Some big things!

It has been exciting weekend this past weekend and Thursday just happens to be my most favorite holiday of all, so we have a big one coming ahead.

So the three big things happening in our lives right now:

1.  My sister had her baby boy last night!  Elias Warren Stevens (Eli) was born at 9:01p last night.  He weighed 8 lbs 2 oz. and is 20 3/4 inches long.  He is SUPER cute and we are all very excited at his arrival.

2.  I opened my etsy shop Handcrafted by Melissa Kaye over the weekend.  I had a very successful weekend at a Holiday Boutique that my friend Andrea hosted at her house and have now decided to expand to etsy.com and local craft fairs and boutiques.  My etsy site is melissakaye.etsy.com and I will keep you all updated about any craft fairs I decide to participate in.

3.  On the morning of Thanksgiving our little family of 5 will be participating in The Walk to End Hunger at the Mall of America.  All proceeds go towards our local foodshelf, Neighbors, Inc.  Our goal is to raise $250 ($50 each) and right now we have raised $55.  If you would like to sponsor us, click on this link: Our Walk Website.

That's all for now...life is crazy busy around here!

Open House Tonight and Tomorrow!

My friend Andrea is having a Holiday Open House at her house tonight from 3-8p and tomorrow from 10a-3p.  It will feature handcrafted items from several members of our church, special order baked goods and Mary Kay products.  This is the first time I've ever sold anything and I'm pretty excited/nervous to see how it goes.  If you would like more information about the sale or it's location contact me and I'll email it you.  Below are some samples of some of the things I created for the event.  It has also prompted me to open an etsy.com shop.  More about that soon!

A paper Christmas tree.

Gift bags in various sizes with paper filler.

Sets of 6 cards, mostly different styles of holiday cards.

Journals.

Wine wraps and etched glass wine glasses.

Scrapbooking! WA-HOO!

Today's Smileys:

1. Went Scrapbooking with my sister-in-law Krista. A BLAST!

2. Didn't spend a dime while scrapbooking tonight, despite the great amount of temptation.

3. Mexican for dinner...YUMMY!

4. The people we shared our table with were very nice.

5. Compliments on my hair....Thanks!

6. Peder calling me while scrapbooking and asking me to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" to him before he went to sleep. And yes, I sang it while standing in Archiver's.

7. Chatting with Mari on the phone....she really needed her Mommy today.

8. A great husband who has no problem letting me go do my thing.

9. The kids found the girls' sleeping bags today and made me unroll them on the living room floor for them.

10. Mari saying, "Get up. Get up." after her nap today.

11. Emmy's sweet independence.

12. Looking forward to a day full of scrapbooking tomorrow. I love making progress!

13. Planning a camping weekend with Tom and Krista.

Circumstance and Family

I had a fabulous weekend at my scrapbooking retreat. I got 35 layouts done, which was awesome. I got completely done with all the pictures I had printed for Mari (through June 0f 2008) and did my 38 week pregnancy pictures for Emmy's album. I stopped working at that point because I was getting so emotional looking at her newborn pictures that I decided to just work on those pages at home. So since my monthly dinner with my Special Kids Special Needs group was cancelled, I'm going to get started on those pages.

Here is one of the pictures in Emmy's 38 week pregnancy layout. This was the morning the girls were born....exactly 38 weeks.

Looking at those pictures of Emmy brought back memories of when Peder was born. He had pretty bad jaundice and we had to have a special light blanket here at home to help him break up the bilirubin. A nurse came and explained to me how to use it and after she left I burst into tears because I was so worried about Peder. It amazes me how much circumstance can change your perspective.

Peder at 3 days old. Wrapped in his biliblanket to get rid of the jaundice.

Emmy at 3 days, post-operatively and still on the ventilator. Look how far she's come!

My newest thing that I have been into lately is my ancestry and genealogy. I got started when I came across the name Godfrey Diekmann in my book group chapter this week. I had to figure out if I was related to him in some way (through my mom and grandpa's side of the family). I got sucked in to ancestry.com. I entered a ton of information from Jake's side of the family and did a bit of searching about different people from his past. Then last night I took the kids to visit my parents. I went meaning to ask my dad about one book that I knew he had, and I came home with three books about my ancestry and genealogy. Jake and I were up until 12:30a perusing the books and learning a bit about where my family comes from. It's really very cool and I'll probably be talking more about it in the future.

