I'm Baaack!

I've been soooooo busy lately with all the holidays and the kids school. Plus, my husband and I just started watching Mad Men on ON Demand and we are hooked. If you have not ever watched that show, you must stop what you're doing right now and watch. It's excellent!


I haven't really been up to to much, just the day to day routines mixed in with a little shopping and the occasional night out. The kids are great, no 911 calls, although we have had 2 recent choking incidents but, thankfully, everything is fine and no one turned blue.


I'm so excited about Christmas and the sweet program at school and I cannot wait to have these little guys at home, no schedules and we can bake yummy treats and just play for 2 weeks!! Now I know after the first 2 days home, I might be pulling my hair out and wishing for that 3 hour break I get when they're out but we'll have fun and I'll remind myself (several times) that this time is so short and in a few years I'll long for them to be home with me.


Clara has been pretty good, the only issue we have with her is sitting on baby Sam. He's crawling now and she thinks he's something to catch and sit on. The other day she sat on his belly and just kept hitting him in the face. I heard him crying and thought "oh, he's fine", I walked in and found her beating him. Vincent is really into Hanukkah and wants a dreidel,we are not Jewish but one of my Jewish friends bought him a dreidel for Christmas. :) 
Baby Sam is perfect, I could have 2 more just like him!


Oh, and the perfect gift for your babysitter, friend or sister is the monogrammed candle by Whitney English. The smell is heavenly and fills the entire room without even lighting it!!

Here is the link: http://mvenus.paperconcierge.com/view_product/24432/2929/Aqua_Reef_Personalized_Candle

I'll be back soon!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Hi Everyone! I have been so busy lately! Kids are great school is great. Clara is a little better, not much but she's talking up a storm so we are communicating better. She's a busy little girl and so independent but boy is she the sweetest. I'm so blessed to have a little girl, she's very different from Vincent, in a good way. She's trying to potty train herself, I'm not ready for that yet but she's pooed on the potty at home and at Cubs Den. She's potty trained at home but I'm not ready to make the commitment once we leave home...and she's in a diaper at night. The best was one night when my husband went out of town again and Clara stood up in her chair at dinner (minus diaper), fell on the floor and when I scooped her up to check on her, a big piece of poo fell on the floor and my oldest nearly fainted from disgust. He was screaming, "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, pick it up mommy, pick it up, I can't take it, I can't take it". I was busy worrying about the blood coming out of her mouth (she bit her tongue) and trying to avoid getting poo on me. The irony here, is that my oldest has no problem when he has "accidents" all over the house but heaven forbid his sister have an accident. Geesh. 


So, I was talking to a friend the other day about stationery and we decided to bring back the old manners writing a formal note. I had to send a thank you to a friend that had me over one morning and sent me home with a generous helping of fresh eggs (from her chickens) and fresh bread made from an old home mill and brick oven.  A nice, lovely note starts with the envelope. Don't forget honorifics and the return address on the BACK of the envelope. Also, date at the top left corner, month written out and appropriate salutation and don't forget a warm closing. 


It feels nice to do things the old fashioned way, also, it's nice to let a friend know how much you appreciate them with a hand written not. 


I'll write more later! Bye!

One Child

Oh the things you can get done when you only have one child for 3 hours.  After drop off Wednesday, I walked 5 miles with Sam, washed, dried, folded and put away an entire load of laundry, chopped veggies and marinated meat for dinner and put away old clothes and hit the attic for some baby toys for Sam. It was heaven, I felt like I could take on the world. It was a great day! Who said one child was hard??? 


