Watson Family

Bye Bye PiPi!!!

2011-07-11T13:35:00.000-05:00

(this is the latest picture I have of Alyssa with her pipi - it is 4 months old)

I have to tell you I have been COMPLETELY SHOCKED this week! I have been dreading, I mean really dreading, the whole weaning Alyssa from her pipi delimna! For a while now she has only been taking it at nap time and at nighttime but I just KNEW she would give such a fight if we tried to take it away!

Well, once again, my baby girl has shocked me!! It all started Friday night. I had a mom's night out and somehow ended up with the pipi in my purse...well I didn't make it home until way after the kiddo's bed time. Daniel said she went down without a fuss, not even asking for it!! (of course she had played really hard up at her Granny's house that evening so we just figured she was too tired to care).

Well the next day I put her down for her nap and she cried pretty good so I finally gave in (I know bad mommy but oh well) and gave it to her. But that night we put her down and I thought we would try again to not give it to her. Well, she cried for me but then Daddy went in there after me and when he came out of the room she was quiet - and stayed quiet! I assumed that he gave in but he didn't! I asked him "what is your secret?" He said "I just stroked her hair and her cheek until she stopped crying".

Well Sunday at nap time Daddy wasn't around so I thought I would give that a try - and guess what - it WORKED!! And it worked again last night and again today at naptime!! All we do is stroke her cheeks and her hair until she stops crying (which takes less than a minute) and she quiets down and we don't hear another peep!!!

THANK YOU JESUS!! I could not have dreamed this to be any easier!! OMG!!

:-( But wait...that just means she is growing up even more :-( ... oh my heart! I don't know if I can take this :-(...

Anyways, until next time,

Kellie

Coupon Savings Today!

2011-05-10T13:58:00.000-05:00

The kids and I took a quick shopping trip today and got some good savings! Overall I had a 35% savings on the value of my purchases! Not as good as some trips but still not bad at all!!

Here is what I got at Walgreens.

They had their Colgate toothpaste and toothbrushes on sale! They were on sale for 2/$6 but you got $4 back in RR which made them really only $1 each. I had $0.75/1 MF coupons to add to them so I got them for $0.25 each!! I used the $8 I got back in RR to buy the kids some new firefly toothbrushes. I only had to pay $1.05 for the 3 toothbrushes (Seth already ripped his out of the pkg before the pic so it's hard to see that there are 3 there) after applying the $8 RR. (they did not have any of the original item I initially wanted to buy...but the kids were happy with their toothbrushes). So I only spent $10.17 for this $22.93 worth of items - a $12.76 savings!! I'll take that!

Here is what I got at CVS:

I got all of this stuff for $10.03!! They had their Hunt's Snack Pack puddings, chef boyardee, and Spaghetti o's on sale for 10/$10 and if you bought $10 worth you got $3 back in ECB. I had a coupon for the puddings for buy 3 get one free! I had a coupon for canned chef-boyardee but they were out of all of those...but the $1 sale was still good so I added more puddings and the chef boyardee micro cups and spaghetti o's so that I could get my 10 items and get my $3 ECB. (so after the coupon and the ECBs these ended up being $0.60 a piece! Not bad!

The Xtra detergent was on sale for $1.49 (normally $2.99) for their 28 load botle. I had two coupons that were $1/2 which made them $0.99 each. I applied the $3 ECB and only payed $1.03 for them!

So I purchased $26.73 worth of items for $10.03 - which was a $16.70 savings!! What a deal!

Here are some of the good deals I got at Wal-Mart -

I price match boneless skinless chicken breasts. Wal-Mart had them for $1.88/lb but I found them in another grocer's sales ad for $1/lb!!! So on the package I got, which was 4.61 lbs, that was a $4.05 savings!

Wal-Mart had their Taco Bell brand taco shells for $1.32 but I matched another grocer's ad for $0.99. I then had a $1/2 MF coupon that I put on top of that so I got each package for $0.49!!

Wal-Mart had their Pilsbury Cinnamon Rolls for $1.28 (for the small can) I price matched that with another grocer's ad for $0.79 and then added a $0.40/2 MF coupon so I got each tube for $0.39!! They also had their Pilsbury crescent rolls for $1.27 for the small can that I price matched also with that ad for $0.79. I then added a $0.50/2 MF coupon so I got those for $0.29 a tube!

Wal-Mart had their Hamburger Helper for $1.50 each. I price matched them with another grocer's ad for $1.25 and then added $0.75/3 MF coupons so I got them for $1 a box!

So not a bad trip at all! I really like this saving money thing!

I saved $71.83 today!!

2011-05-05T17:23:00.000-05:00

WHOO HOO!! I went shopping today using my sales ads and my coupons and saved $71.83!! I am so happy!! I thought I would share some of the deals that I got :-)!!

