The Big 4 0

This Friday I am going to be turning 40 years old....it almost doesn't even seem real! How can I possibly be 40? My Mom was only 41 when I got married and at the time I thought she was so old! Am I old?! I don't feel like I should be any older than maybe 31. Most days I don't really even feel like an adult lol This birthday is kinda hard for me, and I am not someone who worries overmuch about my age, but 40 IS middle age and I don't see myself as a middle age woman. Oh well, I guess I should just embrace it because next year I will be 41, then 42, 43 and before I know it I will be 50!!!! LOL I know, just take one year at a time, Tonya! I will be celebrating in the Big Easy with my 3 best girlfriends and our husbands. I know we will have a blast, we always do when we are all together. It has been one of *those* weeks, so I will definitely enjoy the break as well and the kids will enjoy being spoiled rotten by my mother.


Samuel is such a good big brother, he is always tending to his baby sister.

I know the pictures have nothing to do with me turning 40. I took them the other day and had a post all written out in my head, but I have now totally forgotten what I was going to say lol A definite sign of age, if I don't write something down the minute I think of it, it will be out of my head in 30 seconds!


My little cowgirl princess, she wears this outfit most days.


serious


Giving us her *sweet eyes*

Have I said lately how much I love this baby girl?! She is at that enchanting age where she is still a baby but can do big girl things. The fact that she has hardly any hair makes her seem even younger than her 18 months. She has started talking up a storm. She says Mama, baby, door, poo poo, kitty cat, tv, Sydney, ninny, Daddy, drink, all done, eat, nana (banana), night night, eyes, and more that I can't think of right now. Also, she will repeat most words after us. This is such a blessing because Ava has a pretty severe speech delay/impediment and I was worried that Sophia might have it too. Apparently not, thank the Lord! Ava wasn't talking at all until after 2 and didn't say much until she was 3. Ava is in speech therapy and is steadily improving, but I am glad we don't have to worry about it with Sophia.
I am enjoying every minute I can because she will be my last baby and I have to soak as much up as I can to hold me over until I have grandbabies : )

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend, I know I will !


P.S. I am almost done with the quilting on my Mom's quilt! Like seriously, only about 2 hours left!!!! I really enjoy the binding, so hopefully I will have a finished quilt to show you in a week or two! woooo hooooo!!!!!

A QAL with Lily's Quilts

I recently came across a new to me quilting blog and it just so happens that she was starting a Quilt Along. I have never done anything like this before, because I am always pretty sure that I won't be able to keep up. However, this one seems doable. You don't have to make a full size quilt, one block gives you a 30" by 30" wall hanging or mini quilt. I can do this! Also, I have always wanted to learn how to piece a dresden block, so here's my chance. I chose all of my fabrics from my stash, I love aqua and orange together. I still need to print my templates and cut my fabrics. I am really looking forward to this!

child prodigy?

Sophia has taken a liking to our piano and in my opinion she is very good for a 17 month old LOL Now let me say that nobody in my house is an accomplished pianist. I took lessons when I was in third grade and quit after a year (really wish I wouldn't have). My 14 year old Sydney teaches herself popular songs off of the internet. She does well, but there is no formal training. Mainly we all just play around on it. Before Sophia could pull herself up on the bench, she would reach that fat little hand up and softly touch the keys, but as soon as girlfriend could haul herself up there, she was playing away! And the funny thing is, she doesn't pound on the keys like I assume a baby would. She carefully touches the keys individually. I am just kidding about the whole prodigy bit, but I do wonder if maybe she has some natural talent. My piano teacher did beg my parents not to let me quit, because in his opinion I was very good. So who knows, maybe she got it from me ; ) LOL


Just pretend you don't see the dust and fingerprints all over the piano lol

Oh, and in case you are wondering why we have such a nice piano when no one takes lessons? Well, we were blessed by some friends of ours (thank you Guidrys!) Their oldest daughter decided she didn't want to play anymore and they hated to see the piano not being used. Sydney would always play on it when she would go to their home. So, we traded an unused treadmill that we had for their piano. We definitely came out on the sweet end of that deal!


Baby in motion!

On the quilting/sewing front, I have been sadly out of it. I am determined to get back into it, I think it really helps my emotional well being. And I am double determined to get my Mom's quilt finished. I know, I know, it is still not finished. I think we are going on 2 1/2 years now...pathetic, I know. Sooooooo, this morning I cleared off my cutting table (which is where I machine quilt). It was so bad, I had to dust everything LOL It is now ready to go, my goal is to have it done for Mother's Day. Really, there isn't much left, I don't know why I didn't finish it months ago.



