I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth...i.e. Loooooonng Post

Alright guys, overload time.

I feel like I've fallen off the face of the Earth. I've been so busy with all kinds of stuff that I haven't done a whole lot of other stuff, like interact or talk to other people. (sorry mom!) It also doesn't help when I lose my cell phone and can't locate it because it's been missing for a while and the battery is completely dead. (success, It's been found now!). Our kids have also taken turns passing around a stomach bug the last 2 weeks. That's fun. I love washing all kinds of blankets and sheets. You know how I love laundry.

Since my last post 2 months ago we've done so many things. Let me sum up...

yeah right, you know I'm going to give you every detail.

Meagan's school had a little program about our country. It was pretty cute. I'm glad they did it. I think a lot of people are losing sight of what makes this country so great and where we've come from since its founding. Good to know they are teaching my kids at least. Each kid had a part in between lots of songs they learned. Meagan had to fill in for one of the kids' parts.

They had the audience join in on the Star Spangled banner. Sadly, most of the people either didn't want to sing or they didn't know the song. A lot of people were looking around confused like they didn't know the words or something. It makes me sad and worried that patriotism is getting lost these days.

At the end of February we went skiing in Flagstaff. Way fun! The kids did really great.

This is Meagan's second time skiing. First time a couple of years ago didn't go over too well. But by the end of the 1st day she could do this.

She was racing me down the mountain after a while. I'm a scaredy cat so she usually beat me.

Here is Candace's "skiing".

...and here's how Seth did it.

Justin said he loved it and was saying "uuuuaaaaahhhhh" every time he turned a corner. Most of the time he hung out in the lodge with whoever was recuperating. We went with a big group so we could get the group discount. He was really good, but I think he started getting separation anxiety by the end of the 2 days.

I also did really well. I didn't biff it until my last run on the last day. My ski hit a hole and twisted my foot around, causing me to eat snow. I was trying to film Meagan skiing so I just took my video shots and told Meagan to wait while I figured out how to get my ski back on. It took me, no joke, 20 min to figure out that the ski had popped off and not released the locking mechanism. It usually does when your foot comes out, but it must have come off with too much force, too quickly and my ski would not go back on. I figured it out after I had the brilliant idea to compare it to my other ski which was still attached. By that time Meagan got confused about where I was and just headed down the mountain without me. She was okay but my shoulder muscle still hurts from that fall. I'm just glad it happened at the very end of the trip and not in the middle when there was still some good ski time left.

Their first bath all together. We won't be doing that again. The water was a little too deep for Seth.

I also had some recuperating time after all that. I had laser eye surgery in March. I'm no longer legally blind! 20/20 vision, as long as I don't let my eyes dry out. I have to use a lot of eye drops though. No big deal, after dealing with contacts and glasses most of my life. I lost my last pair of contacts and my glasses broke after the ski trip. It was difficult to try to ski with glasses. You have to have some sun and wind protection and goggles weren't fitting too well over my glasses. That's why they broke. Hooray for me! I still catch myself trying to push my glasses up on my nose, or thinking, "oh, I need to take out my contacts". Nope! Ah, it's beautiful.

I've still been doing some crafting and home organization. I made a diaper bag for my friend who just had a baby. I wish I could have kept that sweet awesomeness. But, it's better to give than to keep for myself.

 Finished product. Alyssa, if you're reading, this is what yours would look like. You can pick the colors/fabric design you want, of course.

Inside Detail

Front detail.

The girls helped me paint their shelf/hook rack. They picked the color. I had to hang it low enough for Candace to reach so she could hang up her dress-ups and put her little "treasures" on the shelf.

 And...their room has been a lot cleaner. Brilliant!

I've been doing a little kitchen organization, too. I got a magazine holder to put all my small spiral cookbooks in. They kept falling over in the cabinet and getting lost. Such a frustrating mess. And, I got rid of the powdery flour and sugar bags that haunted the a fore mentioned cabinet, with accompanying scoops. You know, the Raisin Bran box kind of scoops. I'm lovin' it. Yep, pretty easy to please. Plus it's more convenient because I want to start baking a lot of bread. I made some cinnamon raisin bread the other day. The kids loved it. I think it needed a little more work before I'm happy with my bread baking abilities. Now I just hope I can remember the Thanksgiving bread-making lesson me and the other sister-in-laws got from Mamma Paul.

And finally, IT'S...!

I love pastels, the perfect weather, nice breezes and the chance to grow something green around here.

Here's our first real attempt at a garden. I would love to have tomatoes or lettuce whenever I want. 

It's going pretty good so far. I got a timer to water it automatically. Cause last year I kept forgetting to water everything and it all died.

Here's an idea that I thought was pretty cool. Toilet paper rolls double as seed starters. I got the idea from here. What an awesome (free) use for something you'd throw away anyways.

