a long time gone, but back to writing

I haven't written in almost 2 years and, my, how things have changed yet stayed the same. My big girl is almost 5 and a big sister. Our newest love is almost 11 months old (Friday--holy buckets!) and with their birthdays being a week and a half apart (oops!) I have lots of planning to do. Luckily, I have already gotten a head start on Big's and Little's, though Big has gotten much more attention. I have Little's cake planned and family will be there. I think I've even found her birthday present from hubs and me, but I might wait a bit to see. As for Big, yes she's gotten the bulk of the attention recently. I'm going to blame this on the fact that she 1) will remember what happened and 2) has been able to give input. The theme this year is a "Paper Doll, Tea Party Birthday." Doesn't that sound like a mouthful? You betcha. I've got it all planned out, though, and I'm ahead of the game in terms of getting things together. The invitations are a labor of love (and probably a huge dollop of stupidity) as they are paper doll dresses on the cover with a hole for her face and inside another paper doll outfit, a bathing suit. Yes, I printed and cut these out. By. Hand.

Luckily, my brain kicked in (probably slept for 2 hours that night) and I was able to connect with a fabulous friend who shared her die-cutting machine and made about 4 dozen balloons, tea pots and party hats to include on the invitations. I must say, I am grateful for that friend. Those were done in an hour, maybe whereas each dress that I printed, colored (therapeutic though it was) and cut out, took at least that long. Oh, and there are a dozen of each style of dress and head (I cut my sweet love's head out of a picture that I printed). I'm definitely one crafty momma, but I'm a bit insane, too. That I'll also blame on sleep deprivation as Little has *yet* to sleep through the night. Trust me, I am working on every angle of sleep training I can short of putting her in the basement to sleep (I'm kidding! No need to report us!). I think part of the problem (okay, a lot of the problem) is my fault and a little Hub's. He can't stand to hear her cry and she sleeps so much better when she's beside me that we've created this monster and now we have to sleep (or not sleep) with it. Maybe she'll give me a great birthday present (from her) and sleep through the night soon. Ah, glorious sleep! How I've missed you, dear friend.

Still, my little family makes me happier than I thought I could be and I cherish them every moment.

and we danced...

Much of the weekend was a girls' weekend with Matt traveling to Chicago to compete with EIBB. Friday night we chilled, literally, put our jammies on and just relaxed. I say our jammies because my kiddo totally did it on her own...and we're talking footed jammies. She was quiet for a while in that "what's my kid up to" kind of way, but when she came running into my room, opposite arm and leg in sleeve and footed long leg. I smiled. It was a great feeling. Then I watched her try to get the other foot in the shorter, zipper side. She gave it a go, then stated that she needed to do it in her room and when she returned, she had succeeded once again. I only provided support to get the last arm in place, but she totally did it on her own...all the way to the last zzzzzzip! She was proud of herself and she should be!
Saturday we stayed in our jammies much longer than one should if they plan on leaving their homes that day. Since we had no plans, we jammed out. And mid-morning, we literally, jammed out. She has a new LeapTop that she got with her birthday gift card from Opa and Jojo. It has a few songs pre-programmed (until her slacker of a mother actually downloaded the software to personalize it for her) and she loves to listen to the music. In fact, that's one of the only buttons she would push before. So she started playing with it and encouraged me to dance with her. Keep in mind, the songs are only about 30-45 seconds in length and include the standard nursery-rhyme types. Nonetheless, we went for it. We danced all out, jumping and bouncing and clapping after each song. I swear I had flashbacks to being 8 and just moving every part of my body to the music all while jumping as high as I could. Someone walking up to my door would have probably thought I was being attacked by bees, but I didn't care. Something about it was freeing and I felt like a lot of the stress, the anxiety, the frustration of the not-so-past few weeks flew out of my body and fell on the floor for me to land on (and perhaps stomp to oblivion) as I came down from each bounce. It was truly cathartic for me and we had fun. Fun--something I don't know that I've experienced that intensely in a while. Must. Repeat. Again!
The rest of the weekend, we hung out with amazing friends, almost lost Bobby at Outback (which has inspired me to try to write a story about the left-behind toys--unless there's already one out there), and welcomed Daddy home on Saturday. Sunday, we relished in the extra hour..er...I did especially well because some Daddy-daughter time was had while I got to sleep a little extra. Then we played and created a Gingerbread massacre in the driveway a la sidewalk chalk. I'm getting ready for the holidays (at least in my head). I'm also crafting Christmas presents. We'll see how many I actually get completed, but it's a nice goal to set for myself.

another avenue for my ocd-ness

Since moving to IC I have developed a few different ways to channel my OCD. First, I was crocheting--mostly scarves--which served me well since it was so freakin' cold compared to what we were used to winters feeling like. Then 2 years later, I transitioned to cross-stitch, which I still enjoy, especially for making Christmas stockings for friends and family. They are gifts that can last for much longer than a scarf.

Last Thursday I went to a beginning scrapbookers class. I have never been to a class and always figured it would be much more difficult, so I thought I would give it a try. The main purpose to make Neala's baby book be not boring. The problem is, I enjoyed it more than I thought and have decided to expand my page making past the 2 from the class and may have gone a little overboard. I bought 2 albums (1 for the cards we received for Neala and 1 for the actual pictures of Neala), 1 pack of paper, 2 packs of cardstock, extra page protectors, and a die cutting machine. Yes, I'm a dork, but at least I'm a creative dork. In the mean time I still need to finish 3 stockings for friends (hopefully getting at least one of them done by Christmas--maybe if I got off the computer while Neala was sleeping...).

Off to be crafty...