The Ballard Bunch

Thinking of poor Beau out there plowing all night and thought I'd post some of my favorites of just us. He's such a great husband and dad and we are so grateful for all of his hard work and long hours.

Enjoy!

I've got everything up besides our tree and outside lights. It feels good to have everything out and in it's place - there is something about Christmas decorations that make a home feel a little more home-y. And I'm not talking Snoop Dogg, yo. :)

This may be boring for most of you, but this is a great venue for me to post pictures of boring things that moms like to see when they are far away. So, please bear with me. Mom, Cheryl - these are for you so you can get a feel of what Christmas is like in our new home!

Lots of loves from us to you.

This is on our front door. Last month it was turkeys, this month it's stockings. I'm still bugged that my "s" is slightly higher than the rest. Those of you that know me know that I'll probably fix that before too long. But here's what it is as of now. What will next month be? Ooooooooo.....the suspense. :)

This is on the inside of our front door. I found this great double wreath hanger so on the front I can hang our welcome sign and on this side I can have a wreath for Christmas. This red matches our living room so well, I'm sometimes tempted to leave it up all year long!

This is a nothing craft - all I did was "modge podge" paper to the front of wooden letters. Kind of an experimental craft that I started last year and had to refine this week. I think it turned out pretty darn cute, if you ask me! Now, if Tatum would stop trying to knock them off of the TV!

Shanna and I made these last night. Another easy, pre-cut wooden craft. But he sure adds a little to the living room. I can't tell you how much I love the $8 hand sanders we found last week. They really do save quite a bit of time when doing things like this!

This is the other project from yesterday. I'm especially excited about how these candy canes turned out because they were a beast to paint. We ended up trimming the edges with black magic marker to make them look cleaner and when we sanded them down, it acutally gave it a cuter look. Tate's been realitively kind to these, surprising considering how close they are to her level. I wonder how she'll do with the ornaments on the tree?

This year I actually have somewhere to hang our stockings! The banister that sits behind our big couch is the perfect place. I found a new stocking for Beau (it's got a cowboy feel to it) so now we all have full sized stockings for Santa to fill!

We made these last year at Shanna's Super Saturday (that sounds like an event when her name's attached to it like that). They make for a great centerpiece on the table that I'm still totally in love with two weeks later. I want my barstools to arrive, though!

As is the tradition of Day After Thanksgiving shopping (we had so much fun this year - pulled the classic all-nighter with the girls!), so is pulling out the Christmas decorations the day after the big feast. Keeping with that tradition, a new look for the blog. I know we didn't keep the fall theme long, but we started late. Anyway, enjoy. Thanks for visiting!

When you have a baby with so much hair, you really don't put hats on them too often. I found this darling hat that I had purchased for Hayden before she was born, but had never put on her as of yet. I have to admit, as much as I love her fun head of hair, she looked pretty darn cute with a hat on, too. She was so good and kept it on most of the day.

Here are a couple of pictures, one of her cracking up and flashing that contagious grin. As you can tell in the pictures, we're still having the barf problem and wear bibs 24/7. This one ended up in the wash pretty soon after the pictures were taken.

We just finshed up a very fun week-long visit with my step-mom, Cheryl and my little sister, Jessica. We had such a great time and the girls absolutely loved getting to know them both better. Tatum would wake up every morning saying, "Jeshie? Where is she?" Jeshie!!!" They really did become fast friends. Hayden especially loved cuddling with "Grandma Olson" and flashed her awesome grin all of the time. The only sad part of the week was that Cheryl caught a bug and was sick most of the visit. We still managed to have a great time and were so sad to see them leave this morning! Thanks so much for visiting - we love you both so much!!!

Here are some pictures from their time here.

Don't ask me how he discovered he could do this, but here's Beau's latest and greatest talent...suctioning a soda can to his forehead. :)

I love this new layout because I can change the look for the seasons. Just thought I'd give you all a little Thanksgiving love for the rest of the month! Christmas, here we come!!!!

I had been told that it would take at least two weeks for my dining room table to arrive, but received a great surprise on Tuesday. It had only taken 5 days - so it's here and ready for the holidays! I even hate my "pink" walls less now that it's in the room. :) We'll still paint, don't you worry! I'm just not sure when we're actually going to get to it now that Thanksgiving is almost here.

Here is the table and chairs (the barstools are on back order and we should have them in a week or two)

I have to brag, too, about the crafts that we've made as of late. Below are pictures of three that are out now. Thanks to Karen and Shanna for the inspiration/company when making them!

Here's our welcome signs for our front doors. The pumpkins and turkey are replaced with a different themed craft each month. For instance, December will have five stockings with the letters S-A-N-T-A on them. We'll be making those soon enough - I'll post pictures for all to see.