 

Want another great use for toilet paper rolls? I know you do. 

Fire starters. My mom taught me how to do these. Stuff them with dryer lint and dryer sheets and they light up like the Fourth of July. Saves you from searching for kindling when you're camping, or if you have your own fireplace. We go camping a lot so it's useful for us. I never thought I would wish for more empty toilet paper rolls in our house.

Just make sure you don't stuff them too full. They won't get enough air inside to stay lit. You could also poke holes in the side to let in some air. We tried them out last weekend when we went camping. They worked like a charm. I wished burning the whole bag I had would have helped keep me warm but there wasn't enough firewood in the world for that. Yeah, I know. Camping in April in the mountains...bad idea. Well, it was. Freezing cold all night long, and I mean freezing. One of the worst night's sleep ever. We were going to try out a new rock climbing place the next day but we were all so cold and miserable we just wanted to go home before the rains came. Yep, rain. I don't care how much the kids are looking forward to camping or how much we promised them we would do but I will never go camping again when the forecast says, Low - 33, 30% chance of rain. I was already halfway done packing all our gear by the time I saw the forecast or I would have absolutely said "no way. I don't care what I promised you we would do this weekend." and suffered through the whining and complaining that would inevitably follow.

But on a good note, we all took long hot showers and cozied up to a movie and hot chocolate when we got home. We stayed in all day. I do love doing that every once in a while.

Loads of videos of our cute kids

 We were eating pizza for dinner one night. Meagan loves to make up random songs...kind of like me and Justin. This is her "ode to cheese".

 Then Justin came home from work and got in on the action. These guys crack me up.

 This is how Seth learned to walk. Turns out we didn't need a walker after all.

Here are some of his first steps. Thank you small stool for teaching him how to do it.

 Here's Meagan's 7th birthday party. She wanted a blackforest cheesecake for her birthday. Who am I to deny the wishes of a 7 year old? The kids mostly just played outside while the adults talked and ate. My kind of party.

 Alright you. Stop growing so fast.
















                          And finally, I got a new haircut.

Customize a slideshow desig

Cleanse and Purge! ...and catch up.

Alright, catchup time. I've got so much cute stuff to show you. 

So, since Christmas I took this sweet little picture of Seth enjoying his new tricycle. Man, they've come a long way in tricycle design. It's so convenient to steer it with the handle. He absolutely loves riding in that thing, if you couldn't tell.

 

Next up is the treasure chest I Spy bag I made for Christmas. That one was fun to make.

I've been busy with getting organized in my house. Every Christmas when we bring in the onslaught of new stuff we just got...I've got to figure out where to put it. So it was time for a purge. 

I went through all the girls' dress-ups they don't wear much and put them in a box in the top of their closet. I'm so sick of finding toys and dress-ups all over the floor that they didn't even play with. Useless cleanup time. Then, I went through all of their old clothes they've grown out of and bagged them up to take to Twice As Nice. It's a second hand store here in Tucson that will buy your clothes from you and resell them. Unfortunately they only took a small stack of the five bags I brought in, so I still have most of them in a big storage tub in my kitchen. arrrrr..... Someone please tell me their method for choosing which clothes to buy off you and which ones to give back with a huge stamp of disapproval and a frownie face. Man, there was some seriously cute stuff in there they didn't look twice at. Does anyone want girls size 2T and 3T clothes for just about every season? Cause it's yours for the very low price of FREE!

I did get to organize their closet though. I got some of those hanging shelves for their shoes and the clothes they wear that aren't dirty but would otherwise wind up on the floor. Man, what an awesome idea I had for that. ;) Their room has been a lot less messy after installing those bad boys. Plus it also has a hanging bar midway down so short little Candace can hang up her dresses all by herself. Fantastic! It got my cleanse-and-purge juices all flowing.

Next room up for organizing was...mine. My sewing area, to be more precise.

I got those frames for $2.50 in those sweet little bit-o-heaven bargain bins at the front of Target. I finds so much good stuff there for cheap it almost makes me want to cry...almost. Just a little paint and mod-podge over the hot pink and lime green colors that graced those little gems and I got a list for all my sewing/crafting projects I want to do and a peg board for pinning up sewing instructions, fabric measurements, etc. Plus I finally got a little pen caddy to catch all the tape measur-er thingies and scissors that always got lost under the sea of unfinished projects. Wooh, feelin' good. And if you look closely, yes, Elaina and Reina, I'm planning on making you some sweet, styling new diaper bags. And if you order in the next...month, maybe...you can pick the colors and size you want. Don't delay! By the way, if anyone else wants a diaper bag, just let me know. ;)

The next thing I've done is whipped out these bad boys. Well, more like sweet, innocent, young princesses. That's Cinderella and Princess Peach (from every Mario game ever made). I've been promising them these dresses for Christmas, birthdays and before the end of time. I finally did them.

