On Mother Guilt

Today I completed a scrapbook page on Harri-Hedgehog found here.  What was meant to be a story on him developed into something more and it got me to thinking.  Maybe I should write a post on what I was thinking right at the moment of the pages' conception.  So here it is.

I looked at the face of this little boy and thought to myself, 'he is such a gem, a diamond in the rough, just a little digging and everyone could see how precious he really is, and not just to me but to his Creator'.  That is the story I wanted to tell.  And so it started, but within the confines of a box on my scrapbook page so my words had to be few.  If I had had the space I would've continued the story with this...


  There is nothing like motherhood to awaken in a woman every shortcoming she could possibly have.  All played out in our childrens lives as they replicate what they have heard or seen or felt.  We experience with our children the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, often in the same day. 

  We walk on air when our child jumps to get us a plaster because we've stupidly cut ourselves while making dinner.  No need to ask for help, no fuss, just off the cuff... "Oh no Mum!  You need help, I will get you a plaster".  Awww, maybe I have done something right after all.  I have taught my child compassion.  Maybe they saw compassion in me?  I'm doing a good job at this thing we call mothering. 

  Then we have the troughs in life where not a thing is right with the world.  Children hurting each other, children hurting themselves, children hurting full stop.  Too many examples to even bear typing out.  And all can somehow lead me (and maybe you?) into feeling that somehow I have done something wrong.  It is my fault my child is impatient, unkind, thoughtless and mean.  If I were different then they may be too?

  But nothing strikes fear into the heart of a mother quite like the arrow of judgement.  Judgement of her children.  Judgement of her mothering!  It is one thing to feel completely inadequate in this momentous job we have chosen, and maybe even voice it to another.  Quite another for someone else to point out our shortcomings as if they are an authority in our lives.  I don't see many woman out there without the scars of a few stones that have been thrown in her direction.  Whether in relation to parenting or not.  A scar is a scar is a scar.  I had the most ... debilitating, disheartening, bewildering ... experience of having a mother who I had looked up to telling me that my son is the result of my lack of parenting, or words to that effect. What?!  Now that caused a scar! 

  Of course our children are a result of our parenting, atleast in part, I don't deny that at all.  But walk a mile in my shoes before you cast judgement in my direction.  Because I happen to believe that my children are pretty ok.  I trust in the One who holds me, and them, close.  We may not be your cup of tea, but then green tea may not be either aye?  I happen to believe that we have sons that will grow to be great men of God, but ultimately it is up to them and Him!  My son is beautiful, courageous, robust and encouraging.  He is also thoughtful, caring, frightened of rejection, shy and reserved.  He is the epitome of a paradox.  If she stopped to see through the volume that emanates from him she would see that.  We all have rough edges that get sanded down with time.  My boy is a whopping big five years old.  He is not the mature man-child that some expect.  He is a masterpiece in production.  Just sit back and watch the ultimate artist at work, for he has started a good work and will bring it into fruition at the right time.  Don't worry yourself over my parenting.  Tend to your own garden as best you can and I will do the same.  Only next time, I won't be watching over your fence hoping to be a little more like you.  I will focus only on my own patch from now on!


Ok, so I wouldn't have written all of that on my scrap page, but I do want to tell the world that my son(s) are great.  And I do have a point in saying all of that do I not?  I know my shortcomings believe me, and God points them out if I am a little slow on the uptake.  I don't need criticism disguised as advice thank you very much.  If you want to encourage others, encourage them.  If you want to edify others please do.  But speak the truth in love.  We mothers are lions and lambs too.  At once strong and weak.  A paradox no?  You don't know the weight your words can have on another.  I have a challenge for anyone who happens to read this blog.  If you go out this week or next and see a mother dealing with a child you are happy is not your own (for whatever reason - tantruming could be one), give her a pat on the back, a smile, a genuine comment of encouragement.  Watch her face.  Know that instead of crushing her with a that iron look of judgment, you are instead building her up for the job God has given her. 

Blessings,
Steph

Cathy Zielskes Clean & Simple: The Workshop (Week 3)

Well I did it!  I was away in Wellington for the weekend celebrating 8 years of marriage with my Knight and didn't think I would have the time to complete my assignment for week three before it would be time to start on week four!  But, lo and behold, I did manage to do it!  I had a great afternoon, blissfully child free so I could concentrate in relative peace.  Oh. so. good.  Really must do it more often, heehee.  Actually, I should do more Big Picture Classes and then I would have the excuse to need more child free time.  Anyway, here is my page.

The above is the web photo of my page.  It should be a bit easier to read the journaling than the average photos that I take!  Being a hybrid scrapbooking class (focussing on using Photoshop Elements) we had to create and then break down the various components that make up a page and put them together again on cardstock for our 12 x 12 albums.  Here is a photo of my completed page...

