Joyful July occasions...

...include celebrating the births of our older daughter (Girly~Twirly), my dad, my hubby's younger sister, and my brother's daughter.

 Joining with: Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday's "J".

Wish that we were able to celebrate with each of them in person...but we all live in different states!

Here is a photo of our Girly~Twirly at her first birthday...in New Mexico.

 

 Here are some current ones when we were able to be together...

The first photo is their family's first Easter with their little "Bunny". We were able to spend time with them and meet, hold and love our little grandbaby girl. The second is with "Papa", Bunny and Girly~Twirly taking a photo of "Papa" and Bunny during our visit.

The following month, in May, the other photos were at the wedding of our younger daughter, Girly~Whirly, in May....in Lexington, Kentucky.

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My dad's first birthday photo...in Wisconsin...
and then a couple most current photos from Girly~Whirly & Dr. Amazing's wedding in May. He is holding his great grandbaby (our other daughter's little one, aka "Bunny") at the rehearsal dinner. And then one of him at the wedding.

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This is my hubby's "baby" sister "D". She was born on July 4th (my mother-in-law had my hubby on Christmas day :o). When she was little, "D" thought the fireworks display over the beach and ocean was all to celebrate her birthday :o)

And our other July Birthday is of my "baby" brother's cutie!  These were photos taken during their Wisconsin trip to visit my sister-in-law's family and my dad. My brother is still active duty Navy and they live in Washington. My dad was so happy they were able to drive up to his place for a little while and he had fun with them all.

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Here are some other art to commemorate some births. (The color images show a little darker, since I took photos of those ones, since my scanner will not scan color).

Little lamb was drawn from a photo of a cute stuffed lamb. And the lamb is drawn entirely with this little cutie's first name: HARLOW

 

This chunky firetruck was drawn entirely with this little guy's first name: ETHAN

 

This girly, curly, swirly butterfly was drawn for this baby doll's using her first name: MOREAYA

 

This butterfly was drawn from the nursery bedding of this little sweetie and drawn entirely with her name: PAYTON

This little baby bird was drawn for this little chickadee using her first name: LILLIAN

And announcing: my etsy shop is having a 10% off of any birth info style artwork ordered during the last week in August and the first week in September.

Thank you to all those that have thought of the Personalized Sketches as baby shower gifts, baby gifts, first birthday gifts, etc! I have quite a lot of baby ones still yet to share...lots of baby girls lately!

 & thank you all for stopping by!

Interior views

Thank you for visiting my post of two slideshows of our "Home Sweet Home", last week.

 Joining with: Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday's "I".

This week, I finally put together collages of the INTERIOR views of our home....

We enjoy watching all the HGTV shows of remodeling, building, before and afters, design crashers, etc... And it would be fun to be a part of that or have someone do something like that...

...but we are very blessed to have a beautiful home and "design" it on our own, with family things and things that we have picked up during our 30+ years of marriage. 

It was the perfect opportunity to put together the photos I had taken about a month back, without my piles of art stuff and sewing stuff out in the open!

So...greetings! And come on in...

1. INTERIOR views of our kitchen...

The door in the top left photo is the entrance into our home, so our kitchen is to the left. The door in the back of the top right photo is the door to our laundry room. The door to the far right of the photo is the door to our master bedroom (but we'll get to that later).

Here are some more INTERIOR views of our kitchen. The three large poster size photos above the stove were taken of things in the kitchen. Each one was taken by each of our kids.

2. Now to the left of our kitchen...is the INTERIOR of our master bedroom...
(Some of our furniture, we got through auctions...the chest of drawers, end tables and the hope chest are passed down from family.)

 3. ...the INTERIOR of our Master bathroom (we like to watch House Hunters and other HGTV shows and I like how some call it "the En suite".)

4. ...as we leave our bedroom...immediately is the INTERIOR of our dining room...
(our oak dining table and chairs were our first purchase together as newlyweds).

 5. in the INTERIOR of this combined space, is our living room...I also like that my mother-in-law would call the living room the parlor...

 6. ...next, as you can see there is a hallway off of the living room...
To the left, you can see the INTERIOR of the "girls' room". (Both our girls were away already in college, but they would use this room whenever they were able to visit).

