Pumpkin patch

I took my three pumpkins to the pumpkin patch in a desperate attempt to get some 'cute' pumpkin and fall pictures.  I say a desperate attempt because, well...it was. I tried to take them the day prior, but Daddy decided to take Kellen fishing and Tatum decided to make some very poor choices at school.

So I went to plan B on that night, and Tatum just went to bed really early, in an attempt to make her realize that she had cheated herself out of some fun.

I don't think that worked so well for me, because she had a repeat of poor choices the next day.

So I went to Plan B myself.

Take 'em to the pumpkin patch and reward the kids who had good days by allowing them to pick out their very own mini pumpkin. A nice reward system, don't you think?

The change of clothes were set out in a lame attempt to color coordinate the kids (I should really just give that up now) so that the pictures would look as good in real life as they did in my head. Hmph. I will say; however, that the kids looked adorable!

Enjoy!

Trash to Treasure, or what I did with my stuff

In a recent post I discussed purging my t-shirts from my closet in an attempt to declutter. Well, I thought it might be nice to re-purpose that fabric.  I've also been wanting to make a wreath more suitable for our front porch than the fall wreath currently in place that I won at a ladies night for losing the most turns at Bunco. The one that hung there until late this summer when a dear friend reminded me that it was no longer fall (and hadn't been for some time) and I finally took it down, only to put it back up two months later.

After a quick google search for rag wreaths, I found this tutorial. This was one of many that popped up, but it seems straightforward enough, right?

So I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased a wire wreath (less than $2.50).

Then I came home and started on the fabric strips.  First I cut a small starting point and tried ripping the fabric. I don't suggest using that method.  T-shirt fabric does rip, but not in a very even manner.  On my second attempt, I just eyeballed the size I wanted and cut the strips. Worked much better that time. I then decided to try and be a little more efficient, and neatly folded the t-shirt in half, eyeballed and cut. Even better.

I cut from the bottom up and layed the strips aside until I had cut the t-shirt up to the sleeve. I then folded the strips, cut, folded again and cut to get the size strips I thought I would need.

I didn't use the same types of knot as the above tutorial. I folded the strip in half, threaded the open ends through the wire, pulled them through the loop made by folding, and then pulled the ends tight to make a knot around the wire.

Here I go!  Knot away.....

I finished 5/8's of the wreath on day 1.

Here is the finished project (day 2).

And here it is actually hanging up on my door.  I'll probably get a 'real' wreath holder, but part of the t-shirt hem works really well for now!

What cool wreaths do you have hanging on your door? And do you have any other ideas for me? Share!

Fresh fireplace

I decided to change things up on my fireplace for the fall.
Here's what it looked like before.....
(not that I was completely happy with the 'before' look)

And here's what it looks like now....

It's certainly not going to grace any magazine pages, but at least it's a little more seasonal!

Any ideas for me to take it up another notch?

Clutter control. AKA - I have too much stuff.

So a friend of mine posted a link on facebook to this post on being a minimalist.  It was an interesting concept and somewhat similar to the FlyLady concepts I've been working on for a while now (declutter, love what you have, get rid of what you don't use, etc) and other organization and clutter things I have posted about before.

So I was inspired. Again.

Only this time, I figured that I would start with something easy.  My something easy was t-shirts. Now let me just say that I love t-shirts. I'm a t-shirt kinda' girl. However, when my t-shirts are stacked on top of one another in as many piles as will fit on the shelf separating the two racks in my closet and I can't even reach the ones toward the back and don't even remember what they looked like, I think it's about time for a purge.

I got home from work today and decided today was the day for this oh-so-small of a step. I pulled all of the t-shirts from the shelf in my closet and placed them on my bed. Then I separated them by size (you know, for inventory sake, not because I'm a little OCD or anything). 

The result..........36 t-shirts (1 small, 20 medium, 14 large, and one random shirt with no discernible size on it). And these are my true t-shirts. Not the ones in my sleep drawer. Not the holiday ones. Not the ones actually designed for ladies that 'fit' a woman. Just regular ole' t-shirts.

