girls just wanna have fun

P and I were invited to go to a girls night @ the A's house Friday night.  Our hostess' S and A1, arranged for some gals to come with bracelets for us to make.  After much deliberation, P decided upon sparkily, little, purple beads for her bracelet.  This was a hard task for P to string those tiny beads on the wire. Dispraxia is hard on her.  She was willing to help all the moms and grandmas that were there, even mooching a few beads away from them.  After the beads were strung, it was time for the pedicures.  The girls were lined up and given a tub to soak their little feet in.

Then we got to polish our little girls toes with the color of their choice, while they watched Barbie and the Pauper movie.

finished piggies all dolled up.

Mommy's and baby girls

The girls even squeezed in some polly pocket time.

Thanks S and A1 for a most awesome girl night!

chinese new year

We were invited to spend Chinese New Year at the K family's house.  Chinese New year fell on Valentine's day this year. What fun we had.  They prepared some yummy-licious chinese food.  B even spent hours making all these teensy tiny cranes for decoration.  so pretty! It is rare that we are invited places, in full force, and this was so nice. Thanks for all your hard work J and B!!

We brought along some left over 4th of July sparklers for us to play with. P has never really liked fireworks and grabbed the nearest big person's (J's) leg for protection.

Thanks for all the fun!!

happy anniversary to us!

This is our anniversary present to each other.  After 14 years of marriage, we have purchased our first major appliance together.  We are more than thrilled!  Thanks to my wonderful brother-n-law, John, for all his help.  Isn't she a beauty?!!

guess who?

Who can she be?? We are so thrilled!!

peppermint patty

I really like shoes.  I have been stuck in a 'mom rut' and want/need to broaden my footwear. Do not get me wrong.  I love my comfy Keens.  They are worn nearly every day.  I even have several pairs of them.  Great shoes.  I love my birkenstocks too...even though a- Clyde threatens every year to throw my peppermint patty shoes away and 2- they have a bit of a suction problem that causes a loud noise when walking and they sound like I am farting...though I swear it is the shoes,  {honest I promise...the shoes} they remain faithfully in my closet.  A coupla few weeks ago when we went to the mall, I found the above beauties and fell in love...LOVE.  I made such a bee-line to the rack to behold these beauties.  I tried them on...they were nearly a perfect fit...except for my darned long monkey toes.  They were on sale too.  I debated for a good bit of time, while I tried on other shoes of course, whether or not I could endure the pain to have these shoes.  I would only be wearing them to church and that is only 3 hours.  I tried them on again.  I walked around.  My children laughed and my loving husband rolled his eyes.  I walked some more...prancing is a better word and alas the pain won out.  They were the last pair in the store.  The shoes were even 1/2  a size longer than my normal size and my toes were still too long.  One day I will find some of these that will actually fit and that don't make a weird sucking sound when I walk.  Until then adieu, adieu, adieu. darn it!

I'm not the only one who loves shoes either.  it must be genetic!

Flogging Molly

Clyde went with his super sexy secret book club to a show in MB this weekend.  They went to see the group Flogging Molly...an Irish rock band.  They sounded pretty good to me when I youtube'd them. He and his buddies had a great time and stayed in Clyde's aunt's condo on the beach.  He woke up to sunny skies...without children stirring @ 7:15 am telling each other to be quiet.  There were some vomit stories to be told upon their return, which were hillariously funny...alot different from the vomitting stories that I had to tell.  I am so glad that Clyde has the opportunity to go to the shows that he likes.  He deserves a little man time.  love you sweetheart! (Clyde- tell me if the song that I attached is a good one...or suggest a different one. thanks!! )

This month Clyde also went to see Them Crooked Voltures with the book club.  February has been the month for concerts.

meanwhile at the brown house

I began a new pattern for the girls.  It is time for some new spring/ summer dresses.  We went looking @ the mall for some, but the $70 price tag stopped me cold.  I figured that with my new dress form, I could make 6 dresses for the same price.  Here was the first dress ever to go on the dress form.  It is awesome!

Here the dress is finished...needing to desperately be iron.

How does it fit you ask???  Like a glove.  A glove I say!

Then I made Libby one.  She is a bit pickier...who am I kidding, she is A TON pickier than Erin.  Libby fell in love with a dress @ the mall.  She wanted the poof.  I bought a few patterns from Hobby Lobby, when they were two bucks each and let her choose which style she liked. (All different levels of poofy.) She couldn't get her point across with the poof.  She described the poof of a princess dress, but actually wanting the poof @ the bottom...like I had been saying to her the entire time. (she drew me a picture.)

