Let's talk suicide

If  you are fallowing along with my blog then you know that last December my family suffered a huge loss. My big brother took his own life. A moment that forever has changed my life. The wounds are still raw, I still pick up the phone to call him all the time. I think about things he is missing everyday. I can not imagen how life with ever be normal again. He did leave behind my nephew. A bubbly 5 year old who just started kindergarden. I know someday he will put the pieces together and realize the situation, I hope though with your support, by that time will have a much better understanding of suicide and prefentable things in place. To help make that happen there is a great program called AFSP.IN THE UNITED STATES, a person dies by suicide every 14.2 minutes, claiming more than 36,000 lives each year. It is estimated that an attempt is made every minute; with close to one million people attempting suicide annually. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., the third leading cause of death among those 15-24 years old, and individuals ages 65 and older account for 16 percent of all suicide deaths. This is a public health issue that does not discriminate by age, gender, ethnicity, or socio economic status. Im participating in a walk in October and if you are able would you please make a donation to our team. Even if it only lets one more person asnwer one more call that might save one more life I can tell you personally one person saved will cure tons of broken hearts for those of us that get left behind.
 http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donordrive.participant&participantID=328532
My personal goal is $150, our team goal is $1000  even if you can only donate $1 it will go to save the life of someone who is truely lost in one moment of weakness

Tea Parties and Aprons

Well today marks a very big day in our house. Brooklyn started Kindergartner!! Two down Two to go!! But before her first big day as a real schooler, she got to have a pretty awesome time with her besties at a tea party on Saturday. Her best friend Maddy hosted the party at her house and it was a huge it. The girls got to decorate cupcakes, drink tea, and of course rock the leotards as fashion (if you have a ballet/gymnast 5 year old you totally understand that!) As a hostess gift I made all the girls aprons, since the one I made Brooklyn for Christmas was something the Grinch himself would have made I was pleasantly pleased how these ones came out.

 

Cute fabric right?!! Did you know walmart has fabric? I don't know if all of them do and we hardly ever make our way out there but I saw this fabric Friday night and knew I had to make it into aprons for them. They match on the front and have different colors on the back. Brooklyn picked which girl got which color and then wrapped them. She had a hard time picking but ended up with the blue one. The neck strap was sewed in one side and then Velcros around the other side. The ties pulled back in the middle to bow in the back. I wish I would have thought to make a pocket on them, but since I stayed up till 3 making them they are happy with them and for now I will be too.... until I can get Brooklyn out of hers and sew one on while she is sleeping... mauhahahaha

happy birthday to my niece and nephews!

Part of our summer vacation took us for to my SIL for her kids birthday! Hard to believe they are already two, hand to believe Carson is already two! She threw a cute little ice cream sundae party with pools for the little kids to splash around in. The weather was amazing! My SIL is planning on home schooling (God grant her the patients and strength for that one!) so I jumped at the chance to make them something educational. For their birthday last year I made them a cloth book about colors and one about shapes. The down fall is there are three of them and sharing at that age.... well you all have kids and you can all relate! I really liked the idea of a busy book, partly because I never finished Coltons and partly because I always have so many ideas running though my brain that its hard to nail down one design for anything. I came up with a basic idea of an ABC book  but I really didn't want to make 3. So I came up with this :

The thought it that they can either read it like a book on mom and dads lap or they can lay it down open on the floor and all 3 of them can play at one time! The pages were a combination of fabric printing and and fun interactive thing. Here are a few of my favorite pages.

The connect the dots is fabulous! It makes a bone for the dog! (I imagen sometimes I will do a whole book like this!)

The rocket slides up and down and Im pretty sure Carson did this page a few dozen times before I wrapped it up.

This one the rain moved up and down like an abacus, but my favorite part is the traffic light because it is a pocket that holds a bunch of felt vehicles that drive around the S page.

Im hoping to make a few and put them on Etsy. We will see I always make things as gift but never seem to find the motivation to put them on Etsy. I think I have a hidden fear of failing. Here are the kids enjoying time with their cousins.

We had a really good time up there. Hope we dont have to wait another year to get the kids together... now how am I going to top this cool book for Christmas :)

Yeah summer is almost over!

I know I know where oh where did I go?! I feel like it has been summer forever and for that most every moment of my life has been spent watching kids! My kids, your kids, his kids, her kids. There hasn't been one day where it has just been my kids at my house. Im not complaining, I heart kids (let me clarify when they arnt being piles of mouse poop!) Then we did the vacation thing and that was tons of fun. We went and saw my SIL and her babies (wait for the gift post coming up!) and then up to Port Angelst for visit more family and there we did mounds of things and on the way back we stopped at Forks :) yup we took our twilight loving kiddos to Forks :) to bad the parent in laws rushed us through it but seeing Brooklyn's eyes huge and giddy the whole time I honestly cant complain to much, well on here at least if you are a friend who listen to me complain I love you and you love your forks swag so its worth it :) We went fishing and to Mt St helens to do the ape caves and lava tubes. If you are from the area you totally have to make a trip up there it was so worth it! We also enjoyed an awesome night of glow stick swimming with a movie on the side of the house and that was crazy fun, it should also be noted that we watched The Lorax about 20 billion times, so much the baby sings all the songs all the time. So with out further ado here is a glimpse at our summer!

