hollidaisy? What's that? and GIVEAWAY news!

As some of you know, I have been working and working to get things ready to open up my shop and the time has finally come!

hollidaisy is my place on Etsy to sell things that I've made. Etsy is "your place to buy and sell all things handmade" there are so many different things you can find there.

I will be selling all sorts of things... headbands and hairbows, hats and scarves, cards, decorations, sweaters, blankets... you get the idea.

Here's the thing, though. I would love to have your help! The best way to get people to my shop is by word of mouth. So in honor of my grand opening, I am going to be doing my first giveaway!!

The giveaway will be a Christmas smorgasborg. It will include a Christmas hairbow, 4 Christmas cards, and a set of 6 Christmas tree ornaments!

To enter the giveaway, please redirect to Kim's Booknook.

eeB gnillepS

Bryant just got out a bed to tell me something, I told him if he came out of his room one more time his door was going to be closed tight. But he really had to tell me something.

"Wes's name backward is Sam and God spelled backward is dog." He started walking back toward his room and added, "Wow!

Dog's must be special!"

Then he ran back to say one more thing, but before he said it he yelled, "I didn't come back out, I was still out!" I laughed so hard I don't even remember what he wanted to add... funny kid.

Laundry Woes

I know I said I like doing laundry. I guess I need to add an addendum, I like doing laundry when it actually comes out looking and smelling clean. Three questions of the potty type for any and all...

1. How can I stop the boys from wetting the bed? What has worked for you? I know everyone is different and I know my mother-in-love dealt with this for way too long... I am just hoping to try some things that might help.

2. What can I use to get the pee smell out of the bed-wetted clothing and bedding? I know there is a solution, I'm just not sure what it is.

3. I mentioned below that I got a bunch of hand-me-downs for Eliza from Eliza... amazingly enough, none of them have poop stains up the back... now this may be because Eliza's girls were miracle babies who didn't have blowouts, or it could be because she has some trick for getting it all out. What do you do with baby blowouts? I don't think its my diapers, we've had blowouts out the back with every brand... Eliza is just doing it every time!

Baby Shower in Texas!

I am the luckiest girl around... no question. Not only do I have the most wonderful, hottest husband and the funniest, cutest kids... but I also have the most fabulous sister-in-law. You may remember how sad I was that we were not going to be in Utah when she got home from her mission... well, we found a deal and she flew in on Wednesday night!

On top of all that, my ward rocks! Even though Eliza is now 3 1/2 months old... my cute ward still wanted (or rather...insisted) to throw me a baby shower. We did a combined shower with another gal who moved into the ward around the same time as me and had a baby a few weeks after I had Eliza. She was having her 4th girl, so she only wanted diapers, so all the oohing and ahhing was for Eliza's cute new clothes. It happened that the night they got the showered organized was the night after Erin got here, so she got to come celebrate with me. It was great!!! Here are some pictures of our fun night...

This is also Eliza (the gal without the baby)... she is the mom of the other baby which made for a confusing night of gift giving. She not only gave me a cute new pair of shoes and outfit, she also gave me a garbage bag full of hand-me downs! THANK YOU!!!
Eliza got the cutest clothes! I kept saying, "I'm so happy!" all night long. She is so beautiful and now she has the clothes to match!

A couple of my friends really wanted to try some clothes on Eliza... so as I chanted "fashion show, fashion show, fashion show at lunch!" they put this cute outfit on her and then Natalie said she had to have a "Simba moment."

I guess we tuckered her out... there will be many more girl's nights in the future, we've got to start training now so she'll be prepared.

Thank you everyone who put it together, planned games, made food and brought gifts! I am SO LUCKY!!!

Three Irish Tenors

Just a little something to brighten your day. Something I ran across that sure brightened mine.



O boy O boy, Danny

Trunk or Treat

Well, we made it to the trunk or treat at the church... even before they started! The only other time we've really made to one, we got there about 20 minutes late and there was only one car left in the parking lot! The boys were so excited to go and get candy, but they were smart (or maybe just nice) and started about 20 minutes after it was scheduled (to give everyone time to get there).

Bryant is Beast Boy. He is a character from Teen Titans, he was supposed to be green, but the make up Ethan bought at the last minute didn't actually have green in it (even though the package said it did... what he thought was the green, turned out to be a sponge for applying the blue, red, or white) just one more thing to add to our list of last minute frustrations (if you have no idea what I'm talking about you can read Crappy Halloween below).