Then Thursday happened. I may have mentioned in an earlier post that Clara has an issue with diapers. She just can't seem to keep them on. I'm sure she's ready for potty training but I'm not ready to tackle that obstacle right now. I'm going to wait until she's 2. Only 2 glorious months left!! I usually put Clara down after she's had at least one dirty diaper, I thought we were ready for naps Thursday b/c she had already had 2 messy ones and I figured she was done and we were safe. I put her down and did not put her in her usual outfit of pajamas zipped up the back so she cannot pull her diaper off. My BIG mistake. I checked on her about 30 minutes after I put her down and found a horror so disgusting I cringe just thinking about it. Not only did she take off her diaper to do the dirty but she decided to finger paint the walls, crib and her Pat The Bunny Book. The smell alone made me want to heave. I was so angry with her that I had to remind myself she is a child of God and she is the girl I always wanted. As I was cleaning up the mess I told her (mommy of the year moment) she was a "bad girl and girls are not disgusting like this", Vincent, the awesome big brother, came in and kept saying "No Clara, you are not a bad girl, you are a good girl, a very good girl, mommy is just mad." You think this may have deterred me because it was so sweet but no, I was so mad after I cleaned up the mess, I put her back down on to sleep on a bare mattress. 


One hour later I felt so guilty woke her up from her nap to hold her and while I was rocking her she pointed back to her crib and said "night, night". I asked her if she wanted to go back to her comfy bare mattress and she said yes. As messy as she is, she really is a lovable little thing. I don't know what I would do without her. 

School Started!!

Our preschool finally started this week!! Woot woot! Vincent was so excited until we arrived...then the tears flowed. Poor guy. Clara didn't shed a tear or look back. She went in her class like this is where she was meant to be. No hug, kiss or even a glance. Her teacher told me she had a good day (no fighting or bullying, choir please :) but that she's very different from her brother, I believe her exact words were "Vincent was so meticulous and well, she's not". I ran into one of his other teachers and she laughingly said, "she's a M-E-S-S". Yep. That's my girl. Here are a few pictures from their first day, shot with my phone

Pearls of Wisdom

Hi! I have an amazing friend, she's extraordinary, thoughtful, insightful and clever. She has 6 children! All gorgeous, involved in sports and the oldest (in college) attend a good school in D.C. Everyone should be so fortunate to have a friend like her in your life.   This summer has been tough and LONG.  I called her today and I immediately felt relaxed and dare I say it, calm. All I said was Hi and she immediately went into "what can I do, what do you need". I love her. All I wanted was to chat and hear that it gets easier. She offered sage advice. She put things in perspective, helped me realize that what's important is my children, not my house, laundry or filling out the baby books. She told me not to worry if my house is not up to "Southern Living" and that she would give anything to have a lego stuck on the bottom of her foot. I always thought I was born to be a mother and she truly was born for that. She is a mother to all of us "new" mothers. My favorite "pearl" was to pick a day during the week, stay in our jammies and just play all day. LOVE THIS IDEA. These years fly by and I want to cherish every minute with them. Spread the word, stay in and play!

Good night and please pray that Clara will wear her diaper all day tomorrow, I'm tired.

Double your Donovan!

I am so excited to tell you about our Double your Donovan sale going on right now! I'm giddy about it because one of my favorite designs is by Donovan Designs. We have a special right now through August 31, Donovan Designs will double your order for NO additional cost!! You can order 10 note cards and receive 10 more free!!! How cool is that? All you have to do is use coupon code DD0810.  Here are a couple of my favorites.

This first one is one my girlfriend ordered for her daughter and it's even cuter in person

Naturally I have to order the boy version for my youngest: 

How cute is this for the family?

One of my personal favorites:

I just love navy and green don't you? It's classic.