The pale pink turned out darling.  I still had to make a few adjustments to the shoulders for a better fit.  I finished Erin's poofy slip, but need to make Libby's.  Knowing her, she'll have something to say about whatever I make.  sheesh!

just when we thought it was over

We were wrong. I scrubbed. I lysoled. I washed 5-6 loads of laundry full of nasty stuff in the hottest of hottest water with extra detergent. I washed with bleach all of our dirty dishes. All my efforts failed...Erin came into our room a little after 1a.m. this morning, informing us of the vomit. It continued until about 9a.m.

There was a Primary activity that Clyde was to help in & our Wardlings to attend, and we just felt that with the yuckies being so fresh that we had better skip it. No need in spreading the joy of the tummy bug to our entire church ward primary & families.

no rest for the weary...

is what the drug doctor said to me when he was attempting to put in the epidural when i was in labor with jacob. (though the epidural didn't work...at all.) contractions were a breath apart and i thought i was going to split in two. a few minutes and a broken tailbone later, we had another son. that was a good no rest for the weary time. however lately, we wardlings cannot catch a break. pneumonia (twice), croop, strept throat, kidney stone, the flu, walking pnuemonia etc. etc. (oh that has been since august of '09. not even a full year) have plagued our family. the saga continues with the yuckiness. penny began the tummy flu around 10 last night and it continued until 3am.  i have never seen a little girl lose that much fluid before.  it pained me to see her, because i knew she was in pain. then of course jacob came in around 1:45am - 6am throwing up.  he had already thrown up in his room.  he is probably the most whiney wardling when he is sick.  i have to admit that when mom only gets a good ten-15 minutes of sleep between incidents, she is a bit cranky and firm...things like, "put your head over the toilet or bowl, or stop moving!" did come out of my mouth. note to self...i hate, HATE carpet in the bedrooms for this very reason.  not only do we have to clean up throw-up from the bathrooms, lysol our entire brown house down, and wash a gizillion loads of laundry in the hottest water imaginable, we also have to scrub and clean the dang carpet. back to the regularly scheduled rant...next came josh.  i had given him a vomit bowl when i got jacob out of his room.  josh was argumentative saying that he felt fine.  man am i glad i was persistant about him keeping the bowl by his head.  he was sick from 4am- around 6:30ish.  we were a sight with little ones all around our bed with their sick bowls, pale faces, and blankets. it may be sympathy or that i am catching it because the queasiness continues.  this is so for the birds or rats or whatever else needs to throw up.  go away!!

what a week

This has been one busy past few days here in the brown house.  It was time for Erin's yearly MRI for NF.  Since the magnets are so strong, it requires the removal of braces.  So, hopefully temporarily, braces are off. We are now awaiting approval from insurance to put them back on. 

While Penny and I waited for the braces to be removed, she grabbed a Highlights magazine to read.  Penny has become abit persistant when she gets an idea in her head.  Kinda like me unfortunately.  On the back cover of the magazine was a picture of a squirrel.  She kept asking me about the squirrel's mother.  Where she was and didn't she miss the squirrel.  I read the back paragraph to her and explained that baby squirrels grow up faster than our babies and that they leave their mommies.  "WHY?!! WHY?!!" was her reply. "Miss her?"  This conversation went on for nearly 30 minutes.  The same thing over and over again about the squirrels. We were getting looks.

Then there was the actual MRI day.  Clyde hung out home to watch Penny (thanks S for being willing to watch her) while Erin and I drove to Duke.  I must make a note here for us, that Thursdays are the days to have an MRI @ Duke.  I could hear the nurses talking about how slow Thursdays were and I saw it.  They were checking their facebook pages and surfing the web.  Friday's are the worst to have anything done. Erin has teensy tiny veins and the nurse had to stick her 3 times to get the IV started.  The first try was in her hand.  The nurse got it in, but Erin wouldn't bleed out a bit into the IV, so that vein was unusable.  So the nurse moved up to her arm.  Again, got it in the vein, but the needle was WAY too big and the vein blew.  After 2 tries, the nurse called in the pro, another nurse, and she was able to use the needle size that they use for infants to start the IV.  Slid the needle right in, no problems.  Poor Erin though.  The numbing cream they put on didn't help when it came time to having the iv in 3 spots.  A few vallium later and out she went. Hopefully we will have results within a few days...another perk of going to Duke.  They have a Health portal and lab results are posted within days.  So for the past few MRI's since changing to Duke, we have gotten MRI results before our pediatrician.  I usually send our pediatrician the results and thus eliminating the wait for them.

For Penny's second breakfast this week, after speech,  she wanted to go to Chi-fil-a.  She loves the food, but hates the cow.  She kept looking for the cow to pop out.  Here she is signing cow in fear of him showing his ugly head.  She was so concerned with the cow appearing that she didin't eat.  I think I may be a rotten mother because I threatened that the cow may come out and check on her since she wasn't eating the food, so she had better eat, or the cow would come out.  She ate everything and I will go to hell.

