Big sister, big helper

Lily has always loved being a big helper, and she really has embraced the role of big sister. Sometimes she helps a little too much. The flash on this photo actually made the sunscreen mess not look so bad, but she had him COVERED in sunscreen. The funny part was that he was being such a good boy sitting still while she did it. She was saying "hold still Eric, I have to make sure you are covered"

Eric and his birthday cake

I finally started to upload some of the videos from my camcorder. It takes awhile to upload them to youtube and the quality comes out very poor. I really don't know what I am doing wrong. These videos look great on my hard drive but terrible on youtube. This really bothers me because no one is going to want to stand around in my hot studio in order to see these videos on my computer, I need them to look good online!
Anyway, I've uploaded the one from our second attempt at getting Eric to eat his birthday cake back in July... it is HERE

Race for the Cure

It is that time of year again! I've been training very hard this year and am already race ready. But, my donation page is far from ready for this event. I have a check from my aunt on my fridge waiting to be delivered on race day, but my webpage hasn't gotten a single donation yet! Help me out folks ------->>>>>>>
The link is over there ---------->>>>>>
or, if you want to join my team and race with me http://bit.ly/bettysteam

Football season!

Lily said that she doesn't like when the noles get a touchdown. She said it gives her a fright.
Guess I need to control myself better if I want her to be a fan.

Lily sewing

Remember back when I wrote this post about how Lily made a plush creature for Grandad? Well, I told you that I had a video but I never got around to uploading it. So, here it is:


It is kinda poor quality because I didn't use my fancy new camcorder (batteries were dead) but used my regular point-n-shoot and it doesn't have a flash.

Dummy

Eric has the cutest little smile with the best little gap in his front teeth. You'd never know it though because all we ever see is this dummy.

First trip to the ER

Eric had his first trip to the ER today. He is fine. It was just me, overreacting.
He fell and hit his face on Lily's metal bed and busted his lip. There was alot of blood and I got scared. I thought that he had opened up the roof of his mouth too, but apparently it was just that there was alot of blood and I'm a wuss.
He is fine, they told me to give him some tylenol for the pain and that is it.
I feel kinda dumb and now that we are home, I'm worried for the bill.
I hate that money is so much the factor in things.
Last month we had to spend my entire month's salary on a diagnostic mammogram because I found a lump. Turns out it was nothing, but given my family history, I didn't want to take a chance. When they told me how much it was going to cost, if I didn't have the family history that I do, I wouldn't have gotten it done!
I am totally thankful that both mine and Eric's trips to the hospital weren't necessary, just sucks that it is going to be yet another year without a vacation because of it.

First day of School

I just dropped Lily off at her first day of Pre-K.
I'm a sobbing mess.
I worry so much about her because she is so shy. I remember how painful it is to be shy and in a new place. I wish I could better prepare her so that she doesn't feel that.
She is so cute because she was so excited for school that she woke up extra extra early and got herself dressed right away (even her shoes & socks!) and was eating breakfast by the time I woke up at 7:15. This is the same kids that will sleep past 9 if we let her.
The morning went all good, she was still excited and happy for school until we were ready to walk out the door. I gave her her bag and told her I wanted to take a picture and she started to cry. I asked her why and she said she was missing me. It was so hard for me not to burst into tears too but I knew I needed to calm her down and my tears wouldn't have helped.
In the car we listened to music real loud and sang along so she would cheer up. I went over some last minute things with her, (like making sure that she knew to ask to go to the bathroom if she needed to rather than trying to hold it) and asked her if she remembered her teacher's names. She responded with this meek little whisper. I'm absolutely positive that she will not utter a word to anyone today.
She was really tough when we got to the classroom. She didn't cry but she was wringing her hands and holding her head down. After I signed her in, I peeked back in the room and she wasn't crying, but she was just standing around all alone in the middle, not playing or anything. I know that this is going to help her with her shyness, but watching it, knowing how hard it is for her is just so painful.
I'm excited to hear all about her day this afternoon.
So right now the house is quiet with just me and Eric, I'm gonna go try and teach him to talk to fix that problem.