 Whew, one more item checked off my project list. 

 These next two I did a few months ago. Finally got around to getting a frame for Meagan's school pictures. I kind of want to do something about all that white, but no ideas have jumped out at me yet.











 Plus, here's a plaque that I made assembled. I've been keeping busy.

Let's see. What else do I have? Oh yes. New dishes, finally. No more mismatched, broken, incomplete different sets for me...well until the kids break some of these. Or me. I'm pretty clumsy when I'm pregnant or hormonal. Does anyone else just love square plates? Yeah, me too. Candace was so excited to use the new plates. She may have been as excited as me. I don't know.

 Here's a little valentine's love for y'all. My sweet hubby got me these.

...and I made him these.

AHAHAHA! Good ol' heart shaped sugar cookies. Gotta keep the romance alive, you know. Yeah I stole the idea off some other mom's blog. Which brings me to my next point. I'm seeing where all you cute ladies out there are gettin' your awesome ideas from. Blogs and Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I CAUGHT YOU! I was flipping through my latest BHG magazine (just got a subscription a few months ago, awesome) and saw something I was admiring at someone else's house a few months back. Then I realized, this isn't the first time I've caught someone cheating by getting their ideas from other awesome sources. It's alright, I mean, I'm cheating now too, I guess. I'm just sad I didn't have these idea factories at my disposal years ago.

Alright, now for this next picture, don't adjust your monitor. Your eyes are fine. You are not seeing double.

 Seth sure loves his daddy. This was a complete accident. I noticed it when he was holding Seth that they were dressed just alike.














Helping me with chores. That's Seth's favorite spot in the kitchen. And by favorite I mean next favorite spot after his high chair while stuffing his face.

He doesn't like it when I move him away from the dirty water while I'm loading that thing.

Stay tuned for some really cute/funny videos on my next post. I figure I've been at this long enough for now.

Walking and mashed pototoes

Seth is finally walking! He's pretty funny because he sticks his hands out like he's trying to grab someone to steady his little feet. He'll only go 5-10 steps, fall down and then start crawling. Oh well. At least it's progress.

So tonight at dinner we had mashed potatoes. Candace looks at me with a pained expression after eating some and says, "Mom, I couldn't swallow that junk of potatoes". Justin and I cracked up. We can't laugh in front of her though because she thinks we're laughing at her. We tried real hard to bury our faces in our hands. Apparently "junk" means "a whole lot of something". Maybe they are trying to say "chunk", I don't know. Justin was trying to make a face at her right before she said that and without evening breaking her stride she saw his face and stuck out her tongue. Not even a smile or a giggle. What a character. I love our little sweeties.

Christmas Nativity and a Texas Christmas

Before we left for Christmas, Meagan volunteered to rake the leaves. What a sweet girl. It's not too hard to get her to help out when we're working.

See those chairs? They use them to climb the tree. Pretty ingenious. I just hope they don't fall out of the tree and hit those bricks.

We went to San Antonio for Thanksgiving, and again for Christmas. But, this time we spent most of the time in Houston with my family. It's a 15 hr drive to Houston so we usually stop over at the Paul Hotel in San Antonio. ;) We were only there for a few days, but we got to put on a Nativity. Justin's mom has accrued quite the collection of costumes. They're gathered from the Philippines, India and Cambodia, thanks to Dad's, Josh's and Justin's missions there, respectively.

In order to make it a little more interesting I've put the pics and videos on a little presentation slide show...thingy...

Unfortunately the videos were too big so I had to break it up.

Another free digital ecard by Smilebox

Customize a free digital greeting

Customize your own free digital ecard

This free digital ecard made with Smilebox

Create your own free digital greeting card

Personalize a free digital greeting

I'm really glad we got to do that. I think it helps the kids recognize the real meaning of Christmas.

Christmas morning was fun too.

Opening stockings

Here's the I Spy bags I was making. They love to play with them during church. (yes!)

Successful project. Thank heaven.

I had a lot of leftover charms that I filled the I Spy bags with so I decided to get them a charm bracelet to put them on. Meagan loves jewelery, as you can see.

Candace...not so much.

Sethy boy was sweet enough to show me his train. He's really not old enough to appreciate it yet. All in due time, my boy.

Hooray for warm fuzzies!

Good thing I got them some warm stuff. It got cold while we were there and I didn't pack much warm stuff.

Happy girls. The Nintendo DS was invented for long car trips. Thank you modern technology.

I made a weighted blanket for my dad too. Hopefully he'll sleep better at night. He loves lavender...go figure.

Here's little Breannah's weighted blanket.

And here's where the other I Spy bags went.

Probably my favorite moment of the day. Candace went to find a "quiet spot" to enjoy her new story book reader...in the laundry room. What can I say, we've got a lot of family and they're not exactly quiet enough for a little light reading.