Poof! There went October...

That was fast! Can't believe October is over already. We attended two fall festivals, baked pumpkin cupcakes, 2 pumpkin shaped cakes (we even got a thank you note from one of the people that won one of them at the cake walk, letting us know how good it was, lol!), took a field trip to a pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins and sunflowers:

And enjoyed a fun night of trick or treating, too!

Work has kept me super busy- too busy, really, but we are finally at the point where we are able to bring in more staff to help! We have a full time embroidery gal, which is helping a ton, and after my last round of help wanted ads for seamstresses, I am feeling incredibly blessed to have found FIVE new seamstresses, all of them wonderful. There's still a bottleneck with emails and also with cutting here at the studio, but one crisis at a time, I guess. Actually, the email issue should get resolved this week, *crosses fingers*

I am still sick, coughing like a lunatic, but luckily I'm the only one here that caught the bug- go me, lol. Also feeling a lot of sadness about last week's tragedy at Fort Hood. There really aren't words for it, or at least nothing that probably hasn't been said, and said better, but suffice it to say, my heart truly aches right now.

Really do wish I was more prolific at blogging, the new year is going to filled with lots of stuff (good and bad) that I want to be able to talk about, but I know no one's reading if I can't manage to post more than once a month, so I will be working on that.

Happy November everyone!

Fall is in the Air!

I just love that it is getting cooler. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are my FAVORITE holidays, so this is my favorite time of the year!

We also celebrated Sophie's 3rd birthday!

We are booked solid this entire month with "fall" activities. There's a pumpkin decorating contest, a fall party (must make fall themed refreshments), a fall festival (where Sydney's class is charge of the cake walk, so we must make a fall themed cake), a fall class field trip to pick pumpkins and sunflowers, and the Moonlit Hayride at the Equestrian Center. Oh, and then the actual trick or treating, too!

There is a slight problem. Everything is "fall" themed at school, and not Halloween themed, I guess so as not to offend anyone, but Halloween is so much fun! And the best part- Halloween costumes, yes? Uh, no. There are to be no Halloween costumes. :(

I'm one of those mom's that goes WAY overboard with Halloween costumes, case in point:

So this is a huge bummer. Instead, October 30th is "50's Day" at school. Well, at least Sydney's going to have the poofiest poodle skirt in all of K5!

Not much else going on here, but hop on over to the other blog, actually got several new posts over there, too.

Funny Things...

...that my children (ages 5 and 2) say:

Sydney: Mama, what's for dinner?

Me: Steak

Sydney: What kinda steak?

Me: Sugar steak (the marinade has brown sugar in it)

Sydney: Okay, well, just don't burn it this time.

***

Me: Hold still, Sydney, you have an eyelash on your cheek. Okay, there, got it! Now make a wish and blow.

Sydney: I wish Mama would just let me do my own thang. (Blows away eyelash)

***

Sophie: Knock, knock

Me: Who's there?

Sophie: Banana pie

Me: Banana pie who?

Sophie: Banana pie POOH POOH! (Laughs hysterically)

***

Sydney: I don't wanna go to that restaurant, mama lost my balloon.

Daddy: That's right, mama let your balloon fly away last time, but you can get a new balloon today, and just hold onto it tightly, okay?

Sydney: Okay

(after dinner)

Daddy: What does that sign say?

Me: I don't know, its raining, roll down my window so I can see.

Sydney: Dada, Dada, roll down my window too!

(Daddy rolls down Sydney's window, Sydney's balloon promptly flies out the window, Sydney breaks down, balling)

Sydney: See, I told you I didn't wanna go to that restaurant!!!!

Random-ness...

I have grand illusions (delusions) about being a blogger, but I just haven't gotten into the groove of yet, ya know, posting something every three weeks and all...Oh well, to those of you reading, my apologies for the sparce-ness of posts, and here's one to catch you up! (in no particular order)

Sophie's hair is now long enough for pig tails:

We did a custom order this week for paperback book covers (a la Vera Bradley). I think that they turned out great:

However, this lead to the conversation about how I just don't "get" the whole Vera Bradley trend (when my Mom first pointed them out to me in Ohio, in all seriousness, I thought it was an Amish thing). Is it just a southern thing? Because here, they are EXTREMELY popular, and I mean with everybody- grade schoolers through Grandma. So I went to the local store to try and wrap my brain around the whole vibe:

Then it started raining, ya know, because no one ever tells you, but it rains in Alabama like it does in a rainforest. So I'm stuck in the this store, surrounded by all these bags, and I'm just still not getting it. So someone, please help me out here- explain it too me, or at least tell me that I'm not alone in not feeling the whole quilted paisly look.

We went school supply shopping:

Slightly amused that they tell you what brands to buy (Play Dough NOT Rose art!), but its all right, we are all stocked up!

Sydney started Kindergarten, and thinks it's "great":

I'm sad that she's growing up, but also happy that she's enjoying school and making new friends.

I also celebrated a birthday during my blogging hiatus. My present? New iphone 3G-S:

Anybody know what you do with your old iphone when you get a new one?

I guess that's about it. Lots going on with Hero On My Arm, keeping me busy, but never fear, I have great blogging plans, I just have to get that far down on my to do list. Someday.

Happy August, with your suck-y birthstone and all!

More pictures of my hometown for my one faithful blog reader...

Better?

LOL.

Okay, just kidding, here you go:

So many emails, so little time...

This post is more than anything, just to let you all know that I am still here, working, lol. I am actually completely caught up on orders, but unfortunately, not completely caught up on emails. I hope to remedy that in the morning though.

In other news, we are t-minus 19 days and counting until Sydney starts Kindergarten!

I took her school shopping, and I would pick something out only to have her look at me, sigh, and say "But, momma, that's so boring". She has very colorful taste. (And I did, for the most part, let her pick out what she wanted.)

My mom is coming again next week to help me out, so I'm very excited to hopefully be able to actually be able to report on some new things we get done, instead of constantly reporting that I'm "almost caught up" with stuff that should have been done last week.

And just in case any one was wondering, the song selections (other than the musicals) are usually just whatever I happen to have heard on the radio recently, lol, there's really not some deep meaning to the choice of song, nor is it meant to necessarily compliment the post. (I'm probably going to do away with the music altogether when "work on blog" comes up on my To Do list.)

I heard "Small Town Saturday Night on the radio this weekend as I was out grocery shopping. I always loved the line:

"Lucy, you know, the world must be flat...

'cause when people leave town, they never come back."

(my hometown)

LOL, life in small town, USA- gotta love it!

Thanks, Mom...

I have to say a very big THANK YOU to my Mom, who traveled all the way from Louisiana to spend the entire week last week helping me get caught up on orders. By the time the week ended, my mom was a pro on the embroidery machine and over 150 orders were in the mail- it was a very productive week.

Oh, and the purse in the picture, that's the very last one we did for the week- its been on my "to-do" list for quite some time (see here)- hopefully it was worth the wait!