I am so excited because this afternoon I saw the first Monarch Butterfly of this season in my yard. Now I know to most of you that doesn't seem like a big deal but to me it is. I have been preparing for them all summer.

You see about 9 years ago, my first year being an art teacher, I found a Monarch caterpillar. I put it in a container and took it to my classroom. I fed it the plant that I found it on and after a few weeks it turned into a chrysalis. All the classes that I had watched and waited for the butterfly to come out and when it did the principle announced over the loud speaker. Then one class got to let it go. I loved doing that and I looked for another caterpillar for years.

Last summer I got online and ordered two Milkweed plants. Monarchs will only lay eggs on Milkweed because that is all the caterpillars will eat. When my plants started growing the Monarch Butterflies started visiting and before too long I started finding babies on the plants. Camille and I put them in containers and we fed them the vine milkweed everyday. They would grow and turned into chrysalis and when they turned into butterflies we as a family would let them go. Last summer we raised 13 Monarch butterflies.

This year I have lots of Milkweed. I planted seeds and have been nursing the milkweed and making sure I have plenty of other flowers that Monarchs like. We can't wait to see how many we will raise this year.

So seeing the first butterfly today was exciting and then after looking on the plants I found 5 Monarch eggs. I am sure there are more but I ran out of time to look.

I will update when I find the first caterpillar of the summer. If I plant them .... They will come.

Edit: Thank you for all your emails. Lauren Miller from Florida won a set of cup labels!! Congrats Lauren!!
Be the 21st person to email me and you will be given a set of our water proof cuplabels with your child's name or any name, for free!!!!
These cuplabels are great for water bottles, sippy cups, bottles anything that is used over and over again. And you can wash them in the dishwasher and they won't come off.



Just put in the subject line did I win and we will contact you if you

are the 21st person!!!

We will be offering these soon on the website. They are offered only in the boutique right now.

Good Luck!!!!!!

when I held that beautiful baby boy in my arms for the first time. It seemed like yesterday when I was on bed rest from April to July not knowing for sure if Griffin would be born too early. But it wasn't yesterday it was four years ago.

Last week (July 6th, also the President's birthday) My beautiful baby boy turned four. Four! I just can't believe it. He acts so big. But he is still my baby. He still sucks his thumb only when he gets sleepy, and he has this habit that when he gets sleepy he wants to rub my tummy. He will come up to me put his hand on my tummy and his thumb goes in his mouth. I should break him of this but as long as he does it I know he is still my baby.

But now that he is four he decided he had a say in what kind of birthday he was going to have. In the years before I got to choose. For his first birthday I made his cakes into the shape of baby shoes. For hs second birthday the cake was a cute blue car. His third birthday we gave him a Spider Man cake. But this year he had to have a Power Ranger cake. He has been talking about this for months. And the funny thing is I think that maybe he has seen the Power Ranger show once. But he had to have a Power Ranger Birthday. I tried to talk him out of it because I couldn't make Power Ranger Invitations. I have been making all these cute Birthday Invitation for all my friends and customers (I even have two people fighting over the same invitation they want to use for their daughter's birthday, hee hee. You know who you are.) So here I am the owner of a stationery company and I don't make invitations for my son's party. Just nuts!

So we gave him a Power Ranger birthday. And he was happy.

What did my baby, I mean my four year old, want for his birthday?? Well .... A gun. A GUN!!! We have tried to talk him out of the gun thing because shooting people is bad. But as a wise person told me, "It is a boy thing and there is nothing we can do about." If we keep guns from him then he starts making a gun out of everything... even food. So we had a long talk with him that he can have a toy gun as long as he doesn't go around pretending to shoot people. And we talked a little about gun safety. That has worked pretty well.

Then he got his Star Wars Light Sabar. Wow he fell in love!

He has been carrying his light saber every where. And Brian has let him watch the first Star Wars and he uses his light saber with grace just like in the movie. He and Brian were watching the movie and all of a sudden Griffin said "Daddy hold my drink! " I have to use the light saber when they do it on the T. V." And he got up and followed along every time there was a light saber fight. Such a big boy.

This picture is of our little crew's children. They have all grown up together and all come to the family and friends birthday parties. Griffin in the front sporting his new pirate outfit. He is so funny.

So my baby is growing up. It's hard to believe how fast the time goes. You miss all those special moments like holding them until they fall asleep, cuddling and nursing, changing diapers.... crying and waking up all hours of the night... being tired all the time... Oh wait! What was I thinking? Maybe it is not so bad that he is growing up.... I will enjoy the small moments when he is tired and wants to rub my tummy and remember that no matter what, a small part of him will always be my baby!

When they placed you in my arms for the first time. It was love at first sight... I looked down and said "I know you" Even though you were brand new you looked so familiar like I had already known you forever. ~Wendy Perry

I get to work this morning and the first thing I noticed was my porch was empty.

If you have been to the store you may have noticed that I have a lot of plants on my porch. I love plants , flowers, anything that grows. Some of the plants that were on my porch have been with me for 10 years or more. One was a plant I had in my first classroom. Another started as a very small plant and I grew it into a wonderful large palm tree. Another was a plant that was given to me as an open house gift when we opened Little Fingers, Little Toes.

People that know me know how much my plants mean to me. My plants and my flowers.

So when I got to work this morning, and all my plants that I keep on my porch were gone I was so sad/mad. I had to call the police and fill out a report.

Someone stole 7 of my potted plants, my beautiful bird house I got at an art fair and my blue glass ball on a stake. How could someone do this? All I have done since I moved into this building was make that corner look nice. People that walk by my the garden like to look at the flowers and it makes people happy.

So who ever you are out there that took my plants. You had better take care of them. I hope you needed them more than I do. And if you would like to return them, that would be great! I promise no questions asked.

A few days late...
So what did you do for the 4th?

We spent the morning at a friend's house and went swimming.

Grilled turkey burgers for lunch and came home and took a long nap.

When it got dark we went to see the Big firework show in town and then did a few sparklers at home.

This was Griffin's first time playing with the sparklers. He was fascinated! And I had fun taking pictures of them.

Hope everyone had a great day too!!!