MATCHERS!

Luke wore a plaid, button down shirt the other day. So did I.
And leave it to Morgan Jane to point out we were "Matchers!!!" (ala Diary Of  A Wimpy Kid)

We had taken this pic of Jas and Bubs the other day as we were headed out to take him to school- they looked so cute! And I guess Morgan Jane thought it was hilarious. Mostly because we kept yelling "Matchers" every 5 seconds.

So I was sitting here on the computer with Luke in my lap, and she came up to me and said, "Mommy and Luke matchers. You take a picture and say 'matchers' okay?" Okay, I said and took out the camera to snap a quick shot of Luke and I by myself.

"No, no,no... I do it." Uh-oh.

But she was acting like such a big girl, so proud of herself for noticing and thinking that our shirts were worthy of "matchers"-ness, so I let her.

"MATCHERS!"

Best Dramatic Actress

Morgan Jane is always super happy to go to school. She just goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and gets so excited on the mornings when she sees me pull out her Dora lunchbox and her nap mat on those mornings, as she then knows its her day to go. She goes to the same school as Luke, and its the most precious, fabulous school. Ever.

But what has baffled us to no end is the fact that while she may run up the stairs and then skip down the hall, the minute she steps foot in the door she gets all weepy-introvert-y and head straight for the teacher. Sweet Ms. A always scoops her up and hugs on her as I hang up her bag and tell her "bye". I knew she wanted to go, I know she loves her teacher and her "fwends", so this never made any sense to us! Then it was around October when we found out that she doesn't talk at school. Not one. single. word. This kid talks ALL DAY- and she is hilarious with her expressions and seriousness sometimes! So again, we are baffled. What in the world!?! I would notice over the next few months that Morgan would tell me that she had cried at lunch, and that she sat with her teachers, but thought nothing of it really.

Well. This week I picked her up and the substitute teacher was hugging her, snuggling her- she said she was crying when she woke up and so she had been holding her. On the way home, I asked Morgan Jane what was up with all the crying?!!?

"We don't cry at school. You love school. You love Ms. A and all of your friends. Big girls don't cry at school all day," I told her. 
"When I cry, they hold me," she said back, so nonchalantly.
Oh really....

I told Jas what she had said and we both were like, "Wait a second, you don't thinks she..?" And we went to hunt her down. I asked her in front of him, "Morgan Jane, what happens when you cry at school?" And she just looked up at him and said, "Ms. A hold me. I cry like this, 'whawawah' and Ms. A hold me." Are. YOU. SERIOUS!??! This kid figured out really quick that she could get these women to hold her at drop-off, circle time, lunch time, nap time and dismissal if she just busted out crying every now and then. And I think she did it so systematically that they never really caught on to what she was doing. Un.believable.

So next Tuesday, we have the honor of letting her sweet teachers know: They have been played. Morgan Jane strikes again.

Royal Flush

Its that time again. The time I dread.
Potty-training time.
(boooooooooooooooooooooooooo)
I started last November and then gave up.

I hate potty training. HATE. IT. It tests my patience to no end and makes me grouchy. I remind myself that I will get through it, and that no one goes to college in a diaper, but I haaaaaate it.

And it doesn't help that Morgan Jane is a toot and has NO desire to participate in this activity. When presented with the choice of Mickey Mouse diapers or the chance to wear Princess Pull-Ups if she sits on the potty, she is seriously tempted- but in the end goes for Mickey everytime.

So I got tough. And made her sit on there, only to realize that we potty we had was NOT comfy. At all. I wouldn't want to sit there for hours on end (Just kidding- I give up after about 5 minutes!) either.

So guess what Bubs and I saw the last time we were at the 'Mart??? I stinkin' Princess Potty: complete with coushy seat!!! After much convincing- Jas went and got it for her!!

Look at the joy! Look at the excitment!

She checkout out the soft pink seat!

She tried out the beautiful twinkling flushing sound!

She even tried it out!!

So, out of respect for Fan Target, who threatened to quit reading my blog if I wrote one more post about Luke pottytraining, this will be the end of this topic.

Wish us

me

luck!

