I can’t do Friday Love today because I’m feeling under the weather and so do not LOVE that. So you get all kinds of weird – some funny – but mostly just weird stuff that is floating around in my head over here.

• I have been in my pajamas and sleeping on and off for the past 17 hours. THAT is weird, especially for me. I seemed to have contracted the plague that Em had a few weeks ago, only in reverse. Earlier this week I had a sore throat and was willing myself to not get sick and I actually felt better on Wednesday, plus it did not progress to the dreaded cough. But then, literally as I was walking to the car after choir last night I started to feel not so great and by the time I got home I was shaking with the fever chills, nauseous and every joint in my body just ached with exhaustion.

• I’m so thankful for Daddy running on home and taking care of the girls and even getting them off to school this morning. I’m also so happy that we are at a stage that the girls can get their own dinner (it was a cereal-for-dinner night!) and take care of themselves for an hour or so. They got to watch an hour and a half of TV (during the week!?!) and I felt just rotten enough that it didn’t even worry me. I’m sure they are wishing that I was sick more often.

• I thought initially that my joint aches were due to my long run yesterday morning. I had a rather weird out-of-body experience while I was running, too. I have a playlist that I listen to every day when I run, so…same songs, same order everyday, why yes, I am a creature of habit. But I must’ve been zoned out because as I was running I realized that I didn’t remember my favorite song being on (Faster – by Matt Nathanson, good running song!) and so I stopped to see if I was on the right playlist. And when I looked up? I had one of those moments when I wasn’t quite sure where I was, or how I got there. I kind of didn’t remember running the 6 or 7 blocks up to that point. Please tell me that this has happened to you before, or that it is normal to have running blackouts? Anyhow, little weird.

• We hardly ever watch commercials any more (thank you, TiVo) but the other night while we were speeding through a break one of the commercials caught our eye and J. said, “Well, I might have to go back and see what this is all about…” And it is my new favorite commercial. The girls L-O-V-E it! Have you seen it?

Oh, especially the ewok and Princess Leia – so genius.

• The girls are also loving these Annoying Orange videos. The current fave is the Valentines one:

“You are tickling me with your words!” Hee hee hee hee….

And on that note…I’m out of here, back to possibly taking a little nap. Happy Weekend!

Capes. That is the only thing I got off of my sewing table last week. Two little SuperCapes for my friend’s little birthday kids!

I do however have some cool pillows that Birdie #2 made last week and I’m attempting to do some roman shades for a bunch of windows in our house this week. So I’ll update you on how we did all that next week.

I KNOW there has been mention of craftiness over the weekend, so make sure you share with us.

…chances are she is going to want to make chili for dinner.

And after she starts making chili, she is going to want cornbread to go with it.

Chances are, once she turns the oven on, she is going to see those bananas that are a little ripe and decide that she might as well make some banana muffins for breakfasts this week.

And as she pulls out her new mixer (named “Marcella” – Addie came up with the name) she will realize that the mixer is out, the oven is on, and all the ingredients for cookies are hanging out, too. And chances are she is really going to want to make some oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies (because the oatmeal makes them healthy, you know!) as well.

Once everything is measured, mixed, baked and pulled out of the oven, she is going to look outside and realize that sometime during her kitchen time, the rain stopped and the sun came out.

And chances are, the Mommy is going to wish for a rainy day again. Maybe tomorrow?

(As if I need a rainy day to break out the mixer! It is no secret my love affair with my KitchenAid, I’ve written about her over here, but my old one was starting to die a little bit of a slow death. So Jeff and JB upgraded me at Christmas to a new, shiny, much less-tortured sounding one. I *heart* her with all my heart. And she works like a dream.)

…it is coming! For some reason my Flickr is NOT happily uploading photos. Stay tuned…it might be up before midnight!

Hope you are all having a lovely Sunday.

xo,
c.

Ooof. We are in serious need of a Friday Love around here. Especially since we haven’t done one in a very long time, and quite frankly, I really, truly need some reminders about the good stuff right about now. It has been yet another frustrating week. We just cannot seem to find our groove, and I’m getting a little anxious…I mean we are 20 days into 2012 already! So let’s get on with it…

Things I am (remembering to) love this fine Friday:

• Tea parties that are finally rescheduled.

• The fact that Addie was completely giddy with getting to dress up, bringing her AG doll, and getting dropped off at the Rose Tea Garden to have REAL tea (with 5 sugar cubes!) with her teacher.

• Emma Grace is just about over her several week-long illness, including free of the rash that incited the ER visit last weekend.

• Em’s love of reading, even when I catch her reading long past “lights-out.”

• It is Friday. And between taking the Brownie troop on a Field Trip to the art museum this afternoon and putting on the Pancake Breakfast for the children’s choir on Sunday – we have a blissfully low-key weekend on tap.
• Today is Day #1 of Girl Scout Cookie selling in our area. Well…I love the cookies at least. The cookie season is just a necessary evil in order to GET the cookies.
• Posts like this one. I intend on reading this to both of the girls at some point this weekend. Kind people are brave people.
• My dear friend Vic is traveling to Houston to the best cancer hospital in the US to hopefully be a part of one of their clinical trials. (Well, I don’t love that she has to do this…but I do love her spirit and the fact that she the fight in her to tackle this, again.)
• It is Friday, and you know what that means…I love that this week is almost over!

