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Chris started back at DWTS last week. He came home one night and the following conversation took place:

"…so I showed some people your blog at work today" he says.
"What…who the what?? My blog….you mean that old thing?"
"Yeah, today at the dance rehearsal"
"What on earth prompted you to show them my blog? How did that even come up?"
(I'm totally interested but trying to play it cool)
"We had a break and we were all sitting around talking about baking and cooking and I told them that not only did my wife cook and bake, but she blogs about it. And so I pulled up your blog and was showing them some of your recipes."
"So who did you show it to?"
"Oh you know, Lacey, the field producer and "the talent"
"Really…..(palms sweating, heart racing…) Well, I could whip up a little something for you to take in tomorrow..I mean it would be no trouble. Unless that's too embarassing. I don't have to if you don't want or if you think it would be too wierd or..you know…."
(Poor Chris, he will be so glad when Henry starts Kindergarten and I can send treats to school with him instead of trying to pawn my baked goods off on him and his co-workers)
"No that's fine…I don't mind taking something in."

So I made the go-to. I made Whole Wheat Choco-Chip cookies. I  don't make any other cooks.  I boxed them up in Kraft boxes, so they could each have their own. No ribbon (I  didn't want to over-do it or appear over-anxious and more importantly I didn't want Chris to be embarassed.)

"Um.. here you go..I boxed them up so they could just take them and eat them at their leisure…oh and there's some for you in a ziploc if you want some too."

Later that same evening…

"So how was work…hard day…that's too bad…so anything to report..you know anything cookie related.."
"I gave them to all the people and told them that you made them because of our previous baking conversation"
"and…"
"they (the talent) said that he was going to eat them later. That they looked good. Oh and then he asked if you were going to blog about it"
"He DID?? Did you tell him you bet your bottom dollar she's gonna blog about it??"
And I did. Mostly because one day I hope to be know by only one name:
"The Talent"

(Is anyone else wondering when 'astronaut' became part of The Bass Masters resume?)
(p.s Jason- you'll always be the true Bass Master)
(p.p.s. I'm so glad that you read this blog, even when Kim doesn't prompt you to)

P.P.P.S. You guys are amazing. I have over 100 e-mails from people who want to donate to the benefit. I'm slowly getting back to each of you with the information. You have until the 12th so if you were going to make something from scratch, there's time. Expect to hear from me in the next day or two. We had company arrive today from France and they are here for the rest of the week, so I'll email when I can. Mostly, I just want to walk around saying "oui oui" while eating baguettes and French cheese.

xoxo

 As I mentioned in the previous post, the Nielsons were in an airplane crash Saturday, August 16th. The Neilsons are the parents to 4 over-the-top adorable children (aged 1-6) and live in Arizona. They are both hospitalized with severe burns and have months and months of recovery ahead of them. I  am organizing a benefit sale where all proceeds will be donated to them.

Here are the details: The benefit will be held for 2 days only and hosted here. What I need from you are donations. You can donate handmade item's, prints, services, scrapbook stuff, etc.,. If you have an etsy shop and want to donate something from there, great. If you don't, no big deal. Once your item is ready, ship it to me and I will photograph the items and list them in the etsy shop (I will also ship all the items out). If you want to participate in this great cause, post a comment here or send me an e-mail (don't make me come after you- because I will!) I will leave the submissions open for a week or so and then contact those who are participating  with additional details.  For those of you who aren't able to donate, stick around 'cos we'll be needing you on the 'purchasing' end! Also for those of you who would prefer to just dontate to their fund, you can click the donate button on my sidebar. If you want to spread the word about the benefit, send me an e-mail and I'll shoot you the html code for that sweet "Nie Nie Benefit Sale" button on the sidebar.

This is such an important and worthy cause and I'm just going to throw it out in the universe: I want it to be a huge success. I know it will be. I can't do it alone. I need you. They need you. This community of bloggers can make a big impact.  Please join in and together let's raise some sweet moola for these cool cats.

A big gigantic thank you to Lyndsay who has been working all week designing the etsy banner, the banner in this post and the button. She is amazing. Totally hiring her to spruce up this blog (that grungy banner hasn't been changed in 2.5 years!)

Thank you! I'm anxiously waiting to hear from you.

xo

He was so excited to let them go.

