Newest Creation: Libby with Braids

This is my newest creation.  It is called Libby.  It features two thick braids and a big tri-colored flower (flower pattern by The Lovely Crow).  Love these colors together!

Now she's giving away a Silhouette SD!

Check out Craftaholics Anonymous by clicking on my sidebar button! She's giving away a Silhouette SD digital cutting tool for a prize to one of her readers!!
www.craftaholicsanonymous.net

Oh Crafty Me

I craft! Did you know I craft? No not the weird wikken stuff. I make stuff! I'm pretty sure I can make just about anything. Now finding the time and energy to do so is a different post, but when I do I love to make anything. I make crochet hats, booties etc. I make bows, bags and other little kiddie stuff.
One of my favorites sites is Craftaholics Anonymous! Linda always has cute stuff to share. Blogs are where I find all my ideas typically. So if you craft or want to craft or like to see what others are crafting you should check out her blog! Right now she is doing this fantastic giveaway for her "Blogiversary." You can click on my sidebar button to go straight there. Lots of awesome stuff! Go check it out!
http://www.craftaholicsanonymous.net/

A Big Night in the Casey House

We had a big night in the Casey house. Jillian has spent the week at Grandma's house and today (Thursday) I met my dad and he took Eden for the weekend. So this meant that it was an ALL AVERY night. We went to eat at her favorite restaurant, rented her a Scooby-Doo movie, got ice cream and a new folder for school (which she needed). She said she was getting spoiled! I'm pretty sure if they recognize they are getting spoiled then they are not spoiled right?! So after the movie I was about to clean her face with a wet wash cloth. Right after I wet it she came to me and said, "You know mom, when we were leaving the store my tooth leaned WAY forward." I took a look and sure enough it was just hanging there. I told her it was ready and to pull it just a bit and it would come out! Then I conviently had a fresh, wet wash cloth in my hand for her to bite on. It bled for just a minute. This was Avery's first tooth to loose! It's been 2 weeks since we it started on the wiggly path. Here's a pic of her little gap:

She already has her adult tooth making it's way in. The new tooth is WAY back behind the row of baby teeth.

She is all excited and ready to see what replaces her tooth come morning!
I made a quick little pouch for her to keep her tooth in hoping that I can do the ol' switch-er-roo when she's out to the world. She wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy that says, "Der Toof Fare, This is my frst Tooth! Avery Casey"

The Man questioned why I do the whole tooth fairy mess, but not Santa. My answer to that is that Santa is given god-like abilities (ie: he sees you when your sleeping, he knows when you've been bad or good) and seems to replace Jesus during the Christmas season. I haven't actually told Avery that there is a tooth fairy. She asked if the tooth fairy was real and I answered with a good ol' "What do you think?" allowing her to speculate and decide what makes sense to her. Since the whole tooth trade for money bit is secular I don't see a problem with it!

Anyway... she's all excited! It was a big night in the Casey house!

The Santa Lie

I guess I am alone in my "Santa Feelings". Perhaps it is the way I was brought up or maybe it's just my own realization. We don't do Santa. It is something fun that we pretend with and talk about, but we do not "do" Santa. We don't have presents from Santa. We don't put out milk and cookies. We don't have a "be good for the spying elf". And we don't believe Santa is watching us and seeing if we are naughty or nice.
Before you think I am a big "Scrooge" hear me out!
With all the Santa tradition comes telling your child the following:

"A man you don't know will be coming into your house while you sleep, via the chimney (or some other way you make up if you don't have one)
Giving you presents that elves make in a toy shop
Reindeer fly this man all around the world in one night doing this to every house
This man can SEE you all the time!
This man knows what you are doing and how you are behaving.
This man knows what you are thinking!"

All of this bothers me tremendously! And here is why.
How am I to tell my children all these lies? Yes they are lies regardless of the fun of the kids believing and the excitement. I am supposed to tell them that THIS man can see them and THIS man knows what they want and THIS man knows how they behave. Only to have them realize a few years later that it was all lies.
AND THEN... and here's the big deal for me.... they are still expect to believe that Jesus is real. That God actually can see them, that God actually does know what they are thinking and what they want!! That their blessing come from Him. Ya right! No intelligent kid is going to continue to truly believe in the real Lord and his omniscient ability after being lied to when they were younger and more naive.
I don't see how lying to my kids when they are gullible can possibly have a good affect on them later in life.
All this to say... It seems like no one else (besides Starsha that I know of) feels this way. My Christian friends all do Santa at their homes. I feel strongly about it. I guess it doesn't matter so much what other families do. To each their own and all. It just bothers me that people don't see the correlation between Santa and the God-like abilities Santa is given and God, Jesus and the true Christmas story.
My kids should trust me. This means that I do no lie to them... ever.
We do fun stuff with Santa and have fun with it all, but my kids know that Santa's not a real person and will not be "visiting" us at Christmas time.

