Life is Beautiful

Motherhood, Sewing, Family

look mom, i’m in a commercial!

~ Etc.

while on set.  i had to balance on a stool while ton of fans were blowing on me
and two people right by me in case i fell down haha.

i recently did a shoot for a commercial which happened so unexpedtedly.  i got an email from a director apologizing for cyber stalking me but how he found me and wanted to work with me in a commercial.   it seemed easy enough(no talking required and nothing scandalous!) and the pay was good so i was like why not?!  it was for a sleep medicine website, http://www.deep-z.com/ where  you can also view the video. 

my husband can’t get enough of making fun of me for the dusting my shoulders off move. he’ll say something like, “wait, what? i didn’t hear you because i was in a deep-z.” and then he would dust his shoulders off.  hahaha, i think he’s pretty funny.  and i do love a good opportunity to laugh at myself. ๐Ÿ˜‰

papa was here.

~ Etc.

my father-in-law(which i call him just dad) was in town for work and stayed with us for a few days.  it’s always a treat when he visits because not only does my husband and i love his company, our girls adore him and can never get enough of papa.  it also means we get to go out to eat at his favorite places which we don’t mind at all either. ๐Ÿ˜‰

my dress c/o of romwe.
aren’t you so glad the girl behind dad made it in the picture?
speaking of parents, i went to my parents’ house tonight to drop off some homemade pizza and chatted with them for a little bit(wasn’t that a smooth transition?  huh?  huh…?  hello…?) and as i was leaving, my mom came out and stood outside to watch me while i put my shoes on, get in the car, drive away, and waved at me until i was out of sight.  she does this everytime i come and go but tonight as i was waving back and driving away, i started getting teary eyed.  it made me have flashbacks of my teenage years, walking home to meet my curphew and many times i saw from a far distance a little figure walking back and forth on our driveaway, anxiously waiting for me to come home safely.  she would quietly stay up in her room if i was late and wait for me while awake until i came home and only then would she go to sleep in peace, knowing that her little daughter was home safe and sound.

i just felt such abundance of gratitude and love towards my parents who are such good parents, so loving, forgiving, supportive and wise.  no matter how much i try to give back to them it’ll never be enough, but i will surely try my hardest to balance my side of the end. 

then i thought about some things i’ve learned over the years.  yeah, it sure was a deep drive. ๐Ÿ™‚
1.  my parents will always love me and it’s one of the greatest, most pure love i will receive on this earth.  i loved my parents before i myself became a parent but now that i’m a mother, the love and the gratitude i have towards them is so much more deep and sincere.  when i was pregnant and had morning sickness and felt like throwing up all day long i thought, ‘my mom went through this with me.’  when i was in labor and my body was shaking uncontrollably and tears voluntarily ran down my face from the intense pain i thought, ‘my mom felt this much pain to have me.’  when i woke up every 2-3 hours in the night to feed my little one and i was so tired and delirious i thought, ‘my mom did this for me.’  and those thoughts continue with me every difficult moment of motherhood, ‘my mom went through this to raise me.’ 

2.  whatever i do, every decision i make, whether good or bad, affects them greatly.  when i make a wrong choice, a bad choice, a horrible choice, it hurts them more than it hurts me and it breaks their hearts.  i never linked it until i had children of my own but when i sin, it’s like a big slap in their face(and worse) because they sacrificed so much to raise me to be a good person, a kind person, and i’m not living up to their hopes and dreams they had of me since i was born.

3.  when i’m angry towards someone, every second that passes by is a second wasted that i will never get back.  life goes on and once my anger is gone and we make up, those wasted times will never be made up.  if i’m mad at my husband for example, it affects him and the kids and the atmosphere of our home.  and when i could  have made happy memories for my husband, our girls’ childhood, and for my family as a whole, i have made a sad, empty memory instead.  our girls will keep growing up, my husband and i will keep getting older and i will never have that moment of their childhood or our marriagehood again.  (is that a word, marriagehood?)  anyway so intead of being angry, sad or hurt, i need to realize that life goes on and that life is short, and it won’t wait for me.  that i need to let my pride go and not waste any of my precious time and their precious time in being negative but to rejoice and live every moment happily and full of love.