I went to four different stores - Target, Walgreens, CVS and Wal-Mart.

Here is a picture of what I got from Target! I paid $4.98 for all of this!!!

The Suave shampoo was $0.84. I had a MF coupon for $0.75/1 so I got it for $0.09!!
Target had web coupons if you buy an Airwick Freshmatic refill ($4.99 value) you got the gadget ($4.99 value) free. I had two of these coupons. So I picked up two gadgets and two refills. I also had a MF coupon that was buy one refill and get one free. So I got all 4 of these items ($19.96 value) for $4.99!!!
The degree deodorant was $0.97 and I had a $1.00/1 MF coupon for ANY degree deoderant. So I actually made $0.03 on this deodorant! They applied the full coupon amount!! WHOO HOO! (love it when stores pay me to take items off of their shelf for them :-) )
The scissors were $1.49 each and I had a $1.00/1 MF coupon for each so I paid $0.49 for each of them!
I also had a $0.05 deduction applied to my total because I used my own bag to carry my items out in. I also had $0.22 left on a gift card from the last time I was in the store!
So in the end I got $27.49 worth of items and paid only $4.98!! That is a $22.51 savings!!

Next stop was Walgreens!! Here are items that I got for $10.82!!

The Cottonelle 12 Big Rolls were on sale for $5 each and they had a deal going if you bought two then you got $3 RR. Also the May Walgreens Coupon book had a $1/1 and that was applied to each and then I had two $0.50/1 MF Coupons! (and I had a SUPER SWEET cashier that knew her stuff and when the register would not take the MF coupons she manually entered them (because you are able to stack a Walgreens coupon with a MF coupon!) So that came to be $2.00 for each package!! (that is $0.16 a roll!!)

The U by Kotex pads and liners were on sale for 2/$7 and you got back $2 RR when you bought 2. I also had two $1/1 MF coupons to put on them so I ended up getting them for $1.50 a package!!!

I used the $5 RR I got on these on a second transaction to put towards Mother's Day gifts for the grandmas that the kids picked out for them :-) (I can't share them on here because the grandma's might read this before they get their gifts!)

After this stop we went to McDonald's for lunch! I let the kids play for a while on the playground! It was a BEAUTIFUL day and perfect for being outside. They really seemed to enjoy the break too! While they were playing I got to go through sales ads that I had picked up from my good friend Wendy this morning to figure out my match ups for our Wal-Mart trip!

We then went to CVS. Here is a picture of what I got for $12.35!!

I did this in two transactions (so that I could use my ECBs and get my full savings today!)

On the first transaction I got the Colgate toothpaste. The sale was you got it for $2.77 and then you got $2.77 back in ECBs! (this means this was FREE!!!!)
I also got the Herbal Essence styling products. CVS had them on sale for 2/$5.97 and you got back $2 in ECB bucks! I had a $1/1 MF coupon to put on top of that so I got each for $1.48!

On the second transaction I got three Listerine mouthwashes! CVS had them on sale for $3.99 and I had three $1/1 MF coupons so I got each of them for $2.99 (good price for Listerine...not free but we were out). I used my $4.77 ECB from the first transaction to help pay for this one so that I got my full savings on the first transaction!

Our last stop was Wal-Mart! Now I won't share everything that I got at Wal-Mart because a lot of it was our normal things that we needed and some didn't even have coupons (BOO! but what can you do!). But I did find some really good savings and in the end I paid $58.47 for $78.71 worth of items - a savings of $20.24!! That $20 is big to me! :-)

But here are a few of the deals that I got:

Pictured:
The Scott Naturals toilet paper were on sale for $2.68 each (they were 4 mega roll pkg) I had two $1.50/1 MF coupons which made these $1.18 a package (which was $0.29 for each MEGA roll!!) Man! I scored big on toilet paper today! LOL!! We are stocked for a little while now :-)

The Skinner pasta was on sale at Krogers this week - they were running a deal that if you bought 10 of any of the participating items then you got an extra $5 off. Thankfully the ad put the $0.50 off savings for each product so that you could price match!. So the Krogers ad showed these pasta packages to be $0.38 each if you bought 10. The price of these at Wal-Mart was $1.04 each!! That was as savings of $0.66 on EACH - or $6.60 total!!

I also got the Reach Floss - Wal-Mart had it for $0.88 and I had $1/1 MF coupons!! So Wal-Mart paid me $0.12 per package of floss to take them out of their store!! I only had 3 of these coupons left - so the total that Wal-Mart paid me today to take these was $0.36!! (once again I LOVE it when stores pay me to take merchandise out of the store for them!!)

Not Pictured:
I also matched a deal at David's for pork butt roast (my favorite kind of roast - SO TENDER!). They had it on sale for $1.99/lb. Wal-Mart's price was $2.28/lb. With the 7.24 lb roast that I got I saved $2.09!! (and a roast that size will make two meals for my family!!)

