Piper's Hair Cut

This girl's princes hair days are over, at least for a while.  She decided to cut her hair.  I mean REALLY cut it...short.  She had learned about Locks of Love last fall and wanted to donate, but her hair was just a little shy of the required 10".  Recently, she remembered the conversation and we checked.  11" pony tail.  I did the cut in the kitchen, and it's adorable if I do say so myself!!  I'm really proud of her for this decision. You can find out about donating YOUR hair (or your kids' hair. for that matter) at LocksofLove.org.

Tree Time

Today we finally put up the tree.  I feel bad when I’m not really into it. Mostly its because we just don’t have a great spot for the tree to be, so it ends up in the way.  The kids were excited, so I had them help me rearrange the couch sections so the tree could fit.  We have “couch island” while the tree is up.  Basically the sections are all pushed together and we have to crawl over the double sections to sit down.  Very cozy.  A little too cozy sometimes.  I put together the tree-in-a-box and let the kids do whatever they wanted with the box of decorations.  I had to hold back on my urge to move things and spread them out.  JC put almost an entire box of gold ornaments in one square foot of tree.  They enjoyed themselves, anyway.  I got to take pictures.  Harrison slept.

(JC’s gold ornament section)

Harrison wasn’t feeling great yesterday, so he missed out on his first trip to see Santa.  I was dying to put him in his little purple shirt and tie (matched JC’s) but it was not to be.  Poor baby.  I’ll have to put him in it for Christmas day.

The gentleman who is Santa is from town, but he does this as seasonal employment all over the state.  He’s very sweet and gentle with the children.  He talked to each one, even Aria (who was obviously feeling a bit sheepish, but played along), and asked them what they wanted for Christmas before ushering them off stage for the next group of waiting kids. 

I wonder if he owns his suit or if the venue provides it??

Merry Christmas!  See you soon!

Some stuff

So this is what we’ve been up to lately.  I know I’ve been hiding out at home a lot lately, I just can’t seem to figure out where all my “free” time went among 5 kids, a full time job, some photography (my niece is a SENIOR this year!!) and trying to maintain the house just above the level “Hoarders” would intervene….

I begged the kids for a few shots I could use for possible Christmas cards:

but mostly I got this:

I had Aria’s friend D. help…..then cropped her out for a cool baby-floating-and-unsafe look:

          

I also got a shot with their awesome skeleton hoodies:

Baby Harrison is now 6 months old, Naughty is 4, Piper is 6, Max is almost 9 and Aria will be 11 next week.  Time flies.  I already miss my little newborn.  I love when he falls asleep in my arms, I’m always so reluctant to put him down.  Isn’t he sweet?  He has the easiest personality of all my babies.

My job keeps me busy, my family keeps me busy.  Daddy has been doing the stay at home thing and I think he’s getting the hang of it.  He also makes me the best omelets most mornings.  I can’t complain! I married a good man.  One who can cook.  He’s also going to do the March to Mandaree again this year with new stops to honor different KIA vets.  If you didn’t get to read about M2M, click the link and find out.  It was a great experience for us.

That’s all for now, I’d better go to bed.  You never know when the baby will decided NOT to sleep all night.

Friday Fragments

Well, as it turns out, 5 kids and a full time job take up a lot of time.  Who would’ve thought?  I miss you all out there!  I decided I need to play catch-up here and post all the lovely things that have gone on around these parts with Mrs. 4444’s Friday Fragments!

• Harrison Nathan Goodiron Fraase was born 3/12/12 at 11:05 pm.  He’s already 4 months old and super adorable.  He’s probably the most mellow baby I’ve had.  He comes to work with me every day, but soon I think he’ll need to stay home with dad.

(a little taste test of rice cereal)

• In May Aria and Piper earned their next belts in Tae Kwon Do, Max however, has decided he doesn’t want to be in it anymore.  I’m sort of disappointed, but I’m holding out hope that he’ll change his mind later on.  I tested for my last belt back in December while I was seven months pregnant.  (I look better from the back)
• This was my Mother’s Day photo.  Who needs happy smiling, grinning kids? This is real life.
• This was my Mother’s Day gift.  I’m actually pretty pumped about it.  What good is managing an organic food store if I don’t take advantage of all that produce? (Max’s face is just a bonus gift.)
• I got one more charm for my necklace from The Vintage Pearl.
• I’ve been a slacker as far as photos go.  I was disappointed in myself for not getting more newborn pictures of Harrison in the first two weeks when they work the best.  I had this pounding headache and chalked it up to lack of sleep and caffeine.  It finally got so bad that the day my mom left I realized I couldn’t take it any longer and had my husband bring me to the ER.  My blood pressure was 201/109 (for those of you non-medical peeps, normal BP is 120’s/80’s).  They were surprised I hadn’t had a stroke yet.  It turns out I had developed post-partum preeclampsia.  It’s fairly uncommon, but does happen, even when my blood pressure was perfect through out pregnancy.  I only recently came off of blood pressure medication for this.  I read post-partum preeclampsia is one of the most dangerous conditions for new moms because they can ignore the symptoms (like I did) passing them off as run-of-the-mill post-baby issues.  My feet were swollen long after delivery (weeks), I had upper epigastric pain, pounding headaches…if I had just put it all together.  Anyway, I survived.  I think I really freaked out the PA that was on duty the night I went to our local small town ER, though.
• I’d better get to bed!!  I’ve been walking 4 miles with a friend every morning, well, almost every morning.   6am sharp!! 

