Maya Road and Me

Thankful

 

Thanksgiving has come and gone but I have so much to be thankful for. This past week, we spent some time in California visiting my sister and meeting my baby niece for the first time:

Olivia totally ADORED her new cousin. The entire time we were there she was trying to hug and kiss and just love on her baby cousin.

Life did get a bit chaotic when you have 5 kids 5 and under running around acting like well kids. Also my parents were out there to visit with us too. My dad didn't start the trip off too well. He ended up in the hospital for 2 days after he had an adverse reaction to his medication coupled with the fact he fainted and left a big giant hole in my sister's wall. By near the end of the week, he was feeling better and we all went to the park to take some family photos (can't wait to see the official ones from the photographer but here is one from us):

David also got to spend a lot of time snuggling the new baby. I think he secretly loved the snoozing with her:

No baby was harmed in the taking of that last photo - just a lot of snoozing...

And we don't have a lot of trees that change colors near our house so my kids were mesmerized by the show mother nature put on:

And we had some In & Out burgers too - even though I&O has come to Dallas, we haven't ventured out here but we did when we were in Cali. Olivia LOVED her hamburger:

And Noah was running some sort of crazy 8 cards game ring with his cousins:

We had fun and enjoyed each other's company. That is all we could ask for. We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving also!

 

Shoeboxes

So starting when Noah was 2 years old, we have as a family worked on doing at least 20 shoeboxes full of gifts for Operation Christmas Child from Samaritian's Purse. Here were the boxes we did in 2010. And we even did 22 boxes in 2009. Each year we budget enough resources to do 20 boxes. It is part of our Christmas tradition and we plan part of the money we would usually spend on gifts for these shoe boxes. 

Noah and Olivia both know they have been blessed with many things. Last year, I was awestruck when Noah watched one of the videos of kids who would be receiving boxes like these. The kids were digging through piles and piles of garbage looking for stuff to eat and to sell. I had never seen my little boy so pensive and quiet. The world is a big big place, we can make it all a bit better by sharing.

And this year we shared our tradition with our home team Bible Study group. We had each family bring something for each of the boxes to combine with our stuff. And over the course of an hour, we had 9 active kids (plus their moms) packing toothbrushes, soap, toothpaste, candy and toys for the boxes. I didn't get any photos of this last night as it was a bit chaotic with 9 but all the kids seem to have a lot of fun. 

This morning, Noah and Olivia helped me to sort and count the boxes - and we ended up with 20 of them. Olivia helped me inspect them this morning:

Noah wanted to give his sister hugs about them. It also clicked b/c I asked him to count the 5 stacks of 4 boxes each and he realized that 4 x 5 = 20 (as we have been practicing multiplication) and he verified it by counting each box.

Olivia then helped us move each box to the edge of the stairs and Noah walked them down with me one by one. Both kids also helped to load the car today.

Noah helped us unload the car when we got to the drop of center. He was so excited because he got a bookmark and sticker showing that he packed shoeboxes.

And as hard is the lesson can be, sharing truly is a giving experience for all of us. All the kids seemed to enjoy helping to pack the boxes. And I get excited for the thrill of the hunt for goodies on sale throughout the year. If this is something you are thinking about doing with your family, here are some tips on when to find the best deals for shoe box goodies

1. Back - to - school deals - when crayons and pencils are $0.30/ pack or box I stock up. Same goes for the $0.10 scissors or $0.25 note pads and rulers.

2. When Halloween is done, some places have their hard candy up to 75% off; I buy 5 bags at that time and we fill ziplock bags full of it so the kids can have something sweet (we also do make sure we include toothpaste and brushes so they can keep their teeth clean too).

3. When stores are cleaning their toys out for the next season, I buy them in bulk. I have a special place in my linen closet that is just a box full of things I amass throughout the year for this particular project.

These things are ways we can make our money stretch further and to be able to make more boxes with the same budget. We are also very thankful this year for all the friends who came to help us with the boxes and also those who brought us things for them.

Above all this is a project that I feel is a gift to me. I would rather do this than get something for Christmas. The joy I get from this is more a blessing to me than anything else gift wise and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ideas A Flowing

So we announced this week our Early Winter Release to our Retailers. Our mid show releases come between shows to get us through those Holidays and themes that get missed in the 2 big shows a year. I honestly can say I am not thinking about Valentine's Day when I am planning for our July show. But by the time the January/February show rolls around, it is too late to release products which are perfect for it. 

Like this:

And these:

The last couple of weeks we have been working to make sure all the items were here in time to release the products to our Retailers on November 15th and ship startin November 15th. Lots of late night calls and work to make sure everything was ready to go. 

Now that the items have been released and we shared with our consumers too, I can finally breathe again and concentrate on CHA-W and beyond. 

Looking at the data, it looks like these limited edition embellishment packs:

We are almost sold out of these to Retailers already. A little pack with over 30 pieces of various Maya Road goodies  in wood, metal, pins, tins and chipboard. The idea for this pack came when I was at a Retailer Event a couple of months ago and one of the fabulous store owners there - Diane - and I were having a conversation and this idea was born. Just a little bit of everything you need to keep your creating world happy.

I have been surprised at how quickly all of these have been snapped up by stores already. 

Tomorrow, our Bible Study home team families are coming over and this year we are going to be sharing with them our traditions of the shoeboxes with them. Every year as part of our Christmas tradition, we as a family pack shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Noah looks forward to doing this with us every year - this will be his 4th year helping me pack. 

