News Anchor Hair and lots of pictures!

Now that I am all done cranking out babies, I've decided that I no longer need to keep my hair short (those of you who are moms may understand that co-relation.... tiny babies, sticky, grabby fingers, hair pulling etc)  So I went in to have my regular touchup of foil hi-lites and low-lites.  I told my stylist that I am trying to grow it out and this is what I ended up coming out with
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 news anchor hair!! (as photographed by my 7 year old)



I also enjoyed this photo she took of me singing Christmas songs.  She says it is her favorite picture of me EVER!!!!!! (with lots of exclamation marks because she is 7 and therefore extremely enthusiastic!)

I think it looks like I am trying out for a bad porn film, but whatever.

Here are some other highlights from my day:

Laina and her jazz dance class trying on their new costumes (electric blue pleather trenchcoats... I spent the entire time worried that they were going to rip them open and flash us their bodysuits as part of the routine.  Thankfully that didn't transpire.)

Mylie had a preschool party day where they show off what they learned in the month this morning, and here she is wearing Janie and Jack Penguin Winter (I gush about most things as being my favorite line ever, but this is hands down my favorite winter line. for now. until I say otherwise.)

And finally, here is Evelyn's outfit of the day... Gap Deauville with Gymboree Holiday Panda boots.



What are they wearing Monday

Since we all know I am addicted to children's clothing, I decided that on Mondays (or whatever day I have enough time in the morning to snap a few pictures!) I will feature what my girls are wearing today.

So here it is (and I realized my 50mm lens makes it difficult to take a picture of L. since she is getting so tall!  I would have to stand farther away than I wanted to in order to get her whole outfit in a picture)

L. is wearing a waffle long sleeved t-shirt and zip up fairisle sweater with faux fur hood, both from Gymboree.  Her skinny jeans are Old Navy and her suede fringe boots are from Minnetonka Moccasins.

Mylie is wearing Gap Chelsea from last years fall lines, and blue Chuck Taylor Converse all stars.

Evelyn is wearing Gap In The Woods, one of my all time favorite lines!  Her headband is BeiCapelliStudio



Welcome to the party circuit!

Today, my oldest friend Lindsay was inducted into the party circuit.... the kid's birthday party circuit that is!  Her adorable son G. had his first birthday party today and so marks the beginning of the countless weekend days she will spend attending children's social functions.  If she is not careful, these parties could become (like they are to me) the only time she will see her "old" friends as the days are just too hectic with work and activities.  And so Lindsay, at the end of the party, don't say "goodbye", just say, "until the next one rolls around...."

And on an unrelated note, it was a sucky day in the picture department, so here is one of Evelyn modelling what we refer to around our house as "the beaver tail".  It refers to the diaper that sags so low, that if you were to watch her walk away, it would appear as though she had a beaver tail flapping along behind her. 

She is also unfortunately placed right beside the break in the flooring where our new kitchen tiles will join up once they arrive this week.  So just pretend you don't see that.

If you were wondering why she isn't wearing pants, you would be asking the same question I put to her older sisters when I noticed it.  Apparently her pants "fell off" when she was jumping on a mattress on the floor.  That is all.

Thankful

Even though I am Canadian and our Thanksgiving was nearly 2 months ago, I am feeling the spirit thanks to some good friends and family.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Bree for sending me on a wonderful shopping spree at a local scrapbooking store.  It was a spectacular surprise and one I am not entirely deserving of, but appreciate nonetheless!

Here is a little picture of my haul; I have never tried the Spellbinders before, but can't wait to try them out on my Big Shot.  They can be used to stencil, emboss or as a die, and each packages comes with multiple sizes!!  Will have to demo the finished product a different day!

I am also thankful for my amazing family.  Today was a tough day for me as my worst fear happened and right at my feet!  My little E. has been sick for well over a month now, and our doctor prescribed her two different types of inhalers to be used in an aerochamber to try and dilate her airway and help her to breathe easier.  So not only do I have to torture my little darling with a face mask and puffers, but today she choked on some mucus and vomitted at my feet.  You may remember in my post here I talk about my vomit phobia, so today was difficult for myself and for Evelyn.  But the support of Adam, and the encouragement of my two older daughters helped us both immensely.  The girls clapped and cheered for E. every time she left the face mask on her face for long enough to inhale her medicine and cuddled her after she threw up to make her feel better.  So while I am glad the day is at it's end, I am grateful for what I have.