Hmmmm......I think that might be overkill.

That's enough for a shirt-a-day habit for over a month. I could wear t-shirts every day for one twelfth of a year.

I work in a professional setting and can occasionally get away with wearing a t-shirt on Fridays before a game day weekend. Occasionally. If the shirt isn't faded. And you can read the writing. And of course, if it's an Aggie t-shirt. Not all of those 36 shirts met these criteria. And no, I'm not saying that I'm only keeping Aggie shirts (although considering...it would make the most sense), but it would be nice if there were opportunities to actually wear the shirts I was going to keep.

My goal was to keep only half of the t-shirts from that initial inventory. And just so you know, I set the goal before I counted and before I started going through them so that I wouldn't 'cheat' with the project.

And I started purging. The shirts I had forgotten I owned, and hence had not worn in ages were the first to go. Next were the ones with the writing and graphics that had come off in a washing machine in a time long, long ago.

When I finished, I was down to 17 t-shirts. 17. Seventeen. Which is probably still too many, but way better than it was! And you know what, my t-shirts fit very nicely on my shelf in my closet now, and don't cause the clothes hanging above them to bunch.

Baby steps.

You like me, you really like me!

Gush, gush...

In all seriousness (ok, not really - 'cause I'm not all that serious most of the time), Brandy gave me this award what seems like a few days ago (but in reality was almost 2 months ago, apparently I've been in a hole or time is really flying by more quickly than I realize) and I've been meaning to make this post as a reply (so sorry for the delay, Brandy!).

It would seem as though I need to post and follow the award rules, so.........

1.  Thank and link back to the person who gave it to you.

Thanks, Brandy! And see above, but if you're too lazy to do so, I'll link again.

2.  Share 7 things about yourself.

1. I am a transplanted Texan
2. Like Brandy, I am a Days of our Lives fan, and have been watching (off and on) since I was in the 7th grade (so count it up...that's over 20 years of watching that show - and let me just say, Bo and Hope, get back together and for Pete's sake, stay together!). I used to watch Santa Barbara and Another World before they were taken off the air (and in my spare time, I need to find and watch the finales of both of these shows, so if you're reading and you have access to either of those links, feel free to leave a comment with 'em!)
3. I am a recovering perfectionist and am trying to live with the realization that only one person every mastered perfection in this world, and I'm certainly no Jesus!
4. I am wife to one, mommy to three, friend to a few and advisor to many
5. I love my job(s) (ok, so maybe not the house cleaning or laundry part of the equation) and feel that I'm exactly where God wants me to be
6. I discovered The Office and My Name is Earl late, and adore both of those shows (yes JKW, I know you tried to tell me how funny they were years ago...I should have listened!)
7. I don't know how Gini manages to continually construct her Tuesday Ten posts, because these lists are hard!

3.  Pass the award on to 15 bloggers who you recently discovered and who you think are awesome (ok, so I'm going to cheat a little and they may not be recently discovered blogs...)

1. Beth (She's just inspiring all around...)
2. Gini (her blog cracks me up. A lot.)
3. Heather Hendrick (her posts on her family experience in Haiti make me want to take up breastfeeding consulting and be more intentional about - everything)
4. Jen (I love keeping up with my college friends, and they make having a family of 5 seem easy!)
5. Julia (makes me want to be a kinder, more gentler parent)
6. Julie (she's my awesome friend who has decided not only to come back to Texas but to the world of blogging, even if she's abandoned her blogspot page and moved to shutterfly)
7. Kendra (I love her crafty ideas and the ways her family incorporates teaching the kiddo's about the Lord in everything!)
8. Kimberly (she could have two shirts and some seeds and manage to clothe and feed an entire family - and shows you how she does it! Her mad skills amaze me.)
9. Lysa (she is simply inspring as well!)
10. Melissa (I love keeping up with my college friends and seeing how beautiful her kiddos are growing up to be!)
11. Michelle (I love catching up with my college friends and seeing other families of 5 survive is helpful to me!)
12. Misti (her blog moves, inspires, and reminds me that God has a master plan for me, his work-in-progress child)
13. Misty (I love looking at the beautiful pictures of her kiddos...even if I don't see them in person although we live blocks away from each other) :)
14. Rachel Olsen (her current piece on battling perfectionism is wonderful for a recovering perfectionist like myself)
15. Tiffany and Lindsay (they're blog makes me think of wonderfully creative things that I don't have time - or perhaps the talent - to do)