It really is clean and simple which is right up my alley.  I love to see the creative genius that goes into so many of my friends (and others) scrap pages, but I always feel the pull back to the simplistic, minimalist way of scrapbooking.  I don't like too many things competing for my attention in one space.  I also love to journal and so it plays to that side of my nature too.  As much as I love to see embellishments made with love and care I really hanker for the story.  Why have photos if you are not going to have the memory to go with them?  One day the person in the photo either won't be around to tell the viewer about their (often fleeting) moment in time, or they won't recall it at all (especially if they are little).  I guess I agree with the Creative Memories creator in that respect.  But my thanks go out to Cathy Zielske - you have given me a valid reason for scrapbooking the clean and simple way without feeling like I am in some way inferior to those that choose not to.  We all have our own 'artists voice'.  Art is just another way of speaking for the creative souls in the world, and it comes in many shapes and forms, each as significant as another.  Something to bear in mind I think.

Since I mentioned the journaling I better point out that the 'story' I wrote about Harri-Hedgehog had absolutely nothing to do with the photos!  Go figure, right?  It is funny though, how looking at a photo can awaken so many feelings and emotions.  The photo at the bottom right of my page is one where Harri-Hedgehog bit the camera lens hood just as I hit the shutter button.  I love love love it!  It really exemplifies him through and through.  Cheeky to the max!  And I can't help but smile every time I see it.  The thing is, when I set aside these photos to scrap I thought I would write about the amazing holiday we were having, and in particular this day.  But as I looked at the photos I couldn't help but write what came to me.  It was just bursting to get out, and so there it is.

I hope you like my page, and that you check in again!  Leave me a message so I can check out your pages too!

Steph

Cathy Zielskes Clean & Simple: The Workshop (Week 2)

Hi there,  thanks for flicking over to see this.. my take on the assignment for week two of Cathy Zielskes class: Clean & Simple: The Workshop.  I so loved the work this week.  Every time I open up my 'Big Picture Classroom' I know that what awaits me is going to be challenging, and fun!  This week didn't let me down (and we're only two weeks in! Lol).  Imagine the possibilities for the next 10 weeks.  Anyway, here is my page.

I'm so pleased with how it turned out.  Obviously I embellished my page a little and turned it into a 12x12 layout.  The actual assignment was the 8 1/2 x 11 part of the page.  I need to get a little out of my comfort zone (the preconceived notion that scrapbooking is done using 12 x 12 papers and albums) and broaden my horizons, but for now I'll stick with the status quo.

I am gutted that my camera isn't playing fair and taking photos as clear as I'd like, but until three grand falls in my lap I will have to wait to get my dream camera.  In the meantime I hope that the image is clear enough for you to read the journalling.

Have a great day, be inspired to create and live each moment today as if it were your last.  I'm off to celebrate my wedding anniversary.  Eight years today!

Bye,
Steph

John Deere Party (Part 2)

So... here is part two of Harri-Hedgehogs fifth birthday.  We had the grandparents over for dinner, which gave me another chance to execute all the ideas I had had for his party with his friends but didn't have the time to pull off...

It had to start with balloons!  I sourced this idea from Pinterest.  You can find the original idea via here

It is so cool dining under a canopy of balloons!  I fully recommend it.. and who said you have to have a party to do it?  I'm a firm believer in coming up with any excuse to decorate!

I made use of the sweets that weren't finished, and some extra pinwheels I had made to serve as the table centrepiece.

Harri-Hedgehogs cake was chocolate with buttercream icing.  I used a little 'grass' nozzle thingee on my piping bag to make the grass.  Talk about easy (and it covers a multitude of mistakes too, heehee).  The 5 calves are schleich toys - they are brilliant (and serve another purpose)!

Of course he had to cut the cake with a saw!  Such a boy..

Blossom loved the balloons...

and the tractor...

but not as much as Harri-Hedgehog loved his truck!

 

 



He is one happy chappy!  And I am one happy mum with another party done and dusted!  What do you think?  I said in the last post that I would link in the sources of some of the things that I bought on-line, so here is the list below.  Have a fun time cruising the net for party ideas.  I hope you enjoyed viewing my take on a tractor party.


Lilybel Studio
Poppyseed
Pocotots
Vanilla cupcake
Sweet Pea Parties


See ya,
Steph

Cathy Zielske's Clean and Simple: The Workshop (Week one)

Hi all, guess what?  I have decided to jump on board the digital scrapbooking bandwagon!  I have joined many others over at Big Picture Classes found here and signed up for the awesome Cathy Zielske's 'Clean & Simple: The Workshop' class.  You still have time to join up, just click on this link and you will be away laughing just like me!

