NEED...NEW...FABRICS...SOON...

CAN'T...WAIT...MUCH...LONGER!! AAAHHH! Tomorrow won't get here soon enough! I'll try to post a pic of some of the new stuff tomorrow or Thurs.

Holten is 2!!

Cute shirt, huh?(PS. if you try to find this site, make sure you add the hyphen in the address, I almost posted something that I would not have been happy about!!! ;o) Cheris got this online and I love it! I think they go through 8. By the way, did you know or remember that 2 year olds do not smile or make eye contact when a camera is aimed at them? In fact, this particular stinker would actually stop midsmile whenever I would point my camera in his direction. I actually do remember this stage with my kids. It preceded the frozen cheesy smile stage that lasted for quite a while. At times we STILL revert back to that. Holten had lots of fun on his birthday! We got him some matchbox cars and a little rug covered with streets to zoom the cars along. He loved it. However, while his daddy persistently tried to teach him MAN-ly car sounds to make, he persisted right back with a sing-songy "Mer mer mer" as he pushed his cars along. The more animated and deep Jarod made his voice, the more girly Holten sounded. It was hilarious... wish I could add audio. Here's a nice pic of the family.

"Snow cute!"

OK. I PROMISE that won't be the title when I scrap this! ;o) But its late and I'm tired and I just couldn't come up with anything else...Any suggestions?

Couldn't resist this wintry photo-op just before we left for Holtens party. More pics from that later!

Gotcha, Keagan!

Maya is developing such a great sense of humor. Tonight, when it was time for bed, we were following the kids up the stairs and into their rooms. I followed Keagan and when he climbed into bed he noticed that every animal he owns was in a pile in the middle of his bed. Amongst them was Maya's Cheer Bear. He said, "hey, what's this girl toy doing in my bed?" I leaned out the door and threw it in her room. Then Keagan suddenly realized what was going on and said, "Where's Murray?" Simultaneously, Maya, in her bed, pulled Murray out from under her covers and held onto him with all her might. Of course, this prompted a running tackle by Keagan and some good natured wrestling over his beloved friend. Apparently, Maya had hatched this little plan to get some attention while the rest of her family was glued to the TV watching the Super Bowl. Just what they needed right before they were supposed to be falling asleep, but all of that giggling and fun-having is the good stuff, isn't it?

SPLAT!

Tonight we went to Keagan's science fair. His project was to see if an egg's shell was strong or weak. This was a big thing for Keagan. He really does well with homework, even with studying and reading, but projects, I've found, really aren't his thing. He needed a few gentle reminders to stay with me, but all in all he did a great job. He spent a lot of time on this... The experiment itself really didn't take all that long and actually it was fun, we were all involved in that. It was all the work after that he didn't enjoy. Making the project board for the fair might as well have been torture. Maya on the other hand was looking over our shoulders every step of the way. She kept saying, "I wish I had a project like this" and I wish I had to do all this stuff." Not surprising in the least... When the board was finished you'd have thought he had been forced to remain completely still for days. He got really silly and had all kinds of pent up energy. You can see that in the first picture. I guess maybe he was just relieved to be done. At the fair, every student got a blue ribbon for participating, that was a nice touch. Oh, and by the way, an egg IS strong... on one of the trials, it held 18 pounds of books before breaking...pretty impressive, huh?

Disco balls

I suppose the next few posts will be rather random. Instead of making one super long entry, I think I'll break it up into random thoughts by me. I'll browse through my pics and see what I find.

For Christmas, Maya got this fabulous sweatshirt, TWICE! I guess to match her sparkling personality. Both my dad's sisters chose this for her...while they were shopping several states away from each other. When Maya opened the first one the sun was shining in the window. She pulled it out of the gift bag and suddenly the whole room was brighter and sparkly spots of light reflected off of every surface. Chris and I gave the "WOW that's nice" look to each other and Maya beamed just a bright as the sweatshirt...my girl likes sparkle... Anyway, when she opened the second one, we waited for the awkward moment and she immediately exclaimed, "Yea! Now Kendall can have one too!!" Her friend Kendall is the friend she made when she was still 2, soon to be 3 years old. They went to Extended Care together the year BEFORE they started preschool. Now they are in kindergarten together. Next year when Maya switches to Boulevard, I think this might be one of the hardest hurdles for us to get past. Most of Maya's other school friends are also I guess what you could call "family friends" meaning we do things outside of school, too. We are trying really hard to get the Dunkin's involved in our small group and I think Maya would really love that! To have a guaranteed playdate once or more a month would be super.

