Momma, you will scream like a Little Girl...

...and other things spoken at the Hagler house last week.

First up is Micah John:

Micah (as he comes running into the house): "Momma, you GOTTA come see this...you will scream like a Girl!"
Momma: "Well, I am a girl"
Micah: "Then you will scream like a LITTLE girl!"
Momma (I laugh and say): "Okay"
...and we go walking out the door to see what has caused all this ruckus

We have these cement blocks at the front of the gate that then have cement pavers covering the tops of them. The boys like to walk across the pavers/blocks and this day had taken the pavers off and were making it more difficult for themselves. Well in the process they had found a HUGE spider. I walk up and try to look into the block...I cannot see a thing except for lots of cobwebs. Micah is on the other side of the block and he keeps insisting it is RIGHT THERE! I crane my head all the way over and all of the sudden I see the HUGE spider...I jump back and go around to Micah's side to get a better look. The thing is nasty, hairy and BIG. I try to take a pic with my cell phone but it doesn't come out very well. I go inside to get the regular camera and snap a few. Micah tries to get Vicki to come out and see it as he runs in telling her...Vicki, Vicki, Vicki you HAVE to come see this HUGE spider. She asks him how big it is and he replies...50 FEET as he holds up his figures to measure about an inch. I get back outside to snap a pic and as I zoom in to get it the darn thing starts crawling out towards US. I indeed "scream like a little girl", snap the pic, and jump back (thank goodness for wrist band on cameras or this one may have been toast!). The flash causes the spider to crouch and then he falls down the cement block and we cannot see him any longer. YUCK!

Next up is Joel. Now for all my kids I kind of call them whatever comes out of my mouth. Christian was always Boo or Bug...and has now grown into Babe, Micah has always been Micah John and Baby...and Joel has been Jojo, Jojo-bear, and Joely-bear. So he walks into my room last week and says:

Joel: "Hi, Mama bear"
Me: "Is my name mama-bear? What's your name?"
Joel: "Jojo-bear"
Me: "Who else is there?"
Joel: "Micah-bear...Yicky-bear (vicki)...Robyn-bear (Robyn, Vicki's sister)"
Me: "Who else?"
Joel: "Christian-bear, Daddy-bear, Nana-bear, Papa-bear"

I just had to laugh...this little one is just too cute. Later when we went to pick up Christian from school, Joel and Micah got real silly about it...calling everything "bear"...the house, the garage, etc.

My pocket called you...

So Luke sat down last night after everyone was in bed and was going through his messages. He looked up at me and said, "You called me...6ish?"...he was gone with C and M at wrestling practice. I knew I hadn't...so told him, "My pocket must have called you". Usually it is just static...but he put the message on speaker phone and I just had to laugh. You can hear a very LOUD rendition of a KT Tunstall song...her Live in Soho album has become one of my latest faves and I was playing it very loudly while I was cleaning the kitchen and cooking dinner last night. And while I was doing THAT...Joel was doing THIS with the dogs (btw...you cannot get good pics while trying to cook and take pics with a cell phone):

On an unhappy note...dinner was ruined...atleast the part with massive amounts of butter. Apparently our garage refrigerator on going on the fritz...and having a MASSIVE freon issue...which is now making everything in the freezer taste NASTY! So we either need to get it fixed or get a newer cheap one off Craigslist. It was on my agenda today to call our extended warranty/insurance people today to see if this qualifies...but instead I did a massive blog update...so now I get to make that call tomorrow. Thankfully Luke is stopping at the store tonight for NEW butter as I definitely do not want to ruin the baked potatoes currently cooking in the oven.

onto 2010!!!

Okay...so I just spent pretty much ALL day updating the blog with everything from last year. In my quest to get more organized and document my life and the kids...my goal this year is to keep this slightly more updated that in the past. It may be boring, funny, sad, inspiring...but I will try to write something atleast weekly!

And hopefully there will be some sewing...as that is what truly inspires my soul! Making things for my family and my extended family brings a smile to my face...as sitting down at my machines can bring a calmness to me like no other...plus I have a rather large stash that needs to be drastically dwindled down. My goal is to not wait until special moments to sew...but to keep it going all year long...so if you are a part of that wonderful thing I call FAMILY...do not be surprised if you or your child randomly receive things from my throughout the year...or if I constantly ask for measurements LOL.

