Hello Dolly! (Open with caution, LAUREN!)

My friend, Lauren and I did a crafty swap. She crocheted some hats and flowers for me and Afton while I made some dresses for her daughter's little mermaid/human doll. It took a while with the MANY interruptions, but I am finally finished. This doll is VERY curvy. I'm not used to sewing for such a well endowed subject, so there was some trial and error. Here is the result...

Now I can cross that off my list and start on my next few projects...

Remember, Remember the End of November

Goodbye November. We're looking forward to a better month, PRETTY PLEASE!! Afton went to the hospital again from Turkey Eve to Black Friday at noon. Asthma again. We'll be going to a lung specialist to hopefully prevent this from happening again. We are busy. We are tired. We missed quality time with family from out of town. We need NORMALCY! Bring it on December. Oh wait, it's December. I have something written in on almost every day of my planner. At least December will be a fun kind of tiring experience. I like fun. Here are a few fun times we managed to have over the past couple of weeks:

Ayden taking a picture of himself. He always finds the camera and surprises me with his candid shots.

Getting messy with the tree.

Our family tree (before Josh trimmed it-hee hee!) for Ian's class.

It was Josh's idea to use the leftover Halloween candy for ornaments and presents under the tree.

Affie and Annie...Quite the duo.

Ian and his dump truck.

The indoor park during the school break when we thought we'd have a nice long relaxing week.

Little did we know.

School Visits

Every Friday at the end of the day, Ayden's class has "Fun Friday". In order to participate, the kids have to finish all of their work. This Friday was Ayden's turn to bring the snack. Along with the snack, he was the meeting leader. For the meeting, they discuss problems they had during the week and help each other solve them, share "AHA!" moments (something they learned that they didn't know before), ask each other questions, then the kids get 20 chances to guess what the snack is.

I searched online with Ayden to find a Thanksgiving themed snack and he chose this turkey:

The best way to transport her was in Afton's stroller. The kids thought this was hilarious. I think I scored some brownie points with his schoolmates ;) If you want to give it a go, here's the link.

The day before, Afton and I went to eat Thanksgiving lunch with the boys at school. The boys were so happy to have us eat with them. When Ian got home that afternoon, he told me he cried because he wanted me to be there. I saw other kids getting upset when their parents left. This special lunch time is a teaser for the poor kids! Now we are free from school for a week and daddy's off work too. WOO-HOO!!!!

*Off the subject: my serger is here and I bought lots of thread to get started!!*

The projects are lining up!

As soon as that serger comes in the mail, I'm going to figure it out as fast as I can and make this:

I also found a tutorial on making little girl leggings out of t-shirts. I love tutorials on the internet!

I'm going to be working a lot through Afton's naps and after the kids go to bed.

I might have to start a separate blog for my projects so I don't bore anyone who could care less about my crafts. Watch out female family members, you might all be getting one of these for Christmas!

An Early Christmas All For MEEEE!!!!!!!

A serger. Oh, yeah.

Roid and albuterol alert!

Here's a happy, IV free Afton after a rough couple of days.

