Closing in on one year

Jilly-bean is just 6 days away from turning ONE! I can honestly say this has been one of the longest years of my life.
I love how people always say, "Wow! A year already??" I laugh and play along but truthfully I am thinking, "Thank GOD! Now it should start getting easier.....right???"

Here are some of the things that I have come to love (and love to loathe) about our little girl over the last 12 months:

**She loves to bump up and down to music. That is how she dances! If being held, she looks like a marionnete puppet with legs kicking wildly.
**She cries herself to sleep many days. No amount of rocking, stroking or singing will help with that. Period.
**I have finally found a calming spot for her: behind her ear! When I stroke her there she will stop, at least temporarily.
**She prefers to stand nowadays.
**When she smiles a truly happy smile, her nose crinkles and it is melt your heart adorable!!!
**When she cries a truly angry attention getting cry, it pierces your eardrum and gets all the dogs in the hood barking. (well, maybe that is an exaggeration)
**Her style leans away from the girly fru-fru and more toward a boho hippie. Think long, flowy dresses and tye dye. Groovy, man.
**She uses her new teeth for protection. She bites her brother and my shoulder and also will poke you in the eye if you annoy her.
**She has fallen in love with baby dolls and likes to poke them in the eye, too.
**She saves her best smiles for her bruh-bruh.
**She likes to wave at the birds out of our kitchen window.
**When she is excited her legs and arms kick and splay like she has lost all muscle control!
**Her favorite game (and his, I suspect) is "Catch the brother".
**She dislikes any solid food thicker than the consistency of applesauce and will reject anything you try to give her after that.
**She still wakes at least once during the night to nurse.
**Her favorite word thus far is "Ma-ma-ma-ma".
**She has the most beautiful eyes. Like a little deer.
**She absolutely LOVES to look at photos of herself. They crack her up. I was a little afraid that she had a vain streak until I tested her with a baby faces book and got the same reaction. Apparantly she just likes baby faces!!

This year for her birthday party we are doing a Neopolitan Bakery theme. I'll post pics, of course, but I'm really hoping all the fuss will turn into a fun party. Afterall, it is just for a one year old who will have NO recollection of any of it!

My little scallywag is THREE!

I have had a three year old living in my house for 8 days now. Dominic had a Labor Day birthday this year and we had two parties for the lucky little guy.

His friend party was a pirate themed fiesta and he chose the guests: all the camp kids. Two of them couldn't make it so we only had 4 kids + Dominic made 5. A perfectly small group of kids. He wanted to invite his newest friend, M, but we had just invited them to J's baptism and didn't want to overload them with our family. Though he really did miss her!

We had a blast! Dominic dressed up to greet his guests and they all had their own pirate hat, eyepatch, sash and tattoo waiting for them to put on before joining the party.
Next we had lunch. PB&J or tortilla rolls for the littles and ham,cheese and pineapple sammy's for the adults. Caprese skewers, fruit and cheese tray. Plenty of beer, water and juice to go around.
We had two games to play. Walk the plank, cannonball toss and the treasure hunt! Everyone LOVED the treasure hunt!! The plank was a fun game, too. It seemed like only Dominic liked the cannonball toss. Oh well...
After the games it was time for cake and then opening presents!

The next morning I asked Dominic what he dreamed about and he replied, "Mine pirate party!!" I'd say he enjoyed himself!

As for Jillian, we've had to readjust her meds again. The doctor wanted us to begin weaning her down to once a day dosage and after 2 weeks I can't take it anymore. She is crying more often than not and it's really making me sad. I decided to go back to twice a day dosage for now. We can try weaning again in another month or so.

Dominic had his 3 year check-up yesterday. He's grown 2 inches and 3.5 pounds since last November. Still a little fry, but growing on his own curve so no need to worry. I just don't make big people. ;)

A Day in the Life: After Meds...

I was looking back through my old posts and was struck by how different life is since Jillian has been taking prevacid for her reflux. I wasn't sure that life would ever be sane again and I am so happy to report that it really is!!

So, in honor of our ladybug's new (and almost cry-free) existence I decided to do another day in the life as a sort of then v. now.

Thank heavens for medicine!

Next weekend we are having Jillian baptized and the week following is D's 3rd birthday! Such important events coming up.

For D's birthday party I made air-dry clay pirates for each of his guests. Here they are in the early stages of production:

Dominic is the captain and Jillian is a mermaid. <3

I am excited to see them atop the pirate ship cake!

St.Dominic's Feast Day Celebration

St.Dominic was a passionate follower of Christ. He dedicated his life to God and not only lived as an example of Christ, but was a passionate speaker of Christ's love. So much so that an entire order of priests is dedicated to him.

