ok... this is a 2 part-er

so is it bad that i'm a just a titch amused by this??? as i was walking out of school today, i received a phone call from clay's school. it was clay's teacher that was calling to tell me that clay got into trouble, not only in gym... i mean phys ed... but in the classroom as well. he won't stop making motor noises in the gym... now let me tell you, his motor noises are enough to make you want to rip out your ear drums. i was not happy to hear this... we JUST got him to stop making those noises in the regular classroom!!!
but then the REAL issue came out. clay said some bad words in class today. he said the "f" word and the "sh" word. now this is not what i was amused by, by ANY means... frankly i'm FURIOUS about this. i do take a good amount of the blame, seeing as how i have a bit of a potty mouth... but he's not stupid. he knows better.
anyhoo, other than being grounded for a week (which is an ETERNITY for a little boy who is 6 1/2!) he was instructed to write letters of apology.

the brown note is to the gym... sorry, phys ed teacher- "i am sorry for making motor noises. i will never do it again." the red and green is for his teacher- "i am sorry that i said swears. i will never do it again." underneath is a stack of letters to all the kids sitting at his table when he decided to blurt out his obscenities...
it wasn't until he went to bed that i saw this... i think it's OUR letter of apology perhaps. not only did he make it, but he hung it on the fridge for all to see- "i am a bad boy."

now don't get me wrong... i am VERY upset that he is getting in trouble in school, and that he has such a trash mouth. what i found amusing was his "bad boy" picture that he made and inconspicuously hung on the fridge.

now, for part 2- i made 2 bags tonight!

first we have a care bears bag... lined with muslin
with a nice sized inside pocket
and then a super cute sparkly princess bag...
the tiaras actually have some subtle sparkles on them...

i have a bunch of stuff cut out and ready to put together... these 2 bags were sewn together in a little over an hour all together. now i just need to keep it up and make a few every night! i think that's it for now... :D

you mean we AREN'T 17 any more???

so i have 2 words for you... girl's night!!! yeah, that's right... all of the boys in my house (with the exception of good ole tucker- my cat) headed to the southern tier for the weekend. i actually considered joining them for a second... then i came to my senses! "no, no... you guys go... i'll stay here... i can get some cleaning done..." YEAH RIGHT! as soon as i heard they would be gone i fired out the emails and texts to all my ladies. we have our annual girl's weekend coming up in february... we needed some practice!
barber and laura decided to smoke some cigars... seriously girls? cigars???
mindy is not a typical attendee of these girl's night/weekend functions... i was afraid that we might scar her for life. (not really) surprisingly enough, she not only handled us, but she added to us as well! (not sure if that's a compliment toward her or not!)
laura became a little "sleepy" as the night went on...
and then there is the best game EVER... it's called "how much crap can we pile on laura as she sleeps without either (a) peeing our pants laughing or (b) waking her up". i'm telling you, if you ever have the chance to play, DO IT!!!

my goodness do i LOVE my girls... on another note, i went to joann's today. uh, yeah... i got some REALLY cute stuff! i'm excited to get at my sewing machine again! it's getting to be that time of the year when people start (psychotically) xmas shopping... i want to be ready! :)

a 2 year old on a quad??? am i crazy?

so carter's birthday gift from us (or should i say his re-gift from us, since technically it was originally bought for clay) is the quad. clay was 2 1/2 when we bought the quad brand new from the dealer. they looked at us like we were NUTS!!! now those of you who are saying "well letting a baby drive a quad like that IS nuts!" just relax... there is a control on the quad that makes it go slower than those (lame) battery operated cars. and just think, we can make it go faster as he gets older! anyhoo, he LOVES the quad... unfortunately his new helmet is a titch too big, so until we get him the right size he is rockin a bike helmet.

i'm not sure what makes this clip funnier... carter driving, the sight of gerry riding on the back, or clay running next to them in his dirt bike helmet. boys are such strange creatures!

the cutest gift for a kid EVER!!!

