the girl who has a tooth!

Well, not me, but this little guy.

Sorry I can't show a picture of the actual little nub, but at the moment, that's all it is. However, I am so excited to see that tiny sliver of white! I swear, this boy has been a cranky, drool monster for the past two months. I've been anticipating this little milestone for a good long while.

So he's hitting his milestones fast and furious now.


He is officially a crawler in the past week or so, going from the unsure, move my hands forward, flop on my belly, get up and repeat mode to full out, high speed clamber. And climber too. Nothing can hold him back it seems. Given the concrete floors and the plethora of small, chokeable toys (and pieces of toys) generated by his brothers, he has a very small, but well defined play area in our bedroom. It keeps him happy and me hopping, pulling him out from underneath our computer desks and the wires he loves to gnaw on so much.

He reached another milestone yesterday between morning and night.

Yesterday morning he was pulling up on his knees in his crib. Last night, he achieved full standing status. This, of course, led to the dismantling of the crib and lowering of the mattress. He also lost his beloved crib bumper. The boy is no fool and enjoys his comfort. He constantly would pull the bumper down and use it as a pillow. Awww! Now, of course, it can also be used as a step stool, so out it goes.


He is also fully Daddy's boy. His first word is "da-da" and full out "Daddy" And, yes, he has reached the stage where he isn't just stringing words together. He actually is using it to get Daddy's attention. He says "ma ma" occasionally, but usually when he is whining about something. I'm not sure if he's made the connection of Mommy responding when he makes that sound, but it follows the pattern the boys have set. When you want to play, call for Daddy. When you want something, call Mommy!

I'm doomed.

However, after seeing the latest pictures, I've had several people comment that Eli looks like me. All I have to say about that is...FINALLY! These little boys of mine favor their Daddy so much, it's nice that my last baby finally looks like me!

**************

A shot of my little mini-me-in-attitude:


Yes, Matthew is his own person. Not content to sleep in his bed (simply because he was told to) he begrudgingly goes to sleep, but must still rebel by not sleeping in his bed. This doesn't look at ALL comfortable, but he slept through the night. (At least until his usual three o'clock transfer to sleep at the foot of my bed at my feet)


***************

And about a week or so ago I alluded to a special project I had made for a friend. Since it has now been mailed and received, I can reveal that it was a Housewarming/Birthday/Feel Better pressie for my good friend Princess.

Here it is in its entirety:


And here are the detail shots of its gorgeousness. I know have a request from my mother to provide her with one as well. I'll have to see what I can come up with.

the girl who is maxed out on family time

So it was an extremely busy Easter.

With the boys being home and not getting to go to Miss Mitzi's (and they ask EVERY morning if they get to go back...sigh) I thought I'd try and have a day just for the boys. So Saturday was chock full of Easter projects.

We colored eggs, made paper plate bunnies and topped it all off with birds nests cupcakes (a coconut maroon nest atop a cupcake with a skewered Peep and jelly bean eggs).

I was exhausted at the end.

Then there was today, the actual Holiday.

The Easter Bunny left the baskets out for the kiddos to see in the morning. I think that was my first mistake. They started the day on a sugar high and I was never able to fully account for all of the candy and ration it. lol, that'll teach me.

Plus, I...I mean the Easter Bunny... found some kites at the dollar store. Yeah, you definitely get what you pay for, but they seemed functional and I thought it would be a fun activity. Unfortunately, the kiddos opened the kite packaging before I woke up and destroyed them in their efforts to see if they would fly with the wind generated by the ceiling fan.

Please don't ask, it's only funny from the outside, I'm still cringing.

Then Easter brunch where I inadvertently used up the last raw eggs. I had done this yesterday when I boiled the eggs for coloring, forgetting I needed to have a raw egg or two for the meatloaf I made last night. So I made an unscheduled visit to the grocery story to buy an 18 ct carton because I luckily remembered I also needed them for eggs for Sunday brunch. That unscheduled trip turned out to be a blessing in disguise because Publix had all of their Easter paraphernalia deeply discounted. I found these uber cute little rabbit shaped melamine egg plates for a quarter a piece! I bought four and they came in handy when the boys were coloring their eggs. Anyway...I used the rest of the carton making eggs this morning and totally forgot that I needed raw eggs for the cheese filling of my lasagna!

Eggs, I can stretch a dozen for a week or more and never think about it, but when I absolutely need them, I forget!

So another unscheduled trip to the 7-11 and I was set.

In between brunch and the trip to 7-11 we had the egg hunt. I had to post a guard and felt terrible. The neighborhood kids saw me hiding eggs and were asking to join. I felt terrible saying "I'm sorry, it's a family event" but it really was! Sure, I could have let one or two join and it wouldn't have been completely terrible, but I selfishly only wanted my own kids in the pictures! Does that make me a terrible person?

So after the hunt, the kids continued on a sugar high while I made the lasagna. And then it rained so I couldn't send them outside. Ugh! Finally, at around 4:30, I had the lasagna baking and the kids screaming so I locked myself in the bedroom and took a brief nap.