I have to run but I have several stories about my well behaved little ones ;)

Unfit Mother

Hello everyone! So, I've been an absent blogger lately, I'll tell you why. I'm almost embarrassed to share why I've been absent. Last week my husband was in NYC for work, yes, you heard right, an entire WEEK. He was going hog wild in NYC with his brother (his brother went with him) while I was here, alone with the kids, and we had the house painted so not only did I need to keep the kids busy during the day, I had to keep them away from the wet paint and all of our furnishings that were clumped together in the middle of the room. 
Tuesday, August 10.
He was gone for 2 days when I called 911. Have you ever had to call 911 (everything is fine)??? It's the scariest thing I've ever done and it was just like the movies. I called b/c the baby had a blanket over his head in the crib and was gasping for air. I panicked and completely lost it, screaming, crying and sure he was not okay, turns out he never really stopped breathing (thank goodness). I left him in the crib for a moment to feed the other two breakfast and he was crying the entire time. Suddenly he let out a shriek and then stopped crying. I found him with the blanket over his face and he was drooling, hands and feet were kicking like crazy (which is a good thing, in hindsight), I grabbed him and he seemed lethargic which is when I called 911. I was on the phone with 911, and screaming at my 4 year old to run to the neighbor's house. Of course, he didn't go over there he just kept asking "why mommy?", "why mommy?", I was crying on the phone while the operator was telling me "calm down ma'am, I can't understand you, is the baby breathing"...(he was breathing the entire time and I had no idea), I was freaked out by this question and decided to take the 4 year old and run next door. I shoved the middle child out of the way, slammed the door and ran with the baby next door, dressed in my nightgown, barefoot and no bra (I'm nursing so no bra is not a pretty sight). I'm still on the phone with 911, my neighbor comes out and I ask (wail is more like it) her if the baby is breathing and she says as calmly as if I've asked her what the weather is like, "if you mean smiling and breathing, yes". I tell her that Clara is next door alone so we run back to my house and Clara is dressed in Vincent's hat and clothes and eating his bagel. We hear the sirens and I tell my neighbor that it's heading here, Vincent is crying because Clara is eating his bagel, thankfully neither kid seems to be affected by my shrieking and continue to carry on as if it's another Tuesday. Paramedics arrive and are so kind and relieved that the baby is fine. I'm sure he never actually stopped breathing, I just overreacted to seeing him like that. I now know how I act in a crisis and it's not pretty. 
The paramedics ask what happened and then ask if I have 3 boys and for some reason this makes me laugh and  I then have to explain that Clara is a girl, she just likes to wear her brothers clothes and shoes.  I can laugh about this now and I'm grateful everything is okay.


Thursday, August 12.
I'm putting Clara's jammies on her and Sam (the baby) is screaming in his swing, and I hear my oldest "I can't take the crying" and then muffled cries from Sam and then loud screaming from him again and then "I can't the crying" again muffled cries from the baby so I run out and see my oldest holding a pillow over the baby's face. I panic and scream at him and remind him of why I called 911 just 2 days ago.  


My only job now is to make sure the baby makes it to his first birthday in 8 months. It's going to be a loooong 8 months. Is summer over yet????


Tomorrow, I'll post pictures of my must have stationery for girls...cute, cute, cute!

Clara Strikes Again

Hi! I created this blog to write about paper and my love for a well written pretty note. Here I am again talking about Clara. This child gives me so much material to write about I cannot possibly write about anything else. Big brother refers to her as "the girl", today he says "the girl is up" (from her nap), then we hear loud screaming and crying as if she were in pain so we both run in her room and she's naked stuck between the crib and the wall and struggling for dear life. I have no idea how she climbed out of the crib on the side that was pushed against the wall but she managed to and had to take all of her clothes and diaper off before she did it. This girl is going to keep me on my toes, I cannot leave her alone for a minute. 


Last night I attempted to bathe all three kids by myself (in our master bath) and I had the baby bathed and in the crib in my room, Clara was bathed and in her jammies, and as  I was drying the oldest, I hear my husband yell "NOOOO", so I jumped up and he grabbed Clara out of the baby's crib. What was she doing? Obviously,  she was shoving her toothbrush down his throat and guess what? He DID NOT LIKE IT. He was gagging and crying. My main job used to be keeping the kids fed, clean and happy. My only job now is to keep baby Sam alive. 

This is Clara and Sam after the incident in big brother Vincent's chair. Clara's pajama's are on backwards, it's the only way to guarantee she'll keep them on. 

