See you over there.

WordPress and I are not getting along as of late.

It just won’t let me do what I want to do. I’ve never been able to design this blog the way I wanted to and so I’m moving back.

Back here.

I know what your thinking…I never blog anyway. But I would like to change that soon. I’ve been a little obsessed with Facebook for the past year, along with everyone else. And while I love popping in to read everyone’s quick status, I miss the stories, the photos with explainations, the personal stuff.  I miss writing down all the things my kids do so that we can remember them.

We all know I’ll still be on facebook.

You did read obsessed, right? (I’m fully aware it’s not healthy. I’m working on that.)

Alrighty then, I gotta go stop Sara from biting Jena.

No, I’m not making that up.

See you over here.

and just because…

there really are no words…

Kids are so funny

Jena…
Jena, Jena, Jena
This girl keeps everyone on their toes. When she is not in her famous Drama Queen Mode she is hilarious.

As you know we’ve been remodeling the bathroom. We had no plans of replacing the toilet. That is until Barry cracked the tank bolting it down. (he still doesn’t want to talk about.). So off we went to get a new toilet.
And who knew those things were so expensive! Wow! You live and you learn.
When the kids got home from school I learned something else. A new toilet is apparently a BIG deal!the excitement was totally unexpected and frankly really entertaining.
Jena would not go more than 10 feet from the bathroom while Barry got it installed. We soon realized the reason why.
She wanted to be the first to use it! She was squealing with delight. Who cares that there was no door on the bathroom (not that that ever concerns her), who cares if there is no toilet paper. She was goin to be the first! And she was. (I think Barry had actually testimgnit out himself but we aren’t going to ruin it for her.)
As entertaining as this all was, I didn’t think much about it after. Until today, when I discovered her shelves. Check out the doll house toilet on the bottom shelf. We now have a shrine to ‘The Throne’.
Funny girl.

family movie night and a few other things…

does anyone else have movie night in their laundry baskets?

i’m assured it’s ‘so comfortable!’

loved the Blindside by the way.

Sara got her new cast on. taking the old one off was a bit traumatic but she loves the pink.

unfortunately we may be going back to  get it replaced again. they wrapped it so high it pinches her little bum every time she stands.

i’ve started working on all the crib bedding only to discover i ordered a 1/4 yard less than needed. which is a problem when it’s pretty much sold out in every local store!

grrrr.

i have one bumper pad half done and decided to put up the crib to make sure it was the right size.

that may have been a mistake because Sara has taken her asking for the baby to come out from once a day to about 10 times a day.  ryan is so excited to have a brother he can hardly stand it. jena as usual is pretty uninterested in the whole thing…or she’d like you to think.

barry finally grouted the tile last night so we will hopefully have the bathroom put back together by the weekend. hopefully i can get some decent pictures of it.

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and just for those who don’t know

these two finally got engaged!

woo hoo!

AND

she won them a honeymoon to Mexico!

wow, i’m totally jealous.

A little impromptu DIY project

We have wanted to take out few shelves in our back closet for a long time and make a spot for all the kids ‘Stuff’.  Last Friday Barry decided to get to it. Then he asked if I wanted to paint the closet while it was empty.  Of course the answer was, ‘duh, Yes!’  I also wanted to finish painting this back hall and stairs and bathroom.  We have had the paint sitting around since we remodeled the kitchen last year, so why not?

Nothing special as far as color goes, just the same tan from the rest of the main level. But oh, how I love freshly painted walls! Especially right inside your garage door that is the dumping zone for everyone’s stuff.

But like we usually do…suddenly we were redoing the entire half bath. Cabinet out, toilet out, floor out.

This is Barry painting a wall.

He does NOT paint.

I paint.

He will do anything but paint.

But seeing as I kept leaving big circular belly marks on the walls, he didn’t have much choice.

Here is our little PBJ covered helper Scooter, which is what her dad has started calling her since her broken leg.  She is very good at bossing everyone around.

The girls kept us entertained with music. This is their tripod turned microphone that they sing into every afternoon.

Laminate Glue is a bugger to get off!

And here is the latest condition of the bathroom.  Everything is painted and Barry started laying the tile last night.

Please note the bottom piece of tape, “Do Not Wail On Tile”.  This is what happens when you tile at 3am. Wail and Walk become the same thing. :)  The kids thought that was very funny when they discovered it this morning.

Hopefully this project will be done in a few days.  I wish I could get better pictures of it but that is a challenge in a 3×3 hall and a 5×5 bathroom.

And for everyone who wants to say this is me ‘Nesting’, you are probably right. But it’s Barry nesting too. He does it right along with me every time I’m pregnant.  Sort of like the first time I was pregnant, with Ryan, and I gained 25 lbs and he gained almost 40 lbs.

