Friday, September 30, 2011

Tis the Season....

....to be sewing. Fa la la la la, la la la la!
Halloween season isn't quite in full swing yet, but it's started! I've already sold two Rapunzels, Fawn from Tinkerbell, an adult witch, and a pirate costume. One Rapunzel and the witch are from repeat clients from last year. Yay! The other Rapunzel is for a good friend whose daughter I partly claim. I'm also making a Rapunzel dress for my niece, Celeste. Her birthday is on Monday and I'm a bad auntie cause I should have mailed it today, but it won't go out till tomorrow. Sorry, kiddo! Anyways, at this rate, I'll have enough $$ saved up for a new camera in no time at all! Which will be nice to have to take pics of the costumes I sew. Until then, use your imagination. =)

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Cross Country

Amber started cross country at school this last week. The season actually started a couple weeks ago, but the school never sent home any info so I wasn't aware Amber was even old enough. Seems like when I was in grade school, school sports were only for 5th grade and up. But here in Peoria, they're 3rd+. Practice is before school Mon-Thurs and today was Amber's first meet. Everyone else's second. She was very nervous - I think David was more nervous for her though - but we assured her as long as she did her best, we'd be proud of her. After waiting through 7/8th grade girls and then boys, and 5/6th girls and then boys, it was finally her turn. She went and lined up with the 3/4th graders, got pushed to the back (we're working on her assertiveness), caught up to the front, got pushed into a cone, was tripped coming around a corner, but still came in 14th out of about 45 girls. Gooooo, Amber! She was very proud of herself and felt good after the race. She pushed herself hard at the very end and passed a few girls. David and I gave her some tips for her next race and she's confident she'll do better now that she know how far she has to run. I guess her coach doesn't have them run much in practice. One lap around the field, some stretches, and a game. And she didn't even have them warm-up this morning, either. Lame. So Amber's just going to have to push herself to run as fast as she can without stopping every morning doing her one lap and hope she can build her strength and endurance enough to do better next time. I wish I had pictures to share, but my camera is still dead and won't do anything. I will be getting a new one asap.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Because I Have Nothing Better To Blog About.....

....I'm blogging about the house we are going to build in the next year. David and I sometimes have a hard time agreeing on houses cause we both like different things and styles. He prefers big, spacious, "showy" houses and I prefer practical houses with enough space for everyone but not so much space a child could get lost (or make a huge mess without me knowing about it....). On Saturday, I woke up super grouchy and weepy - not really sure why - and after running his errands with all the girls, David picked me up and we all went looking at model homes. Since Dave will be graduating early January and can work as a nurse at that time and continue doing serves, we'll be making enough to afford to buy another house. We still have our house in Buckeye being rented out and probably won't be able to sell it anytime soon, but with his dual income and minus our car payments (which we are working towards getting rid of), it's very possible for us to have a home built sometime next year. Anyways, every place we looked at homes, he liked one house the best and I liked another better. Until we found this one:
http://www.pulte.com/templates/av/index.html?plan=../../communities/az/peoria/tierra-delrio/plans/av/yucca

The floorplan is great, there's enough rooms for everyone (Amber and Jade have the two rooms with the jack-and-jill bathroom, Paisley and Shyla will share the other room). We'll have the "bedroom 6" option and the full bathroom downstairs built and use the bedroom as my sewing/craft room. Unless we have baby #5 at which time Amber will move into the downstairs bedroom and baby #5 will take over her upstairs room. We'll have the bay in the master and the dining room extended, both covered porch options, and keep the big loft upstairs for the girls' hang-out room. There's an HOA in the neighborhood, but it's less than what we pay in Buckeye and they'll landscape the front yard. We just choose from available options. We'll choose the one with the most grass. lol The girls and I have been praying every night at bedtime for David to get a good job right after school. I'd really like him to not have to go months looking/waiting for one cause that would suck big time. So, that's our plan. =)

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Ah, Crap!

My camera just called it quits. How sad. And we're on a spending freeze....so no new camera for me until further notice. Nice timing. Guess I'll be saving my piano $$ for the next couple months. Grrrr! I have some cute stuff on it to post, too. Cute baby Shyla things - jammies, shoes, blankets, etc.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

California!!

We just had the BEST weekend! Jami took us all to Disneyland!!! Originally we had planned on going to the cabin for the weekend, but when I called to confirm timing and such with Jami on Monday, she changed the plans to a trip to California.  Soooo fun! Jami, the girls and I left Thursday night and got into Anaheim at 1:30 Friday morning, and David drove all night Friday and got in at 2:30 Saturday morning. On Friday, we went to surprise Shelley and Greg in Oceanside. We got to see their pretty house and the girls had fun sliding down a hill with all the neighborhood kids. David surprised us Saturday morning sporting a mohawk! haha He only kept it Saturday and shaved it off that night. David and I decided not to tell the girls where we were going and to totally surprise them once we got to the park. We had a couple close calls....but my wonderfully gullible girls remained in the dark until we actually walked into Disneyland California. Love them girlies! We spent Saturday at California and Sunday in Disneyland. As I'm pregnant,  wasn't allowed to ride the super fun rides so David took Amber and Jade on the ones we could convince them onto. Amber really loved Star Tours and Indiana Jones, and she hated Thunder Mountain and the Mattahorn. She was actually in shock for a good minute once the ride was done before she brok down sobbing. I blame David for this - he had her sit in the very front of the very front sled. No way to anticipate drops and turns. Poor girl. Jade hated all the roller coasters. Oh, well. Paisley was a maniac on Alice's Teacups. She helped spin the wheel and just giggled her head off! Here's a butt-load (approximate, not actual) of pictures to look at:
Having fun in the hotel pool

Sliding down the hill at the Hill's. =)

Safe landing!

The one and only time Pie went down

Not so safe for Jade and Celeste! lol


This is where they finally found out where we were. Look at those smiles!

This is basically what both girls looked like after nearly all the roller coasters David took them on. NOT their Mama's girls....


Jesse!




Amber loved this ride, Jade - not so much





Maybe if Paisley pulled her own weight.... 

"It's a small world, afterall...."

Making Jade's dreams come true...

Amber was quite happy Ariel recognized her dress! And then later in the parade, Ariel saw her again and said, "I like your dress!" So sweet!


Storytime with Cinderella

Welcome to Jade's World!

Paisley saw these ribbons and ran screaming down to them! Cinderella and her "lady in waiting" laughed and handed her some ribbons.


Star Tours! Amber loved this ride, as well as Indiana Jones. Wish I could have gone it with them.....maybe next time.

Shelley and Greg were completely surprised when Jami and I called from Anaheim so they didn't have their own hotel room. Luckily, Jami had gotten David and I a one-bedroom suite with 2 beds in the room and a pull-out couch in the living room.

Good morning, Cupcake!