Such a big night!!!!!

It has been hard for Ruby to be the only one of all her friends and in her 1st grade class that had not lost a tooth, until tonight!

She had one tooth that was loose but still probably needed a few days to come out, she couldn't wait. About 40 min after we put her to bed she screamed "I lost my tooth" she came out of her room with a bloody tooth and lip and she was shaking she was so excited. We made a huge deal out of it, took tons of photos and let her check out her new look in the mirror. We put the tooth in the Tooth-fairy pillow and she went right to sleep.




Fyi- Ruby finally caught up on her sleep this weekend and is acting like her normal non-psycotic self again. Eric and Haley were away at Astro Science camp so our house was quiet and she was able to sleep in.

Poop...all over my house!

Ruby has been boycotting sleep. She stays up late in her bed singing and doing whatever it takes to ensure her body never stops moving and her eyes never shut. After several days of missing out on 4+ hours of sleep, she has turned psychotic. She cried and kicked and thrashed the living room for about 2 hours because the DVD player would not pause her movie. Fyi- It often is not able to pause her movie because the batteries are always placed backwards in the remote control. When she gets into this tantrum mode, there is nothing I can do to get her out of it. I just talk calmly and continue to say things like "Once you are back in control I would be happy to help you". Yesterday Eric and I had it with her psychotic sleep deprived behavior, so Eric gave her some Benadryl at dinner (supposedly for a small cut on her lip). She still did not fall asleep for 2 1/2 hours after she was tucked into bed.

So where does the poop come in? Before it was bedtime I noticed a couple of post it notes that said POOP stuck in the kitchen. I knew Ruby was mad and trying to get a reaction, so I ignored them. Then I went up stairs...they were EVERYWHERE. All down the hall, all over Ruby's room, in my bedroom and bathroom, seriously everywhere and Ruby was in her room crying because she did not want to brush her teeth.

I asked Ruby why she put POOP post it notes all over the house and surprise, she said it was not her. I thought to myself "Ya right it was not you" and continued to risk my life trying to brush her teeth. She told me again that she did not write the post it notes and that It was Haley. Haley, that had been sitting in her room quietly reading all afternoon. After a while of her Father questioning her, Haley admitted that she did put the POOP notes all over the house.

Haley?

My 9 year old!

You have got to be kidding. I'm still not sure if she did it knowing that it would get Ruby in trouble or if she just thought it was funny. Either way I need to figure out how to get Ruby to sleep and why Haley felt the need to put POOP all over our house.

So here it is 10:00pm as I sit here typing listing to Ruby sing her heart out trying to stay awake.

I can only imagine what tomorrow has to offer.



My personal favorite was the poop on the "Love at home" needlework my Mom Made.

Pinch me!

Have you ever had such an incredible blessing that it takes several days for it to sink in that it's REAL? We have, and I am still in denial.

We just found out that for Thanksgiving we are having a family reunion with my side of the family...on a cruise! We are so excited we can't stand it.

I had to pick my girls up from school and run to Costco to get the passport photos so we can get them back in time.



I have been showing them (on a blow up beach ball globe) where we are going, literally it's the islands all around Cuba. I am headed to the library to check out some books on these islands to show them photos and learn more about the area.

Pick up sticks

This is how my girls play pick up sticks with Grandpa John. They do not exactly follow the rules, but they have a blast doing it.

Birdie

Our Home teacher brought his daughter and her love bird named Birdie.


He talked about how it is his daughters responsibility to take care of all of birdies needs and keep her safe, like not letting her fly outside where she would probably die. He compared this to how it's Eric and my responsibility to take care of our girls and how sometimes they don't understand why we have certain rules but it is for their own protection and happiness.


I don't think our girls have ever listened so well to a lesson. They loved it!