so carter's gift from my mom and my sister's family was a massive gift certificate for build a bear. for those of you who have never been to build a bear, let me just say, WHY DIDN'T I COME UP WITH THAT IDEA!!! it's so damn clever... you pick an animal body, stuff it, and dress it. sounds simple enough right? well let me tell you that they have every kind of outfit you could want, as well as every accessory you could possibly want to go with it. it's an indecisive person's worst nightmare!!! if you have never checked it out, i suggest doing so.

choosing the animal was simple enough... carter wanted the monkey. i showed him all the bears, dogs, elephant, turtle, and bunny that they had. he LOVED the monkey! stuffing it was cute, carter had the hand pump that operates the stuffing machine...

the lady did all these cute things with him... you pick out a heart to go in the monkey. carter then rubbed the heart on his ears so the monkey will always listen, on his tummy so he will never go hungry, on his knees so the monkey will always know if he "kneeds" him etc. super cute. then he stuffed the heart in and she sewed it up.
he named his monkey "ahh ahh". ok, so i'm not sure if he really understood the concept of "naming" the monkey. when i asked him what he wanted the monkey's name to be he smiled and said "ahh ahh" aka, his monkey noise.
can you believe i actually found a motocross outfit for it? like i said, they have EVERYTHING!!!
we made ahh ahh's birth certificate and off we went with ahh ahh safely in his "condo"
on the way home carter showed ahh ahh his new dirt bike toy (i could choke you jen!) i now LOVE build a bear and will be back again... especially since i still have a chunk of money left on the gift certificate! maybe ahh ahh will get a halloween costume!

another year...

so we celebrated carter's 2nd birthday on sunday... his actual birthday was thursday. he is in LOVE with mickey mouse clubhouse... hence the cake. he is also in LOVE with the cake... as i type this, he is looking at the picture on my screen, touching the screen, then licking his fingers and saying "mmm mom!" oh yeah, and he and i both enjoyed it again for breakfast this morning!
after an almost catastrophe (one of my bags of party stuff got left at party city... i almost cried. then my brother picked it up on his way to my house and all was well with the universe) the party was great! it was typical family chaos... we are a really loud bunch of people! jen actually thanked me for letting her finally experience one of the family parties she hears so much about! we may have finally completely frightened our neighbors though...
i decided to add a video clip because 1. i have never done one before and wanted to try it. and 2. it will give you a taste of the chaos that i call my family...

and then there are his gifts... a dirt bike/snowmobile helmet is a normal gift for a 2 year old right???there was a plethora of other toys... trucks with trailers, quad toys, play dough, tractor toys etc.
then there was jen and heffay's toy... a dirt bike that makes dirt bike noises. i told jen that this would be what woke me up this morning... she thought i was kidding. i wasn't. i woke up this morning to this dirt bike toy being revved up on my left cheek. boys... such interesting creatures!

we had so much fun yesterday at carter's party... thanks to everyone for everything! i am home with him today (i must have gotten a little "sick" from all the cleaning and preparing i did this weekend!)

now i need to get myself back into sewing again (i say that a lot don't i?) but for now, we have dirt bikes to play with...

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ADDENDUM!!!

as i was sweeping/mopping the kitchen floor, carter was VERY quiet in the living room. he had been playing very quietly with his new presents so i didn't really think much of it. then the smell hit me. i guess he's on his way to start potty training because he took his diaper off BEFORE pooping... but he pooped all over the floor. as if that were not enough, he then decided to smear the poop ALL OVER MY LEATHER COUCHES!!! did i mention i just had my carpets cleaned on saturday???

let me just say that i'm so glad i took today off to hang out with him (sarcasm).

quick update...

so crazy pants lost his other front tooth... he and his brother were pretending to be dogs and were crawling around in the living room. clay tried to bite carter in the leg and oops! his other tooth fell out! let me also point out that they got their hair cut yesterday... so now the school pictures will be complete with a haircut and both missing teeth...