Alright... there is my rant on the evils of Santa!
Thoughts?

Who needs preschool when you have a big sister!

Here's a little video of Avery reading and teaching the twins. She LOVES to teach them colors and letters. She's the best Big Sister!!




She would read to them all day and teach them everything she knows if she could!

What's for Dinner?

I made this last night for dinner and everyone liked it, it was fairly simple, and it makes a BUNCH!

Sorry I have no photo's. Maybe I will take some next time I make it.

Tomato Alfredo with Sausage

1 1/2 lbs mild Italian Sausage Links (I used fully cooked Kielbasa Sausages. Worked fine)
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped or use a garlic press
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 medium green bell pepper
2 - 14.5oz cans Italian seasoned diced tomatoes, undrained
1 - 15oz can tomato sauce
1 tsp sugar (I used about a half a tsp for fear of making it actually taste sweet. Around here we like to say "NO SWEET MEAT!")
16 oz uncooked mostaccioli, rigatoni or penne (I used rotini)
1/4 cup of whipping cream (I used heavy cream and I used about 3/8ths cup)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I used the stuff in the green can. Take if from a wife of a man who works at a cheese plant... it's all the same as the fresh stuff... just costs less)

How to Put it all together:

If you use Kielbasa then you can skip step 1 & 2 because it is already cooked, but you should warm it up a bit in the skillet before adding the garlic.

1. Removed and discard casings from sausage links. Cut sausages crosswise into 1/2 inch pieces.

2. Cook sausage in large saute pan over medium heat for 8 minutes.

3. Add Garlic and continue cooking 2 minutes. Drain if necessary.

4. Stir in onion, bell pepper, tomatoes, tomato sauce and sugar. The pot was REALLY full at this point. I ended up moving it to a bigger pot rather than a saute pan.

5. Bring to a boil. Ruduce heat; simmer 20 minutes; stirring occasionally.

6. While sauce is cooking, prepare your pasta choice as directed on the pasta package and drain.

7. Remove sausage mixture from heat and gradually stir in whipping cream.

8. Serve over hot pasta. (I mixed it all together) Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if desired.

So there you go! This was our dinner last night and it was GOOD!

Enjoy! Let me know if you try it and what you tweaked!

Our Two Year Old Twins

The little ones made it to two (and so did we!) Here's a little video of their cupcakes that they got on their birthday.

Living Room Remodel

So I have wanted to replace the ugly dark paneling in our living room since we bought our home 3 years ago. Finally have a chance, so I am diving in. My dad came and helped me get started. We took one wall of paneling down which was actually really simple. He showed me how to make a joint (he assured me it wasn't that kind of joint). So we taped and sealed the seams between the dry wall.





Big sister came out of the bedroom where Gran was keeping the kids occupied and said that it was a beautiful color and she loved the cross we put on the wall!


So now I have to figure out how I will texture my walls. I want a knock down texture on the walls, but it's not so easy to do without high tech equipment. I found a tutorial here that had some easy and good suggestions.
So I tried it. So far... not really sure I like what I see. I am waiting on it to dry and I would give it a 60% chance that I will sand it back off. I used joint compound on the wall, so I should be able to remove it easy enough if I think it's not what I want.


I needed a smaller bucket that my putty knife and other tools would fit into. A Wipes Case worked wonders! And it closes up to keep it moist still.


More to come... I am hoping this isn't a nightmare I have created for myself!

A Little Update on Avery

Avery is doing WONDERFUL in Kindergarten. Even though she is ahead a year for now she is keeping up and learning fast! She has started reading recently. I have put up a little video for you to see!



She also very much enjoys her new baking stuff that she got for last Christmas! She loves to cook and bake so that her brother and sister have a snack when they wake up from nap. They are more than happy to take advantage of her skills! Here's a pic of her baking.




















Avery is a very sweet child. She LOVES to help with her brother and sister any time she can as long as it does not include stinky diapers! I asked her if she wished she were the twin's mommy and she beamed and said, "Yay! That'd be great"! She tries to do a little too much mothering sometimes, but she really means well. Avery loves to swim, ride her bike, anything outside, but most of all she LOVES to play with Eden and Jillian. She really is a wonderful daughter!!

Or Eden will Zoom ahead!

