{Self Love}

Hi, I'm Arya and I have just turned THIRTY THREE!!! I am happy to say that fashion wise I finally bought a pair of "jeggings" (jeans meets stretch pants) for the first time and I normally wouldn't wear them but stepped out of my comfort zone and took a leap on a black pair. They are comfortable and I LOVE how I look in them. I also LOVE that I am starting to feel comfortable in my skin and not just feel like some skinny girl trapped in a fat girl body - I actually like how my style is evolving and how I am now able to wear more fitting clothes that show my curves instead of wearing too big clothes that make me look like I threw a king size blanket on as a shirt.

I am enjoying life and trying not to let the little stuff slow me down and sure I want to lose weight and I actually have lost 15 lbs so far but regardless of if I make it to my goal or not I am happy with the body I have. It's amazing and gave life to my four babes, how could I not love it.

Thirty three has started off with a huge bang of SELF LOVE!! Stop the negative/hate talk in your head and start to replace it with positive/loving talk. As women I find we tend to be harder on ourselves and more critical of our bodies because of all the excessive media out there talking about how we need to be a size 2 to be happy. Well, I am here to tell you that you don't. Be happy with yourself and others will want to be around you because of it. 

Just be happy with where your at, even if you want to change it, love yourself at whatever stage your at in your journey and remember your not alone. Some days are going to be harder then others but always try to say something nice about your body before you go to bed and again when you wake up and soon those negative thoughts will fade and be replaced with wonderful positive thoughts and one day you will just look at yourself and know how beautiful you really are.

I have been married to my hubby for almost 13 years and for most of that time I hated how I looked and hated the curves and rolls that seemed to take over my body, especially after being pregnant nine times. And I would make comments about how hideous I was or how cow like I had become and it drove my husband nuts because he only ever saw me as sexy and beautiful and couldn't understand why I didn't see what he saw.

Now, after all that time, I see that I am sexy and beautiful and worthy of his love and worthy of my own love too. I now knows and see what my loving husband has always seen. A FREAKINGLY FABULOUS CURVY WOMAN!! 

I am BEAUTIFUL. I am LOVED. I am WIFE. I am MOTHER. I AM DESIRED!!

{BACK from CRAZY}

So I am back after falling off the blog-o-sphere for over a month, (please forgive me). It's been crazy since halloween when my uncle Clay had a heart attack and I got a call that his heart kept having to be restarted and that he was being taken to the hospital. Pretty scary stuff since he had to be placed in a state of hypothermia because they wanted to preserve brain function. 

My Aunt and Uncle from Montana (my uncle's brother and his wife) came out to check on him and make sure he was ok because there for a while we didn't know if he was even going to make it. Like I said it was a scary time but it was so good to see them.

They had Clay out for several days before they brought him back to see if he was "all there" before they could do open heart surgery. Well he woke up and WAS "all there" so he had a heart bypass. 

During this time while having guests my toliet and plumbing decides to go haywire and I end up spending all and then more of what we had saved up to get it fixed but it was all cleared up before Clay was released from the hospital. He stayed in our guestroom for 2 weeks then moved back into his travel trailer in our driveway and is doing much better and recovering very well.

Shortly after Clay moved back to his trailer I cleared out the guestroom of the guest bed, my craft stuff and my computer and moved Aaron into it so he could have his own space. I then moved the girls out of their room and moved Sam into there since it was the next smallest room and then moved the girls into our room and moved our room into the boys old room since they had been sharing the largest room. 

So for a bit I was busy with moving rooms and organizing them and then I started my holiday sewing and created a cute elephant pattern (which took 3 attempts to get just right) and a monster pattern that I love and may one day share but I am a bit too busy to figure it all out right now.

black elephant was the first try, the white elephant was the 2nd and the red one was my last attempt.

I am just prepping for the holiday's now and trying to get all my packages finished so I can mail out what needs mailed and wrap what needs wrapped since it's only like 14 days until Christmas. I haven't even gotten my christmas cards ready to mail, but I did manage once my uncle was feeling up to it, to get our family picture finished so I could shove 4x6 prints into the cards of our family. I did the exposure and got the position right so my uncle could click the shutter. I think it turned out great considering I had to photoshop 3 heads and move my husband closer because he decided to stand like 2 feet away from everyone else, but at least I got them all done, at least until next year.

{My Baby girl is now 2!!!}

So my youngest is now two!! When did that happen? She's gone from a little ball of squish and cute into a little person with her own personality and need to be independent but still cling to mom. She's quite the little stink and I love her!

