!