So many of these blogs inspire me to be better - a better wife, mother, decorator, Christian, person...and I appreciate the self reflection that many of these provide for me as I read through the posts.  And in case you're wondering, I didn't originally have them in alphabetical order.  I reordered them and then had to relink almost all of the links.  I said I was a recovering perfectionist, not recovered.

4.  Contact the bloggers and let them know that they have won. (Well, I did link back to their blogs, so I'm guessing they'll figure it out).

  

Q&A

Well, I was 'tagged' in Melissa's post, so I figured I would go ahead and answer the questions. I'll apologize ahead of time for my boring answers, but hey.....if you're reading this then you probably already know that I don't lead the most exciting life out there.

1.  What brand of toilet paper do you use? Whatever brand Matt buys at the store or what I have a coupon for or is the least expensive at the time!

2.  Who is the celebrity that you are most embarrassed to admit you have a crush on? Embarrassed? Me?! Hmmm...Like Melissa, I like Johnny Depp (and have since 21 Jump Street, so it's not a recent thing), Ryan Reynolds, but am not really embarrased by either of those facts.

3.  What is your all time favorite movie?  Tough one!  So I'm going to cheat...The Goonies, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (a must-see for it to feel like Christmas to me), Tombstone, You've Got Mail, 50 First Dates, insert numerous chick-flicks here...

4.  What store do you spend most of your paycheck?  Do daycares and Kids Klub count as stores? If not, probably Kroger.

5.  What is your favorite restaurant? I have many, 'cause I like food! Olive Garden (love, love, love their salad!), Cheddar's (best and cheapest dessert in TOWN! - cookie monster!!), Freeb!rds (hey, it's not too classy but I still dig it!), Mi Cocina (has recently changed their name to Polly Cocina, but that doesn't stick well in my brain)

6.  What is your most favorite thing to do in the town you live in? Go watch movies

7.  Where is the best place you have been on vacation? Skiing in Colorado

8.  What is the most distance place you have visited? Europe during the summer after my freshman year in college. Visited Italy, France, Germany, England...it was a wonderful whirlwind trip!

And now I apparently need to 'tag' 8 other people, so here goes!  (If you've already been tagged, feel free to just link to your prior list) :)

Julie George
Brandy Scott
Gini Howerton
Michelle Skow
Missy Schrib
Jennifer Harrell
Jennifer Karnes
Jennifer Westling

Feeding the baby...

Tatum's story
It should come as no shocker to anyone reading this that my kids have seen me nurse Jacey (or for Kellen, Jacey and Tatum). And they have also seen me, as Tatum so eloquently put it this morning 'pump the milk out'. So I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when I picked Tatum  up from Cubbies last night to see her with her shirt lifted up and the baby against her chest.

Her teacher, a male who is, luckily, a doctor, told me she was playing 'feed the baby'.

I had to laugh, and so I did.  Hard.

Only loud enough for him to hear me, I said, 'I would love to hear the other kids talk about that one when they get home,' then shrugged my shoulders and murmered, 'Hey, it's what she sees!'

Kellen's story
When we got out of Bible study last night and I went to pick up Jacey, the nursery workers were hard at work to pacify her. She was apparently hungry, and they had just heated up her bottle. Well, not to be wasteful ('cause hey, we are going through the Crown Bible study AND it takes effort to store up that milk), I let them go ahead and start feeding her the bottle while I went and got the other two kids. When I came back to get her, she hadn't finished her bottle, but was more content, so we packed her up and went home.

Kellen wanted to finish feeding her the bottle, so we set him in the chair and let him.

