Mr. Hives Here To Visit

AGAIN! This time Kyla is the lucky winner of the "most miserable feeling" award. Earlier today she complained of her stomach itching. She has very dry skin that often causes her to be itchy so I assumed that's what she was dealing with. As I put on her super duty lotion, I noticed she had some small welts but I figured that was from scratching so much.

Come to find out, I was wrong. Again.

Just after dinner she came out of the play room complaining that she was REALLY itchy. I took a look and, WOW, her entire torso was covered in hives! Yikes! As we watched, they slowly crept down her body and all the way to her poor hands. We got her in an oatmeal bath and filled her full of benadryl. An hour after the medication, she is still horribly uncomfortable and bright red. I slathered some anti-itch cream on her and am hoping for the best.

mmmmm....Oatmeal bath:)

We are debating whether to run into the ER just to be on the safe side or just let it run it's course. We aren't sure what set it off, nothing out of the ordinary in her life today that we can think of. Her breathing is fine so I think that she isn't in any danger, just a bit cranky:) Please pray for healing of her little body and for wise decisions on the part of Chad and I.

Are you smarter than a kindergartner?

While we were at my dad's shop today, Kyla told me out of the blue that she and her brother were viviparous animals. My brain froze for just a second as I quickly flipped through my mental dictionary. No luck, what in the world did that mean?? I did a quick search online and found this...

Viviparous: A viviparous animal is an animal employing vivipary: the embryo develops inside the body of the mother, as opposed to outside in an egg (ovipary). The mother then gives live birth.

Ah Ha! That makes sense! I nonchalantly replied to Kyla that yes, she and Gavin were indeed viviparous. Of course there was a couple minutes of time lag between her statement and mine which gave her ample opportunity to mentally wander onto a totally new topic.

Man, what are they teaching in public schools these days:) Does my kindergartner already have a better vocabulary than me? Oh, that is so scary to contemplate! What will the next couple of years bring?? We shall see:)

More Swimming

Gavin is having his last week of swim lessons. Grandpa Gary came to watch last evening and Grandma Trina is coming on Wednesday. What a little fish he is!

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music

Well, at least Newberg Friends Church and Friendsview Manor was:) Kyla had three performances with her singing group, the Young Friends Singers. Her Aunt Beth is one of the leaders and Kyla has watched her cousins participate for the last couple of years and has begged to be a part of it with them. This year she got her wish.

They meet once a week on Monday afternoons and learned a good number of songs. They performed at both services today at the Lee's church. It was a big improvement over last years performance with her preschool, she actually sang and did the hand motions rather than standing frozen with a look of stark terror on her face.

Later in the afternoon, they did their entire repertoire the a local retirement community. The residents loved the kids excitement and the kids soaked up all the adoration:)

Gavin was kept busy playing with Aunt Michele and her amazing cell phone:)

She has one more performance this coming Friday at a local coffee shop. I'll be videotaping that one so be expecting that some time next week:)

Just That Kind of Day

As I was cleaning poop off of our legos this morning, I realized that it was going to be just that kind of day. You know what I'm talking about. A day where nothing goes all that right and it's just one thing after another:)

Gavin's taking antibiotics for his ear infection and it messes with his digestive tract. To put it PC, he's been having digestive issues. This led to me cleaning said digestive issues off of the legos this morning. At least he came and told me that the legos were "dirty":)

In the process of washing the clothes he was wearing during the lego incident, I realized that I had inadvertently died a full load of the kids clothes yellow. Remember that great dye job Kyla and I did on her dress a while back. Yeah, cool huh:)!? Who knew that a dress can share it's dye after a couple of washes. After a frantic call to my sister-n-law for an emergency bleach delivery, I attacked those yellow socks, shirts and panties with Clorox. Come to find out, a front load washer just doesn't give your clothes the opportunity to soak. Hmmm, attempt @ de-yellowing take two. I filled up the sink in the kitchen with hot water and bleach and we had success.

As I sit here and type, I take in the complex scent combination of bleach and poop, and I say to tomorrow, BRING IT ON!

