Weekend update ... welcome to the sick house.

This weekend had great potential ... great weather, great plans, etc. But then David got sick. And then I got sick. And then Will got sick.

It started off great. Friday, I hosted our playgroup outside and let the kids play our the inflatable. The weather was perfect! I even concocted this great snack idea below and the kids loved it! I made a last minute switch with the chocolate chips and used Oreo cookies instead. Mini Oreos or mini chips ahoy cookies would be perfect. Each kid got a baggie and made their own snack mix. I would suggest putting everything up after they make their snack bags or they will hover at the snack table the entire playgroup!



Look who came to visit us this weekend. Lucy stayed with us while Meme and Poppy were out of town. Claire loves "Lucy-belle" as she calls her (she has heard Meme call her that). She kept a close eye on her all weekend. David loves Lucy too, but the feeling is not mutual ... unless David is eating something. This was Friday morning when David swiped Claire's pop-tart. Lucy was close behind to catch any crumbs (and there were many).

Friday afternoon, when Claire was supposed to be napping, I walked into her room and found this. Apparently, her babies were not comfy crammed into the baby bed, so she switched with them.

Friday afternoon, David got sick. In Target. All over himself, the shopping cart and the floor. I couldn't find anybody to help us and I didn't have a diaper bag or anything. I finally started walking to the front of the store, told the first worker I found where to go to clean up, left the cart at customer service, and went to the bathroom where David was stripped down to his diaper and cleaned up with a wet paper towel. He left in a diaper.

We had plans to eat Mexican with some friends from church; those plans were quickly cancelled! Will and I threw our own little Mexican fiesta at home, complete with cheese dip and margaritas!

David was sick all Friday night and Saturday morning. All was well for about half a day. Saturday night, we even left the kids with a sitter and went to dinner with some couples in our Sunday school class. (We did not think David had a virus at this time. He had a lot of drainage the past few days and we thought it had irritated his stomach. This happened once before and he got a raging fever the next day and had an ear infection. We were anticipating another ear infection.)

Sunday morning, I woke up about 4am feeling sick. (We figured out then that David did have a virus after all.) I went back to sleep, but it all hit me about 6am. We laid around all day. Will got sick around 6pm. Hopefully Claire won't get anything. So far, so good.

All this to say, I will not be making any trips to Target anytime soon! I told Will last night that sometimes God does things to make us slow down and rest and I thought this was one of those times. Maybe not, but it makes me feel better about spending a beautiful weekend doing absolutely nothing indoors.

Saturday morning breakfasts are the BEST!

When we first got married, I would make a big breakfast for us every Saturday morning. I picked this habit up from Will's mom who makes the BEST breakfasts! Sometimes, we would even go out to a little place called The Waysider when we lived in Tuscaloosa, and Cracker Barrel when we lived in Lebanon. We would take the newspaper, drink coffee and enjoy a slow start to the day. All of this was pre-kids of course.

Now, we don't always do a big Saturday breakfast anymore, but this weekend, we did. And I pulled out one of our favorites. I got this recipe from my cousin David, master pancake chef. He makes this for breakfast every time we visit his family and they are perfection!

Chocolate Chip Pancakes
2c. Bisquick (or other brand baking mix)
1c. milk (1-1/2c. for thinner pancakes)
2 eggs
2T. sugar
1t. vanilla
1/2c. chocolate chips
Stir ingredients until blended. Pour by slightly less than 1/4-cupfuls onto hot greased griddle. Cook until edges are dry. Turn; cook until golden brown. Yield: 14 pancakes.

Shades

Two hours in a doctor's office is totally worth it if you get to come home with these really cool shades.

And these.

And then, you're so worked up from missing your morning nap and lunch while you were at the doctor's office, mommy let's you watch a movie in her sewing room while you are supposed to be taking your afternoon nap just to keep you occupied for a little while.

Claire's climbed into this storage container I had out (with my quilt batting) and David decided he needed a basket to sit in too. Once he sat down in this tiny basket, he was stuck and he was MAD!

An update on Claire. We did finally see her ENT today. He removed both of the tubes from her ears. The left tube came out easily. The right tube, not so easily. The ENT said "this one may draw a tear" and he was right! It drew quite a few tears and required lots of hugs from Mommy (and a sticker and sucker and a prize from the treasure chest-the sunglasses) before Claire was feeling better. She really was such a big girl today. We follow-up with the ENT next summer to see if the hole in her left eardrum has healed. He said that sometimes it can take up to a year to heal on its own and he would still wait a couple of years before he would resort to patching it.

What's Cooking Wednesday? Cakes and Cupcakes Edition

I have been meaning to post these things since April. Yikes! Where has the time gone?

Okay ... so here are some really cute (and relatively easy) kid cupcakes and cake ideas.

For EASTER. File this idea away for next year.

We made chocolate cupcakes with a cake mix and topped with the whipped vanilla frosting in a can (which is very light and fluffy-almost like marshmallow cream). I used my favorite cupcake decorating tool from Pampered Chef and then added spring-colored sprinkles. Insert toothpick into bottom of Peeps of your choice and stick into top of cupcake. Make sure the toothpick goes into the cake a little bit-you might have to press down into the frosting to do this. [This would be super-cute with green-colored coconut (like grass) and the yellow chick Peeps.]

For David's frog-themed FIRST birthday party ... a frog "smash" cake for David and frog cupcakes for the guests.

Here was my inspiration for the cupcakes.

Here is my version. Not too bad, but I had to improvise on the eyes a little bit.

Will helped me with the green frosting, and then I topped them with an Oreo cookie. Next came black gel frosting dots on two mini-marshmallows for the eyes. I used the black gel frosting to "glue" the eyes to the top of the cookie. The tongue is a piece of fruit stripes chewing gum, cut in half. I also cut a triangle tip to make it more tongue-looking.

