I can't believe it is March!

February was a busy month. It seems the four of us were sick for most of it, which is a shame. But it was not all bad. Some pretty exciting things happened. Aidan turned three. Emma lost TWO teeth. I finally got the kids' toys organized into labeled bins. (More on this astonishing development later.)

I have decided that my kitchen needs a little makeover. Nothing extreme, I actually love my cabinets. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE new counter tops, but that project will have to wait. For now, I am going to do a little painting and add some new fabrics. Primarily, Anna Maria Horner's delicious Sketchbook from her Drawing Room collection:

If this doesn't brighten things up, I don't know what will! I know it is not super clear in this picture, but there is a gorgeous teal color splashed throughout the fabric. I am going to match paint to it and use it to paint the wall under the chair railing. I am not exactly sure when I will commence this project, but I hope to get started in the next few weeks. Once I begin I will make sure to post plenty of before and after pictures.

I picked up three wonderful chairs at an estate sale a few months ago, and sadly they are still sitting in my garage begging to be updated. Now that I have picked my primary fabric, I can finally recover the chair seats. Unfortunately they need new webbing, too, which if I remember correctly is a bit of a pain, but I know I can do it because my mom is a super hero who can do just about anything. And I know she will help me. (Mom, you ROCK!) Anyway, I think I will use a coordinating fabric on the chairs, maybe the pressed flowers. There are so many pretty coordinates, how is a girl to choose?

Three

Today Aidan turned three. I don't know where the time goes, but one minute I was in the OR looking at my new, perfect baby boy, and the next I was lighting a "3" candle on top of a birthday cake.

The family party was great. Aidan chose a menu of white salmon (Halibut), broccoli and baked potatoes. Brandon picked up a special treat at the fish market -- homemade hush puppies. They were yummy!

My mom made a fantastic cake (as always) which was, at Aidan's request, decorated with his favorite bad guy Zurg (from Toy Story). On her way to my house, someone swerved into her lane of traffic and slammed on his brakes, forcing her to slam on hers. The cake went flying. I am not sure I can properly convey how upset she was that Aidan did not have his Zurg cake, but we were all just happy she was OK. Brandon ran to the bakery and picked up a chocolate cake, and all was well.

Aidan was not not upset at all. He was just happy to have everyone over to celebrate his birthday. He was so excited to open all of his cool presents. Unfortunately, no matter how quickly I tried to move around, most of those photos ended up looking like this:

Or they were a complete blur. He moves fast!

All in all it was a fantastic day. And we have his kid party to look forward to this Saturday. He will have a Zurg cake for that party, and maybe by then my mom will stop feeling so bad about the first one.

I don't know how I ended up so lucky, but I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family.

Loose

Emma, wearing her new very favorite princess nightgown, wiggles her first loose tooth.

We just discovered that Emma has two loose teeth. Our dental hygienist pointed this out to us at her last appointment in October, but they were barely wiggling. I don't quite know how I have managed to miss this, because I still insist on helping her brush her teeth every night. Honestly, she does a really fantastic job by herself, but I have a thing about dental care. I know, I should step away and quit with the helicopter parenting.

So one tooth is really rather loose. The other is loose, but in no danger of falling out over the next week. I am in a panic to have her pictures made before the tooth falls out -- they will be the last pictures of her with all of her baby teeth. It goes so fast.

Birthday Girl

New Year's Eve. I don't believe it. Where did the year go?

In our house New Year's Eve is a huge deal because it also my Emma's birthday. She turns FIVE today, which just seems so impossible. I can still so easily picture they way we had her nursery arranged. I can still remember her smell as I nursed her and rocked her for hours on end in the comfy yellow chair, see the shadows cast across her peaceful face by the soothing glow of her low light lamp. I can feel her soft curls and sweet breath on my neck as I hold her and tell her stories and sing along to Coldplay.

And now my baby girl thinks she is all grown up. She can't wait to go to Kindergarten. She loves to sing and dance to Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. She has a very keen sense of fashion and loves to shop, though this is not something new for her. She watches Cyberchase instead of Sesame Street. She wanted, and received, an iPod for Christmas instead of toys. But she still loves to snuggle with me, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Catch Up

I cannot believe it has been a month since I last blogged. Where did October go? Where did the majority of November go, for that matter?! Only 10 days (well, 9 really) until December. How is this possible. Maybe I would be more productive if I did not waste so much time pondering where all of my time has gone! Here are a few of the things I have been up to this last month:

My darling girl finished her first season of soccer. I may have mentioned in a previous post that she scored THREE goals at her last game. I am so proud of her! This was her first team sport and she worked really hard. Here is a picture of her after she received her medal at the post season soccer party.

This is the beautiful pink soccer ball cake that my ridiculously talented mom made for the team's party. Of course it is pink, and of course it is complete with little pink ladybugs she made with icing. Seriously, is there nothing my mom can't do?? And did I mention it tasted great, too?

Aidan wanted to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween. We found this extremely cool costume at The Disney Store. It even lights up! He loves the costume now, but he almost didn't wear it. It came with the purple hood thing that Buzz wears and Aidan did not care for that part of the costume. For some reason he thought he had to wear the entire thing. Once he found out he could go sans purple hood thing he was elated! I love my boy to infinity and beyond!

