What a difference a month makes!

The Stone Family Cousins with Grandma Nadene Stone July 2008

L to R: Alison, Eric, Neil, Grandma Nadene, Molly, Meredith & Meghan

One month ago our cousin Neil was in a terrible car accident and sustained serious brain trauma and we literally thought we may lose him. Prayers have been said, doctors have been amazed, and Neil has persevered and avoided many secondary complications, like pneumonia. Well, what a difference a month makes! Neil has now moved to a rehab facility, one of the best in the country, to work on his recovery and to exercise his brain and body. He is still in a semi-conscious state but is making some purposeful movements and is recognizing what is done with some every day items, like a comb or tooth brush. He is missing a piece of his skull (that was removed to accommodate his brain swelling) but docs plan to re-attach in a couple of months. I hope and pray that these little baby steps (that truly are giant miraculous leaps) keep leading towards more and more good to come. We love you Neil aka Fatty!

H is for...

Caroline working on her letter of the week. This is her weekly homework project for preschool. She gets to decorate and embellish to her heart's content. This week was letter H. They also bring a show and tell item that starts with the letter for the week and during circle time, they sit, holding their letters facing towards them and chant "1, 2, 3, flip it!" and then show their letter and go around the circle sharing their decorated letter and telling about the item they brought that starts with the letter. Love her outfit., by the way.

Caroline brought her tooth in a baggie and showed the hole in her mouth as her show and tell.

H is is for... Hole in the mouth! A couple weeks ago Caroline lost her first tooth! This was exciting news, happened very quickly, and explained why she had been complaining of hurting teeth for a few weeks. The thing was just hanging for a few days and she kept wanting some Advil to go to sleep so finally I took her in her room and pulled the darn thing! I love this picture because I think it capures several things: First, that moment between tears of terror and jubilation and realizing it isn't that bad. Second, the tears that had dripped on her shirt and tear stained face! And Third, the hole in her mouth, of course. This is Aunt Shelly's favorite part. The first person we call when someone loses a tooth is Aunt Shelly. She gets all squirmy and is so grossed out. We hhave fun messing with her.

Our awesome tooth fairy hooked her up with a crystal bracelet and a pearl charm. Normally, the Tooth Fairy trades Lindsay a tooth for the charm but Caroline really wanted to keep her first tooth so she and Lindsay wrote a note to the tooth fairy asking to keep the tooth. She was lucky and the Tooth Fairy olbiged and she got the bracelet, the charm, a dollar, and got to keep her first lost tooth.

H is is for... Hair! One night a few weeks ago we were eating dinner when Caroline disappeared to the bathroom. Not unusual. She goes a lot. But what was unusual was when she came back to dinner with their bathroom hand towel folded up on her head! We asked why she was wearing a towel on her head and she said she wanted to have RED HAIR like Bobby, also known as our cousin Everett, or Mr. Baseball. Kayleigh and Everett have lovely red hair and we adore it. And Caroline especially adores Bobby, I mean, Everett.

H is is for... Happy Outing! While I was in Atlanta, Caroline had her preschool lemonade stand. I was so sad to miss it- they sell lemonade, cookies and popcorn. Aunt Molly and Bryn went though so Caroline had a couple of familiar customers. Her job was serving the lemonade. This is part of their money unit and they all contribute materials to the stand and then they split the dough the following week. Caroline's cut was $2.20 and was sooo excited to bring her money home to show me. Little Miss Caroline wanted to do something truly special with her money so after we saved $.25 for tithing, she announced what she wanted to do with her money - take Mommy out to lunch at Chick-fil-A!

Thank you sweetheart! It was a pleasure to have a chicken strip kids meal with you.

PSA: Sharper is safer and easier to use!

Today, I spent $11 and had my good Ginger scissors and my two good Henkels knives sharpened. (Scissor $5, knives $3 each.) Sven comes to JoAnn's once a month and sets up a booth and sharpens everything back to their original glory and chastises you for putting your knives in the dishwasher. He also has a sign up that he is looking for a wifey. Hmmmm.... Why do I not to this more often, or for the record, EVER? Knives are meant to be sharp and are not meant to de disposable - good knives cost good money and it is way cheaper to sharpen than buy a new one. As they say, they not only work better but a sharp knife is a safe knife. They weren't in too bad of shape - I have tried to use some pretty dull knives in my time and these were not that but still were getting harder and harder to use effectively. As I ran my knife thru a stack of scallions tonight while making dinner and found it to be a delightful task and not a fight to get all the way thru the onions in one pass, I was very thankful for a sharp knife.

