Remembering Maya Angelou

I was so sad to hear that Maya Angelou Passed today.  I still remember laying in bed in high school reading, "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings", and other various poems written by her. To celebrate her beautiful life I created a simple 8x10 poster with my favorite quote of hers. I hope you can find a place in your favorite space to remember what an inspiration she was. 

Rest in Peace Maya.

Download this Maya Angelou freebie, here. 

Hello, Spring {Printable}

Happy First Day of Spring!!! 

I'm not sure what the weather is like where you are, but here in Las Vegas, Spring has Sprung!  In fact, in a few minutes I will be blowing up our bounce house in the backyard, so Preston and his friends can get all of their sillies out.  

To celebrate this wonderful time of year, I have created a Free Printable for you all. Feel free to print this 8x10 out and display it where you see fit! 

I also made this beauty the other day for my front door:

> To download, just save the below image to your desktop and then print <

Art Class/Party Invite

Happy Hump-day everyone!!

Just a quick post to share my latest creation.  We needed a flyer for our art classes that we are having at work, so I got busy and came up with this:

The kids are going to have a blast. Makes me want to throw an art party.....maybe one day!

Have a great rest of your week!

Free Printable Christmas Gift Tags

Has anyone else been booked to the max this Christmas Season?   I've been busy wrapping gifts, checking off the Christmas to-do list, and getting ready for our annual trip to Maui. I swear every day we have something going on.  My calendar has been so packed, that I had to set aside some time today to finish up my Christmas shopping and wrap presents. The time is flying and I feel the the month of December is whizzing by!

One of the projects I have been working on, are creating gift tags.  Here is one I made for our family:

I decided to wrap all of my presents in Kraft paper this year, and decorate with pretty ribbons and fun gift tags.

Like These: 

Feel free to save them to your computer and print them out for your personal use. Happy present wrapping!! 

Happiness Is.....

This Little Man makes my heart smile. 

He is free spirited, strong willed, stubborn, sweet, sensitive, and loving.  

He has lots of energy and keeps me on my toes everyday, but it doesn't matter, I love him still.  

I am so thankful he chose me to be his Mama. 

Love you more than the stars in the sky, Preston Lawrence!

25 Days of Christmas Books: Free Tag Download

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones.  I cooked all day and then ate all night ;)  It was a fun evening and I slept great that night :)

Now that Thanksgiving is over, The Christmas Season is in full force in the Sanders household.  The tree is up, the lights are hung, and Christmas music is on.  I LOVE the holiday season.  Such a joyful time of year.

One of my goals, is to pass on the anticipation of Christmas, to Preston.  This year will be so fun.  Last year was fun, but he didn't get it. This year he understands, and is in awe of everything is fun time of year brings. He even got his own little Christmas Tree to decorate this year. We set it up in his play room for him to admire.  I want to eventually put it in his bedroom, but this was not the year to start that. The poor tree would never survive even one night.  We had a fun morning of unpacking christmas decor, decorating his tree, and reading Christmas books.

One of the traditions that we started last year with Preston, was 25 Days of Books.  See my post, here.  

Since is starts tomorrow, I have been busy wrapping up all of the books. I decided to keep it simple this year and use kraft paper and washi tape.  

Since the kraft paper is very plain, I decided that I needed something to dress up the front of the package. So, I hopped on Photoshop and whipped up some tags. 

Do you share our same tradition? If you do, and you are looking for something to make it extra special, you can download and print the below. Merry (Early) Christmas :)

Hope you are all having a fun long weekend with your families!

Free Printable Thanksgiving Menus

Can you believe that Thanksgiving is a week away? Time is seriously flying!  

Today was a rare rainy day here in Vegas, which means that I got to snuggle up on the couch with my Sweet Boy and watch a movie :) His movie of choice was....drum roll please....Toy Story 2 (SHOCKING!!) ;) While he was enjoying his movie, I got crafty on my laptop, and created a few Thanksgiving pretties.

Brown:

 White:

These will print out as 8x10s.  I couldn't decide whether I wanted to frame my 8x10 and place it on the buffet, or place a 5x7 mini menu at everyone's place setting. So, I also made 5x7's in each color.  If you are interested in a 5x7, please leave me a comment, and I will email you one.

Stay tuned for some name tags that match!

Happy Thursday, before Thanksgiving!

It's been a while....

My goodness! It has sure been a while since I last logged onto my blog.  For some reason, lately I have been contemplating getting back into blogging. For some reason, tonight I had a urge. The urge to pick up the computer and start typing.  I feel like so much has happened since the last time I wrote to you all.  I guess I have a lot of catching up to do.

