3 reasons to celebrate today!

First, Ashlyn turns 7 today! I can't believe what an old lady she is. That's 49 in dog years, she's gonna love that. She was my tiniest baby (7 lbs 9 oz.) and my first girl so to see her losing teeth and asking for digital camera's and cell phones breaks my heart. Pretty soon it will be laptops and boyfriends... heaven help me.

The second reason to celebrate is today is the last 1/2 day of school! WAHOO! Now I have more slaves to help me pack, I mean now I get to spend quality time with my oldest two. No more homework freak outs!

The third reason is in honor of Ashlyn's birthday and my kids letting me sleep until 6:30 instead of 6:00 today I'll be doing a giveaway. How about one of these?

Just leave a comment wishing Ashlyn a happy birthday, remember she's 7 so nothing your momma would blush at please, and I'll let her pick her favorite comment and post it on Thursday. The winner will get just the canvas 8 x 10" art in his/her chosen object or animal and name (anything you want) without the frame. If the winner doesn't show his/her face by Saturday I'll re-draw, I'm not a fan of hunting anyone down like a dog to force you to take your prize so please come back Thursday if you've left a comment.

Have a great Monday. I'm off to carve a butterfly out of a round layer of cake. That's how much I love her.

She's lucky I like kittens.

She's turning 7 on Monday. She wanted to bring treats to school today. She asked ever so nicely for Hello Kitty treats. She has the most amazing and awesome mom ever!

They only took me over 4 hours to make. I was up until after 1 a.m. covered in white chocolate with only 16 of these heads to show for it. 4 are cracked. 1 fell off it's stick in the chocolate. I ran out of hours to do whiskers and couldn't find the right supplies to do anything else. Thank you Bakerella- thanks a lot ;).

My aunt Tina bought me the most awesome cupcake book (Hello Cupcake) for my birthday and I couldn't wait to use it for Ashy's birthday but of course miss Ashy pants wants a butterfly *cake* for our family party. I don't do cake, especially the cutting of the layers. Where's my fairy godmother?! Only 3 more birthdays to go and I'm scott free for the rest of the year!

The angels have their wings...

I love the altered tank top from the book Sew darn cute and thought I would give it a go. I had the girls choose their favorite scraps from my scrap basket, which by the way Mary picked all her fabrics by herself- I'm impressed, and thought they would be really cute with little sleeves. I put trim around the neck and added some beads between the scallops for some bling and if that wasn't busy enough I had to go and add wings.

I don't thing they turned out too bad but not at all what I had in mind. I wanted subtle little sleeves and instead the girls look like the Prince from Cinderella. All they need now is the fringe.

They love them as is and I'm not the type to rip out stitches and start over so I'm starting a new fashion trend. Tanks with wings. Think it will catch on? ;)

Going a little more green.

Here at the Baxter residence we are doing our part to stay green. Literally. We've deployed our mobile fertilizing unit now that the weather is nice and warmish. Cody built this chicken coop and run from scrap wood that I can move around the yard to help keep the lawn nice and green :). When we get into our new house it won't be mobile but in this house there just isn't room for 9 chickens to ruin the lawn in one spot or roam free, unless we let them terrorize main street and all the shoppers/grass roots goers. Hey, that's a good idea! I'm sure if I let them loose during grass roots no one would even blink an eye though. They'd just give them a stiff drink and ask them to dance.

Anyway, keeping the chickens outside smells much MUCH nicer than having them in my house. The strawberry jam I made actually smells like strawberry! So hard to eat when all you smell is chicken fertilizer.

Before and After

Ashlyn's surgery went really well. She got a new teddy bear friend as a gift that went in with her and got his own war wounds in the operating room. If that's how they treat a perfectly healthy bear I'm glad he went and not me ;). It's the last surgery for her so whoo hoo! Hopefully she'll be up and dancing in no time.

While Ashlyn was down for the count I couldn't really go anywhere and she didn't really need much other than movies and rest so I finished re-doing the highchair. I'm not sure how I feel about the finished look. It was so much cuter in my head but it is so much easier to clean so it's a keeper. Here's the before.... complete yuck!!

And here's the after....

I just used the old seat as a template and traced around it. I still have the old cover I can use as a backup.