Off to the Dr's we go

Gavin woke up saying his ear hurt again. We won the Dr lottery and were able to be seen this morning just 30 minutes after I called:) Now he's on some pumped up antibiotics since he didn't respond well to the last round. Wouldn't you know that this stuff isn't flavored. Try giving a two year old medicine that tastes like medicine!

Scene two:Just minutes after we got home from the Dr's and the pharmacy, he just had to climb up on sister's bike while I wasn't close enough to prevent gravity from rearing it's ugly head. Now, his ear is hurting and I bet that huge egg on his forehead hurts too:) I think that we'll being keeping a steady stream of Tylenol in the poor boy today just to cover all the bases:)

Now for Chad: He is on his way to his Dr after work today to get his tetanus vaccination refreshed. Think rusty pitchfork and unprotected feet. Bad combo come to find out...he stabbed his own foot while working on the burn pile. It could have been worse, he could have poked me:)

Kyla and I seem to be fit and healthy, please pray that we continue too be so that we can take care of our boys.

Simple Skirts GIVEAWAY!!!!

Simple Skirts GIVEAWAY!!!!

Beautiful!

Bring on the sun!

We've been out all day enjoying the sunshine and working in the yard. It's amazing how much work is involved with our property. Sheesh, it makes me tired just thinking about it:) We are taking a break to have a family rest and I thought I'd give a quick update.

Chad started our burn pile, actually it was more like a small mountain range. I weeded our raised beds to get them ready for planting. Our two strawberry plants that we purchased two years ago have taken over an entire 4 x 8 bed. Who knew?!


While we singed the hair off of any exposed part of our bodies, the kids played on their jeep (the battery hasn't worked for years but they still enjoy it:) ). We even got the pool out to play in, sadly it doesn't hold water anymore after we left it out in the snow. Oops:)


They climbed trees...


And they got dirty!


What a day!

Newest projects

I've been doing more sewing and have started wishing for a new machine and maybe a serger. I've been playing with my mom's new one (a Brothers) and can just image all the amazing stuff I could do with it:) Here are a couple of my newest projects.

I made this shrug for Kyla's Easter outfit out of a long sleeve T-shirt that I found at goodwill. Added some retro buttons that I just happen to have in my button stash and Ta Da!

I was ready to get rid of our baby doll stroller because of the material ripping and it literally falling off the frame. I was digging around in my fabric and found this bright watermelon print (I have no clue what crazy idea I bought it for) and whipped it together with some matching bias tape that I just happen to have. While at goodwill hunting for deals, I found this beautiful skirt for me. I loved the colors and the overall shape, it was just way to big. I put in a huge pleat, added some cool buttons and was very pleased with the results:)

I had some watermelon fabric left over, just enough to make Kyla a pair of shorts and a headband. I also refashioned a dress into a summer skirt for Kyla. It ended up being a little on the short side so I whipped up a pair of bloomer type shorts and attached them (by whipping, I mean sewing the crotch shut twice and having to rip it out and sewing one of the legs closed after that:) ). Poor Gavin hadn't had anything made for him so I found some pants that were too short on him and whacked them off at the knees and made shorts. Oh how I love all this refashioning!

Happy Easter

I hope that everyone had a Christ filled day full of joy, family, and laughter. What a day to rejoice!

Happy Easter from our happy little family to Yours!

A hunting we will go...

Each year, the Lafayette Community Church hosts an egg hunt at the park next to our house. We've joined in the fun the last couple of years, rain or shine. This morning the kids watched them get the park all set up and were near giddy with excitement:) Gavin was in the 1 - 4 age group that went first. He was much more interested in watching all the other kids than actually picking up any eggs. He got a bucket full and was very happy with it all.

Kyla was with the 5 - 8 yr olds. How in the world did my baby girl get to the big kid age bracket so fast? Kyla filled up her bucket several times, stopping periodically to dump her treasures with us before venturing out to find more. She was much more intense in her searching than her little brother was.

The local fire department was there with a truck as well. After the hunt, they opened the truck up for everyone to explore. Gavin hopped right up and in while Kyla and I checked out the rest of the truck and it's equipment.