I was trying to remember why I stopped blogging. It was right around Christmastime, last year. Blogging had become a chore. I didn't like that. I blogged mostly because I saw it as a way to document my life with my family and as an outlet for all of my thoughts. So, while on vacation I convinced myself to really try to relax, be with my family, and truly forget about all of my obligations.  I let go and well.....didn't really ever come back. Until now.

Why? Well...I feel like I have been through a lot the past year.  Some good. Some not so good.  I always want to share the good and happy things in my life. No question. The good is easy to share. The not so good, is a lot harder to share, but I feel that I am ready. A few of the things that I went through were hard for me.  I felt alone, and like I didn't have many people who would understand my situations.  This is one of the reasons I had such a strong urge to start blogging again. I want people who are in the midst of similar difficult experiences, to know that they are not alone. There are others faced with similar situations, and that it is hard.  Being a mom is hard.  It is tiring.  And it is ok to admit it.  Don't get me wrong, there are so many wonderful moments during this long and windy road, called Motherhood.  That is what makes getting through the hard stuff easier. I don't want to keep secrets anymore though.  I can't promise I will bear all, all the time, but I do feel like it is good for me to get some things off my chest.  If I can help a few people in the process, even better.

So, if you want to continue on my journey with me- pull up a seat, grab a snack, and a hot cup of tea.  I'm back for a few of the same reasons as when I started blogging. I still want to document life's big {and not so big} moments. I also still see it as a way to unleash all of my thoughts that swim around in my head all day.  But this time around, I will blog to be support for others. I hope that you can take away something from my stories. Not all of you will understand, but I ask you kindly not to judge.

Stay tuned for stories from the past year. Thanks for listening. Feels good to be back :)

Mele Kalikimaka!

Mele Kalikimaka from Maui! 

Aloha friends! I hope you are all enjoying your Christmas Season with your friends and loved ones. We sure are. We have been enjoying some sun, sand & salt on Maui.  

Below is a glimpse into our trip so far via my phone, and lastly, our 2012 Christmas card. I had so much fun making this card, and looking back at the all the fun we had this year.  From our Ohana to yours, cheers to an even better 2013!

Enjoying some time looking at the pretty lights.

The gorgeous scenery on our afternoon walk the other day.

One of the many rainbows we've seen. 

One of my favorite places....my parents backyard.

Our ride back from the beach.

His first day at the beach....he was not too sure about it.

Grandma let him open a present early....lucky boy.

On our way to the beach. Poor little guy was so tired and jet-lagged.

My cute boys on Christmas Eve.

Another great view....

Life's a beach!

XOXO,

Christmas Gift Tags {Freebie}

Now that our Christmas Tree is up, and presents have started to arrive, I've started wrapping gifts.  After I had wrapped my first gift, I realized that I didn't have any gift tags. So....i decided to have some fun with photoshop.   Why buy gift tags, when you can download them for free?!

Tada!!!!!!:

I got some inspiration, here, by lovevsdesign.com

Download them here.  You can either print them on cardstock, cut them out, and tape onto presents. Or, you can print them on sticker paper, cut them out, and attach to presents.

Stay tuned for more.... I will be posting different tags & free christmas printables leading up to Christmas :)

Happy Tuesday!

XOXO,

Christmas Family Tradition: 25 Days of Books

Yesterday was December 1st. What does that mean? The Christmas Season has finally commenced!!

 To kick off the start of Christmas in our house, we started one of first Christmas family traditions.  I know this will come as a surprise to all of you, but the other day I was browsing around on Pinterest, and found a gem! Another mom had wrapped up 25 books, and let her kids open one book a day.  You can find the original idea, here. What a wonderful idea!  This is perfect for us, because Preston LOVES books.  

So, I went to target, and got a combo of Christmas books and non christmas books. We already have quite a few Christmas books from my awesome sister, who sends me tons of hand me downs,  so I decided to mix it up. I also found a few in the dollar section...SCORE! Books can be expensive....especially when you are buying 25 at one time!! I then got busy wrapping them all up. 

 Last night he got to open the first book. 

Here is how it went down:

What am I supposed to do with this?

Hmmmm.....

Mama....can you help me?

Never mind, I figured it out!

What is it?

Is it a book?

Yes! {smile}

This is awesome! 

Kinda looks like a car, too?

It IS a car!!

Dada, please help me open it.

Cool!

My awesome Target-Dollar-Section find, that has brought lots of smiles to my sons face.

The first day was a success! He loved it. Everything, from the anticipation of getting the present open, to seeing the "cool" dump truck book that was underneath, made my heart smile. 

Can't wait to do it all again tonight! :)

XOXO,