That time again..

I can not believe the summer is already half way over! My little nugget Delilah will be celebrating her 2nd birthday in a week! Man how time flies. It seems like just yesterday she came home so tiny, so sweet! In many ways I miss those days but I love seeing her grow everyday. She really is an amazing little person. She is so funny, smart & wild. Just 10 days later my Tuck turns 7!! Oh my goodness, this breaks my heart just a little. He is so big & so grown. When I look back on pictures I can't believe he was ever so small, and impish. We are planning a little pool party at our house for the two kids. It is a luau theme & I'm sure they will have tons of fun! Chris put sod down in the whole yard last weekend. Our back yard is VERY shaded & the grass has slowly died. He also dug out our side patio which is made of cinderblocks. They have been unlevel since we moved in. The blocks lead down the side yard to our big back patio in the back yard. Hopefully this upcoming week he will replace them & level them out so we have a nice little patio right outside the back door. I'm currently on the lookout for a little iron bistro set to paint & put on the side patio. I'll post photos when the improvements are all done!

Movies & 4th of July!'

I can't believe the summer is almost half way over! We recently ventured out to take the kids to the movies to see Despicable Me. The girls hadn't been before & our son really loves it! It was a nice little treat for them. I made the girls little dresses & our son wore a matching shirt. Last week was also our sons favorite holiday (besides Christmas), July 4th! We always drive out to a local show & park to watch the show. We get there a couple of hours early & enjoy a little picnic. Last year Lyla slept through the whole thing in the car. This year she sat with us & loved it! She tried ripping off her ear covers & pointed the whole time. Last year Ever was afraid & made me hold her hand the whole show. This year she was in love with it! Also the bookends (Tuck & Lyla) have a birthday coming up! Their birthdays are only 10 days apart so we have their party on a weekend in between. I can't believe it's already that time again! They are growing too fast! Sad.

Sweet Summer..

One of the biggest pit falls of me staying home during the summer is the kids stay home too! It's been challenging to entertain them many days & we've had temperatures well into the 100's lately. This made me think to get the kids a little above ground pool. If you know me you know our house in tiny (1180 square feet), & our yard is even smaller. It was quite a squeeze but we fit it in a corner back there. The kids are loving it. We remove the ladder every time were done. We bought a lock for our back door that attaches to the TOP, so the kids can't reach it. We also have a narrow side yard you have to walk down to get to our back yard so we are also putting in a little locked gate as an extra precaution. We are already getting ready for back to school, the girls don't start the year but Tuck will be entering the 2nd grade. I buy clothes all year long to ease the pain! Ther than that things are well. The girls are doing good with the exception of one small thing. Everly seems intent to push me over the edge by constant emptying everything out of her closet drawers (all 12) and throwing it all around her room. It wouldn't be so bad except I keep it organized by shorts, skirts, pajamas etc. I don't know why she insists on doing this in a near daily basis! Why!!?! It takes me 30 minutes to fold & organize every time. I know what you're thinking, buy a LOCK!! I would except their room has the big sliding doors that cover the closet. We're working on figuring out a way to keep those closed so I don't go completely insane.

Vacation!

It's been way too long since I posted. In short I've been working from home. I also knew we were going to be going on vacation so I've been making an extra dress or two whenever I can from cheap or clearance shirts & setting them aside. I ended up holding a big sale & offered 15 dresses for $25 each shipped this past Monday. I knew we were leaving on vacation so I didn't take any custom orders. The big sale basically was my paycheck for the week. We left on vacation Thursday. First we went to Austin & saw the Congress Ave bats & a few other local attractions. Then we drove into New Braunfels where we're staying now. The kids have been having the time of their lives & we have a couple more days enjoy ourselves!

Happy Birthday!

