Sugar!

This weekend we have two major events going on. On Sunday we have a family celebration for Samantha and Katherine's birthdays for which I will be making a birthday cake.

Same day, we also have the Great to Be 8 fireside for which I am making cupcakes.

Tonight, Gabby was thinking about these things and asked: "Mom, when are we going to have the birthday cake?"

My reply: "On Sunday. (pause) We'll be having both birthday cake and cupcakes on Sunday."

Her response, in her best drooly voice:

"Sugarrrrrrr - aahhhh"

(Think of Homer Simpson and a donut. Yep, that's the drooly voice...)

Too funny!

That's MY dress!

I went birthday shopping the other night and while I was in Target (I shop there way too much) I looked at all the pretty Easter dresses. Because I'm into house projects I don't have the time this year to sew their dresses. Well, I love for my girls all to match for Easter if I can help it. But I haven't been able to match all three of them yet. It's usually pretty easy to find matching dresses for Katherine and Samantha since they are only a couple years apart and due to Samantha's petite size, close to the same size for some things. Gabby is harder because she is 4 years older than Samantha. But, lo and behold! I found a really cute dress that had both Samantha and Gabby sizes! Unfortunately I couldn't find one in Katherine's size but upon further investigation of the dress I decided to get one for her in Samantha's size just to see if it would work for her.

Well, I like to keep the dresses hidden until Easter because otherwise my little fashionistas are constantly bombarding me with "Can I wear it NOW!?" but this time I decided to pull Katherine's out and try it on her just in case it really was too big (you know, so I could either take it in or take it back). It was a tiny bit long on her but not overly so. In fact it looked really cute and will do just fine, no alteration needed! And Katherine clearly loved it. Her face was just so bright to be wearing such a pretty little dress.

But then I was worried it wouldn't fit Samantha. And here is where it got funny!

I took the dress off Katherine and immediately had Samantha try it on before Katherine's very eyes. Okay, that was a mistake! Katherine instantly got jealous and possessive and just as I was putting the dress on Samantha, she ran up to her and started yelling and tugging on the dress and was just so upset that I was giving it to Samantha when she'd already claimed ownership of it. I mean really! It gave me visions of their teenage future and the cat fights that could ensue over clothing! But, because she's a toddler it was just too cute to get upset about. In fact it was hysterical and had me in stitches - this not even 2 yet kid tugging on that dress! I could barely get the dress back off Samantha, I was laughing so hard!

Well, I managed to assure them both that there are enough dresses to go around and once I got the thing put back in my closet out of sight all was happy again.

And, it fit Samantha just fine too, so yay! My 3 girls get to have matching dresses this year!

That old texture has got to go!

So I've started a new house project. I think maybe nesting instincts are kicking in and knowing that once baby comes it'll be at the very earliest fall before we can get to a project. But I couldn't wait any longer. Our front entry, hall and stairs are in bad need of some TLC. They have this old textured wallpaper that is painted over and just dirty. It is textured paper meant to stay on the wall permanently and painted over. We removed it from the dining room and living room and it was a bear to remove. Plus we gouged our wall board in the process. So this time I thought I'd try sanding. Sanding works. Not as much time is needed overall to sand down the texture as it is to steam, scrape and clean up bits of wallpaper that have dried to the floor not to mention repairing gouged wallboard.

So sanding away that texture is what I am doing now. The only thing is, I have decided to live with the texture in the stairway and hall. I don't have it in me to sand all that wall! My new electric sander looks a lot like an iron. I couldn't help but think, as I sanded away, that I was ironing out those wrinkles in my walls.

When the sanding is done I'll repair the hole on our entry ceiling made when we had to repair a burst pipe and then paint.

This project involves painting the foyer and stairs and hall upstairs. Plus the accent wall in the dining room because it is chocolate brown that is chipping and looks bad. The main color I currently have in the dining room is one I love called Almond Oil (love the name too). I want to carry it into the entry way and hall but I have been thinking it might be a good time to change the whole dining room color too since I have to paint that one wall anyway.

I looked at the Valspar website and created a pallette that I think would work well. Keeping the Almond Oil for the foyer and hall and painting the dining room Chive. The trim is Betsy's Linen. My living room is a muted tealish blue and I think it would all work together well.