St.Dominic's feast day was originally August 4th, but due to Vatican2 was moved to August 8th. This is good for us because we missed the 4th and were still able to "catch" it yesterday.

St.Dominic is rumored to have brought the first oranges to Rome and so he is often depicted with an orange in his hand. Also good for us! I made an orange cake for Dominic and we sang "Happy Saints Day to you!" before digging in. I rudimentally explained who St.Dominic was to Dominic. He smiled but I'm sure he had no idea what I was talking about. He just knows they have the same name- and that's enough for him. I mean, that's a great reason to have cake, right?

I found this quote from St.Dominic and thought it was perfect for my little pirate: "I kept on digging the hole deeper and deeper looking for the treasure chest until I finally lifted my head, looked up and realized that I had dug my own grave."


I also designed Jillian's baptism invitations. I am VERY proud of the outcome.

I must admit, I copied the idea from tinyprints. I hope I didn't just violate any copyrights by admitting that. I won't link to the exact one, but if you are curious feel free to check the baptism cards on their site and I know you'll recognize it! I think I'm okay since I'm not selling them. Had I ordered them online I wouldn't have gotten them in time to allow for anyone to rsvp!

My mommy friend, K, is having her son, A, baptized the same day at the same Mass as us. It'll be special to have both of our babes baptized together! We were going to have a dual reception following the Mass, but she had to change plans since she has many family members who will be flying out of town that afternoon. Bummer.

We are inviting a few of our church friends to attend the reception, too. I know of 2 who will definitely come and the other 2 are maybe's (in my assumption).

I plan on making a creamsicle cake. Sounds good, right? If it turns out good, I'll be sure and post the recipe.

Now, back to the birthday planning!!

Avast me hearties!

Since Dominic is totally obsessed with pirates lately I have been doing some research to have a perfect pirate party for his 3rd birthday next month. I can't believe it's already birthday time again!!

I've come up with some fun stuff for this fun theme. The invites are out and I must say, they are simply adorable!

I bought a four pack of Sutter Home mini-wine at the grocery store. In case you are wondering, the four mini bottles make one full wine bottle. Good for the hubster, no?

I took the labels off and added my own, complete with a personalized pirate name for each guest.

I used construction paper to make the treasure map insert. I charted each guest's course on their invite and included a cute pirate code for the details. I rolled them up, tied with raffia and dropped them in the bottle for delivery. All in all, I am very pleased.

Next craft: favor bags. I used the crayola studio website to create a personalized pirate coloring book. I'll include a small pack of crayons, too.

I have been wanting to make the next craft for about a month now and was so happy to be able to adapt it to my pirate theme.

What is it, you may ask? It's a spyglass, edu-ma-cational style! I bought a bottle (plastic) of dragees and emptied it into a ziploc bag for future use and filled the bottle with rice about halfway up. I bought some alphabet beads (in the jewelry making section at Mike's) and put all 26 letters in and then added more rice. I superglued the top on and wrote the alphabet along the rim of the lid.

This will be a great quiet game for the kids to play with whenever the need presents itself. Think long car rides, waiting room trips, church, you name it! The kids have to rotate the bottle this way and that to find all 26 letters. I will also be making some bingo-type cards that they can use to find certain letters. Cute idea, huh? I figure they can be presented as a pirate spyglass.

I know I'll have more posts about our pirate party the closer and closer we get to the party, so stay tuned!

It's no Blue Bell, but it'll do...

This past week we were BUSY!!

Since Dominic enjoyed camp so much, we decided to pony up and enroll him in another two week session, which started last Tuesday. This time around there were 12 kids in his group! I am assuming they have combined two groups since there are 2 counselors in there.

When we weren't at camp, we were at playgroups. Monday we hosted a playgroup at our house. Kids were invited to make homemade ice cream, which actually turned out to be quite delicious!

Fattening, but delicious! While we waited for the ice cream to freeze we moved out front and ran through the sprinkler!

Our new church friends joined us for this one. She is due with baby girl #3 anyday now. Note to self: I should check in on her since I didn't see them at church yesterday.

The next day we had AM and M over for some ice cream and playtime.

The next two days I was saddled down with creating the neighborhood playgroup's newsletter. Big doings!! This took approximately 3 days to get all together but the third day was simply copy-paste'ing.

Friday we had a full day all to ourselves. Until I remembered that I had to buy my hubby a birthday present! So it was off to the golf store to pick up a fashionable golfing outfit, complete with golfing belt. I never knew such a thing existed, but trust me it does.

