Long time no update!

It's been a LOONG time since the last update. Whoops.  Well, we had a good Christmas. 5 different "Christmas" events. The kids were spoiled by family & I made them some gifts with fabric & stuff I had stock piled, since we just didn't have the money to buy them anything.  They loved it all! :o) It also gave me more confidence in my sewing, so hopefully I'll work up the courage to make more stuff!

top left: 2 purses for the girls
top right: soft bag for Noah
bottom: 2 crayon rolls for the girls

Aprons for Maddy & Sophie

colored pencil roll for my nephew

felt cookies & "dough" for the girls

Maddy also had her 3rd birthday almost 3 weeks ago!  It's hard to believe my sweet little preemie is now a 28lb 3 year old! She had a great birthday too. I made her a huge box full of felt food & she loved it! I've been trading & selling diapers that we just don't really use, so it was kinda cool to get all of the stuff to make all of that food for Maddy from trading diapers!

All of Maddy's felt food:
3 kinds of donuts, pancakes & syrup, toast, butter that slices, twistable bacon, eggs,
juice boxes, sandwiches, cheese, bologna, olive loaf, lettuce, tomato, pickles, peanut butter,
jelly, green chips (what Maddy calls her favorite sour cream & onion chips), gold fish crackers,
spring roll, sushi of all sorts, chinese takeout box, fortune cookies, pizza with tons of toppings,
ravioli, bowtie pasta, sauce & cheese and breadsticks.

She had her 3 year old well check-up & FINALLY someone referred us for a speech therapy evaluation. Maddy doesn't speak in sentences, lots of commands & she leads words with an "ah" sound. For example, "ahNoah ahwant ahball in dare (there)." or "Mama! ahSnack! ahHungry! Maddy Moo!" She is communicating, but it's still rough understanding what she wants a lot of the time, so hopefully she will get some help with her speech. She'll probably be eligible for Head Start this fall too, which I think can also really help.

Sophie has been 5, going on 15 lately. This girl has such an attitude when we tell her to clean up her toys or go do something. The other night, we said if she cleaned up the toys in her room, she could have a shower bubble bath (we turn on the shower & let it fill the tub so it gets bubbily from soap and they love it!), and when she refused to clean up and kept getting distracted and it was well over an hour to still be cleaning up a small pile of Barbies (and I reminded her ever 15 minutes she need to clean to earn the shower bubble bath), I said she couldn't have one since she didn't listen. She threw a wild tantrum full of "you just don't love me anymore", and "You're the meanist mom on the planet" and "you're ruining my life". Oh joy. I need to nip this in the bud somehow, but I'm not quite sure how to do so. I've been trying to spend more 1 on 1 time with her & do big girl stuff with her, but then she has these spells that are just awful to deal with. But then other times she's a gem. Oh this girl is drama city!

Noah had his 18 month well check up last week & he's still only 19.7lbs. We didn't see our usual pediatrician, but instead one that was available & he labeled Noah as "failure to thrive". It broke my heart to see that because we work so hard to give Noah extra calories. The boy is just a slow grower, because he DID gain a lb in the past 3 months & grew a few inches. And he's at or above his developmental milestones, he's just petite. But I've been working hard to give him pedisure mixed with carnation instant breakfast every evening before bed & putting butter and stuff on food as the dr. recommended a while ago. The thing with this boy is that he just loves healthy foods! He'll devour a whole banana or cucumber no problem, but barely licks a cookie or other junk food.  I'm thinking this might be why he still isn't a great sleeper at night. When he gets more calories in him throughout the day, he sleeps better. When he doesn't, we wakes up hungry at least 2x. Poor little guy!

So here's hoping Maddy soon is easier to communicate with, Sophie's attitude takes a turn for the better & Noah gains weight!!  Oh, and Brian gets a full-time job so we can get into our own place pronto. I'm going insane being stuck between my dad's house & Brian's mom's house. I feel like we're intruding & have no place to belong no matter where we are, but I'm praying faithfully that this will be taken care of soon. God will and does provide.

Ok, that's a good sum up of what's going on lately with us. Gotta go figure out something for dinner now for the kiddos. Hopefully I'll feel better about blogging and such again soon. I really have no desire to blog or tweet or even facebook, but I need some social interaction. I have no friends IRL anymore, and if I isolate my online ones, who do I have left?