We had her party the friday before her actual birthday so everyone could be there to help celebrate it with her. I made her cake and she loved opening presents and eating her cake. She had to have help blowing out her candle but she was a happy little girl for sure!

Happy Birthday little girl! You are sooo LOVED!!

I have been working on getting rid of a cold so I have been down and out but I am hoping to get back on track with this blog and get to posting more often. Below is just a quick picture of some new dollies I have made and Ceasar sleeping with Myrna's baby doll. Hope you all have a great weekend.

{The happenings}

Lets see since my last post, by the way sorry soooo long between posts, I took the boys and their friend to Haunted World, made and put together costumes for halloween for the kids and tried to recoop my home after our house guests left. It's a work in progress but I am slowly getting my house back to normal.

For Halloween I found a ladybug costume for Myrna, found all the items Sam needed for his costume (he's going to be a character from Dead Rising (video game)), Ruth wanted to be an owl so I had to make her costume and Aaron wanted to be an assassin from Assassins Creed (video game) so I had to make his robe and still need to find the black pants and shirt to complete his outfit.

In regards to their costumes, I made the patterns and sewed them up and actually think they turned out pretty good considering the only thing I really make are doll clothes and dolls and have never done anything on this scale before. They are not perfect but the kids don't seem to mind that the hems are not all strait or that my sewing skills are lacking precision. I think they love them and I think all they are going to remember is that I made their costume just for them, at least that's what I hope they remember.

At Haunted World

Two dresses made from an old shrug/scarf found at a thrift store

Ruth is going to be an owl so I added feathers to her dress

and made her hat from an old sweater. Myrna wanted one too so I made her one to match big sis's

Aaron wanted to be an assassin from Assassins Creed but with black robes - I made the robe and belt - now to get him black pants and shirt and he'll be all ready.

I have been working on trying to drag myself out of another depression bout. This one hit harder I think because we had guests and I really didn't have my own get away space for a month. I have put my photography business on hold again and although I am crafting dolls, I probably won't do anything big this year in regards to craft fairs/booths or much with my etsy shop. I have been trying to just focus on the kids and hubby and drag my sorry butt up out of the dark hole I seem to be in. 

{my life the last few weeks}

Let's see since my last post I had to go to the ER due to extreme pain from a kidney stone, it felt like I was going to die, it hurt so bad. I saw a urologist and have to pee in a jug for a whole day and keep it refrigerated (all I can say is EWWW because that means it has to go in my fridge) and then send it out to have my urine analyze so that they can determine if the stones were caused by environmental or hormonal so we can make sure it doesn't happen again.

This is how I felt: worst pain of my life
Source

Ruth lost her first tooth this month! It's just another slap in the face that she's growing up and I can't stop it at all! Soon she will want to date and be talking about boys and the thought of that is freaking me out!

I went out running errands with my Uncle and made sure I looked presentable since I wasn't feeling so hot since I was still nauseated because of the stones. While getting into the car from running one errand at Walmart I see a note on my windshield telling me my tire is flat, (super nice of whoever did it because I didn't notice the flat since it was on the back passenger side of the van). I took it to les and I ended up havin schwab g to get all new tires on my car. This was unexpected but I knew was probably going to happen just thought it wouldn't need to be done so soon. 

Found these cute little owl earrings at a local vintage store. I love how colorful they are!

Waiting at les schwab for almost 2 hours waiting for them to get my car in and put tires on the van

Had a table at the one year anniversary of a local antique store. That was fun and even though I only sold one doll, I did do a trade with 3 other dolls for some great pieces of jewelry from a few of the other vendors. Ruth helped me on the first day. I met lots of great vendors and lots of interesting people.

New dollies made

Ruth wearing her spider necklace and one of her finds while helping me

What I was selling

Went to my Aunt's birthday party. It was great to chat and catch up with my Mom, Dad and Aunt Jeanie and her caregiver. It was fun and the cake was sooo yummy! I know my Aunt had a great time and she loved how bright her cake was. She enjoyed being able to see her brother and sister. 

I spent yesterday with my mom. It was fun to hang out with her but I was pooped afterwards and I am sure she was too. We hit 3 stores together and then she headed home and I picked up the kids from school then headed out to finish up my errands. Ruth made some lovely pictures for Nana and asked me to take some pictures so she knew Nana got them since she had to be in school and couldn't give them to Nana herself.

On a completely different note, while out with my mom I was wearing this little cheetah broach and no matter how I pinned it, it looked like it was checking out my boobs. Everytime I looked down it was like it was staring at them. I kept thinking "what a perv" and laugh out loud.