My Newest

I have fallen in Love with Photography!! I love taking nature shots of all kinds and I love chasing the birds and butterflies around the yard for hours at a time to get that "right" photo. I have had my camera now for just about 2 yrs and I have gotten so much joy out of it. I have sold some photos to family and friends and had a thought..... how can I incorporate them into my Artfire store. Well....I thought about how nice would it be for some of my pictures to make others happy as a blank note cards!! All my pictures are printed on Kodak paper and are attached to card stock with matching envelopes. The pictures are 4x6 and the cards themselves are 5x7. The pictures are attached to white or ivory card stock and they all come with matching envelope's. They are blank inside so they are ready for your personal touch!
These have been so much fun for me to make. It has made me so happy seeing them in a way that will bring a smile to someone Else's face. I hope that every person that receives one will be as happy receiving it as I was to take the photo and make it into a card.
I will have many more coming up in the next week or so. They are not currently listed as I am waiting for a supply to come in. I didn't want to list them until I had everything in hand.
So here is a sneak peak on some of the cards that are already made up.
There is also another project I am working on with the photos that I can't wait to share but I will show them off as soon as they are ready.

Camp Spann Thank You Video

If you have ever thought about donating to some of the wonderful organizations out there that support our troops then you must watch this video. It is a video on how the troops are living and them saying Thank you to everyone who sends care packages or letters. This video explains why I have joined Soldiers Angels and the great joy that I have gotten from them in the little time I have been a part of it. Please take a few mins to watch it. You will not be disappointed and if you have been debating on if you should or shouldn't join some type of organization...I'm sure it will shine some light on should! By watching this video it made me see what I do is so special and makes me want to do more. I have sent out many cards to many soldiers who needed a little boost to keep their spirits up. I have not heard back from them but this video proves that they do get them and read them and appreciate them. It makes me feel wonderful to know that! So know it is time to get some more cards and see what soldiers are in need today!!

Thank you to each and everyone of our soldiers all over the world for what they are doing and thank you to their families for being so strong, understanding and patient while their loved ones are away!!

I Heart Faces Week 42 "In The Orchard"

I can't believe it has been 2 yrs since my little man started preschool. For the 2 yrs he was in preschool, about this time of year, we all met up at the orchard and spent half a day there taking hay rides, playing with animals and picking apples. They also have a corn maze AND a hay maze! The kids loved it. This brings me back to when the children seemed so small but now to look back on how big they actually were and are still getting to be.





Be sure to stop by and see all the other wonderful pictures at I Heart Faces for this week. They are so much better then mine ;)