When I emerged, ready to continue the holiday I found out that my kiddos are resourceful.

Did you know that Willy Wonka makes a jelly bean covered in Nerds?

Did you know that my kids decided they didn't like the Nerds coating, but still wanted the jelly bean?

Did you know that Nerd jelly beans soaked in a bathroom sink filled to the brim with water will lose their Nerds coating?

Did you know what a mess that makes?

Did you know that if you attempt to clean up that mess with toilet paper before Mom sees it and accidentally submerge a fresh roll in the water in the plugged up sink and leave it there, that it will dissolve into a paper mache sludge that will completely block the drain?

Well, now you do.

And that was my Easter. How was yours?

the girl who has scrapover

From the "What the hell was I thinking?" files:

Last night I continued work on my super secret project for a super special someone. I've been doing it in stages because the prep work involves several steps involving wet mediums, i.e. gesso, acrylic paint and mod podge, and I wanted to take it step by step with plenty of time in between so that things would adequately dry and not warp.

I reached the final mod podge stage last night. Ah, my old arch nemesis. You see, I have a love/hate affair with mod podge. I am not the type of girl to alter things. Really, I'm not. It's something that really keeps me from joining design teams. It seems they all want an altered project EVERY month. And that's just not me. I want to join a design team that allows me to do my own thing without having to do something I wouldn't normally do just so I can show you can use your scrappy supplies for something other than layouts. But once in awhile, I do like to get my alter on and I'd like to think I'm more or less successful. When I do get it in my head to alter something, mod podge is my medium of choice, but it took a bit of a learning curve to work with it.

My first efforts warped.

Alot.

The paper wrinkled, the finish was NOT smooth and, invariably, mod podged items would end up sticking to each other.

I think I've learned the trick of it now though. And it was no huge thing either. The trick is...be patient. Take it slow and let things dry in between coats.

See, I'm always in such a hurry to get to the "fun" part (the decorating) that as soon as the first coats are down and dry-ish to the touch, I start decorating.

Nope, you can't do that.

You have to apply your thin coat and let it dry. Then sand it ever so lightly, apply your second coat and let it dry.

That's a lot of time involved just to get something ready to go to town on.

But I was good and I took my time and I held myself under control.

Until last night.

I was finishing up the second coat of mod podge last night and had all my different elements drying neatly, so I took a break with the trusty ol' laptop and played endless rounds of Poppit (so addicting) until the low battery pop up, well, popped up.

At that time it was about midnight-ish, so I decided I'd call it a night.

I had the television on the local news (nice background noise) when I heard a reminder about the night launch of the shuttle.

Well, I've never seen a night launch and I have enough of a view from my backyard that I can see the flame trail going up. So I decided to stay up the extra two hours to see if I could catch the flames through the clouds.

So in the midst of putting up my project materials, I decided the project was dry enough that I could start on the fun part of decorating it.

I pulled EVERYTHING out and lost myself in artistic bliss, only to be interrupted by the shuttle launch.

I decided that I need to share this with one of the kiddos and went to go wake up Ian, and ended up accidentally waking Zacky instead. For that I felt a little remorse. You see, the FCAT started today and we had sent the boys to bed extra early so Zacky could get plenty of sleep. This kid was so pumped and excited about taking the FCAT (I'm sure the schools are really rah-rahing it) that he went to bed like a kid on Christmas Eve. Only MY child would be excited to take a test. Bless his little nerdling heart, I'm raising him right! So he was sleeping on pins and needles of anticipation.

So with the damage done, we set up a blanket outside in the backyard aimed at the sky and waited.

And waited.

and waited.

Didn't see a damn thing.

Apparently the clouds were too thick over here and we missed it. How anticlimactic.

So I shooed Zack back to bed with a promise I'd walk over to McDonald's with him in the morning and we'd have breakfast together, just the two of us, before school.

I went back to my project with the intention of cleaning up and going to bed, but ended up wanting to finish just one more thing. Which led to just one more little thing, which led to...well, we'll just say that when my eyes were burning and my head drooping and the project was 99.9% complete, I cleaned up and went to bed.

At 5:30.

Yeah, stupid huh?

And then at 7 o'clock the alarm rings and I grudgingly get up to take my eldest to his promised Mommy date.

When I get back, everyone else (except DH) is up so I round up breakfast for everyone and start to pick up around the house only to collapse on the couch in front of the Backyardigans and completely zone out. I swear, there was a vacant stare, glassy eyes and a teeny bit of drool leaking from the corner of my mouth. Somewhere after lunch and around "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast" I finished up the project, sent the boys off for their nap and finally went to bed for two hours.

So what do I have to show for it?

Something I think is purty darn spectacular. I can't wait to give it away and secretly hope she hates it so I can keep it for myself!

Would you like to see it?

Sorry, that will have to wait, lol. As much as I want to show it off to any and everyone, I want it to be a surprise.

But here is a sneaky peeky.

The bad part is that the recipient lives out of town, so I will have to mail it to her and I won't get to see her face.

But even though I will miss that reaction and I have had maybe four hours sleep total in the past 48 hours, I just know it was so worth it.