She is our little Glow worm, but we got her her very own vintage Glo Worm too.

Naturally, we couldn’t resist getting her this. I had a glo worm as a child and Ben and I loved the look of the vintage ones much better than the new ones, so I stalked a few auctions on ebay to get one (surprisingly they go for a whole lot and I was in a bidding war to get them). Actually, I not only got one, but two (I am good at ebay), to make sure at least one worked. We wanted her to be able to hug it later and have fun seeing it light up! After all, that is what helps make this little worm so darn adorable.

I can’t wait until she can play with it. Actually, I can. I love her being so little and since she is our last, we are soaking up every minute of this newborn-ness before it’s gone. Plus, she is already a month old! Can you believe it?!! And I did indeed take her chair picture yesterday to mark the occasion (and I am almost done writing her birth story, so hopefully that will be up next week).

If you are interested, since I bought two and both work, I am selling the other one in my shop here. It works and is washed and ready to be loved!

Be back later with my week’s huzzahs and tomorrow, but I am going to keep the raffle giveaway going one more day, so you still have a chance to donate and I will announce the winner of the dollhouse pillow tomorrow. Thank you so much to all who have tweeted, blogged, facebooked and donated thus far. It is so very much appreciated by me and the Martinez family.

We thought she had chickenpox, but it played out more like a delayed allergic reaction than chickenpox. Thank goodness! Total blessing as we were concerned about Glow.

Since she was a-okay, off to school she went, but when she got to school, she wanted to go back home. It was terrible and I didn’t know what to do! After a few calls to Ben, a lot of pep talks, me super frustrated, and dragging the three other girls into the classroom with me, one of her friends eventually was able to coax her to let go of my leg. I think I like that friend of hers. Apparently she was a bit more knee-dy this school day! Could it be the knee socks doing?!! I hope not.

Any of you parents have to battle with a child that refuses to let go of your leg at school? What are your tips?

p.s. Don’t forget to enter to win and be a part of hope for those with HoPE! Enter here.

Too often I get much too comfortable in the way I live and in being healthy that I forget that there are individuals that have real health issues and struggles. This sermon on suffering was really convicting and made me realize that good health for everyone is temporal and that I don’t spend enough time, thought, and money on eternal things. So while I love blogging about vintage pretties, clothes, food, and crafting, those things really aren’t going to make much of a dent in eternity. I simply try to love and enjoy God through those things.

My friend Roselle’s daughter was diagnosed with Holoprosencephaly (HPE). It is a rare brain disorder which occurs 1 in every 5,000-10,000 births and causes defects in the face and function and structure of the brain. Only 3% diagnosed live to tell. There is no cure and the prognosis in unknown and they want to help spread and support awareness for Holoprosencephaly (HPE)!

If you are in Southern California, you can be part of the 1st Southern California 5K run/walk for HoPE. The Martinez family wants to spread awareness of HPE and raise support for Families for Hope, Inc., a non-profit organization based out in Indiana that seeks to support and educate those families with children diagnosed with HPE.

Also I would like to help raise support for Families for Hope, Inc., so I am raffling off one my dollhouse pillows (the one pictured below) to one lucky reader. Here is what you can do to win a dollhouse pillow and help spread support and awareness for families with HPE.

It involves the honor system, but I know you all are so great, so I don’t have to worry about it. The raffle will end this Friday at 8am. When you donate, which is also tax deductible, you will get a receipt from paypal for your donation and the winner will have to forward me that receipt for proof of donation.

Also, if you want to help spread more support and awareness for families with HPE, feel free to blog, twitter, or facebook and share the video to help educate others about HPE. The blogging community has always been wonderful in lending a helping hand, so let us all continue to do so!

Let’s all be hope to those with HoPE!!!