(If you want a copy of either of these pictures, just email me for a copy rather than copying them from here, I blacked out the name of her school from her shirt to be web-safe)

For Sale: Sold to Grandad

Lately I've been making these stuffed animals called Bed Fellows. I sell them online and have been getting them into some local shops and have a show next month. So, basically, I've been cranking these out.
I make them by embroidering the faces first. Lily watches and pays very close attention. She made one the other day and sold it to me for $4.50. My dad heard about this and commissioned her to make one for him. I use a disappearing ink marker to draw out the face before I stitch it. Lily did the exact same thing. I stitched one of the eyes for her because she refused to go to bed until it was finished and I can sew faster than her.
The next step is to stitch the faces onto either fur or fleece. I've got a video of this too.. just haven't charged the camera enough to upload it (oops). She is a fabulous stitcher. She totally flew solo on this.
I used to make her only stitch using the handwheel because I was afraid that she would sew her fingers. She has been obsessed with sewing for so long that I gave up and let her use the foot pedal. She isn't tall enough to sit in the chair and reach the pedal, so we have to use a box for an extension.


The next steps I didn't get pictures. I take the fabric that has a face on it and draw a shape with legs on the backside then sandwich it to another piece of fabric and sew it up. Lily did this herself also. My bed fellows don't have arms but Lily drew arms on hers. But, when she was sewing, she forgot to go on the outside and sewed over her armholes.
She turned it out herself. I had to help with getting the feet completely out.

She stuffed it and stitched up the hole by hand. Even tied the knot! This is the finished product.
Lily watches everything... she insisted on taking the photos of her creature herself. I took the one above, she took the one below.

The one she made for me, she set the price herself at $4.50, so I asked her how much Grandad was going to have to pay for this one and she casually said 20. I asked "20 what?"
"20 dollars" she said.
I laughed and asked her what she would say if Grandad thought that was too much and she said "well, he is just gonna have to save up"

I'm so proud.

oops...

I just logged in here to put up a post about the project Lily and I have been working on and realized that I never posted about Eric's birthday!

I'm a terrible mom.

no, I don't really believe that, I'm just too much of a busy body.

We had a great BBQ and everyone had a great time. Everyone but Eric that is.

Eric was annoyed with all the people in the house and spent the entire time in his highchair. I've discovered that he feels safe there and unless I was holding him or he was in his chair, he screamed. He didn't even eat his cake!

I have pictures and even video but they are on the other computer and I haven't edited them so I'll have to post later. Hopefully sometime before Christmas. ;)

Lily's Birthday Party

Lily's birthday is only a few days before one of my good friend's daughter's birthday so we usually have to coordinate not to have our kid's parties on the same day. This year we decided to just combine the parties. This turned out so well for me. I never could have thrown such an awesome party on my own. Christine and I threw a tea party for the girls. We searched thrift stores for real tea pots and tea cups and surprisingly only broke one!
We had over 70 people attend the party and it was such good fun.
We used Lily's old curtains for table coverings, Christine's camp canopy for shade, and borrowed small table from all the neighbors & friends.
Lucky for us, Christine and her husband are almost finished with their new masters suite addition to their house so they had a big empty room that we could use as our costume closet. We collected up costumes and dress up stuff from friends and neighbors and set up a wonderland of dress up stuff.
We also borrowed a friend's teenage neighbor to run our nailpolish and makeup station (This the is the other Birthday girl, Freya getting her nails painted)
We also roped Christine's 19 year old nephew to do character face painting
There was a pinata too but I didn't get pics of that, only videos that all turned out poorly.
We had two separate cakes for the girls. I made Lily's Barbie cake and Christine made Freya's birthday present cake.
The costumes were so funny, some kids got into it way more than others. Lily was excited about the costumes the day before while we were setting up and the day after when we were cleaning up, but maybe it was just too much for her because most of the day she didn't put on costumes at all. She put on the bug suit for a little bit at the end because you know... pirates always wear bug suits.

Lily's 4th Birthday

Lily picks out her own clothes, I guess she wanted to wear something extra special for her birthday. Unlike her brother who does not enjoy wearing clothes

We decided to have a picnic lunch at the beach so on the way, we stopped at the convenience store for her first ever pack of gum. My mom didn't allow us to chew gum until we were 4, so I just used that as the timeline for my kids too. It was really funny because I think I stressed the 'don't swallow it' a little too much because she was even afraid to swallow her saliva. I had to re-describe it to her telling her it was ok to swallow the sweet taste, but not to swallow the actual gum. She will chew it for a minute, maybe two then spit it out and get another piece. She went through this whole pack in a day & a half.
Grandad got her the whole collection of toys from Toy Story so I let her write her name on the feet like Andy did in the movie.
These toys were the hit of the day for sure. She has slept with Andy and Jesse every night. For some reason, Bullseye has become the designated bathtub toy and poor Buzz Lightyear... she won't sleep with him because she says he makes too much noise for bed.