Friday afternoon we were invited over to H and E's house for indoor play. It was just nice to get out of the house after the whole newsletter stress. I even managed to get a photo of myself with BOTH babies!! As I've said in previous posts, photos of me with the kids is rare as I'm usually the one taking the photo. I just love this one, too!!

Saturday Daddy turned "4-4" and Jillian turned 2 months old!

Instant birthday in a bucket

What do you get a teenage girl who has everything for her birthday? For this year's birthday I delved deep into my teacher's bag of tricks and thought like a 15 year old girl for a moment.
From my experience as a teacher and being around pre-teens, I know that although they like to think of themselves as adults, they still have that little kid side that enjoys goofing off and having an excuse to be silly.

I saw this idea a few months ago and was just hoping I would get to use it. The opportunity came yesterday. My neice and 2 nephews are visiting the IL's and my neice has a birthday coming up in a couple of weeks. I put together what I call

"Instant Birthday in a Bucket!!"

The idea was to give her a birthday party that any 6 year old would love. Inside was the following:
1. birthday girl ribbon to wear
2. cupcake printed plates, napkins and cups
3. crazy straws
4. crazy candles
5. water balloons
6. a pin the tail on the donkey game

Surprisingly, my 2 nephews said they'd never played the game before, so we broke it out and let them all take a turn!

Guess who won???

That's right! My boy got the tail right on the star!!!

What party is complete without a cake, right? We had that too!!

We bought the new game, Headbanz, for the birthday girl. I specifically chose a game that my little man could play with the big kids. We had to adapt the rules for him, but he did pretty good. And he looked pretty cute playing, too!

Jillian is HOME!

I went in to have my routine u/s with the specialist on Monday and they found that the fluid level had dropped quite drastically. Jillian's projected weight was right at 6lbs and I was 38 weeks along so the doctor suggested an induction that day. I was caught off guard, as D was 4 days late and we waited him out, but decided it was safer to have her here early rather than wait and let complications arise.

So I told DH to come home from work and finish packing his bag. D, Jillian and I had been packed for weeks! He rushed home and we called the Grands to let them know to assemble. The troops met us at the hospital shortly after we arrived at 10am.

I was taken to triage to be monitored and checked. I still hadn't been checked since my dr and I agreed we would wait until 39 weeks to do so. Surprisingly to most everyone involved, I was already dilated to 4, 50% effaced and -3 station! All on my own!! And I was having contrax!

I was thrilled. That meant no cervadil, only pitocin. My dr knew I wanted to try med-free again so he said to watch me and see if hte contrax picked up on their own or if we should administer pit. I was also waiting for an L&D room to open up. Apparently the storm system convinced a lot of babies to be born that day

Four hours later we were given a room in L&D. They started pitocin at the lowest setting and the contrax picked up but were bearable. Pit was upped to 4 and they got stronger but still not close enough. They let me stay at 4 for a while so I could catch my breath before upping to a 6.

That really got things going. I hadn't been rechecked and was dying to know if I'd progressed at all. With the contrax one minute apart and as intense as they were I assumed I had. The nurse checked me at 6pm and said I was still at 4cm so I called for an epi. That's when the contrax really got bad!

The epi was in at 6:29pm and I waited for it to kick in. The shift change is at 7 so the new nurse came in and asked when I was last checked. My current nurse said just before the epi. She suggested we check again to check if I'd progressed at all. Surprisingly I was now complete! Only 45 minutes after being checked!! My bag of water was bulging and she could feel the head. They called my dr and he rushed in.

He snipped the bag with scissors (it was hanging out of me), I pushed twice and she was here! Tiny little thing so no tears or stitches needed. The NICU team was called since she is so tiny. After observing her for 30 minutes they determined that she was healthy enough to stay in the regular nursery.

We are home now and doing our best to adjust. Thank heavens for meal lists! We've already had one meal delivered and will get another one tonight. Yay!

Birthday Blessings (aka: Can life get any sweeter??)

Today is my 36th birthday. I have a mere 23 days until I get to meet my only daughter, I am crazy in love with my husband and I have the world's sweetest little boy. My cup truly runneth over.

Here is how we celebrated my birthday tonight. Can life get any sweeter??

Click me! I'm a video!!




Happy Birthday to Mama, indeed!

The rising cost of friendship (aka: birthday parties)

This month we had 3 birthday party invitations, 3 weekends in a row. One was the Sunday before we left for vacay and it was out of town, so we missed that one. The next one was the Saturday we returned from vacay so we missed that one due to being on the road and the next one is this coming Saturday. We have another invite the 7th of May as well.