One year ago today...

One year ago today we were on a journey:

From Mel:
We are off! We started in Wahpeton and in two days we have arrived in Enderlin. Our first day started out a bit rocky with some rain, but soon it cleared and the past two days have been great. Steve was joined by Arnold Lenoir from White Earth who plans to walk with us the entire way. The White Earth veteran color guard came to start us off as well as some of the Goodiron family. Two news crews came out to film, and several papers published small blurbs about the march.
Day one ended around 5pm with 38 miles behind us, a majority of those walked between Steve and Arnold (I got to finish off leg #3!). Our oldest two, Aria and Max, walked one mile with me as well.

Day two was an early start with both Steve and Arnold walking their leg of the journey at about 5:30 am, I finished after lunch and we had the afternoon to nurse tired muscles and tend to any blisters.

We are all in good spirits and are excited to meet those who will be joining us as in the days ahead!
You can learn more about March to Mandaree at www.marchtomandaree.blogspot.com

Friday Fragments–Guess What?!

Already Friday? This week really went fast.  Thanks to Mrs. 4444’s Friday Fragments, I can try to remember everything and get it all down before the weekend! 

• It’s been SOOO warm out that we actually turned on the A/C.  Fortunately I’m a big procrastinator and didn’t take the window unit out of our room yet.  Ahhhh coool, cool air!  North Dakota has a bad rap for being cold.  My dad likes to call this place “the land of extremes”.  This morning I turned on the heater in the car on the way to school.  This afternoon the A/C will be on full blast.  30 degrees in one day is not that unheard of.  But, alas, it will be snowing soon enough.  Sometimes before Halloween.
  
• Speaking of Halloween, Aria has decided she wants to be Rocket from the movie “Sucker Punch”.  I blame her dad.  I’ve started working on age-appropriate pieces for it.  I actually think this might suit her personality really well.
  
  
• Jackson likes to be a cowboy.  Daily.  He wears this hat, and a pair of handed down cowboy boots. Oh, and just some underwear.  I guess it’s not so much like Woody the Cowboy, more like NYC’s Naked Cowboy.  I wonder if the Naked Cowboy ever wears Buzz Lightyear Underoos?

• I convinced Daddy that he only needed to mow the outside lawn.  I asked him to leave the part inside our fence alone.  He uses the bagger to suck up all the leaves, and it looks so pretty beforehand that I hate to see them go just yet.  He was happy to quit early and leave me my pretty yard a little longer.  Anyway, its been so windy he’ll have to do the whole thing over again soon.

• I loved all the color so much I convinced my family, and a few clients to get their family photos done this past week.  You can see ours HERE and my other work HERE!
  
• It was our anniversary last month and the in-laws gave us a nice gift card to Famous Dave’s.  Never heard of it? If you’re not from the upper midwest, probably not.  It’s a FANTASTIC barbeque restaurant with delicious ribs and the yummiest sauces.  This is definitely NOT for a first date.  We used up all the wet wipes before the meal was over.  Instead of napkins, each table has a roll of paper towel.  They have this “Meal for 2-3” that is actually served on a garbage can lid (yes, it’s clean!).  There was so much food, we ate the rest for dinner.  Woody and JC joined us since the other kiddos were in school.  YUM!!
  
  
• Oh, yeah! Guess what?!  I’ve always joked that I like to spend at least half of our anniversaries pregnant.  This year was no exception.  We are expecting Fraase version 5.0 to be available this coming March.  I wonder who this one will look like…… Probably not me.

Join Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissing Time to link YOUR Friday Fragments!!

Family Pictures

I know I’ve been kinda MIA around here, I intend to fix that.  Now that things have settled down (as much it will, anyway) and school has started for the kiddos, I may have a bit more time.  Fall has arrived in these parts, and just a few weeks ago I had a yard sale.  I sat in a camping chair with a blanket and jacket and hot coffee because I was so chilly.  Tonight I sat on my steps in shorts and a T-shirt while the kids sold lemonade to the guys (and gals) hauling in the harvest.  The big trucks roll right past our house on the way to an elevator where they unload their beans/grain/corn.  If the line is long, we end up with customers hopping out of their parked semi-trucks to get lemonade or popcorn.  The kids make out pretty well during harvest!!  Since the weather has been in the 70’s and 80’s (practically unheard of for the beginning of October!) I convinced everyone we needed new family photos.  We went out to a nearby state park and I took my tripod and a remote.  I got some nice family shots, although it took me several clicks to get one good one.  It never fails, though, that my favorite ends up being a candid.

How can you not love this shot??  Hello, Christmas cards…..

Aria requested one of us together.  The goggles? Aria is into steampunk lately.

Here’s all of us.  It’s been a while since Daddy and I appeared in a family shot.  Now back to the kids…

Happy Fall, everyone!  Now, go out and take some amazing and colorful pictures!!!