1st impressions

I had a parent teacher conference with Haley's teacher. At the end of the meeting I said:

"Eric is excited to come tomorrow and give the bone and muscle presentation.",
The teacher looked at me and said "Is this a 2nd marriage?"
"Excuse me" I said
she asked me again if this was a second marriage.
I said "no... why?"
She said "You have a sparkle in your eye when you talk about him, you usually don't see that in 1st marriages"


The next day
I went with Eric to help set up his presentation for the class showing images of bones and muscles. Within minutes after we arrived the teacher was checking him out and said "Are you naturally this fit, or do you run". I actually saw Eric blush as he said "Well, I do some rowing". As soon as she left the room Eric said to me " Can you believe that? Would you ever consider asking someone that the second you meet them?

Clearly we have a teacher that makes interesting observations and conclusions with her 1st impressions. I'm wondering what she was thinking that she didn't say out loud.

My entropic life... and raspberries

Ok, so after a few phone calls and emails from people checking on me because I have not been blogging, I admit that I have been completely out of sorts for several reasons.

Our house was hit by several unnatural disasters. I had still not finished painting our popcorn free living room and my kitchen that has about 6 feet of counter space had 3 feet of painting supplies covering it. Eric put up crown molding in the living room so the garage was a disaster with tools, molding scraps and dust everywhere.

Then as if this was not enough, Eric has been working the night shift for the past three weeks. This is a HUGE deal when you are trying to keep 3 girls from death fighting over who gets the blue Polly car and playing handball on his bedroom door. How can one keep kids quiet all day. I realize it's impossible, but I still turn into physco Mom stressing out at every sound. I never realized how many tantrums Lucy and Ruby throw, and they are quite impressive. Our bedroom windows were draped with blankets to make the room dark and I moved all my stuff out of our bedroom/bathroom and into the girls bathroom. My make up in their bathroom, that's a whole different blog.

I am happy to report that Eric worked his last night shift Friday and the painting and molding in the living room is complete. The garage, kitchen, bedroom and living room are all back together again and all the children are still alive. I am starting to feel like I can handle life again.

So yesterday while Eric was sleeping, I drove up the mountain to take the girls to pick raspberries and pears. I found this great little farm (on line) and they were having a special Civil war day with performers and activities. Perfect. The girls were so excited to go that they were even willing to turn off Hanna Montana to go. That's huge because we don't have cable so Saturday is the only day they get to watch that.

When we arrived at the farm, I realized that this Civil war deal was a much bigger attraction then I had realized. The place was packed. We had to park really far away and hiked up a long dirt road. I started to feel that this was a mistake. I asked someone if they knew where we could just pick raspberries, and he told us to leave that farm (because it was so crowded) and go up the road to a different one. So we hiked back down to the parking lot and started driving up the road. The girls were all starting to complain.

We came to a raspberry/ apple picking field and parked, again kinda far away. I guess lots of other people had the same idea as us. The girls were complaining as we were waiting in the line to pay. When we got to the front I found out that they only take cash! Who ever has cash? Not me. So I explain why we need to leave this place too and my girls start into a chorus of "Can't we just go home?", "This is the worst day ever". As we got in the car I was feeling horrible and thinking that I had completely blown this trip.

We started to drive home and I saw another farm that had raspberry picking. We stopped and it was cooler then the 1st two we had stopped at, no hiking and yes they took debit cards! They gave us a box with 3 baskets (one for each girl) and I realized this was the perfect place for us. After just a few minutes of raspberry picking I heard "This is the greatest", "This is better then Hanna Montana" and "When can we do this again". We ended up having a really great time. On the drive home we talked about how sometimes you don't get what you want and you are disappointed, but then you realize that you got something better. Even though it was hard to hike to and leave two farms we all realized it was a blessing.

An amazing gift

Last year our quilt group did a block exchange using a daisy pattern. One of the girls that was in the exchange was living in Florida at the time, so after the exchange I mailed her 20 quilt blocks to her.

She never received them!

I had not insured the package so I had no way to track it. I decided to mail her my 20 daisy blocks because It as the right thing to do. I would have always felt guilty looking at my quilt knowing that she never receied her blocks.