"Wii" had a great Christmas!!

OK, I actually DID forget my blog's password, enough said.

Yes, we found a Wii for Christmas!! Actually, I found a Wii before Halloween, but thought that was a little too pricey for the candy bowl. Keagan was ecstatic and we have all enjoyed it since Christmas. You would be impressed to know that Chris and Keagan have pro status in bowling. Maya might be the luckiest bowler in the family. With her great skill and precision, she managed to get 6 strikes in a row the first weekend we had it. OK, maybe skill isn't accurate...Keagan has rebounded and since has bowled several games over 250...if only it could accurately predict actual bowling scores. We went a couple weeks ago and let's just say we didn't come close...Hopefully we will be able to avoid any of the "Wii-itis" that has been going around. I think it's hilarious that they have given a name to sore muscles and joints resulting from wildly flailing about the room. It must be hilarious to see someone playing through the window! It's no wonder one of the first changes made to the Wii was to add a strap to the remote.

Maya's "big" gift from us was a "big girl" bike. It came with training wheels, but on the first day we had it out, (gotta love a random 60 degree weekend in January) off came the training wheels and she was flying down the street with only a little support from Daddy.

Just as I expected...

This summer when I started this birdbath project I told Chris that if I was lucky, I would have the project done in time to store it for the winter. So, I guess you could say I waited until last night to finish because I didn't want to disappoint anyone by being done early... Anyway, I love how it turned out. The darkest color is a sort of iridescent blueish-purple. I just hope it doesn't blind anyone as the sun reflects off of it ;o)

Happy Birthday to you...

Well here are some of the pics from Maya's birthday tea... I am going to try to link you to the photo book I created so you can look at all of the pictures if you choose.

Does anyone remember all of these?! My mom saved mine...and they still smell good!

Maya and her friends had a great time at her party. I think they thought it was really cool to use fancy dishes and teacups...they took it so seriously. I don't think I've seen 8 little girls be that quiet at a party before!!

5 second rule

Tonight, Maya was dutifully putting the silverware away for me while I unloaded the rest of the dishwasher. I heard something fall and immediately turned to make sure there was no fork sticking out of her foot. I must have had a look of alarm on my face because she quickly picked up the fallen item and responded..."That's OK mama, it hasn't been 5 seconds yet, I don't think.". That's my girl! Heehee.

TRICK or TREAT, SMELL MY FEET!!

OK. Don't know why I can't get these to be upright, but you get the idea... Strawberry Shortcake and David Beckham were at my house today!! Nic and Kyle came over to Trick or Treat with us and so did Brooke and Breanna for a little while. After we made it through our neighborhood, we went to see Mrs. Patty and Mrs. Johnson at their houses. Got lots and lots of yummy candy!!

It's HOT!

Here is my newly tiled fireplace!! It does not have grout yet and needs a bit of trim, but that is next weekends project. Chris, my dad and brother tackled this job on Sat. and did a fantastic job! Too bad it took us over a year to decide what tile we wanted... It really does look great and can't wait to see the project finished!!

All right, already...

I didn't really realize this was going to be this hard. This...whole... blog... thing. I think I am putting too much pressure on myself to make each entry something special or funny. But I realized today that I'm missing on documenting the little stuff waiting on something BIG to happen.

I, like every other mom out there, have also been really busy. In the past two weeks, I have had 7 soccer games and 7 alamode design sessions. That is in addition to work, dance, tumbling, and 2 parent teacher conferences... I have helped design 67 bags in the past 2 weeks and 101 just this month! That is crazy! Tonight I had a huge party and sold 27 bags. Let's go shopping!!

I learned at the P/T conferences that my kids need to straighten up, OK so maybe not. It really makes you feel good when you get through one of those and the teacher says, "Really, your child is a dream." Both kids did really well...Maya may have to work on controlling her gift for gab, but otherwise no major issues. ;o)

Maya's birthday is coming up next Tues. It's going to ruin the Halloween costume reveal, but here are her invites, I think they turned out pretty cute.

