The tooth fairy is going broke

Payton lost one of his front teeth after over a year since he lost his two bottom teeth. It has been losse for weeks and it finally fell out. Two days later, the other front tooth fell out. So, now he has a big huge gap in the front of his mouth. Alexis also had a molar pulled on the day in between Payton losing his two. Pulled molars pay big bucks from the tooth fairy ;)

These are after losing the first tooth.

Payton showing off his tooth.

New random pictures of the kids

What would an update be without new pics of my beautiful children? Sweet baby James sleeping in an outfit that Payton wore when he was two lol.

Payton promoting peace ;)


Alexis ignoring her brother.


new baby James pics:

Oh my goodness, I have some major updating to do!

I have been meaning to get to this for two weeks, but life has been unbelievably crazy around here. So much to tell, some very exciting, some unbelievably sad. But, all extremely important in my little life. I am going to try to go back as far as I can and get you all updated. This may take several posts. Two weeks ago, some of the girls from my downline and I got together to make dreams boards. It was just such an enlightening experience for me to let go a little bit of my goals, and to actually dream. I had small things and big things on there. Material and non material, but all importnast to me inb some small aspect. My sitter brought James to me to nurse and he fell aseep on the shoulder of one of the girls in my downline. He was so comfy. I was able to spend some time with some of the girls and really get to chat with them. It was great. Thanks girls.

I finally got my two dozen prefolds in the mail that I ordered quite awhile ago. I got them prepped and thw two older kids and I took on the job of dying them pretty colors. I was in charge of orange, Alexis did black, and Payton did blue. James slept in his swing nearby LOL. Here is our finished poroduct in bad light. I swear I am getting a new cam for my birthday, and my pics will get better. Im so mad I broke mine in Bryce Canyon. . When we were done, we all took off our gloves, and poor little Lex's hands were dark black. . We scrubbed and soaked for hours. I finally had to mix a little bleach and water to get them decent enough to go to school. We had a blast dying them though ;)

I got all of my banana bread done. My mom, and Jessica and I spent all day last Wednesday making 60 meals, (30 for my family and 30 for Jessica's) It took us about 12 hours burt was very rewarding when we finished. Heres what 60 meals look like crammed into a freezer LOL. Jon (my brother) and i are going to get my new deep freeze tomorrow. I am so excited to get it. Oh, I also froze 15 bags of corn last week as well. I never made it to peaches or tomoatoes but worse things have happened. So many other things have happened the last two weeks, but they all deserve their own posts, so I'll keep blogging away.

Preparation and Procrastinatron

Knowing a month in advance of my upcoming hysterectomy allows me a few weeks to prepare for the time I will be down. The baby and I are flying to Reno for three days in two weeks for Summit for the ACS Relay for Life training. Four days after we get back, we leave for Chicago to go see Tim! Wahoo! Two days after I get home, I go in for surgery. Six weeks after y surgery is my wedding. So, until I leave for Reno, I will be busy getting everything ready for my down time. There are a few things I want to accomplish before then.

1. Make 200 mini loaves of banana bread. I finally figured out the recipe and the right amt today. Here is the finished bread.
I made 80 mini loaves today, 120 to go :)

2. Pump approx. 150 oz or about 30-5oz bottles of breastmilk to have for James when I am under anesthia and on drugs. This has been difficult since this is in addition to the amount that I am nursing him. I am averaging about 2-4oz bottle a days. I have 20 oz. so far.

3. Make 30 freezer meals, so my family doesn't starve while I am down. I am preparing to do this, selecting my recipes. I want to have my complete menu and shopping list ready when I leave for Reno. I will be shopping the morning after I get back from Chicago and spend the next day cooking all 30 meals.

4. Can peaches and tomatoes and freeze corn and green peppers. This is at the minimum. I would like to do at least these four things this year, and then branch out to more veggies/fruits next year.

5. Do as much wedding stuff as I can. I went shopping for my flowers last week with Melissa. I really wanted her to do my flowers and since she is moving to Atlanta, we decided to do silk instead of fresh. She finished them up today and brought them over. Sorry for the crappy pics, my camera broke. My bouquet:

Nat's bouquet:

Throw bouquet:

Alexis' corsage is on the left. It is a wristlet. The one on the right is what my mom's, and both my grandma's look like.

Boutonierre(sp?): Tims, the middle is what ric's, my dad's, my grandpa's, and Payton's all look like. The tiny one on the right is for little James.


So, now that I have made myself look all prepared, let me show you my procrastination today. On Thursday, Payton's teacher sent a note home stating that Payton is going to be the start of the week next week and to send some items to hang on the wall for several different categories. I remembered this at about 5:30 pm today. So, here are a few of what I put together.

My Family:
My Favorite Place:

My Favorite Book:

My Favorite Toy:


And since our day would not be complete without a picture of James, here is one Payton took.

How freaking cute is he? And so begins the banana bread

The pictures of James keep getting better and better because apparently I have nothing better to do than to take a ton of pics of him. This is my second favorite pic ever, next to the eyebrow one.
James is just starting to play with toys, so big brother gave him his giraffe to play with while I was getting him settled for bed tonight. He LOVED it, wouldn't let go of it.