Explanation: Thursday afternoon at 3:45pm Afton achieved a new milestone by climbing on the toilet, opening the wall cabinet, pulling out her hairbands, UNZIPPING the bag-that I thought was safely stowed away, and swallowing three of those tiny bright colored death traps. I heard her coughing and found them in a puddle of mucus. Immediately following this incident, she began coughing every minute and was struggling to breathe. As soon as the boys got home (about 5 minutes later) I packed them up, brought them to their Aunt Robin's-Josh was working that night-and raced to the ER. This one was not a pediatric ER, like the one I always go to when we have our routine ER visits, and was a big waste of time. They did a chest Xray, listened to her breathing, and sent us home saying she was fine. That night, she/we didn't sleep at all. She had severe labored breathing and Josh was concerned that she might have pneumonia. We made it until 8am, then went immediately to the pediatrician. I told them my concerns and we were sent to the hospital with the primary concern of rubberbands in her airways and a possibility of walking pneumonia. Oh, I almost forgot, she was also immediately vomiting everything she swallowed. The first and most scary thing that they did at the hospital-well, after the IV which took only two tries instead of six like when she got her tubes in her ears-was a bronchioscopy (little tube with a camera that goes down the throat and through the airways). They had to put her under for the procedure and we couldn't be in there, so we had to sit and try not to worry after they told us all of the worst case scenarios of the procedure. BTW: Josh was with us and was able to give her a father's blessing. The boys were at school. Sooo, they found no rubberbands, but DID find infection and her airways were swollen. They immediately started her on a steroid and antibiotics. Josh went home to get some rest before the boys got home from school. Up until this point she had been super lethargic and just whimpering. After some rest we had a visit from her daddy and brothers. She was given a breathing treatment and medicine for her fever. Once everything kicked in her system, she went into HYPER SPEED! I spent the night chasing behind her with the IV cart. It was tiring, but hilarious. Those roids had her ENERGIZED! She kept singing "E-I-E-I-O! Duck! Quack, quack!" and of course, she kept talking about Ian and Ayden. Around 9 or 10pm they suctioned out her nose with the super powered mucus vacuum, she got MAD, then passed out until 6am. WOO-HOO! She got some much needed sleep, but I did NOT. Her IV machine beeped at us all night, and the respiratory people kept coming in to give her breathing treatments. It was rough for me, but she snoozed through it all. Saturday morning, she had improved tremendously, so we were able to go home!! The first thing we did was BATHE! Then we got her prescriptions filled and we all took naps, except for Ayden. Late that night, my friend, Lindsay came over so Josh and I could go out to eat. We were SUPPOSED to go to a wedding that would have taken up most of the afternoon, but the short dinner date after the boys went to bed was a good enough break. On Sunday, I stayed home with all of the kids for Afton's obvious reasons and for the boys to have some quality time with their momma and sissy. Afton is like a crazed chimpanzee. She even sounds like one. She's driving us bonkers, but we're glad she's on the mend. She's still wheezing some, but hopefully that is on the mend. We'll have a follow up visit on Wednesday to know for sure. So there you have it. That's what we've been up to for the past few days and that is the life of Josh and Stacy with three asthmatic children. If you read through all of this, give yourself a pat on the back.

Daylight Savings Time

This morning I will have my yearly visit to the OBGYN. Good times. I got out of bed only 20 minutes after the alarm went off. I got myself almost completely ready for the day before the morning madness would begin when Josh came in and broke the news, "You do know it's only 6:00, right?" OF COURSE I DIDN'T KNOW THAT I WOKE UP AT 5AM BY MISTAKE!!!!! How did I manage to change all of the clocks except for the most important one: the clock that wakes me up in the morning. UGH! This might make my morning better, since I will have so much extra time. Probably not, since I didn't buy any Diet Dr. Pepper yesterday when I ran out because I want to quit. This is probably my sixth attempt. I usually last about one day. Lack of sleep+lack of my DDP=tired Stacy with big headache. Here we go...

Already Missed a Day

No post yesterday. Big game. LSU beat BAMA. Enough said.

Ian's First Field Trip

Today I went with Ian on his very first field trip while Josh kept Afton. We went to see the musical "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" then played at the City Park. He LOVED riding the bus for the first time and kept saying, "I wuv this field twip." When we got back to school, I hung out for a while so Ayden could enjoy his hard earned "Fun Friday" that he has only been able to do three times now. *Being a first grader has been a difficult transition for him. We think/hope he's getting the hang of it.* Anyway, I read a fun turkey book to Ian's class and enjoyed watching him and all of his schoolmates (3-5 year olds) interact. Then I walked across the hallway and observed Ayden's class for about 30 minutes. It confirmed for me that we made a good choice putting our kids in the montessori program. The kids can do their work together and have no assigned seating, yet are still respectful and independent. I was a proud mom today after a very rough week of parenting. TGIF!!!

