And the winner is......

Well, I got harassed at church today (you know who you are) about when I was going to post the winner of my giveaway from last week.  I thought now is as good a time as any, so here goes.  I went online and found one of those random number generator thingies.  I was originally going to go old school and put all names in a hat then draw one.  However, I have two little girls that like all things paper, so some names have gone missing....along with the rest of the paper and the pen.  So, technology it is.

Without further ado, the winner of the Ellie & Sabrina T-bag giveaway is my reader who goes by the name Complicit.  I am not able to message you, so if you could please send a message to Chantal through facebook, she will be more than happy to get your shipping information from you.  If she hasn't heard from you by next Sunday, I'll post a new winner. 

Thanks all for entering.  If you're disappointed that you didn't win one of these wonderful bags, it's possible you could still be the owner of one.  Head on over to Chantal's Etsy store and buy one, or two,  or seven.  They really are that wonderful.

Saturday snapshot ~ We're sleeping again!

I couldn't help it.  There's something about a baby sleeping that just melts my heart...and when it's a baby sleeping on their tummy, well, that's a double whammy!

Cute things Annika says (Part Eight)

This could be a blog just about my funny girl.  She makes me laugh SO much!  We were driving in the car today and she said, out of the blue, "Will you hold my hand the next time I have to get a needle?" 

The last time she had a needle...her sister had them as well.  Annika SCREAMED like she was getting beheaded, Abigail sat there, and after the nurse was done said "Ow."  That's all.  Anyway, for months afterwards, Annika would bring up the fact that she didn't want another needle ever.  She made me promise I would never make her have another needle.  I promised.  I know, I'm a bad mom.  But I figure that it will be years before she has to have another shot, and by then, she will have forgotten this time in her life.  Whatever helps her sleep now. 

Back to today.  In the car.  I asked if she was willing to have another needle and she said:

"Yes.  I just poked myself in the hand with my pencil and realized that needles don't hurt."

Cute things Annika Says (Part Seven)

It's Monday.  That means we're starting something new today.  I believe that you have a better chance of success if you start things at the beginning of the week.  Don't ask me why.  I just do.

This week, we are starting potty training.  Abigail is willing...it's more me and my lack of motivation.  I did decide that today was the day.  She sat on the potty for about two hours this morning.  Quite content.  We had movies and books and toys all around her.  She finally did something in her potty!  Annika was so excited, she said,

"I'm going upstairs now, but if you pee again, let me know and I'll come downstairs just a'grinning."

She's such a great cheerleader!

This is my thumb...it is not green

Clark and I have a problem.  Every year around this time, we forget that we are who we are, and think that maybe we should get outside and do some gardening.  We buy an over abundance of plants, plant them, and then sit back and watch them die.  Seriously.  Every year since we've been married.  I don't know what it is about spring that makes you forget that you can't garden.  I am in love with the idea of things growing I guess. 

This year, we upped the ante.  Clark decided that we needed to buy trees and shrubs on top of the flowers we usually buy and then proceed to kill.  The bar has been raised!  We bought five trees/shrubs all together.

Left to right:  a saskatoon bush, a lilac bush, a bush called a red dwarf, and a red currant bush

This is a crab apple tree. 

The lilac and the red dwarf were going to get planted on a stretch of flower bed that has been overrun by weeds for the past couple of years.  This is the before picture.

And here's the during/after picture.

Clark had a lot of fun using the rototiller.  It took us FOREVER to figure out how to get the wheel to stay in the upright position.  The instructions were not very helpful and YouTube let me down.  You would think that SOMEBODY out there would do a video tutorial for people like us.  Maybe I should do one before we return the tiller tomorrow!

Tyler hung outside with us all day today.  Hopefully he sleeps well tonight from all that fresh air.  He's a funny kid.  He'll sit up for at least an hour at a time, then he gets fussy and needs to lie down on his back.  I keep telling him if he'd only learn how to crawl, he could do a whole lot more!

Annika dressed herself this morning.  She insisted on wearing long sleeves with her shorts.  I told her if she wanted long sleeves, she should probably wear pants.  She said that her legs didn't get cold, just her arms.  At least her clothes match. 

And what can I say about this little girl?  She's just too darn cute!  She's been battling a cold all week, so she's been grumpier than usual.  I'm thrilled I got a smile out of her here!

Do you see the ugly bug?  They are EVERYWHERE in my soil.  We have an RV parking pad that we are slowly turning into grass (I forgot to take a picture of it).  The soil has been packed down for years on it...and yet these bugs still seem to live in there.  They give me the willies.  Anyone know what they are? 

By the time we were finished, it was 9:30 and the sun was starting to set, so I'll have to share "after" pictures with you at a later time.  I'm looking forward to seeing if my tree and shrubs will make it through a year with us!







