Recent Photos

These are some pictures I snapped of the girls when I was trying to make our family Christmas card. Let me tell you, I need to help photograph my own kids. This was a nightmare trying to do

despite how the pictures look.

Blizzard of '09

Well, it was certainly a blizzard by Houston's standards. Although, I know many people that were laughing AT us over our day of snow. For the record, this is the earliest recorded snow in Houston's history, and also the first time it has snowed two years in a row. This was, by far, the most snow I have ever seen in these parts. It was enough to build a small snowman. It was very exciting. And might I add that we have the best kind of weather. We are hit with snow one day and back in the 70's a few days later. Be jealous, be very jealous.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

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.