What a great way to start our Saturday! The kids are having egg hunts in the living room as I type and I have covertly stashed away most of the candy. Who in their right parenting minds would let there kid eat that much sugar!?! Chad and I will just have to eat some of it, being good parents and all:)

Born 2 Impress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Born 2 Impress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Way too Cute! I have patience for many things, making theses is not one of them:)

Monkeys

We had a chance to play outside today for a bit and the kids made a bee line to the "climbing" fig tree. Kyla has become quite adept at climbing it this spring and it seems that Gavin has decided to not be left behind. He had his first climbing adventure today and survived with just a couple of scratches and some burgeoning bruises:)

Sewing Craze!

I'm on a roll with this refashioning kick! Here are a couple more of my successes.

This dress is a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law. It's not necessarily to my taste but I remembered how much my niece LOVED it. I called them and asked for Hannah's waist measurement, they are pretty used to random requests like that by now:) I haven't used any type of pattern so far in my refashioning adventures so each piece is a result of lots of brain work and some luck thrown in. Now she has her apple skirt, oh how happy our little part of the world is!


This dress is a beautiful HMD but didn't fit Kyla well and I'm not a big fan of halter tops on my baby girl. So...I lopped of the halter part and made a nice straight(ish) top and brought in the waist a couple of inches. I made some straps from the dress scraps and wow, how cute does she look!

Recycle, Reuse, and Refashion?

I've been following some great blogs lately that have challenged me to re-evaluate my thinking. Some of it has to do with growing your own food, some has to do with limiting your dependence on store bought goods. We are in the process of becoming the proud owners of a small brood of chickens and I have recently dug out my sewing machine and tried my hand at refashioning some of the kids clothes. I've been pretty pleased with the results:)

Here are a couple of my amazing creations:) The first is a mirror that was given to us from Chad's mom. They are in the process of going through Grandpa and Grandma's stuff and are trying to find homes for the stuff where it can be used best. I've been wanting a mirror out in my studio for a while but I haven't been willing to budget money for it. The mirror is an antique but not to anyone's taste in the family...so I made it to my taste:) I tore off some of the ornamental wood pieces, painted it black, and then coated it with a gloss. I'm happy with the result and can't wait to hang it in my studio, now I just have to figure out where to put it:)

My second experiment was with clothes. Kyla has put holes in the knees of FIVE pairs of pants since September! Luckily, I kept them and now we've made them usable again, right in time for the spring and summer. I loved the pockets on one pair of the jeans and couldn't just toss them, so I made two little purses out of the rest of the pant legs and some left over fabric from another project.

Kyla assisted me in our latest project. We had a hand-me-down summer dress that was looking a bit worse for wear. It was a dingy white and was missing some buttons. Kyla and I picked a bright yellow color and dyed it one afternoon while Gavin was napping. We spent that evening searching for the perfect buttons @ Joanns. (That was a lesson in patience). The color wasn't exactly as I had hoped but Kyla has declared this to be her favorite dress and so I'll call it a sucess:)

Are you up to the challenge?

Beach Bunnies

Saturday morning we made plans with the Riddle clan to head to the OR coast to bask in the projected Summer-like weather. We ended up with 5 adults (two of them being grandmas) and 7 kids. Yep, I did type that correctly:) We had two nephews and one niece down from WA, Hannah and Meira (cousins who live in town near us) and our kiddos. After a slightly crazy lunch at Mo's, we headed to the beach carrying and dragging all the paraphernalia that 13 people may need while on the OR coast. The weather was superb with sunshine and perfect kite wind. The kids even played in the water, I put my toes in but there was no way that more of me was getting in that arctic water:)

Uncle Bryan teaching Gavin how to fly a kite...Right before Gavin let go and Bryan had to chase it down the beach. I sure enjoyed it:)


Chad being the "Fun" Uncle with our niece Annika, right before he gave his very fancy cell phone a salt water bath. Wouldn't you know, that thing won't turn on for nothing now:)


Gavin playing in the sand with Grandma "Ting-a-ling"

Gavin wouldn't take off his boots, Uncle Bryan showed him the water anyway.

We flew kites and chased them when the necessity arose, collected shells, buried cousins, hung from trees (there's a story behind that:) ) and ran from the waves. Hwy 18 was closed due to an accident on our way back home so we ended up having to take the long way home. All five adults and seven kids made it home safely with a bit of windburn, sand between the toes and great memories of a fun time with our family.