I'm A Loser

...and that's a good thing! Some friends and I have come up a weight-loss challenge to kick off the New Year, and our first milestone weigh-in is in about 2 weeks! I saw on the Yahoo main page that people who blogged about, or wrote down what they ate and their struggles, lost two times as much weight as those who didn't: sooooo, I'm all for giving it a try! I would like to loose 15 pounds- which according to every health-nut-weight-loss-motivating site is totally doable by March 31st. And by loosing those said 15 pounds, I would possibly gain $600!! Motivation, baby! Motivation!

My official putting it all out there goals:

• FEBRUARY 5th: Milestone Weigh In - Down 5 pounds (already lost 4! whatwhat!!!)
• FEBRUARY 16th: My 32nd Birthday (whaaaaa!) - Down 2 more pounds
• MARCH 17th: Two Weeks Til Official Weigh In - Down 5 more pounds
• MARCH 31st: Final Weigh In - Down 3 more pounds

Over the past two weeks, I have become so conscience of what I used to eat and how much of it- and realized I was running on sugar-highs rather than protein. I had to do a mini-sugar withdrawl- only allowing a tiny bit in my coffee and whatever was in my FiberOne bar. Then that was it for the day. KIL-LER. I really felt ill and miserable for about 3 days. But once I got through it, I have been able to really tame that sweet-tooth. If it really gets to me I'll eat a tiny box of raisins, but that is just so sad and NO fun, so I usually just get over it.

One of my competitors and GF Andrea and I are also doing the "Eat Half" method- although that was NOT happening last night at Girl's Dinner! (Too much wine and too many carbs!!) BUT we are also adhering to the "90% on/ 10% off" rule which give us wiggle room to cheat once a week. I have invested in about a billion Lean Cuisine freezer meals (NO PRESERVATIVES!) to help with my eating choices and portion control. So far so good! I know that eating my kids leftovers and not being prepared and running through the nearest drive-through have been one of my major eating flaws, but they have been noted and ammended.

Bring it on, baby! That $600 will be mine! Oh yes! It will be mine!

Cowboys and Cowgirls!

My New Year's Resolutions this year: sew more, play more and work out more. Its day 17, and I am successfully on the right track.

My first sewing project of the year on the new machine: I decided to bite the bullet and make a decision about the bedding/ decor in Luke and Morgan Jane's rooms.

Jas and I put up molding and painted their room back in October ala Thrifty Decor Chicks color scheme. LOVED the crisp white and the great dark blue. I thought it lent itself to a nice Americana kind of feel, but them went back and worth about maybe an ABC theme:

... Couldn't make up my mind. Its pretty tricky to design a shared room: who do you lean more towards? Girly or Boyish??? Well, I have always loved this cute cowboy print by Michael Miller.

I've used it a bunch on gifts I've made, and when I ran across the GIRL version

 I knew I had to have it!!!

I had already made them matching red duvets (thank you WalMart for your $6.00 twin sheets! $24 for both covers? SCORE! )And I had snagged some great solid sheet sets from Target right after Christmas. Luke has a favorite PBK red gingham pillow case, and the color scheme was already working for the cowboy prints. I had a red gingham PBK crib sheet that I had held on to for days just like this, which quickly became a matching pillow case for Morgan Jane. I decided to make them both king-sized pillow shams out of the cowboy print. Luke's sham needed to be piped, and Morgan's needed ruffles- and then remembered I had bought a random roll of chambry pre-made ruffles, so I knew I could incorporate those in her throw pillows too. I am a serious throw-pillow-form hoarder, and had two matching sizes that just so happened to be the exact size of a bandana!!! Seriously!! So I bought four chambry bandanas from my bff Hobby Lobby and stiched those up in about 5 seconds. I monogrammed both of their pillows with their names and then made MJ a little girl-y ruffly pillow out of the pre-made ruffles. It was a TOTAL pain in the tush, and I am not in love with it, but it sort of reminded me of a ruffled western skirt, so its staying for now.

