All dressed up!

I am so proud of myself. I received a sewing machine for my birthday and picked up like I have always been sewing. I made a precious little pillow case dress for Violet this week. The plan was to have her wear it to a wedding yesterday, but we actually ended up leaving her along with her sisters at my parents' house since she insists on running all over the place now that she is walking.

I think it turned out pretty well for not having any pattern or real instruction to go off. I pretty much guessed at it all, and it worked. My plan is to make similar dresses for Christmas in a black and white picnic damask for the girls to wear with black turtle necks underneath. I think I will actually need a pattern for the bigger girl sizes, though.

Here is the completed dress!

Happy Halloween!

I hope your day was filled with more treats than tricks. We had a cat and mouse theme for the little ones. Madison decided she wanted to be a diner girl last year for Halloween but unexpectedly could not be with us. So she wore her costume this year, finally. It is our first Halloween with her in five years and only our second one total. It was nice to have the whole family together this time. Violet only made it to one house to trick or treat before passing out in the Ergo. She slept her way through the rest. The kids had so much candy that the bag they dumped it all in ripped apart at the handle. Yeah, much of that will be donated to sugar craving teenagers at my mother's school.

Anyway, we had a blast and wanted to share some of our pictures with you.

Birthday and Pig Flu

Last Monday, I officially entered into what will be the last year of my 20s. To be honest, I was somewhat put off about this birthday. Not upset, but not excited. My last year of still being "young". At least that is my husband's definition. He loves to tell people he went for the trophy wife the second time around since I am 12 years younger than he is. I was only 20 when we started dating. Whoa... that's seems like a lifetime ago now. Anyway, he always calls me his hot, young wife. I am not worried about turning 30 next year. I am actually kind of excited about it.

Well, all birthday plans to have a nice dinner out with my husband and children were put on hold when Leila came down with flu-like symptoms early Saturday morning. I immediately took her into the pediatrician which is totally unlike me. It has to be pretty darn serious for me to go into the dr. In fact, each child has only ever had one sick visit, and Violet's resulted in a hospital stay. You get my drift. So, Leila was running a ridiculously high temp that OTC meds would not bring down. It was up to 105* in the office. They did a nasal swab, and it most definitely came back positive for flu... swine flu. Oh, excuse me... H1N1. Don't want to offend the pig farmers. We did manage to score a Rx for tamiflu which I was able to track down rather easily compared to others I have heard about going all over town to find it. Thankfully, her fever broke sometime the next day. We would only be confined to the house for 5 days with a low grade temp.

So, instead of an evening out my sweet husband made me a delicious dinner of kobe beef, homemade crab cakes, bacon wrapped scallops, and asparagus. Mmmm... delicious. I was also presented with a delicious brownie cheesecake for dessert. I was also surprised with my husband spending days completing random tasks around the house and getting me whatever I needed to help get our house organized the way we need it. That means the world to me given how our disorganization has not been helpful lately. Mind you, my real life friends are probably laughing at me reading this and thinking about how "disorganized" we are here. None the less, it is disorganized for me and was creating a tremendous amount of stress for things like getting out of the house and not being able to find what I need easily. So, getting a handle of these things was a great gift on top of the gift cards they already presented to me.

My birthday was very low key this year, but it was honestly one of the better ones. I had my wonderful family around me and a great husband spoiling me. I can only hope for more of the same in the coming year.

Violet at 9 months... very late, I know!

Oh, who knew homeschooling your children would be a constant stream of activity. It has been quite the adjustment over the past month. I have been to exhausted to do much of anything lately. I am just getting around to Violet's 9mth update. She officially weighs 9lbs 11oz and is 28.75" long. She is long and skinny like her big sister, Ava.

My girl has turned from a little baby into what seems like a little person overnight. She can express her wants and needs to me in more ways than just crying or more likely a small fuss. She has figured out how to make some semblance of a sign for things like milky, more, where, kitty, bye-bye, music, and up. I know, I am forgetting a few in there. It is just amazing to see her progressing at rapid speed.

