Caddie and Laila

Just wanted to tell you a little about how Caddie and Laila are doing!

Laila is so adorable! She is starting to run a little bit and can now eat completely on her own with a spoon or a fork. She loves fruit and milk and all animals (real or stuffed). She also loves her sister! You can not separate them when Caddie's not in school. They get along great!

This is Caddie and Laila's dress up session and tea party.

They made cake and cookies and tea with "extra salt!".

Laila's outfit is especially lovely. She actually picked it out herself! And of course they had to invite their bears to the party. Caddie named them "Bear" (the girl) and "Cub" (the boy).
Caddie is really doing well in school. Her teacher says that she is very bright and is doing mostly everything at the 4 year old level. She says she wishes she had more like her! She has a ton of friends, two of which are named Isabella (kinda strange). She loves school, she loves the bus and her most recent note home said that she loved oranges (also strange)! But this is a picture of Caddie's name (obviously). But she wrote this all by herself. She didn't even need me to tell her how to spell it. And she's brought home other papers from school where she wrote her name by herself. Pretty impressive!

Halloween

Halloween was a long time ago, but I'm going to blog about it anyway because the kids looked sooo cute and Brendan and I looked completely ridiculous.

In case you couldn't guess, we were Jersey Shore people. My hair was so high, it touched the roof of our car! It was fun, but I felt totally ridiculous the whole night. Surprisingly, there weren't a lot of Jersey Shore people out....I only saw one other Snookie. But I did get a lot of compliments on my costume. I went to RiteAid and bought the darkest foundation and powder and bronzer they had ( which is how we got our amazing tans). It was a little sad that this was the darkest color they sell in St. John's but that's a topic for another blog. Anyway, we had lot's of fun and it was good to see Claire on her B-Day!

On Sunday, we all got dressed up as Peter Pan characters. I was princess Tiger Lilly, Brendan was a lost boy, Laila was Peter Pan, and Caddie was Tinkerbell. I made all of the costumes myself. It's become a tradition for me to make the Halloween costumes. I've made a dragon, Woodstock (from Charlie Brown), Abby Cadabby (sp?), Elmo, Mr. Noodle, Maria, and this year's costumes. But it's been fun to let Caddie pick out her fabric and then wake up in the morning and it's a dress! But they were so cute and got A TON of candy!
Caddie as Tinkerbell.
Laila as Peter Pan. (It was her first time trick-or-treating! She did great and was not shy at all!)

Updates....

Lot's of things going on in the Martin house as we come into fall!

1. Caddie is starting preschool! She is sooooo excited! We decided to go with Head Start here in St. John's. It's free, they only take 17-18 kids at a time, it's 4 days a week, and they take her to school and bring her home on the bus everyday. Plus, everyone is really nice and it seems like a great place. The other preschools around here have like 25 kids in one class and I would have to walk her to school and home from school everyday. Not to mention that 4 days a week of preschool is like $600/month. I think she's more excited about riding the bus than anything. I doubt she'll have any separation anxiety, she took a library class all summer and practically kicked Brendan out of the room and told him he must leave the library. But you never know.....2. Laila is finally starting to walk!! I'm sure you've seen the video on Facebook. She is really a pro now and hardly ever crawls anymore! Finally!
3. Laila is also finally starting to get some teeth! She got six teeth when she was like 7 months old and none since. She just started to get two more on the bottom. She's a little cranky but she's being a good trooper!
4. The Martins are officially baby food free! We are so happy to not have to buy baby food anymore! Laila just eats whatever we eat now and she can finally stay up late enough to eat dinner with the family. The funny thing is, she hates eating dinner with us! She's so used to being the only one eating dinner, she can't stand not getting all of the attention! But she is starting to master the spoon and fork which is good....Caddie had it down at like 9 months! But with Brendan gone all the time at work, I can't stand the mess of letting her eat by herself, so she never learned. But Brendan gave her a little "eating bootcamp" and she's almost a pro!