Next came the frog cake. I baked about half a yellow cake mix (maybe 2 cups batter) in an 8-inch round cake pan. Two extra cupcakes (frosted in white frosting) served as the eyes. I cut off the rounded top of the to make a flat surface for the face.

I frosted the "face" and sides of the "eyes" with green frosting. Then, I took a tube of store-bought black frosting and attached a fine tip to make the eyeballs, mouth and outline the eyes and face. The cheeks are 2 halves of a strawberry marshmallow. (You could also use pink Necco wafers.)

Ready for the party!

Sew What?: May

I got a lot of sewing projects completed this month, surprisingly. I also have several works-in-progress that I hope to have finished up and posted in June, including two new baby quilts (that are gifts for very special friends) and a smocked dress for Claire to wear next spring/summer. I got a lot of smocking done on our recent vacation since the weather was horrible (and I have to have something to distract me from "Annie" watching).

Poor David got nuttin' this month, but honestly, he could change clothes 3 times a day and never run out because he got so many nice hand-me-downs and gifts.

I made Claire this super-cute skirt. I found the tutorial here for FREE. It's a little big right now, but the tie waist helps with that problem. It should be perfect for the fall (and maybe next spring too). It is so cute I started making another one with different fabric of course!

A side view ...

I also made Claire this cute pair of ruffle pants to match this pillowcase dress Claire got as a baby gift. She never got around to wearing it when she was little (it's sized 12M) so I finally pulled it out for her to wear as a top this year. It is perfect!

The pants are the Portabello Pixie ruffle capris. I think they are adorable! If you plan to make this pattern, I would say it runs a little on the small size. I made Claire a size 3 even though she fits the measurements for a size 2 and wears a size 2 in most other clothes.

I have 4 more pairs of capris in progress to match dresses from last year that can now be worn as tops. They are a cinch to make, especially with my new serger that Mom & Dad gave me for my birthday. I love it!

Isn't this the perfect memorial day (and July 4th) outfit? Note: I did not make David's outfit. I don't really do any picture smocking. Not yet anyway!

I made this pillowcase dress from a real "vintage" pillowcase my mother-in-law found in her linen closet. It is a gift for my friend Heather's soon-to-arrive Hannah Jo. (I already gave it to her.) [Those are Will's suits pants I need to mend in the background.]

Miss Hannah Jo also got a bib and burp cloth.


I also made some burp cloths for my other friend Heather's soon-to-arrive baby Jacob. I found these blue, navy and lime green colored burp cloths on sale at Target. They matched the elephant fabric perfect!


I can't wait for these two sweet babies to arrive!

Finally, here is a better picture of Claire's birthday outfit that I posted about here. Pardon her left swollen eye ... she was having some allergy issues that day. You like how she was posing for the picture without taking her eyes from the cartoons she was watching to the left? This girl can multi-task like her momma!

Can you hear me?

Claire went to see an audiologist today. We had a speech evaluation done several weeks ago and Claire was diagnosed with an articulation delay. Basically, that means that developmentally, her speech is fine, but she has trouble articulating her words, which makes her speech difficult to understand to the unfamiliar listener.

Before we could begin speech therapy, we had to have a hearing exam just to make sure everything was okay in that department. Claire was a little angel during the entire one hour exam. She is truly an therapist's dream and I know once she starts speech therapy, she will excel! She sat as still as could be, followed all of her instructions and picked up on all of the hearing games quickly.

Everything was a-okay in her right ear, but her left ear was just below normal and we think it was because she has a hole in her left eardrum (which is probably from her ear tube that we think just recently fell out). So ... next on the agenda is a trip to the ENT to get the ear tubes removed (they are still in her ears, but no longer in her ear drums) and see if her ear drum needs to be patched, and then a trip back to the audiologist to get her left ear checked again. Fortunately, the audiologist determined that all of her hearing organs in her left ear were functioning correctly and it was a middle ear problem causing the hearing deficiency. That is good because those problems can be fixed. The audiologist also gave us the go ahead to start speech therapy too so I will get that lined up to start soon I hope.

Looks like our summer of fun in the sun may be partially spent in a doctor's office. However, I am very thankful that this is a very minor health issue in the whole grand scheme of things. I am aware that many parents and children spend much of their lives in a hospital sick with things like cancer and other diseases and disorders. I praise God that there were no major problems with Claire's hearing. I am also very thankful that we have good insurance that covers all of this 100% ... it makes it much easier to stomach knowing that there are no direct financial ramifications as there are with many other families.

I promise to get some new posts up soon! With pictures! I have been quite behind and overwhelmed with everything since we got back from vacation last week. Hopefully I will get all caught up soon, but tomorrow, we are promised a day of heat and sunshine so we are headed to the pool!

If you're in the neighborhood, stop by for a haircut.

When we were on vacation, this older gentlemen saw our kids in the double stroller and thought David was a girl. So, Will said it was time for a haircut. In the end, we didn't really cut that much hair and if this man thought he looked like a girl before, he would still probably think that. However, at least we feel better about it and he won't have so much hair in his face. I couldn't bear to cut those sweet curls off ... not yet anyway.

Meme held, while I cut.

Look at that face ... he is not too sure about all this.

All done!


Claire got a haircut too. She was just going to get a trim, but we ended up cutting off quite a bit of hair. It really does look so much better!

Before ...

After.

Look at all that hair we cut from Claire. And yes, we bribed her with candy.

My neighbor ran over with her little girl to get a quick trim too. This was Miss Kate's first haircut, so I snapped a few photos. She really just got a little trimmed off the back to even it up.

Thank you Meme for all of the free haircuts! We will pay you with LOVE!