love poem

I am shuffling from room to room, tidying and sorting through papers. How do we end up with so many papers?? Probably because the kids are constantly doodling, and Ella is always writing notes. I stumbled across this sweet little poem she penned around Valentines day on a small stack of post-its and wanted to record it before I inevitably toss it out. :p Too many papers!

The I Love You Book

I love you more than a love bug.

I love you more than a hug.

I love you more than a hook.

I love you more than a book.

And the only thing I love is You.

The End.

announcing the winner!

We visit Trader Joe's every Monday without fail and oftentimes the kids pick up the coloring sheets they have at the checkout counter. Sometimes they color them, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they color them and the artwork sits by our front door, forgotten each time we're on our way until they have expired from the coloring contest. Just after the new year, Simon colored his coloring sheet with a big Happy New Year robot on it and I actually remembered to turn it in! Rather, Bryan took Simon to drop it off since he really liked the way it turned out. I must admit, his coloring is rather impressive these days for having just turned 5. He stays within the lines and picks some pretty great color combinations (even though I have suspicions he has some slight color blindness with particular shades of green and red.)

Last Thursday, I got a phone call that Simon won the coloring contest for his age group! He was pretty pumped. I retrieved his prize from Trader Joe's today and he got a big bag filled up with some pretty awesome snacks...some of his favorites like fruit leathers and granola bars and some treats that we never splurge on...lemonade juice boxes, milk chocolate wafers, cheddar puffs, and oatmeal chocolate cookie packets. The crazy thing about it though is that they had his age wrong and he won for the 7 year old category! He totally kicked some 7-year-old butt!

I would post a scan of his winning artwork, but it's proudly hanging in the window at the Brentwood Trader Joe's. Feel free to stop in for a showing. :)

what's old is new

If you know me, or have visited my house, you know I love aged things: music, art, housewares, linens, whatever. I much prefer the character and story that vintage items innately possess, and really appreciate finding beauty in things that most people want to discard or "upgrade." I've tried my hand at selling some things on Etsy, and had some success with what little I listed, but found I just can't keep up with maintaining my shop and dealing with mailing them out efficiently. But it hasn't stopped me from adding to my "inventory!"

I have had my eye out for THE perfect stereo console for years. I wanted one with simple, clean lines that was on the more petite side. Most consoles are really wide and we just don't have the wall space available. A couple of years ago, I fell in love with the German brand, Grundig, style consoles, but when I saw the price tag of a restored, working model, I knew that it was something way out of our reach.

And then it happened.......the craigslist clouds parted and a ray of light shone through! Late one night, I happened to be meandering through craigslist, doing my regular searches looking for something of interest, window shopping I suppose, and there it was. A Grundig stereo console. Beautiful, clean lines, rare in form, very well preserved. It was not producing sound, though it powered up. Either way, I was all aflutter!

I was able to get the price down to a very manageable amount (with some help from a friend who piped in to buy another item the guy was selling to sweeten the deal) because I knew it would take some money to restore the thing. Now it's sitting patiently in our hallway, waiting for TLC. I can't wait to spin my first record on it!!!! Ugh...the suspense is killing me.

Isn't she lovely? Sleek and graceful!

The details! Ack! They give me goosebumps!

Patiently waiting, cozied up next to Grandma's old wall clock.

I'm super excited to tell the kids to "Keep their hands off the Hi-Fi." Won't that sound so funny?

So, in all my excitement, I've been mulling over the idea of renting out an antique booth. It would add to our income and be way easier to manage than an etsy site for me. I could just price things and leave them there to be discovered! I think it would be a really great creative outlet and exciting to see things sell.

Here's a little number that will make it to the booth once I get my hands on one.

I just love anything tufted, don't you?

She's a little champagne colored Kroeler chair from the 1960s sometime. I would love to keep her around, but we have too many chairs than floor space. She'll look great in an antique mall! I'm on the waiting list of the closest one to our house...I'll keep you posted!

dressing herself

Josie is very independent. She much prefers doing things on her own, I suppose that's part of being two now. It's so funny to see the clothes she puts on. We have to keep the folded laundry out of reach because she pulls things out, one by one, strips herself down, and tries to wear all the new stuff one on top of the other. Here's the progression the other day:

Rocking the outfit

Ok, there's something wrong here...

