Henry is 4! What?!?

What is it with time?? When you're a kid you want it to hurry up for goodness sakes!! I remember it taking FOREVER to get to Christmas, my birthday and summer vacation. Now, I want it to slow down, please and thank you! I can't believe that my kids are growing up so dang fast! First my girl turned 6 and NOW my boy has turned 4! What?!?!? He is such a tall, smart thing that it drives me crazy!! Handsome Henry is in to everything that boys are in to: cars, dinosaurs, planes, dragons... he LOVES that movie "How to train your dragon". I've had to Redbox it 3 times already since I am not going to buy it yet. It's nuts. For his birthday cake, Henry wanted "Toothless" from the movie. Luckily for me I found a dinosaur cake pan at the party store! What's the difference between a dinosaur and a dragon, you wonder? Wings. That's it! I had saved some fondant from Evie's birthday cake and after a few sucker sticks and a bit of black food coloring/paint later and we had a pair of wings for the "dragon". I think it turned out pretty cute:

And thanks to Auntie Kathie's birthday present, we even had Hiccup to ride on Toothless:

Evie turns 6!

My first baby turned 6 a week or so. It is exciting and just a little bit sad. Time is just going too fast for my taste, but it is fun to see the transformation of my baby to a toddler to a big girl that goes to school! We had a good day. I took treats to Evie's class and then we went out to lunch at IHOP and had pancakes for lunch. It was pretty silly! After we got home we started the cake decoration extravaganza that took me the whole afternoon and burned quite a few brain cells. It turned out pretty cool, though. If you remember, Evie's cake

from last year was a beach scene with sharks. This year, she wanted a pirate ship with the "Pirate Girls Nine" from the TMBG song. Here is the link to the TMBG song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsAXEYoHdTM.

This is what my cake turned out looking like:

She's definitely an interesting girl! But at least she's a happy one!

Evie'

Halloween 2010

When Halloween hit our house this year, it found the oddest assortment of goblins and spooks inside!! See for yourself:

Here's the whole gang:

GRRR!!! A scary ninja!

Pretty Princess Tiana!

And a very sassy Candy Corn Witch!

The trunk-or-treat was rainy and cold. Our family party was cancelled due to sickness. However, we did have our own little family party on Halloween where we bobbed for apples and ate chili and corn bread, so it wasn't a total loss. Happy Halloween everyone!

Julianna turns 2!

September 20th was the day that my baby turned 2! Can you believe it? I am struggling with it myself and it was about a month and a half ago. I'll tell you, though...I am ready for the 2 year old demon to leave and the sweetheart to return. I don't know what it is about 2 year olds...maybe they get possessed by an evil, self-expressing demon...maybe they have their brains switched out by aliens while they sleep and then it is returned when they are about 3 1/2. Whatever it is, I am not the biggest fan of the demanding, tantruming, defiant demon that now inhabits my 2 year old's body. My other kids grew out of it (for the most part), so I am hopeful that I will be my daughter's biggest fan again. Right now, though, I cringe a lot of the day and feel like the worst, meanest mom for the rest of it.

But, she is awfully cute, though...so I guess that makes up for some of it!

I've been a bit busy!

Sorry I haven't posted since the 4th of July! Holy cow!! I am so far behind. Instead of trying to catch up, though, I'll just give you a snippet of what has been keeping me so busy!

Lindsey's bridals at the City and County Building:

Pretty fun, huh?

And then I was in Lava Hot Springs for Margaret's and Nathan's Wedding:

It was a wonderful day! Congratulations guys!

And then it was time for Lindsey's and James' wedding:

Yay! Smiles all around! Congratulations!

What with that and everything else, I've been a bit busy! :)

4th of July

We did the 4th of July simple this year. We had a bbq with my cousins from Arizona and their family. It was a lot of fun. On Monday, we did sparklers with the kids. Evie and Henry had a blast. Julianna did one sparkler and thought it was great, until she burned herself on the stick while trying to throw it in the water bucket, and refused to do any more sparklers for the rest of the night. Poor baby. I really do feel bad.

After sparklers we had ice cream on a stick.

It was a pretty nice holiday. I like just doing the simple things.

What happens when Mamma leaves the table

This is what happens when I leave the table and the kids run out of food but are still hungry:

At least they like the food!

I love it when my friends have birthdays!

I love it when my friends have birthdays...then I get to make things like this:

YUM! It was white cake with fresh strawberries and bavarian creme "mousse" filling with whipped topping, ladyfingers and chocolate covered strawberries. YUM YUM DOUBLE YUM!