Having Kids is like Having Parents Again

I enjoy night time because the kids and the husband are in bed, no one to nag me off a project 30 times an hour. I'm pretty behind on things lately so I was enjoying a late night soda, Green Day on Pandora and working on a huge busy book project I'm in the middle of and low and behold little mister needy baby get up at 130... so I walk him into our room and push him on the husband and sneak back down the hall. Pitter patter pitter patter down the hall he comes less then a minute later. I could tell my night of dance party for one was over (insert sad annoyed face here) So I snuggle into bed with him and he just as I shut my eyes he asks for water, I get up get him a cup come back and he is sound asleep side ways on my bed... I pushed him over, attempted to cover up with the only corner of blanket that was left, jump forward 10 miutes, 2 more kids get in bed I get no covers and the I get a pitbull whose spot was taken by said children laying on my pillow breathing his dog breath in my face... alas I need a vacation but then I started thinking. ....

 Having Kids is Like Having Parents Again

Parents: Tell you when to eat
Kids: as soon as you sit down to eat ask for something, again and again so basically tell you when to eat

Parents: Tell you what to eat.
 Kids: Will eat anything and everything off your plate as soon as you sit down, so basically telling you what you can eat.

Parents: Tell you what to wear.
Kids: So soon as you put on something you want to wear they wipe their face, snot, or dirty hands on you, telling you what to wear.

Parents: Tell you to go to bed.
Kids: As soon as your movie gets to the best part they wake up and 'tell' you to go to bed.

Parents: Tell you to clean your room.
Kids: As soon as they are in bed you realize no one picked up anything, basically telling you to clean your room.

Parents: Tell you not to eat junk food.
Kids: Stick their hands under the bathroom door whining cause they know you are eating the last pack of fruit snacks.

Parents: Always brag in.
Kids: Always brag in... and always at the wrong moment...

Parents: love you unconditionally
Kids: love you unconditionally

So this is what I think about when I'm in bed at 2 am with a snoring husband, 3 snoring kids, 2 snoring dogs, knowing I have to wake that 4th kid up at 6 for school..

How I became a rebel

Im not normally a rule breaker, as a matter o' fact im pretty much a rule maker :) rule and direction make life flow much smoother, however I do I have small issue with authority makes a bad judgment call. My recent cross over to the dark side was 5 year olds in ballet class. We have a end of year recital and the theme is princesses. My first issue was 4 of the 6 girls are Disney princesses. Cute right?! yes, but the other two are Barbie princesses... correct me if im wrong but Disney had a lot more then 4 princesses.... Brooklyn got cast as Belle, no complaints there she love love loves Belle, her most favorite princess ever. He dress is so cute! Its puffy and twirly and spectacular (although it doesn't need a red flower which we are working on)
So where does my rebel fever come in? Right here. Our best friend Maddy is a sweety pie, we baby sit her and take her to ballet with us. She was cast as little mermaid. Disney princess? Check. So why issues with little miss under the sea? Because they other girls, Disney and barbie princesses, are in short puffy twirly ballet princess costumes and miss Maddy gets this....


Not only is it not little mermaid colors, but its a floor length gown and they are doing a BALLET dance!!! And its tight to boot!! So poor Maddy trying to dance with the other girls in class and knowing she got the poop end of the stick kept a brave face until she got home. Who thinks to do that to a 5 year old? The costumes were bought from different places and one quick search on ETSY proved that a long mermaid costume wasn't the only one on the market. So rebel fever kicked and and me and Miss Maddy's mom agreed the dress would need to be changed. So we here it is...

Im so pleased on how it came out! now its short and twirly and poofy and no way mistakable little mermaid! Now lets sit back and hope the ballet teacher doesn't notice :)

In the Mail Monday

This weekend we went to a very awesome party for a pretty little 5 year old we know and at that super cool party there was a lady making balloon animals! She did an amazing job and my kids were completely thrilled. So for our mail on Monday we decided to send out pen pals balloon letters (I had to explain to my kids that I could not make a balloon animal and send it in the mail because 1 im not that talented and 2 there was a certain popping issue) So blew up some white balloons and wrote our letters on them and popped them into the mail!
(Please note we used a pump to blow the balloons up so the germ thing isnt a factor)