Today's outfit.

She's one of a kind and my life would be too easy and boring if I didn't have her. My middle, the one I always wanted. 

Now, on to bigger and sometimes better, my oldest, I adore him. He watches Clara act up and then he hugs me and says "I didn't do that did I mommy?" He's smart. He's clever. He's a kiss up. He thinks of 100 reasons why he cannot go to bed yet...he didn't hug me, he didn't kiss me, he didn't kiss Sam, he's hungry, he's thirsty, he forgot to tell me he loves me, he forgot our plans for tomorrow. He thinks I'm a sucker. He likes to wake up at 5 am. He wakes me up at 5 am by standing in my face until I acknowledge him. True to his sweet nature he asked me if I was waiting for him to come hug me...5 am. God bless him.

 Clara, Sam, Vincent and cousin Shaman. I love these babies!!

Tiny Tulip

Hi! Today's post is a wish list from my new favorite online boutique and a little update on my Clara.  I'm on the hunt for the cutest girl's backpack because my mid kid is going to start attending MMO (mother's morning out) at our sweet little preschool. My husband and I are still in shock that she is old enough to attend this program. She seems like a baby, she's petite but tough, says only a few words that are understandable to anyone other than me and my husband, and seems to have a fear of listening and doing the right thing. Oh, did I mention that she has the worst manners EVER. She's so dainty when she dresses up or plays and has the highest, sweetest little voice in the entire world but when this girl is ready to eat, WATCH OUT. She slurps chicken, and chews with her mouth open, it's disgusting. I wouldn't have noticed this if my oldest didn't have the best manners. He's chewed with his mouth closed since he was 1 and when he attended MMO his teachers said he was their neatest eater. Not my Clara. She's going to have the same teachers my oldest had but it's going to be a completely different experience for us. She's wild, stubborn and can be quite the bully. I'm worried that we are going to have an incident report every week. I'm sure she'll pull hair, throw cars, and scream if anyone decides to touch her. 
We have to try to camouflage her spunk by dressing her super cute and giving her the sweetest little accessories, like a super cute back pack. Here is my wish list from Tiny Tulip Boutique:
http://www.tinytulip.com/products/Polka-Dot-Backpacks.html
http://www.tinytulip.com/products/Kids-Back-Pack-%252d-Pink-with-Green-Ribbon.html
http://www.tinytulip.com/products/Hot-Pink-Damask-Tote.html

I cannot seem to save the images in order to post them but check out this site, I promise you will find something for you or that perfect monogrammed gift.


I must sign out now, I have an early tennis clinic in the morning!

Just a Note To Say...

I hate Netflix. Yep, I said HATE. The very word I try not to use around my kids. I HATE NETFLIX. I'm sorry if you love it or this offends you. I'm not happy with them and I don't know why I tried them out again even for the free trial. It's a gimmick. I can use On Demand and have the same movies without having to wait for the mail or predict what I want to watch by loading up my queue. I decided to try Netflix again because of my new passion for GLEE!! Well, wouldn't you know they left me hanging, the DVD's I need will not be available until September!!!! I thought I would rent them instead of watching them on HULU but really, what's the difference? Oh Glee, I'm hooked on you and I don't know what I'm going to do until I can see you again...will Shu and Ms. Pilsbury get together? Will Rachel become humble? What will happen with Finn and Quinn???!! Ahhhh!


On a sweeter note, my little 4 year old drew a picture of our beloved late Papa. My father in law (greatest man ever) passed away last year and while we try to keep his memory alive daily, sometimes we slide. My sweet 4 year old drew a picture of him today, completely out of the blue and two days ago, after dinner, he told us if we close our eyes we can talk to him and tell him about our day. I wrapped him up in a big hug and made a mental note to talk about Papa every day. His spirit is around us.


No stationery posts today, good night.

Paper Concierge Party and Glee!