Our Day

Today I woke up crabby. VERY CRABBY. No clue why, it was just how my day was destined to start out. And until about lunch time I was really struggling to remain calm and not get frustrated with the kiddos. For some reason at lunch, it got easier. The kids were happily eating and we just enjoyed that time together.

Then nap time came and both girls woke up at 1p (after being down for less then an hour) with poopy diapers. I laid the girls back down and left them to go back to sleep. They didn't, they played and chatted and threw stuff out of their cribs. At 3p I went in and in my stern Mommy voice said, "Naughty. It is time for nigh-nigh. Lay down and go to sleep." Both girls hung their heads in shame (which is hilarious in itself, Peder NEVER did this) and seemed to be saying, "We're sorry Mommy. We will lay down and go to sleep as soon as you leave the room." That is, until I realized although they were hanging their heads in "shame," they also had little grins on their faces behind their pacifiers. So in reality they were saying, "We're sorry Mommy. We'll try to be quieter. Will you please leave now so we can get back to playing?" Amazing how a sneaky grin can change what they are saying, isn't it?

Then after they did fall asleep for a bit I went in and got Emmy. She was in a FABULOUS mood. Giggling and chatting, dancing and just in general a happy girl. This made my mood soar and I left for the errands I had to run in a great mood, smiling about my giggly girl.

For those of you who drive Robert Street often, you know as I do that the driving on this road is HORRIBLE. I see idiotic drivers elsewhere and say, "Wow that is some Robert Street driving." Granted, the street is horribly set up and with the amount of traffic on it on any given day it can be a nightmare to turn on to, but even with those things, the driving is just DUMB most of the time. I encountered 3 really dumb drivers on drive and one dad swearing at his 8-10 year old son. Back to being grumpy.

I walked in the door and got greeted by three little kids yelling, "HI MOMMY! HI MOMMY! HI MOMMY!" Now how can I resist that? I got a ton of love and hugs and kisses and it makes it great to come home!

I'm preparing for my weekend away. I'll be leaving when Jake gets home from work tomorrow and won't be back till Sunday afternoon. A weekend filled with scrapbooking, food and other scrapbookers. WA-HOO!

A couple of funny things the kids are doing lately:

- Mari runs around the house being silly and saying, "I SO SILLY!" It's hilarious.

- Emmy had a dirty diaper tonight and I didn't realize the minute it happened. She climbed off the couch and started pushing down her pants and diaper saying, "Uh OH! UH OH!"

- I told Peder to go into time out for hitting the computer. Mari walked into Peder's room and beat Peder to the "time out chair." I looked in there and they were both half sitting on the chair in time out.

I hope you all are doing well and I will write again when I get home from my weekend of fun!

A busy little bee

I'm still battling this cold, but yesterday was finally feeling well enough to get some things done around here.

I've been asked by several people how I find time to get my scrapbooking done and make the cards that I do. The answer is simple: Jake. He is more then willing to hang out with the kids all day so that I can take a break and spend time in my scrap space. Other ways I get time to do my "fun" stuff: I wake up before the kids every day and either work on my fun stuff or the cleaning for the day OR I work on stuff while the kids are napping or after they have gone to bed. Yesterday I had a day when Jake spent the day hanging out with the kids and I went upstairs and scrapped away. I played with my new Cricut die cutting machine and completely fallen in love with it. What a wonderful investment!

We also worked on laundry yesterday, which was in great need to be done. It was such a relief to get that done.

I've been writing out a million thank yous from Christmas. Our kiddos will each be adding their "signatures" to the thank yous once they are written. I think I'm about half way done...it seems like a daunting task right now. Another nap time project. :)

My other big project that I've been working on is a birth record cross stitch for our nephew that is due in April. This pattern is from a different company then I'm used to and when I started working on it I was worried that it was going to be confusing. Luckily although parts of it are hard to follow (weird symbols all over the place) there aren't very many colors, so that makes it a little easier to figure everything out.

I've been feeling joyous lately, but I've also been unable to keep up with things I want to do...like keeping in contact with some of my friends. I'm hoping that since we will be getting back to our normal schedule starting tomorrow that I'll be able to get back into.