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..

Im back and Coraline

So for the last few weeks it has been party after party and for some reason I have an aversion to posting all the projects that I make... I will work on that! Yesterday we went to the coolest Candy Land birthday party ever! (Isnt that an amazing theme) They had a balloon lady there who was incredible and she did neat face painting too! I didnt take a pictures of the Coraline Dress Up outfit I made miss Maddy but I will have here mom send me a picture. But I did make my first doll! I dont Do patterns, So I made if up as I went along. Minus the face painting (I think I might YouTube how to stitch faces)

I think she turned out pretty darn cute. Here is a picture of my first one I made. I totally think I might put them in my Etsy shop (Which I finally made a logo for) My goal this week is to get all my mounting piles of stuff on there.

AND look who finally decided to participate in swim lessons! Yup third times the charm!
He spent the first 15 minutes then I said "Colton, you get in there and try and we can go get the Captain America movie" He hopped right off the wall and has been fine since... Grr kids lol... and Brooklyn takes swim so serious they are trying to switch her to a more advanced class (She feels pretty proud about that!)

And I got my nephew for 5 days and that was amazing.
It breaks my heart when he talks about my brother though, but he seems to really be doing ok with it. He didnt want to leave which makes me happier still. It was alot of funny having the 5 of them together. And promptly after words Danger decided he would start having seizures again... a moms life is never in break mode for long :(

'Ello 2012!!

I'm not sure if there was another person on earth who was as happy as I was to see 2011 end! It was so crazy and horrible from January to December that I totally wanted to skip ahead in time around June. But now that 2012 is here I am going to make the most of it!! Thats right I paid my dues to Karama and this year is destained to be amazing. So I think I'm going to start off with some resolutions... well lets call them goals because I work better under pressure :)

1. I want to loose 30lbs before my 10 year reuinon (which to be honest I probally wont even go to but just incase... like I said I work better under pressure)

2. I want to clean up my craft room and get it oraganized for some serious me space!

3. I want to get all this stuff I made on my Etsy store and I want it to sell. I want to be doing well enough on there that I can let go of this kid I baby sit... my sanity will be my deadline on this one!

4. I want to get my little kids reading. I know that might seem like a big goal but by September I want my daughter to start Kindergarten reading, and to be honest its her goal so im sure her insistance will get us there.

5. I want to spend the whole year inspiring and lifting up my friends and family. This might seem odd but the responce I had from my 27 day challenge was AMAZING!! (This one is also for selfish reason to because I am addicted to the way making other people happy makes me feel inside, and I guess its a truely happy feeling!) I have found some really great sites online that I have booked marked and plan to share with you as the year goes by. There are some truely selfless people out there and thei are so inspiring!

6. I will stop swearing. Lately it has been almost everthing I say and I need to nixs that right out of my life!

7. I want to learn to knit and croche, and I plan to learn on youtube so wish me luck!

8. I want to take more pictures of my kids doing kid things, because I realized there is alot of stuff we do I would love to pull out pictures and remind them about.

9. I want to make more time for me. I often give my husband full days out of the house away from everything but I NEVER let my self have that kinda time, and this was one I wanted last year but once again I ended up neglecting me, so this year imagunna do it :)

10. I want to make time for husband wife night. We use to always be on the same page and im worried we might be drifting apart and Im not going to let the love of my life slip away, so I think we owe it to us to spend as much time reminding each other why we love each other as possible, so please pass on any date night ideas you have!

So that is the official start to the year for me. I hope I remebemer to come back through out the year to remind my self of the things I want to accomplish and maybe let you know how they are going.

How do you keep yourself on track for youre resolutions for more then just the first two days ?

Merry Christmas... and happy birthday to me!!