"There they go, off to our friends!! 'Cos balloons know the right way to go, right Mama?"

So you'd better look out. We are here. Henry's been sick for 2 weeks. We discovered on Tues. that he's got an ear-infection. Kate hasn't pooped for 5 days. You know that blog content is slim pickins when "poop" is used in back-to-back posts. He's also been talking in non-stop rhyme, fyme. What do you want to do, foo? Give me some milk, filk. I'm hungry, fungry. It was all fun & games until he got a hold of a sucker….

Amid all the internal distress plaguing the young ones, I have been doing a lot of sewing. The above superhero cape for instance. 'Cos every boy needs one, right? I made ones for the neighbor boys upstairs, too. Not all superheros need work alone.


Henry picked this fabric out (shocker) last Christmas. I finally decided to make him a small blanket/quilt as he's taken to pulling Kate's off her while she's sleeping (mostly late night car rides home- when he just wants a blanket, too). It's just big enough to cover him. Perfect for the car, perfect for the couch and a great back-up when the superhero cape can't be found. It was small enough that I could channel quilt it on my machine, so I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for that (just don't look too closely). A few more washes and I'm hoping it will get that worn, quilty look on top. I made a yellow linen hat for Kate and skirts…I can't stop making myself skirts. More pictures of that later.

On a different note, I am organizing a "Nie Nie Benefit Sale" to help raise money for Stephanie & Christian Nielson. They were in a private airplane crash on Saturday. They both survived (sadly the flight instructor did not) and are being treated in AZ for severe burns. I will post all the details of the sale in a few days but wanted to throw it out there now so you can get your thinking caps on, because I really need your help. Please be thinking of things you can donate (esp. all you etsy shop owners) to be sold in a  2-day online event in September.  You can follow the Nielson's progress here. 

More to come…

Kate is one of those babies that I had always read about but was quite certain never really existed. I had heard it from friends and never really believed them. They were just boasting, right? But now I am a believer. This baby sleeps. All. The.Time. Put a baby down, who is wide awake, and they'll go to sleep on their own? Without making a peep? Fughettabout it. She started sleeping through the night at about 7 weeks (I know you want to start throwing darts at me. Go ahead.) I was baffled by all this so-called sleep as a certain 3 year old still isn't sleeping through the night. But she sleeps all day, too. She usually is only awake for about 4-5 hours in a 24 hour time period. It's crazy. I just don't know what to do with myself. Not really.

When she was born, she didn't look much like Henry but as she grows they are starting to look a lot more alike. He had those funny eye-brows. He always looked so concerned. Not much really to report, she's a chunky little monkey- so big that she is off the charts for her weight. And she's starting to coo and laugh a little. And of course, lots of smiles:

So people have been asking how I like the gDiapers. Here's the dealio: I liked the gDiapers but Kate outgrew them at about 6 weeks. I was at a crossroad when deciding if I should buy all the stuff for the next size up or go in a different direction all together. I decided to go in a different direction and I'll tell you why. Because the gDiapers are biodegradable/flushable they aren't as thick/absorbent as the average diaper so you are going through them more frequently. Plus, they are about $15 for a pack of 40 inserts and I needed a lot more than that per week. I also found myself constantly washing out the outer cover and hanging to dry. One day, while doing that, I thought, 'If I am going to be washing them out- I should just do cloth.' Not so fast quick draw McGraw. There is the  whole poop factor (a.k.a. PF) That is the reason I have never wanted to do cloth in the first place. And Chris was so not convinced. I didn't want to be rinsing/washing out diapers because any parent can tell you that smell takes nothing short of nuclear power to get off. Plus, the even bigger reason is we don't have a washer & dryer. It costs us $2.00 every time we do a load.

In the end, I decided to go with cloth and to use a diaper service (thus alleviating the PF.)  I have to say,  I've been using them for just under 6 weeks and have been really, really happy.  The first week they  brought 80 diapers, a  lined  diaper pail (which looks like a white garbage can) and some diaper covers that I ordered.  Every  time I change her diaper, I just  toss it in the pail. No rinsing, no washing. So that part of it  has the convenience of  disposables.  The little deodorizer  inside smells really good actually and every time I open the pail, it's all I smell.  "Wait until you've got a weeks of diapers in there!" he  says. I'm telling you a week later,  still smelling good. Every Tuesday night, I pull out the liner of  diapers and  set it on our doorstep. Wednesday morning when I wake up, I have a  fresh new bag of about 80 diapers. "Kind of like the East Bunny" says Henry. Exactly.

