Verbally Challenged

Today my gal is 11 months. I’ll say it again – that’s just crazy. I’ll update in the morning with a photo – when I’m on my other computer.

Here is the update:
*She pulls up on everything
*Loves playing in laundry. Holds up one article, gives it a shake and a toss. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
*Love stairs – good thing she doesn’t have much access to them!
*Two naps a day still – thank goodness!
*Teething…still. She’s getting four more on the top – poor girl.
*Signs. I’ve been signing since she was born. And now she signs milk and more all on her own. SO CUTE!
*Eating – anything goes now. In fact, it’s harder finding things that she doesn’t like!
*Sippy cup – perfected. Liam took a bottle (unlike Miss Addy) but NEVER held it. NEVER. And it took him a while to figure out the cup tilt. Addy can’t seem to get the tilt going so I tried one with a straw and she’s all on her own. Awesome.
*Night sleep – excellent – kind of. We did regress a bit this month. I’m blaming the teething and separation anxiety. She used to self soothe and put herself to sleep at night. Not this month. I’m back to nursing her down and transferring her to bed. It’s less than ideal but once she’s down, she’s down for a good 8-9 hours. I’m not complaining.
*Playing – not so much with toys right now. She’s more about destruction.
*I’ve noticed lately that she has figured out her hands. She can use them to sign, clap, wave and manipulate objects.
*Waving – cute! She waves like a lunatic with a full sweeping back and forth motion. I taught her this way because the more simple finger wave is too close to the “milk” sign and that’s just not good.
*Size – she’s still a petite little bugger (don’t let those cheeks fool ya). Still in the 16 pound range and fitting in 6-12 month clothing.
*Chattering – increasing daily. She’s a big babbler and will mimic what we say. I love it!
**Along the chattering line she says “UH-OHHHHHHHHHH”
*Reading with mommy. I’ll sit on the floor with a stack of catalogs and flip through them – she’ll sit across from me and do the same. It’s amazing that she’s able to turn page by page!

That’s all for now! Happy weekend!

The whole 10 month old thing. After living with a four year old for quite some time now I realized that I’m a bit spoiled. While messes happen, they get cleaned up – by the boy. He IS the one making them anyway. But my little girl? Apparently she lives to make messes. And her idea of cleaning up is to pick each item up, give it a shake and toss it in another direction. Her little mind drives her all over the room overturning whatever she finds along the way. It’s ugly and so familiar at the same time.

But isn’t she the cutest little wrecking ball you’ve ever seen?

I should mention that just a few seconds before I snapped the photo, the toy box was covered with “stuff.”

And in keeping with the “coming back” theme here – I made my pies for tomorrow. Everytime I make pies, I think of my gram. She made a wicked pie. I remember her watching my sister and I when we were younger and she would always bake a cherry pie while we were in school with the most perfect lattice weave crust. And the scraps, well they became these:

So now whenever I bake, I think of my gram and bring back a little bit of her by using my scraps. It makes me happy.

As we approach the holiday, I often reflect on what I’m thankful for – family, good health, friendships (just to name a few).

Liam, well…he certainly dug deep for this one.

Good ol’ North America.

Have you ever read that kid’s book? It’s cute. And the word “stuck” is really the only thing that has to do with today’s post.

A few weeks ago after picking Liam up from school he informed me that someone “frewed up” that day. And because he hasn’t really thrown up since he was two (with the rotovirus), he was in panic mode. Hold on while I go and knock on something…ok…good. So everyday (at least once a day) he’d ask me if he was going to “frewed up.” And I had to convince him that only sick kids throw up. And after a week it was no longer stuck in his head. Until a few days later another kid “frewed up” in the classroom. So that’s back to being stuck in his head. And I can tell you that it’s not pleasant when he brings it up at dinner. It’s doubly stuck now and that could be dangerous.

And then last week we found a tick on Audrey – nasty little buggers. She still gets the preventive but I didn’t think the collar was necessary anymore – guess the frost hasn’t killed them yet. Anyway – Liam was obsessed with the tick. And now when running through the yard will stop and ask if we see ticks. Yeah, because our old eyes are THAT good. But today, I looked in the rearview mirror after picking him up from school and noticed some dirt below his eye – kind of looked like a black eye. So I asked him if it was dirt or if he bumped it at school. His response, “I just have a tick in my eye. That’s all.”

I hope the next thing that gets stuck in his head has to do with flowers, rainbows or unicorns.

It’s a list day…because that’s how I’m functioning right now.

Grocery shopping…done.

Holiday outfit purchases for both kids…done. AND I’ve received everything AND they’re beyond cute. I even have accessories.

Holiday shopping. All kids are done (not just mine)…I get half credit.

Holiday decorating….not done. But my planning is. I’m getting things out little by little – basically as my mood dictates.

Baby teething. Oh how I WISH we were done. But really, new ones are just popping through at a snails pace. My poor girl is clingy and sleep deprived.

Emails…not done. I still have several to return…if you’re waiting on me it’s coming!

Laundry…if your Addy it’s done. Liam – kind of.

Deadlines…not done. Second batch all due at the end of the week. I’m aiming for completion by Wednesday.

More later.

With another post following tonight…I hope. I just wanted to share a few things that I did for It Kit Studio this month using the December kit. I’m IN the Christmas mood…really to decorate…you name it!

First up, a layout of my little Miss who will be turning one NEXT MONTH around Christmas time. OY. And yesterday, she started cruising. I’m SO in trouble.

And then this advent project. I create one every year using my most 25 favorite photos from the year. So the fronts are decorated, have a number and a little embossed circle with something to do in it. Like make hot cocoa, pick a gift, cut paper snowflakes…fun family stuff. And each day we’ll find the number and flip it over to reveal the photo. At the end of the month we’ll have a tree full of family photo highlights from the past year. Pretty fun huh?