Oh my this month has just been crashing down around me. I did a wonderful challenge with my friends with some amazing good deeds that were done. Challenging them to make the last 27 days of me being 27 a random acts of kindness over load.. and over loaded with awesomeness it was! We had a steller nutcracker birthday party...


the fallowing day my big brother took his own life :(....
that pretty much put a giant hault in everything else of grandness that I had planned for the month. My head was and still is in a fog.. I keep sitting down then forgetting what I am doing or what I have done. We had a VERY VERY SMALL cookie party because we had already had plans for it and figured the kids needed to be around people who were happy since we have been so so sad.It was a nice gathering of our close friends and it was a happy time
Brooklyn has her first ballet recital. Which was so cute and she was so so excited! after words we went out to dinner .. because we all deserved a treat.

. We threw my side of the family christmas dinner and that was very very somber. Each day we keep getting better but loosing someone like my brother was a very hard and very unexspected blow. I didnt take the time when making christmas gifts to blog about them or make tutorials but I have lots of picture that I will upload soon. For christmas my hunny got me a new super awesome mixer... oh yeah look for baking madness to over take my blog here shortly. And then for my birthday, which was yesterday (the 27th ) I got a serger. Yeah for sergers... but to be honest it scares me so Im just going to look at in sitting in the box imagening all the wonderfullness that Im going to make with it :) Well I better get back to cleaning up from out crazy christmas but I will leave you with a glimps of cuteness
Christmas morning! Look at those cute matching PJ pants and New hoods I made.. oh and those happy kids!

baby dress up so cute!

My best friend making christmas wrapping awesome!

With 4 kids santa had to put the tree in a new spot to get all the gifts around it


My birthday gifts

Our Elf on our shelf... and day 1 recap of my last 27 days

Santa sent the kids a great big box filled with a very small elf, who we decided doesn't go on a shelf! (wow I just made our cookie party invites and im all Seuss-ish) Anyways my kids woke up to a package and inside was an elf I had picked up last year on clearance to do elf on the shelf with (we considered buying the book and the elf but at $30 a pop... not a chance and Milton (our elf complete with letter from Santa) is so much cute! And as an added bonus, Milton had a few brothers in the clearance bin with him to I snagged extra encase he wanders off (or becomes a puppy snack) We also started our advent calendar a day late. We have a really nice wooden house that we fill each night because my kids can not refrain from opening the door. Their newest rationalization is it fills each night because Santa is magic (because he went to Hogwarts.... yeah my kids are the biggest nerds I know) So here is Miss Brooklyn with her newest best friends Milton!




On another note day 1 of my last 27 days of being 27 was great! I realized I will be over my 27 planned Random acts of kindness quicker then 1 a day so Im hoping now to get some where around 100 in :) and one of the best parts is that I have lots of facebook friends accepting my challenge and doing awesome stuff too!
#1 I helped an old lady carry out her dog food at the dog food store
#2 I donated all the cash (I only had $3 but its better then a frappachinno) I had to a dog food drive they were having.
(I surprised my cousin and the ladies she works with the Starbucks, but I didnt count that one)
#3 I left change on all the pay phones at the supermarket we shop at because I always see people on them and I was hoping maybe it would inspire someone who really needed to call someone to pick up the phone and call,
And I did it on the way into the store, on the way out of the store this couple stopped me and said they had watched me put the money up there and they said I was really inspiring and it made them feel so good to see someone doing something like that... the promised to keep my 27 days of good deeds going!

last 27 days of being 27

Someone once told me that your golden year is when your birth age and day are the same. My birthday is december 27th and I turned 27. Disappointingly this year has been pretty sucky (mostly October but the whole year didnt really pan out either..) I have actually spent more time in the last few days, more then I should probably blog about, thinking about the golden year concept. First off I would like to point out that im sorry for people born on the 1st! My poor cousin was born on the first, of April to boot, but she wears her birthday with pride (and often a stuffy nose) Second I dont want to look back on my 'Golden year' and all I see is faded bronze, so I have decided to change life's plan and make my own Goldenness appear! While trolling Pinterest (like the addict I am) I came across this blog post. I was very inspired by her compassion and selflessness. So I have decided that for the last 27 days of being 27 I would like to preform 27 random acts of kindness, one a day more if I come across a random opportunity to do one. Here is perhaps the best part of my whole concept, I would like to challenge everyone to do the same. The holiday giving season is already in the air and I would like to have you help me pass it around. There are lots of great ideas on the Internet and tomorrow I will link up to some of my favorites. In the mean time, I challenge you to open your eyes to the world around us and for the next 27 days pass on as many random acts of kindness as you possibly can!