This is the pumpkin that I made on my own. It was so inexpensive and I'm in short supply of fall decorations, so I thought I'd give it a try on my own. The stem is a sanded down branch from outside our old house!

Gobble gobble! Shanna's favorite item, the turkey. She's got one in slightly different colors.

Another random Evonne project that turned out surprisingly cute. This sits on my kitchen counter for now - I need to find it a better home somewhere in the house.

With so much focus on our new babe, Hayden in the last few months, I wanted to pay tribute to the cutest 20-month-old girlfriend in the world. Tatum has grown so much over the last year and a half and I'm so proud of the beautiful and kind little girl she's become. Enjoy!

Thanks so much, Jocelyn, for your help making this blog so cute! I really appreciate it and I'm glad we touched base - now I can look at your blog in the open - no more "secret" viewing - haha!

Here are some recent pictures of our littlest babe. I took her to JcPenney's for the super $7.99 deal and this is what we got. Pretty good, considering the girl that took our pictures was absolutely horrible and terribly rude. I guess it helps to have the cutest baby in the world as your subject. :)

Check out the cheeks!

Here I am, posting for you from our NEW house! I love being here and am so anxious to finish unpacking and making this place a home. We love being here already!

Last week was a hectic one of packing, cleaning and running around. I'd like to send a quick "thank you" to all of our friends and family that helped us with everything - we couldn't have done it alone and we're so appreciative.

Here are some pictures from our last week in the Haunted House:

I had all of the kids (mine and Shanna's) over Friday morning while Shanna went to her dentist appointment. Here they are eating cereal on our living room floor. Now that we're in the new house, we'll have room for all of the kids to eat at the table - yay!!! As you can tell by these pictures, Shantell is in her "loser" phase. Gotta love it.

Here are Tatum and Hayden hanging out in the living room the day before we moved. Tatum even let me take pictures of her being a mommy - she LOVES her baby. She's taken to copying everything I do with Hayden with her own baby.

Here's our sweet little Hayden in her Halloween gear. She was such a trooper and went out trick-or-treating with Beau, Tatum and I - she even let me put a little "costume" on her face! It seemed fitting to make her an indian, having all that dark hair and all. Her face paint is a little rubbed off in these pictures - it was a long night!

I had to share these pictures of my cute Miss Tate in her Halloween-themed outfit. She totally dug the cutsie scull and crossbones! This was for the non-costume part of the day.

I know it's still before Halloween, but the celebration has already begun in the Ballard house. Tatum, Hayden and I went with some friends to "Trick or Treat Street" at the South Towne Expo Center this morning and had so much fun! As you can probably tell in the pictures, Tate wasn't too into it all at the beginning. Once inside (they have it set up with lots of little doors you knock on and different characters give out candy), it took her awhile to venture away from holding my hand and making me ask for candy. But once she felt comfortable, she was a wild woman! They had great Halloween-type songs playing and she and Jadi (the ladybug) and Kayden (the dinosaur) danced and ran around. She ended up leaving with quite the loot, too - so the $5 price tag on the day wasn't a loss.

Afterwards, we met up with the dads and went to the Training Table for lunch. Tatum quickly earned the nickname "Stair Fairy" because she only wanted to play on the stairs by our table in her fairy costume. I have to say, she looked pretty dang cute all dressed up and glittered out - she's SUCH a girl when it comes to stuff like that.

Tuesday will be the big celebration (as will be for most of you, I'd guess) so I'm sure we'll have more to share then. Stay tuned for our little Indian Baby in a future post...she hasn't made her costume debut just yet. But it's worth the wait, I promise.

Loves,
Evonne

p.s. I have to share a close-up pic of Tate's saucy fairy shoes I found on eBay. Love me some eBay lately!

Lately I've found it difficult to get Tatum to go down for a nap. Heaven knows she's tired when the whining and the tantrums rear their ugly heads, but she fights laying down like no other lately. I've been forced to tuck her in and shut the door to let her scream it out most days in the past week or two. Typically, she's asleep before 2 minutes are up, but some days she's more reluctant.

Sunday was a particularly hairy day for nap time. After about 15 mintues of solid screaming...silence. I cracked open the door so that when she woke up she could come out on her own, but didn't really get a good look in the room. After about an hour, we were getting ready to go to Beau's grandma's house so I went in to wake Tate up. For a split second I began to panic - she wasn't in her bed! There was, however, a big clump of soft blankie peaking out from under Hayden's crib. I carefully pulled the blanket away to find my little munchkin sound asleep underneath.

Waking her up was even more difficult because in her sleepy daze, she had a hard time figuring out where she was and how to get out. I guess "bed" really is where you lay your head!

Enjoy the pics!

