Movin' on up...

It's official, I have my own website! I have been trying to sell my wares on Etsy for almost 2 years now... And after much thought and a bit of anxiety, I decided to go out on my own. My reasoning: Etsy charges a fee per listing, takes a cut and then paypal takes yet another percentage. AND if your listing doesn't sell within 3 months it expires and you have to pay the charge to relist. So... not much fun.

So here I am... Got me a name, got me a website, got me some goods.

It's called The Paisley Underground and I'm selling all sorts of funky accessories. It all started when my poor little bald Tatey was born and I wanted soft headbands for her noggin that wouldn't leave marks.

I soon realized I too wanted to rock the headband look and so I started making fabric rosette headbands.

Last November I decided to teach myself to crochet, and that lead to all sorts of funky head adornments, hats,

headwraps, crazy button headbands...

And my latest creation... seriously latest, as of 2 days ago, I started making these dainty little petal flower bobby pins.

Cool enough for mama to rock, but wee enough for my sweet baby girl Lu.

Tell your mama, tell your friends. You can check it all out at: http:www.thepaisleyunderground.com.

Good things come to those who pray...

I dont' think I've ever gone to bed hoping & praying that my baby would wake up and want to nurse all night... But I totally did last night. Before bed she nursed at 4:30, 7:30 and then again at 8:30. She finally went to sleep around 10:30, and woke to nurse at 11:00pm, 2am, & 5am. Praise God.

So here we are... Playing the waiting game. The nurse & the med student that came in this morning both agree that she's ready to go home. Just waiting on our team of doctors to come in, evaluate her, and sign the paperwork... Which as the nurse says, could take all afternoon, but hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later and we can head home!

I even made her a going home hat seeing as it snowed last night and it was not near as cold when we first came to the hospital on Wednesday the 16th!

Touchdown...

All day I've felt like I'm the quarterback and Lucy is the wide receiver and I've thrown this amazing pass her way and all she has to do to win the game is catch it.

She's been refusing to eat, bottle or boob for a week now. So this morning at 10am she received yet another feeding through the tube in her nose. Soon after she seemed really irritable and we decided to give her Tylenol through her feeding tube. I wanted to do it that way because they Tylenol here tastes like poo and I didn't want her to associate anything nasty with her mouth. As the nurse pushed it through, it leaked all over the place. You see, there was this teensy hole in her tube. The nurse who put it in had taped it up to avoid having to replace it resulting in more unnecessary pain for Lu.

So our current nurse decided there was no way the tube could withstand another feeding without completely busting. So she pulled the sucker out. Soon after the docs came in and we discussed our plan for the day. We decided to leave the tube out and give Lucy a 12 hour window to make up her mind on eating. If she didn't have a decent amount of liquids, via boob, bottle, or otherwise, they would replace the feeding tube. No pressure.

So at 1 I gave it another shot. Still rejected. No boob, no bottle. Every time I would try she would arch her back and scream at me. The lactation consultant came in to observe and she was baffled, as was the doctor who came to check on our progress. We decided to try "real food." At 4:30, after attempting to feed Lu ice cream, a popsicle, carrots, peaches, & rice cereal and her being completely disgusted by it, I thought I'd give the boob one last shot.

I laid Lu down next to me ready to be disappointed. I laid there and to my surprise she turned her body and latched on. I stopped breathing. I didn't move. Tony didn't move. I laid there with a smile on my insides for 5 solid minutes. You can't even begin to imagine the joy I felt at that moment.

She continued to thrive the rest of the evening... 7:30, 5 more minutes of nursing. And then to my total surprise she was hungry again at 8:30!

We just spoke to the nurse and she thinks if Lucy continues to eat throughout the night and has some good solid diapers in the morning, after we see the doctors, we will most likely be able to go home. I am beyond excited. I just praying that she'll continue to eat so we can all go home. I am so grateful for all of your kind words of encouragement today. I really needed it. And I think Lucy needed it too. ;)

Hump day...

Lu is officially off oxygen, they even took the tube off her face! She is no longer hooked up to monitors that were watching her blood oxygen saturation, breaths per minute, & heart rate. The nurse took out her IV this morning! So no more taped head. :)

The only toob (I keep writing toob instead of tube because I have boob on the mind) left is the one that feeds her. She is being an awful stinkerton (as we say in our house) and refusing the boob as well as the bottle. It is officially the ONLY thing keeping us from going home. If she would only eat. I am praising Jesus for healing her lungs but at the same time am feeling completely rejected by Lucy.