I had my first show Tuesday and it was great! I'm lucky I have such good friends who support me and ordered way more than I expected. It helps that our stuff is super cute, heehee.
I absolutely adore my sweet friends, I deeply appreciate that they took time out of their day to come to my party but here's a tip, if you want to host a "Coffee and Cupcakes" party, don't invite your skinny friends. No one ate a cupcake, apparently they are on a food strike these days and were interested in coffee and water. My children are grateful and have devoured the cupcakes after lunch every day. Well, my daughter enjoyed them, my son takes 2 bites of the icing and is done, Clara will eat all day if I don't hide the food. Oh, and she appears to lack manners. She chews with her mouth open and slurps everything, including chicken. My oldest has always been a neat eater and chews with his mouth closed.  


I have to mention my new obsession: GLEE!! This show makes me happy. I love it more than I love Sex and The City. It's my favorite thing since the movie Center Stage. I seem to have a sick obsession with high school programs, don't know why but I love Gossip Girl and now I love Glee. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. If you haven't seen it, you must rent it now. It's incredible. Better than I thought it would be which is why I'm now just discovering it. I promise you (the 2 readers out there) will love it. 


Let me show you a few of the items my friends ordered

Boatman Gellar Pink Stripe Plate

Sibling enclosure cards

Super cute...right? Love these two items and I'll post something I ordered as a wedding gift for a family friend as soon as I receive it.

Have a good night!

Middle Child

I always wanted a middle child. I wanted at least 4 children for as long as I can remember. My husband only ever wanted 2. I now have 3 children. Number 3 was a total miracle that I believe with some help from my father in law had a hand in (I'll save that tear jearker for another post). My middle is my daughter, the one I always wanted. I knew from the beginning of time that I needed a daughter b/c let's face it, a daughter will take care of you in your old age. Plus I wanted a built in best friend. I wanted a middle child because several of my closest friends are middle children and they are the responsible ones, maybe they over compensated to get attention I don't care, I just knew I wanted one. My prayers were answered and when she was born, she was so easy, I just had a feeling she was going to be my middle child.

My angel. My middle child.

Perfect. Sweet. My dream child. Everything I wanted, a sweet little girl.

This child is very girlie...most of the time

 

This is the same little girl. (taken with iphone)

You may think I left her alone for 10 minutes to get in this trouble (like my mother assumed), if you have a 17 month old, you know you can't leave them alone for 2 minutes!! My precious daughter loves dirt. She has dug up a patch of sod to get to the dirt.  My baby was about 1 month when this was taken so we put a little plastic pool in the back yard for her to play in, instead of taking 30 minutes to load everyone up and go to the pool and this is what she did. She had so much fun making mud I didn't have the heart to stop it. This is a list of her favorite things:

• Mud
• Toilet water
• Eat Markers
• Poo in the tub
• Poo in her crib
• Rip her diaper off several times a day
• Barney
• Food, food, food
• Poke new baby in the eye and sit on him
• Torture big brother

God bless her. I love this little girl, my life would be too easy without her.

Now back to the main reason for my blog: STATIONERY! My girl friend and I were discussing  proper etiquette in sending thank you notes and when you should send them and enclosure cards. I think we have become so lazy we forget how nice it is to receive a note after an event or dinner you host and the simplicity of an enclosure card.

Here is one of my favorite flat note cards:

Donovan Design and is available at my website.

Lilly Enclosure card...also available on my website!

Happy Wednesday to all!