Emma made her mind up about her costume a year ago. She LOVES Wonder Woman because she is a Princess and a Super Hero. I don't think I need to point out that my mom made the entire costume, including the cool tiara and bracelets. Not shown are her super cool red boots and her golden lasso. We could not find blue fabric with white stars so she just appliqued them on. Emma is my favorite Princess Super Hero. I am fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, my girl can save the world.

I have managed to do a couple of small shows recently, but I decided to limit myself in this area as of late. I love doing shows, but there is always so much work involved to get ready. And with holiday orders, it just has not been feasible to do as many as I would have liked to have done.

The girls and I got together last weekend for craft night. It was so much fun. Eve worked on a few scrapbook pages and Lucy and I made frames. Jen couldn't make it, but she will be here for the next one on the 29th. Lucy will likely still be out of town for that one, but we are getting together again in early December. We are thinking about making these darling little cupcake bath bombs that Little Birdie Secrets was kind enough to share with the world. I think they will make fun little stocking stuffers and I know my kiddos will love them. They beg for bath ice cream every time we go to The Makeup Bar. If they are pretty easy to make I will let them whip up a batch themselves. They love to cook and they love to craft, so this will be right up their alley. I will make sure to post our results, no matter how they turn out!

It's Magic

Something magical is happening in my house. Right this minute. As I type this post. My kids are playing together in Aidan's room. Alone. Nicely. Quietly.

OK, so maybe I exaggerate a little when I say this never happens, but it has not happened much in the past. The last few days have been great. It is like a switch was turned on and they realized that they can actually have fun together without me there to referee.

This is not to say I don't love playing with my kids. We still have plenty of time together. But 30 minutes to myself? WOW!!!

I am not quite sure what to do with this new-found freedom. It seems a shame to waste it on something mundane like laundry. And yeah, I really should sneak in that workout. But I have not done that yet. Yesterday I read a chapter. Today I am blogging. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

What do you do with your precious stolen moments?

Green Eyes

Emma and Aidan were playing so nicely together the other day. I was catching up on a bit of work and then I heard it. The ear-piercing scream. You know the one I mean. I ran into his room, where they were building towers for the Incredible Hulk to smash.

Apparently Hulk had ended up smashing Emma instead of the tower. After comforting her and calming her down, and after Aidan's stint in time-out was up, I had my little "toys are not weapons" talk with him. Again. He appeared to be listening so intently to what I was saying. Then he said to me "Mommy, I love your beautiful green eyes. Your eyes are so beautiful and green."

Well, what's a mom to do? I tried to keep it in, but I just burst out laughing. Then an intense feeling of dread washed over me. If this kid is this good at 2 1/2, what will I face in the years to come? I think we are all in a lot of trouble.

Ghost Baby

My dear husband sent me this photo update of their day, taken with his camera phone, while I was away at the craft show on Saturday (more on that later). This is not a ghost baby, it is actually my two year old, Aidan, covered in powdered sugar.

Apparently while Brandon was helping Emma retrieve dress-up clothes, Aidan utilized his super toddler speed ability to push the antique wine rack up to the cabinet, climb up onto the counter and retrieve the brand new bag of powdered sugar from the baking cabinet.

He then sped through the house, depositing piles of the sticky powder in the kitchen, living room and our bedroom, covering himself in the process. Of course he had time to empty the bag before Brandon caught him. Not surprisingly, Brandon saw the humor in the situation and sat him down for a quick photo op.

I don't know if you have ever tried to clean up powdered sugar before, but it is not fun. Three days and two bottles of Swiffer cleaning solution later, my floors are still sticky. The stuff is like glue! I fear this might be a job for an industrial cleaning crew.

Update: I showed Aidan this blog and this is the conversation we just had:

Aidan: "Wow! That's me! I was making a mess. A big mess."

Me: "Yes, why did you do that?"

Aidan: "Cause I wanted to. Daddy cleaned it up. It's a big mess."

Me: "Yep."

Aidan: "That's sugar. I love sugar. It is so sticky."

Me: "Do you like to make messes?"

Aidan: "Yeah. I love messes."

Mission Postponed

So yesterday's mission did not exactly work out. My poor little Aidan is sick. Unfortunately he takes after me and suffers from pretty bad allergies from time to time. I watched the noon weather report today and all of the allergens seem to be in high categories, making it a tough week to live in Oklahoma. We are taking Aidan to see the pediatrician in the morning just to rule out anything like ear infection. I just want my little guy to feel better now!

I did run to the store while Aidan napped. I picked up four bins to store fabric. I am afraid I have grossly underestimated my stash! I am blaming the minky - it takes up more room than the cotton. The minky alone looks as though it might take up all four bins. I hope to get it all together this weekend, but I am not going to stress about it.

Emma and I worked on a fun little school project today. She had to make an "all about me" poster. I think it turned out pretty well, but I could have added more if I just had a little more time. Some projects scream at me when I am finished, but others haunt my thoughts. I will no doubt dream of this poster tonight.

Do you have any unfinished projects? Leave me a comment and we'll compare notes. Or maybe we will be inspired to complete them and finally put them to rest.

Have a great Friday and a safe holiday weekend!