But it's Wednesday, and since it's Hump Day I'm really hoping she'll get over it and we can go home and see our other babies whom I miss like crazy!

A Good Day...

From the moment she woke up at 7:30am Lucy has been a different baby. She's all smiles, so talkative and has been playing with her toes and trying to chew on every wire that she's hooked up to.

The doctors decided to stop feeding her through her tube to try and encourage her to nurse or take a bottle. All day, every 3 hours I've offered and she's given me the shaft. I have to say, it's extremely discouraging when every time I offer, I am rejected. Then I'll pump and offer a bottle and she'll just scream at it. So when she doesn't take the milk orally, they give it to her through the tube in her nose.

She's doing so well other than the eating issue though. So well that we're being moved downstairs to the general population! If only she would eat... Doctors say it's the only thing still keeping us here. So I keep praying that one of these times she'll decide she loves me again.

I just HAD to make her a new headband seeing as her IV kinked in the middle of the night and they had to cut her fashionable hospital grade one off.

Lucy's Struggle

Tony brought a cold home from his latest trip to California, surprise surprise and we all got it.

Monday the 13th: Spencer & Lucy developed fevers and weren't feeling so hot, so I took them to the doctor. Lo & behold, Spencer had pneumonia for the 9th time. Ugh. Antibiotics. Doc also thought Lu might have a sinus infection since she had a fever, but no ear infection, lung infection, etc. Antibiotics.

Tuesday the 14th: Lu woke up at 7am and puked up everything she had nursed that night. She refused to nurse for nearly 12 hours. Since she doesn't really dig the solid foods, I was starting to worry since nursing is her main source of nutrients. That night she nursed maybe once.

Wednesday the 15th: All morning Lu decided she had given up the boob. She now had raspy breathing and looked like she was working pretty hard at it. I decided it was time to go back to the doctor. If she had a bacterial infection and was on antibiotics for 48 hours, she should be feeling better by now. We got to the doc and he gave her a breathing treatment because she sounded wheezy. After the treatment he checked her saturation levels (how much oxygen is actually being absorbed by the body) and they were 89%. He said she had a pretty bad case of bronchiolitis and he sent us straight to Salem Hospital to have her admitted. After much craziness... juggling 3 kids, waiting for Tony to get home from work in Hillsboro, pack me a bag and meet us there... She was put on a liter of oxygen (the tubes through her nose) and given an albuterol breathing treatment. Tony came and took the kids home after my mom & brother came and sat with me while we waited. As soon as he left they decided she was wickedly dehydrated and started to try and start an IV. After 4 failed attempts, they finally found one in the crook of her elbow.

Meltdown #1 for Mama.

I stayed with her all night as they gave her an epinephrine breathing treatment every 2 hours because she wasn't responding to albuterol.

Thursday the 16th: No change.

Friday the 17th: Lucy worked down to nearly no oxygen and epinephrine every 4 hours by night time. They started her on intravenous steroids in case there was an underlying asthma factor.

Saturday the 18th: 3 am, I wake up to find 3 nurses and the respiratory therapist in our room hovering over Lucy. I'm slightly drugged (took some benadryl earlier because I find it extremely hard to sleep in hospitals), and the nurse in charge starts talking to me in a rather, "I'm trying to stay calm" voice. She tells me that Lucy is having a really hard time breathing. The amount of breaths a baby her age should take per minute is around 40-50. She kept jumping up to 85 and have to work really hard to keep up. They were giving her breathing treatments every hour and her oxygen was turned back up to 1.75 liters. The vein where her IV was had collapsed and they were trying to find another site. They finally found a vein in her foot and got an IV running. After 5 minutes, it too collapsed. They called in the NICU nurses to come find a new vein since they couldn't. They finally found one and inserted an IV in her head.

Meltdown #2 for Mama.

The nurse said if she didn't turn around soon they would have to send us to Portland because she was working too hard and was so tired that she might just give up and stop breathing and they didn't have what she needed if that were to happen.

Meltdown #3 for Mama.

I called Tony at 4am to come in because I was having a hard time holding it together. My amazing neighbor stayed at our house so he could come in. Meanwhile, they called the doctor and she decided to have her do 3 hour long breathing treatments of albuterol since the epinephrine was no longer working for her. By the time she was done her heart rate was over 200 beats per minute and she was shaking from all of the drugs in her system. They gave her another dose of steroids. She finally relaxed and it looked like the worst was over. They continued breathing treatments every hour throughout the day and into the night.

