What we've been up too?

I can not believe it has been more than a year since I have written on this Blog. Life has been somewhat busy to say the least. In January 2014 (one year ago) we made the decision to start homeschooling our children. At the time, our kids were in 3rd and 5th grade, with a three year old. We had home-schooled our oldest before, when he was in Kindergarten. He had been in public school from first grade through fifth grade. I get asked all the time, "WHY" did we decide to home-school our children. I keep thinking to myself, I wonder if I just answered with "I got tired of waking up early"..if people would stop asking.. Its really no ones business why we decided to home school. They may sound like I am being rude, but what if every time you turned around someone was asking you "Why" you decided to go to send your kids to Public school, or Private School, or "Why" you decided to go to Publix instead of Kroger? I mean seriously, we get asked ALL the time. The answer is simple. "We just decided it was best for our family, at this time to home school.". I'm gonna be 100% honest with you.. I HAVE NO MORE PATIENCE than any other parent out there, If you ask me, I have LESS patience that most parents do.. There are days I want to give up. There are days that I want to send my kids BACK to public school. There are days that I don't even know if we are all going to make it through the day with school. There are days that I wonder and question if my kids are learning or if I am letting them down....but then I test them and realize, they KNOW this stuff. But there are also GREAT days.. Days where I can SEE stuff clicking in my kids heads when they finally figure out how to do something they are learning in school. You just can't beat getting to sit and cuddle with your kids, or being told "Mom, your the best mom ever!" because you helped them with something, or for no reason at all. I mean, what parent doesn't want extra cuddles from your kids, or "I love you's?". We have a pretty great life!! My favorite question is "Do your kids actually get to have "real" friends? " Yah, they do. Just the same as YOU, or I, or your kids do.. The only difference is my kids don't pick their friends based on their ages or grades.(not that there is ANYTHING wrong with that). My kids pick their friends based on what they in common or not in common with others. Let me ask you this.. are ALL your friends the same age as you? I know that Mine are not. IN fact, I have maybe ONE friend who is the exact same age as me.. The rest are older and younger.. BY YEARS.... My kids have no problem sitting in a group of kids that range in age from 3 to 18 and carry on a conversation. My 6th grader will talk to ANYONE, and if you like video games, well, He may NOT leave you alone.... EVER. My 4th grade daughter will sit and talk to ANYONE as well. It could be a teacher, parent, high school-er, or preschooler. Our FOUR year old.. well she's four.. but LOVES the fact that at any time during the day, she has her brother and sister around. We also are extremely active in Church.. and our kids go to a co-op, all day once a week with other homeschoolers in our area. They LOVE it. They also ALL dance. Even our son. He's an amazing Hip Hop dancer! Well that explains what we have been up to since LAST January. If you follow my Bridal line or kids line, you'll see I have posted much on that in the past year. But, its because I had taken a break. It was a good break. As much as I LOVED sewing and designing, sometimes it just gets overwhelming and you just need a sabbatical from it. Mine just happened to last about a year. Just over Christmas Break, I decided to start back to sewing. I've had a lot fun and I've missed it a TON. The moment I decided to start back, I was asked to participate in a really amazing collaboration. Its top SECRET for now, but its with an AMAZING makeup Artist who I really admire......Its set to go down in April! Last year, this same amazing Makeup Artist did a photo shoot.. I had taken an old 70s era wedding gown and made it more modern! Here is what I did:
I took THAT dress above, and cut off the big poofy sleeves, it also had a TON of see through lace that went around the top of the dress,well I TOOK ALL that off as well. I took the ZIPPER out of the back and make it a Corset. I pintucked the front of the dress, to make it flow better as well. This was the end results, before it went off to the photo shoot:

After I sent this gown to the amazing Ashley of True Bella Makeup Artisty, she did this:

Isn't it Amazing!!!!! The model in the photo's is her cousin!!! She is a beautiful young lady!!! Ok, Well enough about that for now!!!! I'll try really hard to get back over here and update more of what's going on!


You can click on True Bella Makeup Artisty to see more of the amazing Work from the Tennessee Based Ashley of True Bella!