She is picking up in vocabulary, too. She says mama, dada, Lala (Leila), kitty, done, and maaaa (milky). Combine the words with her amazing vocalizations that remind us of bird calls. We affectionately refer to her as our little chickadee when she starts up with her trills. She also loves to mimic any kind of noise we make with our mouths. Violet just loves to make noise.

She is gaining much more mobility. She is cruising everywhere and is officially taking small steps toward me before deciding, "Yeah, I am not all that interested in possibly falling. I am going to sit down on my butt.". She is also climbing e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. I was making dinner the other night while she was playing peacefully in the living room. I looked in on her and discovered that not only had she managed to climb onto the couch, but she also scaled the back of it and was sitting on the table that is behind our couch. Of course, thinking it is one of the safest surfaces in our house given its height, it is loaded with some of the most expensive items we own. Baby + expensive items = near panic attack as I race over to pull her down before any damage is done. Needless to say, this child has me baby proofing the house in a manic fashion. Just when I get something secure she has figured out a new trick, like opening cabinets. She certainly keeps me on my toes.

Here are a few pics I snapped the other week of Violet.

Because there need to be more pics...

I had the pleasure of spending and afternoon with a few friends last week capturing pictures of them while nursing their little ones. It came about during National Breastfeeding Week the first week of August when many of us realized that we really don't have any pictures of us nursing our babies. I set out to change that by organizing a get together specifically to capture this beautiful relationship between mother and child. I thought I would share some of the shots I got with you. I hope it inspires more mamas to grab their cameras and snap some pics of their own.

A Sticky Situation

So, a lot has been going on here in the past week. As part of Madison's birthday presents, we took her to my hair salon to get a nice hair cut. I decided I would also go ahead and get my hair cut since I have a wedding coming up and needed a fresher look than my three month ago cut. Seriously, a new record of cutting my hair before six months. Ava also needed her hair done, too. I took the whole crew with us. Of course, I had my mom tag along to help herd the cats since I would be indisposed while getting my hair done. I decided to change it up slightly and was thrilled with the result. It was nice to leave the salon feeling well put together for a change since I am in constant mommy mode lately.

The salon visit ran well past our normal lunch hour, so we wrangled the kids into the car and looked for the nearest McD's in an unfamiliar part of town. The first one I saw was the one in a Wal. mart. I am not a fan of this store for several reasons that I won't get into today. We decided to go since the kids were starving and any more time in the car would have had me acting very un-AP.

We ate quickly, and I decided against my better judgement to run over with the baby strapped into my Ergo to the cosmetics aisle to grab a new bottle of the foundation I wrestled to get out that morning to look somewhat decent when I left the house. I left the kiddos munching with my mom. As I was walking past a giant display of the school supplies I have no need to purchase, I felt someone in my personal space behind me. My instinct said that someone was trying to pickpocket my backpack. I turned quickly with a scowl on my face to see some young squirrely punk slink away from me quickly.

My radar went off, but things seemed fine. That is until I went to pay for my makeup. I noticed a white glob dripped down my backpack. As any mom would do, I dipped my finger in it and smelled it to figure out what it was. I immediately recognized it as Elmer's glue. I could tell from the angle of the drippage (since I am an obsessed crime drama junkie) that it came from somewhere above me. I kept wondering how the heck it got on there and even glanced upward to see if anything had dropped from above. I paid for my makeup and went to meet my mom and girls back at the McD's.

I sat back down at the booth and casually mentioned that there was glue on my backpack. That is when my mom tells me to check my hair for glue. I was thoroughly confused as to why there would be glue in my hair, but she informed me that she saw on the news that someone was going around super gluing women's hair. Still confused I turned for her to see my head. Sure enough, the whole back of my newly cut and styled hair was coated with Elmer's glue.

