Easter 2012

“Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!" Matthew 28:5-6

We started off Easter morning at our church. It was such a wonderful service. We started with a slow song, then a drama describing the fact that Jesus was not dead and building up to a huge, energetic worship set with songs celebrating the fact that Jesus is alive. It was amazing and just what I was hoping for on a celebratory Easter morning. My God's not dead! So awesome.

After church, my side of the family came over, including my grandma who has been in a nursing home for a few months. It was so great to see her and see her laughing and smiling while watching the kids act crazy. The kids had a blast and got TONS of candy {of course}.  Our niece and nephew are so great with the kids, letting them get a head start on the eggs and leaving "easy" ones for them to find. They love their cousins.

The kids had to wait at the mailbox till we counted down and the mad dash was ON!

hunting, hunting, hunting

I love these kids!

Our fabulous niece and nephew with the E's

It wouldn't be a family picture without funny faces (and some scary!)

How was your Easter weekend?
Did anyone travel for spring break?

InstaFriday - a peek at my week {3.12}

I'm linking up again today with Jeanett for InstaFriday and sharing my Instagram photos for the week (well, just some of them!). You can find me on Instagram by searching for "amycornwell".

We have had unseasonably warm weather this winter in Indiana so we
went outside in our short sleeves & flip flops and spent a few hours
playing and blowing bubbles (and I read). It was amazingly gorgeous weather!

I'm finally part of an organic fruit/veggie co-op again with 50 other
people. I love having co-op days and getting a ton of produce for our family.
Now to eat it all before it goes bad! The challenge is ON!

Our remodel is just about done. All that's left is some accessories
for the walls and it's complete. I love the green cabinet that my hubby
made from scratch. He's so handy!!

Picked these up at Cracker Barrel the other day...very cherry.
These are my favorite and are sitting in the studio for sustenance
while I work. They're almost gone :(

Made this prototype this morning of a new sterling birthstone necklace,
wearing it today to test it out. I love how it sparkles (despite the
horrible pictures, it's storming here today so no natural light.)

E came down yesterday from quiet time with a button paper ring she
made for me. I love my little mini-me. She's so crafty and creative and giving.

God makes things so beautiful.

How was your week??

it's the little things...

While E was at school on Friday, Bubby asked me to make him a car for his dinosaurs. Instead of putting him off (like I have been lately and have been feeling super guilty over), I stopped what I was doing and took a few minutes to make him a quick paper car. He loved it.

Then that afternoon I thought I'd try to be cool (like their daddy) and make a track for the cars to go down the stairs. Mine's not as great as hubby's was, but it still did the trick. 

 E loved being my little photographer.

Time for the race!

I'm so glad that I took some time and said "yes" to the kids. I'm really struggling with that. I feel like I'm always so busy that I'm constantly saying "not now" "later" or simply "no". I think the kids appreciated my feeble efforts and I felt better just spending time with them instead of rushing around being "busy". I need to make a more conscious effort of that; to stop what I'm doing and start saying "yes" more.

eraser people

Once upon a time, there was a little girl with a bunch of erasers. She decided to make faces on them and create eraser people.

The eraser girls were all smiles as they lined up and saw...

The eraser boys, conveniently ice skating on my iPhone...

Then the eraser people decided to have a dance and boogied the night away.

Until unfortunately the clock struck twelve and they lined up and headed home.

It cracks me up how she made little eraser people, I did this when I was young too! The kids have had so much fun playing with them - remind me again why I buy toys????

Riviera Maya {10th anniversary adventure}

Dave and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary at the end of December so on New Years Eve we headed down to Riviera Maya, Mexico for a trip alone. We figured out that we haven't done a trip just the two of us (no kids, no friends) since before I was pregnant with Big E (about 7 years ago). It was time. We've done cruises but never an all-inclusive resort so on the recommendation of a friend we decided to stay at Now Jade Riviera Cancun.

The resort was beautiful. Dave read a ton of reviews before we went, some good and some bad. I've come to the conclusion that everyone has a different experience - ours was very good. We went during a busy time of the year but because it was just two of us we hardly ever waited for meals. Our room was beautiful (although our view was obstructed by plants since we were on the first floor). The beach was outstanding and long. There were free water activities to choose from that we participated in. All in all - a wonderful resort choice!

