Day 1 - where's Trixie??

Today Trixie was a good girl, V caught her hanging from the kitchen and hallway door! 

We"ll be presenting Trixie with her skirt before bed :)

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!!

I wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving!
I LOVE Thanksgiving!!! The food, the family, the laughs. It's absolutely my favorite holiday (coming from a mildly overweight woman....are you surprised ;) haha) 

Every year I say the same thing on Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for family, food and whatever important event happened that year.

Every day I think about how thankful I am for everything I have.

My daughter.
My son. Both of whom are miracles.
My marriage and the man I've been with for 10 years.
A place to live
My love of couponing and how it has saved our family in more ways than one. 

The knowledge to sew

Social Media and Smart phones for providing me a new source to talk with friends that are too busy to hang out, and a place for me to take pictures....10,217 to be exact 

Mine and my husbands families.
My wonderful friends
My job - without it... I couldn't provide for my family the way I'm able to now.

To everyone reading, Have a Happy Thanksgiving! And good luck with those black friday deals

Breastfeeding on Facebook

Recently I read a blog about a certified lactation consultant that wasn't allowed to promote her ad to like a status about reaching 100 likes on Facebook because she was promoting the sale of use of adult products. There were no pictures or anything! The word BREASTfeeding was written twice. Now we can't promote the word breastfeeding?

WHAT?!

Seriously... read the story here.
http://www.carolynhoneaclc.com/blog/FacebookAntiBreastfeeding

and now that you've done that... LIKE HER PAGE!

https://www.facebook.com/carolynhoneaCLC -- just to show Facebook "what's up"

So many people are fighting EVERYDAY to prove to the world breastfeeding isn't bad. Hospitals are promoting breastfeeding. WHY is it that social media is having a hard time with a BOOB! They have no problem showing other boobs. Is it because you can't get turned on by the fact that there's a baby on that boob whereas you can with a naked woman? Is the media afraid that if we promote breastfeeding that their way into attracting people is going to change because boobs will be "a thing of the past"? Seriously? WHAT is wrong with breastfeeding?

What about the days where woman SHARED nursing? Does anyone remember that? The phrase "It takes a village" was true because woman shared being mothers. One mother couldn't produce enough? Another woman took over. When did this become so taboo?

I seriously hope... someday in the near future, we'll go over this whole breast is bad thing, and remember: Breast is BEST!

V's Rapunzel themed 5th birthday!

After over a month of trying to decide what theme she wanted for her birthday, V FINALLY chose Rapunzel.

Last year we had a Princess party and I chose a couple things from each princess for the princess party. This year, I already had a few ideas in mind, a wonderful poster from
http://www.amazon.com/Disney-Tangled-Setter-Decoration-Accessory/dp/B0074NQNKW/ref=pd_sim_t_25

Which the Happy Birthday signed was STILL up from last year ;)

I hand made most of the decor and had decided on games, but because the kids were playing so nicely...we didn't do them. Me and V did the day after though.

 Decorations:

Food:

My very talented best friend made this cake

We had chips, jello boats, maximizes apples, cake and ice cream, rapunzels hair (angel hair pasta) and pretzel twists and cheese, you can see the today's menu poster and the snugly duckling sign. 

The ruffians were holding the food down for us ;)

Games: 

The games weren't played but they were going to be:

Being the apple (balloon) on a frying pan (below) to Maximus.

Next was a treasure hunt. We have a rapunzel crown, so I hid clues to find the crown in the brown satchel (flynns) like the day they met. 

The first clue: Flower gleam and glow. 

There was a set of flowers on the drink table. 

the second clue: Let your power shine

We hung up lanterns and the clue was hidden near by. 

The third clue: make the clock reverse. 

There was a foam clock I was sure to put out after all the kids had arrived.

Last clue: bring back what once was mine. ---it was hidden behind me ;) 

The last game we were going to play was pin the hair (yarn) on rapunzel. 

All during the party we had the tangled movie... And of course the steelers football game, going for the kids

Halloween FUN!

This year my kiddos dressed up as Mickey Mouse and Tinkerbell.

Being a couponer, I got their costumes cheaper. Actually, V's we just reused. Her costume we bought when she was 2. So we found a white sweater and white sweat pants, and the tink dress and BOOM. Her costume was done. Pink Rainboots and all!
We also have a local consignment sale and I found a really cute Mickey Mouse Costume. My son was SO ADORABLE!

Halloween was good. I wish we didn't take R out though. He fell asleep 10 minutes in, and I would have rather have kept him warm. But never the less, V had a great time and we were out for about an hour. She filled both (hers and R's) buckets about 1/2 way each for a full bucket, and no. Mommy and Daddy didn't raid it.

What really surprised me was she kept telling everyone "no peanut butter" (Not that she's allergic, but I am and she didn't want it in the house) but the people were SO accommodating to her! They were checking packages or getting definite non peanut contaminated items. It really was sweet the time and effort they took from a simple request, EVEN though I reassured them, it would be ok. :)

Some crafts we did along the way: 

Tote bag

Cookies

Decorating!

Pumpkins 

My kids ready to go

Inner Peace

I took a couple weeks to really dig down dig and decide what I wanted in life, enjoy my daughter, concentrate on getting ready for her party and celebrating the fact that she turned 5! (Yesterday).

I just can't believe how much she has grown into a wonderful sassy young lady. FIVE YEARS! Soon I'll also have a 1 year old.

I'll be posting separate posts on the last couple weeks but to catch up:
V and I did many halloween crafts.
R started walking
My niece (2 weeks youger) started walking.
My husband got 2 new jobs.
V had a Rapunzel Birthday Party.
V turned 5.

:) Check for more posts!