And then I did this cute little recipe tree which is actually going to have to become a cute bigger tree because I have too many of the little matchbook recipe cards. Inside of the cards are my go-to cookie recipes for the holidays.

That’s all for now!

The sign of a good movie – you can watch it again and again and again and feel the same stinkin’ emotion each and every time!

Example: I got sucked into Dirty Dancing tonight…it’s the movie that I’d love to hate but I don’t. And the dance at the end gets me every time. Especially when they’re all dancing towards the stage…tell me you don’t want to be in that group.

Second Example: The Wedding Crashers which seems to be on every night on one of our movie stations. I can’t turn it off and I laugh every. single. time. I think there were two nights in a row where I turned it on at the exact same spot…couldn’t change the channel. It’s good comedy!

I had the same problem last month with Meet the Fockers. Sucked me right in and I sat and laughed like the big dork that I am.

I’d call this a random post. It’s 11:30pm and I’m neither a morning or evening person. I’m a sleep person. Enough said.

For lots of different reasons.

The time change. Yet another reason for me to more to Arizona. They don’t bother with this time changing madness. Dark at five o’clock is just silly to me. Mom…ready to move yet because Nate is onboard!

A new kit. The December kit to be exact and Kelly rocked it again! Full of fun Christmas goodies – beautiful papers and awesome stamps it’s beyond inspiring. Everything goes up on the 15th so stay tuned. It’s getting me in the holiday spirit! I’m hoping to have another advent calendar designed with it…I make one every year – remember them? The one that I did in 2005 is here and then 2006 is here.

Addy’s new found mobility. Sigh. My little miss is crawling and pulling up on everything. And because she is still learning, she falls down quite a bit and I’m not ready for little red bumps on my new baby girl. She is keeping me on my toes (but that’s what mommies do)!

Addy’s new found mobility. BECAUSE of these new milestones she isn’t sleeping as well. Instead of going back to sleep halfway through naptime her little brain insists she crawl and pull up instead. It WILL pass. I know that. It happened with rolling, sitting, army crawling….she’ll perfect her skill and move on. And hopefully sleep for 18 straight hours. You think?

Christmas is NEXT MONTH! I’m not even counting the days or I’ll flip for sure. I’m done shopping for all of the kids, that’s it. For me, that’s behind and I don’t do well with behind. I’m getting my thoughts organized this weekend. I have to. Any cool sites to check out?

I’m cooking, again. Yes it comes in waves. It’s no secret that I’m a baker, not a cook. But sometimes I just want good fresh food. So instead of doing other things (like designing, blogging, photography) I’m in the kitchen. Don’t worry – it’ll pass. But I do have to say that yesterday we had a lovely homemade ravioli with sweet pea puree and I made a yummy curry chili today for lunch (thanks to my neighbor’s recipe).

That’s all for now! I’ll leave you with a picture of my bubs enjoying some time with her daddy! She looks SO MUCH like Liam did at this age – it’s crazy! The only difference is the cheek chub!

More later!

I just realized that I haven’t posted some of the things that I did last month. Notice I said LAST MONTH and not last night…or last week for that matter. October was a crazy busy month so I wasn’t all that productive in the studio. I basically did my required work and left it at that. SO while it looks like I’ve been busy in pictures and whipped everything up…say….last Tuesday – it was over 31 days.

First up, a few fun projects that I did for It Kit Studio using the November kit. These are little gift bag toppers and use two stamps – one from the first kit ever sent out and the other from this month. LOVE the “do not open” stamp – it’s perfect for the holidays!

And then I made these little monogram tags using the “Happy Holidays” stamp in the November kit. It also had that red and white bakers twine in it – so cute!

I did a layout and other project with this kit to that my computer seemed to have eaten. I’ll be on the lookout and post it later (I just want the credit for making two more things!)

I made this layout using the a huge blurry photo – but I loved this blurry photo. It captures the kids being the maniacs that they are – nothing wrong there! So the page uses some papers from Piggy Tales, some stickers and brads from American Crafts and one watch face from Heidi Swapp. Obviously, there hasn’t been a “circle” intervention yet because I’m still somewhat addicted.

And then I did this layout because I just HAD to use the photo and get the story down before it lost it’s impact in my head. I shared both last week sans page layout design (because it wasn’t created yet). It uses the fabby Sassafras Lass papers, stickers and die-cut (awesome skull right). And then FELT letters from American Crafts as well as a bit of ribbon hidden in the back.

And that’s all…that I can share. I did two other layouts but they were for calls – can’t post ‘em yet!

Happy Sunday! More later!

Yeah I know…I’m late with the photo posting!

We had a beautiful night – much better than last year. And Liam seemed to really enjoy trick-or-treating. Addy enjoyed watching everyone. Liam was most excited when one house dropped a large apple into his bag – made his entire night. My boy LOVES apples….go figure. He also got a juice box and a mini box of cereal – both cool ideas (even if Liam doesn’t like either one).

So about the costumes, this was the first year that I didn’t make them. And to be honest, it was a lot less work (well duh) BUT I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right and I wasn’t as excited about them nearly as much. Once Liam FINALLY decided on his costume, a dragon, I found one to buy or a pattern that I could make. The pattern one was so lame and not worth my time when compared to the one we could easily purchase. Addy’s flower costume was just plain adorable and I couldn’t resist hitting the purchase button online…so not my fault. Really. It wasn’t.

So here is our beautiful little flower:

And our dragon (drinking lemonade in this photo):

And breathing fire in this one:

That’s all for now…sooooooo tired!