The other day I was going through a drawer in our bedroom and came across some glasses from years ago that I never wear anymore. Tatum saw them and wanted to try them on, so for fun I let her. She LOVES them! Obviously, I can't let her wear them too much since they are Rx, but it's too cute to see her run around in them like a mad woman. Here are a few pictures I was able to snap.



p.s. As you can see in the background, we're well into packing up this old house! The Dora training toilet seat is her new favorite accessory - it's never been used for it's original intent, but she sure does love to walk around the house with it on like it's a hat. Guess we're not quite ready to potty train, after all. :)

Miss Tate is at the age of tripping, falling, bruising and tears and Miss Mama is have major anxiety over it! Yesterday was a prime example...

Earlier in the day Shanna and I took the kids to lunch - their usual haunt, Mickey Donald's. They were having a great time playing and were getting along famously with each other (Shantell and Braeden are great about watching out for little Tatum). Remember me previously mentioning how I can't stand the moms that don't watch their own kids? Again. This one little boy was a terror! First, he's in the basketball area pinching and pushing my daughter. I watched from a distance to see what she'd do - she just stood there looking at him like, "No you didn't." He kept at it and his mom didn't say anything. Tatum finally started to scream at him (she's not a hitter, though, so screams are pretty nasty). He still kept going so I went in and said, "Tatum - next time he pinches or pushes, you do it back." That got his mom up, well at least looking in our direction. She still ignored the issue. He went and did it while I was standing right there so I looked at him and I said, "If you don't stop being mean, McDonald's will make you leave." Putting the fear of the manager into a kid did the trick. At least for awhile.

A few minutes later there is this cute little girl - maybe 3 or 4 carrying her croc shoes around. He comes up, yanks them out of her hand and starts putting them in the cubbies. She's crying - again no mom around - and looks at me with sad little puppy dog eyes. So I walk her over and show her where they are in the cubbies. He sees this and gets pissed. He runs up to us, grabs a shoe and runs into the playground and hides it - coming out laughing. Damien, I swear, people. The kicker is, when he left, the little girl was with his group and she got in trouble for not having her shoes. Yelling-how-stupid-could-you-be, trouble. I wanted to cry for her.

Maybe I'm out of line for intervening and telling this kid to stop pushing and pinching and for helping her find her shoes, but I feel like sometimes kids need people to advocate for them and I felt so sad for this little girl. I'm sure this happens to her at home all the time - he terrorizes and she somehow gets in trouble for it because she's little and timid and doesn't speak up. I know, I'm the mom that other moms hate at the playground, but I'm not the type to sit by and let things happen. Kids do need to learn to solve their own issues and I'm all for that, but sometimes it's too much and they need a little mom step-in. And I'm happy to do it - especially if my kid is the one being terrorized. On the flip side - in an instant I would discipline Tatum if she was bullying - I don't deal well with that either. Kids need parenting, plain and simple.

And now I'm off my soapbox.

After that we met up with Amanda and took the kids to Gardner Village to see the Halloween Witches. It was cold and windy, so we didn't stay long, but the kids got a kick out of them. Just as we're at the end of the displays, Tatum swats something and starts screaming bloody-murder. She got stung by a bee! Her poor little hand was swollen in seconds and she was so sad! She survived and the swelling went down pretty quickly in the car, but I felt so bad for her. She had absolutely no idea what was going on - she was fine and then all of a sudden *bam* pain and swelling. Poor little thing.

Our last stop was Children's Place to look for a costume for Baby Kehl. Shanna had seen an ad for a lion costume that she wanted to get for him. We had the babies out feeding them bottles while we looked (they'd had a long day, too) and Shantell, Braeden and Tatum were walking around. Minding themselves pretty well playing near the display a few feet away from us. I guess I was pretty distracted because a few minutes later I can hear Tatum crying, but it's muffled. I look out and she's standing outside the doors with her little hand smashed in them. The saddest part was her face pressed against the window and the weight of her own pushing on the door making her hand hurt worse. She didn't understand that if she stopped pushing, she could pull the door open and free her hand. Mother of the Year. She must have walked out with other people leaving or something because I have no idea how she got out otherwise. I'm usually overly strict with her being right by me and this is why. Everyone was fine in the end, but I was pretty freaked out that she'd gotten outside. Lucky, as mean as it sounds, that her hand got caught or she may have totally wandered off.

Anyway, she fell asleep pretty early yesterday - no blaming her after the day she had. Being pinched, pushed, stung and stuck, my little Tate is beginning to be quite the handful. But at least she has a mom that is aware. :)

Our little Hayden is truly the sweetest little thing! She's got such a pleasant, calm demeanor and hardly ever fusses (her dad would disagree, but he only sees her in the evenings during the week - meltdown time for all kids).

Here she is in her cute little hand me down outfit from Tatum that I absolutely love. She looks great in red - please keep your dark hair, Hades!


And here she is asleep with her daddy in our bed. I was up late working and came in to bed to find them this way.