Today was my amazing husbands birthday. I know he's done a guest post and I've talked about him in the past, but not in much depth. When we met 11 years ago he was a sweet, fun, 20 year old with a tender heart that I immediately fell in love with. He was always in fear of disappointing others or losing their approval. Over the last 10 years he has grown to voice opinions other than those he was raised with, other than what's popular & other than mine. I adore that he knows my love is unconditional & I respect his views as much as he does mine. He is by far one of the kindest people I've ever met. Everyday when I see him with our son, I pray Tuck will grow up to be just like his Daddy. I pray he will have his quiet strength, his loving heart & his deep appreciation & respect for the love of a good woman. More than anything Chris has always stood by my side. His dedication is unwavering, unbreakable & indescribable. I'm so proud to have him as my husband everyday. He believes in my dreams & is always willing to go on the ride. He always supports me as a wife, a mother & his equal. Our bond is so deep & strong, I wonder if other people could ever understand. I know his thoughts by the look on his face, and he can tell my mood through text messages. We have been through hell together, and we came out together. It hasn't been perfect, but it's been awesome. To my wonderful, sexy, amazing husband (because I know you read this), I love you more than you know, SEE the real you more than you know & appreciate you more than you know. Happy Birthday!

Stem Cell Savior!

            OK, So I don't even know where to start this post! As an adoptive Mommy it has always been a nagging fear that one of our children would need the type of rescue only genetic family, or stem cells can provide. Chances are we could NEVER provide any type of "match" for Tuck seeing as we're a totally different race. The girl's have one another, but no other family to help. We obviously adopted all of our children way after birth, so cord blood banking wasn't an option. I chalked this up to just another thing on a long list of stuff that we missed out on. Recently, I read somewhere that you can recover stem cells from a child's baby teeth. Yes, BABY TEETH! I was in utter shock, and incredibly intrigued. I honestly felt like we had been given a chance to go back in time & make it "right". So i did some research on the topic & found an amazing company at http://www.store-a-tooth.com/ , that offers this service. I called and spoke to a representative and asked what probably seemed like a million questions (he was very nice as I asked everything from how the quality of these cells are to how they are used). The long and short of it was like this, they use the "pulp" inside the tooth to harvest out stem cells. Though it doesn't provide as many cells as cord blood does, they offer a service to culture the cells, or basically multiply them in the lab. The younger the teeth the better, so baby teeth are perfect. There is no need to go have a perfectly good tooth yanked out, but when it gets pretty loose you should go to the dentist so they can help pull it out before the tooth & the tissue inside "die". Store-a-Tooth sends you a kit ahead of time, and it has everything you need to save the tooth & transport it to them. I got my kit ahead of time, that way when one of Tuck's teeth gets really loose I don't have to rush to get the kit. So, I took a bunch of photos of my kit!

So when my kit came, I opened the outside box & this white box was inside.

 Inside THAT box was this styrofoam box, to send everything back to them in, it is insulated to keep your tooth cold! Note, they will do up to 4 teeth at one time for the same price, so if your child is having extractions etc. keep that in mind.

 When I opened up the styrofoam container all the items below were inside, I'm going to give a little recap of what was inside, instructions, 2 ice packs to freeze ahead of time to pack in your cooler. It came with a little jar filled with solution to preserve the tooth & a bio hazard bag to put that in. It also came with a fed-ex label to return everything with. It even came with tape to close the return box with!

This is the little jar of preservation liquid, you drop your tooth in there to keep it from dying.

 It also included explicit instructions that are very detailed & easy to understand, all the way down to how to re-pack everything to send back.

 But, by FAR the coolest thing included was this awesome Tooth Fairy certificate. Since you will be "stealing" your child's tooth so you can mail it in, they won't be able to leave it under their pillow for the tooth fairy, so you give them this certificate to leave for her. Adorable right?

Overall I am very excited! As an adoptive parent we so often miss out on the things that other families take for granted! Being able to store our babies cord blood, or be a genetic link to help them at a later date is probably one of the biggest ones. I pray we NEVER need this kit, but it feels really nice that our son will have the same opportunities that other children who's parents stored their cord blood will have. Tuck has yet to lose a tooth, but I will let you guys all know when one is lose & how it goes when we send it in! For now I have my kit waiting to go!

Gotcha Day!

Today it has been 4 years since we finalized Tuck's adoption, better known as his "gotcha day". He even had show & tell at school today & took this picture of us on that day to share. This little guy just means so much to me! I can't even put it into words how he changed my life. He will always be my little prince and my first baby. He made us a family! He made me fall in love with my husband all over again. He is the best big brother to our ladies and I'm so proud of him. He is a free spirit, he loves to play hard & is my wild child (though Delilah is giving him a run for his money). I adore everything about him, but most of all, I adore being his Mommy!