So yesterday Dominic and I set out to the Toy Store to pick up all the gifts that we needed. Man, when I started this friendship odyssey the last thing on my mind was how much money these friendships would cost me, but let me tell you....it ain't cheap!

Scattered throughout the year it wouldn't be too bad, but we had 4 birthdays in January and now another little clump of birthdays. I always try to put great thought into the gifts I buy. I think of each child and their interest and/or something their mom has mentioned that they would like. It's fun, but can be exhausting.

So...$125 later we left the Toy Store with 4 birthday party gifts, cards for each and a roll of paper. And don't forget the 2 board games I had to get D, as well.

I am already thinking about having a little welcome party for Miss Jillian in June. My out of town family has been talking about having a shower for me but there's not many weekends left between now and D-day and I'm not really up for traveling. I am researching Sip and See ideas and will hopefully get an idea that inspires me. Any suggestions??

Oh, and tomorrow is my shower for ladybug! So exciting!!!

When is a dog just a dog?

As soon as you bring home a new baby!

When we were pregnant with Dominic people tried to tell us that our precious (HA!) beagle, Annabelle, would cease to live as the baby of the house and would be delegated to pure dog status. Neither my husband nor myself believed it. We were so in line with the idea that she was like a child to us that we sent cards on her behalf to our relatives and even had elaborate birthday parties for her.

Seeing as this is her 5th birhthday today, I thought I'd take a stroll down memory lane and re-visit her first two birthday parties. Notice she ceased having parties once Dominic came home?? Want to fancy a guess why??

First Birthday party:


Eating dog friendly ice cream out of a beagle mug, of course!


Dog friendly cake


The cake station complete with homemade doggie bag favors.


The birthday girl in her homemade birthday hat. CUTE!

Second Birthday party:


The birthday girl all dolled up. The hat's not homemade, but there's still some love involved.


Check out this fancy cake. My reasoning? We were expecting a little boy and I figured I'd never have the opportunity to buy a cutesy cake again...


The front of the invitation.
The back read: "Come and help me celebrate my last birthday as an only child." That about sums it up, folks.

Annabelle has had three birthdays as an older sibling. Sadly, I cannot recall that we have done anything special for her on any of these occasions. As a matter of fact, I almost totally forgot about today until the last minute! I told D we will make her a birthday cake tomorrow afternoon for April Fool's Day.

Don't feel too bad for ol'Annabelle. She still gets to sleep in the master's bed and only drinks filtered water. She has her own doggie door for easy access to the fresh air and/or air conditioning and she gets to eat anything that Dominic drops on the floor. All in all, I'd say her life isn't too bad, would you?

Surprise, ya'll!

I have been busy this week getting things together for a surprise dual-70th birthday party for my folks on Saturday and haven't posted so I wouldn't leak out any details. Now that the party is over I can post a recipe that was SOOOOOO delectably good I can't even handle it, ya'll.

My dad's favorite dessert is banana pudding and I searched the net for a perfect recipe and I can safely say I have found it!! Leave it to Ms.Paula Deen to give us a scrumptious banana pudding.

Here's the recipe:
(It's not for the faint of heart or those on a diet)

2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies
6-8 bananas, sliced
2 cups milk
1 (5 oz.) box instant vanilla pudding mix
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 oz.) container Cool Whip

Line the bottom of a 13x9 dish with one bag of cookies and layer the bananas on top.
In one bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well. Set aside.
In another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture.
Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir to blend.
Pour the mixture over the cookie/banana layer and cover with the remaining cookies.
Refrigerate until ready to serve.

This is simply divine, ya'll!!! No kidding!

And since the post title for today is surprise, here's another one for you:



Please pray that this one is a stick-around-er!

Can you stand more Gabba???

Too bad!! I've got some more Gabba goodness to share. I've had some requests for some more shots of the cake, more precisely, the other characters I made so here they are:

Here's my version of a Muno:



And here's Plex:



Here's Foofa:



And one of the front with Toodee on top:



Here are the cookies I made for the favors:



Halfway through the present opening, D had enough and had to thrash around in all the paper for a bit.



It's funny, but without my little friendship odyssey we'd have had a very different looking party. I'm so glad that my little man was able to turn two with all his best buddies by his side!

On that note, I attended the welcome coffee mixer for my church's mom's group. Since we plan on putting D in school there I thought it would be wise to join now and get to know some of the mom's there. I already know 3 kids that will be in D's grade! How cool is that??

Two ladies are also in my neighborhood group so we know them quite well by now. The other one lives in my neighborhood, but isn't really that friendly. I've met her on a couple of occasions and she wasn't real chatty. I'll have to make a point to try and talk with her at the upcoming meeting. Maybe she's just shy like me and comes across as snooty, much like I think I did before becoming aware of it.