And because I cant help by share our skipping school for the day adventure, we ditched and went and saw old st.nick!!

Plumblers, Parties and MRIs oh my!

My cousin and I are going to a concert after trick or treating tonight. Normally I would never dream of going out on Halloween unless it was kid involved but giving the past month life has dealt me and the fact my favorite band is playing in out state, right up the street from my house, for the first time Im not sure even life could keep me from going. Since its on Halloween its a dress up thing and we are going as Mario and Luigi!


I sewed the jumpers from duck cloth so they would be a little stiff in the A frame. then we painted home depot paper paint hats and added our shirt and our converse because yes they are our own shoes we had and how freaking perfect (on a side note this is the first pair of leggings I have ever owned and I dont ever want to take them off and while I still refuse to wear skinny jeans or anything called a Jegging, im pretty happy about leggings)





Party Clean up is 80% done, the rest of the stuff can stay up for the kids to enjoy tonight. And the mose important news..... Dangers EEG and MRI were both normal. So we go see the neurologist on the 7th and hopefully we wont have any more episodes!

Poor Danger

My life has been turned upside down alot this October. I wish I could shut my eyes and just turn it off, maybe a short vacation from reality. Today we had to get a EEG done on Danger. He had two seizures in the last two weeks. Im not a patient person, so not being able to know if they learned anything from the test today is really stressing me out. Googling things doesnt help. It only makes it much worse, you want to know what else makes it worse, when something you say that doesnt seem important sparks something in the doctor (or technicians) eyes. Night Terrors. Danger has been starting them the last few months. His sister had them from 9 months to 3 years, and only every now and again now. He perked up as soon as I casually mentioned it. That didnt help, and google didnt help. Now im waiting. We have to go in for an MRI on Tuesday. Part of me really wants an answer because seeing my baby have a seizure is by far the worst thing I have ever seen in my life, but I also dont want the answer to be bad news. We have been so lucky with our 4 kids. They all have little things wrong but nothing Major. Nothing that would make you stop in the middle of the store and just start crying for. All I know if I feel like life is just running on and dragging me behind it. I suddenly feel like I have no control over anything. I know its more likely that it will turn out that nothing is wrong, but I cant stop remembering when EVERY SINGLE PERSON told me that our first pregnancy would be fine, because "those blood tests always come back false positive" EVERY SINGLE ONE was wrong. Then when Brother Bear wouldnt talk, He wasnt find like EVERY ONE said he had a speech disorder, which they just recently diagnosed as Aspergers. When EVERY ONE keeps saying sister is fine, when you look at her in toeing and crippling toes and KNOW shes not. I just feel like im the only one who doesnt get the "false positive" and the crappy thing is I know there are parents out there fighting for their children to live though and incurable disease and im all wacked out and I dont even know anything yet. Thank you blogger for letting me say this out loud, well in my head but my fingers are saying it because I feel like if I open my mouth im letting life keep moving and Im to scared to fallow it not knowing the answers. I think I need a drink :)

Im a dino your a dino

So I have been on a summer sewing kick, well let me rephrase that when my ding dongs start playing nicely I have been sneeking away to sew some projects that have been sitting in the works for awhile. I made some kids in our lives stuffed dinos, and recently had someone asked if I could make them... girly! Yeah Pink dinos! So I dug in my stash and banged a bunch out, added a few to my Etsy store and gifted a bunch to friends.
Yeasterday we also discovered these new spray parks poping up all over the place. Been fun, but not as fun as the slip and slide we bought for nanas house!