Don't mind the cruddy pictures, we're all sick on top of everything else so I just snapped and loaded without posing and photoshopping. Sometimes it's just not worth the extra effort you know.

I found the best fabric panels yesterday for $1.50 a panel! Cody was home until last night so I snuck out, and I have big plans for them- BIG! Okay so maybe not that big but I'm going to have some fun this week :).

I'm not sure what happened to the picture Cody posted yesterday, you know this darn blogspot loses things sometimes ;).

I cut out a new cover for Kennedy's high chair this week and I'm so excited! Her high chair has an all cloth cover that gets filthy with every meal. Why don't they make covers that are actually cute and easy to clean? I was digging through my stash and found a bunch of oil cloth I bought about 4 years ago and it's perfect. Hopefully I can whip it up after the kids go to bed and I can share pictures later. I hate sewing with oilcloth so it should be an experience.

In family news Ashlyn is going under the knife first thing tomorrow morning. It's the same procedure she had to have done last year only on the other side this time. She was so brave last time until she realized what happened so I hope she can handle it. It's so hard to be a mom and voluntarily take your child in for surgery. If I had a magic wand I would just poof her all better. Unfortunately mom kisses aren't strong enough to battle hernias so keep us in your thoughts tomorrow.

The Man Of The House

I don't typically hijack Bridget's blog because it's her deal not mine, but she told me I could and said "don't post anything embarrassing." So here we are and in light of the recent holiday I thought it appropriate to do something about her. We have been married for 9+ years now and together for 11+. We seem to talk about how things used to be b.c. (before children) fairly often, so I went back b.c. and found a picture that reminds me of why we are where and what we are today.

We are here now because after 11 years we still can't live without each other. She is the love of my life and always will be. I will always try, unsuccessfully, to grow facial hair and she will always be HOT!

So there you have it. Love and embarrassment all wrapped up neatly in one little post.

The End

I've been in the mood for paybacks lately, but not the vicious mean kind the "thanks for all you've done" kind. I made a few things for my blog friend Kelli and now that she's gotten it I can share.

Kelli sent me a box full of dinners and desserts when I had Kennedy forever ago and I've been wanting to thank her ever since. I wish I could've done more because Kelli deserves it! I have a few more blog friends in mind so If you get a random package from Oregon that you aren't expecting it's probably me... or someone creapy and you shouldn't open it. If it has a bird on the outside it's me ;o).

Making my mark...

In cookware. I've had a blast marring up the bottoms of my 9x13's. No more lost or misplaced pans ever again!

I know it's old news for most of you but we've never done it here and I always wanted to. My achievement day girls were invited to do glass etching with the young women a couple weeks ago and I've had glass etching on the brain ever since. I didn't realize until after I did all 6 of my big pans that my name was facing the wrong way when you look into the pan so I'm going to do all my 8x8's and loaf pans with my name reversed.

I cut my stencil in vinyl on my silhouette and used glass etching cream. The cute little measuring cup is a free embroidery pattern from Vol. 25 here. She has an entire set of kitchen doodles in her etsy shop for only $3.25 if you would like to give those a whirl. Who says embroidery patterns are just for use with threads, oh I'm a rebel ;).

Her royal highness is 3 today!

I can't believe how big she's getting! She's such a funny and tall little string bean. We celebrated her birthday on Wednesday and it was a great day filled with pink and princess everywhere.

3 of my favorite things about Kaci-
1. She's got such a cute unruly hairdo. I love every unmanageable curl!

2. She's very in tune to how her mom and dad are feeling. When we look unhappy in the slightest she's the first to come up and make sure we're okay. She wraps her little hands around our faces and looks genuinely concerned. Love that.

3. She refuses to eat the hole of a bagel. I think she thinks it's the crust and that's why I find bagel holes all over. I mean all over, under the couch, in her room, in the oven. She's funny. Except when I find bagel holes in my oven.

I just love her to pieces, Happy Birthday Kaci!

One more thing, we got 10 baby chicks this week. It was my idea. I already regret it.

What can I say? I have a soft spot for bitty chickens. This is year 3 or 4 for baby chicks at our house and every year they don't make it past summer with us either giving them to new homes because they are roosters or unfriendly wildlife thinking they are really tasty. Pretty cute though, for now.