It's Time to Getcha Merry On!

Merry Holidays to one and all! Here is the Christmas Card (if I actually sent them). It only took 75 takes to get one good picture of all three children and of course, it was the VERY LAST one I took! And I don't even love it but it's the best of the lot. Enjoy!


And as promised on Facebook, here are the rejects. (You can clearly see who the trouble-maker is in all of these)...

















That's not all but you get the idea! I'll spare you the other 50 or so rejects.

Here are a few more nuggets of goodness for your enjoyment. Merry Christmas from our house to yours!!!

Sadie's Eight, Let's Rollerskate!

My little Bug-A-Lug turned 8 last week! Like I say whenever one of my kiddos has a birthday, "Where did the time go?"

On the day of her actual birthday (December 14), we took her to get her ears pierced and then to dinner at Red Robin.



A few days later, we had her birthday party at Champs Rollerdrome! Everyone had a great time. And thanks to Nana and Gramps, the cake was awesome, as usual!!!

Tricky Treats

Last year, I started the tradition of making a different treat each day during the week leading up to Halloween. The kids loved it. Here are the treats I made this year. I brought back a few of the faves from last year and mixed in a few new ones too!

Monday: Mummy Dogs (no photo)

Tuesday: Peanut Butter Spider Balls

Wednesday: Chocolate Skeleton Gingerbread Men


Thursday: White Chocolate Covered Pear Ghosts

Friday: Monster Mouths

Friday Night: Witch Fingers

Canopy #3 Bites the Dust

This is before the storm even started!

My baby leaves the nest...

Violet started preschool. Sigh. It is definitely bittersweet.

She was so proud of her backpack and lunchbox! In fact, for two days after purchasing the backpack, she carried it everywhere. She even slept with it – snuggled it like a stuffed animal. As you will notice in the above photo, the backpack is almost as big as she is. The dress she wore on the first day of school is the same dress that Sadie wore on her first day of school.
The first day passed without incident. She happily walked into the classroom, deposited her belongings into her cubby, hugged and kissed me goodbye, then went on her merry way. Wow. That was a shocker. I was waiting for the tears but they never came. I thought, hmm, day 2 is usually worse because they know what's coming.

And oh boy, did the tears come today. But not for the reasons you think. She cried because we went home first after dropping off the other kiddos at their school. We have to pass Violet's school to go to and from Waldorf. So when we passed her school, she cried, "Me stool. Der it is. Me go der now." (Translation: There's my school, crazy woman. Take me there right now).

I calmly explained to her that school didn't start for an hour and we were going to go home for a little while. The tantrum continued all the way home and for about 10 minutes after because she wanted to GO to school. Who knew?When I dropped her off today, the teacher told me that Violet was very stubborn yesterday. I wanted to say, "Welcome to my world, teacher. She's your problem now." But I just nodded sympathetically and went on MY merry way!

Argh, Matey!

Just found out my Little V may need glasses. :(

Just came from a routine eye exam for preschool and the doc wants me to "patch" Violet's left eye for 2 HOURS per day.

Are. You. Kidding. Me???

How on earth can I be expected to make a willful three year old wear a patch for 2 hours a day? I guess we'll all be playing pirates a lot over the next 6 weeks.

Where did the summer go?

Holy cow. I can't believe it's been 3 months since my last post. Now that the kids are back in school and I have some down time, I will try to update more often!

So the summer was fairly uneventful. We had the living room and kitchen painted. It only took 1o years! (See my last post from May).

I spent the majority of it working on my new BELIEVE IN BIRTH workbook. It turned out better than expected! It is 270 pages of birthy goodness! I am very proud of it and hope that my students enjoy it! My new class started last week. It went very well. I have 9 fabulous couples. I can't tell you how excited I am to be doing my OWN thang, y'all!!! It is amazingly liberating! Maybe one day, the BIB method will be a household name! If you haven't heard about my new venture, visit my web site www.believeinbirth.net!


















I was disappointed that we weren't able to take a vacation this summer. Perhaps we can save up and do something really fab next summer. It was so dang hot this summer that we spent the majority of our time indoors. The kids were excited to get back to school. They were starting to get a little bored. We played a LOT of Harry Potter Clue. There's only so many times of finding out it was Draco Malfoy with a Mandrake in the Great Hall that one can take.

Jonah started 5th grade this year! I can't believe it. It seems crazy to me that he will be 11 years old next month. The time has gone too fast. Sadie started 2nd grade. I'm so excited that she will learn to read this year. She is dying to learn. Jonah tried to teach her over the summer. It was very sweet but not very productive. He has NO patience and Sadie is easily frustrated. It was a good effort though!
Violet will be starting preschool at the end of the month. My baby! Preschool. How did that happen? She needs it though. It will be good for her to be around children her own age. I will miss her in the mornings. She's such a delightful child. So funny and sweet. But boy, oh boy, is she ever three! Willful and stubborn too!

So you might be wondering what I am going to do with myself once all three are in school. I imagine I will be doing a lot of bon bon eating and shopping. Maybe catch up on all the Soaps I've been missing. Read some romance novels. Things like that.

Seriously, I am going to prepare for the Lamaze exam in October so I can keep a certification as a childbirth educator. I am also planning to take a course to become a Certified Lactation Counselor in March. I would like to do home lactation visits during the mornings. I also have several doula clients in the coming months and will continue teaching my classes. And really when you factor in drive time, I am only going to have 2 hours to myself in the mornings Monday through Thursday. Hopefully I can manage to be productive in that amount of time!

Let's see, what else happened. Oh, Coco turned one! She's still alive. Shocking, I know. There were times I wasn't sure she'd make. She's a little less than 5 lbs. full grown. She is bat shit crazy but completely adorable and we love her.

So I will end this post with more adorable pictures of my Little V. I call it, "Violet makes out with a pudding cup!"
Until next time...