Totally ticked off, I immediately asked an employee to get a manager for me. In true Wal. mart fashion, they were as unhelpful as expected. She casually walked the store with me to see if he was still there while stopping to help or chat other employees. Of course, the guy was gone by this point. She also mentioned to me that I was not the first one hit that day in their store. After making a flippant promise to check the surveillance tape, she took my name and number. I left the store with the glue still all in my hair. No one offered me any help in cleaning up or anything. No one even bother to let the police know what happened despite the fact that they were at the store for someone shoplifting. I fully did not expect any help from them.

I went home and cleaned up the glue from my hair. THANK GOODNESS it was only Elmer's and was water soluble. It came right out. Then, I looked up the number to the local police department where the store is located. I called them to see how to report the incident, and they think I am actually the other person that was glued in their store. They asked me to come down to report it which I promptly did.

A detective called me the next day to follow up and asked if I would want to press charges. By this point, I had seen the prior news footage on it and saw that he was also doing this to younger girls, 12 and 15 years old. I also immediately recognized him as the same person from the other surveillance videos they aired. I knew I had to pursue pressing charges if that was the only way they would investigate my case to catch him. I also contacted the local news station that had been actively following the cases to let them know I was also a victim.

The next morning, I was contacted by the news and asked if I would do an interview. I agreed, and a reporter and camera man were at my house within the hour asking me all about it. My interview aired later that day on the 5pm news. Not a minute after the story aired, my phone began to ring. It was Wal. mart, and they were suddenly concerned with actually helping me. The employee wanted to know the specifics of what I was wearing, where I was walking, and the time I think it happened. He would later call back another two times trying to actually look for it on their tapes. I don't know if they ever found it, though.

I do know that the police have figured out who this individual is thanks to the fact that he was prosecuted for it three years earlier. The detective on the case asked me to come down to the station yesterday to do a photo line up. Unfortunately, there were two pictures that could have been the man. I happened to pick the wrong one because the man in the picture had a tan, and I remember this individual being tanned. Of course, I have no idea when the picture of him in the line up was taken, but it threw me off. Once, he told me it was the other one, I knew it was him. The way he was standing suddenly became clear that it was his same demeanor. I want to kick myself for not recognizing that when I was trying to ID him.

At any rate, they don't need my ID to know that it is him. Without going into the specific details since I was asked not to, this individual is pretty sick in the head. Finding that out really made the situation worse in my mind than it had been prior since I have no lasting damage. The other bad thing is that they can't really charge him with anything major. It is only a class C misdemeanor equivilant to a traffic ticket. The others that had been super glued will only lead to criminal mischeif charges. So, he won't be off the streets. I am afraid his behavior will escalate over time to worse things. I really hope something stops him before he does.

Anyway, that has been my week. Really, much more excitement than I would ever ask for. At least, not for this reason. Here is my news interview on it if you are interested.

Happy 11th Birthday, Madison!

Madison is officially 11 years old today. Or as she says, "I am the same age comin' and goin'". I think this makes us officially dealing with a tween. Oh, somebody help us. Before we know it, she will officially be a teenager.

I always look forward to July in our house. That is the month that we get to have Madison all to ourselves. I love it because we really get to make up for lost time over the year when we are on our every other weekend schedule. The girls LOVE having their big sister here to play with every single day. She is just really able to settle into our day to day rhythm.

Madison also gets to really enjoy time with Daniel since he works such an odd schedule and never has a normal weekend schedule. I think they both need it by the time July comes around. It is great to see them really reconnect. The two of them have always had a special thing with one another. It is sometimes lost throughout the school year with the rush of everyday activities. So the slow down and time really does wonders for them.

Madison is just blossoming into quite the young woman in every way. She will be beginning middle school next month. I guarantee it will do more than we are prepared for to her as far as her maturity. I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for her.

Here is Madison on her birthday!