Girls, girls, girls!!!

On this otherwise dead site I'm just posting up the one pic we have of our newest Duckling...welcome, Bean!!!

She made her arrival into the world on 8-28 at 11:49 AM (just in time for lunch, she's just like her mother...hates to miss a meal, you know) at 7 lbs. and 7 oz. and 20 inches in length.

It was a mostly happy labor (but for the really horrific contractions prior to getting the long-overdue epidural...which was supposed to come somewhere around month five of my pregnancy...) and fairly quick without the marathon pushing that some other children of mine insisted upon.

Love to all-

Mama Duck

Holiday Happenings from the Land of Snow and Cheese

Dang y'all...two months in a row. I must have a lot of extra time on my hands...or my kids are being vastly neglected. Shhhhh, don't tell DCFS...

Kicking off the month was a few pancake breakfasts in the area. We're always up for other people cooking and heck, it's a great way to give back to the community as most pancake breakfasts are for charitable and non-profit organizations.

After the girls told me ALL YEAR LONG about how they were going to sit on Santa's lap this Christmas they both chickened out. This was a pancake breakfast at our local high school for one of their internal clubs. It took quite a bit of coaxing and finally The Duckling climbed up there and Peanut was willing to put up with standing by him:

And then, if ya haven't heard it already, Peanut asked Santa a very interesting question. She looked at him very seriously and said, "Where are your donkeys?"

Uh yeah, that would be 'reindeer' honey. I like to blame it on the fact that we had recently watched 'Shrek the Halls' and that she got Donkey from Shrek mixed up with the reindeer. The bottom line is that I probably shelter my kids a wee bit too much.

Anyway, this month the girls have been very busy primping for the holiday season. Peanut got three inches cut off of her locks and honestly...you can't tell one bit other than it's straight in the back now. I had to bribe her to get up in the seat with a Dum-Dum...gotta love them Dum-Dums.

Here's the 'After' picture...but like I said...it's not as if you can really tell...

Now this little girl on the other hand...
I determined early on that I never wanted my girls to have short, short hair (I had an experience when I was really little...I don't know where I went or how she butchered it so damn bad but I looked like a boy...whose hair got caught in a combine or something...it wasn't pretty). Anywho, it was apparent that The Duckling's hair, while long and girlie, was getting a wee bit on the "street urchin" side of the fashion. Thus, we got her hair all did AND she was able to help out Locks of Love. I'm very proud of her for donating her hair and cripes, would ya just look at how cute she turned out?!!??!

Alright...and for those of you wondering why you don't ever get pictures of the girls together...here's a few examples of why I simply don't see how gaining the amount of gray hairs that I would from attempting to make them behave simultaneously in a photo is worth it...

Screw it, I say.

For those of you who know me...you know I have tree issues. I can't stand clutter and crap on a Christmas Tree. Primarily I'm talking about the main tree that everyone who visits our house sees immediately. Therefore, the girls got their very own Charlie Brown Christmas Tree this year. It's about as homely as they come but the girls LOVE it and got to decorate it all by themselves. The three pictures above are taken in front of their tree right after they got done decorating it.

A friend of mine decided that it would be a great idea to stand in line at our local mall to get our pictures taken with The World's Largest and Scariest Dora the Explorer. My kids were thrilled by this as you can see in the picture...

Peanut is practically CLAWING at me to get her away from Scary Dora.

And finally...let's see if you can guess who lurves her some candy canes?

Any guesses?

Happy holidays to everyone...and best of everything in 2008!

mama duck

Fall Update...

Whoa.


Where did those last few months go? Sometimes I see people coming to my tutu site from here and think, holy crap, are people still stopping by here? And how bad do I suck that I can't even get a monthly update on here?


Well...don't answer that. I gots lots of stuffs going on around here...and I'm always behind no matter how hard I try to get caught up. I need a maid...and a nanny...and a chef...and then I might be able to get more important things like blogging and tutu fabricating taken care of.



Enough chatter...here's what you really came for...the pictures of those darling, darling girls!!!

The Duckling started preschool back in September! Since her birthday is past the school deadline she's one of the older kids in her class and has been ready to start school for some time. You can see Peanut's enthusiasm for her sister's first day of school shining through here:




October was Fire Safety Month and as such our local fire department hosted their annual pancake breakfast. It's always nice when they let the nice hot firemen out to play. They even let us climb up in the trucks and make vroooom-vroooom sounds!