I'll keep you posted!

Yo Gabba Gabba birthday style

So, we made it! We had a rockin' Gabba party and we survived to tell the tale. Little man is now officially two and MAN, did this kid get a lot of loot!! Check it out:



This is why Christmas at D's casa will be slim this year. :-D

We had a house full of guests, both young and old. The youngest was my friend, Sarah's little girl, Brooklyn at just 11 weeks old. It's hard to believe that had we not had the first miscarriage I would have a 3 month old right now. Crazy!!!

This party would definitely NOT have happened as it did. And I'm so glad it did, we had a blast!! I'm happy to say the cake was delicious, in addition to cute as a bug!



The little Gabba creatures are made out of Starburst! What a neat idea, huh? I can't take credit for it and sadly I don't remember which blog to give credit to for the idea. Just know that it was from some party planning site. Goodness the time I can kill surfing those blogs!!!

Anyway, we had 8 little ones + their parents, 2 sets of Grands, 3 aunt/uncle combos + their combined 5 children, 4 relatives from out of town, and a co-worker of DH!! The bouncehouse was ready for action, but it was a bit on the toasty side yesterday so there was minimal bouncing. My neice and nephew monopolized the swimming pool while the little ones kept cool inside playing the fishing game.



We waited until company left before we let D tear into his huge pile of presents. We took photos of him opening each one to use on their thank you card. I already have them all designed and saved. I just need to go to Office Depot and pick up some 4x6 photo paper and I can get these babies out in the mail tomorrow!!



His favorites?? The Buzz, Woody and Bullseye posable figures from Aunt Suge and the play kitchen from Nana and Papa. Thanks guys!!!

A bad case of Palmolive hands

With just 4 days to go until the big birthday party, the dishwasher has decided to go on the brink! My brother, the handyman supreme, promised us that he will take a look at it on Sunday before the party, but that means between now and then we either eat on paper plates or I have to hand wash everything. Not a good thing when I have to bake a cake AND cookie favors for the big day.

I have been hard at work getting ready for my little man's party. This "Toodee-inspired" shin-dig is coming along famously. I have outdone myself on one craft in particular:



This is a cardboard cut-out that I hand drew, cut out and painted. This little gem will be outside holding balloons around her arm, welcoming guests to the party.

I also finished the balloon wreath. Here's a picture of the unfinished product:



We are hosting the first neighborhood playdate of the season here tomorrow. Crazy, I know, what with us having a birthday party two days later. As the coordinator it is only right that I host the first one and it'll be a doozy! We are having a bouncehouse (that I secretly hope to use for D's party Sunday), a photo booth (well, sort of), swimming (if it doesn't rain-40% chance that it will), sandbox, sidewalk chalk, wagon rides, and my favorite: a Root Beer float bar! We have had 5 new faces RSVP so far. I am excited to meet all the new members.

And just for giggles, here's what shenanigans my husband gets up to when I'm not looking:



Nice, right???

6 days and counting...

First, I have gotten some inquiries about where we are with the miscarriage. I apologize for not updating. With the trip to Boston, baking for the shower and getting ready for D's SECOND birthday party, I've been overwhelmed lately.

The m/c is officially over and was painless and not nearly as bad as I was expecting, God be praised. This was our second m/c in a year so we knew this was a possibility, but it still sucks all the same. We are focusing on little D and what a blessing he is to our family and that has helped us heal. Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers. <3

Now, speaking of D, I can hardly believe that in just 6 days my little baby will be turning 2!!! He is already dipping his toes in the "terrible two" pool. Yuck! I still have my sweet little man about 85% of the time, but the other 15% is pretty difficult to muddle through. It's a fine line between frustration and madness, you know.

We are planning his big party for next weekend and I've been busy at work getting things ready. Here are some sneak peeks at what I've been working on:



This will be on the cake top along with a cookie shaped 2. Toodee is the inspiration for the party.



These will be in the favor buckets. It is a compilation of 7 of D's favorite Gabba songs.



This will be one of the signs to welcome guests. Remember the pot I made???

I plan on making some "Parking for Gabba fans only" signs for along the curb. I also have to finish my balloon wreath for the door and finish painting the Toodee land mural.

Now, here are the pics of the treats I created for the bridal shower that my neighbor hired me to do:



Strawberry jam filled shortbread cookies.



Red velvet cupcakes with fondant topper to match the shower colors.



Surprise inside cake. Four layers, each a different color to match the shower theme. My neighbor called me last night to let me know the cake was "F***ing awesome!!" I'd say she liked it!!!