Cats

Okay, this is tougher than I thought!  I am always full of things to say and I take tons of pictures usually, but I think the act of putting words and pictures to screen is intimidating me somewhat!

So..... here's my cats!

Introducing Pearl (the white fluffy one) and Badger (the umm, pleasingly plump grey one)! 

Those of you who talk to me on a regular basis will know that my cats like to pee on soft items around my house.  The identity of the mystery pee-er has yet to be determined, but if you leave something soft on the floor at my house... do so at your own risk.  In the past few months, said mystery pee-er has peed on L's new Gap backpack (the rolling type with internal plastic hardware, so couldn't be washed), the bathmat (multiple times), Mylie's Strawberry Shortcake halloween costume (the morning that she needed to wear it to preschool) and most recently a dirty shirt of mine that I carelessly discarded on the floor.  So while I love animals immensely (especially my little fur-babies), if the identity of the mystery pee-er is revealed, I am really not sure what the outcome will be!!  Well actually that is just empty talk, if I do find out who is peeing all over the place, I will probably just hide the identity from Adam so that he won't get rid of the cat!

Snow day!

I hate to perpetuate the myth that Canadians live in a frigid and snowy climate for most of the year but..... today was a snow day!  L. stayed home from school with a bit of a cold and so the three kids and I hibernated in the house until it was time to go for a walk in the winter wonderland!

Bird tracks, lol

Go Handmade for Christmas!

As any crafty (or wannabee crafty person such as my self) person will tell you, handmade is a really special way to find a unique gift for someone on your list for Christmas.  For any of you unfamiliar with the site, I would like to introduce you to the wonders of Etsy!  It is a giant online marketplace for buying handmade and vintage items from a multitude a sellers all over the world (but mainly in the US and Canada).

I am going to post some gift ideas that I have found on etsy, I may or may not have actually purchased from these sellers so can't endorse the quality, but just to hopefully give you some inspiration to go handmade!

For a mom or grandma on your list, these Handstamped Personalized necklaces are a sweet way for her to display the names and birthstones of the important people in her life .  The seller is jcjewelrydesign and a link can be found here.


This custom family tree painting on canvas would be a nice gift for parents or grandparents who are interested in their geneaology.  There a "cutesy" versions for children as well.  The seller is TheStakerStore and a link can be found here.


For a child with an uncommon name (like 2 of mine) who looks longingly at the racks of personalized pens and toothbrushes in ToysRUs.... a personalized aluminum water bottle.  The seller is MyPersonalizedTshirt and a link can be found  here.


For the (boy or girl) superhero in your life, a personalized cape and mask (can you tell I like the personalized stuff?)  The seller is FancyThat1 and the link can be found here.


I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Lots of cute and affordable handmade items on etsy!

And no photo today... I promise to go practice right after I place some Black Friday orders, teehee!

An introduction...

While reading my friend Christine's brand spanking new blog, I realized that I never really introduced myself!  Also, several of my friends on facebook were asking about how and when I started sewing so I will write about that as well.  Finally, I will post my not-yet fabulous photo of the day (Take THAT mommy brain, I still remember how to write an introductory paragraph that lays out the outline of my writing even after birthing three children!)

Sooooo, for my introduction, I am Julie, a 30 year old mom of three girls aged 7, 3 (almost 4), and 14 months.  My long-suffering husband is Adam who very patiently deals with his lot in life; that is living with 4 females (and two female cats!) under one roof.  Aside from being a mommy, I would say the single biggest thing that defines who I am (unfortunately) is that I suffer from emetophobia, anxiety and depression.  That is probably an unknown fact to many who know me and might read this, but there it is.  None of those three things would exist in my life without the others; they are undeniably interconnected.

Emetophobia is the fear of vomit; I fear it in every form... myself vomiting, my kids vomiting, or even just hearing about someone's sickness, or seeing it on TV.  When I tell people about my emetophobia, they will invariably say, "well, no one LIKES vomiting, everyone is afraid of it."  But my fear is not a normal fear.  It is irrational, uncontrollable, and when I am in the grips of dealing with my fear, I often feel like I would prefer death than ever having to deal with it again.  I have suffered from it for as long as I can remember, although it is only in the last few years that I realized that "it" has a name and that other people suffer from it.  Coming to this realization has been my saving grace as I now have a wonderful support system of people who actually understand me (you know who you are!!).  The anxiety comes and goes and is always linked to my fear.  I suffer from panic attacks although have learned to live with them quite well.  The depression is the least frequent visitor for me, but does rear it's ugly head from time to time again, always relating to my fear and what it does to my family and those I care about.