Seriously. :)

Bucky

Jena finally lost her tooth.  I’ll spare you the dramatic details but she is happy it’s gone and happy that her Aunt Teri can not longer call her Bucky.

Now if i could just get her to stop cutting her hair! It’s become a once a year tradition for her since she was 3.  Fortunatly it was very minimal this time around. Only about and inch of the bottom on a very small section near her face.  I told her she could cut it all she wanted but I wasn’t going to take her to the salon to get it fixed.  After 4 times I think that may have cured her because that is exactly what she wanted.

We’ll just have to wait and see….

Our Christmas Mishap

As I mentioned in a previous post, we had a little accident while sledding on Christmas Day.

I have since learned the culprit was probably this sledding apperatus.

Not the best choice when the snow is hard as ice but is sure does go fast.

Jena loved it but came home with a bit of a sore bum.

And I’m not sure Grandpa is ever going to get over feeling totally responsible.

Poor Grandpa. :(

I felt worse for him the first few days and I did Sara.

She was so tired when she got hurt that we couldn’t really tell if she was more hurt or tired.  But that whole evening she wouldn’t walk on it but only cried a little.  The next day is was obvious when she didn’t even want you to touch it that something was wrong.  Although, I still can’t believe how little she cried or fussed about.

So we took her to the Doctor, who pulled and squeezed her leg hard enough he was thinking it couldn’t be broken because she hardly even whimpered but refused to look or speak to him.

But after the x-ray it was very obvious is was broken all the way through the bone right below her knee at the top of the tibia. (no clue how to spell that.)

So they put a splint on her leg all the way to her bum and told us to go to an Orthopedic to get a cast on Monday. (it was saturday.)

Just for the record, giving a two year old a sucker after pulling and proding and splinting her broken leg does not mean you are friends.

It was an interesting 2 days trying to go potty and sit in a car seat and pretty much everything else.  Buy Monday she was absolutely miserable and crying non stop. She kept telling me her foot hurt and not her leg. When we finally got to the Orthopedic Doctor he did another x-ray on her foot but couldn’t see anything wrong.  But once they took the splint off  we discovered it was pulling her foot down and probably causing cramping and pain. Once they put the actual cast on and had her bones muscles and bones at proper angles she didn’t complain a bit.

You can’t tell here but she does have a cast on and Teri helped her paint her toes nice and pretty.  Teri also got her toes painted. ;)

For the next 3 weeks she will be in a bent cast so that she can’t walk and then for 2-3 weeks she will be in a straight cast that she can walk with.  We had to go buy her several new stretchy pants and jammies that could fit over the cast and I’m glad this cast is only half way up her thigh so that going potty is not such a trick!

As you can see it hasn’t slowed her down much. A big thick sock and a plastic bag and she right back out sledding.  Although she did say as we were getting dressed to go out, ‘I not break my other leg. K?’

Here she is sledding in our backyard.

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Bathing has also become pretty interesting. Luckily I have a big kitchen sink and she thinks it’s fun.

She laughs the whole time we wash her hair because the water tickles.

Here she is tonight getting around just fine.

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She’ll have her straight cast on when I have this new baby so that should help.

Right now I’m just hoping that all the carrying her around will put me into labor!

Wishful thinking.

Sewing and I are once again friends

I finally got a new sewing machine.

I adore it.

It sews just like it’s suppose to. I wasn’t asking much, just some even stitches and correct tension, that’s all I wanted!

It’s the Bernina Activa 220. A pretty basic machine really but it does have 20 or so extra fun stitches.

It does Free Motion Quilting like a dream. Being that I’ve never had a machine that did it correctly, it’s a dream to me.   After researching for about 4 weeks it came down to this or a $4000 machine.  I looked really hard but I couldn’t seem to find the 4 Grand lying around. :)  I also found that at least 4 of the professional quilter’s I follow either started on this machine or still use it.

So I have finally started finishing up some things I’ve had lying around for months.  I even ripped out all the quilting on a 50×60 quilt I had done on my old machine so I could redo it.  I’m so happy I did to.

I finally quilted my Wonderland  Table Runner and I decided to try some pattern quilting rather than just random stippling or loops.

Not horrible for my first try but not real impressive either.  There is definitely a talent to this art and I have yet to discover it.

I have decided that I don’t hate binding so much now that I have a decent machine.

I didn’t even curse once!

I’ve been seeing those new Car Seat Cover things around and decided I wanted one.  But I wasn’t about to spend $40 bucks on one. $12 is more my style. :)

(I do realized I just totally sounded like my mother, aunt and grandmother, claiming I could make anything for cheaper than you can buy it. Which is SO not true. But when it is, I’m all for it. So I don’t want to hear any comments from my sister or my cousins. You know I’m talking to you, Heidi, Amber and Teri!)