Luckily there are enough of them that it is ok for Eric to play too. They have now gotten to the age of fighting over toys.
I'm thoroughly disappointed in the toy that Ross & I got for her. We bought her a sewing machine. She has been talking about getting a sewing machine for months and months and Singer makes a child version with a safety cage over the needle so that is what we got her. It turned out terrible. This sewing machine is complete garbage. It won't even work enough for Lily to sew one seam! She was so happy and we got her her own little pink sewing kit with all the tools and everything. She measured and cut out her own fabric and the damn machine would break. I'd get out the screwdriver, spend 20 minutes fixing it. She would sew again, and it would break again before finishing the line. It is pathetic. I am an experienced sewing, standing over her, watching everything ... she did everything right but the stupid piece of garbage machine just doesn't work. So, of course, now she has completely lost interest in sewing.
I truly wasn't trying to push my love of sewing on her, she wanted to do it. But the thing that makes me so angry, is that any kid who has any interest in sewing and gets this machine, will no longer have an interest in sewing. It is sad really. Singer should be ashamed to put their name on this hunk of junk.
sorry, back to the good stuff...
For dinner, Lily chose to go to Chick-Fil-A. The Round-up gang got to go too. We didn't do cake on her birthday because she was having a party a few days later. We just had ice cream with Dinner.
Next post.... the PARTY!

Fun with Balloons

Last night was the Etsy Craft party and I brought home a couple of balloons. Entertainment for the whole morning. This video may make you a little dizzy watching crazy Lily but Eric at the end is really worth it.

Our child won't eat

I distinctly remember sitting alone at the kitchen table in Corpus Christi Texas with a plate of cold spaghetti and a cup of warm milk while the rest of the family was off watching my favorite show Magnum P.I. in the living room.
Now, I am doing the same torture to my child.
Lily won't eat. Won't eat breakfast. Won't eat lunch. Won't eat dinner.
It is now a common occurrence around here for Ross, Eric and I to be playing in the yard or in the back rooms while Lily sits at the dinner table with a plate of cold food.
I really don't know what else to do other than giving her a diet that consists completely of cheez-its and apple juice.

Eric Walking video

First Steps

Although he has been trying for a few days now, We are claiming today the day Eric has taken his first steps. I was in the kitchen, and Eric & Lily were just around the corner in the pool room. Lily starts saying "look Mommy... Eric is trying to walk!" and I peeked around the corner and there he was standing with the cutest grin on his face. It was like he was saying 'Look at me! I can do this!'
I watched him take 6 steps.
Lily and I spent the rest of the day counting his steps. Most times he would do between 3 and 5 before sitting down or just lunging into something.
We tried and tried to get a video, but it is pretty hard to do because we don't have a video camera, just the point-n-shoot camera with a video option, so this is the best we got...

I thought this one was cute too, even though he isn't walking, it does show how balanced he is in pushing things.

Aunt Linda came to visit

Tuesday Aunt Linda came down to visit for a couple of days. We really enjoyed the visit and hated to see her go. She showed up on Tuesday around lunch time and took me & the kids out to eat at our favorite restaurant Shenanigans.
Aunt Linda read books to Lily during quiet time. I peeked in to check on them and Aunt Linda was napping (and snoring) and Lily was laying down on the other side of the couch going "haw.... shhhhh... haw.... shhhhh" pretending to nap with her. Then, after nap time we totally forgot that Lily was supposed to be at Soccer practice and went to the park downtown.
Since Eric was so good on the playground, Aunt Linda treated us to fancy chocolates at Kilwin's. They gave Lily a taste of their ice cream and asked if Eric wanted some too. I'm not sure if he had ever tasted ice cream before, but we said "Why not?" and he LOVED it. Got angry that we didn't have more for him.
Ross had rugby practice so we let Aunt Linda in our our special dinner that we do when Ross isn't home.... SCALLOPS! Ross is super allergic, and Lily and I love them, so that is what we do when he isn't home for dinner.
Tuesday we had a packed day. We took a picnic lunch to the beach and played in the sprinkler park. After the afternoon nap we went to Ikea. Aunt Linda bought me new curtain rods and a towel rack for the patio.
After Ikea we went back to the beach where we met Ross for dinner. We went to a new restaurant Vedu's that we had been wanting to try. It was a good choice because we had a great view of the water and the food was fantastic. Even the kids enjoyed it because Lily got a free Spongebob icecream treat after and Eric got to crawl around all over the broadwalk.
She left this morning and Lily said that she wanted to go with her :(