Now to show you the sad state of the rest of my sewing room. Crap is everywhere! My husband is painting some shelves that will help a lot with getting things organized, but let's be honest, not having extra shelving is not the problem lol



It doesn't help that this room also doubles as the laundry room and my kids have their presence there as well. My daughter Sydney has taken over my chair in the corner to do her homework in the afternoons.


Please don't call hoarders on me!

The stack of books on the stool is for her research paper. My stack of books is in my room on the bedside table where it belongs LOL

relaxing

I picked up cross stitching again. Yeeears ago, when I was pregnant with Austin I had my first experience with needle and thread. I was instantly in love. For years, cross stitching was the only fiber hobby I had. Years later I picked up sewing and then knitting and quilting and crocheting, etc. LOL I made 5 of these Shepherd's Bush Christmas Stockings for my first 5 children and have been needing to make the youngest 3 children theirs for several years now. So, I visited my local needlework shop and bought the linen and pearle cotton for this project. This will be Samuel's stocking. I forgot how relaxing and enjoyable it was to paint a picture with thread. I am not making any lofty goals. I just want to get Sam's stocking done for this Christmas and will work on Ava's next year. I hope these become family heirlooms one day.



The pictures were taken by Savannah the other day. The minute I sat down to stitch a bit, Sophia climbed in my lap and Ava curled up beside me on the bed lol They are in Sepia because that is what the camera was set to when she snapped the pics. I am trying to make sure there are more pictures of me with the children. Since I am usually the one taking pictures, there are not very many pictures of me. I want my children to be able to look back one day at pictures of their mom LOL Even though I really don't love having pictures taken of me....

quilting, crocheting and knitting oh my!

Yes, I am still in the process of quilting my Mom's quilt. I am definitely a slow poke when it comes to quilting. However, I can confidently say I am 3/4 of the way done! I am free motion quilting in each of the blocks. You can see the quilting clearly in the hot pink block. I must say once I got the hang of it, I fell in love with free motion quilting. I think I will only be using my walking foot for applying the binding. I find even straight line quilting is easier free motion. I havn't touched the quilt in over a week because I have just been too busy, I miss it. Hopefully I can sit down with it this weekend. I am using this and these which makes the process SO much easier and more enjoyable!



I also recently taught myself to crochet. While I do enjoy it, I still think I prefer the process of knitting. However, you can't beat the speed of crochet projects. I think I did the majority of this hat in just a few hours, and I am a slow crocheter.



I finally bit the bullet and decided I was going to knit a sweater for myself! For some reason this has always intimidated me! This will be the Central Park Hoodie when I am done. I picked a Cardigan because I do live in South Louisiana and having a sweater you can easily take off is a good idea. I am using Knitpicks yarn so that the sweater was actually affordable. Would have loved to do it in Malabrigo, but I can't be spending over $100 on yarn for one sweater! I find knitpicks yarn is a great and, more importantly, affordable option. This is Swish Worsted Weight 100% Merino yarn. The color is discontinued unfortunately. It is only 3.99 for a 110 yard ball, you can't beat that especially considering I needed 11 balls for this sweater! I have all of the parts finished and just need to seam them together and pick up stitches to knit the hood. It should be finished in time for cool enough weather to actually wear it! I am so excited because it looks like it is actually going to fit me! I was a good girl and swatched : ) Thank goodness, because I had to go up 2 needle sizes from what was recommended. Apparently I am a very tight knitter lol



Jessica took all of these pictures for me when she was here the other day taking Sophia's pictures. thank you Jess ; ) It is so nice having my own personal photographer lol

My baby girl.....

I love this one!

Here are a few of the results from Sophia's photo shoot with Jessica last Friday! I have over 60 photos and they are all fabulous! I will probably be sharing them here and there for awhile lol She is such a happy child! I love her so much it hurts sometimes. Even when she is slapping me in the face because I won't let her dig in my eyes. She IS a rough one lol Her new thing is eating ice from my mouth like a baby bird. I should catch it on video, it is so cute.







I am feeling much better this week. Nothing has really changed, things are still crazy, and I feel like I am spinning with everything that needs to get done but probably won't. But my outlook is so much more positive. It must be the progesterone. I am so glad to be feeling somewhat normal again, I hate that doom and gloom everything is horrible and will never get better feeling when I know darn well I have a wonderful life and my bad is not even close to being bad, it's just life. An extremely blessed life at that!


Oh, those eyes!


Oldest and youngest....she is squinting because she is anticipating the flash on the camera going off lol she is so funny!




Some cute out takes with the cats, Zoey and Bob wanted to be in all the photos lol


HEY! Watch it!


I'm gonna get you!