To the Mother-of-all-Craftiness, we wish you a very happy day and a year filled with many more happy memories.
We love you, Nana!

Happy Birthday!
Love,
J,C,E & A

Papa – Hoping you make many more fun memories this year. Happy Birthday! We love you.

Love,
J, C, E & A

Well, as you might have guessed – I’m working on Top Secret Christmas gifts over here so there isn’t a lot to show. I guess it is pretty safe to show our Christmas card though, since most of you should have received it by now.

I was terribly disappointed in the printing of the card. I got a great Groupon from Mixbook and I couldn’t resist. No assembling! No printing myself! So since we officially bought the house this year, I wanted to take a pic with the house…but of course featuring the real stars of the household. It was a perfect day and the photo looked great but when it came back it was terribly dark. BUT…done. And very reasonably priced, so I need to stop complaining.

and back…

I like that you can design your own cards (which I did) but I can’t say I recommend the actual printing. Okay, seriously. No more complaining.

Along with cards and getting presents out the door, the Two Birdies attempted a culinary creation last week. These ended up being so fun…

…so fun in fact…

…the girls are making them for their little “gift” to all of their classmates. Aye. Addie is insistent that all her snowmen have a very surprised “O” mouth…because you know, they are melting! They honestly are very easy to make, just pop over to Truly Custom Cakery and see for yourself.

Oh and just because you asked (you did ask, didn’t you?), the Grinch tees were a hit! Our 3rd grade class was by far the best looking group of the Christmas program.

And as to how we made the tees, (I think Maggie asked?) we cut each “piece” of the Grinch face out of flocked heat transfer vinyl, using good ol’ Eva (Silhouette machine!) and then ironed them on. Yes. Eight pieces each tee, near 60 tees. No wonder we are completely insane this week. Thankfully we used black fabric paint for the whiskers so that saved even more (tiny!) pieces.

Hmmm…I take that back – this might be the best looking group at the program. What a cute bunch o’ girls, huh?

It is still Tuesday here – so technically I’m sliding it in, just under the wire.

We have been crazy busy over the past week or so! I finished up a Birthday gift for a 6 year old…

I finished up those little gift card purses for Aunt Laura…

That tutorial is SO coming…it is just in pieces because my Birdie friend and I decided that it would be smart (!?) to offer up our services to the entire 3rd grade. You see, our 3rd graders need a Grinch shirt for the holiday program, so…doing the shirts for a few friends turned into almost 60 tees…

Oh, why and how do we get ourselves into these things? J. refers to us as “Lucy and Ethel and our hair-brained ideas,” and yeah…I can kinda see it – some days. But surely the kids are going to look back and appreciate the time it took us to put all of these together to make them the standout grade at the pageant, right?

Yeah, right.

My Birdie Jamie and I DID also tackle glass etching last week! And this really was one of our better ideas – our wine glasses at the Christmas party were a definite hit.

For the stemless wineglasses we numbered them – so no more lost wine glasses! And we did an ice bucket, too.

We are so not done with this project. Making another trip to IKEA next week, anyone like something etched for Christmas??

Hmmm…is it wrong to be terribly excited that the children go back to school tomorrow??

Not that we haven’t had a lovely week together, but, really…enough is enough. I just had the realization tonight that December is THIS week, as in just a few more days from now. I was under the serious delusion that I had another week in here before December hit. And I was feeling oh so cocky with my Christmas cards done and shopping started. Ack.

So let’s see, vacation, yes. Well, do you notice anything?

Yes. We had to visit Dr. N. again. Apparently, our little Gracie girl is a bit scared to wiggle her dumb teeth so that they will fall out of her head on their own volition. Soooo…they were yanked out. A nice start to the vacation, no?

Then we decided this little turkey was a bit gamey…

…so we cooked our own turkey dinner. J. found this recipe and it will be how we cook ALL of our turkeys from now on. It was fast and most delicious. It smelled so amazing while it was cooking it was hard to wait til it was fully cooked to dig into it. And he made some of these sweet potato/marshmallow biscuits. They were like little scone desserts – also delicious, and will be added to our family repertoire.

We decided that we truly had to go to Disney on Friday to work off our turkey dinner, and at the same time avoid all Black Friday craziness. Hey, look! That is me in a photo…see, I do exist – I was there!

And the two hams, how many different versions of this photo can I get of these two goofs?

It is Christmas time at Disney which inspired us to start putting our Christmas decor up today as well.

But even as fun as our week was – all good things must come to an end. And this Mama really needs to get back into our routine and get some projects crossed off of our list. Especially since I have even fewer days now than I thought I had this morning.

Happy last few days of November. The girls and I are sending you wishes for a peaceful bit of the Christmas season!