Blogging in real life

I follow this great sewing and craft blog, Make It and Love It. Ashley, the blog's author and mastermind behind tons of great projects, decided to host a blogger meet up in Denver, as she lives in Colorado. She was totally the inspiration and idea behind my bedroom makeover a couple of years ago.

I thought, what the heck, this could be fun, I should go! I rounded up a couple of willing friends, and we went.

There some fun make-and-take projects, munchies and delish cupcakes, chatting, a Q&A with Ashley, and prizes. It was fun to meet a blogging "celebrity." Here she is answering some questions-

Me, Ash and Lyndsey with Ashley. I am short.

And I won the grand prize! A Martha Stewart tote filled with a bunch of her newest paints, brushes and stencils. Love it!

More pics from the event HERE.

President's Day

The children have breathed a life of their own into holiday celebrations. Hey, if they are interested, engaged and willing, I surely can't deny them.

It was a fairly nice, warm day. Isabel spent the morning at her friend's house, so I took the boys on a big walk. The boys love to give me a hard time when I am "boy trapped," as in surrounded by boys with no Isabel to help me out. What they don't know is that secretly I love being boy trapped. I love spending time with my boys. But come to think of it, they probably already know that.

When we all regrouped, here's what we did: Lucas made a George Washington wig (aka a paper painter's hat covered in cotton balls); Connor made an Abraham Lincoln hat and beard; Isabel made a Lincoln log cabin.

Then we read some books about some of the presidents, including one written by Brian. Speaking of our author husband/dad, did you know he has had something like 20 or 21 books published? Thus far they have all been children's educational books on sports or history for this one publishing company. (He just turned in the manuscript for a book geared toward adults, about the Broncos, to a new publishing company. It was 89,000 words. 100 short chapters - because the book is called 100 Things Every Broncos Fan Should Know and Do Before They Die. Months of interviews, research and writing. I think it is awesome, I hope you will too. It will be published this fall. :)

Anyways, it was fun to use one of his books for our presidents' day activities. And for dinner we had mac and cheese, because rumor has it that Thomas Jefferson introduced it to the U.S., or at least was a very big fan of the dish.

Valentine's decor

I haven't posted any holiday decor for a while. Since I have a few new Valentine's things thought I would share. A few notes: the cute book heart banner was made for me by my sweet friend Jen. 2. The LOVE big scrabble tile word was so easy, I just had the boards cut at Home Depot and my friend cut the letters and numbers in vinyl (thanks Erica!) 3. The hearts that embellish my wedding photo and daisies were done by Lucas, and I simply couldn't refuse his sweet attempt at adding to our Valentine's decor. Bless that little heart.

Busted

Lucas was supposed to start preschool last week. But guess what? He came down with the virus that Isabel and Connor had... 7 days of a fever, horrendous cough, lethargic, no appetite, stomach aches... so I brought him in, and he too had pneumonia AND a double ear infection. Poor guy! He missed both days of school last week, so his first week of preschool was a bust. He is doing much better now and should be ready to go this week.

Then Mason came down with the virus, really nothing more than a runny nose but then it went straight to his lungs and caused a severe asthmatic reaction (he's never had asthma symptoms before). He woke up Thursday morning with extreme wheezing and was visibly struggling to get air in, so I rushed him in to the pediatrician. When the ped heard us coming down the hall (or rather, heard Mason's breathing) he scrambled and started yelling for epinephrine. He thought Mason was having stridor caused by croup, in which his throat was closing. Then upon listening to him closer he determined it was asthma, not stridor. His oxygen was down to 91/92 percent (not good), so he had a nebulizer treatment, and responded fairly well to that. We are now proud owners of a shiny new nebulizer, and Mason had to have frequent treatments for a couple of days as well as take oral steroids. He too is doing much better, just has a lingering cough. We have NOT had good lung situations as of late. Hoping this improves. Like his fish mask neb?