Then last weekend we went with G&G S to Mineral Point to check out the sights. While we were there Peanut displayed the most disgusting eating show since her uncle's wedding a year and a half ago... I can't post the rest of the pictures now ('cause Blogger is having ummm, issues...) but let's just say that you've never seen disgusting until you've seen Peanut the Hut eat grilled cheese, grapes, melon, fries, and a zillion other things one after another after another. In the shot above she had just methodically emptied the fruit pieces on at a time out of the cup and onto her plate and then decided to suck the fruit juice out of the bottom of the cup.

Very ladylike.

I have no idea where she gets this from.


Finally we have our Imported Leaf Pile. These are foreign leaves that were imported all the way from Iowa just so our kids could have the experience of jumping in a leaf pile...since we have like three trees in our entire neighborhood and there are virtually no leaves...

Alright...that's it. I've held Peanut at bay with cheese, crackers and PBS for as long as possible. She's now molesting the Halloween candy and I'm afraid for its safety.

Take care, be good and I'll be bahhhhhk!
Toodles!

Mama Duck

End of July Update....

Well as you can see I've been super diligent about updating this site.


As such I have the most random and odd smattering of pictures from the last four months that you can possibly imagine. I'm waiting for them to load right now and would like to take this opportunity to share what I've been up to instead of updating this site....you know, aside from eating bon-bons and watching my soaps...



Back in December I got this great idea that I would make tutus and sell them. I bought some tulle, ribbons and other junk at Wally World and got to work. I spent on afternoon wrestling with and cussing out the tulle, launched it in the back room and forgot about it until the middle of January. After the tulle and I came to an agreement that it was going to be me in charge and only me things have gone well. I have three main products in the line...tutus sewn into clothing (t-shirts or onesies), tie-on skirts and elasticized tutus. Since January I have produced nearly 200 tutus which I have been selling outright and using to stock my inventory for an upcoming arts and crafts show.




I came up with the name Decorated Duckling back in Austin when I thought that I might make and sell crib bedding...until I realized what a freakin' lot of work it was. Anyway, feel free to take a look around on my site and see what I've been up to and if you want to pass the site on, please do so. Our most exciting and latest news is that we will be donating part of our proceeds to two charities...The Family House and Texas Children's Hospital, both of which you can read about on the site.




And now onto the photos...



I braved taking the girls up to the Wisconsin Dells by myself on day to meet a blogging friend and his family. It took quite a bit of convincing for the girls to get in the water but by the time we left they were loving it....not that you can tell from the looks on their faces.


And then there was the Easter Egg Hunt...where it snowed...and was windy...and very, very, very cold...

Here's Peanut showing off one of my tutus...sadly the flash is way too hot and it's overexposed but I love, love, love that devious look and those big blues.

Peanut again...Uncle B and Aunt R bought this t-shirt for her birthday and were afraid they might get in trouble for it...sadly if a t-shirt could have been made just for Peanut, this would have been it...it's nice so that when she wears it in public I don't have to go through the trouble of explaining why I'm carrying a flask...

And finally...oh jeez, would you look at that? Another tutu! This is The Duckling and I at Uncle B's birthday bash...check out her million dollar smile. I wonder where she gets her good looks from!?!?! I know...I'm sooooooooooooooo modest.

I'm not going to lie and promise that I'll update this on a weekly or even monthly basis but I will try to get some pics up from time to time!

Mama Duck, who hears her tutus calling from her dining room sweatshop...

Greetings from 2007

Once again it's been ages since I've updated here at Texas Ducks. I will spare you the holiday pictures and yammering on and on about all the exciting things we've been up to. In all actuality that would probably only take up a few sentences but I know why you're really here...for the cuteness of my adorable offspring.

Here are the Duckling and Peanut in one of the best pictures we've even gotten of the two of them. If only it hadn't been sitting on a stool in the bathroom...
Peanut is still ornery and demanding but she has her happy moments too. Check out the shoes she picked out for this outfit:

I suppose that this selection is more functional than her normal choices which are my high heels. It is pretty cute to watch her hobble around like a drunk in them though.

I know you can't see it very well but she ate her toast face first (as she does on most days) and there's butter just caked all over her lips...
No comment other than to say that at least this time they are clean.
Even though it is a proven fact that mommy is afraid of snow I did actually take the girls out last week when we had one of our 50 degree days. They played in the snow and threw snowballs at the garage. Didn't sound like fun to me, but they had a blast...

Mama Duck, who will try to be better at updating...that is, if anyone even still reads this? Let me know by leaving a comment...

What we've been up to: October

Alright ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a photo album that looks like it has been organized by the Duckling who has no concept of a chronological order. Therefore it's kinda like a box of chocolates in this post.