 On the walls are the Scott Gustafson storybook prints that we bought for our kids when they were younger.

7. Down the hall, opposite the girls' room, to the right, is the INTERIOR of our son's room. (On his bed, he would have the denim quilt my mom made for him. For now, I had changed out the quilt. At the foot of his bed, there is a vintage wool quilt, made from men's wool suits). 

8. In between both rooms, is the INTERIOR of the guest bathroom. After our home was built, we wanted to redo the standard style guest bathroom...so my hubby had put in the new sink stand, sink, mirror, cabinet, double towel bar, and curved shower curtain rod, showerhead and lights. A dear friend and I put in the tile floor. And my hubby and I finished it up with painting.

9. Last INTERIOR view to see is the office. The large cabinet was one that my dad had designed when we lived in Taiwan. With his dimensions and sketches, a local cabinetry and furniture maker in Taipei built it for my dad to keep his reel to reel tapedeck players and turntable for the 45 and 33 speed records. I eventually want to use it for some of my art and sewing supplies.

...well...thank you again for "walking" with me through our home.

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I'm a little late on getting all these photos together for my post this week and now need to work on some art orders.

Here is one that begins with the letter "I"...

IRIS

Home Sweet Home

(This post has some edited elements from an older post in 2010.)

 A House is a building... 

 (this is our home in Georgia)

Home is where the Heart is... 

(and the Lord and a loving family is the Heart of my Home) 

 Growing up with a military dad and marrying a military man, I have lived in many homes. I have photos of some and wish I had at least one of every one....one day, I have to go through the tons and tons of photos and find them.

 I've lived in military quarters, apartments, mobile homes, townhouses, rental homes and we've owned homes...

 Here are where my home has been throughout the years...

...as a daughter of an Air Force dad.

Philippines -> Hanscom Airfield, Massachusetts -> Wakannai Air Force Base, Japan -> San Antonio, Texas -> Taipei, Taiwan (on Yong Ming San aka Grass Mountain) -> Clark AFB, Philippines -> Holloman AFB, New Mexico -> Eagle River, Wisconsin

 ...as a wife of an Air Force/Army hubby. (My hubby was in the Air Force as a Firefighter/Crash Rescue/Spaceshuttle Rescue team when we first met...and then went to the Army to fly helicopters).

Holloman AFB, New Mexico -> Hilo, Hawaii -> Alamogordo, New Mexico -> Ft. Rucker, Alabama -> Schofield Barracks, Hawaii -> Ft. Rucker, Alabama -> Tulsa, Oklahoma -> Ozark, Alabama -> Ft. Campbell, Kentucky -> Richmond Hill, Georgia...

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The military brought us to the beautiful area off the Georgia coast in 2004. 

We have taken so many, many photos since we first moved here,

but I decided to share again this slideshow of our Home being built 

and some of the events during when it was built in 2004-2005.

...and the next slideshow of our home is one that I had on an even earlier post... 

(so some of you may have already seen this too, but I thought it would be fun to see the "after") 

Friends... the welcome mat is set out to greet you.

Come on in...

 Since this slideshow was first done, we have done a little furniture changing/rearranging...

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 On my next post I'd love for you to "walk" with me inside our home...I am putting together a slideshow of the inside of photos that I took last month.

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 Linking on with: Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday's "H".

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Here are a few orders of homes that I had the honor of drawing for others.

This one was for a thank you/going away gift for a military wife, whose husband served as a military commander.

This was a wedding gift to a customer's brother-in-law and his bride's beautiful old home that they are restoring.

Afterwards, that newlywed couple ordered this one for a Christmas gift, for the husband's parents gorgeous home that was being built.

There are some other orders to share, but I try to wait until they receive them in the mail, before I share them here. And I am working on some more.

Where are the places that you have lived? 

Grand Independence day....

Greetings for a very 

Happy July 4th! 

(And belated Happy Canada Day too!)

our grandbaby "Bunny" on her first July 4th.

Grand Independence Day photo memories...

...of some other first time July 4ths.

Joining in with Miss Jenny for Alphabe-thursday's letter G.

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And here are a few patriotic art orders...

The first two were drawn for two little brothers.

This one was ordered and given as a gift to H. Ross. Perot.

This was taken from a photo of a statue of the eagle head and United States flag.