Alive with 5

Isn't there a kid song with something about being alive and 5? Maybe I'm thinking of a rock song or something, something catchy about still being alive at 5 a.m.? Doing time and still being alive after serving 5? That's going to bug me all day until I figure it out. I just wanted to jump in and let you know that I'm still alive. Barely, but I'm hanging in here. Five kids- HOLY SMOKES! It's not bad or anything but I'm certainly busy. A good kind of busy- just look at these sweet innocent faces. All five of them.

Can I just mention how hard it is to get 5 kids to look at you and look cute at the same time. It must take a miracle or a talent I don't have because I couldn't do it!

My Aunt Tina came to visit us on Saturday so while the kids still looked decent and in one piece I managed to snap a few pictures. It was so nice to visit with Tina. I don't get much adult interaction these days so it was nice to spend an entire afternoon speaking in an adult tone with someone who doesn't need their diaper changed, yet anyway- ha ha. The little people are pretty much taking my full attention right now, which is great, but a little me time (and a ding dong) would be fantastic! I haven't been on the internet in a week, not even to check my mail. Internet withdrawl is setting in!! I can't believe Kennedy will be a month old on Friday. Hopefully I can get on my blog again before she turns 2 months, sheesh.

This and That

I can't believe a week has gone by already. It just flew by and I feel like I've been in a hypnotic trance and missed everything. Nothing much has happened thank goodness but where does the time go? The last time I was on the Internet was 4 days ago- I've missed over 350 of my favorite blog posts ( I like a lot of blogs ) and had over 75 e-mails. I'm never going to get caught up! I'm trying ever so hard to visit and comment on all my new visitors blogs but it might take me a while to get to them all. I really do visit everyone that visits here... I just can't comment a lot of the time but gosh darn it I try! Okay, this is not what I was going to say today so where was I...

I don't have very much time lately for the things I love, you know- sewing, scrapbooking, and showering but I did manage to eek in a little sewing time the other day. I bought myself a really cute shirt to wear post baby but it turned out that I lost more weight than normal so it didn't fit. Since I only paid $3 for it and it would have cost me $12 to return it in gas I decided to cut it up and make Ashlyn a skirt. I added a lining and some ric rac and viola`... I love it. I'm going to turn the sleeves into a pair of pants for the baby next. Not too shabby for $3.

The baby was still sleeping after I sewed the skirt so I tried to be el speedy and whip up an art smock for Ashlyn for school. I took another clearance shirt and re purposed it. I love doing that. Curvy and I have a few kinks to iron out when it comes to applique but it's going to get thrashed with paint at school so no big deal. The little paint blobs look more like beans which bothers me.

While digging around for my pictures I found this... isn't she lovely, and on that note have a fantastic Friday.

Kid tested

It never occurred to me until a day or so ago that-

1. I have a pile of mostly finished baby booties.

2. I have 1 teeny tiny pair that I was questioning the size of.

3. I have a new teeny tiny baby.

So today I stripped my wiggly baby and tried a pair on her. I'm happy to say that the tiny pair fit her like a glove. I couldn't have sewn them any smaller or any bigger for my 1 week old. I wish she would have been sleeping though. Now to tackle #1 and finish the pile so I can take real pictures on my model. That is if she cooperates and the weather is good for outside shots ,I was just playing today in my dungeon (the living room) . I need to steal, okay maybe borrow a 3 month old for the next size up... hmmm who do I know...

My brief hiatus

I'm back to blogging and I'm feeling so much better. I haven't been able to log into my blog since I came home on Thursday so everything witty and great I was going to post about is gone now. I don't have the energy to remember. All I can think about now is my mountain of laundry and getting some sleep, lots and lots of sleep. Now that it's day 6 I feel great. I'm smaller than I was a week ago and having a nursing baby sure makes you sit down a lot so I'm getting plenty of time to relax.

I thought about posting my birth story but I love babies and my birth experience this time would cause most women to go out and get a hysterectomy right now so I'm really doing everyone a favor, I want the human race to continue ;o). Kennedy is just the cutest and sweetest baby ever. She has quite a bit of brown hair, blue eyes, her dad's nose, her mom's dimply chin, and the physique of a butterball turkey. She reminds me of Mary with Kaci's eyes and Ashlyn's hair color. She's just her own little person really though. She's my biggest baby so far and tied for the shortest, part of the reason my birth story isn't sharable.