This was a costume my mom made for me, I think in 1st grade. I have put her on the hunt to find a picture of me in it. I was so excited to see Maya in it, it didn't even need to be altered. I just rolled her sleeves up one time, well, because she didn't inherit my long "monkey arms". I can't wait for her party. We are going to have a tea party and use my Grandmas collection of teacups and teapots. I know this sounds risky for a bunch of 6 year olds, but my Grandma is tickled pink that someone wants to use her things...she could really care less if something got damaged. I can't wait to set the table and send her a picture. I just wish she could make it here to see it in person.

Keagan had "tryouts" for basketball this week. They don't "cut" kids, but they do fill the teams with a "draft" of sorts. This is the first time for Keagan to play other than in the driveway, so I was curious to find out from Chris what was expected from a kid his age. When they got home, Chris commented privately to me that he thought Keagan would do fine...that he was, in his mind, a solid middle of the road as far as ability. We knew 2 of the coaches going into it. Today, Daddy got news that made his day. His boy was first pick of the second round by a coach that we don't know. So we'll see how it goes, hopefully his coach makes things fun and not stressful.

Well, night night...off I go to dream about purse fabrics. ;o)

What I learned at corn festival...

1. I learned that I shouldn't stay out until 4am.


2. I learned that my cousin Amy is fun to hang out with.


3. I learned that I shouldn't eat an entire caramel apple at 3 in the morning.


4. I learned that Amy can play, I mean REALLY play the drums!!


5. I learned that sitting on the street for 2 hours straight watching a parade is hard on the rear end.


6. I learned that walking 8 blocks for a $6 pork chop on a stick is not really worth it.


7. I learned that staying awake after this crazy visit for a 3 1/2 hour drive home was not going to be easy.


8. I learned that getting up for work the next day was going to be even harder...

OK. Maybe I already knew some of these things, but for some reason I chose to completely ignore any common sense that might have tried to make an appearance. We made a whirlwind tour through Morris for the festival. Maya and I were there for a total of 26 hours and Chris for only 17. In that time, we went to Aunt Debbie's for dinner, went to the carnival, watched a great fireworks show, went out to the bars, did I mention eat an entire, huge, caramel apple?, sat around a bonfire in Sarah's backyard, and sat through about 1 1/2 hours of a parade. Oh, I guess the other thing "I" did was manage to leave all of our sleeping blankies and stuffed friends at Grandma's house. That was fun to manage on my lack of sleep. Thankfully Memaw is coming for grandparents day on Thursday, so all will be well and the world will be made right when the necessary sleeping paraphernalia is returned to its rightful owners. When you remove the tired and grumpy factors post weekend, we all really had a great time. The "real" reason for heading north was to see my aunt, uncle and cousin, Amy. She is 8years my junior and has always lived in Arkansas. In the past 11 years, I think I have only seen her 3 times... So really, I have never known her as an adult. It was really nice to "hang out" with her and get to know her. She is a great girl and a lot of fun. However I feel this week, it was worth it if only for that reason. ;o)

I've been checking alamode's blog quite often, and let me tell you, there have been some really cute bags designed lately. Can't wait to get mine. And, my messenger bag. I will, for sure, post pics when I get them. Make sure you check out the blog!

Done for now...

Time flies...

My gosh, where has the time gone? I can't believe I am taking 6year old pictures for Maya. I wanted to get them taken before she loses her first tooth. I'm not even sure if her tooth is "ready" to come out, but she is determined to wiggle it until it does. She can't wait for this weekend, her big plan is to bite into one of Marta's famous caramel apples at the corn festival back in my hometown. I will, of course, also take pictures after she loses her tooth, but I wanted to get some good pics of all those tiny little teeth.

I put her in two different outfits... The polka dot outfit is what she wore on the first day of kindergarten. She also loves that cowboy hat, so I thought that would be a good choice to remember her at 6 years old. The second is a more subdued outfit, both to get some pics of Keagan and Maya together and for the picture idea I stole from my friend Lori. She had the same shot taken of each of her girls as they entered kindergarten. It is a good way to document how they write their names. I only wish I had seen the idea as Keagan was entering kindergarten...

I just love the way this one turned out!! Thanks, Lori!! Here are some of the pics of Keagan and Maya together...

and one last one... Am I lucky or what!!!