Prayers for Kristabelle

I am not one to soilicite the faith of others in the way of prayers. But tonight, I received word that my sweet little friend, who just turned five Saturday, is very sick. She received a small bowel transplant a while back and has been sick all this winter.
She was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery the other day and just didn't bounce back as she should. She celebrated her birthday in the hospital and today was rushed into another surgery, where they had to reverse some procedures she had "outgrown". This is a major set back for her and her family and her mother is really struggling to accept this new development.
Please pray for the family to have strength to endure these hard days, for Kristabelle to heal quickly, and for the doctors to be wise and led by Heavenly Father to help Kristabelle get back to 100%.
Also, I am copying what Lisa Bearnson does for kids from time to time...if you want, please leave me a comment and let me know if you'd like to mail a card (throw a dollar in there, Lisa does that and the kids LOVE it...think about it, to a kid, a dollar is a treasure) to Kristabelle for her fifth birthday (it's just a few days late) please let me know and I will get the hospital's mailing address for you.
Thank you...our faith and hope united, can heal.

Hey

I love the way Brennan says "Hey!" when he calls his Papa Jeff on the phone. It is so sweet, nonchalant, and comfortable. It's as if he is sitting in the same room with his Papa and is in the middle of a conversation and thought of something he wanted to add, not that he is a thousand miles apart, having not seen each other (other then Skype) since August.
I wish I could capture that sound/feeling. Even recording it with my video camera is not the same.
I think it shows yet another way that Brennan is growing up.

We've Got Winners!

Winner of the Start to Finish DVD: Sarah said... 35

OH MY STARS!!! Did you Mom make me a birthday cake already? Pink, zebra, has my name, and my age in November (30)? LOVE LOVE LOVE IT Please tell her thank you for me ;)

Winner of the YoBaby pack: Cathi said... 1 I do a lot of things like ckn pot pie or shephard's pie to sneak in vegetables. Cheese on top also helps a lot

As always, winners have 48 hours to respond to my email or a new winner will be picked.

Let The SUN Shine

It feels like forever since we've had a sunny, warm day. Now, warm is relative...it's like 25, and when the wind blows, it is pretty chilly. However, it was warm enough that Jack took his coat off in the car.
Thank goodness for a little bit of sunshine to brighten our freezing cold days.

Ethan turned ONE! (Old news, I know, but I have wanted to blog about it for ages)

For my final baby's first birthday, I wanted to do something fun, cute, creative, and original...original in that I could not buy a "birthday in a box" and be done. I am seeing zebras all over, though usually with hot pink...I decided to BOY UP the girlie them and did zebras and baby and bright blue. I am really pleased with the final product (though that is so braggy I might just lose readers for saying it) and excited to share what I did (I reviewed a lot of products for his b.day...go check out Nov. posts, you'll see them.)...his birthday was overshadowed (blogwise) by my Days of Thanksgiving, so without further ado, here, my friends, is a peek into Ethan's first birthday: (go here to read Megan's version of the party)
He had two parties on his birthday, a morning play date with lots of friends at our house and a dinner party with just two friends (and we invited the parental units, too, since the kids can't drive yet.) This meant two smash cakes, two cakes for me to decorate and two tablescapes! I do not rock the tablescape scene, but I did my best and thought it looked just fine...Megan's blog has some good pictures of the table from the morning.


In lue of goodie bags, I made wooden blocks that I modge podged each kid's initial on, hot glued a swirly clip on the back and will (one day) include the first picture of the whole group above in the thank you card to clip in the holder. I also made all the boys party hats and all the girls zebra/hot pink hair bows...pictured above. They were soooo cute when they were all lined up and ready. Ethan and Fiona (also celebrated her b.day at the party) had #1 shirts that I made.
"Yo...orange cake rocks Mama."
Ethan is officially ONE!
In between parties, I made him have a photo shoot, sporting his cool bib he is reviewing and the awesome new diaper from Monkeysnuggles/Megan.



The dinner party...aren't the mismatched chairs so Klassy?

Cake #2: white with cherry filling and cream cheese frosting
Check out the blue fondant he is chewing on :)

It was big, so it took two hands for his second smash cake.Brennan "gave" him Orry the Orek as a gift. Ethan then "gave" Orry a bath.


Party's over...time for bed!