Daddy "dress" up

I found this pattern a few months ago. I shared it with my SIL, but didn't have time to sit down and make it. When she made one for her daughter (seen on her blog) I had to get my rear in gear and make one for Madison!







You take an "old" shirt that Dad doesn't wear anymore, and turn it into a dress for a little girl.

The back yolk of the old shirt becomes the bodice front on the dress.

And the button down front becomes the button up back of it.

The one I made tonight was just an easy, no frills one. I just wanted to make sure I could figure out how to do it. Next time I'll add a few more embellishments.

I'm embarrassed that I don't know who I got the link from originally. Whoever it was, THANK YOU! They're just DARLING!

It's ORANGE Day!

At preschool it's orange day that is.

Honestly, I think Madison had EVERY color in her wardrobe except orange. Lucky for me, I found the cute little orange top on clearance. Then, I found these ADORABLE socks, and just HAD to get them!

Had fun making her big orange bow too. I actually made two of them, but she decided that she only wanted one in her hair. (I think she's caught on that 2 bows = more hair brushing, and she's not fond of it. )

She said on the way to school however that she was going to ask her teacher if they could just have a PINK day - not orange again.

Cute little stink.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled PURPLE Peppers

It's been a bit stormy the past few days. This morning we could see the "first snow" on the mountains.

Goodness it's beautiful! But the thought of moving into winter is just icky to me!

Saturday we received a call from Brian's uncle. He wanted to know if we could use any tomatoes from his garden. I was so happy to accept! They brought them over - 4 bags worth - and I was able to can TWENTY SEVEN quarts that night! (HUGE thanks Richard and Carrie!!!) 27 quarts! Isn't that fantastic?!?!?

They also brought over some BEAUTIFUL purple peppers! Isn't the color just lovely? I just had to take a photo of them...

We'll be eating stuffed peppers tomorrow night!

Also this weekend, Jordan decided to learn how to ride his bike without training wheels! He's doing AWESOME!

He'll soon be biking all over the neighborhood with Taylor, I'm sure!

And last of all... I started snapping some beans yesterday and put them up today. 38 pints of green beans for my storage.

We've been busy!

Under Construction

So this is the closet that is in Madison's bedroom:

And this is what it looks like when you OPEN her closet door now:

Welcome, my friends, to the starting phase of my new master bedroom. Walking up the stairs:

Inside the bedroom:

Brian in the "master bath":

Storage area on the "upper half" of the roof - we'll access this from the stairway leading up to our bedroom. More storage... :drool:

So much for keeping the rest of the house clean. I think it's impossible in a construction zone.

Oh, and NO, we won't be walking up the stairs through the closet door forever. Eventually a wall will be removed and another wall put in where her closet is. But "for now", this is the way it goes. *winks*

Someone want to send me some sanity???

It warms my heart

My boys are in all honesty the BEST ever.

Taylor has been so nurturing the past 2 weeks when Jordan started Kindergarten. They love each other to pieces!

The highlight of their school day is being able to play together once at recess. How many 3rd graders would WANT to play with their 5 yr old brother at recess every day?

They wake up in the morning and help each other get ready for school. They wear matching clothes EVERY DAY, and it's totally THEIR CHOICE. They want to match each other.

And it warms my heart when almost every morning this is the view from my front door.

Man I love those boys.

Reagan Update!

Oh my, Oh my where to begin!

Reagan is doing WONDERFUL this week!

She had her EEG last week and we got results on Friday. Everything is PERFECT. This means that her seizures are from her anemia, not from some other brain issue. She has had a very hard 11 months at life! All starting from being stubborn and not coming the way we planned! One "issue" has just lead to another. From loosing one pound her first week of life. From there we had blood tests which showed nothing wrong, so the only thing we could do was pump and feed through the SNS every hour and a half at night and 3 times a day. It took us months to get off that program and to finally have her start gaining weight!

Then she ended up with RSV. Then ear infections. And the list could get long from this point. ;)

At 6 months she started her new thing (and probably the worst of all...) not being able to catch her breath when crying. Every time she started really crying, you could bet she'd turn this awful color blue/grey/purple, her eyes would start twitching and she would pass out. It started out only every once in awhile, but ended up coming on strong and being several times a week. We would average her passing out 5 times a week, but sometimes it was more.

At this point, her iron was really low, so we tried everything to get it up. Our Dr told us that her passing out was most likely due to the anemia. It was most likely the culprit of her not gaining weight her first 6 months as well.

When her iron levels just wouldn't go up, we were told she would grow out of the breath holding (by age 2 or 3) and to just "keep her happy". (And this kid, while feeling icky, is NOT easy to keep happy!!!)

But when she passed out and started having seizures, we decided we better do something else. (Because frankly, I don't want to live with passing out 5 times a week, AND seizures until she's THREE!)

We scheduled the EEG to rule out that maybe it wasn't the iron, and at the same visit we gave her an Iron shot. (Nasty nasty nasty shot that has to be given in the muscle. She of course passed out during it.) !

Well, I'm terribly happy to report that the nasty iron shot has mad a HUGE difference! She has only passed out TWICE since the shot. The shot was given 2 weeks ago. This is HUGE! This is wonderful! She's even been better in the car recently!

