I think I can speak for most moms when I say you try your best each and everyday to care for your child physically and emotionally. But sometimes it takes being run over by a truck for you to realize when you’ve messed up, and then you walk around feeling guilty the rest of the afternoon.

Since having put our Christmas stuff up, I had to do some rearranging in the living room. We moved his toy cubbies and basket into the dining room, and Conner seemed to have adapted just fine to that. We’ve worked so hard and have now become spoiled when he ask him to clean up his toys, for he does it so well and is getting better and better everyday at staying on task.

Yesterday after lunch, I asked him to pick up his toys and put them away. He proceeded to go to the ones in the corner, sit, and play with them. After a stern warning, he didn’t move, he just continued to fiddle with them. So into time-out he went. A minute later we tried again, and he did the same thing, except he wasn’t playing, he just sat in front of them and turned to look at me. Time-out again. Third time, I got down on his level and very sternly told him to clean up his toys, but he just looked at me and began to cry. I sighed very heavily and raised my voice to tell him to clean up or he was going back into time-out. He slowly walked to the toys, sat in the floor and continued to cry. I asked him what was wrong and he pushed the toys together in the corner and kept crying. Then it hit me: that’s where his toys used to go. He thought they were put away and was confused. Talk about feeling like a horrible mother. So I went over and put the toys into his hands, I grabbed a toy, and said, “Let’s do it together,” and of course to make me feel even more guilty, he took my hand and smiled at me so big it looked like it was going to explode off his face. Once I showed him, again, where the toys go, he eagerly and happily continued putting the rest away. It’s times like this that I wish so much he could communicate with me better. Or that I would get over myself faster and be open to what he is trying to tell me.

If there was ever a time to pull out maternity pants early, it is the weekend after Thanksgiving. I think I ate myself into a coma on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I jumped on the scale this morning and grimaced painfully until the numbers popped up and was relieved to find I only gained a pound. So technically I’m still under my previous pre-prego weight, which honestly is a huge relief. With Conner I gained 7 pounds in the first trimester, and I’m at week 9 with one pound gained as of yet. Now how my pants are fitting in the waist is a little different. I thought I could make it until the second trimester before I started breaking out the elastic, but instead I’m having to opt for my low-rise jeans. It’s fun tho - I can’t complain. So here’s a belly shot for you - the first of many.

Thanksgiving was so fun - it always is - and we got our fill of family and food. We started the day out watching Tim play a little football and poor Conner…wanting to be a big boy so badly, he bawled on the sidelines after the game started b/c he couldn’t play with them on the field. It’s hard to explain to an almost two year why he can’t play football with giants who will bowl him over - I don’t want him wearing helmets and licking windows the rest of his life.

This year our good friends Jerrod and Amanda joined us and it was just as much fun having friends among the chaos. The boys played the entire time and Conner slept like a rock. I always seem to forget just how much I love Thanksgiving, and leave thinking, “wow, that was so much fun!” We really are blessed to have so many friends and family nearby that we can all gather together at the same place and fellowship together.

Sunday I forced myself to decorate for the holidays. I really do go all out, but this year I just wasn’t feeling it. I don’t want to be a scrooge about it, but it just takes soooooo long. But Tim gently (and guiltily) reminded me that this will be our last Christmas in this house, so why not remember it the right way? So all the greenery is back up and fluffed and lit with twinkly lights and our world is right with itself. Conner helped us decorate the tree and is absolutely enamored by it. He pulls us into the living room at least twenty times over the course of the day to point at it and exclaim emphatically, “Sisma Tee!”

You can’t really tell in this picture, but Conner’s head about exploded when he saw all the Christmas balls. The boy is obsessed.

I’m also one of those people who does not shop until the last week of Christmas. I would love to say it’s b/c of all the deals you get when you wait, but it’s not - it’s sheer laziness. However this year is already different in that Conner is bought for, Tim’s stuff is ordered and I’ve already begun rounding up the gifts for everyone else. I really surprise myself. I know it sucks all of my Christmas spirit when the week before the big day I’m stressing that nothing has been bought, so I really do think those days are over, for I’m already nestled into the spirit of the Holidays and my shopping and buying and making is almost complete. I am hoping to do another giveaway very very soon, so check back for another crafty giveaway (that may or may not be a clutch - haven’t decided yet).