You Want A Daily Post? You Got It!

Please tell me I'm not the only person who will spend HOURS on finding the perfect something.

This morning I needed to make a chart for Ayden to keep track of his daily work he completes at school to get him more motivated. First, I went to Lowes. I wanted a magnetic chart and of course it had to look crafty, so I searched for galvanized steel and magnets. I ended up with $40 worth of magnetic paint, chalk paint, and heavy duty magnets. I purchased all of this with crazy plans of painting a wall somewhere in the house to create a work station for the boys. Something that would take so long, by the time I would finish, Ayden would be graduating high school. I decided to keep shopping and headed to Walmart. There I found a pre-made magnetic dry erase board, day of the week magnets, and magnetic paper with a self adhesive side. That meant I had to go BACK to Lowes and return my previous ridiculous purchase. I STILL had some hope of finding cool galvanized steel and stopped at a small hardware store with no luck. I forced myself to go home. When Afton went down for her nap, I got busy. I decided to try cutting the magnet paper with my cricut machine and IT WORKED! I was able to make perfect little circle magnets with different colored papers and even little festive turkey shapes. I'm proud of the finished product, even though I wasted my morning in the search. At least I have a good result, right?

Wish Me Luck!

I mailed off my first headshot/resume to apply to be an extra in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn." We'll see what happens.... The one above is the one I sent in the mail. I also emailed two pictures late last week, because I'm not sure what this particular casting director prefers to have. The requirements said either one, so I did both to hopefully have a better chance of being chosen. I have no idea what the deadline is or when they will start making calls, so I jump fast every time the phone rings and I don't recognize the number. Now is a good time for telemarketers to get the best of me:)

The "No" Face

This kid has no problem expressing her feelings.

This is her "No!" face. I'm so happy I caught it on camera.

This face forms and lingers for about 2 full seconds after she says "NO!"

By the way, I'm posting something every day for the NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). Brace yourselves!

Halloween Weekend

Friday night. October 29th. Second official double date with the Mangums.

Location: the Myrtles Plantation.

Thanks to Aunt Odie for the hook ups and the eerie tour. She's the best tour guide BY FAR!

Robin was Asian, I was Emo, and Josh was Josh.

Mr. Mangum scared away all of the ghosts with his manliness.

Count the orbs. We were surrounded by the ghosts of the Myrtles (or maybe just some dust particles reflecting the light from the flash-you be the judge. OOOOOOOH!)

Saturday evening. October 30th. Location: Church parking lot. Trunk or treat party. I forgot my camera. Lame, I know. We had a blast. Our trunk won. Probably because we have an outlet converter and had orange lights strung around and I used a vampire dress and that lovely red wig pictured above and made a creepy floating ghost "OOOOOOOH!!" If I ever get pictures from other peeps that thought ahead enough to bring their cameras, I'll fill you in.

This was taken when we got home from the church party. Afton is very fast and efficient with removing the wrappers from DumDum suckers. She had 6 opened and was going for more.

Sunday night. October 31st. Trick or treating. Location: our street and connecting neighborhood.

Company: the Mangums, the neighbors, and the Voelkels.

Our annual picture with Frankenstein down the road.

The posse too lazy to walk.

At first Piglet was scared to go up to people's houses.

Once she realized that candy was involved, she cheered up.

Our neighbor friend down the street hooked us up!!

Doesn't he looked thrilled? He's saying, "Cheese" with his husky Eeyore tone.

Um, the wagon didn't move and inch.

Cuteness.

Daddy pulling his little girl, surrounded by spirit orbs or dust?

OOOOOOOH!

Happy Halloween 2010!!

Perk of being a parent of a child with nut allergies: free reign on all of the Snickers, Reece's, Butterfingers, M&Ms, etc...which I will partake of in 2.5 seconds!!