Or the berry picking we spent the weekend doing
Or the fact that one of my chilren just because a super hero
or my daughter becoming a ballerina

Conflicted

Im tired of life lately... something good needs to find its way in. The charter school we were able to get Justin into this year stinks... and although i have applied else where it seems we might be stick there for 2nt grade. :( I have been praying for a better option but so far we are 20ish, 30ish and 40ish on other schools list. Also what I thought would be a benefit of the school not getting out until July 22 (which educationally I think it great) I have found watching everyone else we know get out of school really stink to be stuck in school. If that were not hard pressing enough we lost our daughters preschool teacher, a woman who we both loved dearly, to a staffing change. They told us on Tuesday and she was gone by Thursday now my daughter will start summer session in a new classroom with new kids, which might be a blessing but now she is adamant she doesn't want to go... change is hard for that one. Poor me I have just been an emotional ball of tears the last few weeks. It REALLY DOES NOT HELP that I realized im at a way unhealthy weight right now (169 eeekkk) and have been on a self imposed diet (which just involves eating better and not so much all day long) and running on the treadmill at nap time and tring to get exercise when I can... I miss chocolate and soda and chips and donuts, yuumy cream or jelly filled donuts :( But most of all I miss starbucks, my 1200 calorie java chip that never did me wrong... stupid scale. And then there is my husband. I love the man dearly I really do but he has a crazy ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. He is pretty unsupportive unless he can see the insent gratification. Although my blog doesnt really show how involved with crafting I really am because I dont stick to it the way I want to (although 4 kids, a daycare, and photography business are great excesses) I have been thinking seriously about doing a few Christmas bazaars this years. I think What I make is good enough, however with 4 kids, a daycare and a photography business, it makes justifying my passion to do this a little more difficult for this man to understand. I guess im just conflicted about what I should do next. Granted I still have lots of time till the holiday season but I just wish for once things would just fall into place. Its hard to work so hard with out seeing a positive reward sometimes. .... maybe I deserve a tall java chip today... :(

The art of giving gifts

There is an art to giving gifts... I should know im a very good gift giver but alas not so much of a reciever. I dont mean to be a bad reciever, I do say thank you and smile and write a fancy thank you card but sometimes its my own way of showing people how its done. (please tell me im not the only one who does this) When picking out a gift for someone you have to let go of who you are, not forever just for the deration of the shopping. If you see something cute that you love buy it... for yourself. You can not change someone with a gift. A gift is something you are giving some one to make THEM happy. So when you buy someone who lives in white tshirts and carheart pants (my husband) a bright red golfing polo (MIL) in hopes that they will put down their wrenches and car parts.. your really just trying to change them on a public platform where they have to smile and say thank you, its a waste of money and thought. I dont mean to have to write a blog about it but its my blog and ill vent if I want to (insert me sticking my tounge out here) So in responce we made a really cute flower pot thank you card that pops up and has a seed packet, why you ask, because she is a advid gardener. She loves planting, pruning, basketing (yes pictures that one house in the neighborhood that looks like a pretty little jungle covered in plants, thats her) I on the other hand can not even keep my weeds alive, I dont buy flowers, I dont water flowers and I dont get sad that my husband has never brought me home roses, im not a flowerer person. See what im getting at? A gift is a gift to make someone happy, to let them know you know them, you love them for them. So when I went to make a baby gift for my buddy who just had her first baby girl (she already has two boys, well 3 if you count her child husband ;) ) I didnt bat an eye and went stright for the black and pink and skulls. Thats who they are they are not I love Mommy pink bunny people they are punky funky black and pink and skulls kinda people. And I was just amazed how many people were offended that a baby gift could include anything other then pink and flowery and soft. But a gift is a gift to a person I love... and she is the going to be the cutest little punker baby at the play park ;) So remember when picking out a gift, its not for you its for them so pick something you know they will truely love, because its YOU showing THEM that You love THEM for being THEM.!

