Baby It's Cold Outside

Have I ever mentioned that I don't like the cold, snow, ice, or anything else that you would associate with the winter season? I got rid of pretty much everything that I owned when I moved to CA that had anything to do with cold weather b/c hey cold in SoCal is like 65 degrees right? So we come here to NC almost 10 years ago (to the day btw) and while most of the time the weather is quite enjoyable it hasn't been this winter. Brrr! Woke up this morning and it was like 12 degrees. The ice that is on my driveway won't melt for at least a week which means I am going to have to haul my happy butt out there and shovel - ugh! What to do with the kiddos on these cold days? Lately tents have been the answer but when Ruby is awake she tears them down. Girlies and Daddy made a tent in their room today and even though it didn't seem like the best idea I let them take their nap in it. Took forever for them to fall asleep and as I listen down the hall I am not even sure they are sleeping right now. Daddies do things different than mommies - repeat as necessary :)

I realize it is hard saying no to these two though especially since he hasn't been around much lately.



Parents go on and on about how cute their kids are. I will say that I think that most children are just adorable in their own way but sometimes I think that we have parent goggles on lol :) Today I proudly wear mine b/c when I saw this picture on my computer screen I was that parent that thought her kid is the most beautiful in the world. For that moment anyway :)

Playing

Well, the camera arrived! It was later yesterday so I was losing light fast but still played for a few minutes. I will need to use it more to tell if I really love it. Thankfully it is so similar to my old camera that it wasn't tough figuring certain things out but I have had to pull out the manual a couple of times b/c I was stumped.

This shot was taken at iso 1600 and no noiseware - this is what I am talking about! I know there are better cameras out there but hey this is a hobby :)



Check out Ruby's expression her first time looking outside this morning. You can read it on her face, "What the heck is that out there?" We got hit with some winter weather last night. There is probably 6" of snow. Matt is at work. The girls want to play outside but I can't do it right now. Why? Because it is sleeting! Bummer :(



I have already reached my quota of tolerable snow fall this year. Hello, I moved away from WI for a reason!



Finally Violet b/c she didn't want to get left out lol :)



The older girls and I are eating popcorn and I am going to put in Fraggle Rock. Remember that show? Love it! If Matt gets home early enough (and it stops sleeting) we will venture outside but for now I will sit in my warm house and dream of summer.

Good Bye Old Friend

Last October my beloved camera started acting up. I figured it might need a cleaning but I hated the thought of sending it off b/c I just can't imagine a day without it. It belongs next to me at all times in case I want to pick it up. So I have put off sending it in and just have been dealing with the occasional freeze up. The past month it has been getting worse. Seems that I am not alone with the shutter sticking problem. It must have been worse b/c I actually told my husband about it. A few days ago he said he wanted to buy me a new camera. Have I mentioned how much I love my husband? It comes today. I am giddy!

I am not actually saying goodbye to my d50 but just letting her rest for awhile. Hubs thinks he might like to play with her. I think that he should. I would love for him not to rely on that green button.

My kiddos are VERY used to me "practicing"




I can barely sit still - maybe this would be a good time to clean for the company we are having this weekend lol :)

Crafty Tuesday - Crochet Anyone?

First I will be honest and say up front that I didn't make these today, just posting about it. I also will add that like so many projects that I start to do they are intended to be much more than what I end up with. If you have 10 minutes to check out this video it is what I meant to make. I loved how the lady in the video said that crochet wasn't her forte. I don't have a forte so I continued watching. Lucky for me I can do a simple chain stitch so this wasn't over my head.



With 3 little girls asking for my attention it would have taken me nights to make that so I cheated and made 1 strand instead and called it complete. I think it is pretty cool looking and our girls got the 1st 2 that I made b/c they were hovering the entire time wanting to see what I was doing and begging to have them. They didn't technically make it but they helped by choosing which beads they wanted.

End products...



