New Room

One of my favorite things about Carolyn is how vibrant her imagination is! It is so fun to talk with her about things that we imagine to be. Today we created a new room in her "castle" together. The "Bubble Room" now joins the "Candy Room" and the "Jumping Room," among others. :) In the Bubble Room, bubbles are constantly blowing in a rainbow of colors- all except brown- and all the furniture is made of bubbles, and some of the bubbles are big enough and sturdy enough to bounce on. The picture drawn above is of Carolyn (brown hair) eating cake birthday cake with a fork (in her left hand in the picture), next to a cat (with eight legs; we're not quite there on the difference between bug bodies and mammal bodies- perhaps the bug unit at preschool will help resolve this :))- surrounded by yellow bubbles.

Too often as a mom, I get caught up in the stuff of daily life- I'm worried about the dishes or dinner or the 12 orders I have to finish tonight so they can meet the deadline of a whole week for processing time (I just can't do it any faster! I'm trying!)- too, too often I am so distracted by other stuff, that I am sure I miss so many opportunities to just connect with my children on a level that is meaningful to them. Tonight was a wonderful exception- even just for a few moments talking with Carolyn about her wonderful imaginings- I escaped the boring, pressure-filled adult world and remembered for a brief space of time what it is like to be a child. I was very much like Carolyn with that type of vivid imagination, and I find it waking up again in me sometimes when I can take enough of the grown-up off to remember it.

I'm so glad I connected with my daughter tonight. She is growing up so fast- already seems so much more "five" than "four." Such a big girl, a sweet girl, a good girl. I'm proud of her, and I am so thankful that God sent her to be my first baby!

Work Day

Today was my "work day." My business has grown enough that I now have a day set aside each week that I try to devote to putting some real focused time in my "secret lab" downstairs. :) Today wasn't a particularly productive day, due to a necessary, but not-so-fun dentist appointment that broke up my morning and threw off my groove. But I did make that butterfly bow, and it did make me happy. :) I still love the feeling of seeing the finished work come together whenever I make something. I am thankful to have "the Pixies" as an outlet! I'm pretty busy at the moment still catching up on orders from last week's grand opening... but I think that it will soon settle into a hopefully steady routine that will be able to have a good place in my life. I've been thinking a lot lately about how in life we are happiest when we walk through the doors that are open. For months I've been banging on a door that seems to be shut for the time being. But meanwhile, the door to an amazing, challenging, fun business has opened for me, and I am trying to be thankful for the doors that are open instead of bitter about the ones that are closed for now.

The Shuffle!

So here's the reason we were in Chicago! My sister motivated us all to sign up for the Shamrock Shuffle 8K race- we signed up New Year's Day when the whole family was in town and they sort of guilted me into it... but I'm glad they did because the past few months of training for the race have been really good for our family and we all had a blast today. You might recall that my dad, sister, and brother-in-law all run the Chicago Marathon every year, and every October we go downtown and "chase runners" all over the place. The Shamrock Shuffle is a race for people who wish they were as cool as marathon runners but don't want to do the training. :) It runs over some of the same course as the marathon and has almost as many participants (over 32,000 finishers this year!). It was fun to see a tiny piece of what the cool marathon runners do. :)

Just like when we go to the marathon, we all rode the "L" downtown. I made bows for my mom and sisters and me with shamrocks on them so we could have something green and festive for the day. :)

Me and my hubs before the race.

Sisters!

Mom and Dad

The whole family! I got a cute fanny pack for the occasion (I realize that word sounds like an oxymoron, but it was super useful for holding on to the camera so I could take pictures!)

The boys pushed ahead to try to get into a faster start corral, but we all started back in "H" (aka "slow") because that's where they put me and Michelle- because she accidentally and I on purpose told the registration system we were going to run slow- not realizing that just a little training would make us able to do things we didn't know we could!

Shoes with cool orange "chips" on them so they could track your start and finish times.