I am the last person who would've thought that I could do digital scrapping.  I can find my way around a computer but it takes me hours, and I was really nervous about signing up but I want to move with the times and thought, well I may as well jump in while the water is warm so to speak!  I always have more ideas than I have the knowledge to put them into action.  I always have more to say than I have the room to write.  I hanker after a way to journal anything and everything but still present it in an artful and beautiful way.  I think that I may have cottoned on to something with digital scrapbooking.  I signed up for a free 30 day trial of Photoshop Element 10 a while ago (when I was doing the 31 things class with Ali Edwards - blog button is on my sidebar) and spent the better part of those 30 days frustrated for trying to teach myself!  When the opportunity arose to learn it in a class with others like me - terrified but excited at the possibilities too - I jumped!  Of course technology moves fast so Adobe has Photoshop Elements 11 available now so that is what I have bought and am using (in case you wondered).  Seriously, this is such a cool, encouraging and inspiring way to learn something new.  I can't say it enough... have a go, sign up, jump in and swim along with me.

Here is my first page...

 
Its a start aye?  I'm more than a little stoked that I managed to pull it off!  Cathy Zielske is a great teacher and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her class to any newbie like me.  I haven't quite figured out my camera yet either so if you can't read my journaling here it is...

I am a child of God, & although I am often unsure of myself I am secure in who I am in Christ. | I am a wife & mother, daughter & sister, aunty & friend. | I had a childhood dream of living on a dairy farm - & it came true! | I am a dedicated, devoted & loyal friend. | I am demonstrative, compassionate & exuberant (read: loud)! | I am a perfectionist.  When I set my mind on something I will do it to the best of my ability. | I am secretly ambitious & competitive. | I am an organiser & list maker to the core. | I am a dreamer. | I am a writer & have been from the moment I first picked up a pen. | I am sentimental. | I always wanted to be a primary school art teacher. | I am a facepainter. | I am a chidrens party planner. | I am an actress, interior designer, singer, doctor, beautician, & hairdresser (all in my dreams).  | I am a runner since a week ago!

I hope you like my page, and that you're inspired to give digital scrapping a go.

Love,
Steph

John Deere Party

So... what do you get when you cross a farm mad boy with a fifth birthday?  A tractor party of course!

Harri-Hedgehog was close to reaching his first big milestone (turning 5) and so, in true Steph style, I started planning the big one.  And a big one it was.  The old cogs started to churn a few months out, and with a little inspiration from my beloved Pinterest a party was born! 

I love love love planning my kids parties and it was so easy this time around because Harri-Hedgehog is so obsessed with the farm, the cows, the tractors... so it was no problem coming up with the ideas.

So began the nights lying in bed with 'ah ha' moments and ideas whirling.  I tell you no lies; it was like I was transported back to those days as a child waiting for my own impending birthday parties, only this time I had the control and the joy in putting it all together!




The production line!

So where do I start?  Well I open my trusty 'Big Black Birthday Idea Book' (excuse the alliteration but its another love of mine!) and I write down the basics: What, when, where, time, guest list, games & activities, decorations, table & settings, party favours and, of course, food.  Then I slowly add to the list over time. 

I am a scrapper so it was awesome using my love of all things papery and coming up with and executing the invitations.  I scoured splitcoast stampers and used an idea from one of my scrap pages to make these invites.  The little wheels are embossed in black and the split pins allow them to spin around freely.  There is a little bunny in the cab too, which means something to Harri-Hedgehog as he has a special rabby that he can't live without!

Inside I wrote 'Start up your tractor and put it in gear...  ***'s fifth birthday is nearly here".

 

The goody bags/party favors

I had great fun making the goody bags for the kids to take home.  Next to farm stuff and his rabby, Harri-Hedgehogs favourite thing is Lightning McQueen, so a couple of squinkies and "Cars" stickers made it into his friends goody bags.  I wanted everything to tie with the theme though so I made American fudge brownie cookies & decorated them as a tractor wheels with pebbles and popped them in a cellophane bag tied with string too.  I also bought mini old-fashioned green, white and yellow lollipops from sweet pea parties and added those too.  I filled cellophane bags with the 'food' goodies & tied them with bakers twine and attached tags stamped with a message for the siblings of Harri-Hedgehogs friends.

All ready to go.. and in a farmy basket too!

Almost everything I make is made with Stampin' Up products.  So the DSP, stamps, ink, punches, brads, embossing folder and bakers twine are all from them.  I bought the brown bags online to tie in with the theme, and I glued DSP (Designer Series Paper) onto wooden pegs from Spotlight & used it as an added embellishment.  The sticks for the windmills were actually lollipop sticks a friend bought me from London. 




Hard at work... so hard in fact that closing cupboards didn't factor into my day! lol.