Unbeknownst to me, some of my friends sent out an email to every one in the exchange and asked them to either make another one of their blocks for me or to mail them the fabric so they could make it.

They completely replaced all 20 of the quilt blocks for me. I know how much time and work this took and I am so thankful to have friends like this.

Now whenever I see this quilt I will think about my great friends and quilt group and feel loved.

Thank you!

Flag quilt photo directions

I made a flag quilt tonight and took photos of the process along the way. I hope this will make it easier for those of you that are new to quilting. If you use the directions already posted along with these photos it should help you out. The colors are not exactly as the pattern specified, but I did not have enough brown to do a full border out of it. If anyone has any questions please email me.

The new instrument

Haley came home very excited about the instrument that she choose to play for band. I was hoping it was the violin, flute or clarinet, but we were not so lucky. After Eric and I tried to subtly encourage her to choose a different instrument, she make a list of why this is the instrument for her.



Yes, we now have a very happy girl with a very loud TROMBONE in our home.

Busted!

It has been been SUPER hot here so when leaving Sam's club I decided to quickly turn the engine on while loading my car. About 3 seconds after I turned the engine on and ran to the back to load groceries... "Bet on it" (High School Musical 2) started BLASTING out the hatch back of my mini van (still sporting pink princess dice). There were no children with me, I was alone. There where several people around me (loading their food too), some just stared, a couple started totally laughing. I was busted!

Please help serve those who serve us!

I heard about a great opportunity for us to serve and teach our kids about service and I want to share with everyone.



Linda is a woman in the DC area that makes flag quilts each year for the wounded solders at Walter Reed Hospital. She along with other volunteers make about 100 quilts a year and then deliver 23-30 quilts at a time to the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed for Christmas, Memorial Day, July 4th and Veteran's Day. The quilts are backed in muslin so that those who made it can write notes to the solder.

Before I go on I have to say that when my husband spent 6 weeks at Walter Reed (taking a class) he commented many times about how many young solders he saw with their families and how seriously injured they were. These young men literally sacrificed their health and limbs for our country and their lives are forever changed. This is just a small way to tell them and their family that we appreciate their sacrifice and service.


What a great opportunity to make one of these flags as a family and teach your kids about our America, service and of course sewing. If you are a teacher you could take the flag to your class and have all the kids sign it. If you are LDS, this is a great project for the Young Women or Activity days. You could do this as a service project with your quilt group.


Once you have completed your flag(s), please email me a photo (mysplendidchaos@yahoo.com) of it and I will email you Linda's address to mail the quilt to. Please attach a paper with your name and address to each quilt so she can mail you a photo of the solder that received your quilt along with any other information. FYI- I will be posting the photos of quilts I receive.

If you do not have any sewing material and need to purchase everything (fabric, thread, batting ect) and nothing is on sale, it will cost about $22.00 to make. Joanns and Handcocks always have sales and coupons so it will probably be less then $22.




Directions for American Flag Quilt for Wounded Soldiers, finished size approx. 41" x 57"

Fabric requirements:

Red 1/2 yard Cut 7 - 2 inch strips

White 1/2 yard Cut 6 - 2 inch strips

Dark Blue Stars 1/3 yard Cut one rectangle 11" x 15 3/4"

Inner Border (Brown) 1/2 yard Cut 3 - 3 1/2" strips

Corner Posts (Gold) 1/4 yard Cut 4 - 3 1/2" squares

Outer Border (Blue) 1 yard Cut 4 - 8" strips
(a yard is 36" long and quilting fabric is usually 45" wide. Make sure you cut your fabric so that the stripes are approx. 45"long)

Binding (Gold) 1/3 yard Cut 6 - 2" strips

Backing One piece of muslin washed and cut to 44" x 60"

Batting Warm and natural cotton cut to approx. 44" x 60" or at least 2" larger on each

side of the finished quilt top.

