Playing Around

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the newest member of our family...


Over the past weekend, we experienced enough victory, defeat, frustration, joy, blood, sweat and tears associated with this little beauty that I feel comfortable calling it a family member :) The kids LOVE it and even though I enjoyed putting it together with Nate and my dad, I'm just glad we're DONE.

A special thanks to my dad for all of his hard work helping us put this together and to my mom for being the caterer/ babysitter for the weekend. You guys rock :)

Craft it Forward

A friend of mine on Facebook posted a crafting challenge at the beginning of the year. The deal was that the first five people to respond to her post got something homemade by her on the condition that they posted it on their status too and gave five things of their own away. I'm not sure If I'm going to get my item from her (she just moved to VA!) but I'm pressing on regardless :) So here is my first gift!


I didn't make the frams (obviously :) But I embellished it with my recipient in mind. This one is for you, Alyssa!

I'm looking for a specific printable to go in here, so it isn't done yet but I thought I'd go ahead and share it! Next up is Christy!

Rodeo TOMORROW!!

Which reminds me of this little dude from two years ago...

Quite possibly my favorite picture of Micah ever :)

Micah's Playlist

Micah has taken a shining to singing recently. It is SO adorable to hear that little voice join in with you when you least expect it. His favorite songs to sing are

~ The Alphabet Song...usually minus E, F and G :)
~ Jesus Loves Me (sometimes, Jesus Loves Memaw if my mom has been over recently ;-)
~ The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song
~ Hot Dog (From Mickey Mouse Clubhouse)

If he knows the words, he'll sing it out proud!

I've Got it Covered

My Kindle, that is :) This weekend I threw together a cover for my Kindle and I have to say, I kinda love it. Well, with the exception of one little detail that irks me... but if I don't tell you what it is, maybe you won't notice ;-)


This was the first sewing project that I've done that wasn't even loosely based on a tutorial or pattern I found. And... it showed :P I made all sorts of mistakes on what order I did things and made it much harder on myself than it should have been. It was a..... learning experience. Now I know to sit down and think through ALL of the steps before I start :) I was a bit too eager to knock this one out I guess.. But I still like how it turned out!

I Heart My Book Club

....does that make me a nerd? Oh well, it's worth it :) We meet once a month to discuss a book that we've read and just to catch up. There are girls in there that I know from college and others that I met in the singles classes at First Baptist. I LOVE having a regular time to see them now and start to renew some great friendships that we had before we all got married. These are the books we have done so far-

~ The Jane Austen Book Club..... Not gonna lie, kinda hated this one. The book club was luke warm on it as well.
~ Water for Elephants.... Very good book! Great plot, characters, and history... it was a hit!
~ Frankenstein.... Despised, loathed, dreaded every page. We decided that this one is likely a classic more because it was a really original concept for a book and not because it was written well. Or maybe there are just a lot of literary masochists.
~ Little Women.... Such a great book. This one really is a classic.
~ Pride and Prejudice.... Do I even need to offer up a review of Austen? She is witty, fun, thoughtful and makes this book an absolute delight to read.
~ The Help.... Such a great book! It is all about black servants in Mississippi in the 60's and it is really eye opening without being preachy. I found it to be a really interesting read and so did the rest of the girls :)

A New Frontier

Clothing! It has always intimidated me to sew clothing... bags are one thing, but it takes much more skill to make something that will fit a person and look cute. I have somewhat been avoiding this, but I figured it was time to buck up and make Lizzie a dress. I chose a VERY simple pattern and jazzed it up a bit with a contrasting band on the bottom, a ribbon and contrasting bias tape. Just to make it a bit more difficult on myself, I lined the whole thing too :)



I used an 18 month dress of Lizzie's to get the general dimensions, and it worked... it'll probably fit her in 6 months :) The good news is that this will easily convert to a toddler top as she gets older. As you can see, I was so proud of my new creation that I whipped out my best camera... oh wait, no... I took cruddy pics with my iPhone. Well, you get the idea at least :) I was going to wait til I had better pictures to post, but I had nothing else to write about, so here you go!

