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...

Go ahead, judge me. I don't care.

In preparing to have our house painted, my mom came over the help me pack up stuff and get the house ready. One of those jobs included moving the refrigerator and stove to clean behind them. OH. MY. GAWD!

In case you ever wanted to know what 10 years of dirt looks like, here you go...










I was mortified and disgusted. But that's OK, because I know most of you don't clean behind your fridges either (and Mom, you don't count)! :)

Here is the after picture. Ta da...










By the way, my mom was horrified that I took these pictures and planned to post them on the internet for all the world to see. I guess I can kiss my hopes of being the next Martha Stewart goodbye! Darn.

We found our Dream Home!

Here is the listing:

Lovely, 4 bedroom, 1 bath, 3-story home with 3000+ square inches of richly appointed living space located in the heart of White Blossom. Fully furnished, some antiques, including "microwave" television. New hardwood floors and crown molding throughout. New windows, wallpaper and paint. Luxurious bath and newly remodeled kitchen with top of the line appliances. New roof and siding along with beautiful landscaping add elegant curb appeal to this 1978 charmer.

My Prima Ballerina

Today was Sadie's ballet recital. She was beautiful and did a great job! Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Just another morning...

Violet has her big brother wrapped around her little finger! This morning, she begged Jonah to "suggle" with her. He is getting ready to leave for a 3 day field trip and she is going to miss him terribly. She wanted to snuggle with him in his bunk bed but he was trying to eat breakfast and get ready. He told her he couldn't snuggle right now. She dropped her head down and gave him the saddest look and said, "Ohhhhh, don't eat bweafass." :( Of course, Jonah dropped everything and snuggled with that baby!

Happy Mobber's Day

Mother's Day was great! I got to sleep in. I had coffee and donuts in bed. I received handmade cards from my babies and some new running shoes from my hubby, not to mention lots of hugs and kisses too! If Violet wished me "Happy Mobber's Day" once, she said it 100 times. I have even gotten a few today (two days later)! I am one lucky mama.

We celebrated with my Mom later in the day. My brother even came over and made us dinner!

I feel very blessed to have such a strong and wonderful mother who has been such a great role model for me and would do anything for our family; to have three such beautiful and healthy children who make my life crazy and complete; and a supportive and loving husband on this challenging but amazing journey with me! I am also grateful for all the mamas who have allowed me the privilege of witnessing them become moms for the first time (or second, or third, or seventh, or eighth)!

I had a Happy Mother's Day and I hope you did too!

Here are a few pictures taken at my parents' house:

Growing Pains

Last weekend, big changes took place in the Aldridge household! Jonah moved out of a shared room with Sadie and into his own room, Violet moved in with Sadie AND into a big girl bed! Needless to say, all three children are very excited!

Violet has done very well in her "bid durl flowah bed" (translation: big girl flower bed). She has only come into our room in the middle of the night once in the last week and a half. Sadie loves having a girly-girl room again (see pictures below) although, the first night, I went in to check on her and she was still awake. I asked her why she wasn't asleep yet. Her response: "I guess I'm a little home sick, I mean bed sick." :) And Jonah is thrilled to have his own space again.

A big thanks to Nana and Aunt Nana for all their hard work helping with the decorating and shopping! They were here every night for 5 nights helping get everything settled, including hanging curtains and pictures, putting beds together, ironing bed skirts and curtains, organizing, arranging and rearranging furniture and buying mattresses (and delivering them too).

Thunder Fashion Blunders

I had front row seats to the Thunder Runway Fashion Show. It was the event of the season! I noticed several trends this year. I have separated them into 5 categories. Can you guess who goes where??? Some of them clearly fall into more than one category.

Here are the stars of the show...

The first category, I couldn't decide on a title, so I have several:

1. OMG, I can't believe your dad let you leave the house like that! / You must be going to work at Trixie's later. / Hey, this is a family show. I really don't need to see your whole ass cheek.

2. What the hell is on your head?

3. Pull up your pants, you look like an idiot!

4. WTF were you thinking when you left the house this morning/Crazy get-ups?

5. Twins.














































































































































































Until next year!