He did a GREAT job feeding her, and other than the daycare and nursery workers, he's one of 3 people to actually give her a bottle.

Jacey's 2 Month Check-up

Well, a little over two months have officially flown by since Jacey joined us.  Here are some pictures of her on the 17th. I apologize for the orange overtones in the colors, but these were taken with my phone. The 'good' (or better) ones are still on my camera.

As of yesterday morning (2 months and 4 days, or 9 weeks and 4 days- pick your own way of calculating her age), her stats were:

10 pounds, 8 ounces (50th %)

23 1/4 inches long (80th %)

Head circumference - 39 cm (55th %)

She really liked looking at herself in the mirror, and this was the best shot I could get of her tummy time and holding her head up. She holds it up MUCH better than this, my phone just doesn't take pictures that quickly, because the girl moves. A lot.

She had a great visit, got 3 shots (which neither she nor I enjoyed) and settled down pretty quickly afterwards.  Unfortunately, her method of coping with the pain and soreness of the shots was to eat, which she did every two hours until I took her to day care after lunch. And apparently she continued to be in pain and fussy...poor thing! When I picked her up after work, her coping mechanism of eating continued - she wanted to be in my arms, eating, or at least have the option to eat.

She settled down for her bath, which she seemed to thoroughly enjoy, but was immediately fussy when I took her out.  So last night was all about consoling her, which was ok with me!

Savoring the moments...

As I laid in bed yesterday morning, with Jacey nestled beside me, I started thinking about how I was doing things differently this time. My last time. I'm savoring the moments more.

The simple fact that Jacey was in bed with me was different. Her siblings didn't really do that, as I was too concerned with 1) doing things 'right' and 2) rolling over on them. I have apparently relaxed a little (don't spit your coffee out onto your keyboard or monitor on that one - I said a little).  I have learned that what's 'right' for you in parenting may be different than someone else and even different from kiddo to kiddo.  I have also learned that I can sleep perfectly still, with an infant nestled into the crook of my arm while she nurses and sleeps (and yes, both at the same time).

Savoring.

As I watched her sleep, I tried to soak in every feature of her face (which looks remarkably more and more like her brother as she's chubbing up).

I adore the peaceful look on her face while she's sleeping, like she doesn't have a care in the world (and really, why should she? Someone who loves her dearly carries her around, feeds her, burps her, changes her diaper and clothes and gives her baths.) She wants for nothing.


Savoring.

I am remembering more and more about how much I just LOVE the baby smell...baby lotion intermingled with milk, spit up and poo.  It's a wonderful combination, really, and you'll preferably get a majority of the former and less of the latter. 

Savoring.

I want to soak in every little moment and two months of them have already flown by!

The Sandlot

Last night the kids and I watched The Sandlot (Kellen's choice).  I think he's seen the move one other time, but apparently has an elephant-like memory.  He remembered what part was next, asked about this or that coming up, and pretty much had the entire storyline down pat.  Where is that elephant-like memory when I'm asking him to do something?  Because I swear, sometimes he can walk outta' the room and forget what I just told him to do. I think he takes after his daddy on that one. His daddy that was taking kids to school and almost left one of them yesterday. (But I think their daddy from the bottom of my heart for taking them to school yesterday and today!) I guess we're still getting used to the expansion around here.

But I digress.  I know the movie is set 'back in the day', but was thinking about how I (or virtually any other parent I know of) would not allow my kids to just holler through the door at me that they're going to go play and will be back later.  Those kids spent the whole summer virtually unsupervised.

I grew up in the country (pick your jaw back up, folks), 3 miles out of a town the size of a postage stamp. But back in those days (you know, when the dinosaurs still roamed), although my folks had a pretty good idea of where I was throughout the day, we had free rein of the pasture and tank in order to play.  No tellin' how much trouble we got into riding the go-cart and blowing up ant beds. (Of course, we always gave the ants a good last meal first - grasshoppers who were mysteriously missing their legs.)

