Happy Birthday Morgan!!!

Don't worry, she gets a real cake Saturday when her friends will be over.

Yesterday, Morgan turned 8! She was our early Christmas present. Her "real" party will be on Saturday, but we always let the birthday child open presents from us on their actual birthday.

Morgan asked for Lego Friends and ended up getting quite a few of them from us and Grandpa Steve.

We'll have more birthday pictures on Saturday after her big party!

Halloween 2014 {2nd year on the Ketogenic Diet}

Can I just say how glad I am that Halloween is over? It is probably the hardest holiday on the Ketogenic Diet. Thanksgiving has food, but a lot of that is easy to make similar Keto approved items. Christmas has candy, cookies, and gingerbread decorating parties, but it also has presents and singing. Valentine's is kind of a pain when your kid can't eat any goodies, but it's the easiest one to ignore and there are always cute stuffed animals to give instead of candy. There is quite a bit of food involved with Easter, but it's pretty easy to stuff eggs with money and little prizes instead of candy. Halloween though, pretty much revolves around candy Owen can't eat. He also can't wear face paint, use temporary tattoos, or carve pumpkins without gloves. Even with gloves, we have to watch to make sure he doesn't get anything above the gloves.

Now a huge part of it is just Rod and I stressing about things that usually don't happen, but it makes things tense instead of fun. We end up worrying about every possible thing that can possibly go wrong. Although I never worried about him biting through a glow stick which someone else's Keto kid did this year. By the way, if your child does ever eat a glow stick, poison control recommends giving them milk. Then if they are on the Ketogenic Diet, you have to give them a bunch of oil to counteract the milk. One more thing to add to the worry list for next year, right?

Owen just wanted to poke at his pumpkin with the little carving blade

Anyway, most of the things we worried about and prepared for, never actually became problems. The kids had a blast, as usual. Owen only asked twice if he could have any candy. Most of the time, he was just happy to get to ring doorbells. He LOVES ringing doorbells. This year he also discovered door knockers and had fun with those too. Brenna thinks all the candy belongs to her. She just helps herself to everyone's treat bags. She won't share her own though, like a typical two year old.

Morgan told Brenna that her pumpkin was cute. To which Brenna replied " No It's not! It's scary!"

I didn't get many pictures of the kids in their costumes, as usual. I just don't seem to have enough hands for the camera. I only made one costume piece this year, everything else was recycled from previous years or the dress up box.

Devon was a flapper, Connor was a hunchback, Cameron was a troll, although he couldn't wear the mask most of the time because Brenna was scared to death of it. Duncan was a wizard (I wouldn't let him be a which hunter, because I'm mean), Morgan was a witch ( which is the reason Duncan wanted to be a witch hunter and the real reason I wouldn't let him), Owen was Frodo again, he refused to be anything else. Brenna was a butterfly, fairy princess. All three because being one or the other simply wasn't good enough. Baby Carlitos was supposed to be a tiger, but he was really grumpy due to cutting teeth and refused to wear his costume. Luckily he's adorable anyway.

The kids are actually coming down off their sugar high pretty well. I didn't get any complaints when I told them they had to get dressed and do their chores before they could have any candy. The Candy Fairy arrived late Halloween night and replaced Owen's candy with a Lego set and some color change glasses, which he is thrilled with and Mommy finally got to take a nap, so we're all pretty happy right now.

Kid's Clothes Sewing Week Wrap Up {Fall 2014}

                                                      

                                      

This last week was Kid's Clothes Sewing week again. I skipped the summer one because we were just too busy that week. This week, I had a bunch of sewing projects I needed to work on anyway, so I decided this would be great motivation to finish some of it. I did get in my hour a day of sewing each day (even the day Rod worked until midnight!). I didn't, however, get pictures of anything until today.
My first project was Morgan's witch skirt for her Halloween costume. I told the kids I wasn't doing much sewing for Halloween this year, so they cobbled together costumes from previous years and the dress up box. Morgan had seen a costume in a catalog she really liked though, so when I was in Joann's picking up a few other things, I couldn't resist this orange cobweb fabric.

The next two things I made were for Morgan also. It finally got cold here and I realized that most of Morgan's pants were way too short. I made her two pairs of Parsley Pants out of baby wale corduroy. I made a size 7 for her, but I added several inches of extra length including enough to make a small cuff that we can roll down as she grows. I'm hoping they'll last through the winter that way.

Then I started in on baby things. I don't need much for this baby, but a few long sleeved items were on my list. I didn't save much from Morgan and Brenna was born in May and didn't need many warm items. These little dresses are made from side snap t-shirts. I love side snap T's for little babies, but they are kind of boring so I dressed them up a little.

For this little dress I used one of my most often used patterns, the Miss Violet pattern by The Handmade Dress. I've never actually made this pattern according to the directions, not even once. I use it as a base pattern for all sorts of little smock type dresses. This time I used a soft cotton lawn. I extended the sleeves to be long, cut it down the front and added button plackets, and bound the neck edge instead of using elastic. I also pleated the front instead of gathering it.

The next little dress I made was from a  French pattern. I love Citronille patterns! If I had unlimited funds, I'd probably have all of them. I used the Rose pattern for this dress. I made a few changes here too. I extended the length to a dress instead of a tunic and I closed up the back instead of leaving it open.

I ended up with SEVEN finished projects! Which I think is pretty good seeing as most days I only got in the minimum hour of sewing time. Most of the projects were pretty simple, but I'm still giving myself a thumbs up. Now If I just do two more weeks of this, I should be mostly caught up with the amount of sewing I want to get done.





 

Baby Dedication!

Today was Kevin-Carlos' Baby Dedication! Cassi was even able to come all the way from Kentucky!

Owen had to get involved, Carlitos is his baby you know!

The party had a Fiesta theme, so there was a pinata for the kids.

The pinata proved to be made of some pretty tough stuff, so we eventually had to call in the big kids for help.

They finally broke through!

Owen was thrilled to find a Lego toy just for him in the pile of candy, since he can't have any of the candy. The other kids decided that this was an even better return on their investment than Halloween. They didn't have to walk as far and didn't have to knock on a single door and still came home with a huge bag of candy.

Uncle Ray and cousin Hudson

I can't believe how big Carlitos has gotten. Four months ago he was a 3lb 12oz preemie and now he's over 13lbs!

We tried to get a picture of Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids and great-grandkids (Ray's daughter Alex was the only one missing). Have you ever tried to get 12 kids all cooperating for one picture? Let's just say it took a few tries and we finally had to bring in Hudson's mommy to help.

Don't worry, there was a real photographer too. I'm sure some of her pictures are better than mine.

I had to get a Barkley picture because he's just so handsome! It was so nice to see everyone all together today to celebrate Carlitos' dedication!