5. I am totally into sewing now! It's my new favorite hobby! I've made some of my old maternity clothes into cool new stuff that fits ( I made a dress into a shirt and took the sides in a little). I also sewed Caddie a new jacket out of fleece and I'm making a dress out of corduroy to match!




6. I've lost a lot of weight!!! Finally!!! I was like a size 12/14 after having Laila, but I've been working out for like 13 weeks now on "Power 90" and I've just moved up to even harder workouts. Now I am finally back to my old, "when I got married size", which is a size 8! It might not seem so small, but when you're 5'10", a size 8 is pretty good! When I zipped up those pants it was one of the best moments in my life!
7. Last, but not least, Brendan is working at that print shop in St. John's again. He's working a ton of hours now, but at least he's only a mile away!

Anyway, that's about it for now....sorry about the late blog entry......until later....

Cutie Pie Girl!

Playing Makeup

Sewing Part 2

Ok, so first, I found a button down shirt with a cute pattern. This one doesn't really fit me anymore but I liked the polka dots so I went with it. You're supposed to use a men's shirt because it doesn't have darts on the sides so I made it a little harder for myself, but it still worked ok. Next time, I'll definitely go to St. Vinny's and get one for a dollar :) So, I cut the sleeves off and seperated the back from the front. Then I cut the collar off. So it looked like this:


Next, I measured Caddies chest and cut the pieces out of the front and back of the shirt. So the back of the shirt is the front of the dress and the front of the shirt is the back of the dress with the buttons. It's a good project for learning how to sew because you don't need elastic or anything because it already has buttons! Then I made the straps. The shirt already had a nice ruffle sleeve so I just used that. I had another shirt that had ripped a couple months ago with a nice trim on it so I used that for the trim at the top. So I sewed the straps on then the trim. Then I sewed the sides together and it looked like this:


This is when I started to get excited! So then I cut some trim for the bottom with that same shirt and sewed that onto the bottom. Then I sewed the straps onto the back. For placement, I just used another dress that fit Caddie to see where they should go. And then I made a little flower and sewed that onto the front of the dress.


After that, I tried it on her and it was a little big in the chest. So I turned it inside out and had her put it back on and pinned it to fit her. I sewed that and shortened the straps a little bit. And then it was done! Here is Caddie wearing her new dress!!


She loved it! It was super fun to make (it only took about 2 hours) and really easy! I think I'm going to make a couple of them to get used to sewing and then maybe I'll move on to some harder stuff. Well, until next time...

Sewing 101

Peggy got Brendan and I a sewing machine for Christmas and we just figured out how to use it thanks to a tutorial from Peggy (thank you!). I've made a bag so far and taken in some pants for myself and Caddie and I made a Barbie dress but not much else.

I've been looking online for some free patterns to make a dress for Caddie and I think I finally found the one. You take a button down shirt and make a dress from it. I found the perfect shirt (white with black polka dots) and I'm going to give it a shot. I thought maybe I could blog about it so everyone can see what happens.

Here's the site where I found the pattern: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=170402.0

Wish me luck!

So much to tell...

Let's see... so much has happened! Laila and Caddie had their birthdays. 1 and 3! I can't believe it! Laila had lemon cake (of course) and Caddie had chocolate cake. We went to Impression 5 with Willow for Caddie's b-day and they had so much fun together! Laila loved it too... she always wants to do what her big sister is doing!

We are having a big party for their birthdays on July 25th in St. John's. It's going to be a carnival theme. I think I'm more excited about it than the girls, but oh well. We got a pinata and a ton of carnival games and prizes. I think I'm just going to buy a cake this time (it was a lot of work to make 2 whole cakes within 10 days of each other!), but I can't resist making some kind of dessert from scratch. Maybe a peach crumble?? I don't know. But the party should be awesome because Erin will be there with Maggie and Charlie!! We are soooo excited to see them and I cannot wait to hold that little baby!

Shortly after her birthday, Laila got a super high fever (106) and we had to take her to the emergency room. It was awful. She had to get an IV and shots for antibiotics. She was super sluggish and sleepy for 3 or 4 days after that. The doctor never did figure out what was wrong with her, but she's finally got some pep in her step. She seems to be all better and is back to her crazy self again!