4.  i will always regret being unkind to someone.  no matter who it is and what they did to me.   but i will never ever regret forgiving someone, doing good to someone, speaking kind words to someone, complimenting someone, or saying thank you to someone.
life is beautiful if i let it be.  and i intend to make it as beautiful as i can.

cornbelly’s

~ Etc.

we went to the cornbelly’s corn maze and pumpkin festival
at thanksgiving point over the weekend.

the girls got their face painted because they really really wanted to even though the whole time i was like, “man, $7 for that?  i could paint that for like 20 cents!” 
little miss was scared of this giant scary looking clown wandering in front of the haunted corn maze and wouldn’t let go of daddy.  she kept looking around for him to make sure he wasn’t anywhere near her and kept saying, “where’s the scary looking guy?”
when my little miss was on a bouncy thing, an employee came up to us and told us shoes were not allowed and we needed to take her shoes off.  we had to explain to him that it was those socks that’s made to look like it was shoes hahaha.

hope everyone had a beautiful weekend!

mindy gledhill.

~ Etc.

image via mindy’s blog

mindy gledhill contacted me a week ago and asked me if I could help alter her dress for her newest music video, winter moon.  ๏ปฟshe found out about my blog through her little sister Lindsey, who is my HS friend and thanks to lindsey, I met another awesome girl with an amazing talent.  I fell completely in love with her with the very first song I heard.  She has a beautiful, angelic voice and her music uplifts and makes me so happy!
She was so kind, down to earth, and genuine and she was kind enough to bring me her albums Anchor, and Winter Moon, her Christmas album which hasn’t even been released yet!  Those two albums are the only music I’ve been listening to for the past week and she is definitely my favorite right now.  my kids and I’ve been having dance parties to it too, i just can’t get enough!  So i’m so excited I got to help her in a small way to make the music video for winter moon. 

 this is the dress in it’s original.  she wanted me to modestify it.

after:
(this was mainly her idea and i just executed it.)

the back of the dress

She’ll be filming the music video tomorrow and I cannot wait to see it! 
 It’ll have puppets in it who also sing with her, how cool/cute is that?
p.s: to listen to some of her music, go here.  #1, #3, #9 are some of my favorites. 
p.p.s: see mindy’s blog post about our encounter here.
*UPDATE:
Mindy Gledhill’s newest music video winter moon is here!

Image via mindy’s blogpost: What a weekend
She also posted about meeting me and working with me on her blog post here, 

girl’s camp part one.

~ Etc.

my girlfriends and i went camping at the zions national park for our girls’ trip.
have you ever heard of girls taking a girls’ trip to go camping?  us neither!
but somebody’s gotta be the first to do it and we had such a blast, i want to go again!
right when we got to the campsite, what’s the first thing we did?  EAT of course!
after we got our bodies fueled up, we went on a hike. 
we treaded water 90% of the time, and the water was FREEZING.
and there was a man right in front of us in his….um….undies? 
and my friend becky said to us, “hurry, sarah and janie!  go right behind that man
so i can take a picture! ”  so we tried to catch up to him and apparently janie was
a little too excited at the idea and went off running and tripped on a rock
and fell into the cold, freezing water.
see janie’s little feet on the right corner? 
my FAVORITE moment of the trip right here. ๐Ÿ˜‰
and we conquered.
i think the girls were a little worried about me in the beginning of the hike
because if there was a big step to do down or something, not one, not two,
but three girls would be below me, reaching out their hands to help me get down
 or when the water was a little rough they thought i’d “get drifted away by the water”
and when one of my friends becky almost tripped before i grabbed her
and saved her life from the endless depths of the sea(you’re welcome) she said,
“whoa! who would’ve thought sarah would help me?” hahaha.
but to their surprise(and me too), they said i had stamina and i was
one of the ones leading everybody else in the end!
and i found my new favorite hobby: hiking.  i love it!