Valentine's Decor

Lilly has been hassling me to decorate for the February holidays.  She wanted decorations for groundhogs day, but I just couldn't come up with any. So we skipped right to Valentine's day.

I started with the tissue paper rosette heart.  I cut tissue paper into strips, rolled them into rosettes, and hot glued them to a card stock heart I cut out. Then I took down one of my frames, removed the picture (sorry Lilly), took out the glass and hot glued the heart to white card stock.  Voila! Fancy heart decor.

Then I made a simple heart garland for my mirror. Cut out hearts on my cricut and sewed them together. It was much faster than the tissue paper project.

Lilly had a birthday party today with her friends from the neighborhood and church.  It was a real party without parents (besides Jim and myself) and a lot of fun.

My friend Britten made this awesome invitation for Lilly with her mad photo-shopping skills.

Check out Rapunzels hair running through our living room.

Birthday cake with strawberry filling.

The royal banner from the movie.

Paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling to be like the fire lanterns in the movie.

Presents!

We borrowed this bounce house from my neighbors, it was a huge hit with the kids.

We played musical chairs, had a balloon race, and at the end launched balloons into the sky, pretending they were the fire lanterns from the movie.  Here are a couple that got stuck in our tree.

I got some of my ideas from the supermom moments blog.  I also made these jello boats, but completely forgot to take any pictures. This is what they looked like though (photo from supermom moments)

(Photo by supermom moments)

The best part is we kept the party an hour long. Perfect time for 9 little girls!

Woah

Jack's new thing is to say "woah" to everything.

More lamp

Here are some more pictures from Lilly's room. It's kind of hard to take pictures of a window.  Also, I don't have any wide shots of the room because it is messy. 

In this first picture you can see the lamp I made and the owl I painted for her room.

Re-lamp

Lilly's room had a little make over yesterday. Some new bedding, a rug, and matching curtains.  I actually got a shower curtain instead of regular curtains (the shower curtain matched the bedding, weird).  I cut the shower curtain up the middle and hemmed the sides to create curtains.  I took the leftover material and made a ruffle lamp shade.  Vertical ruffles to be exact.  Those crafty blogs are rubbing off on me.

Lilly turned 5

I heard about those people who have 5 year olds. Now I am one of them. Weird.
Here is the birthday girl wearing her shirt that says "It's my birthday!!!"

Sunday morning Jim made crepes for breakfast, or special pancakes, as Lilly calls them.  She opened lots of presents and had her special birthday dinner. She chose dinner and it consisted of broccoli, plain spaghetti with no sauce, plain chicken, followed by cupcakes.

Monday night we went to Chuck E. Cheese for more celebrating!

I have a 5 year old!

How do you measure up?

Tuesday night I started throwing up and didn't stop until sometime on Wednesday.  It was that horrible stomach flu I might have mentioned 80 times already.  After I stopped throwing up and could stand up, do you know the first thing I thought?  Oh, I bet I lost a bunch of weight!  I jumped on my scale and sure enough I lost 5 lbs.

I was so happy. My stomach flu was the start to an awesome diet, on my way to my happy weight.

This morning I jumped on the scale again and, no surprise to anyone, I gained a few pounds back because I actually kept liquids down yesterday.  Instant sadness. My super awesome diet over.

Does anyone else see this as total madness???  Of course I lost weight, I almost lost an organ throwing up. Of course I gained it back, I drank gatorade and ate soup.

I have a lot of skinny friends, really skinny friends, and I know they don't have scales.

Well I am about to join my skinny friends. I am throwing my scale away, in the trash, for good.

I am done letting a scale dictate my happiness.

No longer will some form of measurement determine my happiness.

For 8+ years I have stepped on a scale every day.

If you're still reading this post, I am here to declare that I am done, done, DONE.

My scale is in the trash.

Lilly threw up four times tonight. I thought the throwing up was over. Jim cleaned up for me again. To add insult to injury Lilly told Jim that he looked like a "grumpy old troll."

This is the last time I ever declare health on my blog, it's like a giant jinx!

Almost better

Jack

Add Jack to the stomach flu list.

House of sick

Lilly and I have the stomach flu. It is wretched, vile, and horrible.

Jim is my hero because he took care of Lilly all night so I could be sick in peace. He then called in his mom to help out today since I can't really stand up.

We are out for the count.