Whew, that was heavy! Now for some lighter stuff....

I started sewing about 3 years ago when Mylie was still a baby.  I had never sewn before and I didn't own a sewing machine, but a friend showed me how to make baby legwarmers (like these I posted in my how-to) and I just HAD to try making them!  At the time, Baby Legs were selling for $14- $16 in boutiques and I wanted some at a fraction of the cost.  So I found a free sewing machine on craigslist ( a beautiful Singer of 1967 vintage!) and started sewing my baby legwarmers.  I graduated to sewing ribbon skirts and other easy projects before deciding to take a beginners sewing class at A Great Notion.  It was just 4 classes, but it was a big help for me and my self-taught sewing.  It taught me how to read a pattern among other things!  In the last couple of years, I have also graduated to a new machine and most recently, to a serger.  I find it to be a very satisfying hobby, and one you should definitely try if you have been thinking about it!

And finally for my photo of the day, I took a picture of my sewing/ craft space.  I am lucky enough to have a small room that I can keep all of my crafty stuff out and easily accessible.  The room is so small however, that I had to stand on the ledge of the bathtub in the adjoining bathroom in order to take a picture of my desk!

So here it is, in all it's messy glory:

A new lens and a new dress

Being the wonderful husband that he is, A. brought me home a new camera lens today!  I have been wanting to try the Canon 50mm f/1.8 to see if that helped my issues with not getting enough light in my pictures.  I played around with it a bit today and I guess time will tell if it helps me get better photographs!

I finished sewing an apron knot dress today from a pattern that I purchased off of etsy.  You can find the pattern here.  It was a fun pattern to sew and M. tried it on for me tonight.  She was full of jumps and twirls, so you will see that in the pictures!  I have a bit of a controversial opinion of knot dresses, lol.  I know many people who adore them, and I have always stayed away from them because I felt a bit like the knots are ummm, inappropriately placed??  Please let me know where you stand on the issue!

The missing piece

As a self-admitted clothing addict, I put together outfits for my 3 daughters and obsess about every little detail until the outfit is perfect.  For weeks I have been stressing over what the girls should wear in their hair with their Christmas dresses (I know, how lucky am I that hair accessories are high on my list of worries??).

Until today....

when I realized that my Big Shot (which you were formally introduced to here) can cut fabric (it says it right on the package but who am I to read instructions?).  So I got myself some felt and some brads and made me some felt hair flowers!

Here's how:

Step 1: Cut a square of felt the size of the Sizzix cartridge ( I used this one) but any of the layered flowers will do.  Run the cartridge through the Big Shot.

The felt will come out looking like this:

Step 2: Punch a hole through the middle of the flowers (I used my Making Memories paper punch and craft hammer) or you could just hot glue the flowers in a stack from largest to smallest.



Step 3: Bling it out.  I pulled a brad through the hole I punched but you could hot glue or sew a button or put whatever you like in the center. 

I hot glued mine onto an alligator clip, but you could do a clip, a pin (to wear on a shirt) or even on a headband.

And here is the possibilites I came up with to go with the Christmas dresses (Janie and Jack Uptown Holiday for inquiring minds!).  Opinions?

And on my model L. who just wanted to use her jingle pony-o's to shake-it belly dancer style.



Just one of those days...

...just an all-around frustrating, disappointing day.  I racked my brain to come up with something good to say about today, but every positive thing I thought of was immediately cancelled out by a negative. 

Since I didn't have anything nice to say about the day, I thought I would move right along to the whole reason I started this blog.... as a way to motivate myself to practice photography.  You see I LOVE to take pictures and I love to look at pictures; the only problem is, my skill at taking photos is slim to none.  I've got a decent DSLR camera, read my manual (well, most of it!) and I've even taken a small course offered by Lesley from  Lesley Ann Photography which taught me a lot of the basics to switching out of the automatic mode on my camera.  Now I just need to practice, practice, practice!  I am hoping that by focusing on using my camera everyday in order to post some pictures will help me to achieve my goal.

Now going back to that negative theme of the day.... every picture that I took sucked.  Except the few I took on automatic with the flash.  Soooo, I will post the best of the bunch that I took with manually adjusted settings and call it a day.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit brighter!

C'est mon raison d'être numero un, la belle L.  Maybe I should clarify... all of my family is my number 1 reason to be.... but she is by birth order my number 1... make sense now?  Lol, maybe I just need to go to bed!