We had a LOT of time before they started the race. They had to let all the faster people start first. It took 45 minutes before we even got to really start moving. We had plenty of time to observe the people around us, and some of their interesting clothing and accessories.

I never saw if Mr. Green made it to the finish like that. He looks like he would be roasting!

Loved this shirt.

Finally, the start line!

Running so fast they're blurry! We were constantly trying to dodge around people because we were really all ready to run a leetle faster than the people in the "slow" corral. When we signed up, I thought it  would be a stretch for me to run the 5 miles in the required hour and 15 minutes! But we did it quite a bit faster than that- despite having to circle around people to try to find some space to run in. We should qualify for a faster group next year. :)

It was really fun to be running in an actual race- much more fun and energizing than the treadmill! We kind of pushed each other and kept on going. We ran the whole way- and averaged 10 minute miles the whole time! The last hill was a bit rough but we made it- and finally we could see the finish line!

We did it! Shamrock Shufflers! Our time was 50 minutes 41 seconds (I placed 16,130th out of 32,427 finishers. Hee :))

Meeting up and trying to coordinate at Starbucks. How does my sister manage to look so skinny?

All sweaty but happy to have done well. :) Brad's official time was 40 minutes, 53 seconds, and he was something like 4116th overall. :) He did 8 minute miles the whole way- my amazing hubby!

And here's his running buddy- my bro-in-law Bryan. :) Obviously we were not with them so we could not get any action shots. :)

Shelly's brave neighbor watched our two girls and my (adorable) nephew Elliot- plus three dogs- while we were away. She was amazing with 3 kids at such different developmental stages! I hope she feels we paid her enough! If you blow up this picture, you can see Nora's face in the top window watching down for us. :)

Drive home... both girls were toast most of the way. It was a busy weekend! 

The Hyatt

I really do intend to restart blogging (almost) daily, as it's part of my "reclaim joy" campaign (more on that later when I have time to write). But it's NMF (not my fault) I couldn't last night- we were out of town in Chicago! We ran the Shamrock Shuffle this morning (next post) and stayed over at the McDonald's Hyatt in Oakbrook last night.

I really like that hotel. Hotwire has put us there twice now and we've been very happy both times, both with the quality and the price (only $68 after taxes!) The best part is probably the pool

Carolyn's swimming lessons have really been paying off. She's so much more confident in the water and really loves to swim now. The teacher is recommending that she move up to the "Eel" class for her next session, and she can now swim at least a little way even without the floaties. We work on that as much as we can because we want her to be able to really swim on her own!

 Nora is not taking swimming lessons yet (though I may do a Mommy and Me class with her next session at the same time Carolyn has class), but our frequent visits to the pool have made her really begin to enjoy the water. She likes to hold on tight to my swimsuit, but she kicks her legs and splashes around and has a good time. :)

Daddy has as much fun as the kids do. :) I love to see him enjoying time with the girls!

Everyday

Here's a slice of ours.

 Movie Watching/Cinnamon Goldfish Eating (seriously they should have had THAT kind of Goldfish when I was a kid!)

 Meat Testing- have to see if it's worth eating that one bite of burger in order to get some of the "Camma-mope" (aka cantaloupe, and it was good).

 Neighbor Trampoline Borrowing- always a huge hit with our kids.

 Cute looking.

Cute Looking- last year. :)

 High Jumping- and impressing all the kids with his shenanigans.

 Jigging.

Happy Jumping.

Tongue Walking (not in focus, sorry).

Not Pictured, but Noteworthy:

Duck-Duck-Goosing: on the trampoline taking turns playing with the neighbor kids. Nora wanted to join in but hasn't got the finer points of the game down yet. She took great delight in patting heads and saying "duck," then announcing "GOOSE" and standing still shouting "RUN!" at everyone else.