Sunday: 3 am. After maybe an hour of sleep, I wake up to find the charge nurse rocking my baby and giving her a breathing treatment. (Not normal since it's usually the RT that does it and the treatments are only 5-10 minutes long). She says she's worried. Her saturation levels dropped again and she was back on albuterol and the doctor said to do it straight for 2 hours to try and open up her airways. Her breathing is shallow and 84 breathes per minute.

Mama meltdown #4

2 respiratory therapists and my nurse all tell me that they can no longer take care of Lu in the way she needs and that she should go to Portland. The doctor comes in later that morning and we all decide it's in her best interest to get her transferred up to Doernbechers.

Mama meltdown #5

My big brother comes up and sits with me & while Tony heads home to pack some bags and we wait for the ambulance. "This is what you want" he tells me. That she is going somewhere where she'll get the best possible care. It takes some time, but he convinces me this is a very good thing.

The Panda transport team arrives later that afternoon and we make our way up to OHSU.

After getting hooked back up to all of her monitors, oxygen and settling in, a team of 2 doctors, 2 med students, an RT and a nurse came and assessed Lu. She received one albuterol treatment and they decided since she didn't really respond to it, that they weren't going to continue treating her with it. They took her off oxygen to see how she would respond. The nurses, RTs and doctors continued checking on her throughout the night. Her sats dropped to 82 at one point, but came back up after upping her oxygen to 1 liter. By the morning she had worked her way back down to .25 liters. But never once did her heart rate go over 130. Never once did her breathing rate go over 55.

Today: This morning 3 doctors, 6 med students, a nurse, the RT, and the dietician all came in and assessed Lucy. I felt so at ease. I felt like she was special. Important. That they were here to do everything they could to take care of my baby girl. They've been here all day. The entire time we were in Salem, the nurses had to call the doctor to figure out what to do. Whereas here, there's a doctor available at the hospital, all the time. Very reassuring.

Since being transferred to Doernbechers Lucy has done so much better. After speaking with all of the doctors, nurses, and RTs, they all agreed she should have been transferred here days ago because she was obviously being overdosed and bombarded with drugs that were working against her rather than with her. She's improving so much faster and has even had a few moments where she actually wanted to play!

As of right now she is no longer on oxygen or any breathing treatments! She's still pretty wheezy, but everything else is improving. She currently has a feeding tube placed down her nose where she's being "fed" Mama's milk. The more nutrition she gets, the better she seems to feel. I feel so much more at ease here. It feels less like a crazy stressful situation where people are running around with their heads cut off and more like people are trying to figure out the source of the problem and not just treating the symptoms with drugs that aren't working.

I want to thank each and every one of you for all of your prayers, offers to help, food, coffee, & company. God is good and I have the most amazing friends and family.

Would you rather...

The moment I was cleared after Lucy was born, I started running. It was the only way to lose the weight. Or so I thought. I was running 3 miles every other day for 2 1/2 months. But November came and with it the rain. I don't have a treadmill so the running kind of... stopped. I ran once in November. Then December came, and well, it was really COLD. I ran once. With December came Christmas and with it came all the tasty cookies and candy. I didn't really diet. Okay, in all honestly I didn't diet at all. I completely let myself eat whatever I wanted. I couldn't help myself. I love chocolate and it was in too much abundance.

To my surprise my pants kept getting bigger. Against my better judgement I weighed myself this morning. I had lost 10 pounds. What? Wait, I had basically been a lazy piece of crap the last 2 months and I lost 10 pounds and a pant size? Awesome. I did come to the realization that a lot of my muscle tone had turned to tub. But it's a tradeoff I guess...

So here's my question...

Would you rather be a flabby thin person or a more toned bigger person?

My big boy.

A friend of mine recently posted about her son getting older and it made me realize just how big Spencer is getting. I held him in my arms as if he were a baby and I had a very hard time remembering him ever being that little. Granted at 10 pounds 4 ounces he was very little to begin with, but still. He is growing into such an amazing little person. He helps his sisters all the time, usually without even being asked. When Lucy cries, he's the first one to get her a binky or sit and play with her to try and cheer her up. When Tatum needs help, he's the first to her rescue. He even takes her shoes and socks off for her when we get in the door. I don't know what I'd do without him. I'm trying so desperately to hold on to what I remember when hewas wee, but it's getting harder and harder to remember a time when he wasn't such a responsible, helpful little man...

Spencer at Lucy's age:

My big boy holding Lucy:

I'm a slacker...

