Here is the page I made to go along with the April Scrap-A-Long.
Credits: Life is Beautiful by Traci Reed and Zoe Pearn, Lost in Reverie by Traci Reed and Studio Basic, Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Julie Billingsley and Jady Day Studio, Messy Machine Stitches Alpha by Emily Merritt, and The Hannah by Heather Joyce
(like the post and blog? well, take a moment to click the banner below! you can vote once a day)
Today my precious little chick-a-let turns four. I can’t believe that she’s no longer that sweet quiet cuddly little baby that she was this time four years ago. It just doesn’t seem possible.
We had her party yesterday. It wasn’t big; just my family, my aunt, my cousin and his family. The funny part is that Bella was the only girl-child at her party, but it didn’t bother her. Heck, I don’t think she even really realized it since she’s so used to always being the only girl.
I hit up Pinterest for the cupcake and snack ideas. The pictures aren’t that great, but they all seemed to be a big hit. And if you are wondering – yes, those are pig cupcakes.
cupcake pins (no specific one) - http://pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=pig%20cupcakes
trix crispies - http://pinterest.com/pin/177540410282719565/
candy popcorn - http://pinterest.com/pin/177540410282719557/
(For the popcorn I did make some changes – I used microwave Kettle Corn popcorn, and instead of adding vanilla I added cotton candy and bubble gum icing flavor packets by Duncan Hines.)
And lastly, her birthday invitations that I made (click for larger):
I figured that I’d have a little fun and we could all do a little scrap-a-long. It’s basically just a recipe type challenge, or well, a speed scrap – only you have until the end of the month instead of 2 hours. Everyone who links up there page that they create will get a brush set that is inspired by the brush work that I created for this page and this page. Products, store, designer are non-specific. The only rules are follow along to the directions and link you page here before May 1st.
Your page may contain only, and must have:
I hope to see some people play along! I can’t wait to see your pages.
(list font is DJB Bailey by Darcy Baldwin)
It started out a good weekend, long, but good.
We’ve had plans for months now to combine all four kids into one room, but a combination of being busy and lazy kept us from ever getting around to it. Well, my parents are getting their house ready for my grandmother moving in with them, this meant that we needed to get our act together and go and pickup Bella’s big girl bed and the boys’ bunk bed. Friday the kids cleaned, Saturday we made them actually clean (because I’m pretty sure Ryan and Bella just put everything under their beds and in their closet) and we got to rearranging the room and setting up the beds.
(Seriously – we own more beds than we could ever need. Two bunk bed, 2 twin beds, 1 crib, 1 toddler bed, 1 queen size bed, and 1 full size bed, this is why the new beds were at my parents’ house.)
(all that crud in front of the crib came from under Ryan and Bella’s beds)
(Bella’s big girl bed, until now she’d been using the crib – it converts to a toddler bed, not to be confused with the actual toddler bed we also have in storage.)
Sunday we all woke up in great moods. The kids slept on the old mattresses in what was Zach’s room, but is now the play room. We kept the tv in there, but we moved the Wii from the living room to there so that they can watch Netflix in there and play their video games. And of course, Mason is still in the bedroom with me, because even though we have set up the crib in what is now the sleep-room, he is nowhere near ready to move since he still wakes up several times a night to nurse.
John decided that the bunk bed was just a touch too wobbly, so Sunday afternoon he got it into his head to add braces to the posts to make them sturdier. I told him, no, wait, but he said, no, he could do it. Well, he broke the beds. Completely split and cracked on of the posts. This led to a fight on how we were going to have to rearrange the room around three twin beds and a crib. MY idea was to just block off the closet (which we don’t even use) and put one bed on each wall. John, bless his heart, said no, he didn’t want to block it and kept Bella’s bed and the bottom bunk where they were, then moved the crib so that it runs next to the bottom bunk with only a foot between them and the top bunk is half in the closet. It’s stupid. I’d take a picture but just going in that room makes me mad all over again. This led to a huge fight between John and myself.
This means that Ryan picked a really crappy time to do something so stupid.
(That is not a stock image of a crying Ryan, that’s from last night after he saw what exactly what it was that he did to himself.)
