big day for me!

I am so excited because I have started selling some of the things I create. I have sold 6 items through my etsy store, three of them being to people I don't even know! This is a picture of me heading to the post office because of my latest development...a salon and spa in Pequot Lakes called J Amelia's is going to be selling my headbands! This picture reminds me of the pictures we always took on the first day of school, but instead it is my first day selling my products in a store. My sister Tahnee goes to this salon and the last time she was there the owner commented on the headband she was wearing. She told her that her sister makes them and the owner said I should sell them there. So during my trip to visit Tahnee I stopped by with a few to talk to her about it. As of Friday she should have 10 of my headbands set up for sale! I am having so much fun going through this creative process. I have always loved making things but now I am working on branding myself so that the presentation of the items when they are packaged etc. reflect me. So fun! Here is an image of a few of the headbands that are for sale.

visiting sister and baby!

I am visiting my sister in Brainerd for a couple of days to help her paint her nursery. Here we are working on the tree mural. I drew the tree and then we projected it onto the wall and
painted it. Here is the finished product. So cute! We found our inspiration here.


After painting we got all dressed up to go out for dinner. It was fun because we dressed similarly, we haven't dressed like we were twins since we were little! This picture is for our aunt Lynda. We love you Lynda and we were rockin the wedgies for you!

Love you sister! You are so stinking adorable. I love your ever growing belly!

date night: picnic

I am a little behind on my date night posts. For date night a few weeks ago we went for a picnic at Long Lake Park. We brought our dinner and our rollerblades. It was a perfect evening.

After rollerblading we went and played on the playground. It was a carefree evening. I felt like a little kid, except that I don't think I ever got motion sickness from swings when I was little!

Love you Joel :-)

loving summer

This is where I am spending most of my time this summer. I am having a great time in my craft room!

Here is my summer to do list. The wall to the left of my sewing machine is partially painted with chalkboard paint. I am very proud of the fact that I already got my etsy store up and running since that was my biggest goal this summer! There is still a little room at the bottom of my list to add a few more things.
I have been shocked to discover that my skin actually seems to be developing something that resembles a tan. I feel like it has been so long since I spent a fair amount of time outside, I didn't think that I could even get tan! I guess it is hard to tan under fluorescent lights. Yay for having the summer off.

date night: nice ride

Date night a few weeks ago was impromptu and wonderful. We stumbled upon rentable bikes in downtown Minneapolis and decided to give it a try. I LOVED it. I had a huge smile on my face the entire time.

I love being married to Joel. It is so fun getting to hang out with my best friend all the time. It doesn't really matter what we are doing but we always seem to have a blast.

Here are some pics from our adventure. You can google Nice Ride, MN for more information. I highly recommend it. It cost us $5.00 for hours of biking along the Mississippi on super comfortable bikes!

This is what the bike docking stations look like.

Here is a close up on one section of the map. All of the little bike images show the different places you can dock/park your bikes. The maps also show which streets have a bike lane, where the bike paths are and the location of great downtown attractions.

Here is a a picture of our reflection by these big mirrors. You can see part of the Guthrie Theatre behind us.

Here we are along the river by the Mill City Museum about to cross the Stone Arch Bridge.

Here is my cute husband all dressed up for our date downtown. Love you Joel!

favorite thrift finds of the week

You have to love double coupon day at Savers. I got this old Canon TX for $5 and this great yellow bag for $2. I don't know if the camera works, I have to go buy some film. I hope to play around with it next week. I have never had a camera that I have to focus myself before. I figured whether it works or not it should provide five dollars worth of entertainment. Plus, I love the sound of the shutter closing when I take a picture.

I am already excited for next double coupon day, let me know if you are free on Wednesday and want to come with me!

sweet dreams

I have had nightmares for as far back as I can remember. Lately my nightmares were occurring in the same place night after night. I had discussed my dreams in the past with my counselor. One thing she suggested was to examine them and see what I could learn from them. I did that and learned a few things from my dreams but that did not make the nightmares go away. My dreams have always been vivid, realisitic and very stressful. I wake up in the morning remembering everything and feeling like I had actually experienced everything in my dream.

I decided to visit a counselor again to see if there was anything they could do to help get rid of my nightmares. I saw this counselor before when Joel and I were having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a scary car incident (Joel having food poisioning and getting sick while he was driving on the highway). After this incident we would both become nauseous any time someone slammed on the brakes. We both went through a process called EMDR. After one session we were both cured. After one session discussing my dreams and doing EMDR I have been having sweet dreams! I have gone an entire week and had only one nightmare. That dream started out pleasant and took a turn to become scary. As soon as my dream started to turn scary I stepped away from the dream and went to my safe place just like we had practiced during my counseling session. It was amazing! Besides that one dream all of my other dreams have been wonderful. Instead of being alone and scared in my dreams I am surrounded by loved ones, having fun and laughing a lot!