Eric, getting ready to walk

Eric has completely mastered crawling. He is so fast that you can put him down in one room, run out into another room and seconds later you'll see his little head poking out around the corner. He just takes off so fast that he has calluses on his knees and tops of his feet.
He has also mastered the standing holding things skill. He will cruise from one piece of furniture to another and just within the last week or so is attempting to stand without help.
I've seen him standing, holding the couch then let go for a few seconds, but today I saw him stand without help! He had a little help because he used the step to get up, but stood there with a big grin and when we all cheered for him, he did it again.
He is really good at pushing his push toys around and Lily, ever so jealous, is constantly taking them away. We finally found a solution, one rides, one pushes. The following video only has a couple of steps of Eric pushing, but he actually pushes her all over. It is really sweet.

Easter

I just realized that I forgot to post the pictures from Easter... oops. So, here we go...
Aunt Charlotte sent me a newspaper from Huntsville when they did a Breast Cancer awareness issue and dyed the entire paper pink. I thought it was so cool so I saved it. I didn't know what I was going to do with it at first, but when Easter was coming around I decided that instead of dying eggs, we'd make paper mache eggs with this pink paper!

They came out really nice and Lily loved the project.
Easter Sunday...
I guess the Easter bunny thought that three teeth is enough to get a big chocolate bunny. Eric chewed on the box... Ross & I ate the chocolate.
The Easter Bunny left plastic eggs full of candy & chocolate all over the house and the yard. After we found all of them Lily and I went to Church.
It is kinda sad, but this was Lily's first time at church. My mom would be horrified. Well, she did go to church once before when we had her baptized but she didn't stay the whole time. She behaved so well. She sat on my lap most of the service, but was quiet and although she was bored, she kept still. They invited all the kids to the front for a children's lesson and I figured that she wouldn't want to go being that she is so shy and we were towards the back in a pretty big church, but another mom asked her if she wanted to go and surprisingly, she said yes and jumped up and followed the other little girl. It was funny because after it was over, I guess she wasn't listening when they said to go back to your seats because she just sat there after all the other kids had gone. I had to stand up and wave her back over to me. The sermon was of course about Easter, but they related everything about butterflies and gave all the kids butterfly lollipops.

After the service, as we were leaving the church, they gave everyone a box with a real butterfly inside. Everyone gathered around and released them at the same time. It was fabulous.

After church, we went picked up the boys and went to the beach.
right after tickle time.

Mothers Day

Mothers Day is always a little bitter sweet for me. I love that I get a holiday, but it always makes me a little sad that my mom isn't around anymore. I usually take the day off from being a mom and do something by myself. This year I only half did that. We spent the first half of the day at the beach. Eric is getting to the age where the beach is fun. It is still a little work to keep him from eating all the sand, but it is worth it.
Butterfly world does a mother's day special and lets moms in for free. I took advantage of this on Saturday. I had been wanting to take Lily there for awhile now but it is very expensive so I'd been putting it off. I am so glad that we got to go. Lily is at such a great age for this. She was just full of wonder. Eric stayed home with Ross so we had a nice little "girls day".
Lily fed the birds. She was so funny because she wasn't afraid at all. She kept putting her face closer and closer to the birds. So close that I had to go wash her face because the birds were flinging the fruit soup up on her cheeks.
Last weekend we went to a picnic with the Hollywood Craft Mafia and made pet rocks. Eric just licked them all for us.
Last week Lily brought me her pillow to stitch up because it had a hole in it. I took it as a teachable moment and taught Lily how to whipstitch.



Eric and Lily play together so well. He can't walk yet, but gets around pretty well with a combo of crawling and scooting along the furniture and walls. He likes to open and close things. Lily likes to hide inside things. The other day they played this game for ages.