So I 've been using the cloth  with these  yellow things called "Snappi's" which replace the need for pins. There's alot of  different options out there for  covers,  I ordered the  Prorap  covers  because it's what the diaper service had and  I could get them delivered with my diapers. 

They are a  bit big because they are for 13-25lb babies and Kate was just barely 13 lbs when I got these.  One thing you have to get used to with cloth is the bulk, but it doesn't bother me so much anymore. The covers feel a bit… generic…hospital grade.. I can't think of the right word but she hasn't had any leaking or blow-outs. They are working great, but I might keep looking around to see what else is out there. Some of the biggest things that I love about the cloth is that they are so soft and I can change her as often as I want- it doesn't cost me anything more. So many times I'd put a new diaper on Henry and 2 seconds later he'd need to be changed again and it always felt like such a waste.  So I change her often which I don't mind at all. Anyway the diaper service is $20 a week, and that's for LA, it may be cheaper in your area. I've found there are some pretty die hard cloth diaper-er's (??) out there, alot of  talk…well  our delivery truck says it best:

"Would you wear paper underwear?" Such a crack-up. I'm embroidering that on a pillow. I will have to  say that  it does feel great that in her 3 months of  life she hasn't created additional waste in landfills, that there aren't hundreds of her stinky old diapers floating around out there.  I have to admit, after using cloth, it does feel wierd  to put a disposable on her (which I  have had to do a  handful of times) Oh no, I am turning into a die-hard!

 My Mom is doing some major de-stashing of her fabric (30+ years worth!) She has a ton of vintage, feedsack, barkcloth, Cath Kidston, etc.,. I think there are about 75 listed now, another 25 should be up by Monday. See them here. Be sure to check back every couple days, what she has listed is only about 1/2 of what she has. She'll be listing fat quarter assortments (some vintage, etc.,.). Good luck!

Yesterday my girlfriend Heidi & I took the kids to this great place out in Pasadena called "Kidspace." I'd only recently heard about it and have to say it was very cool. There was lots to climb on, gigantic leaves to watercolor, dark tunnels to run in, giant tents to see the stars in and there was even a little 'earthquake' corner which an 'educator' so anxiously wanted to show Henry. It probably would have been a lot cooler for a 3 year old who had not been recently traumatized by a certain earthquake that hit Southern California last week. 'I'll have none of that thankyouverymuch' as he slowly backed away from said 'educator'.

There were two walls covered in these tiles made by kids. I thought it looked so cool. I would love to do something like this one day when we have a house of our own. It would be so great in a playroom. Have you ever done this? Do you just paint on tiles? What kind of paint do you use? Do you seal it with something?


One of my favorite rooms where you could play with rocks/minerals, pine-cones, etc,. What? What's that you say? There are planets here???

Amazing! I think I might just need a closer look with my magnifying glass…

Ah yes, planets! My favorite. I have killer space/planet mobile planned for Henrys room that I'm going to try to make this weekend. It's going to rock his world.

So if you live in So. Cal. Go. Your kids will love it and I guarantee you'll think it's pretty  swell,  too.

  **I'm giving away (5) 1-year subscriptions to Better Homes and Gardens. You can enter on my blog between 10-3-11 to 10-6-11 by clicking here**

Every Sunday it's the same story: I have nothing to wear. The closet, in mere seconds, looks as if it were hit by a tornado. I tear it apart hoping that magically a long lost skirt has made it's way in there. No such luck. It's not a matter of fit (well, naturally I'm not into my pre-pregnancy clothes so those are totally off limits anyway), but hello who knew it was harder than h-e-double-hockey-sticks to find a long skirt? I mean seriously, when did they stop manufacturing them? I can't find them anywhere. Every Saturday I search high and low and always come home empty handed. I am in no position to be wearing short skirts and I can assure you the general public is in no position to see me in short skirts. So last Saturday, I took matters into my own hands and made my own. I wanted something long, almost to the floor, lightweight and full/flowey-ish. I went with a pale green & white stripped seersucker. Probaly not the best for a skirt, but it got the job done and I'm happy with it. It's not quite as full as I want, but I bought 3 other fabrics to make additional skirts with this week, so we'll see how those go. Oh and the flowers were a very quick and last minute addition. An embelishment, if you will.