Edited to add after being treated to the below Elean (Alien) Show:

Aliens wear buckets on their heads and carry dusters

and like to eat Cookies and Cream ice cream (which a little critter can't get enough of)

I had the following thoughts...

-I think the next time Sven is at our JoAnn's is March 20th.
-That is SO not my knife. It is one I found on google images, to be exact. Wish I had a nice butcher block to julienne fennel or whatever that is.
-Even a cruddy knife is worth sharpening, I think, for $3 bucks!

A give away...with a catch!

So my friend Maddy is doing a cute give away on her blog, but the catch is -- you in turn have to have a give away. Like I needed to add more to my "to do" list but I love love love the creative challenge!

The first five people to comment on this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year (hopefully sooner than later.)
4. You will have no clue what it is going to be.
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
I did not make up the rules -- I SWEAR! These are the REAL rules.

The catch? Oh the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me you did will win a marvelous homemade gift by me!
Let the games begin!!

LOVED the fun family weekend PART ONE

The Valentine's Day weekend was super duper fun for everyone. We planned on a few of our goofy little traditions and added a couple of adventures to the mix. Nothing too over the top, but spending time together and having fun and not spending the 3 day weekend pulling weeds. (Which always seems inevitable but Steve has kept up on the weed spray and yard maintenance so we didn't have to touch a single bit of the yard! Thanks Steve!)

Saturday morning was delightful. We had gone to bet kind of late the night before so Kate wasn't waking up early and the big girls let us sleep in! They spent the morning making valentines for everyone while we slept. When I got up at about 10:30, I made heart shaped eggs on toast, fresh strawberries, and "fancy orange juice" (OJ and Sprite) for breakfast. A fancy or novelty breakfast is such a fun way to break from the normal routine.


Lindsay had a party to attend that afternoon. A family from school was hosting a Valentine's Party for school friends and everyone was supposed to bring items to benefit a local dog/cat rescue group. Lindsay was thrilled to buy cat food and a cat toy to bring. Crafts, friends and fun - it was a great time! Caroline and I ran an errand or two and we went to pick up tickets for our next surprise of the day.

Caroline has been asking to see Coraline for a couple of weeks now and Steve and I had been planning to take the girls to see it for Valentine's day. We almost never go to movies because it costs so dang much money but we planned for a matinee which made it easier to swallow.

My Caroline really identifies with Coraline on so many levels - the hair cut, the love of the color blue, her name; in fact Coraline, much to her chagrin, is repeatedly called Caroline in the movie. It was a fun story, beautifully made, the 3-D effects were amazing. Sure, it was a little creepy and had its scary moments but for my girls who watch Star Wars, the creepiness was the least of my concerns. Like it seems all movies these days, it was one of those that was "soooo good, except for that ONE LITTLE PART" that was inappropriate. Dang. But, we had so much fun seeing the movie together, wearing the 3-D glasses, ooohing and aaahing over the effects.

Dinner - heart shaped pizza of course! This year Steve wanted the pizza from Papa John's. (It was nothing to write home about - IMHO.) We totally went all out for fancy dinner - everyone got their own can of soda - no sharing! Big treat!

Valentines...now, there was big pile of gift bags that made it look like Christmas or something but inside were the sweet little Valentines the girls made for us. Lindsay made hearts and wrote a love sentiment for each of us. Caroline drew me a picture frame and for Steve, drew a sack of money. Huh? It was cute and clever. Lindsay made a paper set of initials for each of her sisters to hang in their room. Mommy wrote each one a love letter and each got a t-shirt and a little box of chocolates, Daddy got the girls roses and Hannah Montana and High School Musical boxes of candy. Mommy and Daddy exchanged candy and tulips.

Then we decorated a heart shaped chocolate cake with their Valentine's candies. Yum!

Off to bath and showers to get ready for Sunday. We had a delightful day. More fun to come Monday!

Spreading the love...

We love the Valentine season, not necessarily for the romantic pressures to do something amazing as a couple/for each other but more for the chance to show people we care about that we love them lots! Once we made Valentine's Day about family lovin' and a little bit of service, it really took the romantical pressure off - phew!