Saturday Snapshot~ The one where she grew a new nose

We went to sleep looking normal last night, and this is what I woke up to this morning!

Over 3500 hits and a giveaway!

This past week, I passed the 3500 mark for hits on my blog!  That's pretty exciting for me.  Who knew that people would be so interested in what I had to say?  To celebrate, I've decided to host a giveaway.  One of my BEST friends, Chantal, owns a homemade business called Ellie & Sabrina.  She is dedicated to creating attractive, affordable, and practical accessories for moms and babies. All of her products are designed and hand-made in-house with your needs in  mind.

I love Chantal's creations!  *I am not just saying that because I am her friend.*  She has a great eye for color and fun and is able to think outside the box. 

This week, Chantal is debuting a new product.  They are called T-bags.  I love these!  It's a towel that has a bag attached to it, so you can easily carry it with you.  Each of my kids have one for swimming.  I find it is so much easier to take 3 kids swimming by myself if they have everything they need contained in their own bag.  It might be more bags to lug, but in the long run, it's easier than having to stuff everything into one big bag. 

Now it's a towel......

 Now it's a bag.....

As a giveaway, one lucky reader will win TWO of these bags.  Here's how you enter.

Head on over to her facebook page, press like, then head on back here and leave a comment to let me know you've done it.  If you want another entry, check out her website and leave a comment on her latest blog post as well! 

The contest will be open until 11:59 PM on May 25.  I'll be announcing the winner the following week!  I can't wait to see who is going to walk away with these...you won't be disappointed!

The dishtowel

I found this tutorial around Easter time and thought "I could do that."  So.  I did!  While up in Edmonton, we stopped in at Ikea and I found the two cutest dishtowels you could ever find!  It was a 2 pack for $5.99. 

I liked how they had fun patterns on them, without being too "kitchen".  In the tutorial, she had taken her two pack of dishtowels and put them together to make one skirt.  It was a bit fuller then what I did for Annika, but I thought that Annika is so skinny, a pencil skirt wouldn't be horrible.  So, I actually got two skirts out of this material.  The first skirt I made the length of the dishtowel, so it was quite long on Annika.







I like it long.  I like how the top circles peep out from the waistband, and the bottom has the full circles.  It is so fun!  Annika is not a fan.  As she told me when I was making the second skirt, "Mom, make this one two inches long.  Then I can run in it." 

Well, I made it a little longer than 2 inches, but it is definitely shorter!  Because this one was a shorter skirt, I wanted to do something fun on it, so I added a purple ruffle on the bottom.  I think it's my favorite.  The short skirt only had the circle pattern on one side of the dishtowel, so the back of that skirt is just white.  It's kinda nice that way!

Here you can see the difference in length of the skirts.  And, I nicely asked Annika if she would model them for us, but she said only if she could wear her mouse ears.  They really add to the ensemble I think!

Saturday Snapshot ~ 9 months

Can you believe this little guy is 9 months old already?  He started sitting up by himself this past week, and it's been so fun to see!  I know, the look on his face there is priceless! 

I was thinking the other day that this is a sad milestone for me.  It now marks the fact that he has spent as much time "out" as he spent in my stomach...and it only means that he's going to keep adding to that time.  Since there are going to be no more babies in our future, it's bittersweet for me.  I'm looking forward to the coming milestones, but I am definitely missing the ones I will never experience again!

On a related note, I took him to the health unit on Friday to weigh him and see how he's doing.  Drum roll please........the little chubber is 19 pounds, 11 ounces.  It's so nice to see him filling out and gaining weight.  He's getting so heavy, I get tired holding him!

Pay it Forward 2012 ~ Gift for Ruth

Boy, am I bad at follow through!  This is the first gift that I had finished for my pay it forward gifts....in February!  It's now May in case you haven't checked a calendar lately.  Good thing Ruth is such a patient friend...and she didn't know what I was making for her anyway, so she couldn't be missing what she didn't know she was getting!  

Originally I was only going to make Ruth one thing...but she's so fun to make things for, that I added three more things to the pile! 

Gift #1:  Crocheted tea cozy.  I think the pattern ends up being a smaller tea cozy...but I don't know how to read crochet patterns, and there's only so far YouTube can take you.  The lady I would have called for help and advice lives in Heaven now, so I ad libbed...and ended up with a REALLY BIG tea cozy.  Ruth's poor teapot...it looks like it's hiding!

I then made her girls pillowcase dresses (my new obsession).  Aren't they just the cutest?

No, the bottom two aren't twins, Sophia helped out by modelling Emma's dress.  This past weekend, one our way to Edmonton, we stopped in Red Deer so Annika could see her friends and I could see MY friend.

 It was so nice to see Ruth...and finally give her her present!