So this project made a lot of firsts for me

1) First time sewing clothing

2) First fully lined dress

3) First time making my own bias tape

My Buddy, My Buddy

Wherever I go, he goes.... do you remember that commercial? If you grew up in the 80's then there is a decent chance that you do. Anyway, Micah has a lot of buddies. His best human buddy is most likely Sean, but his BEST buddy is his blanket... no offense Sean :)


The blanket is always with him when he is sleeping and now goes with him all day long too. It is getting a bit worn and I'll be honest, it smells (washing it is a bit tricky :) but he LOVES it. He insisted that I take a picture of just the blanket by itself....

...but I managed to sneak him in too ;-)

1 year stats

We had Elizabeth's 1 year check-up last week and got the all important stats~

Weight~ 18lb 10oz, 12th percentile
Height~ 29.25", 54th percentile
Head size~ 18", 68th percentile

Following in the fine family tradition of the lollipop body type :)

28.... seriously?

I celebrated my 28th birthday last Friday and I have to say IT WAS AWESOME :) After I dropped Micah off at school, I got to go shopping with my friend Devon completely kid free! (Nate had Lizzie) I had almost forgotten what that was like! We went to Town and Country and City Centre. We ate lunch at Ruggles Green (including white chocolate bread pudding to die for.... I've been dreaming about it ever since :) and had a really great time! I came home and we got to have an awesome meal with my parents and we watched Inception that night. It was perfect :)

Lizzie's Party Favors

Having kids has been a fantastic opportunity for me to be creative and try a broader range of crafts. Their parties are perhaps my absolute favorite things to craft for. For Lizzie's party, I made several heart garlands, a banner, a "1" centerpiece and mounted the 1 month-12 month pictures of Liz. (Check out yesterday's post to see pics!) But what I REALLY loved were her favors. I made.....

Ladybug bean bags~

Homemade ladybug shaped crayons~

and ladybug hair clips for the girls~

They all went into these mini hobo sacks that I made and sort of fell in love with. I have some of this (and the lining) fabric left over and I can't wait to use it again!

Lizzie Lovebug

This Saturday we celebrated Elizabeth's birthday with a lovebug party. I had so much fun making all of the decorations, food and favors :)

All of the desserts... cake balls, Whoopie pies and cupcakes :)

The newest one year old in the family~

Coloring with the ladybug crayons~

Fun with bean bags :)

Adorable girl! I did fail to consider what red icing might look like when smeared all over baby girl's face :P

Cake = happiness

It's her party and she'll cry if she wants to.... especially if the cake is taken away :)

Happy Birthday Boo!

Elizabeth is one year old TODAY! I know, I know.. we can't believe it either~


It has been such incredible fun having her be a part of our family since one year ago. She is a joyful baby who likes to eat, climb, speak her mind and get her way. She gives sweet kisses and snuggles and absolutely loves to be thrown up into the air... the higher the better! She is an intelligent baby with a really fun sense of humor. Oh yes, and she loves to chew on my hair :P Since she is now such a grown up one year old, we have decided to start working with her on being a true lady....

...it isn't going too well so far ;-) Oh well, I suppose we'll enjoy our little girl just the way she is... crazy :)

Hamming it Up

You have those days where you dress your kids up really cute and get just the right lens on your camera and put them in the best lighting possible and usually, you are lucky if you get one great picture. THEN you have the days when you are taking pictures of your playroom and your child practically begs you to take their picture over and over again. You may not have your external flash on or your portrait lens and your child may make it a point to find all of the worst lighting in the room, but you know you have to jump on the opportunity before the kiddo changes their mind :)

Lizzie climbed up into her chair and began focusing hard on working the puzzle in front of her~

Then she scrapped it for an opportunity to have a tabletop tea party~

Which, of course, are the absolute best type of tea parties out there :)