Dinner for New Mom

Hi! I hope you all (all 2 of my readers, including my sister) had a great weekend. I was just talking to my bestie about what to cook for a new mom or a repeat new mom, I had my 3rd child in March and I was fortunate to have several girl friends drop off dinner for me and my family. If you haven't done this for a new mom, you must do it immediately! It's the best give you can give her and remember, just drop off the food and RUN. Don't plan on hanging out unless your friend invites you to do so. I also recommend using a website to organize it and start the dinners the second week they're home. In my experience the first week is a whirl wind and the husbands are usually home and you have more help, the following weeks is when dinner is needed and very much appreciated. My friend set up my dinners through a web host and then sent an email blast out and people signed up what and when they were bringing and everyone could view it so we didn't have duplicates. GENIUS. I was also able to list any food restrictions. I digress, my point is, one of my favorite meals was tacos. It's easy and everyone in my family will eat tacos. My girlfriend gave us everything we needed for tacos: ground beef, a bag of shredded cheese, side of black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sour cream, Mexican rice, fresh salsa and a bag of tortilla chips. Oh, and she brought guacamole! Don't forget the six pack of Corona's plus limes!! She also made the best dessert, some brownie concoction with Reese's cups!! DELISH! 


You can top off your gift by bringing the baby some stationery. Here are a couple of my favorites from Paper Menu:

Askew Designs, Hicks Paper and Whitney English....samples

Hi! I'm so excited my samples arrived Wednesday afternoon!! I was tickled pink with all of my goodies! I cannot to wait to host my first Coffee and Cupcakes get together with my Tennis Tootsies and my LPPS mommies!! I realize I have used a ridiculous amount of ! in the first 3 sentences but I am beyond thrilled with the merchandise and I want to share a few of my favorites with you.

This candle by Whitney English is so fragrant as soon as you take off the plastic wrap the wonderful aroma permeates the entire room...I promise!

This invitation is one of my favorites for a Linens shower, it's from Askew design.

I love, love, love this placemat from Hicks paper...my daughter would love to eat off this every day!


All of the above items are available at my store. Please visit and take a peek around, you will not be disappointed.

Post 4th

I hope everyone had a great holiday! We had a blast, we were at my mother in law's beach condo. The day was beautiful plus it was my daughter's first time on the beach since last summer!! We never take her because she is 19 months and all mother's of 19 month olds know why we never take her. To our surprise, she was an angel. Thankfully she was afraid of the ocean, so we made sand castle's all day. She's usually the daredevil and jumps right into the pool without fear so I was relieved that she wanted to play in the mud. We left our sweet little 3 month old in the condo with Nini (grandma) and my husband and 4 year old son played in the ocean. They were so cute riding the waves. Today was a nice relaxing day, I cleaned, did laundry and then we settled in for a late afternoon movie with the sprouts. Here are a couple of pics of the sprouts on the beach, might be blurry as they were shot with my phone. Enjoy! 

                                          
                                         He loves to pose for the camera!

                                                      

                                        She refused to look at me, so serious about sandcastles.
I almost forgot to add a picture of my favorite notes today:

Go Gators!

Thank You Boatman Geller!

Hi! I have been playing (attempting to play) tennis for 4 months and I love it! I'm not good, in fact my tennis pro suggested I practice tossing the ball with my 4 year old to improve my hand/eye coordination. YIKES! I'm that bad. I still love it and I vow to get better, and now I need accessories to accompany my new passion, which leads me to Boatman Geller.
Check out these cute note cards:

and this plate

Plate and note cards can be found at http://mvenus.paperconcierge.com/view_product/6488//Tennis_Plate

Socks can be found at http://www.slamglam.com/k-bell-team-tennis-socks.html

I must have this bag from http://www.clubcontessa.com/libateto.html

How cute are these items?!?!? I'm so excited to have a new hobby besides dressing my kids!

Hi and Welcome to my Blog!

This is my first blog. I started it because I am now a rep for Paper Concierge and I want to share a few of my favorite things with you and invite you to take a peek at my store. And, I've secretly been a blog stalker for several years now and I've been dying to join the club. I don't know what else I'm going to write about, I'm not witty or articulate but as a mom to 2 boys and a girl, funny things happen around me all the time. So stay with me on this ride to bloggerville, I hope I don't disappoint you. 


Looking for that perfect summer gift:

Both are available at my store:http://mveunus.paperconcierge.com