My Little Crazy

This little nut ball just walked in and declared that she wanted pizza and cookies for breakfast.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because my butt hurts."

Wrong body part...

The Holidays Are Coming!

The holidays are on their way! We are in the full swing of fall around here. The kids are getting very excited about costumes, trick or treating and "boos" have been flying around at work. We all know what that means: the rest of the holidays are just around the corner! I don't know about you, but as soon as Halloween is over I always feel like Thanksgiving and Christmas just rocket towards us. With that in mind, here is a preview of what I will be offering this holiday season in my store. Having an enjoyable holiday season is all about planning ahead! :)

I will be offering tags that can be attached to treat bags, candy bars, gift bags, etc. Tags are sold in sets of five and are $5.00 for each set.
These cute little Santa bellies come in green or kraft and are sold in sets of five.
These are festive little tags to attach to whatever strikes your fancy.

The next several cards are sold in boxed sets to send in the mail to friends and family. I love displaying holiday cards that I receive from loved ones during the holidays. These are unique, one-of-a-kind designs that will be appreciated.
The inside reads: "Wishing you the merriest Christmas and all the best in the new year!"

Send a Texas sized greeting with this rustic card. The inside reads: "Wishing you the happiest of holidays."

Santa's headed around the world with this cute little card. The inside reads: "Wishing you the merriest Christmas and all the best in the new year!"

I love this little snowflake tree with the buttons. The inside reads: "Friends and family are the true gifts of Christmas."

All of the cards come in sets of ten and include ten white envelopes. Sets are $20 each.

Visit my Etsy store or my website to make your purchases!

Dewberry Farms

Last weekend we headed up past Katy to Dewberry Farms to the pumpkin patch. I love the fall and I love the orange of pumpkins! This place was fantastic! They had a little country store, hayrides to the patch (we also got to preview the Christmas tree crop that is coming), several different pens of animals, huge slides, a corn maze, and the list goes on...
We fed the animals. The kids got a kick out of the goats.
We posed in the farmer stand...

We hopped on the tractor and trailer and headed for the patch! It was getting close to dark, so were in a bit of a hurry. I have never taken pumpkin pictures so fast. Shane was ready to grab the pumpkins and get back on the next trailer!
Landry couldn't make up her mind...
Hayden grabbed the first pumpkin that he could carry and headed straight for his daddy.

These two indulged me a little...

Landry finally had one suggested to her...
It was a beautiful evening and I'm glad that we have found a very family friendly place to head back too.

Let's Go Rice, Let's Go!

We scored some free tickets to a Rice game this weekend and we had a blast with the kids. This was the kind of game just up our alley! Rice got killed. No one was there. But, that means that there was lots of seating available, lines for the concession stand were relatively short, and our kids were able to move around without bothering anyone. Honestly, it reminded me of TCU back in the day. We used to love to go to TCU games when no one was there. We would sit in the end zone, enjoy our snacks, and let the kids move around and watch all the happenings with the dancers and cheerleaders. Now, (way to go TCU) that is not possible. The games are fun if you don't have small children. Trying to find the bathrooms, squished up against everyone else, waiting forever for concession stands... Anyway, we had a really good time last night.
The stadium looks out to the hospital district and all of it's big buildings. As it got darker and the buildings lit up, it was really pretty.
We were handed some free popcorn on our way into the game and the kids (and me;) gobbled up every last bit of it. The popcorn came in a megaphone and Hayden spent the rest of the night screaming at the top of his lungs, "Let's go Rice, let's go!"
The two older kids sat in their own row. Ahh...the independence!
This one was of course her usual tooterific self. We had a really great time and ended our evening with some pizza!

If you think that you are a princess...

Signs that we may we watching too much Disney...

5. Everything must be pink or purple, preferably with glitter and ruffles, thank you.

4. She sings love songs all the time.

3. She is constantly "picking berries in the forest."

2. When a bird flies by, she holds out her finger fully expecting it to land on her hand. (If one ever did, I would love to see the chaos and screaming that would follow!)

1. She got in trouble this morning and started screaming for me to "please don't put a spell!" on her. (sigh...I guess that makes me either the wicked stepmother or the wicked witch.)

But Why?

Gibson has an obsession with watching Lego movies on YouTube. He also loves to make his own. He has recruited Grace to periodically film and direct for him. Yesterday, Grace was busy, so he got Hayden. They decided that they were going to film a sword fight. They headed outside and were having a grand time. The only problem was that Hayden thought that they were just playing and as soon as he figured out that Gib wanted to fight him on camera and that Hayden was going to have to lose, Hayden was out. Gibson came inside and was telling Shane that Hayden wouldn't play with him and that now he wasn't going to be able to make his movie. As they were talking, Shane was telling Gibson that if he wanted to play with Hayden then maybe he should let Hayden win. Gibson looked up at him with an incredulous look on his face and then whispered, "But, why?"