I feel like such a slacker. I can't believe it's been 4 months since I've updated! Wow. So sorry. My sincerest apologies to all 4 of you that follow my blogage...

So let's catch up. What's been going on? Let's start off with the oldest of my kin...

Spencer!

My big Bucket. Spencer turned 5. I have a 5 year old? I'm not old enough to have a 5 year old. He is turning into such a sweet responsible little man. He makes his own bed. He wipes his own bum. He takes care of both of his little sisters with a smile... Probably because he wants to be allowed to play Mario Bros on the Wii, but still. I'm cool with it. He's turned it to quite the social butterfly with neighbor kids dropping by nearly every day asking if he can play. Makes it nice for me when the girls are sleeping. ;) In more recent events he is on a course of antibiotics for scarlatina strep throat. Crazy stuff. Rash, sore throat, fever. If it's not one thing, it's another. That kid's always sick!

Tatum!

Awe, my little Lumpty Shake-a-bootie. She JUST started potty training a few days ago. She did NOT want to sit on the potty, but when she finally went, something clicked and she got really excited. The very first time she went she yelled out "Mommy, it twinkled!" I said, "you mean tinkled?" And ever since "potty" is a word of the past and now it's "I have to go tinkle." She's really starting to come out of her shell as my shy middle child. She still won't talk to you for the first 20 minutes but when she gets to know you, you won't be able to get her to stop. Especially with her little diva attitude she's got going on. On many occasions I'll ask her a question and she'll turn to me and say, "I'm not talking to you."

Lucy!

I can't believe my little Lulu Liv is 4 months old now. That went by super stinkin' fast. She wants to roll over so very badly, but turns out she's got some junk in the trunk and it makes a little harder. She is such a happy smiley little baby... until she's tired. Once she realizes she's tired and not asleep, she gets a little pissy. She has such a cute personality, and is the most talkative of all of my babies. It seems like everytime you talk to her she's so excited her whole body grins... I keep waiting for her hair to fall out, but it keeps growing in... blonde. Ugh. Another one. And here I thought I finally had one with my hair!

Antonio!

Tony is starting a rotation position at Intel come January. I'm super proud of him. He'll be doing 3 different jobs over the course of 2 years in order to get more experience rapidly with no commitment. Then at the end of 2 years he'll be able to another position in the company if he so chooses. It also means less travel. Woot. Except for his trip to Vegas in January. Pfft. If only I could drop off the kids and go. But no dice.

Carrie!

Not much going on here. Seems like my days are usually pretty full though. I started going to MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) on the 1st & 3rd Tuesday of every month and am really enjoying the social interaction! I also get to hang with my little bro every Tuesday eve when he stays at our house. The kids are loving their weekly hang out time with Uncle Andy too. Gives me a nice little break as well. I just got over bronchitis and nearly a week with no voice. Poor kids. I seriously couldn't do much but whisper and so the kids thought I was insinuating that they should be quiet and they would be so quiet that I couldn't hear what they were saying... Sadness. I did just get back from a much needed trip to Sisters with Lulu & my Mama. It's nice to be able to have some Mother/Daughter bondy bondy time and I'm really excited now that she's finally decided to retire so we can hang out more. Not exactly the why, but I like to flatter myself.

Lucy Olivia

There are advantages & disadvantages to having an induced labor.

Advantage: You know exactly when you're gonna have a baby.

Disadvantage: You know exactly when you're gonna have a baby.

I don't know about you, but I am a very anxious person. The night before we dropped off Tatum & Spencer with my parents before heading home to prep, pack and head to bed. It was going to be a very early morning. We took one last pre-baby picture...

We checked into the hospital at 7am on July 11th and started to get prepped. I was so nervous. It was all starting to come back to me. The pain, the blood, the pushing... My heart rate skyrocketed. At about 9am the nurses finally got the doctor's orders and the pitocin was running through my veins. At about noon my doc decided to break my water and I decided a pre-emptive epidural was needed. We waited til about 2 for Mr. Anesthesiologist and by then the contractions were hard, strong and pretty much not fun.

After getting good and "comfortable," my doc showed up to break my water. I thought the entire event was hilarious. My legs kept falling over and I had absolutely no control. Sorry doc, it was entertaining.

Soon after I became nice & nauseas and had a lovely headache. BUT, it was definitely worth the lack of massive pain in the rest of my body. At one point, Lucy's heartrate dropped and a ton of nurses stormed the room to check me and give me oxygen. Turns out she was just dropping lower and must have pushed against the umbilical cord for a moment. It was 5:45 and I was at a 5.