Piecing

Sew 3 red 2" strips and 3 white 2"strips to each other, alternating colors and press. Cut this strip set to be 36 3/4" wide. Sew remaining 7 white and red strips together, beginning with red and alternating white and ending with red. Press. Sew dark blue star rectangle to this strip set and press. Cut the extra red and white strips so the blue stars and red and white stripes measures 36 3/4" wide. Sew this strip set to the top of the striped set and press. Flag should measure 19 1/2" high x 36 3/4" wide.

Measure your flag quilt and then trim 2 of your inner border strips to be 1/2" longer than the width of your flag and then cut 2 pieces each measuring 1/2" longer than the height of your flag. Sew 2 or your corner posts to each end of your shorter inner border strips and press. Sew longer inner border strips to top and bottom of flag and press. Then sew 2 shorter border strips with posts to the sides of the quilt and press.

Measure your flag with the inner border and strips and use the same process to cut and attach the wider outer border strips to the quilt.

Layer the backing, batting and top together and machine or hand quilt. Sew binding strips together and sew binding to quilt.



November 11th is Veteran day, It would be great if we could all have our quilts mailed to Linda by November 1st. If that's too fast for you then try to get it to her by December 15th so they can deliver them for Christmas.

If you can piece the top, but have no idea how to hand or machine quilt, send it to me with the batting and backing and I will quilt it for you and mail it to Linda with your info.

Good mail, Great weekend!

Ruby was very excited to receive her own good mail. She got the September "fashion issue" of Elle from her Grandma Bonnie with a note that said "here's some fashion research for you!" That was super thoughtful Mom, she loved it and has been studying it a lot. Fyi-I went through it and tore out all the photos of naked and half naked models.


We got to spend Friday and Saturday at the beach with Melissa and John. Melissa is one of my favorite people, and her husband and kids are pretty cool too. While sitting on the beach, my friend Jackie came walking by with the Young Women from her ward. Such a small world.


Ruby took us to her little restaurant on the Pier for shakes.

Ruby and Lucy both flew kites for the 1st time ever. They had a blast. Luckily no one was seriously injured that was sitting near us.



Haley spent the day in the water. Except for the walk to the pier, she was body surfing and boogie boarding the entire day. She did not even get out for lunch or smores.

In other non-beach related news...
Lucy has finally figured out how to pump her legs on a swing! It boggles my mind how a 4 year old could swim down to get dive rings off the bottom of the deep end and yet could not swing herself on a swing. All is well now.

If you were a fly on our wall...

"Going to the hospital and seeing your Dad with blood on his hands...totally unexpected". Haley 7/1/07

"I have to admit, frosted flakes with orange juice as the milk...pretty satisfying." Haley 7/16/07

"Why do old ladies bum bums melt when they get older?" Ruby 7/16/07

Talking to Ruby in as snotty a voice as 4 year old is capable of " I know, do you think I don't have eyeballs." Lucy 6/30/07

Haley "What cool present do you guys want me to bring back for you from Maine? Do you want a big stuffed puffin?" Ruby replies "Look for a fashion dress that only has one strap and then goes around under my other arm. If you can't find that fashion dress, just get me some make up" 7/17/07

I asked Lucy to stop chanting "bum bum" to which she replied "bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum... It makes Heavenly Father happy". 7/20/07

8/12 "Who's going to dunk her?" Lucy, on the way to a baptism.

8/11 "Our poop is going to be ice cream and nuts" Lucy while eating a hot fudge sunday at Mc Donalds...with nuts.

Oh what a week.

This week was the start of school for all three of my girls.

Lucy- Preschool

Ruby- 1st grade

Haley 4th grade

My sister Tiffany was visiting with her family of 6 and new puppy that they purchased while here (in Newport).


our newest cousin "Emma"

Eric had the week off from work decided to scrape the popcorn off our ceiling in the living room. I wanted this done so bad and am thrilled that we did it, but it was an unbelievably huge mess to have with 7 kids, a dog and a puppy around.



Need I say more?