A little after the bedroom fight I am in the laundry room folding clothes with Mason when I hear John yelling “What the **** did you put in your mouth??” This has me worried, I mean why on earth is he yelling at one of the kids, and as I have Mason it’s not like this is another occurrence of Mason finding a marker and then chewing on it. So, I pick up Mason and rush from the front of the house to the back of it and I find John and Ryan standing in the bathroom. Ryan is just bawling and John looks ready to commit murder because apparently Ryan is not fessing up to whatever it was he was chewing on. I’m a little confused on how John knew Ryan was chewing on something, yet, he does not know what. Then Ryan turns to face me and I notice that his tongue is sticking out. I go and look and notice one whole side of his tongue is bright, bright red and that it has no taste buds. Zach and Bella start to come out of the play room and we push them back in, put Mason in his baby seat, and rush Ryan to the kitchen. John is yelling at him over and over “What we’re you chewing on Ryan!? You have to tell us! We can’t figure out what to do until you tell us!” and Ryan is just crying and screaming that his throat and tongue feel like they are burning. John, in a moment of great non-stupidity, makes him stand at the sink with a cup and the cold water running and rinse his mouth over and over. He then went to the back of the house to see if he can find what it was that Ryan had gotten in his mouth. He comes back a minute later even angrier, and looking just shocked, and yells at Ryan “PLEASE TELL ME THAT YOU WERE NOT STUPID ENOUGH TO HAVE BEEN CHEWING ON THIS ****ING BATTERY!”
Yep. A battery. He’d been chewing on a battery and managed to puncture it, and had ended up getting battery acid in his mouth. John goes to the Poison Control site to find out what we need to do, and I stayed in the kitchen with Ryan as he kept rinsing his mouth over and over all the while he’s gotten down to uncontrollable crying and whimpers of how bad it hurts. It was so bad he started gagging and hearing him John yells, “Whatever you do, do NOT let him throw up!” I am freaking out and trying very, very hard not to let Ryan see how freaked out I am. After a minute John gathers Ryan up and drives him 20ish minutes away to the closest hospital that our insurance covers, and I am left at home freaking out – and now crying hysterically – waiting for my mom to come get the other three kids and for my step-dad to drive me to the hospital.
I get there and the receptionist is like “I bet I know which kid you’re here for.”
They examined his mouth, tongue, and throat. Then they x-rayed his throat and chest (to be sure he didn’t swallow another battery and just didn’t want to own up to it. After about two hours Ryan's tongue has started to swell some where it was burned (pictured above) and the doctor comes in and says that his throat and mouth are fine to go home, that the burning was just slight. His tongue however, will take a while to heal but that there really isn’t anything that they can do for it. To give him Tylenol for pain as needed – absolutely NO Aleve in case any of the acid did get to his stomach – and directions to only eat soft, non-salty foods until it has healed some more.
(a nurse gave him a new car to play with so that he wouldn’t be so bored since the tylenol kicked in and he said that it didn’t hurt as much anymore.)
Now, if you are wondering WHY he was chewing on a battery…
Ryan is a chewer and always has been. I’m pretty sure that most of the time he doesn’t even realize that he is doing it. He just chews on whatever he is holding if he is sitting and not doing anything (like yesterday sitting and watching Netflix). Today he thankfully already had a doctor’s appointment for a medicine check up since we thought his ADHD medicine wasn’t being as effective and I brought it up to his doctor. Because last night as we were thinking on it we realized that the chewing just started back up about the same time we noticed that his medicine wasn’t helping as much. We always figured that it tied in with his ADHD as a type of fidgeting. Well, when we into the doctor he followed up on the burns and when I asked him about the chewing (as Ryan is sitting there chewing on a corner of his shirt) and Ryan announces that he does NOT chew on things and we point out that he was JUST doing it, his doctor said that on rare occasions some children with ADHD do develop chewing as an obsessive behavior, and that the medicine dosage should help, but that we should also stock up on some sunflower seeds and give them to him as we notice him doing it.
And this is why it’s lucky that all my children made it to Monday.
This one really only has like three steps, so I can talk you through it.