I really do love that necklace in the tutorial and might have to make one another day :)

I heart faces - A Ballerina's Face

The other day I was at Michael's and their Christmas stuff was 90% off. I don't understand 90% off, maybe they get some sort of break by writing off a loss or maybe we are all just paying way too much for decorations. Regardless, I found an ornament that was 2 hanging ballet slippers. Piper is our little ballerina in the family so I picked it up for her. We got home and Violet was disappointed that she did not get one. I got her a fairy instead b/c she loves fairies. Today she told me that she wanted to be a ballerina for Halloween. She also told me that when she is 4 she would like to take ballet like Piper. What was I thinking not getting 2 ballet slipper ornaments?

Week 4 Challenge - Texture

I had so many ideas but it is gloomy and dark again. Today I had a complete "duh" moment b/c I JUST saw that they post the challenges weeks in advance. Maybe now I won't be scrambling on Sunday anymore lol :)

I love the texture of our kitchen tile but I noticed ours was a little dirty where she was laying down so I added a leather texture to it so you can't tell so much. Rain, red dirt, 3 dogs & 1 outdoor cat = well there just isn't enough hours in a day!

She ♥'s the new headband from Value Village and had to put it on for this picture.



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Some days it's really hard to get out of our door

This morning started out as one of those days. Piper asked for breakfast so I gave her what she has been requesting lately, Honey Nut Cheerios. When she got to the table in the most whiney of voices she could muster she told me that she wanted "miinnii whheatss". This may seem like an easy fix - come on Jessie just give her the mini wheats. Back story is that she has been doing this a lot lately. She picked the wrong morning to whine - so she was sent to her room for back talking.

A few minutes later...

Last week I went to Target and they had a bunch of their Christmas toys marked to 75% off. This is when I like to stock up our gift closet for some of the parties we attend during the year. I don't get junky toys but hey, a $25 Barbie set for $6 I am all over that and the kids don't know the difference. Most mama's know not to return a gift from me lol :) Last week there were the Barbie computers but they were still only marked 50% so I thought since it is a rainy day the girls and I would head there and see if they were marked down further. We are dressed and heading out the door when Violet starts whining that she doesn't want her fuzzy crocs she wants to wear her princess shoes but doesn't know where they are. At that same moment Ruby started fussing in my arms. Trip to Target - CANCELED!

So I came back upstairs and thought about what a friend of mine said to me "Kids don't really want to go to Target, the mama wants to go and we drag them along". I sat down, had a cup of coffee, and then apologized to both girls for losing my patience today with them.

What did they want to do? I asked them and they wanted to read books, so we read books. Then I asked them if they would let me take their picture. You know they said yes. Give and take - my message to myself today.

No post from me is complete w/o at least 1 kid's picture, today there are 3 :) The result of our pictures taken with their faces 2" from the slider b/c it is rainy and dark here.

Wordless Wednesday - The View

This is Violet's view from her bed of her nightstand. I watched her put each of these items in it's place. We should quickly buy stock in Disney :)



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Crafty Tuesday - Valentine Tree

There is this awesome blog friend, Kimberly, who does these fabulous craft projects every week and I want to be just like her. Since that is not possible I have just decided to set Tuesdays aside to do projects with our girls and document them for eternity on the blog since they normally play with projects until they are destroyed :)

This weekend hubs and I switched out the girls playroom & bedroom. Not much extra room but enough for them to have a small "doll changing area" in their bedroom that they did not have before. I also was taking down the very last of our "winter" trees. I will just call them winter but they really were our Christmas decorations that I was too lazy to take down before today :) The girls love the bigger silver one so I let them keep it in their room until Valentine's Day (or whenever I get the ambition to take it out now).

