Happy Birthday

My oldest daughter turned 11 at the end of last month.

{Side note: I swear she was just born yesterday. How the heck did she ever get to be 11 years old? It just goes by so incredibly fast!}

Anyway, we started talking cakes, oh, a month before her birthday. And then illness hit our house. On her actual birthday both husband and I spent most of the day in bed. Luckily, a good friend took all 3 kids over to her house, where they made a nice cake for her. (and yes, I do have incredibly wonderful friends!).

Last week we had her make-up birthday. And so she got the cake she requested.





Which let me tell you - that cake took some time to make, but she loved it and best of all - she helped me with it. Which made the cake that much sweeter.

But her birthday wasn't full of completely sweet moments. Oh no. You see my kids are huge fans of Cake Boss. They watch it whenever they can (and yes, we have it our netflix instant queue list as well LOL!). In one episode, Buddy mentions that in the bakery, they like to shove cake into people's faces on thier birthday (I believe in this episode they get one of his sisters). We watched that episode several months ago and the oldest mentioned it looked fun and could we do it on her birthday to her.

Strange request. I know. But her birthday came and went and no cake ended up smashed on her face. And her make-up birthday came and almost went. But right before bedtime I did some sneaky-sneaking and went to my bedroom with a frosted cupcake in hand. I asked the hubs to please call her up. And when she came into our room - wham-o. Cupcake in her face.

And you know what happened? She laughed and giggled. And smiled and LOVED it.



And now, my other daughter and her both request we repeat on the next round of birthdays ;-)

Sneak Peak ..

One of the projects started for Christmas ... can't give too much away, but aren't these fun fabrics?

 

Hmmm ...  wonder what it will end up being? Me too! Nope. Just kidding. I know, but I can't tell you yet! LOL!

Happy Halloween!

Well, a few days late anyway! We had a great Halloween ourselves. First I must show off the costumes.

First up is my little firefighter:

While the original plan was to make his costume for him, we ended up running out to buy this so he wouldn't be the only kid at school not in a costume because mom got sick and couldn't finish sewing on time. If he didn't need it Friday morning, I might have been able to finish, but once we bought this, the pressure was off. One less costume to worry about - which given last week, was a-okay!!

Next up, my 50's girl:

Seriously though, I think the glasses are absolutely the cutest part of her costume. I was able to make her poodle skirt. Luckily for us, the white shirt we owned the sweater came from Goodwill. Here's the close-up (kind of) of the skirt:

I learned while making this I really don't like applique that much. But it wasn't that horrible. I might try to avoid it if I can in the future though! LOL!

Anyway, last, but not least, my 80's girl (for the record, I tried to convince the boy to go as a 60/70's hippy, but he didn't want to. I thought it would be funny to have 50s, 60/70s, and 80s though LOL!)

I thought her costume turned out so cute - and it was super easy. The only thing I "had" to do was put the tulle on the bottom of the skirt. The jacket and skirt came from Goodwill. We bought the leggings and everything else we had. Awesome. And cute. She and two of her friends all dressed as 80's girls and they went out trick-or-treating together and so if you asked her she would say her night was absolutely perfect!


She also wins child with most candy at our house ... look at this loot (but don't try taking any, she's very protective of her candy LOL!)

Uneventful week

So about a week and a half ago, I started to get sick. I didn't think much of it, probably just a little cold. No biggie.
Except, within 3 days it had completely kicked my butt about all I could do was lay and cough. And cough and sleep. So that's pretty much how I spent almost every day last week - except Friday. Which made for quite some week - considering when it started, Halloween costumes weren't finished and my oldest turned 11 on Thursday.
Anyway, that's why I was so quiet around here. But here's hoping we are done with illness in this house. So far this fall, my oldest had pneumonia, my youngest's asthma has gone nutso, my middle had whooping cough and bronchitis, I had bornchitis and my hubs had some virus. Seriously, isn't that enough to last several years at least?

See, that's my kitchen counter right now - look at all those meds! Insane. But, at least we're keeping our closest drug store in business ;-)

A (belated) winner!

I have a winner to announce on my Wendy's gift card give-away!

I used random.org to pick a number, and it turned out to be number 1 - Overflow of a Forgiven Soul, who left this comment

I would take my 18 yr old brother. I know that sounds funny, but with the age difference (16 years) we never got to know each other much. We just lost our Mom (His natural, my step-Mother of 31 yrs) and now more than ever I am looking for ways to reach out to him and get to know him better. We need each other more than we ever did before it seems. 

 Which I do understand (there are 12 and 14 years between myself and my two sisters). I am very sorry for their recent loss and while I know one lunch together can't heal that pain, I do hope they have a great lunch with each other!