7 Months

Happy 7 months my goofy girl.



This past month has brought a lot of change.



You have mastered sitting on your own. Once you figured that out you decided you needed to try pulling up on everything.










You are eating so much these days and really like just about everything so far.




You are still such a happy, content little thing but boy does that temper come out when sister takes things from you!



You wave and say mama and dada. Be still my little heart.



You finally moved to your crib. You really like sleeping in your room with your sister - maybe because she pats you and brings you toys in the morning. The transition was SO much better than I could have dreamed which makes me wonder why we didn't try it earlier.



I can't get over how happy you are. You're happiest outside or in my arms. The wind makes you laugh. Sister makes you laugh. We make you laugh. You pretty much just laugh at life. You are awesome.



You have been such a blessing and we just adore you.



Happy 7 months sweet, baby girl.

The Baby Powder Incident

I feel as if I should start this post by stating that the baby powder was in the closet, out of reach of a certain two-year old.

That said, nothing is quite out of reach of a smart two-year old that can move furniture.

Sweet P was supposed to be napping last week when I walked in to find this.



She greeted me, excitedly saying, "Big, giant mess!"

Yes, my dear. That is a big.



Giant.



Mess.

I thought the worst of if was cleaning that big, giant mess up.

Later in the week I found out out otherwise.

A couple days after my Sweet P emptied an entire tube of baby powder throughout her entire room, she started having a little trouble breathing.

I called the doctor and they said not to bring her in since she wasn't running a fever.

I waited another day and her breathing got a little worse. Then she started coughing.

The next day we went to the doctor. She insisted on wearing her princess dress.



They didn't seem concerned and said it was probably allergies. Now, I'm no doctor, but I am a mom. My kid, who has never been to the doctor other than for her well-checks, was crying when she coughed and told me she was choking. That's a big deal in my book.

I asked if there was more we could do. Then they obliged and ordered an x-ray of her chest. I wanted to make sure it wasn't a result of the baby powder - which I was certain it was.

My poor little princess.



I hated seeing her in that little gown. She was such a trooper getting her x-rays.

Turns out she inhaled some of the dust and it caused pneumonia. Since they caught it early, she just had to take antibiotics for a week and said she'd be just fine.

Well, it hasn't quite been a week, but, Praise the Lord, she's almost back to her normal self!

I learned a couple things in this ordeal:

• there is no need for baby powder and it shouldn't be sold, or it should be kept under a lock and key in my house
• sometimes as a parent, you just have to laugh - that mess was no joke to clean up but the room did get a thorough cleansing
• wearing a princess dress really can make you feel better
• trust your instincts - no one knows a child better than the parent
• how blessed I am to have healthy kids - seeing her in that little gown made my heart ache for parents that see that sight on a daily basis and I thank God every day for my family's health

So, anyway, thank you to everyone for the thoughts and prayers this last week and if you own baby powder, toss it! Kidding - kind of.

Custom Photo Christmas Cards are here!

That's right, folks! I'm excited to share my custom photo card designs with you today!!

Christmas is only 2 months away! Thus, making it the perfect time to start thinking about your Christmas card and photos you want to send out.

I have 10 new designs I've created for you that you can easily find in my shop. Each are designed with two sides but you can also get a one-sided card for $5 less. What a deal! You can view close up details of each side in my shop by clicking on the image.






















Interested? Here's how it works:

1. You purchase the listing for the digital file from my shop.
2. Include the line of text you want at the bottom as well as your name, for example: with love, the Smith's, warmest wishes - the smith's, etc. at checkout.
3. Email me at lesleyzellersdesigns{at}gmail.com and include the photos and side preferences. I also provide light photo editing so if you need a color photo converted to black/white, just let me know.
4. Within 24-48 hours, probably less, I will email you a PDF proof for you to review. Upon approval, I will send you a high resolution print-ready PDF and JPG within 24 hours.
5. Print anywhere you choose! You can print on your home printer or your favorite printer like shutterfly, walmart or kinkos.  Or online using overnight prints, 48 hour print or vistaprint. But, if you ask me, I'd go with Mpix.