And these, these little buggers are seriously prohibiting any future post-baby weight loss. I made them last week for a BBQ and thought I'd share. Chris loves peanut butter & chocolate. Be warned, I can assure you there is zero nutritional content in these bad boys (okay maybe a little from the peanut butter :) 

Henry is at a really great age. He’s very much into imaginative play,
building forts, space and planets, bones and dinosaurs. We bought him
his first board games this month: Candy Land & Chutes and Ladders. While this is a fun age, it’s also a crucial one. I’m realizing that my role as
his Mother is changing. Aside from nurturing, caring and loving that
we’ve always done, we are now in the phase where we are talking about
things like what it means to tell the truth, to be honest. What a lie
is. Little life lessons.  He’s so impressionable at this age. I have to really think about how and
what I say to him. A few weeks ago, for the first time in his life, he
raised his hand to hit me. My eyes almost popped out of my head. I just
looked at him and he knew, mid-hit, that what he was doing was wrong.
He ran into his room, closed his door and started to cry. “Do I hit
you? Does Papa hit you?” I ask. “No.” “Then it is not okay for you to
hit me or Papa or anyone. You can cry and you can disagree but you
cannot hit.” Where did he even learn that? While I don’t think it’s
terribly unusual for a child of his age who is trying desperately to
have a voice to exhibit this behavior, it most definitely is not
acceptable. We’re trying, like most parents are, to raise good children
that have values and respect and who are kind to others and crossing our fingers that it actually works.

I‘ll never forget an experience I had a few years ago. I was stopped at
a traffic signal and a few dozen pedestrians were crossing the street
in front of me. The crowd made it to the other side, with the exception
of a little old Grandma who was desperately trying to get across the
street before the signal turned. At that very moment, a young man who
had already made it to the other side came running back to her, put her
arm in his and together they walked to the other side. I sat there
thinking ‘How do you raise a child like that?’  More importantly, is
that the kind of thing you can even teach? Do some kids just
instinctively do those types of things? How do you raise your children
to see situations like that and act on them? I am a firm believer that
there is no better way to teach than by example but how far does your
example go?  A few years ago I bought this book, “Above all, Be Kind”
and it rang so
true. I don’t need/want to have the smartest child, but it’s so
important to me for them to be kind

Parenting is hard. I always say that to people and they look at me like
I have an arm growing out of my forehead. It doesn’t mean that I don’t
absolutely love my children and think that motherhood is the absolute
best thing around, but it can be challenging.  It’s supposed to be, right? I found myself a few
weeks ago at 10:30 p.m. with a baby who was crying so loudly I was sure
there was blood dripping from my ears and a 3 year old who was sitting
on my bed wanting me to put the baby down so I could lay down and
snuggle with him. He was tired, I was exhausted. It was 2 hours past
his bedtime. I was secretly resentful that Chris was at the movies,
even though it was technically for work (he’s working on the side for
Netflix and getting paid to watch movies. I know.) Why wasn’t he here
to help me? I’m remembering that I am going on 4 hours of sleep and I’m
patting and swinging and shushing and walking and rocking and bouncing
and singing and nothing is
working. Henry keeps calling and finally, finally she passes out on my
shoulder. I lay her down and sit back down in the rocking chair with my
head in my hands. My head is throbbing. I just need a minute. Henry is
still waiting for me. “Mama, I want to come to you” he says. He climbs
off our bed and into my lap. I wrap my arms around him and look down to
see big tears streaming down his face. “Sometimes it’s hard isn’t it?”
He shakes his head. I know he’s feeling it and I am too. I’m crying now
and after a few minutes we climb out of the rocking chair and into the
bed for the long-promised snuggling. And it’s then that I remember that
while being a Mother can sometimes feel overwhelming, I wouldn’t change it for
the world.

I’ve been writing this post for 2 1/2 hours. I am rambling. I’m going to bed now.