Exersaucer Time!

Now that Dilly has gotten bigger, it was time to bring out the exersaucer so that she could start working on strengthening her legs. She did great her first time in the exersaucer and seemed to have a lot of fun.

What we didn't expect was what kept happening during the day on Sunday...Lissy kept climbing into the exersaucer! As you can see from the pictures below, she was constantly putting her baby into the exersaucer and climbing on top and standing before climbing into the seat and playing with all the toys.

As you can see in the picture, she put crayons in the bottom of the exersaucer earlier while playing.

                                    So proud of herself that she got in and was able to play!

 It was hilarious to watch her play and then get frustrated when she couldn't get herself out!!!

Something to celebrate!

It's always nice to be able to share good news!

We got the test results from Dilly's chromosome test...she does not have Trisomy 23, also known as, Down's Syndrome. We are so grateful for this small blessing, but it does still leave a few questions that will need to be answered. For now, we will be monitoring her with our doctor over the next few months and if necessary we will run the applicable tests...But for the moment, we get to have smooth sailing. (Remember, when you have kids, you just never know!)

 Annie goes today for her MRI of her foot to see if we can figure out what is going on with her foot. Think happy thoughts that this saga ends soon!

Playin in the Pumpkin Patch

We have tried, and not succeded, in years past to take the kids to the Pumpkin Patch for fall pictures. This year, I committed to it. Not only did I make Lissy a new outfit for the Pumpkin Patch, but I also mastered her first 4" bow! I was so excited!!!

We met our friend Maisye at the Agricenter to take pictures of the babies. I got a few good shots of Annie and Jonas, and a few of the all of the kids together. I also managed to get a mommy and kids picture, which I was pretty excited about.

I love seeing the kids in the clothes that I have made for them. I think my mom probably felt the same way about seeing us in the dresses she made. I decided to put Dilly in my thanksgiving dress. (Which inspired me to want to figure out how to make the dress style my mom used to make; but that's another blog post and another story.)

We let Lissy walk around and explore the pumpkins and the gourds that we sitting around the Big Red Barn at the Agricenter. Lissy had a blast wandering around in her new outfit checking out all the pumpkins and gourds. She was shaking the gourds and trying to pick up the big pumpkins.Once Maisye arrived, the girls had such a great time playing in the pumpkins. There were statues of hogs and horse that the girls really liked, but they seemed a little confused by them. Someone had cut open a very large pumpkin and though the outside was orange, the inside was very white.

Overall, I think the little girls had a great time.

Here's a few pictures from the day.

My soccer player!

My sweet son LOVES to play sports. Right now we are in the midst of fall soccer. (I know it's been a while since I talked sports on here, but let me confess that I am so glad that my son does not play competitive soccer or basketball or baseball right now! Yeesh.
But, he had a game this past Saturday and finally got a win!!!

Yeah!

He looks so cute out on the field and I can tell he is really trying hard to learn the game and get better at what he is doing...

No game this weekend, but I am sure he will be out in the back yard working hard to get even better!

(Did I mention it's really hard to take pictures of your own child at a soccer game?)

Lissy Jane is 16 months old

Today, my third child is exactly 16 months old. She weighs about 25 pounds, is just over 2 feet tall and is a super cutie!

Here's some fun info about our wonderful Lissy Jane!

Words she can say:
Ducka
Dogg
Baby-a
MaMa (Which she can repeat several times!)
NaNa (Which is used to call Anna)
Moo (Move)
Bo (Beau, almost says it right)
BaBa (Bath)
No

Things she can do:
Get on and off furniture
Use a sippy cup or a straw
Eat ice cream
Climb on the table from her seat
Dance
Use a spoon
Take off shoes, socks, bows, diapers
Nod her head
Open and close cabinets
Flush the toilet
Pull the plug out of the tub
Play peek-a-boo

Things she is trying to do:
Snap her fingers
Tickle People

It is so fun and exciting watching her grow and learn new things in the world around her. She has started to show the things she is and is not interested in eating and the music that she likes. I can't wait to see how her future changes!

The ongoing Kitchen project...

Kitchens are a difficult thing to handle. Especially, when trying to make them feel like home and comforting and all of those other good words.

You all know what happens during a party right? Everyone ends up in the kitchen.

Well, my kitchen was dark. And dense. and cramped. Even if you wanted to be in the kitchen, it was too tight and too small for that to happen.

When we bought our house in 2006, this is what our kitchen was like. It had wood cabinets, laminate floors, awful counter tops, brown electric stove and a dishwasher and fridge that were both black.

To try and make the kitchen feel a little brighter, I painted the cabinet facing white, the doors orange, and the soffets yellow. The hardware was black Sadly enough, this matched the floor perfectly.

Now, we have taken down half a wall and built a half wall, replaced the linoleum floor with tile, repainted the walls and taken down the cabinets to have open shelving. On the backside of the kitchen wall, we have a built in buffet, with a cookbook nook under it. The buffet shown has pictures under plexiglass, allowing us to personalize and change our buffet look to match the season.Here's a shot of the cookbook nook before it got painted.

 

As the kitchen continues to change, I will be sure to share pictures how it looks. This is one of the hard parts about being a homeowner...there's so much you want to do and only so much you can afford.

Consignments!

Growing up, I used to be embarrassed when my mother would take drag me to consignment sales to shop.  It was in no way the "cool" thing to do. It started for mother, I'm sure, to save money. Shopping for 3 girls who were all very picky about their clothes, could not have been easy. But, I became defiant about it when a girl I went to school with recognized an item that had come from her sister. Needless to say, for a fifth grader, that was not a good thing. Especially when she remembered that her mom had "gotten rid" of those clothes months prior.

