Well this Easter was a great one. I remember last Easter going to the service held at the fairgrounds and seeing all the 'moms' and their kids. Some were in strollers, and some were walking around, and I remember thinking 'Wow. That is going to be ME next Easter.' And yes, it really was. Claire sat in her stroller pretty well, but towards the end got a little sick of it. But a HUGE shout-out to Colleen who offered to hold her!! Thanks dude!

Our Easter Meal (I'm not sure if it was technically lunch or dinner, and it was too late to be brunch) was consumed up in good ol' Apple Hill at my parent's house. The food was incredible (seriously mom - where DID you get that ham!) and of course I totally over ate. But I blame that on the creator of cream cheese. I mean - who would have guessed that mixing that stuff with potatoes (and creating 'twice baked' potatoes) would result in chemically altering one's ability to control their intake of food. It's really weird. Maybe they should do a 'study' on it.

And now, for a few photos - be prepared - I added quite a few.

And here is Miss Claire in her totally beautiful but completely impractical 'Easter Dress'. Yes, it's silk, and has to be dry cleaned only. Which mean I fed her in her pajamas then quickly put on the dress before heading to church, and then snapped a few pictures at mom and dad's and then changed her clothes again before giving her lunch. Good thing I'm going to have her wear that dress during her '1 year photos' - so at least it gets SOME use out of it. I know. Stupid purchase. (oh yeah - disclaimer on the hair - she was messing with it so it looks REALLY bad - but I didn't have time to fix it before our 2 minute photo shoot)

Claire has learned to clap. Super cute.
So here she is, ready to look for eggs and 'cheering' about it.
I wonder if she ever realized there was one just behind her.

Hmm. Looks like some other kid found that egg.
But hey - its a great day out. So there's still tons to clap about.

Oops. I guess those eggs are still there. Now if she can just lean forward a bit...

Yeah. It's gets pretty boring. I totally understand. But I have a feeling that if you just would have moved around a bit - it COULD have been a bit more interesting...

So in the end, we just gave her a few eggs. She was totally cool with it. But what I don't have a picture of, is Ty - when about 2 minutes later he walked up and took all her eggs. I think he thought he 'found' them. (the other eggs he found were hidden at the same level of 'difficulty')

Good Times with the Easter Bunny

So I was at the mall the other day and there just happened to be NO LINE for the Easter Bunny. Now, those of us who shop at the Galleria already are aware of the huge lines that can form for Santa, the Easter Bunny, and who knows what else they decide to stuff and sit in an oversized chair. Claire had on no shoes, no frilly dress, or anything else you might expect a child to wear when taking this monumental photo, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and do it anyway.

First, let me start off by saying that it was pretty clear that Mr. Easter Bunny pretty much hated his life. Claire has this 'thing' for bunnies so I figured that a HUGE bunny would be pretty exciting for her. I held her as we approached him saying 'Oh look! It's a bunny! Its the Easter Bunny!!!' And Mr. Easter Bunny sat motionless in his large, cardboard throne. Not even a slight turn of the head towards the precious, little child that was about to sit in his lap. No waiving of the polyester-gloved hand to spread some friendly aura to his visitors. Just a blank stare towards the camera - as if to say 'I'm ignoring you as much as I am legally able to without losing my job.'

I guess I can't really blame him for being bothered. I mean, white gloves went out in the 80's.

It's over, and I'm TIRED!

Okay. It's late, I feel like my body is literally shutting down, so I'll probably be brief on this posting. Or maybe not, I never really know what I'm going to say until my fingers magically type it out. Anyway, this is my booth. I was right inbetween 'Baby Sign Language' and some Scrapbooking thing. (the Scrapbooking ladies tried to nudge their table into my 10x10' space, so I put up the table on the right so they couldn't be in my booth. Greedy women.) And if I have have to hear the 'Potty Train' song one more time I'll freak out.

This is the vertical display I had my large bows on. On the table was my 'bargain basket' where bows and clips were only $3 (or $2 on Sunday) but you had to sift through it all to see what there was.

My friend Melissa made this display. I LOVE IT!
I didn't want to put the hooks in it so nothing could mess it up.

It could be a bit hard to tell, but the 2 neck busts are holding 'stretchy' headbands for those who don't have a ton a hair yet. The box held headbands I 'wove' ribbon around. And there's actually a picture of Claire on that big paperclip. But she kind of looks like a cat from a distance.