This edit is primarily for outdoor type scenes, or any type where you have two pretty defined areas. Or not. It just depends on you.
Open your photo and do some basic editing. Then go to Layers>New Fill Layer>Gradient. Make sure it is set to Linear and then adjust your angle so that it goes with the flow of your picture.
Set your colors, really any colors you like will work.
Change the gradient layer blend mode to OVERLAY, and then click on the white box in the layer where your gradient is. (and hey look! you can see the actions I use to resize and sharpen my pictures for the blog and Facebook. they’re by MCP Photoshop Actions & Lightroom Presets)
Select a small brush and change your primary color to black and then color over your subject and any other important spots so that their coloring and lighting doesn’t go whacky.
That’s it! The edit is all done, and seriously once you get the hang of it it takes like maybe five minutes to do. I spend more time on changing/picking my gradient colors than the rest.
… and they were followed which was freaking EPIC.
Yeah, yeah, yeah… my orders should always be followed, in reality they’re only followed 75% of the time and only 10% if John is home. In defense of my children, I don’t just order them about a whole ton. Generally I ask and then bribe because I don’t like arguing or explaining over and over. So nine times out of ten I say something like “Hey dude, if you will clean up the living I will give you some ice cream after dinner. Deal?” My kids are super easy and susceptible to bribes. Or I ask, they say no or ignore me, I pick up child, stick in a bedroom, and then announce they can’t come out. That works well for me, too.
ANYWAY.
Saturday night I proclaimed (screw announcing) that after breakfast the kidlets had to clean their rooms. This was met with much whining and arguing, but I ignored it and laid down the mommy-law – do it or I will beat you. So… I would never actually beat them, but I was angry, I just stepped on like two toys in Ryan and Bella’s room, and then I stepped on a ----------- lego in Zach’s, I was angry enough that I think they thought I would. Then John came in all nice-guy and told them blah-blah-wouldn’t they like to find their stuff-blah-blah-we can finally move rooms around if they’re clean-blah-blah-if you don’t do it you’ll be grounded and stuff-blah-blah. I still want to claim credit for this.
Kids woke this morning, ate, and then proceeded to lounge on the couch. I then proceeded to march in front of the couch, turn off the tv, pointed to the back of the house, and said “Yo! Rooms! I told you we were getting this done TODAY.” AND THEY DID IT.
*mind blown*
About dinner time, after John and Zach got back from taking Bella to my mom’s, I called John, Zach, Ryan, (and Mason) into the living room and announced that I was going to take a bath and that one or more of them could clean up the kitchen, and that when they were done I would get out of the bath and make them dinner. AND THEY DID IT.
I am the boss. I should totally order my husband and kids about more often. Stuff gets done.
In a completely unrelated note… I did this tonight, instead of doing anything even remotely productive, to celebrate Mason and I reaching the one year breastfeeding milestone.
Is not that they make super comfy dryer seats when clean and dry.
Though, admittedly, Bella and Mason do LOVE climbing in the dryer and sitting on the clean diapers… me, no, I don’t think I could ever love cloth diapers enough to sort of just chill on them. No. Ick. Even clean. I don’t just go and chill in the dryer on my undies.
No, the super-duper fun part of using cloth diapers is this…
When the wee one does a huge, massive gag worthy poop – talking about a poop that takes 8ish wipes to clean and two people to change him so that one person can hold his hands so he’s not trying to grab his boy parts that are covered in poo – that you really wish you could just throw everything and all of it away, but you can’t. And why can’t you? Oh yeah, because you use cloth diapers… and you don’t throw those away. Good for the environment my ***. The environment of my home suffered. Seriously. We’ve had four kids, and John has always helped with changing bottoms and even he was grossed out. His reaction “Oh God, can’t we just bag it all up and throw it OUT!?”
We now know that the combination of breast milk, lasagna, garlic bread, cheerios, and yogurt does NOT make for a delicate aroma when they come back out.
But the super fun part?
Before I remembered what all we had been eating I spent the whole time I was wiping Mason’s bottom, and then cleaning off the diaper wondering what the heck my boy had eaten that was so full of tomatoes. Then I remembered. And then I gagged a little.