Project: Valentine Tree (hee hee) Decorations



This is Matt and I




and the artist herself


If you saw Piper yesterday she was probably wearing that heart shirt. I kept it hidden in the basement so that she wouldn't just wear that for the past month. She picks out her own clothes but I control what goes in her closet lol :)

Covet Antiqued Copper Charm Necklace GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Covet Antiqued Copper Charm Necklace GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

I heart faces - Princesses and Fairies

I saw that this weeks challenge at I ♥ Faces was We Are Family and the idea was to find a creative way to photograph a family. I called my girlfriend to practice on her but our schedules didn't line up so I set up the tripod, got our remote, and tried to find a fun way to photograph the girls and I. What I wanted was a fun cheerleader style pyramid but Violet was shy of kneeling on my back. We all put on our princess clothes (I have a tutu lol) and played for awhile before I rounded them up to try and get something. It was very dark in our house and this is pretty noisy but I still love that even our Ruby decided to look.

I am so lucky to get to look at these faces everyday :)



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Glub Glub

Drink some water



and she likes it!



While doing a little shopping I decided to pick up a few new straw cups. I am not sure what it is with my girls and having the straw cup be their "sippy" of choice but Ruby is no exception. I tried giving her one of the girls old regular sippy cups and she wanted nothing to do with it, now this straw cup - she LOVES it! It took her less than 5 minutes to figure it out and truthfully I should have video taped it b/c that first time she got water in her mouth the look on her face was hilarious! She is getting to be such a big girl :)

How could I forget?

When I blogged about us missing Matt b/c he started his new job today I totally forgot about a very important little family member who will also be missing the heck out of her daddy - our Ruby. They do eskimo kisses and no one can make her laugh like he does. Her only word is still "Mama" though, just saying...



By the way that mark on her nose is from her falling - learning to walk is tough :) Why not have all 3 girls with bumps and bruises.

Off He Goes

It was fun while it lasted. Well, I can't really say it was all fun. Some days my husband down right drove me NUTS while he was out of work. Had I known now that he would have landed a job I may not have been quite as stressed but lets face it the market sucks right now big time. Besides having our beautiful baby Ruby, 2009 sucked. Tomorrow he starts his new job and I am very excited for him. 2010 will be our year, I just know it!

Matt helped me out so much during the day though allowing me some free time that I would have not otherwise had. Piper loved that her daddy was able to bring her to school and pick her up, now it is going back to boring old mama. This past week he was even able to go in and read to her preschool class. His new job will be about 30 minutes away so that is something he will not be able to do anytime in the near future. Violet also got some extra daddy time and would often run errands with him. She is going to miss that too.

New team, new manufacturer, new year! Congratulations baby, I love you!

Camera Shy :)

Magpie Lovely $50 Gift Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

*swoon*
Magpie Lovely $50 Gift Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Estate Sale Blue Blouse GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!!

Just how cute would our girls be wearing this? Fun contest!
Estate Sale Blue Blouse GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!!

Wordless Wednesday - Date Night

Yesterday Matt and I went on our first date in 1 year. It was so nice :)



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I heart faces - Violet's Bruiser Face

Our children have 2 left feet. The other day Violet fell and hit her cheek on Ruby's Leapfrog table. This looks good compared to what we started with.

This year I am going to try and participate in the weekly challenges at I Heart Faces. It is scary for me to do this and put myself out there b/c I go to everyone elses blogs and they are SO GOOD. I put myself out there to do the 5k all by myself though so maybe this is the year for me to come out of my shell. We'll see, I've already missed one :)

Week 2 Challenge - Faces

I ♥ this face



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I'm to blame

Not b/c I dress outlandishly but b/c I bought each and every one of these pieces of clothing. They just had the imagination to put it all together. Piper is wearing a headband, 2 barrettes, and 2 of those little pinch clip things. Excessive? Obviously not for the 3 & 4 year old fashionistas.

I made it myself!