I also decided to put a very thin batting inside since I’m having a winter baby and wanted the warmth. I’ve never seen one with batting but I’m really happy with it.

I didn’t realize it when I bought the fabric but I like that it matches my car seat.

Barry looked at it and said, ‘So is that supposed to be for a boy?’

To which he receive the ‘I’m pregnant, cranky, don’t mess with me, evil eye’ from me.

And then he responded ‘well, I guess it’s kinda boyish’, and then he ran away.

Quickly.

A few minutes later he returned with a Pepsi for me and started rubbing my shoulders.

Smart Man.

:)

Now I’m just not so patiently waiting for this fabric to arrive by mail so I can get all the crib bedding made.

Cause ready or not I’m being induced on January 25th.

Nothing like cramming it in at the last minute!

Christmas

Barry worked on Christmas Eve so we told the kids they could not go down stairs until 7:20 when he got home.  My parents and sister where planning on being there about 7:15 also. But Barry ended up coming home early around 6:30 and the minute he opened the door the kids flew out of bed!  This is the part where Barry say’s I’m mean. I made the kids wait in our room until my family got here.  I’ve never thought a thing of it because I grew up next to my grandparents and we had to wait for them to come over every year before we could go open presents.

Anyway, the suspense was killing them! Here they are half way down the stairs, waiting for Granny, Grandpa and Teri to get here!

I knew Sara was going to be fun this year. She was so excited for every present she received. She could have opened one thing and been just as happy!

Santa brought both the girls their own brushes and I was SO happy about that!

Oh my, the drama one shared brush can cause!

This is the baby Sara cried and cried for every time we went into Target.

She can swim in the tub with you and even has her own tub toys!

Both girls loved their puppies from their cousins.

Ryan received not just one but two Nerf gun sets. They really are fun but I pretty much have Nerf darts in every corner of my house.

Here is the second gun. I’m still not sure who this was really for, Dad or Ryan?

Ry gave Jena a skateboard and the anticipation almost got the best of him for about 4 weeks.

Princess Sara…

(Who does Disney think is going to be wearing these outfits? Seriously Disney, get a clue and start making dress up clothes to fit children, not women with 34D’s!  I’m just sayin’.)

Granny playing Guess Who with the kids.

Jena…I’d explain, but I have no words.

That afternoon Teri and Grandpa bundled up the kids and took them sledding while the rest of us took a nap.  I’m thinking that needs to become a family tradition!

(This is also where we had a little Christmas mishap, but more on that later.)

This picture cracks me up! Sara is looking so sober but she giggles her head of all the way down the hill.

I think Grandpa was having the most fun.

Did anyone else get one of these? It might be my favorite present.  No, my Sewing Machine is my favorite but darn I love that Pioneer Woman.

Teri tried to teach the kids how to suck their hot chocolate through a Tim Tam cookie. Tried. :)

It was pretty entertaining.

Either way you have hot chocolate and mushy chocolate cookies so everyone is happy.

And just a little funny something to end with.  Did anyone else discover they still had Halloween Kitty lights on their front porch along with their Christmas Wreath?

Oops.

The Christmas Nativity

Teri decided we needed to act out the Christmas Nativity this year.

It was fun but we definitly need to organize better next year.

This is Mary.

She was adorable, what else can I say.

One of our Shepherds needed to check that his nose was clean.

All Clear.

Somehow Herod’s guards got a hold of Jesus.

It was a very reverent event.

We had a big breakthrough the past few months. Sara will not only be in the same room with Tori she has decided that she likes her too. See Tori, I knew she’d come around.

Grandpa Great…What do I say.

If you ever ask Grandpa Great to be in your nativity just make sure he doesn’t bring his own robe.

Because if he does you are not safe from stories involving the word naked and this robe.

Enough Said.

Our Joseph.

He was very happy to be apart of the whole thing.

“No Room!”

Ahhh, aren’t they cute?

Mary made sure the 3 wise men sat where they were supposed to.

We had very lively shepherds and a very boring Angel.

So boring I couldn’t get a normal picture of her.

See?

And She’s gone!

Our lovely cast after their award winning performance.

One of our Shepherds was a little stuck in his head-dress.

I think that might have been his favorite part.

Say hello to our audience.

Then it was off to your warm Jammies, soft blankets and cuddling with Aunt Teri.

Christmas project

I’ve wanted to make this table runner since last year.

I thought I was pretty happy with it but I used felted wool and it did not survive the abuse it got everyday.

I wanted it to be pretty primitive so I just zigzag stitched everything which I really like and I also loved the wool texture.

It ended up really stretched and wavy so I’ll be remaking it again next year.