The kids have three windows in their room that go almost all the way to the floor, but since MJ's bed runs in front of one and a half of them, roman-shade-ish window treatments look best. When I bought the cowboy print I also picked up some basic blue chambry and some additional red and white gingham. I thought it looked a little cheap, but one I washed it it plumped up a bit. I made piping with the gingham, and sewed the chambry doubled up, since I knew I would be rolling it up and wanted a clean look on both side. I made the ties (all 12 of them-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!) our of the gingham and voila! Cute roll-up shades. They are hung on the tension rods tucked up under the window casing.

(don't worry, I untwisted the tie on the right)

I am now on the hunt for some great accessories: I have plan to have a large poster made from this print

 and will work on getting some vintage-y toys to put up on thier shelves.  Think more this:

 than this:

I want cute, bright and little funky...

I'll update the progress as it occurs, until I'm off to



Say Hello To My Little Friend

My mom is the best. After letting me borrow her sewing machine for weeks on end because mine had finally started to poop out, she gifted me this guy for Christmas:

That's right: Its a Brother SE-400!

Holy Moly! I read the entire user's manual from cover to cover. Three times. It totally spoils me: Threads itself, cuts its own tread- and tells me if my bobbin is running low!, has programmable back-stitches, I can control stitch types and their widths with a push of a button!!

And speaking of buttons: the thing can sew by itself!

 (I have tried this feature, but it made me nervous: kinda tricky to reach up and punch the stop button when you are using both hands to feed the fabric. I think I am just an old-school pedal kinda gal...)

And the best part of this machine? My new addiction???? EMBROIDERY!!! Yes. I'm not kidding. This things can embroider, and not only does it have a bunch of images and fonts already store on there, I can download them from my computer to my machine and go to town! Check out this cute Valentine heart and monogram set I bought off Etsy! I was able to embroider a cute top for Morgan Jane and one is in the works for our sweet friend, Hannie-girl....

WooHoo!! If its fabric, and not attached to something, I have pretty much put a name or monogram on it within the past week! Its just TOO EASY!!!

I am in l.o.v.e.

Princess Business

Luke and I have become faithful players of the card game "War", playing about 4 rounds a day. It has actually really helped him with math- recognizing which numbers are larger (or smaller) than others. And it goes pretty quickly. (Makers of Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders take note.)

So the other day Luke and I are playing, and Morgan Jane decided she needed in on the action, and shows up with this HUGE stack of Disney Princess cards that she found in the toy closet. She started looking through them and getting so excited when her favorites came up (Snow White! Cinderella! Sweepin'Booty!) Luke and I finished our game, and went on to do other things, but when I walked back through about an hour later, I found this!

I'm not sure the rhyme or reason to it, but she had them systemically sorted out and grouped. When I asked her what she was doing, I got the now standard MJ response,"Nup-in!" But she would move them, sort them and stack them over and over, the whole time I'm wondering what is the method to her madness: Brunettes together? Cinderella next to Fairy Godmother? Movies she likes vs. Movies she doesn't care for???? 

Then she looked them over for a bit and started pulling some off the ottoman, and onto the floor. Not sure if they were VIPs or were being banished!

It was only a matter of time before the Disney Princesses took over our home. (Note her footwear!) Morgan Jane LOVES THEM. Knows them all by name, and what color they wear. Who their friends are, and who is mean to them. I just have to make sure, like we always emphasized with O that: You must be beautiful on the inside to be truly beautiful on the outside.  Don't need any wanna-be-diva-princesses on my hands. Yikes! She was a fabulous Snow White for Halloween.

One of the sweetest Princess-y things she does is twirl and sing what we affectionately call the "Princess Song" (which is basically her just singing a bunch of "La da daaaaaa"- its soooooooo great because she gets so serious!) I will try my best to capture her performing it as well as her and Jas doing their "Princess Dance" too. Priceless.

I'm Baaaacck!

Whoa, Nelly! Does this feel weird!?!?
Its been almost a year since I've typed in here, and what a year its been!
We have been so blessed with so many great memories and successes, and part of me is sad that I have to rely on myself to remember those great times, rather than be able to look back on here, like I was able to do for a few years.

And I have missed blogging. I have missed taking the time to put those memories down and share them with those that aren't with me everyday. So I made the decision to come back, pick up a year later and fill myself in on the way. Here's a photo look at our 2010:

.....and here's to 2011!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!