Now, however, my daughter HELPS me consign! Oh, the things my mother would say if she could see me now!

So, last nite, we set out to get done with round one of the consignment work. This means that we go through the bag of clothes I have filtered out of the babies drawers from the most recent "clean out". A few things will come out of Annie and Jonas's rooms but, mostly these are baby/toddler items. Then we sort them by size and next list them in the computer and tag them. The whole process is time consuming. However, at our house we seem to have a pretty good system and we move rather quickly.

This was our "consignment" station last nite. We use the tags from Office Depot, safety pins on the shoulder and hangers from around the house.

Next, we'll check blankets, towels, bibs, shoes and socks to see what else might be able to find a new home...and then hopefully, make some money!

 

Weddings!!

I love weddings. They are one of my favorite things, and I love that they can happen at any point in the year! This past weekend, we went to Knoxville, TN to witness one of Geoff's good friends, Dave, from Webb School of Knoxville get married. It was a beautiful service officiated by two ministers. One of whom was the wife of a classmate and the other, a classmate. Jarad Bingham, graduated with Geoff and Dave and now is a minister at Shady Grove Presbyterian in Memphis, TN.

The service was in the front yard and the back yard was covered by a large tent. Tables were set up with seasonal and regional flowers and food was served buffet style. It was intimate, yet casual.

Since the groom is from Knoxville and the Bride, Joanna, is from China, this was the third ceremony. So, after the service and dinner, the Bride and Groom answered questions from the crowd about how they met, where they work, weird things that Americans do, and ultimately where they will live in the future. Afterwards, of course, it was time to party!

Lissy had a great time running around the backyard and making everyone laugh. After the wait staff left, she attempted to step in as bartender...it was very cute.

We were all impressed with her ability to party on! until she ultimately....crashed.

It was a beautiful weekend to be celebrating the beginning of a new family and such a joy to share in theirs!

Congrats to Dave and Joanna!

Happy Birthday Annie and Jonas!!!

I am a shameless, hopeless goofball....most anyone who knows me is well aware of this fact. If you were not already aware, now you are.

Well, Annie and Jonas were born about 3 weeks apart. When they were small, they got separate birthday parties that were all their own...now....now, we can do big and awesome joint birthday parties that are awesome and amazing and soooo much fun!!!

This year I left Geoff in charge of putting together the birthday party shenanigans...and let me tell you, when you say waterslide to a man, he thinks WATERSLIDE! and gets the biggest waterslide he can find.

We had a great day and saw plenty of friends and it was just a wonderful and fabulous day.

It's hard to believe these pictures are 6 years apart!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little people.

Lillian is 4 months old!!

 Happy 4 month Birthday, Lillian!!!

Time flies when  you're having fun! Or at least, that's what people say.

My sweet little Dilly baby is now a whopping 4 months old! I can't believe how quickly we have gone from having a teeny tiny baby to now having a little baby with a personality.

She had her 4 month appointment the other day. She got her shots, we attempted to give her the Rotovirus vaccine. The new vaccine delivery method is to have the kids drink it. Well, for my drooly baby that is easier said than done. But we did our best!

She weighed in at 14 pounds and 8 ounces and is now 26 inches long! My little baby is growing into a BIG baby! In a more stressful world, we have decided to do a chromosome test. There are some things going on that our Doctor wants to check out and we need to make sure we are doing everything we can to keep her safe and happy.

Times like this I miss my mom even more. Some to tell her about how quickly my baby is growing up and how sad I am that she isn't here and some to tell her how scared, worried and concerned I am about my baby and the world of the unknown. No matter what I know that she is watching over my sweet little family and loving us.

Annie's Cast Saga

So, most of you may have not been aware, but about a month ago, Annie tripped over an exersaucers (you know, those round toy chairs for little babies?) and broke a couple bones in her foot.

Remember, this is my competitive swimmer....

Since I am a compassionate mother, we tried a soft cast to begin with...well, no such luck on that fixing things...She got a hard cast about 18 days ago. Since she hasn't been at practice in a while, she was worried that her friends had forgotten her. No such luck, while we were at her brother's soccer game on Saturday, her friends signed her cast and sat and talked with her for most of the game. Happy as a Lark, doesn't even cover it. Her sweet friend however, now has a couple breaks of her own and is in her own boot. We'll see how they turn out!

Yesterday, a rainy Monday morning...aren't those illegal?...she got her cast off and went to school. Poor baby, it's still not quite right. IF it's still hurting after Wednesday, then we'll have to take her back for an MRI.

Swim practice was, well, swimming.

Hopefully we will be done with casting for a while...

Appliques!!!!

Let me just start by saying that doing applique can be VERY addictive!!!

Recently, I put a down-payment on a fancy new monogramming and embroidery machine...The Brother PR-650! It is so cool!!! It has tons of amazing designs pre-loaded, 6 needle heads and is an upright machine! You can check it out here. I wax poetic to anyone who will let me, so talker be warned!

Now, I have been scoping the web looking for free downloadable machine appliques! And over at Applique Cafe, it's Rosemary's birthday so all of the designs are 40% off till October 2! (Don't tell Geoff, but I am so tempted to buy the WHOLE LIST!) Don't worry, I won't...I think.

So, over the weekend I worked at mastering the art of applique! Don't worry, for the next applique, I'll post a how to so that you can see step-by-step how I do applique and maybe it will make things easier for you!

I'm hoping I can start having classes soon, I think it would be fun to teach others about applique, monogramming and quilting. My 3 favorite things for the kiddos....Now, if I could just finish the smocking....

Talk soon!
Rachel