Monday for FHE we made THE BEST sugar cookies. I love this recipe. You can't go wrong. Anyway, we rolled, waited while they baked and cooled, iced, and delivered a plate to our next door neighbors. They are very sweet people who don't have any kids or family close and struggle with health issues and we are trying to be better friends and neighbors.

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

1 c. butter
1 c. sour cream
1/2 t. salt
2 eggs
1 t. baking soda
1 t. vanilla
2 T. baking powder
1 1/2 c. sugar
5 c. flour

Cream butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla. Add sifted dry ingredients, blend and add sour cream last. Divide dough in two and flatten into disks, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for a couple of hours. Roll out on a floured surface and cut with cookie cutters. Avoid over working the dough. Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes depending on the thickness you make the cookies. Better underdone than overdone, of course! This is a very soft, fluffy sugar cookie. Make a homemade butter cream and, well, heaven.

Class Valentines...always a dilemma. Do we buy a cheap box of character cards that the kids love and make it easy? A candy that has room to write to your love? Make something fun? I always lean towards making something fun even if it means more work and mess. Well, we found the coolest idea in our new Ranger Rick magazine for a pink pipe cleaner and pink cardstock heart flamingo. It was darling but too expensive to implement for the entire class - I couldn't find packs of plain pink "chenille sticks" as they are called these days. I would have to buy gobs of packs of multi color and that was not happening. We had talked about another idea after I read on Design Mom that one of her children made bookmarks. I thought it was a super good fit for the kiddos this year because Lindsay's teacher is right now pushing chapter books for the kids that have not quite made that transition yet. So, I had stacks and stacks of Valentine hued scraps leftover from this project and so we went to work.

Lindsay's bookmarks. So cute. She had a lot of fun creating color combos.

Caroline's preschool bookmarks. She tailored them to each child!

I had stacks of brown bookmark sized scraps (leftover from our 2005 Christmas card!) and we designed a plan with all the scraps. Lindsay decided that we should not make the boys pink and red (duh) so we went blue/brown/green theme. The girls were definitely girly - pink, brown, red. And not to be left out, Caroline made her own bookmarks for the preschool kiddos. She had a lot of fun doing the big kid project! We printed a little label that says "I ♥ to read" that went on each bookmark. They signed the back and we glued a Dove chocolate heart to the back.

Sick Baby Kate Monday night...watching the cookie making

Baby Kate has had a rough week! She started a fever Saturday night and I fully expected a couple days to run its course so I wasn't too concerned. Finally Tuesday, when she was vomiting, slept all day for 7 hours without waking and when I woke her she had a fever of nearly 105 and was listless, we went to urgent care. Turns out the high fever and all the trimmings were a Kidney infection. Who'd a thunk? So, now she is on antibiotics and had a follow-up today. Looks like this could be an indication of something a bit bigger, like possibly Urinary Reflux, so we have another follow-up in a week and we will be going for some tests - a kidney ultrasound and a dye test to check out her plumbing. But, she is on the mend...

Friday after school Caroline sharing her Valentine's loot with Kate!

Not to be left out, Mommy made some Valentine's for a couple of special people, like the sisters I visit teach and a friend who has a Valentine birthday. I made my favorite cupcakes and attempted my own version of fancy cupcakes, a la the cupcake craze that has swept our nation! Love this recipe: Darn Good Chocolate Cake (a triple chocolate cake that I like to make as cupcakes - yields about 3 dozen, this time I made two doz. and a heart shape cake for our family dinner tomorrow.) Iced it with pale pink butter cream/cream cheese frosting and just a dash of sprinkles. I found these darling silver boxes at Dollar Tree that fits two cupcakes nicely. Tie with a pretty ribbon and tag...so sweet!

Anyway, we have plans for tomorrow and the weekend - a whole lotta family fun!

I C A N N O T wait!!

Welcome little one!

My Baby Sister Meghan had baby #3 this morning!

William Phinehas Mitchell

Born February 11, 2009 4:36am
7 lb 13 oz 21 1/2 inches long ( I think that is what she told me)

She had her first contraction at Midnight and almost didn't make it to the hospital, it was snowy and icy, got there at a 3:45am, dilated to a 10, and the doc arrived just in time to catch. Good thing she was preparing for a no drug birth because there was no time!

Will joins big sisters Siobhan (3) and Audrey (1.5). We are so thrilled for your little family.