move over x games...

so as you can see, clay cut his hair this weekend. he said he was mad that his brother ripped his art project he had been working on. so apparently the solution to that anger was to cut his own hair. now don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that i wish he had cut his brother's hair, but wouldn't that make more sense??? oh yeah, and guess when school pictures are... FRIDAY!!! guess who is getting a haircut this week (probably a buzz cut)...
then there is carter... he also needs a haircut. i have such a hard time cutting his hair though... i LOVE those curls! as you can see in this picture, he apparently also needs a bath! he was loving life yesterday running around in the yard and playing with the hose.

look at the eyes on grace (stella)... don't let her sweet little face fool you though!

and then there is this sweet little guy...

so this week thursday is carter's 2nd birthday... just wait til you all see the cake i have planned!!!

i'm so greedy

so i actually accomplished another bag last night! ok, ok, so i made it for my big fat selfish self... but anyhoo, i still made something right? my machine was sounding a little overworked going through all that denim, but she pulled through like a champ!

not too much else to say! school is back in session and is STARTING to get into the routine of things... clay is a big 1st grader, and his teacher has reported that he has been awesome!!! i'm so glad... he's been a titch mouthy lately. i think he gets it from his father! ;) does anyone out there have any good back to school stories? is anyone out there actually reading this blog?

well folks, i'm gonna keep on keepin on... i have a lot of sewing planned for this weekend... let's see if it happens!

did i really say that???

so yeah, we are rednecks. i know this picture is kind of blurry, but the gist of it is this... clay is holding a dead squirrel. gerry and clay were SO excited sunday to go squirrel hunting... they got all camo-ed up and headed out into the woods behind our house with gerry's 22. now don't let me fool you... i know NOTHING about guns, the only reason i know they took a 22 is because clay told me over and over again that "we got a squirrel with my dad's 22!" as a side note, i find it so funny that he always refers to gerry as "my dad", i am "my mom", carter is "my brother". it's cute... anyhoo, he was so excited that when he woke up the next morning he told my sister in law, as he waited for the bus, that mom was going to cook his squirrel for dinner... any parent knows that sometimes you say things to your kids that you NEVER in your life thought you would ever say... this was one of those times. i had to crush his hopes and dreams and tell him "we will NEVER eat squirrel buddy".

miracles DO happen!

so i actually did some sewing today! gasp! it's a miracle! and i will tell you what, as i sat there stitching away, i remembered how much fun it is. it's very relaxing (sort of) and mind erasing. i sat there, watching the *mtv vma's and making the bag that i was supposed to make a month ago for gerry's little cousin's birthday gift. oops! sorry lex!

i love this denim i used... and i added a little pleat type thing in the front which i think is pretty cute. the denim has a little stretch to it and is softer and not as tough as regular denim... BUT it seems as though i should have washed it first...

hopefully this has now inspired me to get sewing again... i have LOTS to do! :)

*i have to say, that i am thoroughly enjoying this year's awards... i am finding lil wayne strangely attractive... and t.i.? forget about it!!! ;)

for those of you unsure of who in the world i'm talking about (yeah tina, i'm talking to you!)

this is lil wayne (i think it's the tattoos that get me!)

and this is t.i.

is it seriously september???

so today was the first day back to school. how was it you may ask??? i can answer that in one word... disorganized. that's all i'm going to say about that.

we had a fabulous labor day weekend at the land... aka last weekend of freedom. really i'm happy to be back to work... i need the structure and schedule. you know who else needs that structure? that would be clay... who by the way lost his front tooth! (notice the mud on his forehead!)

how cute is he? every time he smiles or talks, i giggle! he starts first grade tomorrow. yeah, FIRST GRADE! i'm not sure why, but first grade seems 47 years older than kindergarden... not sure why, but it's freaking me out!

on the sewing front, tina and i decided to skip this month's indie market... thank goodness! i have done NOTHING!!! i need to get on it. can anyone motivate me???