Sweet Sadie is Four!

***DISCLAIMER: I wrote this post in December.  AND I scheduled it to post on Sadie's birthday, December 29.  Yes, I'm a bad blogger for not double checking...and for not posting in two months.  But I totally blame Blogger for not posting this on time. :) ***

I am a bad blogger.  A bad, bad blogger. But my sweet SadieBeth turns four today, and if that isn't a good reason to write, I don't know what is. :)

It's hard to believe she's four...in one way, it seems time has flown and how in the world can she already be FOUR...yet in another part of my brain she's been so grown up and big-girl-acting for so long that I have a hard time believing she's only four. 

That being said, I think I've figured out the curse of the middle child.  When Jackson was 4, I started expecting him to dress himself.  Sadie started doing the same thing at 3, but when she has trouble, I think, "What's the problem? She should be able to do this already!"  ...because I pretty much expect her to do whatever Jackson does. 

Of course, I only take partial blame.  Sadie loves, loves, loves her big brother and does her best to keep up with him in every way, which makes me think she's older than she is.  That, and the fact that "I do it myself" has been a part of her vocabulary practically since birth.

Sadie is sweet, silly, smart (although if you tell her she is, she will reply, "No I'm not!" like it's the craziest thing she's ever heard...I'm not sure why, but we constantly reiterate that smart is GOOD.), loves church and princesses and make-up.  She is a very strong-willed little thing, but she also loves to please people.  She still prefers playing with the boys, but I do hear a few girl names being thrown about these days.

She got her first pedicure this year, and is gradually softening to letting me do fancy-schmancy things to her hair, which is so long and pretty these days.  She also got her first (and second) black eye this year...I'm afraid this might be the first of many, as she prefers looking at the person she's talking to rather than where she's going. She also became a fan of the VHS twirlers, cheerleaders and "Dazzwers," and somehow we're going to have to figure out how she can be all three in a few years. :)

Today she will be going to breakfast with her Aunt Debbie, whose birthday is also today...although she's not turning 4...and we will go somewhere special for dinner. We will have her party in a couple of weeks, after everyone shakes the post-Christmas exhaustion. 

I love you, sweet girl!

ONE

As hard as it is to believe, my sweet Annabelle is a year old today.

 We had a small family party for her on Sunday.  I disobeyed the cardinal rule of first birthday parties:

Nap first, party later.

This was the closest thing to a smile that we got in most of her pictures.  She wasn't unhappy at all, just SLEEPY.  She was a good sport, and loved her cake, but was more than ready for her nap well before we opened presents.  :)

Another little "slip-up" was her super duper cute birthday outfit.  Yes, I let her wear it while she ate cake.   She only turns one once, and I'd learned from Sadie that it would probably wash beautifully (it did).  The only problem was that her tights made her slide all over the table!  I was hoping to get all these super cute smash cake pics, but as soon as we sat her on top of the table she slid right into the cake!  Oh well.  Lesson learned (and I still love her outfit!).

 This is her "fancy" cake that we ordered from the incredibly talented Lawanna Gilmore (it was also her Daddy's cake...luckily he's accepted that he'll probably have to suffer through many girly cakes in the upcoming years).  Every time I watch "Challenge" on the Food Network, I think she could be serious competition for those people (and it was just as delicious as it was beautiful).

Sweet Annabelle, this year has flown by.  I can't believe how many things have changed (for the better) since you came along!  You are my little over-achiever...you crawled early, walked early, said "mama" first (and for that, I thank you!)... You are also going to be the cause of many more gray hairs for me.  When Jackson was  a year old, we didn't even put up a baby gate because he never tested his boundaries.  Sadie would crawl up to the gate but never tested the latch.  You not only test the latch, if you can't open it, you go around it.  Lucky for us, your Daddy is a handyman, but I have a feeling you're going to keep us on our toes.  :)  You are our little drama queen who charms everyone with her little smiles and sweet looks, yet can turn on the tears at the drop of a hat--or when someone tells you "no." We all love you so much (especially your brother who was sooo certain he needed a baby brother) and have so much fun making you laugh. 

Happy birthday, baby girl!

Ode to my Awesome Handyman Husband

One of Kevin's favorite things to say when we watch DIY shows is, "I could SO do that."  And he when he has time, he can. Two of my favorite things in our house are things we made all on our own.  The first is our breakfast nook bench. I thought I'd blogged about it before, but apparently not.  It was a family project where Kevin did most of the hard work and the kids and I just did the painting/cushion making, but I think it's pretty sweet...

And the second thing...

When we were building our house, Kevin and I had a very similar idea in our heads as far as what we wanted the decor to be.  We both liked the whole rustic, living-by-a-lake, animals on the wall (okay, THAT was his dream...I just decorate around it...), cabin-ish feel.  Our living room focal point is definitely our fireplace, and I remember the day we walked in after the stone masons had finished it.  We instantly loved it.  One feature our builder improvised was the mantle...we originally hoped to put a solid cedar log up, but it wasn't in our budget, so instead our builder had the stone mason's fashion one out of rock.  Again, our first opinion of it was that it would be perfect.