The party table

This was so cool to set up.  Everything had to be farm related, hence the table cloth and checked fabric.  All of the tableware was made of biodegradable wood (I'm a bit of a greenie).  The placemats were made of card covered with cow print table runner paper.  I also used it to wrap presents for prizes at game time and around the milk bottles, which I then decorated with a punched out label (to write a name on), twine and mini bull clips. 

 

Milk bottles ready to fill with flavoured milk!

Wooden cutlery - love it!



The jars had green, yellow, white and black treats.  One jar was layered with green and yellow jellybeans, and one had my Mums favourite lolly - milk bottles!  The lollipops are the large ones from sweetpea parties.  We had to pick out only the green and yellow licorice allsorts from the bins at Countdown and still it wasn't enough!  We ended up at New World supermarket too!  I will never forget how Little B said that we might get in trouble for pilfering them - he kept a lookout better than any hawk!

I had soooo many balloons - cow print ones, brown, two shades of green, yellow and white.  We filled a few black rubbish sacks with them at the end of the day!  I had plans for them but that had to wait...

The buffet, lol, just about ready.

I really like making food for parties/get togethers.  I will think about it for ages before deciding on the 'perfect' feast.  I wanted everything to be farm related, so it was all go for dairy products.  Yogurt, cheese and every flavoured milk possible was there.  Then we had the 'meat' side of the menu - ham & egg sandwiches, southern style chicken nibbles and mini hotdogs on sticks.  Then the fruit!  But what is a party without treats right?  My bestie came out and spent the day helping me to prepare this feast - she made all of these gorgeous farm bike cookies and she made the cupcakes!  My world is a better place for having you in it Bex, and I am so grateful for your friendship!  Check these out..

These little blackboards are great.  I got them online.  The 'sand tarts' really did look and feel sandy.  The haybales were lamingtons that I iced with lemon icing (and a little colouring) and coated in thread coconut.  The motorbikes are gingerbread.  I had fun icing them I tell ya!

These eggs are seriously cool.. they are just marshmallows stuck together with lemon icing!  Yummo.






Bex did a way better job of baking these than I could have, and it was quick and easy for me to ice and decorate them.  Go the internet!  I bought just about everything online, I don't think I will do it any other way in the future.

Sorry for the lopsided picture - I guess that is enough cupcake photos anyway!  You get the picture.. heehee.


And now for the cake...

Is that dirt?  Noooo... its dirt cake!  I made a chocolate fudge cake, then crumbled it and added brown pebbles and m&ms.  Then I crushed up a couple of packets of chocolate oreo biscuits and added that.  Then I added a pack of big jelly snakes 'cause what is dirt without worms?  And whala (how do you type that?) a birthday cake fit for a king/farm boy.

The kids helped themselves to the cake along with chocolate mousse, icecream, dairy whip cream and fudge sauce.  Total sugar overload, but hey, there was a lot of fruit and veges on offer too remember?  Hehe.  And, it gets better.. the cake doubled as the birthday present.. well, the tractor and trailer did anyway.  So this was the first time Harri-Hedgehog saw this, his present!  Check out his face...

Is that face not worth it all?  The culmination of all the work (said tongue-in-cheek since I loved every second of it) is written in the delight and excitement highlighted on his face.  That alone is worth more than a million thank yous.  He is so happy, his heart is full and that alone is the reason why I will do this again and again.

There is more to a party than food though aye?  (gasp gasp!)  It's the fun games too...

We had a treasure dig in the sandpit to start with, and then I drew a tractor in sidewalk chalk for the younger siblings to colour in.  I also made a big blob each of green and yellow playdough for them.

Pin the wheel on the tractor was a hit.  I was asked to recreate it for one of Harri-Hedgehogs friends party too so that was awesome!  (And I had heaps of time to draw it - unlike this one - so it was cool!)

The kids got some serious air.. watch this space Nike!

 The sack race!  It's a must for a tractor party isn't it?  It looked like so much fun that...

... I asked the Mums to have a go too!  It was a blast, I would've gone for another go again and again, but then I am really just a big kid at times!




 What is that flying through the air? (Just under the goal to the right?)







Lets play "Where's Wally" only change it to "Where are the gumboots?"  Look closely!



And that was that!  Some worn out kiddies (and Mums too no doubt), but hopefully a lot of fun had by all.  Harri-Hedgehog was a happy boy so I reached my goal and hopefully helped to create a wonderful memory for him to ponder on in the years to come.  And if not, well, he has this post and a scrap album to look back on aye?!

We had a special 'family night' for him too.  Remember the balloons?  Well, more on that in another post I think.  Thanks for reading and sharing in a celebration I will treasure forever!  I will hunt out the sources of the things I bought online and post the links soon.

Steph