Because we can't always be the hero in our own movie. (even if it is your own movie ;)

Ants In His Pants

Yesterday, Shane went to get dressed and pulled his jeans off the top shelf in his closet. He had put on his pants and was walking around when he started to feel little bites up and down his legs. He ripped off his pants and started shaking them out. Ants were flying everywhere. He even had one on his head! (I really wish that I had been here to see it.)

The mission today is to get some ant poison. That closet wall is also an exterior wall, so we need to stop that right now! :)

How to Make a Light Box

Awhile back, I realized that I needed a light box. I was trolling other people's pictures of their products and was paying attention to how the colors stayed true in their pictures and that they weren't all taken outside. I checked into the cost of buying one, and baby they aren't cheap! I looked up instructions and in about an hour had whipped up one of my own. It isn't nearly as pretty, but it gets the job done! In case you might need one too, here goes...
First, find a good sized box. Depending on what you will be photographing, you want to have enough room to set your product up inside the box. (A shoebox will probably not be big enough.) Once you have your box, using a box cutter or X-Acto knife, cut off the flaps on the top of the box. Landry got to this one first and added some nice decoration for me. :)
Next, I took a ruler and traced a rectangle onto three sides of the box, keeping a one inch border around each rectangle. The finished box will lay on it's side with the top or opening facing you. The bottom of the box will be the back of your box and it doesn't need a hole. Once you have traced your rectangles, using a box cutter or X-Acto knife, cut around the traced rectangles.
Once you have made the cuts, the only thing left to do is get tissue paper. Using one layer, lay the tissue paper over the top of the rectangles and tape into place.
Your finished product should look like this!
When you get ready to stage your product, you just lay paper on the inside of the box to create your background. You can use white, patterned, or a combo of both. Set your light box under a light and then add more light using a flashlight. You can experiment with the different angles and light source to get the best picture.
I, personally like to use this guy to hold my extra light source.
His arms get tired quickly so I have to give him lots of breaks. ;)
This is my finished product. I do not claim to be a professional photographer, by a long shot, but will say that this light box has made my photos look one million times better!
Good luck!

Landry's Big Boo-Boo

It's been a little while since we have had a huge big bump, bruise, broken bone, etc., so Landry decided to put us out of our breathless anticipation. The boys have given us our share of breathtaking moments. Gibson fell off of a merry-go-round at the park and hit his eye in one of the worst black eyes that I have every seen. His eye was completely swollen shut for a month and was purple for at least two months.
Shortly after this incident, he added two other huge bumps to his head. I just knew that CPS was coming.

When Hayden was 15 months old, he jumped out of his crib and broke his leg. There is nothing more pathetic than seeing a baby hobble around in a cast... I don't have a digital picture of that, but you can imagine.

Grace has not really hurt herself like the boys. (You know that I am running to find some wood to knock on!)

Landry tried to catch up with the boys and make sure that she wasn't left out. You know, that's the way she does everything in life...

We had gotten home from school and I was putting everything away and trying to start dinner. Shane came home in the middle of the chaos that is us coming home. The younger three had been horse playing around and running back and forth hollering and screaming. We pulled Gib into the kitchen to work on homework. Landry and Hayden were off continuing their madness. From the other room, we heard Landry start crying and Hayden, in a panicked voice, called for us to "come here, quick!" I ran in to find Landry pulling herself from the floor and covered in blood. She had fallen out of the chair and hit the windowsill behind the chair. Of course head wounds bleed, but there was a lot of blood. It was all over her, all over the floor and dripping everywhere that she moved. We put her in the shower to try to wash her off and see just how bad it was. She was freaking out because she was bleeding and screaming for us to "put a band-aid on it!"

Once we got her calmed down enough to clean it off and see how bad it was, we decided that we definitely were going to have to go the ER. Our experience in the past has always been a long wait, but we walked in and they immediately saw us. We didn't even have time to fill out the paperwork in the waiting room. We went straight back and saw the pediatric surgeon. She cleaned up her head, flipped her on her stomach and put in two staples - lickety split. We were in and out in 30 minutes! That is some service! (We haven't gotten the bill yet...)
This was the boo-boo. She cried a little over the staples, but perked up over the popsicle and stickers.
She has asked to go back to the hospital a couple of times so that she can get some more stickers. We have already been back and visited the doctor to have the staples removed, so this is a chapter that is over. Praying for no new excitement for awhile.