But here's the thing about rough-hewn stone mantles:  There's not one single level spot on it. Not one.  I made the best of it for a few years, but it was a whipping trying to figure out what would sit up there without looking lopsided or crooked. One day I was staring at it in frustration, when an idea began to develop.  My awesome handyman husband could build a box to go around the stone!  It could be rustic and cool and LEVEL. I presented the idea to Kevin, and he kinda stood there awhile and finally said, "But I LIKE our mantle!"  After I presented (pleaded?) my case to him, he saw the logic in what I was saying. So for Christmas two years ago, he started working on my new mantle.

But.

Turns out the mantle wasn't the only problem with the fireplace...mainly the fireplace itself.  Long story short, it simply wasn't safe or energy efficient.  We had no idea that this was the case until we had a company in Tyler come in to replace our ghetto gas logs with pretty ones. That's when they told us that we were lucky our house hadn't burned down.  All of the sudden the mantle was the least of our worries.

So.  Fast forward a year. We hired a friend/reputable contractor to help us with the fireplace issue.  We put in a new firebox that would make burning gas logs safe and much more energy efficient.  To do that, we had to tear out some of our rock, but it was totally worth it. Last year we had a beautiful fire in the fireplace and no cold air blowing down on us.

Which brought us back to the whole stone mantle issue.  Now, full disclosure would require me to tell you that the fireplace guys told us that a wooden mantle would be a fire hazard, because it would be too close to the actual fire. But here's my logic: We never ever burn our fire unless we are awake and in the living room.  So I started casually hinting to Kevin that I would love to have a mantle...and with a little teamwork (he built, the kids and I sanded and stained.) this was the result:

(For whatever reason, this picture makes it look unlevel, but it's not.  I just checked. Weird.)

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am with the end result.  It is exactly the mantle I had in my mind.  I think it is supercool and rustic and I LOVE the fact that we all put our mark on it (literally--in the distressing process, we all hammered, scratched, and beat the living daylights out of it!) And just a few days ago, I got to really decorate it for Fall for the first time ever....

Love it? I do!  Thanks honey!

First Day of Sunshine Friends 2011

Jackson and Sadie started Sunshine Friends Preschool a few weeks ago.  We took the requisite "First Day of School" pic just before going inside.  Clearly they are thrilled. :)

 But seriously, they LOVE Sunshine Friends.  They both have great friends in their class and love their teachers. They do not, however, like having their pictures taken...at least not when I want to take their pictures.  (An upcoming post will feature a video in which they both came running in my room, both in their underwear, shouting, "Momma!!! You've GOT to see what we just learned how to do!!!")

This is Jackson's last year of preschool.  He's an old pro at this preschool thing and was totally okay with cutting back to three days a week so we could hang out more this year. Sadie has already started sharing with me all the things she's learned in the first few weeks of school, but when I say, "Sadie, you're so smart!" she says, "No I'm  NOT!!" We're going to have to work on that whole self-image thing (that's a whole other blog altogether)...

Once a week, while they are in school and Annabelle goes to her babysitter, I go back to the school to work...because I am THAT irreplaceable!! ;)  TOTALLY KIDDING.  But it's fun to help out and not feel the pressure of STAAR or any of the other stresses that come with day to day teaching.

This is going to be a wonderful year. And it's already going by too fast.

The Great Balloon Race

First, on a completely unrelated note:  Boy is it HOT!  Like, miserably hot.  Crazy hot.  If you're reading this on the regular site, you'll notice a different background--the name is "Sun Dried."  The didn't have anything called "Desert Wasteland." :)

Ok.  Now that I got that out of my system...

Last week my sister Debbie asked if we would be interested in going with her, Eli, and Joe to the Great East Texas Balloon Race in Longview.  It went something like this:

Deb: Would you all like to go to the balloon races with us?
Me: Sure!  We would LOVE to do that!

Deb: We have to leave at 5 a.m.
Me: I'm sorry, what?

Apparently, the balloon festival is a weekend event, and if you want to see the balloons on the ground, you can pretty much do that any time; but the actual RACE part, the COOL part, starts at 6:30.  In the morning.

Ugh.

Ridiculously early departure time aside, I still thought this would be something the kids would love.  I've always wanted to see it myself.  I told Debbie we were in (along with my brother Andy and three of his girls)and made plans to leave at 5.  I also started planning ways to minimize early morning drama--kids slept in their clothes, I took my makeup with me (there was a strict "no makeup allowed" rule in our car--I was totally okay with that). 

Despite the fact that they got up at 4:30, the kids were really excited about our adventure. Nobody slept the entire way. Since it was Sunday, we got in for free, got great parking, and were pretty much as close to the "target zone" as we wanted to be.

After we got settled, we didn't have to wait long before the first balloon appeared on the horizon. It was a very cool experience, especially toward the end, when the special balloons started to appear--bumblebees, spiders, purple people eaters, Noah's ark,...

The Dr. Pepper balloon was Sadie's favorite! :)

It was a wonderful experience for us. If you live within driving distance of Longview, you should make a point to go to the Great East Texas Balloon Festival. I'm pretty sure we will be getting up before dawn next year too. :)