Jenae and Shane

This is the wedding announcement I designed for my friends Jenae and Shane. Pretty cool, huh?

Furniture...Refinished

When we started to decorate my daughters' room, I decided that the low shelf by the window would just have to be a window seat. I figured that if I condoned their climbing up into the window to sit, then I wouldn't get so stressed out about it when it happened. Right? So, I made them a seat cushion and pillows. However, I didn't want them ruining my nice WHITE wainscoting with their dirty feet, so we decided to buy them a stool. So, off to Ikea we went to get a stool. They have this really fabulous stool for like $20 that is SUPER sturdy. However, the downside of the stool was that it was also plain wood. Kind of boring for a room that is floor to ceiling girly-ness!

This is what the stool started out like:
Boring! Nathan found someone's post on LifeHacker that had taken this same stool and refinished it using paint and wallpaper. So, we stole their idea! Here is what mine turned out like: Ahhhh...much better! So cute! When I finished it, Julianna came over to it and caressed it lightly and said, "Pretty". I think she likes it!

But, why stop there? When Nathan's grandfather retired, he kept busy doing woodworking. He made a bunch of the stuff that we now have in our house. I have been using one of the end tables that he made as a kids' arts and crafts table. So, I decided to refinish it the same way at the stool. Of course, I asked for permission first. I asked Nathan's mom if it would be "blasphemy" if I refinished one of Grampa Moore's tables. She said, "no" and that it was probably about time to do it anyway. I told her what I wanted to do and she thought it would be okay. Here is what the table looked like before I started the transformation:

I had to patch a couple of big gouges in the top. Then, I started to paint. It took 3 coats to cover all the dark finish. Here is what the table looked like after the painting was done:Please excuse the mess! Looks much better already, doesn't it?!? Then I put on the wallpaper. Unfortunately, I had to do 2 strips because the wallpaper wasn't wide enough to cover it in one. I think I did a pretty good job, though:And, because I am oh so smart (and I've been around my children for more than 15 seconds!), I decided to put a plexiglass sheet over the wallpaper to make the table easy to clean:Ahh....so cute! I have decided that now I need to either find a table exactly like this one that Grampa Moore made or find a great DI deal and refinish it all boyish for my boy's room. Way too fun!

Laser Day

Laser treatment days are NOT among my favorite days. For those of you who don't know, my eldest was born with a port wine stain birth mark on her face. It actually starts at the crown of her head and extends in a triangular shape to the middle of her upper lip. It is caused by faulty nerves that do not tell the capillaries in the skin to close, so her skin is constantly flooded with blood...that is why it is so red. There are lots of complications that can occur with birthmarks like this, so we are choosing to have it treated.

This is what she looked like as an adorable little baby:

1 month old:

And 6 months:

At 12 months we met with her dermatologist to discuss treatment for her birthmark. It is called a Pulse Dye Laser. It looks like a laser pointer pen attached to a really big machine. The dermatologist says that when the laser hits the skin it feels like a "hot rubber band" hitting the skin...again, and again, and again. When she was 15 months old we had her first treatment. We opted to go for the topical anesthesia. This is what she looked like after application in 2 little spots: Looks like she's been through a war, doesn't it. They only zapped 2 little spots that day, so it wasn't too horrible...except for the topical stuff. After that, we opted for general anesthesia. It is better with the general because she doesn't squirm and they can get closer to her eye with the laser. It still makes me nervous to have her little body subjected to general anesthesia, but so far she has done great.

I think she's had 16 treatments so far. 16 treatments in 4 years. It makes my heart hurt every time. Some treatments aren't too bad- some bruising, not too much swelling, but it's okay. Some treatments are really, really bad- lots of bruising, blisters, swelling, pain. Today's treatment is one of the bad ones. I think it is probably the worst she's ever had. Her upper lip is so swollen that she can't hardly open her mouth, even to eat or talk very loud. She's been sitting in the same place for about 4 hours, sipping smoothies and watching TV.

Here's what she looks like today:It just makes my heart hurt. In 2 weeks it will be healed. Hopefully these treatments can continue to lighten the birthmark. She always has to wear a hat and sunscreen while outside because of these treatments. She goes to kindergarten next year, and I just worry for her. She'll do great...but I still worry.

I think the treatments have been working and the birthmark is lighter. Here is a picture of her a couple of weeks go:
Quite a difference since she was born, but it has been a long hard road to even get this far.