I don't have any great pictures of her because the weather this week hasn't been the best picture weather but here she is- as is- the day we came home from the hospital and one shot from today.
Kennedy Mae Baxter

I caught a cold while I was in the hospital so between that, just having a baby, and school starting today I'm wiped out so forgive me if my posts are a little sparse. Have a great Monday!

Cody here, hijacking Bridget's blog to let everyone know that Kennedy is here. 08/19/08 8:22 p.m. 9lbs 8.4oz and 20 inches long. I'm sure Bridget will post something good in the next couple of days, but I'll have to do for now.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I'll love ya- Tomorrow

She's only a day away!!!!

By this time tomorrow I should be completely freaked out by the fact that I'm going to be the mom of 5 and well past the point of no return, what was I thinking ;o). Actually right now I'm totally freaking out and sweating and nauseated and I'm sure I'm forgetting everything except what it feels like- AHHHH!

I'm still in one piece and it hasn't hit me that I'll have my bread dough figure back and a new baby tomorrow. Wish me luck (that and a heaven sent anaesthesiologist with an epidural) and hopefully I'll have really cute pictures to share Thursday evening.

Sewing and yawning.

I'm so tired! I woke up to powder my nose at 4 a.m. and Kennedy decided we were on Beijing time and started her version of the gymnastic floor exercises. As I was laying there thinking of sleeping I heard Kaci yelling "Mom!" over and over. If anyone else has a two year old that wakes up at 4 a.m. and decides it's morning you know what that's like. I popped in Cinderella and tried to sleep on the couch while she watched the movie but kept getting poked and prodded with "Mom, siddy cat", "Mom, a horsey", "Mom, no sleeping". Hopefully she'll crash later and I can take a quick snooze myself. Or I can sew. Yeah, I think I'll sew, sleep is for wussies.


I've been cleaning like a pregnant lady the last few days and there's really nothing left I want to clean so I did a little sewing yesterday. I made a few burp cloths and worked on more booties. I have 7 pair cut out and I have 5 days left so I'm sure I won't get them all done before baby but darn it I'm gonna try!

And look at this adorable bear rattle! As Mary told me this morning "Mom, that is soooo stinking adorable". Des from Quilt Taffy surprised me and sent it to me for the new baby, she is so sweet! I can really appreciate all the work that goes into crocheted things, that's one talent I can't seem to find and I've been told not to even try by a 90 yr old pro who said she could teach anyone to do it- ahem, I proved her wrong ;o). I love the stripes and pink and brown are my favorite baby girl colors. Thank you so much Des! I tried to take a picture out of the cute wrapping but my camera wouldn't focus- I hate that. It's such a cute rattle.

Speaking of Quilt Taffy if you haven't been to their blog or store you have to go. Des and Corrie are just the sweetest most hilarious bloggers. They are so giving and give fabric away every week, and they just stocked their store with Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market fabric. I'm drooling and I can't wait to make some girly baby things with it, when I finally decide which print I want anyway.

Have a great Thursday!

No title today- just a story.

Sometimes I spend so much time thinking about a good title I don't even end up posting because I can't think of a worthy one so today- no title. I know, I need counseling or something.

Speaking of needing therapy I really do need it after yesterday. I was planning on posting a bit about Mary's birthday, Jeremy was in the newspaper- such a photogenic lad, the girls went to a doll clinic put on by the hospital that was really cute, some sewing projects gone terribly wrong, and the end of the "Grass Roots" but I can't get past yesterday. It's a long story so if you're not up to reading today just post a comment saying "oh, how embarrassing. Next time buy the sucker" and I'll understand ;o).

It all starts with a dumb dream I keep having. In my dream I'm in an extremely public place, usually a store and I'm right in the middle of a crowd of people, and my water breaks and no one will help me and I can't reach Cody. I'm just stuck in the store. Well yesterday it came true- sort of. I had an appointment yesterday so I made a trip into town with the kids. The appointment was fine and before I left for home I made a quick stop at Wal-mart. I had to return a few things and the kids were acting like wild animals. Imitating their mom from grass roots probably but it wasn't cute when there were a million people waiting in line and my kids are wrestling, yelling, screaming, etc... so I didn't feel like staying there for long at all.

We make our usual round and end up in the baby section. I'm just about ready to leave when Mary tells me she has to go potty. Usually I have a good 15 min or so before we risk accident but not this time. We race as fast as I can waddle towards the bathroom when I notice a trickle right in the middle of the busiest intersection of the store- electronics and the main isle. I stop so I don't trail a huge mess and send Jeremy to get an "associate" for help. Everyone is staring at me and I keep thinking "move along, there's nothing to see. Haven't you seen an accident before?". The electronics guy comes over and just looks at me giving me an "I'm not coming near you with a ten foot pole look" and asks if I'm alright. Me? Yeah, I don't think any got on me. Then I notice about 5 gazillion (maybe an exaggeration) eyes looking at me.