Must. Get. Out!

Enough with the camera, already! HELP!

The funniest thing about this outfit is that the bottom half is actually another shirt. She's wearing three shirts folks. She much prefers that particular shirt on the bottom half of her body.

And shoes...oh how she loves shoes. She's always wearing somebody else's shoes around the house, and even with a 50-50 shot, she always puts her own boots on the wrong feet.

Josie is such an entertainer at this stage!

finally a family day

I'm not sure what to pin it on, but between travels and special occasions, visitors, or a to-do lists, we haven't had a bona fide family day in a good while. Having stayed out late visiting some friends last night, we started things right today by sleeping in till after 9 (most of us, at least.) Simon didn't change out of his pajamas all day long, and even after a bath at the end of the day, he put his original pjs right back on (along with the same underwear, ew.) I had lots of ideas about tasks I wanted to accomplish, but, it ended up just being better to mosey around the house with little direction. I think we all needed that.

One errand Ella and I did run, was a trip to Lowes and the grocery store. I was on the hunt for some "Super Washing Soda" in order to make our own laundry detergent. I have been determined to undertake this task in an effort to pinch a few pennies this year. The recipe I found for homemade laundry detergent yields 576 loads for $6! (On a side note, I LOVE pinterest for this type of resource.) For inquiring minds, making your own laundry detergent is so insanely easy. It's crazy to think how much money we could have been saving all this time! Well, no use crying over it...here's to the future!

After the errand, and lunch, we tackled making Valentines for Simon's class. Ella and I made hers last week so it was a breeze knocking Simon's out. I had loads of fun doing it (and Simon did all the gluing, some of the drawing, and writing his name.) Again, thanks to pinterest for the grand idea! It was a HOOT! (You'll get the pun once you see the image of the finished Valentines. :)

Witty captions include: "I'll OWL-ways be your friend!", "You are a WISE guy!" and "You're a HOOT!"

Simon's Valentines had to be candy-free, so we used pencils as a favor. Ella put Tootsie Pops on her Valentines. This was a really fun thing to do together.

We topped off the afternoon by tidying up the girls' room, purging old toys, books, papers and straightening the bookshelf. Josie has officially moved out of the crib and into the big girl bed which meant lots of rearranging! WOO to the HOO! (Is that another owl pun?) Now there is lots of room to play once more and Ella loves being in her room again. It's a relief to me, because she used to spend tons of time in there reading, playing, imagining, creating...since the crib has been in the way, she's avoided her room like the plague, even preferring to sleep in our room or Simon's room on the floor. Those issues are all resolved now and bedtime is getting much more streamlined.

Family day was a success today...it achieved relaxation, togetherness, leisure, and even a bit of honey-do accomplishments. I'm breathing a happy sigh....

josie turned 2

January 12 was a momentous day! Josie turned two, can you believe it? She's growing up and leaving behind the baby stage. It's always sad to say goodbye to the baby stage, but oh so fun to explore what lies ahead as kids develop into their own little people.

Her birthday started out with a magical dusting of snow! It was very pretty, though it seemed to throw all of St. Louis to a halt. We didn't mind one bit.

Because Josie had an outpatient procedure scheduled, she wasn't able to eat anything but she could have clear fluids till 9:30 am. So she had all the apple juice she could possibly handle! Fortunately, she tends to be a light eater in general, so she really didn't complain much. I just kept her distracted and her crazy sagging diapers changed.

After all the hospital stuff I mentioned in the previous post, which was an unfortunate part of the birthday extravaganza, we were pretty pooped out. Josie had a mega nap (she had partial anesthesia and pain meds that made her sleepy.)

At dinnertime, we celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa as well as Dillon Neely (who is living with us until he and Rebekah get married in March...Josie is nuts about Dillon and actually says his name which, in my opinion, gives him rockstar status) and ate some of Josie's favorite foods (and when I say favorite, I mean, stuff that she'll actually ingest. It had to involve ketchup.) We had mac and cheese, hot dogs, and salad, the ultimate kid meal. I couldn't stand to feed this meal to the grown ups, so we had a slightly "higher brow" version...browned apple chicken sausage with kraut to dress it up. (I don't know why, but I just love sauerkraut and took this as an opportunity to inflict it upon others.) Topping it all off were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter cream frosting and ice cream. (I can hardly bear to think of how many calories were in these little suckers, but I'm glad they're finally out of my fridge!) This year, she loved the cake. Last year, she didn't bother. So that was definitely a step in the right direction!