Saturday Snapshot ~ Last week in pictures

The kids and I left Clark last Friday for 6 days of hanging out with my best friend Chantal and her husband in Edmonton.  We had a blast wearing out the kids.  At the end of the week, I think Uncle Nate was pretty proud of being able to say that he went to 6 play places in 3 days...and crawled around in all of them! 

Saturday we went to Ikea. 
Sunday was church and lunch at Chantal's parents acreage.  I was never more aware of being a prairie girl then when we drove up to the house and I couldn't understand what I was seeing.  There was no flat expanse of acreage.  There were trees.  Everywhere.  Go figure that there are acreages like that!
Monday we headed to West Edmonton Mall to play at Galaxy Kids.  So much fun!
Tuesday we went swimming and TWO other play places. 
Wednesday we came home.  The kids slept from Olds to Suffield. 

And...I didn't take any pictures.

My fairy godparents

Annika has been watching The Fairly Odd-Parents on Netflix lately.  It's her new favorite show.  I think I've been watching it too much as well, because I've been dreaming about them! 

My fairy godparent and I (who incidentally looked a lot like my Mom, except she had long red hair) were invited to another fairy's house in Italy for a party and a pageant.  He picked out a dress for me to wear.  When it was delivered, it was hideous!  We walked into the house with the delivery guy to try it on and see what could be done about making it better.  While we were walking, the delivery guy started handing me all of these objects, the dress, some wipes, and then he started stuffing cotton balls into my mouth.  That part woke me up because it was actually the cat putting his paw into my mouth.  Why, I don't know.  He's never done that before.  I'm just glad he didn't use his claws.

Back to sleep and Mom (my real Mom, not the red haired fairy) and I are at Sears.  She's working, and I'm loitering.  She told me that somebody in the ladies department was leaving and her position would be open.  It was a part time position.  There was also a full time position available in the fundraising/social club department.  They also were in charge of walking around the floor and keeping up morale.  My mother told me to apply for those jobs, so I did. 

Then my two children (both boys) and I went on a playdate to somebody's house.  I didn't recognize the house.  They didn't have kids either, but there were three grandma's who were fighting over the boys.

And...before anyone asks, I didn't eat ANYTHING before bed last night!

Nena's car seat cover

So, I have this really cool car seat cover for Tyler.  It has birds on it.  That part isn't really the cool part.  I like that it drapes over the handle.  I've always thought that if I was a baby, I would feel claustrophobic if I had something close to my face like the traditional car seat cover.  So, I bought a different one for Tyler.  I 90% love it.  Two things I DON'T love about it.  1.  It's not long enough.  2.  The part by his head kept flapping in the wind and exposing his head to the elements.  Not cool.  I always thought I could make it better.  So, when my friend Joey mentioned that she really liked my car seat cover, I knew that I could make hers so that she would 100% love it.  I originally wasn't going to blog about her cover until I had given it to her, but I called today and left a message and she didn't return my call, so she gets to see it on here first.  Maybe that will give her incentive to call me!

Joey picked out the prettiest fabric.  I love it, it's so fun!  And, here's the finished project!

I made it longer than mine...and it's definitely pinker!

Here's what the other side looks like!  The following picture I'm quite tickled about.  I had decided originally that I was going to add a drawstring to the back to keep it from flying about.  However, my very smart creative friend Chantal suggested putting elastic on the back.  I added the fabric casing, and we had a eureka moment.  It turned out so well!  It was windy today, so I took a video of the cover NOT going anywhere.  It's a great watch! 

Hopefully Nena (and her mommy) will love it as much as I do. 

Dear Naked Woman,

I can't say it was really nice "meeting" you at the pool today.  I use the word meeting loosely, since I couldn't look you in the eye.  I have no clue what you look like.  If I were to meet you on the street, I probably wouldn't recognize you.  However, I was a little traumatized from the experience, and now that I've had time to think about it, there are some things I would like to say to you.

1. I don't think it should take anyone 10 minutes to put lotion on their body.  And if it does, maybe you should do it in an area that is NOT right in front of my three children who can stare at you.
2. It is quite possible to do your hair AFTER you get dressed.  Flipping your hair upside down and then right side up again makes things jiggle.  Although, since I was trying VERY hard not to look at you, I'm not quite sure of that.
3. Please don't stop in the middle of getting dressed to do something else.  Again, I have three children that stare.
4. Having a conversation with me probably isn't going to happen until you put a shirt on.  Even then, if you're going to start parenting my kids for me, I might not be very talkative.  And nicely insulting  complimenting me on how busy I am and outnumbered by my kids only makes me more turned off because you are nude while saying it.

There are change cubicles in the changing rooms for a reason.  Please utilize them.  I'm very glad that my kids had good manners and didn't comment on your lack of clothing.  Next time, maybe you could reciprocate and try not to be naked any longer than absolutely necessary.  Thank you.

Sincerely,
Kendra