Mason's hair has gotten so long, so after his bath one morning I got impatiently impulsive and decided to give it a trim. It didn't go well. I got a bit carried away on the top and the sides, but didn't want to cut off the curly locks in the back, so he ended up with a mullet. A MULLET! My redneck baby! And I don't know where to go with it from here, so I am bringing him to my uber talented hairstylist friend Erica for help. Which I should have done in the first place. So I would call my attempt at cutting his hair this time a complete bust.

Here is his hair journey. It was so shaggy that after naps/in the morning if often looked like this:

When combed it was better, but still getting pretty shaggy, although some might kind it trendy-

And after the damage was done. Where I grew up we called this Hockey Hair. No matter what you call it, it's awful. I can't believe I did this. But of course I have to document it. Call him Billy Ray Cyrus, ask me if he knows the Achy Breaky Heart dance, tell me he needs a ripped tank top and Confederate Flag on his truck - I've heard it all. Ha. Ha.
A neighbor gave Brian a sugar pumpkin and suggested we make pumpkin soup with it. So I pureed the pumpkin myself (cut it into pieces, roasted it, then pureed it), and found a recipe. I did not like it. It was so pretty, and had a taste of fall, but overall I did not care for the flavor of the soup. Neither did the kids. So all that work was a bust. But it really did look pretty, esp. in my Anthropologie bowls, which fill me with joy.

One thing that was not a bust last week: my favorite new project, felt dahlias. I saw them on Pinterest, and fell hard for them. I have made a bunch of them, some as gifts. They are a bit time consuming, but are so fabulous on a cardigan or wool coat or a bag - they add such a great fall texture and pop of color. I'm talking serious project love here.

Kiss us, we're Irish

This was the first year I've had some decor for St. Patrick's Day, even if some of it came together at the last minute. I'm still feeling a bit in that first-year baby fog. Just a teeny bit.

I made these LUCKY blocks, love how they turned out. I was working on them while I watched all the coverage of the horrific events happening in Japan, Libya and throughout the Middle East, and every time I looked at the word I just kept thinking, "yes, I really am."
I picked up this cute sign-

A thoughtful friend gave me this cute wreath-

Same thoughtful friend made me this fun Irish saying, done in fun fonts and shades of green then printed on cardstock, which I framed. We snagged this awesome project idea from my friend Monique's blog, who had some really creative and fun St. Patty's decor this year (thanks for the inspiration!).
I framed a St. Patty's day pic of the kids to put next to it, perhaps I will update the picture each year with the most recent one-

On St. Patrick's Day morning, the kids woke up to discover Lucky the Leprechaun had made a very tricky visit; he had hung lucky seven green streamers from their bedroom doorways-

and they also had tons of fun discovering all the other tricks he had played on us (milk turned green, dining room chairs and barstools overturned, message on the bathroom mirror in green marker, shamrock confetti sprinkled all over the counter, funny things stacked that normally aren't, and more). Seriously, it was like Christmas morning they loved all the little tricky surprised so much. Oh, children. Everything is better through their eyes.

For breakfast we had Lucky Charms, and shamrock scones with shamrock sprinkles-
various green foods made an appearance throughout the day, like green applesauce and green Jello.

We wore our green (don't mind Lucas, who had an eye incident of some sort and I didn't have time for him get happy as Connor had to catch the school bus)-

After school we did our annual treasure hunt for a pot of gold (chocolate coins); I hide the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow and then make a treasure map for them to use to find it. They love this.

We listened to my cousin's Meeting of the Waters, a beautiful instrumental CD (mostly piano) of traditional and original Irish tunes. Brian and I are both very Irish (his mom's a Kelley, mine's an O'Neill); I've posted before about his famous Irish poet/author relative, Padraic Colum. In reading last year's post I was just reminded that I intended to check out some of his books from the library this year, we'll still have to do that-

In the evening I went to the 8th Annual (2nd for me) St. Patrick's Day Girls' Night Out dinner with fabulous fun friends, and enjoyed every minute of it. Lucky, lucky, lucky to have so many wonderful friends in my life.