The entire store stopped at that very second and started to stare at me. They thought my water broke and everyone just stood there wondering who was going to do something. I was so embarrassed. I've never be so embarrassed in all my life, well maybe I have but as of that moment I wasn't remembering anything worse. I announced in my squeakiest Peter Brady tone, my daughter has just had an accident. Everyone slowly trickled away acting like "that's all, what was I looking for again". The electronics guy, relieved, said "oh, that happens everyday- no big deal!" and walks off to get paper towels. None of my kids has ever had an accident in the store before so Mary's timing was excellent. She does know how to grab attention and I swear she did it on purpose for not giving in on buying her a ring pop. After we get her some new pants and I try to leave again Jeremy's flip flop broke and we had to make round two when I just wanted to crawl in a hole and eat ding dongs for the rest of the evening. Good times!

A bit of good news yesterday though, I've had an induction scheduled for a while now and yesterday they checked to see if we were going to go ahead. You have to meet at least 2 of 3 conditions to be induced and I met 0. None, but my super fantastic Dr. said we are going to go ahead anyway. I'm not a huge fan of induction since I have no problem going into labor on my own but when you have 9 lb kids and a husband who works out of cell phone range it's very appealing. So the baby has been served an eviction notice. If she chooses to stay put she will be evicted on the 19th, a week from today. Only a week to go, or hopefully less!

Do you know what today is?

No, not the Beijing Olympics. No, not the 50 gazillion weddings happening today. No, not baby day. Give up? It's the beginning of the Grass Roots Festival here in town!!! Oh for joy! Much like the Olympics it will prove to be very entertaining to watch. I really wish some big t.v. executives would come here, have I got some reality t.v. for you-

• Littering rubber ducks in salmon habitat. (PBS special?)
• So you think you can Dance- Bud light edition.
• Oregon's got Talent and they know how to turn the speakers up all the way!
• What Not to Wear- ever ever ever.
• Kids say the darndest things, around here it's phrases that would make a sailor blush.
• Girls gone wild, or I suppose that's Over the Hill girls gone wild. There promises to be a wet tube top around here somewhere. (I think I just threw up a little bit).
• CSI- Who left the billion beer cans in my front yard?
• Survivor- that would be me and unfortunately I think I'm going to lose- stay tuned.
• Desperate Cowgirls, lots of them.
• Cops- well that will most likely turn out like the real show so never mind.

I'm sure there's going to be more and I'm so lucky I just happen to live right in the middle of all the fun. One good thing about all this is that I've gone deaf from last years experience so the speakers don't sound as loud so far, or maybe they're saving the wall shaking festivities until after dinner.

If staring at a skinny chick faux cursing at them through her window waving her birthday gun last year didn't do anything to scare them off- just wait until they see a beached whale bellowing at the top of her lungs in her night gown coming straight at them at 6 a.m. and 12 a.m. It'll be like the nature show "When animals attack". I'm not in the mood this year folks- you've been warned, all 2,000 of you.

Sock horse- check.

Mary's birthday will be here before I know it and I have so much to do. I have to decide what kind of cupcakes I'm going to make so I can go get supplies, find where I stashed her gifts a month ago and wrap them, clean the house, and where oh where can I buy an elevator?

I asked her what she wanted for her birthday the other day and she told me "I want an appaloosa horse, a new pinky pie because there's a yellow mark on her, an elevator..." and several other things I can't remember right now. So I asked a little more about the elevator and apparently it's just too hard to climb the stairs to go to bed at night so she needs one. I should have wished for one for my birthday, I could really use one right about now!

I'm really not prepared for anything right now, Mary's birthday or otherwise but darn it- I got the sock horse finished yesterday. Thank you Cody's family taking my oldest 3 on a super long mountain ride and Kaci for taking a 3 hour nap. I love the color scheme but for some reason it looked so much better without eyes. I might rip them off if Mary wants me to. The socks were super cheap and cute and the yarn is 100% cotton (not sure why it's shiny in the picture?) not that creepy acrylic stuff. I can't wait to make more- eyeless next time.

Have a great weekend, and yes I'm still plugging away at trying to open up my Etsy shop- hopefully before Christmas- sheesh!