I had an Easy Bake Oven when I was a little girl and thought it was the best toy ever. If you had one though you probably quit using it b/c the mixes were so darned expensive and mom/dad (Grandma in my case) didn't see that ahead of time but once they did said "heck no are we going to spend a ton on those". Well, thank you internet b/c before I actually bought the oven I found websites that have little recipes on them so we do not have to fork over the $8 or so for a few cakes. Violet didn't really get how cool the toy was when we gave it to her. She didn't know what it was and had never seen one in real life but I knew when I saw it that it would be a hit. You want to know another thing about the oven that is a bummer? Trying to find 100 watt REGULAR bulbs to "cook" the food. Bulbs are so green now 100 watts are rare. Good for the earth but bad for the Easy Bake Oven owners. We found them at Lowe's (thanks to a hint from another blog) but had to buy a case! I don't EVER seeing us needing to buy them again lol :)

Saturday was the first day that we got it out and played. I was making dinner so Matt helped the girls with mixing, spraying, and finally baking. They had so.much.fun (I knew it).





and finally the pièce de résistance!



how fun was that?



I'd say success!

Teeth, teeth, and more teeth!

How would it feel to cut 4 teeth at one time? Ask Ruby, she is cutting them right now! During the day you would never know but it is at night that I can tell you she isn't happy. Bless her heart :)



She is standing by herself more now. I think it was for about 20 seconds last night until she realized she wasn't holding on to anything and fell to her bum. I am just not ready for her to walk by herself yet. I don't mind her walking behind a walker or around furniture but come on, she isn't even 10 months old yet. What is up with that? Slow down baby!

I don't think I have ever mentioned it yet but last month she said her 1st word. Mama - of course lol :) I think that Piper's first word was ball and V's *maybe* dog but I can't be certain. You know I was laughing about something the other day but it is actually REALLY sad for our youngest. She has no baby book. Like I have not even purchased her one yet let alone write down anything. Piper's was filled out until about 9 months, Violet's I may have made up until 3 months, and like I said Ruby doesn't even have one. Maybe I will destroy the other girl's books to take away my guilt and make believe it has been an even playing field. I wonder if those mamas out there (like the Duggar's for instance) actually do a good job when they get past 3? Maybe they have the older kids start filling them out as homework projects lol :) There just isn't enough hours in a day to do it all - for me anyway.

Who knows?

For over 5 years now my body hasn't been my own. It still isn't but I can see the end in sight. I daydream about wearing single digit pants again and not having to plan ahead my outfit to have easy boob access to nurse my babe. Ruby is no where near weaning but like I said before they are just daydreams. So all of this talk sort of makes it seem that we are done having babes right? I will turn 39 years old this March and I am now setting goals for MYSELF again. Why is it though that I don't come out and say that we are done having babies? I think that I went through a very difficult time emotionally after having our little Ruby. 3 kiddos 3 years and younger was a struggle for me and I never thought it would be. Conceiving Ruby was a struggle in itself and an emotional roller coaster that literally made me crazy at times. Today though life is back to as normal as life will probably get. It is these times that I sit back and wonder what would 4 be like? Can we handle it or should we be happy with the little family that we have created? Can we handle the trying to get pregnant again? Matt says that a 4th would make amusement parks easier. No child would be left behind without someone to play with. We could actually have a boy - however I am not sure we know how to make them lol :) I just can't squash the idea in my brain - who knows what the future holds.

Arr!

Love the left over crafts from the party. Any activity today is a good one :)



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Violet's 3rd Birthday Party

We have an equal amount of little girl and boy friends so when Violet told me she wanted a Tinkerbell party I quickly googled parties and found that mamas had a lot of success throwing Tink/Pirate parties. How much fun did I have planning it? Of course in typical me style I was running totally behind on party day though :) Violet and the other kids had a ball and that is all that I was hoping for. Thanks to some friends for taking pictures for me or I would have none lol :)

The girls all made fairy wings with gems & markers. I made each girl a fairy skirt to wear for the party. The boys made pirate hats and were able to fight each other with swords all one eyed like with their patches. It was hilarious to see them with their patches on :)



Once everyone was done with their wings and hats we had a surprise visitor - Captain Hook himself! There was treasure to be found and he brought the first clue!



Off they went! We had some really smart fairies and pirates at the party b/c they found BOTH treasure chests in record time!



My husband rocks!



Time to sing and what she waited for ALL day - eat a cupcake!



Thank you to everyone who came and helped to make Violet's birthday such a fabulous day!