We've Adopted a Soldier

We are so excited to tell our story of adopting a soldier. I know some of you may not agree with what is going on in Afghanistan but the men and women that are over there fighting to keep us safe here at home, believe in what they are doing and so do I and my family. I have been wanting to do something for our soldiers for a long time but I really wanted my son to be involved, so I held off a bit until he got a little older and could appreciate what we were going to do. Not that he is 5 1/2 and a smart cookie I might add, I thought it was time. I 1st tried to get some names from my cousin who is in the Navy but that didn't work out the way I wanted it to. I looked all over for some different organizations that you can get involved with helping our heros overseas. There are many great organizations out there but the one that I kept going back to was Soldiers Angels.
Soldiers Angels has many different parts to it, if that is how I would say it. One of the best parts (I think) is that you can actually "adopt" a soldier! You sign up for a donation of as little as $1 or any amount you see fit and you become a verified Angel. When you become verified you can then adopt a soldier. I kept watching and reading all about Soldiers Angels for a few months and decided this was the perfect place for my son and I to join. We became verified angels and received the name of our soldier within 24hrs. I am not allowed to give out specific details of our soldier so all I will say is she is a female and we will refer to her as "D". When you adopt a soldier you are responsible to write your soldier once a week and send out 1 care package a month. Not hard, is it? Nope! We received D's name and address about a month ago and have sent letters and our 1st care package, which she should have received the end of last week or sometime this week. We had no idea what to get her so we sent candy, toothbrushes, toothpaste and a whole bunch of other little things! We are hoping she finds a few minutes to write us back but we are not expecting to hear from her since we are doing this because we want to and believe in them and we also understand that she is working and is really busy with being in a warzone.
Soldiers Angels is also a place for you to join different groups like "Blankets of Hope" which if you sew or knit you can make blankets for our wounded soldiers being flown into Germany, or "First Response Backpacks" which makes up backpacks of items that the soldiers may "loose" while being transported with an injury. Sometimes their items never make it back to them since the transportation process is fast for their safety or how about "OperationBirthday Cake" This group gets birthday cakes over to our soldiers on their birthday. These are just a small portion of what SA does. You can go to SoldiersAngels.org to look around and possibly join to help. To join one or more of these groups I believe (don't hold me to it) that you do not have to make a donation...I'm almost sure of that. As I am writing this there are currently 1387 soldiers waiting to be adopted. I have gotten some of my family and friends to help me and join so even if you can't join right now maybe you know someone that may want to...so pass the word on!! Some of the people that I know that haven't joined but did help me send a 34lb package to the SA warehouse in TX filled with snacks and many, many boxes of toothpaste and at least 75 toothbrushes and other little goodies!! I thank them all for their help!!
I know the economy is tough right now and a lot of people don't have a lot of money to be sending care packages and stuff but if you join you can do a 1 time care package. There are addresses you can send items to that they are in desperate need of like the call out right now is for toothbrushes and toothpaste and floss. If you go to the dollar store you can get big things of toothpaste for $1 and a package of 4-5 toothbrushes for a $1. And if you go to your local Post Office they can give you a box ahead of time that you can fill for as little as $4.95. Fill it and send it! It felt really good to send out that first box but now it is a little more personal with having our adopted soldier.
Just remember, what they are fighting for and that they are protecting us. Some of them don't get mail and have families that don't support them (yes I have seen this posted on SA about family not supporting their son or daughter!). Each and every one of them deserve to get mail on mail call days, each and everyone of them deserve to know that there are people at home that do care and do support them! Do this with your child, do it in the name of a family member who is a Vet, just do it because you care about the men and women's moral and well being!
If I can help anyone get started or answer any questions feel free to leave a comment or email me and I will gladly help you out.

God Bless our soldiers and bring them home safe!!

A Restart?

I have been MIA for a long time and to be honest I was trying to hard to keep up with the selling on Artfire, Etsy, Bonanzle and keeping up with blogging, being a mom, wife, daughter, step-mom, sister and friend. It got way to over whelming and I felt as tho I had nothing to say. Who really wants to read something that isn't interesting?

So I took a long time off to get back on my feet and to figure out what was important to me. I spent most of the summer taking pictures, bringing my son down to the beach and we went up to my uncles dairy farm twice this year! I love it up there!! I was planning on going up again this weekend but I can't make it :( But I will get back up there soon. We did alot of things this summer as a family which was really nice. I had also gotten a part time job working from 4-8pm and worked alot of overtime. I was let go in Sept because I had gotten really sick and was out of work for almost a week and a half. The drs still don't know what it was but let me tell you...it wasn't fun!! I feel much better but to be honest I don't think my stomach is the same since then. Good news is the drs can't find anything and nothing is wrong internally so i guess I am good to go. I am currently looking for another job and it will have to be second shift due to my son being in afternoon kindergarten. Yes, we are probably one of the last towns around that don't have full day kindergarten. We had a great summer and I Hope that everyone out there did too!

So for right now I am going to end this with some pictures that I had taken over the summer. I hope you enjoy them and you can always see more on my flickr photo stream :)

This picture I think is of the Farm River up in Mass. Funny part is I live where the Farm river and Long Island sound meet. It is only a 3 minute walk for me and this picture is taken about 1.5hr ride away.

My oldest son...we called him the cow Whisperer. The cow he is with is Red and she followed him everywhere he went while we were walking in the pastures. The he got the honor of her giving him a kiss :)

These next pictures were taken at an airshow just outside of Springfield Mass. Took us forever to get into park but it was well worth the wait.

This is a picture of my Dad and my son Thomas (My son is named after my father). They are standing next to a replica of the jeep my dad spent almost a yr and a half in and sleeping under when he served in Vietnam. My father was very excited to see it and Thomas was very proud to hear all the stories my Dad had to tell that day.

I have many more pictures I would like to share from the airshow!