I feel very blessed in life and in my sleep right now.

Thank you to my counselor for your help!

(edited to use a different picture since my mom said I looked dead in my other one! Is this better?)

a little weeding and a little discovery

When we returned from Colorado after having been gone a week I had a little bit of weeding to do. By the time I was finished my pile of weeds was bigger than my hostas! I have discovered that I actually enjoy weeding. I like being in the dirt. I love that my work produces immediate visual results and I like smelling like my garden when I am done. Don't worry Joel I won't ever make you weed :-) Weeding is the only thing Joel is unwilling to do.

While weeding I discovered these!

Upon closer inspection I discovered 19 little green tomatoes! Looks like my hopes of having one tomato by the end of summer will be fulfilled!

check it out!

If you haven't noticed there is now a link at the top of my blog that leads to my etsy store. I am officially now up and running on etsy! This was my biggest goal for the summer, it only has 5 things in it but I am feeling very inspired!

Check it out!

good times in Colorado!

Sorry for the hiatus in blogging. I was in Colorado visiting the in-laws and I haven't quite figured out how to blog and upload pictures using my iPad. I just need to get the camera kit cords and I will be up and running again. Now that I am home I have plenty of computers to choose from!

Our timing could not have been any more perfect because Joel's nephew Jett arrived just a few hours after we did. He is a perfect and healthy baby and his mom was a rockstar! Jett was 8 lbs 11 ozs and 21 inches long. After looking through Joel's baby book we discovered Jett is the exact size that Joel was when he was born!

The week went by so quickly it is hard to believe we are home already. We had a great time, and were able to see a lot of people and spend some quality time with Joel's family.

A highlight of my trips to Colorado is when I get to sew with my Mother in Law. This time we designed a bag for her upcoming trip to Europe. She is very experienced, so I always learn a lot from her.

Here were our beginning designs:

my drawing Katie's drawing

Here is what we ended up with. It fulfills all of the design elements that Katie wanted and was a blend of both our ideas. I hope it serves her well in Europe! I am thinking about making myself a green or a brown one. I will just add that to my list of things to make, though I am not certain I could recreate it without Katie with me!

Here we are waiting at the wrong gate for our flight home. Thankfully we heard the gate change announcement and made it there with plenty of time to get on the flight. We are home safely now. Tomorrow I will be posting pics of the great date we went on today. But for now it is off to bed. I am so glad that it is summer and I don't have to go to bed at 10:00 in order to get up at 5:30! It is 1:20 now... good thing I don't have to get up to teach :-)

my cute first graders

On the last day of school my students were helping me clean the room. They love helping, it is so cute. One girl this week asked me if she could carry the water jug I was bringing for my students on our picnic. She said, "Mrs. Stewart can I help? My mom says I am a really good helper!" Isn't that sweet. Here is a video of my students cleaning. They started to sing all of sudden.

how my garden grows :-)

I wanted to provide you with proof that my garden is still growing!

Today I had to put all of the tomato plants in cages because they were growing so much they were starting to flop over! I can't wait for tomatoes!

date night

This week's date night included: Joel cooking dinner while I napped (salad and pasta with my mom's homemade spaghetti sauce...yum), ice cream at 50's Grill and then hanging out at Shawn & Chris's house and watching "A Mighty Wind".

It was also a mini celebration for my last day of the school year with my students. We survived the year!

then and now

I was browsing through my photos and came across this one that made me smile. It is at the conservatory and was taken minutes before Joel asked me to marry him. Thank you for that beautiful day Joel!

Here we are four years later. We went to Stillwater with our small group for dinner. Afterwards we walked along the river where this picture was taken.

I loved him so much then and I love him so much now!

returning to my first home

This post is about two weeks delayed but I wanted to get it up to in order to remember this great weekend at home. I went home to Alexandria for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I had a great time with my family and catching up with a few friends.

First we went to a brunch at Liesl's house. The food was delicious and the company was great. Thanks for having us Liesl! Saturday evening we went to Bellas in Broadway to celebrate Mommy's 51st birthday. Our server was my old friend Tara. We used to serve together at Old Broadway. It was so fun to see her. Hello Tara!

The highlights of Sunday were feeling Tahnee's baby kick for the first time

visiting Sue, going rollerblading and out for ice cream with Mommy and Brian. We went to Osakis to enjoy the bike trail, eat Brick Oven pizza, catch up with Mikko & Tudy and to get ice cream at the Tip Top Dairy Bar in memory of Grandpa.

I always love returning home. I love the small town feel, I love getting away from all of the big city noise and doing things that remind me of my growing up years. It brought back the care free feeling of being young, having few responsibilities where my time is spent reading,rollerblading, watching movies, walking the dog with Brian and laughing with my mom and sisters.

my favorite number

2 has always been my favorite number and now it represents how many days left of school! I have lots of things to post about and fun pictures to share...I will probably post them in three days :-)