Valentine's Day isn't one that we normally celebrate.  The kids send their valentine's to school, get candy yadda yadda.  Our anniversary is in 10 days and thus I'd rather celebrate our anniversary than a day that card manufacterers and florists say that I have to tell the people I love, that I love them.  This year Clyde surprised me with some ribs.  Oh how that man can cook some ribs...

Of course we only got a few, due to the Wardlings who all wanted their own rack, but settled to share mine ours.

Clyde also had this cookie made for me.  I love you too honey! Thank you...I hope you like your new scriptures and Dr. Marten's. :)

Ever get bored in sacrament meeting? That or have to find something to entertain that cranky/ busy/ tired/ hungary child?  Clyde likes to entertain them by taking pictures with his cell phone.  This is the masterpiece that he took last Sunday.

Friday night the girls had to be picked up in A'boro, since Clyde was at an away game.  A shout out to the Jessups who let them go home with them. Thanks again guys!!  The girls had plans...Erin had a friend coming over and Libby was going to a friends house for a sleepover.  To give E and her friend E a break from Penny, aka Stitch these days, I took them to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Lightning Thief.  It was a decent film.  I told my pal C, that in comparing it to Harry Potter, it was the Sorcerer's Stone quality.  It is good but hopefully will get better as the series continues.  I would take my other Wardlings to go see it.  It is clean and a good children's/ youth movie.

This week should be calmer in the brown house...let's hope.

newborn heaven

There was a lovely baby born last week to our good pals, Plus One and Plus One's sister.  Another sister!  I had to go over and give the newborn a squeeze on Sunday.  She is adorable!  Anyway, my friend Ashley asked for another few things and these were my first go at newborn crocheted items.  My first hat was for Plus One's new baby sister and it was too small.  What perfect timing that I have a newborn's head to try my things on!  The bear hat isn't complete.  It gets big buttons in the ears and is so adorable on babies.

Penny and I had a very  busy day that included another 3 hour visit to the place that repaired our brakes last week.  The brakes were still scraping/ grinding, so the place replaced the van's metal filled brake pads with 'the best brake pads.'  I hope this time it works.  I don't know if I can handle another long wait.  While we were waiting, we caught Martha, noon news, Access Hollywood, which was a re-run, and the Wendy Williams show.  Martha's show was fine...Harrison Ford's son, Ben was on. He is a chef & demonstrated some stuff.  I was crocheting and I swear he sounds so much like his Dad. Wendy Williams' show on the other hand was T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E!!!  Just had to get that out there.

slushy ice

Not that anyone else is interested, but it is now raining.  It is melting away the snow, but causing slush and ice to form.  It is only 30* outside as I type.  What will the weather have in store for us this weekend?  And it must be obvious that I am a smidge bored...2 posts in only a few hours.  The Wardlings are asking for lunch and watching Uncle Buck.  great late 80's early 90's film.

snow & sleet...again

Welp, here we are again with more wintery mix pouring from the heavens.  It is really pretty, and would be even prettier, had we not already been snowed in this week.  Now, what on earth are we going to do with the Wardlings today.

Maybe we could tackle the linen closet that has gone crazy.

2009 audit

Well, it's another year and with the new year comes taxes.  Clyde and I have already filed our 2009 taxes.  We got a letter last week telling us that we are being audited from the state of NC.  Apparently the state gave out more money last year to the folks who quailfy for earned income credit.  It appears that other people in NC, aren't so honest when it comes to claiming dependants and as a result, we Wards who actually have 5 children, have to prove that we have 5 children.  We have claimed 5 children for 4 years now and this is the year in which the state of NC decides to question it.  It is just a pain to get all the info they need together, copied, and mailed.  We can totally prove that we are the parents of 5 children, it is just a hassel.

sun is shining

The sun is shining and the snow is melting, just in time for another snow storm on Friday.  The Wardlings have been a bit cranky today, so Clyde and I have had them cleaning.  The house smells like bleach and the Wardlings have quieted down.  Clyde even scrubbed out the bathrooms...all 3 of them! I love that man!

the weather outside is frightful

This is what it looks like outside our house this morning.  It is 8:15am and it is beginning to sleet.  There are at least 20 birds hopping by our bird feeder.  I must put out more food for the birds and squirrels today.  It is cold...30*.  I wonder what the rest of the day has in store for us.

must get out of the house

Today, I had to leave the house.  Our road is pretty icy and thus Penny's Speech teacher couldn't come to us, so we volunteered to go to her.  I know that Clyde loves me.  He had no problem walking around Jo-Anns today, while I looked at the walls of fabric.  There were so many choices, but the above are what I settled on for today.  School is canceled again tomorrow and so I must stay busy or I will go crazy.  Thank you honey for getting me out of the house today!