And to my husband...hopefully this year also brings forth a lot of decluttering, organizing, and getting things in order around the house. Here's to an incredible 2010!

onto Christmas (and the Christmas sewing)

We scooted right into December and I promised myself I was not going to take on a lot of Cmas sewing...yeah, right! December started with my mom coming to help me inventory all of my fabric...800+ pictures and 24+ bins later we got most of it done (there are still a few left and there was a handful I had done already)....atleast half of it needs to be sold. Bless my mom's heart for conquering this project with me! After we were done I needed to do Cmas projects. My list started with this:

• Christmas pj's for the boys
• footie pajamas for Robyn (Vicki's sister)
• a doll sling for my niece Ruby
• fleece pants for my nephew Curtis

The list then went on to add the following:

• 2 more doll slings for my other nieces Aleena & Taylor
• a hat for niece Ruby
• 2 family picture albums for my nieces Taylor and Lily
• pair of booties for Lily

AND of course almost ALL of it had to be mailed! I got almost all of it done except for half of the boys' pajamas (ran out of fabric after doing the pants, new fabric is here now and needs to be finished...and Robyn's footie jammies). I had a lot of fun on all these projects and learned a few new things:

Ruby's doll sling - adapted from here

Curt's pants - Otto 6/07 #23 Osmo pants

Ruby's hat (which matches her school outfit) - Burda 9587


Lily's slippers and book - Otto 01/09 #9 slippers, Amy Butler "Stitches for Little Ones" photo album

Taylor and Lily's books - Amy Butler "Little Stitches for Little Ones" Photo Album

Lily's book

Taylor's book

Aleena and Taylor's doll slings

adapted from here

We had a splendid Christmas around here and of course everyone was spoiled!

November and Thanksgiving

November was another busy month for us. In early Nov we traveled down to Vancouver to celebrate our nephew Jericho turning 4yo. Then we had Joel's birthday and then a few weeks late we traveled down to Medford to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Hagler fam.

me and baby Lily

Sissy Taylor

the "cousins" after a hard day of playing
(L to R: Jericho, Christian, Micah, Aleena, Joel)

Aleena, Jericho, and Micah wearing their party noses

the "kid" table

playing at the park as it got too sunny to do the outdoor skating rink

Aleena and Jojo

Christian and Micah

daddy and boys

all of us!

Joel's birthday

In November Joel turned 3yo. It was a Scooby all around birthday. Scooby cake, Scooby presents...and even Scooby Crocs. We celebrated just at home with the Russells. We also got to have a small celebration with the extended Hagler fam while we were in Vancouver in early November.

Our ER trips for the year

As the mom of boys I am sure there will be more...but we had our 1st and 2nd ER trips this year...which probably should have been 3 but Luke didn't go in when he split his chin. 1st was in February for Micah as he fileted his leg open furniture jumping in his underwear trying to get away from Joel hitting him. Then in September came Christian while he was playing wiffleball down the street at the neighbors and it started to rain...we say that he got in a fight with the sidewalk...and the sidewalk WON. They both were champs for their stitches...which of course I had to get on video!

pre-hospital

the obligatory popsicle


prepped

all done!

He was quite worried

the lone tear

pre-numbing treatment

all-better...they did a wonderful job

ushering in Halloween

The rest of October was spent making the boys' Halloween costumes...I had the grand idea for them all to be Ninjas after seeing matching costumes a couple years ago on the Sewing Mamas forum. I had SO much fun...as they did getting to fight in their Ninja costumes. I also took them to get professional pics taken. I thought I was going to have a rough go of things as a week before H-ween Joel said he wasn't going to be an 'inja (as he called it)...he was going to be Batman...mom to the rescue, I appliqued a Batman symbol to the back of his hoodie and he was good to go as Batman Ninja LOL. I also squeezed out one of the funnest outfits I have made for Ruby, getting to use my new ruffler foot for my sewing machine to make an awesome twirl skirt with appliqued tee...in Hello Kitty of course (or Hallo-kitty since it was H-ween themed). Joel got a new pair of "eyeball" pants for H-ween as well.

you can see his Batman symbol on his back

Ninja "C"

Ninja "M"

Ninja "J" killing Elmo

Otto 4/08 #27 pants, Otto 1/08 #34 pants, Otto 4/09 #17 hoodie, Otto 4/05 #34 hoodie, winged it for the face coverings and belts

Burien town TorT during the day

ready for the night

Our yearly trick or treat with the Russells

appliqued t-shirt, Otto 03/06 #35 Ruffled skirt

Otto 01/09 #21 Taku pants sans pockets

Ice Skating in October

We were lucky enough to celebrate a birthday with Micah's friend Hannah by going ice skating. Hannah is as cute as can be and loves Hello Kitty and make-up...so I got her a bit of both, it was nice to use up some HK flannel I have had in my stash for awhile. The younger boys did great for their first go at skating and we all had a great time.

appliqued t-shirt with HK patches

HK flannel pj pants - my go-to pattern from Butterick


Jojo getting his bearings

gotta love these things they have now for first-timers

Micah and Luke

some girl that thought Joel was cute and helped him around a few laps

Micah and Hannah


Christian with Hannah's brothers Michael and Alex (they were on Luke's fall ball team last year)

me and Jojo

the boys...tired and sweaty after skating