The 2nd board Melissa made. These were mix & match clippies.

Okay, so this is one of my FAVORITE things. I now do custom tutu's - but what I love, is the dress form. Thanks Pottery Barn Teen! (no - they did not donate, but they took my money and gave me that in return!) Weird story: I had a couple of adults ask if I could make tutu's for adults - to which of course I responded 'yes'. Then a lady asked if I could make one for a man. I still don't know if she was kidding or not.

I like these little spinning displays. I thought everything looked pretty cute.
(Can you see how close the Scrapbook ladies' wire spinning display is to my table?!?!)

So, now that this Baby Expo is all over, I can honestly say that I'm SOOOOOOO glad!!! No, I didn't make millions, nor did I even make thousands... but it was a great experience and I actually did a lot of networking. I have many new opportunities that I'm really excited about, and it's pretty amazing how this once little 'hobby' has now turned into a pretty cool little business. It was encouraging to get positive feedback from the 'public' since you feel like they're pretty unbiased. Although, quite a few moms from my 'moms group' came by to see me. But I wasn't counting them in that group.

Just so you know how hard I actually worked - here is an estimate on what I actually made:

500 - solid colored large bows
450 - solid colored small bows
250 - polka dot small bows
250 - small flower clips
50 - large flower clips
300 dragonflies
25 - woven headbands
30 - stretch lace headbands
5 - tutu's
too many to count - clippies

It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!!!

Yes, it's official. I'm now entering the final week before the big Expo. Ribbon is being cut and folded. Glue is being melted and molded, and fingers are becoming little cramped, claw-like nubs. Okay, so that last part is a bit of an exaggeration. But my fingers do become cramped from time to time.

Last minute supplies and newly ordered graphics are starting to arrive. It's almost like Christmas - except better! TOTALLY kidding on that one. But it IS fun to get packages. Plus, I sometimes forget that I ordered stuff, and then I'm SO happy to see that I didn't forget something that I really did need.

I'll be taking alot of photos at the Expo so be prepared to check them out.



On another totally random note, I thought I'd share some tips on a really important topic. So, I hope you find this helpful:

How To Lose Your Pride: 101

1) After you take a shower, opt out of blow-drying your hair. Let it 'air dry'. Not only does this save you time, but it also saves you from having anything remotely close to a hair style. Also, your 'fringe' (or 'bangs' as some would call them) will then dry at an angle that will resist any form of 'shaping' - unless you completely re-wash the hair. It is best to discover this about 10 minutes before you're supposed to leave for a night out. Nothing makes you feel more confident then when you think you might be mistaken for a man.

2)For a Valentine's Day date with your hubby, agree to go with 3 other couples bowling. And not just bowling, but a 'come-in-matching-Valentine's-day-T-shirts-because-this-
will-be-so-funny-and-a-great-time' night of bowling. And of course, get REALLY into it. So much into it, that you are determined to create the best cheesy T-shirts EVER. And then show up to the bowling alley with jackets over your prize-worthy shirts so that you can make a huge reveal and everyone will be so jealous at your amazing creativity, and skills with a glue-gun. But then find out that no-one does the 'cheesy' route, but more the 'matching' route. So now you and your husband look like you just escaped from a pink/red/white/Valentine's Day looney bin.

3) Now this is the most important tip of all. When you bowl, fall down. And I'm not talking about a little slip, or a short trip by the seating area, but a full blown on HANDS AND KNEES fall. It's best if you fall right by where your lane begins. That way, when both your hands slam onto the ground, you can be sure to place them on the waxy part. And I guarentee, that if your hands touch that magical wax, you will NOT be able to push off to get your self up. You'll probably slide forward a little more, you'll freak out in your mind that your whole body is going to end up sprawled out in wax (which would also result in ruining your shirt), and your husband will run up to you thinking that you really hurt yourself because you didn't get up right away, but actually you just CAN'T get up quickly, you have to go really slow to stop the natural forward motion that your body wants to move. (Oh yeah, chances are, your sister might end up sitting down because she might wet her pants from laughing so hard)

So to sum it all up, if you combine the bad hair day, with being the only one's wearing cheesy shirts, with falling on your face in front of ALOT of people at a bowling alley, I promise you, and can 100% guarentee, that you'll lose your pride.

Take it from me, I should know.