Even that amount of freedom probably wouldn't fly nowadays, huh?  Ah, the good ole' days!

Who knew?

Of the five people who read this, apparently some are well-traveled. Or live in exotic places. I just discovered the 'stats' tab available in on Blogger (duh me, so perhaps I'm a little slow on the uptake over here), and in the last month I've had visitors from Malasia, Thailand and Singapore.

Who knew?

Feel free to let me know you're here and reading! Anyone should be able to post a comment...

Noctural nastiness

and no, I'm not talking about that.

As I was awake last night with my dearest 7 1/2 week old daughter, I realized how quickly I or the nether regions of my brain can turn nasty if I'm pushed.  After 4 hours of fussiness, eating, burping, spitting up, and continually replacing the paci in her mouth, (never mind that I was dealing with this while being sick) my brain went nuts. I had thoughts of taping the paci to her, but of course knew that my noctural madness was just that.

Madness.

I would never do anything to hurt her or cause her bodily harm (just in case you are actually wondering about my sanity level at this point).  And despite suggestions from Facebook friends to utilize duct tape for this particular problem, I would not actually tape the paci to my child's mouth.

A few deep breaths and several looks into her sweet little face later, my brain moved on to the mechanics of finding or developing some contraption to actually keep a paci in a child's mouth.

Anyone out there want to help me with my quest for product development?  I'm thinking this could be my million dollar idea.  Kind of like the folks who made blankets with silky tags all over them. Genius. Considering how much Kellen liked (likes) to rub on silky tags, I'm kicking myself for not thinking of that one.

A Case of the Mondays.....

And I seem to have it!

Things I've learned and/or remembered today:

• it isn't always good when your kids share with you (See earlier post for explanation)
• little girls who are quiet in their room too long are bound to get into trouble (Tatum apparently decided to express herself artistically this afternoon instead of napping...her bed, her walls (discovered at about 3PM this afternoon) and as I just found out, her brothers new build-a-bear monkey. I was sure I had crayon-proofed her room! And if you're wondering, antibacterial dishwashing soap and a damp washcloth seem to be able to get crayon out of monkeys.)
• kids (seem to) learn their lesson when they are made to clean up their own messes (hello magic eraser...Tatum made short work of her wall and bed masterpieces with your help. Thank you.)
• you can't physically force a kid to eat, and it's too stressful to try (have been learning this one for a while)
• the poop of breast fed babies is almost miraculous...it defies gravity, seeps through the thickest of diapers, and soaks anything it comes into contact with. Scientists should study its properties and I can supply them with their research data.
• Jacey seems to be settling into a poop pattern...the bomb explodes at roughly 7PM. When it does, watch out! And the washing machine had better be empty at the time to deal with the aftermath.
• Matt can take apart the fabric on the bouncy and on the swing very quickly (see the above bullet for why I found that out) Oh, and this one I learned last night.
• Kellen is a most caring big brother and will make up a song on the spot to try and soothe his screaming sister.
• Jacey screams bloody murder if, when getting her dressed, you put lotion on her body and it isn't the correct temperature and/or you don't clothe her quickly enough.
• Jacey is now starting to take the paci from the hospital as well as (the new development) nuk paci's. This is good because I have quite the stock of nuk paci's for her, as I was just so sure she would take them and them alone, just like her older siblings.
• You can truly dread something that you know is the right thing, even after going through similar scenarios twice before. (Jacey starts her day care tomorrow, so pardon me while I grab a box of tissues)
• Virtually none of the above scenarios are good when you have a migraine.
• My migraines, while nice to me during pregnancy, are now coming back to greet me. For some reason, they seem to be carrying a grudge against me....perhaps they're trying to show me how much they missed me?

But as all three kids are settling into bed shortly before 8 PM, I also realize that:

• Tatum is incredibly upset if she thinks she'll fall asleep without someone saying night-night prayers with her
• My kids still love snuggles before bedtime and still want me to tuck them into bed
• Kellen is very thoughtful about helping without being asked, and eager to help when asked

And I'll take that any day of the week.