So, for our wedding I am making 200 mini loaves of banana bread for our wedding favors. My goal is to finish them in the next two weeks before I leave for Reno, and I am freezing them asI make them. I am using Tim's mother's recipe for banana bread which I got from his sister. I made my first batch tonight and they actually turned out really well. I am 10 down, 190 to go LOL. I was going to use the mini loave pans but decided to do the mini bundt pans. I am going to put a poem and our wedding info on little scrolls and put them in the center, then wrap them in tulle with a ribbon in our wedding colors. Here is a mini from the first batch.

Mommy's Night Out pics

Here are some pics of Mommy's Night Out at my house for Melissa's going away party. Here is me telling Patty not to take a picture of my boobs. She is obsessed, I tell ya ;)
We had five babies there. Here is Amber with Perry.

And James' girlfriend, Miss Eva.
and Patty with Eva
All the girls, Robyn, that is a super hot pose.
Neely feeding Hippo.
Sarah with Vaughn and Phylissa

Thanks for a great time girls!

Meetings, appts, and Mommy's Night Out

Last night was our monthly Angels/Divas SP meeting. We usually meet on the first Monday of every month, but this Monday was Labor Day, so we had it on Tuesday. Alishia and I conduct this monthly meeting. This month's meeting was poker night themed. We played Blackjack at he door, and our committee did a fabulous job with prizes, food, and fun. Alishia talked about attitude and I talked about goal setting. The girls had a great time!

I had a dr. appt this morning. I had a culposcopy done last week and I met with my dr. to get my results. I have severe dysplasia in my cervical canal, and because of some other complications, I am having a hysterctomy, October 1st. I have mixed emotions about this. The plus side, no more periods! Woohoo! Plus, it means two more months of staying home with my kiddos. I will go back to work on Dec. 1st instead of Oct. 6th. The negatives are of course it is major surgery. I will be in the hospital for 2-3 days. Since I am exclusively nursing baby James, I am going to have to diligently pump for the next month to build up a supply for him. St. Marks is letting me have the baby stay overnight with me so I can still nurse him. I am glad I do not have to be seperated from him :)

Tonight was our monthly Mommy's Night Out, which I always look forward to. This month's was mixed emotions as it was also Melissa's going away party :( I am really going to miss her. We had such a great day together today, shopping for flowers for my wedding, and she took me to my Dr's appt and we went to Cafe Rio for lunch. MNO was at my house again this month. We had a potato bar and all sat and talked and enjoyed each other's company. We had five nursing babies here tonight :) It was awesome! Oh, and James has been asleep for 4.5 hours so far (this is the longest he has slept ever without waking to eat )

James is 3 mo old today!

James is 3 months old today! I can't believe how fast the time goes by. It seems like he was just born. He is becoming very aware of his surroundings. He grabs at things, holds toys, and smiles and laughs all the time. Here he is sucking on his hands.


Alexis stayed home from school today, because she was up all night being sick. We spent the day cleaning out our storage and cleaning off our porch. This was a huge undertaking as we havent touched our storage in the over four years we have lived here except to stuff more crap in there. And, our porch was clean but when Tim came home we unloaded all of the extra stuff there. Plus, we had to make room for our new grill. Here are some after pics.


While I finished the porch, Alexis and Payton went fishing with their dad for a few hours at Settlement.

They caught lots of fish but did not keep any of them. They seemed to have a good time. Payton caught the most fish of any of them.

Alexis just likes fishing because she can relax and enjoy being outside.

The best part of today was this: When Payton potty trained many years ago, I put his cloth diapers away. When I got pregnant with James, I looked all over for that bag of diapers to no avail. So, I bought all new diapers, but still missed that bag of diapers from Payton since it had a lot of my fav dipes in there in very cute prints, and the mama that made them is no longer in business. I have been able to snag some used, but not in cute prints. Today at the very bottom back of the storage, I found the big bag of diapers. I am ecstatic. I will have to post pics tomorrow since they are in the wash. Tons and tons of diapers! Woohoo!

Why I LOVE Freecycle!

Today was a good freecycle day for me. I use it mostly to get rid of my extra stuff. Rarely, do I find something worth bringin into my home as I strive towards simplification. Today I picked up 23 sewing patterns for clothing for me. I also picked up some brand new hardback cookbooks, and a book I have wanted for a long time on Going Green, and green cleaners. But, the best deal of the day is this. Tim has been wanting a propane bbq for a very long time, but we havent been able to justify the expense while out on paternity/maternity leave. I brought it home, cleaned it up. It's in beautiful condition! I LOVE free stuff when it looks like this.

Baby James is all smiles and Some Pics from Last Weekend

I wanted to share some other pics with everyone. Last weekend, we went to a BBQ with a bunch of friends from the Mommies group. Here is James with his friend, Baby Eva. Eva is 3 weeks older than James. He is twice her size and not at all happy to be getting his picture taken. He was very good the rest of the time at the BBQ. We also went to the train muesem last weekend. They are getting ready to clsoe for the year so they had the trains out last weekend. Here are the kids on the train. They had a great time!

James is all smiles these days. He loves to laugh and smile. Every time he does, I wish his daddy was here to enjoy this milestone with me. And, this is one of my favorite recent baby pics. He got his Daddy's eyebrows, not mine LOL. Such a cutie!