I know I am one of thousands who luuuuuuvs Christmas music. I have my favorites - Jingle Bell Rock, Baby It’s Cold Outside, Oh Holy Night, just to name a few - but last year as I was cleaning the kitchen and listening to one of my favorite radio programs, Delilah (yes, I am a mom), I heard this beautiful Christmas song that brought tears to my eyes. As I was washing the dishes, I listened to this young girl’s beautiful voice sing this folk song and I couldn’t stop welling up. I only heard it once, but I found a copy of it on You Tube and will definitely be purchasing the single from iTunes. The song is called The Gift, and it’s by Aselin Debison. You can listen to it here, or if you’re at a place you can’t listen right now, here are the lyrics. I hope you are blessed as much as I was!

This week is Thanksgiving! This is probably my favorite week of the year. The anticipation of my favorite holiday, the build-up, the cooking, the fall-ness in the air, then the actual day, and the day after is the kick-off to the holiday season. I stinking love it so much I feel like running circles in the living room. I’m so relieved my nausea has subsided - realizing I’d be thick in the first trimester during turkey-day made me pray and beg my morning sickness away like crazy, and it is working! I am bummed that I can’t take my normal place on the trampoline with all the kiddo’s after dinner, but that’s okay - just means I get to sit and watch them bounce around and laugh hysterically.

I usually don’t start baking for Thanksgiving until Wednesday evening, but we’re having an early T-day with some friends, so instead of whipping up my favorite pumpkin pie twice, I opted for pumpkin pie bars for tonight. They’re super easy, quick, and really do taste like pumpkin pie. I highly recommend them and the recipe is listed below. Have a great Thanksgiving and I’ll see ya when I return!

Pumpkin Pie Bars

1-1/3 cups flour
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) cold butter or margarine
1 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats, uncooked
1/2 cup chopped PLANTERS Pecans
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
3 eggs
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin
1 Tbsp. pumpkin pie spice

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Line 13×9-inch baking pan with foil; grease foil lining. Mix flour, brown sugar and 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar in medium bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in oats and pecans. Reserve 1 cup of the oat mixture; press remaining mixture onto bottom of pan. Bake 15 min.

BEAT cream cheese, remaining 1/2 cup sugar, eggs, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice in small bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Pour over crust; sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.

BAKE 25 min. Lift from pan using foil handles; cool completely. Cut into 24 bars. Store leftover bars in tightly covered container in refrigerator.

Things around here have been a little tense lately. It’s always these rough spots in life that make you step back and either realize all the blessings that you have or you can choose to pout, mope, pick fights and generally be a PITA. I used to take the PITA approach, but have since come to realize that’s helpful for no one. I’m not the natural optimist, it comes easy but certainly not naturally, but things are much more peaceful when you choose to count your blessings instead of belly-aching about how life is just not fair sometimes.

The last few weeks have been really difficult in more ways than one, so how does one get her mind off of harsh realities? By throwing herself into her work.

I love making these clutches - they really become addicting after awhile - so I had two ideas in mind. I love owls (it’s a bird, right?) and thought they would look great appliquéd on, except I forget it’s one thing to sketch a really cute, colorful owl, and quite another trying to cut out felt pieces for it.

So they were modified a little, but I still like how they came out. And the other is a nice, big flower. I love these flowers. They’re 100% wool felt and make me realize that wool felt may be more expensive but it’s so much nicer, easier to work with and all around just yummmmm.

I still have more I want to make, but they’re a little more winter-themed so they’ll be in the shop in a few weeks. But if you’re interested in purchasing (or just looking at) any of the new ones, click here to check them out.

(P.S. the beautiful belly you see in the pictures is not my baby belly, but Kel’s - I can’t wait for mine to start popping b/c hers looks so darn cute!)

