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!