Working Hard... and Killing Time

As many of you know, I've been MIA for a while trying to get stuff ready for the Expo. So I thought I'd post a picture of SOME of things I've been working on. If you double click the picture, it'll come up bigger, thus resulting in it looking like there's MORE. Ha ha!

So here are some of the polka dot bows I'll have. I'm still working on the 'solid' colors, headbands, flower clips, and a ton more than I won't bore you with.

Of course one cannot hide away and produce large amount of bows forever. So what is the alternative?!?!? Why, dress your child up in a bathing suit of course!

I bought this swimsuit for Claire last summer and of course it was WAY too big for her. So I thought I might as well put her in it now, since she'll probably outgrow it by this summer. (At least I HOPING she'll outgrow it by then!)

Here's another 'shot' of Claire modeling the suit. I think it's interesting how she tilted her head to one side... almost as if she knows how to pose. Hmmm. Maybe all my watching of America's Next Top model is rubbing off on her...

It's already mid-January?!?!?!

Gee.. where has the time GONE!

Things continue to be busy in the Lesiw house. Bob's plugging away at the Pharmacy, and I'm still working away at making bows. Claire turned 9 months on the 13th and she had her Dr's appointment where we found out that she is now a WHOPING 15lbs 5oz. Our sweet peanut. She's in the 5th percentile but the good news is that she's 'proportionate'. They measured her head twice because the first time the girl thought Claire's head actually shrunk. I think she was new. Honestly, it doesn't bother me in the slightest that Claire is so small. I think in a weird way I'm kind of jealous that she has skinny 'genes'. Okay. That was a brief insight into my shallowness. But as far as being on the low end of the scale, I think Dr. Trude puts it beautifully, "... well... someone has to be there."

Other exciting news is that Bob and I are officially 'waiting' for our next child. No, that does NOT mean I'm pregnant, but it DOES mean that we turned in our application to adopt from Korea! I know in our Christmas letter we wrote that we were going to pursue a China adoption, but it turns out the wait was going to be at least 3 years. Yeah... that's a bit too long for us. So after some looking, considering, arm-wrestling (kidding) we decided on using Holt International. For those of you who don't know, Sara and I were adopted through Holt back in '76. So it's kind of funny to think that it's come 'full circle'.

Right now the wait looks to be around 17 months - give or take. And they start your 'wait' from the time you turn in your formal application, which was mailed in early this afternoon. It only has to go to Sacramento, so it should arrive really quick. It also looks like they can use our homestudy that we did for Claire. So that will save some more time, and a little bit of money.

So that's pretty much it for us. As I have already told some of you, I went out and bought Rosetta Stone 'Korea - Level 1'. As they advertise, I should be able to learn the language in 6 months or I can get my money back. We'll see what happens. Bob and I have decided that we're both going to learn the language so that we can speak to each other in Korean. It will be like our own 'secret' language. Except it's Korean. And it's already been discovered.

Christmas/New Year... It came and went...

You would think that Christmas this year would be a big event in the Lesiw home as it is officially Claire's first Christmas, but I'm sad (I use that word loosely) to say that it was not!

We got Claire a few toys since she really doesn't need any, and I know she won't remember receiving her 'first Christmas gifts' and I think Bob would kill me if I bought her more clothes. So Christmas Eve, after Claire goes down for the night, Bob and I pull out her gifts... which have been sitting in the Target bag underneath the tree (which sits on a table) for the past few weeks. I'm looking at these toys and start thinking about what a hassle it's going to be in the morning to try and get all those zip ties off of the toys as Claire tries to play with them. That's when I got the nifty idea to take all the toys out of their boxes. So instead of Claire ripping paper off of toys for the first time in her life, she got to sit down in front of the couch while we hand the toys to her.

New Years was pretty much the same way. I'm going to be an 'exhibitor' at a Baby Expo in February, so I've become a little factory worker in our house. I've finished 300 Dragonfly clips, and I have a ton more to do. I'm hoping to have an insane amount of bows/clips/critters to bring to this thing, and then I'm hoping even MORE that they sell. We'll see what happens. And I'm sure I'll post pictures when it's all said and done. Anyway, back to New Years. I was working on bows, Bob was finishing up his 'continuing education credits' for licensing renewal, and Claire was sleeping. We didn't even watch the ball drop.

So now 2008 is here, and I can't wait to see what it brings. 2007 was life changing (to say the least) so I can't imagine anything 'topping' that one for a while.

It won't let me upload pictures... so I guess you'll just have to wait on those.