Then, a few days after she was better, we took both of the girls to the dentist. Laila did not do so well (I think she was wary of all people with masks on from being in the hospital). She cried and cried, but her teeth look good to the doctor. Caddie did amazing though. I thought for sure she would be scared, but she was so wonderful! She talked to the lady who cleaned her teeth and kept her mouth open wide. She loved the squirt gun and the sucker thing. It was so cute! She's in the no cavity club now, hence the tattoo on her arm in some of these pictures.

And finally, this last Thursday, we went to Detroit to see the PoPo with Claire! It was sooo fun! Driving there was a little tough, tons of construction and it was raining, but it was definitely worth it! Sam came back with us that night and hung out with Caddie, Laila, and me the next day! He was so amazing with her! She was so sad to see him go home and almost started to cry! Zeb hung out with us for a little while too when he came to pick Sam up. Laila never warmed up to them, but she's always been a little wary of strangers. Plus, they're friggin' huge! Anyway, here are some pics from the last month or so...enjoy! And I'll try my best to blog a little more often! And sorry the pictures are in reverse order!

This is Caddie being a beauty queen

Sam, Brendan and Caddie having a good time

Operation anyone?

At the concert in Detroit

Birthday presents!

Chocolate cake

Blow out the candles!

In the water room

Impression 5

My sweet little girl!

Nana got her a new computer!

Mmmm...Lemon Cake!

She loved those candles!

Summer!

Well, summer has finally come to Michigan!

We've really been into going to the beach lately. There's a state park in Dewitt with a nice lake and we also have been going to Lake Lansing. It's been really fun, the girls love the sand and the water. They've been getting some serious use out of those sand toys from Easter (Thanks Becky!). Caddie has finally learned how to ride her little bike! We are so proud of her because she has been trying to ride that bike for almost a year and now she's really got the hang of it!

We're gearing up for a big joint birthday party for the girls. I'm aiming to keep it in June but it might have to wait until July. I really want to do it at our nice park here in St. John's but I really want to reserve the nice covered party area with the tables, so we'll see.

Living in St. John's has been pretty good. It's super quiet which is nice and there are lots of parks around. But it has been pretty hard for me being the only non white face around town. I'm 1/4 African American and 1/4 Native American and the rest is Irish and German. I have yet to see a fellow brown skinned person in the entire town. There are confederate flags all over and I get a lot of stares and whispered comments. Sales people even follow me around stores to make sure I don't steal! Brendan thinks I'm being paranoid, and maybe I am, but it's still a little disconcerting. I did live in Okemos, and was one of only 5 African Americans in my graduating class of 350. And I still have nightmares about visiting my dad in Virginia and hearing the n-word at least 10 times as soon as you step out the door. I've always been proud of my heritage and it's been hard because sometimes I just wish I looked like my family. I must get over this immediately! Anyway, enough ranting! Here's some pics from last week! Enjoy!

Chalk of the Town!

Art Festival and More

Brendan and I were in the East Lansing Arts and Crafts Fair this weekend and, I am happy to say, it was a big success! Thanks to everyone who came out and for all of your support. We sold a lot of stuff and made a pretty nice profit off of our investment, so we're happy. Brendan made some new contacts there too which is so great! The girls stayed with Grandma all weekend and had a great time.
I don't really have much to blog about which is why I haven't posted anything in a while. But I do want to say that we miss all of our out of town family soooooooo much! Erin - congratulations on your new addition! We cannot wait to hold that little baby! I don't even remember the last time I held a baby boy. I hope that we can see you guys sooner rather than later! Caddie misses Maggie too, she still talks about her all of the time. Bridget - we miss you too! And don't worry, the only thing I said to you know who was hello :) And Barry! We miss you soooo much! We show Laila and Caddie pictures of their grandpa all the time and they miss you too!

Well, anyway, here some pics of the art fair and some other stuff over the last couple of weeks!