And what's even better - you have several options with your file.

• Do a single-sided card that can double as a post card. No envelope necessary!
• Use a two-sided design for a flat card and step it up with an envelope.
• Or you could even choose the two-sided design and create a folded card so you can write notes!
• And, depending on where you choose to print, you can choose specialty paper options like pearl, recycled or extra heavy!

Good stuff?

It's about to get better!

For the last remaining bit of October I'm offering free shipping on all Christmas card orders!!!

Kidding! They don't need to be shipped, you're getting the file to print yourself. I just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.

But seriously, I'm giving you 15% off your order from now until Nov. 1 using the code HOLLYJOLLY2012! So, hurry over and get your design today! And if you don't have your family, children's or pet's photos done yet, no worries. Just let me know in the checkout when you should have the photos to me.


Oh, and if you see something you like and would like the text changed or a custom design, I am happy to do that too. Email me at lesleyzellersdesigns{at}gmail.com and let me know what you're thinking. You can order your custom card design right here!



Whew, that was a long post but I'll probably remind you about getting your order in again as Christmas gets closer. And in the event you can't remember how to find my shop, ahem recipeforcrazy on etsy, ahem, I've added a little button on my sidebar with all the designs and links to my shop.

It's just under the search bar and looks like this:

So, happy Thursday to all and to all a good day.

The Tree

I know y'all don't care about my tree, but it's been part of my life for four years now and it needed a bit of a memorial on here.

When we first moved into our house we had a massive tree in the backyard. Massive folks. Pictures have never done it justice. To give you an idea of how massive it was, three guys - all over 6' - and myself all tried to basically hug the tree, hands to hands all the way around it and couldn't touch fingers. Wide.



The tree had some damage in the past and only one side really had branches remaining - they all hung over our house.



I loved that tree. It was huge and really old. It was one of the biggest trees in our neighborhood.



Then, one cold, freezing night we got hit with an ice storm. There was at least half an inch of ice covering everything, including our tree.



Well, the weight of the ice caused much of the remaining limbs to break - crashing on our house. Thankfully there was only minimal roof damage. I've never been in a war zone but that night sounded like what I can only imagine a war zone might.

Ice covered trees falling on houses, cars and even people. Sirens filled the night from fire trucks and ambulances. We lost power so the only sounds we heard were the sirens, cracking of trees and crashing ice.

We were without power for over a week, as was most of our area.

We recovered from the storm but our poor tree was hit pretty hard. We had some trimmers come to remove the dangerous branches that hadn't fallen and we were told the tree would come back.



Three years later, it never recovered.

We finally were able to afford getting the rest of the tree cut down, thanks to the help of my father in law! It was a sad day.




The tree that once towered over the entire neighborhood was just a pile of rotting wood left on the ground.



So sad.

On a much happier note, come back tomorrow for a fun post!

Oktoberfest 2012

You should know by now that my family loves festivals. This past weekend was one of my husband's favorites, Oktoberfest - he feels the need to get in touch with his German roots.

If you remember the ordeal from last year, we made sure to get there extra early to avoid that again. This time Sweet P was old enough to do more of the kid's activities, although we learned she does not like rides - AT ALL.

We walked, ate and danced. Oh did we chicken dance!

So here's just a few favorites from the night.



And maybe my favorite pictures, not because of P doing the chicken dance, oh no. Check out the guy behind her. Dude has some serious moves!



Oompah!

Pumpkin Patch

I took the girls to meet a friend and her little fella at the pumpkin patch last week. The weather seemed much warmer than expected but we still had a blast.

Don't let her face fool you - she loved it.



Sweet P was quite the cheese.



And she was so helpful finding little sister a pumpkin.



Again, don't let that face fool you, she loved the pumpkins. She was just mad at me because I kept taking the hay out of her hands and mouth.





Here she's just frustrated that she couldn't pull up on the basket.



I think I need a hay maze in my backyard now.




Sarah, hope you don't mind a couple pictures of your little fella on here :)




See, I promised she had fun.