My Week in Review or (The Ramblings of a Semi-Crazy Woman)

We do school at the dining room table, see the huge stack of school books lol You can also see Samuel's *artwork* on the table's legs lol Chad made these benches recently, the children had pretty much destroyed all of the chairs that went with the table. Hoping these benches hold up a little better : D

Samuel and Ava , early one morning, working on a 50cent art project I got them at Joanns.


This week has been hard, I am not quite sure why. We are into our 3rd week of home schooling. It always takes a little while to get used to the new routine. I just feel like school is the only thing I can get accomplished some days. I think I was expecting everything to be a lot easier this year because Parker and Sydney are now in school. And it is easier, I don't even want to think about how hard it would be if I had to teach them as well. It is just that I didn't expect to struggle and I am. Also, I feel like my new holistic approach to my health stopped working. I think I have figured it out though. One of the things my doctor did was to put me on natural progesterone cream. Well, I have to use it for 3 weeks and then take a week off. This was my week off. I am still nursing Sophia quite often, so havn't started my period yet. Usually you would stop the progesterone during your period, but I just have to make up my own schedule until they start back up. I started the progesterone again today, really hoping I start feeling normal again. I think I will ask my dr. if I can take the progesterone the entire month. My Mom does, she said she felt terrible when she would stop it as well. Of course, she is post menopausal, I don't think I can do the same.

Also, one of my closest friend is going through a very hard time right now. I don't feel free to talk about it for many reasons, but it is a heartbreaking situation and it is on my heart and mind most of the day. I know there is so much good in this world, but there are also people (especially children) who are suffering greatly. I am finding it very hard not to dwell on this lately. While it makes me appreciate how blessed and lucky my family is, it hurts me to know there is so much pain out there. I hate to say it, but I tend to think there is much more bad than good in our world, and I feel guilty for having such a wonderful life and still struggling sometimes.

Sorry this is so depressing, but I have spent most of my life trying to be fake happy through the bad times. While I don't think it is good to wallow in self pity, I think it is worse to deny the truth of what I am going through. Trying to find the balance and what is healthy is hard. Also, realizing the things that should be hard and make you sad. Suffering children should make me sad. An unusually dirty and messy house is temporary and shouldn't really bother me at all. Like Autum said in this post, that is just the evidence of a busy and happy life : )

Anyway, even though is wasn't my best week, there were many positive things. My friend Jessica came yesterday and took 1 year pictures of Sophia. I can't wait to see them, Sophia was in a great mood, so there should be some good ones. We decided to do this on a whim, Jessica was downtown and called and asked if today was a good day. It really wasn't a good day, I had TONS of laundry and dishes and dirty floors that I should have been cleaning. But you know what, I am glad I said yes. Jessica is a positive person and can always bring me out of a funk. After she took Sophia's pictures, we went to our local yarn shop so I could help her pick out some yarn for this hat. She knows how to knit, but hasn't done it in a while. Well, instead of running in there and just getting what we needed, we actually sat down and visited with the owner and other ladies who were knitting and I helped her start her project. Oh, I also bought some yarn for a scarf, like I don't have enough projects lol It was so nice and relaxing, we both said we need to do that more often. Yes, my house is still a wreck this morning, but I still don't regret my decision, the housework will get done....eventually.

We also got our schoolwork done early on Thursday so that we could go eat lunch at Cracker Barrel and go to the park with my Mom. I had to leave from the park to go and pick Sydney and Parker up from school so I missed the pictures of them feeding the ducks : (





The big swings were in the full sun, so we all played on the baby swings. This is Samantha, the recipient of the most recent elephant. It took 3 of us to get her out of that swing LOL





I also forgot to blog about Sydney's first Homecoming. I didn't get pictures of her by herself. So, here is a cropped picture of her. She went with two of her friends, no boy girl dates at 14. I got her dress at Ross, for only $15!!! Her shoes cost more than the dress lol Parker went too, but I didn't get any pictures of him : ( I had gone to Sydney's friend's house to do their makeup and didn't get back home in time to take pictures of Parker, he had already left. They go to a fairly small Christian private school, so there was no dancing : ( I really wish they would let them dance, I don't see the big deal. I mean we don't have to let them bump and grind, but there is clean dance music out there and dancing is so much fun! I think they had more fun at the bowling alley after the "banquet" than at the actual event. Oh well, I guess it is better than the anything goes that is typical of the dances at public schools. I just wish there could be some sort of inbetween.



After having just proofread through this entire post, I realize it really wasn't a bad week after all. My house IS a mess, but it is because I spent the time with my family and friends. And the difficult moments were more than balanced out with the good ones! That is what I really love about blogging, it gives me a proper perspective on things. It doesn't take away the sad things that are still going on, but I can't let them affect everything. Or maybe my progesterone just kicked in LOLOL Who knows?!