My goal is to have this done by Easter. In time to host a family gathering. I would also love to refinish my floors since I have discovered that it would be really easy to do. I just don't know how to do it with kids running around. Would have to have them go away for a long weekend. That may not be feasible before Easter.

I took on this project knowing full well that Alan is super busy and I will be doing this pretty much entirely by myself. I can handle it though. I just hope my energy holds up.

New Blog: My Own Small Plates

Just a quick note to say I have created a new blog that I will be doing in addition to this one. It's called My Own Small Plates and those who read this that are members of my church can get the gist from that. I have been needing a good way to do my scripture study because it just wasn't getting done. Something I'd done a couple years ago was to get my laptop out and write my thoughts as I read. It was a great way for me to get into it. I decided to give it another go and thought a blog would be the ticket. So if you are ever interested just pop on over and feel free to comment. It's at jessicataber.blogspot.com and I have a link to it in my bloglist at the left.

A Budding Terrible Two-er

So this was my day yesterday. It seems lately Katherine is into everything. I should figure this out and keep a better eye on her! Duh!

Here she is after doing damage to the kitchen. She dumped the sugar and baking soda and two boxes of cereal. I was upstairs on the computer. I thought she was watching cartoons with Samantha. I guess she wanted a snack.

Aaaannnd, here she is later that night after a brief encounter with a bottle of vaseline. Oh my did she get it thick into her hair! I washed it two or three times with shampoo and then tried dish soap but that didn't work. It got some out but her hair still looked like a greaser's hair. Yuck! Boy did I feel hopeless about what to do.

So how do you get vaseline out of a toddler's hair? Lots and lots of baking soda and a comb. Dust and comb, dust and comb, dust and comb...dust...and...comb! I hear cornstarch works too but I didn't have any.

We left the baking soda in for a while and then daddy bathed her. I saw it wet and it looks so much better. Don't know if all the grease is out yet though and she's napping now. We'll see when she gets up and her hair is dry....

Update: Katherine is up and her hair is dry although it looks wet. But it's not too bad. It preserved her pretty curls really well. That's a plus. The minus is she's going to need at least one more treatment of baking soda...dust...comb...dust...comb. Shouldn't be too bad though. Nothing like we did this morning. (I hope)

Snow photos!

Yay! We finally had snow that is fun to play in! And I must say this is the perfect snow storm. Soft packable snow that's not collecting on the roads. Pretty cool! Anyway, I was a mean mom (plus I had a headache) and didn't let Gabby play in it until her homework was done. So by the time she got outside it was dark. But the girls had fun anyway and I managed to get some fun pictures.

Mike was home sick and stayed in his pj's all day. I don't blame him. I've had days like that. Apparently he was feeling well enough to come out for a few minutes and join in the fun. Here he smacked Gabby with a snowball. I love that I had a camera in my hands. I was safe from snowball fire. :)

Samantha is enjoying the snow. She's also wearing the hat I crocheted for her. Note that it's purple. She loves purple.

She had been trying to make a snowball but didn't quite get how to. She kept crumbling them in her hands. She finally got one here. She's saying: "Mommy, is this a snowball?" mom: "Yes, please don't throw it at me." haha. :)

Samantha making a snow angel. I guess her snow angel was cold because she borrowed Samantha's hat.

Gabby and her snow angel.

Let's not forget the itty bitty snowman! Gabby was quite resourceful. We didn't have any carrots so she found the closest thing to achieving the same shape - a toddler fork with a knobby handle. Cute!


Then there's our photogenic cherry tree. Yes, it's now February and our Christmas lights are still on but I just think they are so pretty and just haven't wanted to take them down yet. I'm glad I haven't because they are so pretty reflecting in the snow!

Pics

I was playing with my camera the other day trying to get to know some of the settings and features. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

Samantha was my model that afternoon and she claimed to be bored with it but still, I think she was liking the attention.
Katherine got into it though. She has a runny nose and mouth full of cracker but I couldn't resist this picture. I used the "flower" setting for this one and really love how the colors turned out.

Samantha is getting tired of me taking her picture. She's trying to hide under the pillows.

I love this one. So peaceful.

And Katherine again. Such pretty colors and a pretty girl!