We had a blast just relaxing the whole week. Pretty much every day you could find us laying out, reading from 8am to 5pm when it got dark. I read 4.5 books last week which is insane for me, but I loved it. Dave played beach volleyball (he's the one blocking a spike in the black hat). We did scuba one morning which was fun (I love scuba) and spent plenty of time riding the waves on the boogie boards. Dave also took us out on a Hobie Cat sail boat, SUPER fun!

We walked up and down the beach searching for treasures. I love that Dave's now into finding beach glass too and would get even more excited than me to find pieces that had been worn from the sea. He loves the clear (turned white) pieces and my favorites were the unique colors like turquoise, cobalt blue and even olive green. {{stay tuned tomorrow for a tutorial on one thing I did with some of our found items}}

The one big thing that we did was head to an adventure park called XPLOR. It's kind of like Disney World, but adventurous. You pay one fee for your whole day there including the best lunch that I've ever had at a park like that. There were amphibious vehicles to drive through caves and water, underground rivers to raft on and swim through (the stalactites were beautiful) and 14 zip lines to enjoy. There were two circuits for the zip lines, one had a water slide and two water entries (i.e. freezing cold and soaking wet) and the other circuit just had one water entry. It was a blast. A few of the zip lines we got to go on together and the others were single riders. If you're going to Cancun, I highly recommend XPLOR. It was a fabulous time.

My goal for the vacation update was to not bog you down with pictures, but now it seems that I've bogged you down with text :) We just had such a great time and I wanted to share it with you all. I hope you had a great Christmas break and a wonderful start to 2012. Happy New Year!

peace, joy & family (and a whole lotta sugar)

December 2011 has been a blur. Most of the month was spent processing orders, but for the past few days we've been able to relax and take a few days off. It's been great spending time with family, eating my weight in sugar and watching movies.

Here's a little recap of our month...

Big E made a gingerbread house at school

Little E sang to us at preschool

We crafted at Big E's Kindergarten Christmas party (they let little siblings come)

We iced and ate tons of sugar cookies

I tried a new Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread recipe

The boys enjoyed their new helicopters (seems to be the gift of 2011 for men!)

Celebrated annual traditions (Mimi reading The Crippled Lamb to the kids)

Spent Christmas morning celebrating Jesus' birth at our church, WRCC

Enjoyed unexpected surprises, hubby got me a Kelly Moore Camera bag!!

And just today we had fun in the first real snow of this year for Indiana

From the Cornwell's to you, we hope you had a Merry CHRISTmas and that you have a happy new year! 

{Side note, Hubs and I are celebrating 10 years on the 29th, so we'll be jet-setting to an anniversary trip. The stuido will be closed from Dec. 30-Jan. 8. You can see more details on the website.}

what we've been up to...

From Thanksgiving until now life has been a blur. My life these days has been a mix of running around being a mom and making jewelry at every available opportunity. This is my view on most days:

Thankfully this was taken on Friday, when hubby was off of work. He did everything extra that needed to be done that day: laundry, dropping off kids, playing with them, getting me Starbucks (all of the important things). I'm so thankful for him and his support of the business during this crazy time of the year.

But it hasn't been all work...we have made some time for other important things like...

decorating our ginormous tree

loving on some newborns at my MOPS table

making tissue paper flowers

(which got ruined in just a few hours...gotta love when my oldest 

wraps one around the dogs collar - her brother's - and the 

dog tears it up, resulting in tears from little brother)

and checking out the light show in the next neighborhood

(www.noblesvillelights.com)

I'm not going to lie, there have been tears and stress but I'm SO grateful that I was able to take the leap in June at become a WAHM. Because of this I've been working all day long, but I still have my evenings to relax with hubby and I'm home during the day for the kids needs, instead of working all day at my job and all night at jewelry. I'm so grateful for God's provision and faithfulness. 

Now that the Christmas deadline has passed and orders are getting out (even though they're still coming in, just not as many so I can breathe again)...I'm excited to start baking, crafting and working on the blog for next year. I'm still not sure of the direction of the blog for 2012. I want this to be a place where people will enjoy coming...learning new crafts, being inspired and learning a little bit about my life. If you have suggestions for the blog in 2012 - what you'd like to see/read, what you've enjoyed so far, etc - please let me know in a comment or email. I value all of you so much and want to make this an inspiring, life-giving, positive place to land. 

I don't know how much I'll be back before the end of the year, so have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!