So I said Jillian won the walking race, but that may have been a little bit preemptive. She does have better balance and always has. She will stand up and maintain her balance for a long time. She's even started twisting at the waist and bending way over without even a stumble. She will also take about 5-6 steps when she wants to, but those have not been very often. She usually has no desire to walk and hasn't taken off on her own.
Eden has usually just stood there dancing and giggling rather than taking steps. Today Eden really got into it! He started walking between Ken and I! He walked longer distances than Jillian had, and he was much more interest in doing so. So... all that to say that Jillian may get credit for taking the first steps, but if Eden continues he will get credit for walking first! Here's a video of his new moves (sorry it's so dark):

Jillian may win this race!!

Yes I know my blog is very unupdated (pretty sure I just made up that word)! But this was just blog worthy!! Have a look at Jillian's new moves!

A very close 2nd!!

Jillian came in a very close 2nd place in the crawling race!! She started her big moves last night! So much for letting them play in the living room in the morning with toys while I take a shower! Here is a video of her. I didn't get a great video of her yet. She is very slow, but I imagine that will change fast!

Eden's on the Move!! Beware!

Yes that's true Eden won the race! He started moving his hands this week while on his knees and he is now crawling! He is slow and falls back on his belly, but he can get across the room and will be into EVERYTHING very soon I'm sure! Here's a video of his first moves!

Jilly Giggle is a big Hit!

Well I guess Jillian's laugh was a big hit, so Here's one more video of the same thing, but you can hear Avery laughing at her too. Each time Avery laughs Jillian stops to look at her wondering what's so funny!

Giggly Jilly!!

My little Jillian does laugh! She has been quite the handful in her short life so far. She was a very serious baby and it took her a long time to even smile. She finally laughed, but it took her 6 months to get there. Until recently she would still rarely laugh. Now I can usually get her to laugh fairly easily, but the other day she was in the exersaucer and entertained herself really well with a toy. I managed to get the camera and take a video. Here it is:

Beasts turn sweet??

Anyone that has spent any time with me knows that I refer to my screaming sweeties as my little Beast Children!! Especially my little Jilly! They are almost 8 months old now and for the past 8 months people have been telling me that it will get easier... that it won't always be this hard... that they will become more independent... It seemed as if those days would never come.

Well I'm not saying the day is here and here to stay (I'm being non-committal), but they have been easier lately!! During the day they are typically happy and typically more easy going. They will play in the floor with a toy and spend time rolling around and practicing their crawling too. A little reprieve at least for me!

So not as often will I have beast children! I am actually enjoying them some!! Which is just amazing for me! I feel like I've just missed out on anytime that mom's should have to enjoy the tiny new baby. Hopefully I can relax a bit now and cuddle them while I can! Here's a recent pic:















Now I should go let them out of their crib while they are still in their nice form!!

Flying Squirrels... or not

My dog has a habit of having his barking sessions at the neighbor dog or a passing pedestrian during naptime. This bothers me. If you are a mom you know how nice and wonderful and much needed naptime is. I take lots of careful planning to get 3 children down for a nap at the same time so I can do things I need to do! So when the barking started today, I race outside ready to ream the dog for barking, but he is looking up and barking... which is odd. So I look up and see and hear two cute fuzzy little squirrels playing way in the top of a tree! Wally quit barking when he saw me, but just as I looked up I see one of the squirrels DROP right out of the tree and THUD on the ground! I went over there to see if it was hurt, but it fell in the neighbor's yard (which is a good thing cause even an injured squirrel has no chance of survivial in my yard of dogs that would think it's a play toy!) I couldn't see it, so I can only imagine it survived somehow and scurried off... Just thought it was really odd. I've never seen a squirrel fall before. They are usually really good at hanging on. Maybe it lived... we'll go with that!! At least my kids are still asleep! Here's a pic... my finger is pointing to the part of the tree they were in and you can see how high up it was. Not sure why I am so facinated by this or why it deserved a blog entry!!

Okay, well the top of my finger anyway...

He tries to look innocent!

Guess this is what he really thinks of me!!

Avery's Thanksgiving videos

I meant to put these up sooner, but didn't! This is Avery's very cute Thanksgiving songs. She was the one singing loudly and out of tune, but it was still precious!!

A word from Avery

Avery enjoys calling her grandparents on the phone and chatting with them. This particular occasion she had called my dad and was hoping to talk long enough to avoid naptime! Here's how the talk went:

Avery: Hi Pa. where are you?

Pa: I'm at work.

Avery: Where's Gran?

Pa: Well she's at her work. Did you want to talk to Gran?

Avery: Ya, but she won't call me back. (It had been about 2 minutes since she left a message)

Pa: She's probably just busy at work, but she will call you back. She's not like Grandma and Grandpa that are REtired. They get to stay home now, but Gran and I still go to work each day.

Avery: Maybe if you're tired one day you can stay home from work too!

he he he!! I thought it was very cute what they hear and how words get mixed up!