Ice

We went to Disney on Ice yesterday with Jim's mom. They put on a great show.  Lilly was so excited to see real princesses on real ice.  Jack, who is still recovering from the flu, hated it.  I can't blame him. It was pretty mean to take him.  I really thought he would just sit in my lap, listless and sick, like he did at home.

Nope. Just a lot of screaming.

Nana bought Lilly an Ariel doll at the show and she was so happy. When Ariel came on the ice Lilly held up her doll with pride.

After the show we had dinner at Chili's, it took 45 minutes to bring our food.  Jack continued his screaming while we waited.  We kept him somewhat entertained with chips and a straw.  Poor Jack.

Don't judge me for taking him. Hind sight is 20/20.

On a different note....

I found these pictures of Lilly's at the salon for her 'after haircut' to fix up her own work.

Before the official hair cut.

During

Crafting with the stars

At the last minute I entered the Crafting with the Stars competition with my mint cowl that I posted earlier this week.  Check it out!  You can still enter until Saturday night!

Sick...again

Last night poor little Jackson had a fever of 105.4.  Definitely a parent freak out moment.  After long talks with the advice  nurse, a luke warm bath, motrin, and a lot of screaming we got the fever down to 103.

Doctors say he has the flu.  They tested him for the flu which was pretty miserable and we wont know the results for a few days.  In the mean time we are starting him on tamiflu.  I say we like I had something to do with it.

He is totally miserable.  He wont walk, crawl, eat, or talk much.  He just lays in my arms or in his bed.  I would enjoy the cuddling if he wasn't so pitiful.

Did I mention that last Thursday he had two ear infections and Lilly had strep throat?  This has been the worst winter for sickness in our family.  I think everyone should be better by April.

See you then.

Ramblings

I read a lot of craft blogs. Many of these talented bloggers have decorated their children's rooms like the pottery barn catalog; I wish my rooms were decorated like the pottery barn.

 I started thinking that I don't have time to decorate their rooms, I barely have time to take care of them! Then I realized that I do have time, I just don't spend it decorating their rooms.

I spend my spare time knitting (for example this cowl), reading, music classes, working out and crafting.

I could probably spend more time and creative effort decorating their rooms.

When I am rich I will decorate their rooms like the pottery barn. I wont need to be creative because I will have money and I will just buy everything from the catalog.  By that time rolls around I will probably have grandchildren.

I guess in the mean time I will need to be a little more creative for the sake of my children and their sad little rooms.

Lilly took a picture of me wearing my new cowl. Fresh off the needles.

Snow, snow, snow!

We got some snow last night that caused a two hour delay for school.  That gave us plenty of time to get some snow action in before school this morning.  Jack was really sad being left out, so I stuffed him into his snow suit and sat him in the snow.  He didn't cry, but he didn't smile either.

Happy Snow Day!

p.s. It's Brian's birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN!

New Year

We spent New Year's Eve with the Barnette's.  We went bowling, set off fireworks, celebrated Brian's birthday, played games, and in general had a wonderful time.  

It was Lilly's first time bowling and she loved it.

Three i-touches, three happy people sharing apps.

On New Years Day we had our traditional eggnog french toast and bacon brunch.  We like to start the year out healthy.

More holiday fun

While we didn't get any photos at my mom's house, I did score some pretty sweet video of everyone saying Merry Christmas.



How did I get such awesome video since I was without my camera you ask?  Well it's because Scott gave us this sweet bloggie HD video camera Christmas day. It has a USB port that pops out of it, so I just stuck into my computer to upload the video.

My mom showered us with presents. We all got new PJs, lovely bath products, gift certificates, and many treats, adorable outfits for the kids and a special robe for Lilly (her secret Christmas wish).  My mom even threw in some Sarah Jane art which was on my Christmas wish list.

See this sweet bag?  My mom made that. That's right before all you crazy blogging sewers became cool my mom spent many of her days sewing.  She brought out the machine during her hectic schedule of school and work to make this lovely grocery bag.  One for my sister and one for myself.  Then my mom filled the bag with goodies!

In order to meet all of our emotional needs she made her classic cheese ball, cookie plate, funeral potatoes, and provided a home cooked Christmas feast.

I wish I had taken pictures so we had more tangible memories.  I stole this picture from Jessamyn's blog just so you could get a glimpse of the decor. Doesn't it look like a magazine?



Yes mom, all of our emotional needs were met during this lovely holiday. Check out how happy Jack was during the Christmas fun.