Whats in a name?

What is in a name... a rose by any other name would smell as sweetly... REALLY???!!! Sure a rose may smell as sweet but my daughters name is not a stinkin rose!!! There are few thing in life that i consider pet peeves, those things that rub you the wrong time EVERY time it happen, for me its little things, like people who take 10 minutes to order from Taco bell... dude the menu never changes order the burrito already! #2 People who are late, its not that hard to be on time, even early, but its not ok to be 30 minutes early for a party.. that valuable prep time. And the most annoying thing is when people (mostly family members..) call my daughter Brooke. Dont get me wrong its a pretty name but its not her name and its not something we want her to be called. Her name is Brooklyn Jane. She will answer to Brooklyn, Jane, Janie lyn, or lyn... we have asked a million times she be called Lyn and not Brooke. Simply because that is who she is to us, she is Lyn. For example my SIL has a daughter named Isabelle, and they call her izzy... i dont personally like it but im not going to call her Bella because I think its prettier.. but yet they all feel its ok to call her Brooke and then make fun when I correct them. GGRRRR im sorry I had to vent but its either I have my pity party on here or I get uninvited to family get together ;)So my question to you is, are there thing that drive you absolutely insane like this?

Bird crazy!

So after getting our new smart phones we totally took the family plung and downloaded angry birds... now im not saying I wish I had never ever showed it to our children... or the husband.. but I really miss my phone! My kids are angry bird-aholics.. and we are not talking the casual 'hey mom if your not on your phone do you think I could play angry birds' we are talking knock down drag out brawls to get to an unmaned phone!! My poor phone is constintly trying to hind by letting its battery die. My 6 (will be 7 on the 16th) year old is crazy for it, when he is not playing mario karts or drawing bakugan he is talking non stop about the silly game. For show and tell he even made a scrapbook of all his accomplishment and egg findings (he found all but 2 easter golden eggs.. he is outta controle) Now put away all those judgmental thoughts I hear you thinking, they are now allowed to be glued to my phone 247, no they earn angry bird time. My three year old changes his socks 3 times a day to get sock folding minutes. My four year old is now a pro window washer and bathroom sink scrubber. and I have not folded laundry in 3 months!! For Justins birthday we have decided to get him a DSi, a first huge purchess for us in his growing up process. Since those stinkin things run for $140 (we tried on Ebay but they go for just as much.... just crazyness) I decided to make him some 'filler' gifts. And then I saw this Angry Bird tutorial on Obessively Stitching So I have made my own army of birds, which im concerned now might be a better present then the DSi! There is one thing about Justin thou that makes him harder to make things for he is anal about little details, and im by no means a great sewer. but I wanted to show you how I changed the white bird around a bit and made him more real to the game.. and what is the spechial feature of the white bird you might be trying to recall... he poops bombs (my kids are convinced its poop because if it were just an egg why would they care about the pigs taking them?) Here is what I did:
I fallowed OS's plants but I took and 3x6 piece of felt and stitched two sides makeing a pocket.

Then I sewed it down where all the sides meet up and added the tail feathers to the top so they wouldnt be on the side.



And here is what it looks like, insert ping pong ball here:



lol so if your kids are anything like mine, add some poop! I will let know on the 14th how much he loved them!

toy story birthday!

I can not beleive my little Coco bean is 3... I just can not beleive it (but I cant also beleive last weekend he was 2) He was a cubby little ham ball as a baby, happy smily and always into something... 3 years later we have a chubby HUGE ham ball that is always into everything ;)


to this:


I wish I would have taken the time to take pictures of all the details I added to the party but people actually showed up early... which at our partys is never the case.. so I will just have to fill in on my awesomeness with words ;)

I printed out some signs, this was the 'snack table' I made rice krispy treat etch a sketchs, marshmellow pop aleins, sugar cookie Rex and Woody stars with 3's on them, I also made Ham cupcakes just cause the cake turned out a little smaller then I had planned.