Chronologically speaking this first picture actually makes sense. Here are the Duckling and Papa Duck carving a pumpkin. This was about three weeks before Halloween so by the time the big night of Candy rolled around this guy was looking pretty dehydrated, moldy and down-right geriatric. Just wait until you see what Mama Duck and the Duckling made for this Grumpy Old Gourd to sit next to!!


Ah yes, the infamous red-light Chinatown district shot. Aunt R brought these gorgeous dresses for the girls from her recent trip to China. I had them all politically correctly dressed in their garb with chopsticks (stolen from Happy Garden) in their hair. Five minutes alon in her costume and Peanut was trying to pick up the attention of her little boyfriend who was dressed like a Pooh Bear (and none to happy about it either, I might add). This is at the sitter's house.
The Duckling returns from her night of Trick or Treating. Cold. It was damn cold. Hence the winter jacket (and two other layers which you can't see) jammed under the beautiful and dainty dress. Didn't matter to her...candy, candy, candy warms one's soul.
Meanwhile, back at the sitter's...here's Peatnut showing us her loverly hair whilst nibbling on something and, byt the looks of it, begging the sitter for her Pootie.

Mama and Peanut on a lazy stay-at-home, weekend day. What you missed was the ten minutes before this where I was chasing her with a tiara with which she would have nothing to do. In the end I got her to hold the magic wand...and this is when I decided the whole fairy princess costume thing wasn't going to pan out...no tiara...no fairy princess.

Back at the ranch on Candy Night...the Duckling shows her enthusiasm for the upcoming race for sugary sweets.

Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy out of sequence...here we are pickng pumpkins...are you beginning to understand why there aren't more family photos of us together? Anyway, it was this day that I unwillingly surrendered to the fact that my flip-flop wearing days were over for the fall. Shortly thereafter I was treated at the local emergency room for frostbite.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh my piece de resistance...Ernesto. So inspired was I by the original internet puking pumpkin that I created my own masterpiece. The Duckling "helped" me by taking off and putting on the lid while I was trying to clear his chest cavity. He was sporting a radish nose and some fabulously slimy barf. This little boy came up to our porch about five minutes after I put Ernesto out and was studying him. I WISH I had filmed it because it was PRICELESS. He looked all around him, wanted to touch the barfies and just kind of skeptically slinked down the driveway. You know when you confuse a six year old boy by something disgusting you've done good.

And there you have it. Our Candy Day...Candy Month re-cap. Now please excuse me while I help to save the Duckling from cavities, tummyaches and early on-set childhood obesity by saving her from the Halloween chocolates that are taunting her.

mama duck

Motivated...

I have no idea where I'm getting this sudden burst of motivation and energy to update again. Perhaps it's because my energy and time isn't being wasted thinking of really horrible things that I hoped would happen to the new, personal house that our builder is in the process of building. May he have wrong windows installed. May his GC work off an unapproved blueprint. May his house be painted the wrong color. I only wish for him the things we were blessed enough to deal with in our process of building.

Enough of being nasty....for now.

Here's Peanut out in our front yard participating in her first Wet T-Shirt Contest. She does me proud.
Last time we were in IL The Duckling was introduced to scissors and the fabulous things that can do with paper. So fabulous indeed that she decided to go ahead and have a go at what they could do with her hair.
We took a day-trip somewhere....like 35 minutes north of here. I think. I don't know. I'm a terrible navigator. But anyway we stopped and had lunch at this cute little deli that is actually owned by Culver's but has no greasy Butterburgers to offer. It was a refreshing menu and a quaint little place with real dishes and silverware. I'm proud to say that my girls didn't break any dishes but the guy at the table behind us dropped his entire tray on the ceramic tile. They just don't make those plates the way they used to, you know.
Here's The Duckling at Pootie's Going Away Fiesta. I stuck Pootie in the chocolate frosting so that she could have one last sweet suck on the ole girl before she was taken away by the Pootie Fairy. Good times, my friends, good times. That was like two weeks ago and she still asks every night and nap for her Pootie. Somehow I think the permanence of Pootie's leave hasn't registered with her yet.
We took a day this week to go back to our old 'hood. The trees there are old and established, wait, that's not PC. They are seasoned trees that qualify for the AARP and Denny's senior discounts on Tuesdays. Where was I? The big trees, right....so fall is always really pretty there. You can see The Duckling was in hog heaven being back on her old stomping ground.
Finally we have Tiny sitting in a toy bin. She's such a little bean... look at her...
Well, someone I know is awake from her nap and coveting my Halloween candy. She's currently begging for M&Ms for her healthy afternoon snack. She's totally my daughter.

mama