Clothes Removing: Nora's most recent repetitive misdemeanor... she knows she'll get attention by taking her pants off, relieving herself in the bed (even though she has just been taken to the potty within the pats 10 minutes), and yelling for immediate assistance. Sigh... still working out how to help with that.

And that's that. Two blogs in two days. Score one for me. :)

Success, Failure, and Choosing Joy

So this week, I opened up my very own website. It was a TON of work getting all the listings ready to go, but I ended up being very happy with the end result. I had a special for a few days for the "grand opening" with what I felt was a very good response, and I'm excited to see where it will go. I can tell that I'm not going to be able to just migrate over to the new site and leave Etsy behind; I still need the marketing and targeted audience that Etsy provides- I don't have sufficient enough pull to bring enough traffic to the new site. But for the "regulars" who are used to me and like what I make, the new site is awesome because it has all the flexibility and features that people who already know they like the product will love. So I'm planning a balance between maintaining an active presence on Etsy, but keeping ALL the choices available on the new site. There are a lot of things to think about with this kind of thing, and I always feel like I'm learning something. So I guess that's good. And I still love making and selling my stuff, so I think you can say it's been a good week for that. :)

However, it's been a tough week on other levels, and I really just don't want to think about it right now; I want to go downstairs and watch a movie with my hubby. But I wonder if the many people who congratulated me on the new website this week would be surprised to learn how very much I feel like a failure in so many other ways- even as publicly I am meeting with at least some measured success. This week I had my 9th failed cycle, and I was just devastated- again. I don't really want to discuss the details of the black cloud that descended over me this week... so I won't. But if you're a praying sort, you might pray for us to have wisdom in the months ahead as we are beginning to get to the point of considering some outside "help" or at least evaluation, and want to tread carefully and wisely the path before us.

The power went out last night, and after spending a couple of hours alone with my tears, fears, guilt over my many failings as a mother, and irrational resentment over people who seem to be able to have with such apparent ease what I have cried my eyes out over my inability to obtain- I finally did get to have a good conversation with my husband, and decided in my heart to attempt to choose joy- to try to regain the delight that I once had (and sometimes still do have) in mothering- and in sharing with the rest of the world the wonder and joy of motherhood. Part of that is going to be a renewed attempt at blogging, as this has always been a tool that's worked for me to help me see the humor and light and fun in the moments that are my daily life.

One of the things that I feel the worst about the past year has been how the struggle, first with the ectopic and subsequent "fun" and then the months of "trying"- has so consumed me with feelings of inadequacy and guilt that I find myself swallowed up in pursuing success in the arena that seems to be working for me (aka making bows)- and losing some of my sense of purpose and joy in simply raising and celebrating the two beautiful children that I do have.

So I tried to take a few steps to remedy this today. Instead of sitting around in the afternoon, I took the girls to the park to feed the ducks and play on the playground. AND I took my camera with me, and took a few pictures of their joy and delight that I will now share with you, my words for the day being exhausted past the point at which I intended to stop sharing them!

 Love these girls, so much!

Buried!

So if you've wondered where I've been since we got home... I've been buried in preparations for the opening of my new website today. http://www.mylittlepixies.com is an official reality this morning! :) I'm so excited for this new venture, and I'm very pleased with how well the website came together. Now, no one may decide to shop there, and maybe that will be a  problem... and maybe TOO many people will decide to shop there, and that could be a problem too. I really have no idea how it's going to turn out. But I do know that after over a year's experience making and selling hair clips online, that the new website is MUCH better than my Etsy site ever was! There are SO many more options for setup than I had with Etsy. And if it actually works, it's going to significantly cut down on the amount of maintenance time I have to spend on my computer! Of course, I have no idea what level of contribution Etsy's internal advertising system has had on my success to date, so getting away from the community site might be detrimental to sales for awhile... but in the end, I think it's going to be a good move for me. And who cares if it's slower for awhile?! I've been way too busy lately anyway!

And clearly, I need to make some cute bows for this little lady's pigtails! Isn't she sweet?!