Within 20 minutes my body started to shake uncontrollably, which was a sign of transition with Spencer & Tatum. Then came the uncontrollable crying. Again, did the same thing with Tatum. So Tony turns to the nurse and says, "well we've hit both stages, pretty sure she's ready."

Sure enough, the nurse checked and I was ready to rock. Unfortunately my doc was at dinner. AGAIN. You'd think she'd learn. She was at dinner when I got to 10 with Tatum too and she made me wait. Not fun at all. So I waited... when she finally got there I told her she was fired. She laughed and told me to start pushing. I laughed back and said "I'll start pushing when you sit down!"

She sat down, I said, "I don't know if I remember how to do this," took a deep breath, pushed and all of a sudden at 6:36 pm, there was a full head of dark hair, completely out. Doc told me to slow down and then all of a sudden she was out. Took less than 60 seconds. It was so surreal. I started laughing again...

And here she was, this sweet little girl with a massive amount of hair. The whole thing was just hilarious to me. I could not believe she came out so fast, nor that she had so much hair, NOR that she smelt so bad! The first words out of my mouth were, "she's so stinky!" Apparently, when they are early they still have some stanky vernix (white goo) all over them. I never noticed it with Tate, but Lucy was definitely smelly!

So they cleaned her up, weighed & measured her, and she came in at a teensy 9 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches in length. She didn't look like Spencer & she didn't look like Tatum. Perhaps a combination. Not sure. Although it makes me feel good that I finally have one with dark hair like me. But who really knows how long that will last. Tony's blondness seems to be a pretty strong gene...

After spending the night in the hospital and getting very little sleep I was ready to head home. Don't get me wrong, Lucy & Tony slept great, I just could not sleep through the crying baby next door!

When we got home, the kids met us there and got to meet their little sister for the first time. Tate wasn't really sure and it's taken her a couple of days to get used to the idea of her. When I nursed her the first time in front of Tate, Tate got really upset and kept telling me to put my shirt down. She's gotten a lot better though and this evening Spencer & Tatum sat and stared at Lucy for a good 30 minutes just admiring her and pointing out all of her little features.

Spencer was sort of excited to meet Lucy, but as soon as he had, he was kind of like, "been here done this" and headed outside to play with his cousins. He has since been very concerned though, as has Tatum, whenever she cries... to make sure she's okay and has what she needs. I think they are both going to be very good siblings to their new baby sister.

Lucy Olivia Jones

Oh crap, another biggun...

Here I am at about 8 weeks before my due date with my 10+ pounder, Spencer (please excuse the gross nekked beller pic, at this point I was void of stretch marks):

And then at the same period of time with my 9 pound 4 ounce Tate:

And here I am at 8 weeks til my due date with this one:

Awe crap, I'm totally gonna have another 10 pounder...

Happy Birthday Baby Girl...

2 years ago today my little (9 pound 4 ounce) lady came into this world. From the moment she was born, she was the sweetest, quietest, easiest, most adorable baby. But all that has changed! She's 2 now and as big a talker as her brother was at this age. She is turning into quite the little diva and she knows it! The other day she was yelling at Spencer because he had a toy she wanted, stopped and said, "I being mean." She can still be the sweetest little girl despite her diva-ish ways. She loves to give people "squishes" (hugs, but if you say "hug" she won't give it to you. It has to be a "squish." She loves Sesame Street, her baby dolls & anything pink. Who knew I would end up with such a little girly girl?

1 day old

1 year old

2 years old

And the verdict is...

Last night I could barely sleep because all I could think of was how this baby's gender was going to completely change the dynamic of our family. We would no longer be even, it'd either be chick flicks or action movies...

I woke up this morning and started drinking my ridiculous amounts of water and as soon as we dropped Spencer off at school I had to pee. So I did. They say don't "void" but whatever, if I drank a quarter as much water as they want you to drink, my bladder will still be full 2 times over. We dropped Tatey off with my friend Rachel, I peed, then headed to the clinic. I checked in, I peed, then my name was called.

Our tech was Tony, a very nice fellow indeed. He started to look around and the first thing the baby did was shake it's bum around. Hilariousness. Moments later he found where there would or would not be parts and in a matter of moments we knew!

Our tech continued looking and the entire time our little baby squirmed and kept opening it's mouth and yawning. It was the coolest thing to watch. Tate & Spencer moved during their ultrasounds, but the movement was not as detailed - more like random kicks, but we got to sit and watch this baby stretch it's neck and squirm and try and eat the placenta. It was so amazing.