Here is a closer look at the cake and Lotso pinata (I made the pinata out of paper machae and tissue paper) The cake was the box that they went to the day care in it turned out better then I had pictured in my head.
I wish I had a picture of the goodie bags they were so cute. I wrapped a cowboy bandana arond a cup and added a sheirf star.. they were adorable, I filled them with toy story fruit snacks, little army men, poppers, and tatoos, and bubbles.


We palyed pin the tail on bullseye which I printed off line, I had other games planned but we tend to the the problem once kids come over and get a look at all our toys and fun stuff in the playroom, pulling them out for games just wasnt happening!

Things you didnt get to see besides the cool good bags: I glass drink bottles which were cool colored, they even had cute little matching tags on them. We made hot dogs, noodle salade, bean and really awesome fruit kabobs (I will show you on our next party my cool fruit kabob sticks) I was really a fun party. here are just a few random funness to share


And after it was all said and done my kidos decided to have a slumber party

Sorry for my absents!

I am so happy to have a minute to hop on here and let every one know I'm alive... we have been so sick since November that I was sure we wouldn't make it out of winter alive but alas here I am! So I have tagged so many great project my bloggy buddies have been doing that my spring should be filled with crafty greatness! So let me fill you in a little about what I have been doing (beside have a family that has brought home the stomach flu 3 times, 4 positive RSV test and a new kid on a permanent inhaler...) I opened my Etsy store right before the big vomit fest happened in out home.. and although not selling anything yet has been disappointing im going to take it as a sign that I needed to focus on my REAL life. ;) I managed to clean out my office and completely fill it again. I have actually been pretty busy with my photo studio which has been great, after having such long stretches and babies it has been great to get back to real work. As for babies... Danger (which is Carsons new name) is pulling himself up on everything and getting ready to run.. talk about a child that keeps me on my toes. He is into everything, and he has no fear. He has to be swung so high on the swings, he climbs up and slides down our play house slide face first and he has tumbled off the end out our bed on 4 separate occasions.... he is going to be giving our bigger kids a run for their money.. which leads me to a My other little man Colton (Coco with love) just turned 3!! I say that but its also me saying I can not believe he is only 3 and was just 2... he and my 4 year old are the same size and he seems so much older.. so I threw him a super fun Toy Story 3 party (how perfect that he was turning 3) I wished I would have gotten more pictures of all the millions of cute things I made for it but i will post those in my next post!

Happy heart day!

For valentines day this year I came across this while shopping... and decided it would make the best breakfast... so that is what we had! If you know me you know I have a crazy love for thin mints (honestly who doesn't?) so when I saw this in the freezer section I about climbed through the glass to get it... and it is as good as it sounds!! If you want to give yourself a gift this day of love... give your self a carton (or 4 cause that was all they had left) Love you all!
Katie

Look at me look at me!!

Ok so I know I have been neglecting my blog abit but life has been crazyer then normal lately and guess what I did... come on guess... i will give you a hint I have talked about it on like my last five-ish post... ok good guess ... and incase you guessed wrong I opened an Etsy store!! Its full of my novle idea kid PJS. Here is a quick blurb about it

"If your little bed bugs are anything like mine then you know what you put them in today might not fit tomorrow. Little bed bugs offers a one of a kind solution for this problem by simply removing a stitch in the PJ's pants cuff giving you a whole two inches of growing room (Which means that size 4 of today will be a size 5 for tomorrow) We might not be able to keep them small forever but at least we can keep them dressed just a little bit longer."





I sewed in a loose stright stitch at the bottom of my pants so when they get to short... whic if you have kids you know happens as soon as you give in and buy cute PJs... you just snip the stitch and pull and BAM!! another 2 inches of growing room! Novle idea I think anyways so if you have a min take a look and pass my lovelyness around to all your friends who have kids waith high water PJS!!
Thanks
Katie