Congrats!

Jake was really excited to "apply" to be the Student Council rep for his class. At his school, they start Student Council in 3rd grade, and he has been anxiously anticipating it. Each kid who wanted to be considered had to write a paragraph about why they would be a good choice. The teacher then read the paragraphs anonymously, and the whole class voted for their favorite. Jake had to leave early from school yesterday for an ortho appt, so he missed hearing the voting results. He saw someone from his class last night at the school book fair and found out that he was the winner! He's pretty excited! He was all smiles and called Nana right away to tell her, and couldn't wait to tell Dad and Becka when we got home. He's such a likable kiddo, and is friends with pretty much everyone, so I'm not surprised at all that he was chosen. Plus, his paragraph was great! He'll do an excellent job!

Pumpkin carving!

Our little punkin!

Uncle Derek lighting the pumpkins

Daddy!

Tonight for Family Home Evening, we went over to Dana and Derek's house to carve our pumpkins. It was so much fun! Everyone enjoyed being together, Derek and Dana treated us to pizza, pop and homemade caramel apples, yum!

A new Sweetie!

Baby Mia is here! Jason (my brother) and Catalina had their little girl on Wednesday, October 20th at 9:02pm. Her name is Mia Alexa and she weighed 7 lbs, 10 oz and was 19.5 inches long. She ADORABLE! So much soft fuzzy hair to snuzzle and I love the brand new baby smell!

Pumpkin picking...

We had a fun afternoon at Bi-zi Farms pumpkin patch with Dana and Derek's family. There is tons to do! Hay maze and pyramid, pumpkin launching, animals to see, hot chocolate, pony rides, corn maze, yummy food, hay rides and even a special place to wash your pumpkin! It was so fun!

Cheer!

Rachel did a cheer clinic at the high school with her friend Kayla. They had two evenings of practice, and then got to perform their dance and cheers at the varsity football game at Columbia River HS. She had so much fun, and was so adorable! :) Hooray!

Another project

I love these bibs! Best part about them is that they are made from old jeans, so they are cheap! I'm working on lots of different colors/designs for the bazaars. :)

Another challenge

I am feeling frustrated. I've been trying hard to lose more weight and now it has affected my baby's health. I know I'm not getting enough calories to keep my milk supply up for Miss Hannahbug. I had a terrible time with this when I was nursing Becka, had to quit at 4 months, then with Jake, I met a WONDERFUL lactation consultant who helped me figure it out and get over the crummy 4 month low supply issue and I nursed him for a year. I didn't have any problems with Rachie, so I wasn't expecting any with Hannah. Well, I was wrong! So, I'm going to try and focus on eating healthily, getting a moderate amount of exercise and taking the herbs I need to take to get my milk back up where it needs to be for her. I want to lose weight, but breastfeeding her is more important to me, so I'm willing to wait on the really low cal diet until after we are done nursing. Heck, I've been overweight for 12 years, what's another one? :) I just get frustrated because it seems like other women don't have to deal with this issue, and they are skinny. Ugh!

A few of my projects

Here are a few of the projects I'm doing. I have some more that aren't done enough for pics yet.

Ladybug modeling her hair bow

Another one just cuz she's so dang adorable!

Rachie wearing her matching flower

Singed flowers (I keep burning my fingers!)

Binky clips. I'm not so sure about these. They are a lot of hand sewing/embroidery, and I think I could only sell them for a nominal amount. They are a posy flower, cupcake, baseball and basketball. I want to try a daisy, ladybug, princess crown, car, boat, sunshine and smiley face. We shall see if I end up doing these or not.

I'm also working on some cute denim bibs, burp cloths, flower clips and taggie blankies. I'll post pics soon!

To prove a point

Two gross posts in a row! You guys are never gonna want to visit me here again! One of Becka's jobs is to do the dishes. She puts it off and only does one load a day, etc until it ends up like this. A huge, icky mess. I can't cook anything, because I can't get to the sink, we have no bowls or utensils. The counter is half covered with dirty dishes because the sink is full. My question is: how far do I let the mess get in order to prove to her that she needs to do the dishes until the sink is clear every day? She thinks she should just unload and load once a day. Even then, she is sloppy about it. Only loading a few utensils, not filling the dishwasher up completely, etc. I am tempted to start making her do them all by hand so that she will (hopefully) begin to appreciate the dishwasher. I can't stand the way it is in there right now and it has taken all my willpower not to just do the dishes myself. Part of me wants to just tell her that she can't do ANYTHING (eat, homework, TV, YW, sleep, etc) until all the dishes are done. I know exactly how that will go. She'll yell and fight and stomp and bang dishes and slosh water everywhere and treat everyone around her badly until they are finally finished. Anyone have any ideas for me? I've given her extra chores, taken away privileges, begged, threatened, pleaded ignored. Help!!

Not again!

GROSS! I have been trying to use up the size 1-2 Costco diapers. They say they are good for up to 15 pounds, and Hannah is only 13.5 pounds, but these are a bit shorter than a regular size 2 diaper so when she has a blowout, it really blows out. Her poor outfits only get worn for a few hours at a time! At least I realized this was happening before it got on me this time!

Whoopsie!

I thought I had posted a pic of the singed flowers here, but it was on my P365 blog. Here is one of them. I love how they turn out, but they are time consuming and I keep burning my fingers, lol!

Flowers, flowers everywhere!

In addition to the singed flowers I am also making these cute fabric flowers. Thanks to Katie and Jessica for sharing the blog link with me! I am having so much fun working on them! Cutting and gluing are some of my favorite activities, lol! Plus, I LOVE my glue gun, so anytime I get to use it, I am one happy lady! I have about 20 of these made so far. There are lots of different colors to choose from and two sizes. This is the bigger size. I'm thinking of letting people choose if they want to have it attached to a clip or a headband, or just a safety pin. They are fairly quick and super easy, so it feels good to be getting them done. Rachie wore one to church on Sunday and I got a few compliments on it. :) Let's hope they sell, or I will be giving lots of bows to my nieces for Christmas!!