We also found out that we could get a copy of the video, something we weren't aware of with the first two. BUT they did manage to track down Tatum's video from over 2 years ago and they're gonna attempt to get that one to us too. We'll have them next week! I'm so excited to sit and watch them over and over...

Oh, by the way, it's a girl. ;)

Rental Rant

So if you haven't heard yet, we are buying a new house and we supposedly are moving the end of March. We have until then to find a renter for our existing home. We decided to go the rental route since we had our house on the market a certain amount of time and had no viable action. Not to mention, the market is absolutely terrible and we'd have to pay an insane amount of money to sell.

So here I am. House is clean, children are clothed, I am bathed... And... Nothing. Some potential renters called yesterday saying they really wanted to see the house. So they said they could come today at noon. What time is it? 12:30. Where are they? Who even knows.

I am frustrated beyond my wits end.

Granted they could have a ridiculously awesome explanation for not showing up, but couldn't they at least call? I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but come on. I don't know how many people have called about our house saying they would call back later that day and never do.

Is it the type of person who rents? I don't think so, I have a very good friend who rents and she always calls and shows up when she says she's going to. These other people sure are giving "renters" a bad name. Is it a lack of respect? A lack of pride? I don't know. What makes their time so much more important than mine? Why don't they have enough respect for other people to show up?

I guess I never fully realized what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to rent this house out instead of selling it. But it seems like there are so many people out there that are just plain rude. What ever happened to "do unto others as you would want done unto you?"

When will this get better? When will we find a respectable person or party to live in our house? Will we? We better, or in 5 weeks we'll be stuck here, which wouldn't be a surprise because I've been saying that the last 4 years. We are going to be stuck in this house until the end of time.

We are cursed.

My baby isn't a baby...

What happened? All of a sudden I woke up the other day and my baby girl was no longer a baby. She's in a big girl bed, she plays by herself, she TALKS all the time, she uses please & thank you. When did this happen? Good thing I have another one on the way to fill my baby hole. Tatum is turning into such a sweet, loving, demanding, adorable little girl and I couldn't prouder.

Cats Outta the Bag!

For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I'm totally knocked up again!

I am 9 weeks pregnant and due in July with our 3rd spawn!

Despite the constant nausea, migraines, and a bout of the flu so far, we couldn't be more excited.

I guess this explains all of the complaining I've been doing and me being so sick. ;) Hopefully there will only be about 3-4 more weeks of complaints. Then it's on to the fun part! We decided we aren't going to find out the gender of this baby since we already have one of each. So few surprises in life, I think this will be a fun one!

Thank you to everyone for all of your support and encouragement. I can't wait to meet this little, or most likely NOT so little, one come July!

Go green.

I never used to be conscious of the whole recycle thing. I mean, I would return my soda cans, but that was 5 cents a piece I was getting! It wasn't until I got married that my husband made me more aware of my recycling habits and helped me turn them around.

Here a few of the things we do at home to try and do our part...

I NEVER buy wrapping paper, tissue paper, gift bags or ribbons for presents. I reuse all the tissue paper, bags and ribbons from presents we have received.

I use paper bags at the grocery store instead of plastic.

I cut apart the paper grocery bags I have and use the blank side as the outside for wrapping presents. Then I use all of my pretty ribbon or bows I've received to snazzy them up. It's really beautiful, especially at Christmas time with the same colored wrapping and all the beautiful bows!

Lighter.Safer.Greener wants to know what you're doing to help save our planet!

Pumpkin Madness

A couple weekends ago we did our annual pumpkin retrieval trek. This year we headed out to Greenbridge Farm in Jefferson for $1 pumpkins. The kids were ready in their boots and Braeden pulled Ryllie & Spencer nearly all the way out to the field in the wagon...
The kids hitched a ride with the pumpkins on the way back...
There was an entire covered area that had a hay tunnel and a wheatbox for the kids to play in for free. And since there wasn't anyone else around, the kids had free range.
Tate & Connor sat in the wheatbox playing while the older kids played on the hay.

The McIntyres

The Jones'

The night before Halloween we spent the evening carving pumpkins on a makeshift mat on the living room floor. The kids just ran around playing while all the adults did the hard work. I swear, one day, they'll have to do all of this themselves!
L-R Spencer drew 3 silly faces that I carved out, Sheri carved Ryllie's castle & Nathan carved Braeden's autobot pumpkin.
Our house still smells of pumpkin guts.