I have pulled out all the school supplies, toys, candy, toothbrushes, stickers and more I have amassed in the last 10 months just for these shoe boxes. We are going to have all of our kids write notes for these boxes. We cannot wait to share this tradition with our friends and to be thankful for what we have.  I will share some photos of our little packing party soon. 

No Pause Button

 

So it has almost been two years since our family decided to do away with cable TV. After having cable in our house for 10 years, we decided when we were switching providers to say adios to some of our beloved channels - Food Network, National Geographic, History Channel, TLC, Nick,  A&E and HGTV. When we did away with our full cable, we also said good bye to our DVR and the ability to pause our shows and watch them when we wanted to.

In its place, we ended up having to get super basic cable (which includes ABC, NBC, Fox, Telemundo, PBS) to even have digital service and we opted in for Netflix in our our full cable place.

It was hard at first. Noah couldn't understand why we couldn't go back to watch something or why we didn't watch Backyardigans, Dora, Ni Hao Kai-Lan anymore. We found that sometimes friends would say "oh" when we mentioned we didn't have cable TV. We missed being able to pause commericals even on say a Sunday afternoon football game if it was too scary for the kids.

But after two years, it has been a nice change of pace for us. We get out more. We play games, make crafts and read a lot more. David and I do have some TV watching marathons of series on Netflix where we watch 50 episodes of a sitcom in a matter of 3 weeks. The kids love watching cartoons at times in the afternoon on PBS. On some Saturday mornings the kids will watch Dora on a Spanish station (which is a bit surreal as all the spanish parts that are usually spoken on Dora are then done in English).

After two years, I have thought about if we would go back. I am not sure. At this point, we are used to the way it is. Admittedly it took some time to get adjusted but if it didn't I wouldn't have a chance to spend time making projects like this:

And no cable makes traveling with the kids fun. We were at a hotel with Noah and Olivia and he was fascinated that there was a channel just devoted to food. I think he stayed up til midnight one night just watching Food TV shows and he was amazed that there was show after show of just food stuff.

Life without a pause button isn't too bad; we just had to get used to it.

 

 

 

Fridays

It is Friday evening. The end of a long week for us. My kids and hubby are watching Cars 2 and eating popcorn and I am going to finish up a bit of work before I join them.

We have accomplished a lot this week. Noah and I sat down and he wrote a story for me:

And if course it was about a Hot Wheel named Noah:

He is really proud of his little book and reads it to us. I am helping him think about forming stories and such and he is working on spelling.

And then little Olivia was working on eating some veggie "fries" today:

She would eat the whole bag if I let her; as a compromise, I let her settle by pulling the veggie fries out of the bag.

Noah is settling into his martial arts classes every week. It is nice to see him do something he enjoys.

I am also done fiddling with my Thankful album cover:

I added some different elements to the front:

Here are the inside pages:

I am really grateful for taking a couple of minutes every day to create a little page about what I am thankful for. I am finding that I am not sweating as much the small stuff. So what if my home isn't picture perfect? So what if I have 4 loads of laundry left to wash and fold? NBD (no big deal) - what I tell Noah when he gets worked up over a small thing related to school or writing. I am learning to apply the NBD principles to my every day. The small stuff stays small when I remember to be grateful.

And finally here is a quick peek at a wreath I finished up the other day - will save the rest of the photos for another post:

A couple more things to do - we have a FABULOUS mid-release headed up early next week to Retailers so have to wrap all that up tonight!

 

Thankful

So many friends I know do a December Daily Album to document what they do every day til Christmas for the month. I always start with the best of intentions to do a complete December Daily Album but alas it has been  a couple of years since I have been able to start or even complete one. December is a big blur in the schedule of Maya Road, the kids, traveling and family. I might do a weekly December album but every day is tough.

At the beginning of November, some of my friends had told me they were doing a daily November thankfulness - many are posting on Facebook. I decided I would create my Thanks Album in place of something done daily in December.

Here is what I started this last week:

I used our 5" x 5" tabbed binder with kraft pages. You will see more of this album next week when it has more thankful pages inside.  The cover isn't totally done - need to finish up the letters.  Do I mist? Do I glitter? Decisions, decisions!

Here is what I have completed so far:

Lost of journaling and a couple of photos here and there. Just thoughts to put down on paper.

So much to be thankful for and trying to take 10 mins a day to remember that.

this is my dad

November is National Lung Cancer Awareness Month. This is a layout I did of my dad about 5 years ago. For people that have known me and my family, they know the guy in this photo and what a zest for life he had. My dad would sing to his food and just go about life in his merry way.

I have to admit when I see this layout I am a bit sad. As many of you know, my dad was diagnosed with cancer a little over a year ago. Stage IV lung cancer (non smoker).  He is stable now, his health is pretty good but...

My dad isn't the same guy as he was in the photo. This is the first time I have talked about it publically. My sister and I are struggling with that. I will be the first to admit, that we as a family don't publically talk about feelings or even health issues a lot of times. My sister and I were just discussing how my dad has changed in this year since he was diagnosed. And today I want to talk about it to see/hear if anyone has any similar experiences. 

My dad, while his health is ok, seems very depressed about life and his state of being. Depression is not something that runs in my family so that makes it very challenging for Deb and I to help my dad with. It isn't something we understand. While we see his treatment so far as a gift for him to enjoy life, he doesn't seem to enjoy it. 

Tomorrow my dad goes to the doctor again. I will be going to see what we can do for his mental health. I did catch a couple of sparkles of laughter today when my kids were at lunch with my parents and Olivia and Noah were giving out hugs and kisses.