*****GIVEAWAY CLOSED*****

Tuesday nights are becoming more special here because that’s the night we get together with some of our friends, particularly the BFF and her hubs and another gentleman from our church family, to share dinner and life. Dinner comes first and we all indulge, joke, and talk, after which the boys and girls separate and the boys have their accountability time together and Lin and I do our own version talking about things we struggle with, how to love God more, how to love our husbands more, etc. Of course, all the kids get put to bed after dinner and sometimes Ben and the boys do it to give the men some practice since they aren’t yet fathers and other times the girls do it.

Speaking of putting the girls to bed, last night they were so cute because as I was taking all three big girls upstairs for bed, they said, “Mom, we have a show for our church family.” I hesitated because it was already past their bedtime, but then let them do it because they weren’t being shy and I wanted to take advantage of it. They had me call everyone to where the stairs are, and once they were all there, they proceeded to sing “So Long, Farewell” from Sound of music. It was the cutest thing!!! As stubborn as my kids are sometimes, they can be such heart melters too.

Ben and I are so blessed by this time and getting to know our friends more, though Lin and I are pretty much like sisters, but our husbands are quickly becoming better friends and we secretly think they want to be BFFs like us. Guess that is not so secret anymore. Anyways, we have all taken turns at making dinner and everytime the Parks bring dinner, it becomes a new favorite for Ben and he raves on and on after the food after company has gone home (and for days after too).

The recipe they used was Korean Beef Tacos from here and you can be sure this will be going in our recipe staples and I have a feeling this may be our Friday night dinner and I want to try it with shrimp. We definitely love our Tuesday nights with delicious food, friends, and discussions that spur us love God more. So, Lin and John… what are you brining over tonight? Who said we can’t do it on Wednesdays too?!!

Last week we had nice cool sweater weather, but now the temperatures are going back up and it is expected to be 98 degrees on Wednesday. Me oh my! I can’t wait for the cool to come back and stay. Didn’t California get the memo that it is now Fall?!! So what do we do? We wear plaid and peep toes in a California Autumn!

True actually calls her outfit a “farmer’s outfit”, kids come up with the funniest ideas, and she is the one who dressed herself completely and it is just coincidence we both picked plaid. I guess, like mother, like daughter. Though most of the country has already traded in their sandals for boots, we still get to wear ours here. Come to think of it, some southern Californians still wear flip flops throughout the winter.

Seriously, Ben is just the best. I wake up Saturday morning and the girls tell me they have a surprise, but I have to wait. Shortly after, Ben comes upstairs with a brown paper in hand, makes us girls all sit on the bed together while he reads aloud what he has on his brown paper. He says, in a decree-like fashion…

After which he says we all need to go downstairs. Though, this is where there was a slight change of plans as I just happened to notice True has red dots and bumps all over her foot and upon closer inspection, they seemed to be all over her body. A few calls here and a few calls there, we determine she may have chickenpox or is having a late reaction to the chocolate chip cookies she had the other day. Eventually though, the surprise gets back underway.

What was it? Well, Ben had prepared a buttermilk pancake batter from this recipe and had bought a griddle (that he so slyly kept hidden away for a couple weeks) and pancake batter dispenser, had little pancake add-ins ready and we were about to recreate our own version of Slappy Cakes from our Portland trip almost exactly one year ago. That man is good! We were going to make our own pancakes right at our own table at home… so fun!!!

We made hearts, bows, shapes, spelled out our names, made little creatures, and some funny faces all the while devouring all morning long. Heck, Ben and I even had our own round of tic-tac-toe. Not to mention, we threw in some chocolate chips here, some berries there, and some bacon bits may have made it into some of the pancakes too! Seriously, all super yummy!!!

The girls seemed like bottomless pits as they were eating everything up all morning long. I feel we may have ourselves a new little family breakfast tradition coming on. Ben says he had planned to do this little surprise later in the month, but he was much too excited that he had to do it sooner. I am glad he did because pancakes were just what my tummy needed Saturday morning! We all definitely love us some Pappy Cakes!!!