I was hoping to be able to blog about something light and airy today, but my morning sickness has decided to last into the evening and things here have been, well, interesting. The icing on the cake was last night as I was getting ready for bed, Tim calling me downstairs in his most serious of voices. Some creep in Chicago, Illinois got a copy of our check card and went to town at Wal-mart and McDonald’s (this screams “classy”, doesn’t it?). My heart dropped into my stomach as I stared at our online statement of all the money that was drained, plus more. We immediately called the bank, had the account frozen, and this morning began the steps of rectifying this.

Once the dust settled a bit, we found that they were somehow using Tim’s card number. The thought of the bank, somehow, authorizing another card and mailing it to another state without our knowledge infuriated me. But once Tim spoke with our local branch manager, she let us in on some information that is making this particular issue a growing problem. Employees who are running credit cards and debit cards (particularly at restaurants) are hooking machines into the back of the credit card machines that makes a clone of your credit or debit card electronically. This then allows them to use this number very easily online, or in this case, make a physical clone of the card and use it in a store. A couple months back I read an article in one of my chick magazines about this very issue and how you should be using cash as much as possible, esp. in restaurants. I hate having cash on-hand, but after this incident, it’s something we are going to really start using more and begin to retire our debit cards.

Luckily for us, b/c it was a debit card, the transactions were declined, and this butt-face kept trying over and over, and with each try our account was authorized that amount (meaning it was still holding that amount on our card, showing each as a separate transaction). So chances are, 80% of the total amount will be put right back into our account after 2 pm today. But it’s still extremely unsettling that we were victims of this kind of fraud.

A couple things worth noting here: 1) We had signed up for a daily notification of our account balance, so when Tim received that and it said we were in the red, that caused him to check things out. If you use online banking at all, I highly recommend this feature, esp. if you don’t check your account daily, like we do. And 2) We did nothing wrong. This happened not of our negligence or carelessness. We didn’t lose our wallet, or give out our information to anyone - it was done that quickly and that easily, and it happens every day. I do not share this to scare you or make you afraid of anything. I only wish to spread awareness that this is a growing problem and it really can happen to anyone.

For anyone that knows me, knows I am not a jewelry person. I admire it, and admire my friends that can wear it, but I, sadly, am not one of those people. And the more understated, the better. I told Tim when we got married that he was a lucky man (for many reasons), since I didn’t like jewelry very much and he would save a lot of money in that area.

But after Conner was born, I found a ring that I fell in love with. It was a diamond cluster ring in the shape of a star or flower, depending on your perspective and I wanted it sooooooo bad. So as a birthday/thanks-for-pushing-out-a-huge-baby gift, he got it for me and over the last 19 months I fell so deeply in love with this ring. I went from wearing it every now and then (I didn’t want to mess it up) to wearing it everyday. Anytime anyone complimented it, I beamed proudly and told them it was a gift from my wonderful husband.

The last few weeks have been a little rough as my body is adjusting to pregnancy again, and this week was no exception. Tuesday, after a long morning (when I had to get my root canal re-treated), and stressful afternoon, I was frantically getting stuff ready for our small group meeting that night. I went to take my rings off to wash my hands and gasped when my diamond ring was not on my finger. I went into panic mode, literally tore the kitchen apart looking for it, and then began to cry at the thought of it being lost at the grocery store, or worse, in the yard with all those blasted leaves. I called everywhere I had been, left my name and number and said a prayer that there is a kind soul out there who finds it and turns it in. I kept thinking about it all night, and every time I did I would start to cry.

I moped around most of the day yesterday (and I’m a great moper - just ask my mom), hating that I had lost it. I was putting laundry away and found the box that it came in and as my eyes welled up a little, a thought came to me: It’s just a ring. It’s just a ring. It’s not my home, or my child or husband, or anything else that can’t be replaced. It’s just a ring. It’s just a possession that, while I loved it so much, I can not take with me when it’s time to leave this world. I tucked the box away so I can be reminded anytime I think about it or anything else that I lose in the future.