 

We sang the birthday song to her and she surprised me by getting a bit quivery in the lip. Not sure if it was because the lights were turned way down or if she got overwhelmed and confused. But she's not usually very shy about being the star of the show. Regardless, she totally knew what to do about the candles!

Then she opened presents which, again, she knew exactly what was expected of her coming directly off of Christmas just weeks ago. She got some cute clothes and shoes from us and a great kitty cat piano with a microphone and the most wonderful meowing sound effects! Of course, we all know that anything musical will thrill Josie.

All in all, it was a wonderful day, a real success I think. I just can't believe she's two. But I think two will be a very good year for her. I'm looking forward to getting to know more about her as she reveals more of who she is!

Not much else to say, but just feast your eyes on this sweet little girl who thinks she's so big, she should wear lipstick now!

the back story

January 12 was Josie's big birthday. And that's what I really want to post about. But there's a lot of behind the scenes information that you need to know. It was full of happy moments, and also, not-your-normal kind-of-birthday moments. I haven't posted anything about some of the health stuff that's been going on with Josie over the last several months because, I guess I just didn't feel up to rehashing all the details. It's a long story and frankly, I'm at a time right now where I just don't like sitting in this computer chair for very long! So, as a back story before we get to the birthday fun, I'll fill you in on the details of what we've been dealing with.

But to start, here's a fun picture of Josie just before her birthday. The angel hair is in full fluff mode!

It's hard to get a crisp image of this little mover and shaker!

Sometime around mid August, I noticed some swelling around Josie's left ankle. She didn't act like it hurt, she walked normally and so I thought I must have missed her twisting it or something. But three weeks later, the swelling persisted. Over the next several months, we went through multiple pediatrician appointments, several rounds of xrays, and a trip to a pediatric orthopedist who ordered further xrays and an ultrasound. No one seemed too alarmed, though a bit puzzled and we left the ortho with no real answers and plans for an MRI in order to see more detail around the ankle. This was the week just after Thanksgiving.

Two days later, Josie woke up in the night with pain, further swelling in the ankle and a mild fever. She couldn't get comfortable to sleep and was unable to stand or walk. It was a quick and alarming turn. Honestly, seeing her try to stand only to crumple to the floor was a heartbreaking scene.

The following day was spent in the ER doing more xrays, bloodwork and she had to fast from all liquid and food in case they ordered the MRI. It was a sad and difficult day for her, and for us, but I was hopeful that at least by the end of the day, we'd have an answer to what was causing the trouble.

But that didn't exactly happen. They ruled out all the really scary things like cancer, lupus and a "septic joint" and said that they suspected arthritis (this was one of our earliest questions we'd had since Bryan's youngest brother had juvenile rheumetoid arthritis. Doctors kept dismissing that idea since it's somewhat rare to see it in kids this young as well as without any other symptoms.)

We've met with arthritis specialists and the Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis diagnosis is nearly certain with them, though I haven't quite "embraced" it yet...I am interested in investigating any dietary sensitivities that might cause arthritis symptoms and meet with a homeopathic practice in a couple of weeks...more info to come later, I'm sure.

So.....anyhow....all the backstory to say that, on her birthday, Josie was scheduled to receive a cortisone (steroid) shot in her ankle to decrease the swelling so that we could relieve any pain for her and also get her off medication. The doctors said that half of their patients who are only affected in one joint will receive this shot and never have any further issues. So that's what we are praying for!

The people at Children's Hospital are so great and had birthday balloons for Josie as well as two wrapped gifts and birthday cake. It was really helpful because she played with the toys non stop until it was time for the laughing gas. They gave her a baby doll and a tea set. I loved watching her feed her little baby with a spoon!

She never shed a tear the whole time, even with the anesthetic mask on and doctors in her face. She was incredible. It's been three days since the shot and her swelling is probably about 80% gone. I'm praying for a total recovery...

...now that you're informed, feel free to jump to the next post for all the happy birthday fun!!