We have a few "trained" habits we need to start working on getting rid of. The most challenging is that she still wakes up every 1-2 hours to breastfeed at night. It's something she's trained to do from her time nursing as an infant with the SNS. We won't be giving up nursing anytime soon I'm sure - In fact, I'm sure she'll be my longest breastfed baby which is just fine if that's what she needs. She's still ultra clingy to me, but it'll go away in time.

She is starting to show a lot more personality, and she's getting ready to walk. She'll stand on her own for little spurts at a time.

We're just feeling so HAPPY to be in the beginning stages of "normal" with her!

Look at my happy, healthy baby!

Madison started Preschool!

I think she's been waiting a year for this day. When Jordan was in preschool, she asked when she could start going. I told her that she couldn't go until she started going on the potty... so she trained herself that week. I had to keep my promise and send her as soon as preschool started!

This child is terribly confident. She wasn't shy the first day at all. She sat down at a table for snack next to another little girl. Madison turns to her and says "Hi! What's your name?" The little girl stares at her for a minute and terrified replies "Ashlie". Madison sits there for a minute and finally says "Well HI Ashlie! Did you know that my name is Madison?"

The first day was an open house for parents to stay. Brian and I were both there and I honestly think she would have liked it better if we both had left. She was terribly busy and there was a lot to do in a short amount of time.

She did start crying while we were there. Oh, it was when we were LEAVING. She was crying and saying "But Mom! Preschool isn't long enough!"

It's going to be a long year since she only goes twice a week. *winks*

Her teacher is Miss Karen. I know Karen from Jordan's preschool - her daughter was in Jordan's class, so we co-oped together a few times. She's very creative and just sweet as can be.

Madison also started dance this week. I don't have any photos because Brian seems to always have the camera. Maybe next week. She LOVES it. She was a really good listener and followed her teacher pretty well. (Until she had to keep watching herself in the mirrors...) She's excited to be going to dance with Lauryn, and I think it will be great for them to see each other at least once a week. :)

Jordan's First Day of Kindergarten!

The day finally arrived!

It was terrible for Jordan to watch Taylor leave for school every day for a week before he could start kindergarten.

There are 2 other little boys from our neighborhood that he is in class and rides the bus home with. The bus is the most exciting part of Kindergarten for him.

His teacher is so fun. We totally lucked out getting Mrs. Lyons, she's just great! She has a very large classroom right now, but it looks like they're going to add another class so the class size won't be 29. (EEKS! That's a bunch of 5 yr olds!!!) Out of those kids, 18 of them are BOYS. Props to Mrs. Lyons and her sanity!

Yippee for Kindergarten! I'm so glad Jordan is loving it!

Taylor's First Day of 3rd Grade

This is terribly late as Taylor is several weeks into 3rd grade. Better late then never!

Brian and I are keeping close tabs on 3rd grade this year as they are now the only grade in the school not"grouping" according to learning levels. We are pretty concerned about this because we don't want Taylor to become bored with school. The principal is keeping us informed and there is a chance that they will switch over to grouping in the next few weeks if staying with their same teacher all day just isn't working out. What are they thinking though??? Every child does NOT learn on the same level - breaking into "groups" based on knowledge is a GOOD thing! It gives the more advanced kids a chance to excel, and it gives the struggling children the help they need. Staying with the same teacher and learning all at the same level is only good for "average" students. For parents with children in the extremes, average just doesn't make sense.

Taylor likes his teacher, Mrs. Barnes, just fine. He is confused as to why kids in his class are disruptive and don't want to learn. He thinks it's just awful when someone says "I don't like school". He just can't fathom! I found out yesterday that he's already told his teacher that he needs more advanced spelling words because "hatbox" and "path" just don't cut it. He told her that he would get a note from his Mom saying that he needed harder words. (Oh my!)

I was thrilled when he asked me to pack his lunch every day. He said "I just don't think it's healthy to have pizza 2 times a week at school". HOORAY!!! I've made the lunch thing really easy on myself by making several loaves of sandwiches and freezing them. For the meat sandwiches, I add a packet of mayo and mustard so he can put those on himself at school. All I do is grab a frozen sandwich (which then is nice and thawed by lunch plus it keeps his drink and fruit cold too) piece of fruit, snack, drink and some chips or crackers. Jordan and Madison have lunchboxes too, so I make all the kids lunch first thing in the morning. SO EASY!

We'll be glad to find out what's going to happen with this grouping thing though. We're not opposed to pulling him out and homeschooling for this grade if something doesn't change, but we're pretty confident that it will.

what a month!

Oh my! Has it really been THAT long since I last "blogged"??? *hangs head in shame*

I have more than a million things to share, but most all need to wait until after tomorrow. Reagan is scheduled for an EEG tomorrow morning to make sure that her passing out and her seizure the other day is from her low iron, not from some "brain" issue. Our dr. is pretty confident that it's the iron that caused it rather than something a little more serious, so we're not too worried. There's always that little "what if" in the back of your mind though, so I'm holding my breath until tomorrow.

Taylor started 3rd grade last week and Jordan will start kindergarten this Wednesday. Madison is starting preschool too.

And just so you know my life isn't dull:

Today I bottled 8 quarts of spaghetti sauce AND
Yesterday Jordan's Sunday school teacher told us that he wouldn't stop singing
"I'm too Sexy" in class.

LOVELY.