Levi is, of course, Robin. Isn't he cute? Coincidentally, Robin is on Teen Titans as well. Levi really likes his costume and has been running around with his arms up in the air in front of him... Robin to the rescue!

Jonas is not too keen on getting his picture taken, so this is the best shot we have of his costume. Of course, who wouldn't want to pose so cute with these cute, cute girls Miranda and Jill?

They got way too much candy, but they had a blast! Ethan took them around because I told Bryant after he and his brothers tore my pattern to pieces that I would not be taking him trick or treating. I handed out the candy and had lots of fun having a break from my kids :) And I was so stressed with the other costumes that I didn't even get Eliza's done! So, she wasn't dressed up at all. But she was still cute!

Pumpkin, pumpkin who has the pumpkin

Jonas just cracks me up! I love the way he talks! I'm sure if his face wasn't turned you could see some of his characteristic facial expressions, but hopefully the inflection in his voice will be enough to make you smile.

We let Bryant go at it (with adult supervision, or course) with a knife for the first time. He thought it was awesome!




Bryant's (far left) is a vampire cyclops
Jonas' (middle) is a mummy and the most scary (according to Bryant)
Levi's (far right) is a skeleton

Crappy Halloween!

I'm a procrastinator... I admit it. But WHY do things have to stop working just because I waited to the last minute to make our costumes? I was so close too. Luckily, the boys don't care that the costumes look like garbage, they think they are so cool, I guess that's what matters.

Let me start at the beginning... I hate Halloween. I know I'm a big party pooper, but really, I just don't like it and I never have. Even when I was a kid and liked eating tons of candy I would only trick or treat down one or two streets and be done. My brothers thought I was crazy. Jump to now, I still don't like it. However, I do like to make things, so I try to make my kids costumes to "get in the spirit" but because of my aversion to all things Halloween, I put it off... every year. Wednesday I got around to preshrinking the fabric and yesterday I made myself start cutting it out. Trouble with my plan hit when I couldn't find my pattern. My house is acutally in pretty good order right now too, which makes it even more frustrating. So, I start with Bryant's and I'm just shooting from the hip... guess on the size, based on some of his clothes. I start sewing and it doesn't look quite right, so I adjust and then I call my mom to ask a question she tried to explain to me how to cut a sleeve but my brain just couldn't remember enough to make sense of it. When I woke up at 4 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep I figured it out but I decided to make the other boys costumes first, because Bryant can can just wear a shirt under his costume to get the sleeves.

I was able to get Jonas' done with only having to unpick one thing. I am not a perfectionist by any means when it comes to my kids' costumes (remember I don't like Halloween) so I'm sure if some of you had been making these costumes you'd have wanted to fix several things. Well, I got Jo's mostly done but decided to start Levi's so that they could all at least have the basics of their costumes if I ran out of time and couldn't finish. I was 24 inches from finishing the inseam of Levi's costume when my sewing machine decided it would stop working... I tried everything I could think of to fix it... but no luck. So, I sewed the inseam by hand-yes that's right, I pulled out my needle and thread and went back to the 19th century. We tried the costumes on and all I needed was a couple of pins to make them work (they are definitely UNfinished-no hems, for instance-but they would work). We have a whole baggie full of safety pins of various sizes. I went to the drawer where they've been kept and low and behold they are not there, nor are the thousand other places I've since checked and as much as I love my chilluns, I'm not taking them all the WalMart to buy some stupid safety pins for stupid Halloween.

So, we missed trick or treating at the med group on base, but I didn't want to go anyway once Ethan told me he woudln't be able to go with us. I've asked him to stop and get some safety pins to hold the costumes together and if we're lucky some makeup so Bryant can complete his look. Maybe we'll even make it to our trunk or treat. We'll see how it goes... sorry to spread my "cheer" I'm just keeping it real. :)

And yes, feel free to judge me on my bad attitude and on my procrastination. I know all this trauma could have been avoided, but it wasn't and I

On a happier note, I do love FALL. And we were able to go to a pumpkin patch for FHE this week. Here are some cute pictures of our fun!

Jonas spent like 10 minutes checking this dog out and then he really wanted to sit on his lap.

Bryant was really weirded out by the bumps on some of these pumpkins... he was pretty nervous to touch it.

For our treat we had peanut butter honey candy and Eliza had her hand. Mmm... Yummy!