I am so incredibly blessed in every area of my life, and I feel so silly now for wasting so much energy on mourning the loss of a ring. The truth is it can be replaced, and we will try (we’re going to check into our home insurance, and in the meantime I start saving my monies), but who knows, maybe I won’t want to replace it. But it’s all okay now - it’s just a ring.

Amidst all the ick that I have been feeling the last few weeks, I have really come to realize just what an amazing, supportive group of friends I have, of all levels of encouragement. While I appreciate all the prayers and heartfelt words that have been expressed, I also appreciate those who just want to make me smile. Kelly is great at that. I mean, look at what an amazing e-card she sent me, so warm and heartfelt

See what I mean? So encouraging and honest. Really, Kelly, thank you for giving me a great laugh this morning (and for those who want to see more incredibly offensive yet hysterical ecards, go here). And if you’re in the area…and you happen to stumble upon a diamond cluster ring, can you give me a call?

Ohmygosh, I didn’t think you could still experience homesickness as an adult, but you can even when it’s only been two days you’re away and you’re only 110 miles from home!

The wedding went fine - great, actually - but after the rehearsal dinner I was so tired and my morning (evening, actually) sickness was creeping in and even tho our hotel bed was big and comfy, I was longing for my own pillow in my own bed. I don’t think I was ever so happy to be home on Sunday, mainly b/c I was just so exhausted. Conner crashed and we didn’t hear a peep from him all night. He did fantastic tho, the whole weekend - my boy gets five gold stars! He was carried around, made to stay up late, take naps in the car, be around a lot of new people, not be around mom and dad, and he did fannnntastic. He did have a mini meltdown just before the bridesmaids went down the aisle - seeing me, dad and papa and not being able to get to any of us made him very anxious. But he pulled it together, did his ring-bearer trek down the aisle, got to the other papa and was whisked quickly and quietly out the side exit so he could play outside. Tim’s parents came to the wedding, too, and ohmygosh were they lifesavers! I don’t know how we would’ve done it without them. SO happy they were there.

So now we’re home and hopefully this week will be so incredibly boring that I can catch up on some crafting, emailing, girlfriend-time, and smothering my boys with kisses. And I do have to say Happy Birthday to my dad - he’s 50 today! 50! And the man doesn’t act a day older than 18 Happy Birthday, daddy - I love you!!

Ingenius title, eh? No play on words today. That shows you just how exhausted I am. As if running around after a toddler all day weren’t tiring enough, throw in the exhaustion that the first trimester is known for and you have me, last night at 8 pm fighting to stay awake. This weekend will prove another test of my dexterity as my brother is getting married and Tim, Conner, and myself are all in the wedding - wedding festivities galore! I’m going to have to become one with some strong coffee if I’m going to make it.

Yesterday was Conner’s second (albeit, official first since last year he didn’t know what was going on) Halloween and I just have to say how much fun we had. It’s having children that make these holidays so stinking fun! When your kids are still young, you can decide what they’ll be and the possibilities really are endless. We decided on a monkey since Conner knows what it is and can do the most adorable “Ooh Ooh, Ahh Ahh”.

Love my monkey

Ummm…no inventory yet, Conner - we haven’t even started.

So eager!

We started out with the cutest purple people eater I’ve ever seen and hit up some houses.

How can these two show up at your door and you not give them candy? This team is a recipe for success!

Conner doing the ol’ “Look over there!”-to-steal-food-routine

Chloe’s a little more straight-forward

After we left them, we headed over to Amanda’s mother-in-law’s to join four other little ones for more fun. It was dark and chilly by then - perfect trick-or-treating weather - so we hit the streets and an hour later, the monkey, the scarecrow, and Bob the Builder were dragging their feet so we headed back. I can’t believe how much fun Conner had. Every time I asked if he was doing okay or having a good time, I got an emphatic, “Yeah!” He was so polite - “please” and “thank you” at every house - and had a blast being with the other boys. Tim and I had so much fun just being a part of it. Next year is only going to be more fun since he’ll have even more understanding of it. All in all it was a great holiday - kids really do make it a million times better.