I also matched David's ad for their Totino Party Pizzas! My kids LOVE these pizzas and they make such easy lunches! David's had them 10/$10. Wal-Mart's price was $1.12 each!! I also had two $1/5 MF coupons to put on top of them so I got each pizza for $0.80. This provided a total savings of $3.20!!

So it was a successful day!! I think I am really starting to figure out this whole couponing thing and am starting to see the savings for our family! I find it to be a fun challenge to do for my family!

Alyssa Turns Two!!

2011-04-19T08:22:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe that Sunday my baby girl turned two years old!! OMG! Where does the time go?? She is growing up way too fast!!

She is ALL GIRL!! The frillier, shiner, blingier - the better!! She LOVES her baby dolls! She spends all day hugging them, putting them in the cradle with a blanket, walking them in their stroller, feeding them (she tries to feed them her cereal) and she even sings to them! She was so excited to get baby bottles for her birthday so that she can now give them a bottle!

She loves her doll house and will spend countless time playing with it!

She also loves shoes! In fact she got 4 pair for her birthday!!

She is my precious princess and I can't imagine life without her!

Of course I love these two little guys as well! Even though they love to torture their sister and remove all of her baby doll's clothes!! That's what brothers are for!!

But look at how much life she brings to the group!! (this picture just cracks me up! Not only the decked out princess but the typical "why me?" look on Aaron and Seth in his own little world! A true picture of how our life is!! LOL!)

Have a great day!

My Successful Coupon Shopping Trip

2011-04-15T07:40:00.000-05:00

Ok I have spent all week obtaining coupons and scoping out sales ads and planning a couponing trip! I went on this shopping trip yesterday and I believe it paid off!!! :-) You really can save a lot of money if you learn how to work your coupons with your ads and take advantage of your store "perks". Here is a little summary of my adventure :-)

CVS TRIP
My biggest savings trip was CVS! I ended up getting $75.32 worth of items and only spending $15.36!!! Here are some of the savings I took advantage of!

I did this trip in two transactions so that I could use my earned ECBs for savings yesterday!

Transaction 1:
Gain Dishwashing Liquid -they had it on sale for $0.97 and I had two coupons of get $1/1. So I got two bottles FREE!!!
They were also doing a sale where if you spent $20 in purchases of selected items you get $10 ECB. I bought a Airwick Automatic starter - it was priced at $6 (normal price $12) and I had a $4/1 coupon. I bought a Airwick Compact starter - it was priced at $5 (normal price $10) and I had a $2/1 coupon. I bought a double refill for the warmer (that I bought elsewhere) for $5 and had a $1/1 coupon. I ended that $20 purchase with a $4 lysol disinfectant. So $20 worth of items - $7 in coupons which means I was out of pocket on this transaction $13 BUT I got $10 ECB!!! (Which is the same as paying $3 for all of these items!!!)

They had a special on their Special K bars - by 3 pkg and get $4 ECB. The say was 3/$10 and I had a $2/3 coupon. So I paid $8 and got $4 in ECB, so I really spent $4 for 3 boxes of Special K Bars!

I also had a coupon to get a full size Essence of Beauty item ($3.99 value) FREE!! (which by the way I got the Pomegranate Apple hand soap and it smells wonderful!!!)

I also had a $4 off a $20 purchase coupon (and it applies to the gross total, before coupons!)

So this first transaction I spent $15.36 and got $14 back in ECB!!!

Here is what I did on the 2nd transaction:

I got a 36 count bag of eggs for $2.99 (had to have them for our Easter party this morning)

They had Dove eggs candy 2/$6 and I had a $1/2 coupon so I got them 2/$5.

I bought a bag of Wonka sweetarts - on sale for $2.50 and I had a $0.55/1 coupon so got them for $1.95

I bought 2 Xtra Detergents. They had them on sale for $1.49 each. I had a $1/2 coupon so I paid $1.98 ($0.99 each)

The total for this transaction was $11.92 - I gave both my ECB to them, which was $14. So I was nothing out of pocket. (Hind sight though - I should have kept the $4 ECB for a later shopping trip because I only needed $1.92 from it and they applied that but I did not get the other $2.08 back...oh well, I'm learning!)

So in total I spent $15.36 for $75.32 (retail value) of items!! WHOO HOO!!

Target Trip!
Probably the 2nd biggest savings trip of the day was Target where I got $105.63 worth of items and only paid $48.86!!

The key to Target is to find the deals where you can stack Target coupons on top of MF coupons! And find the deals where you get back the gift cards!

I won't tell you every item I bought because I bought a lot of stuff!! But here are some of the best deals that I got!

They had Glade's new Spring Collection on sale. I got a room spray that was priced at $2.99. I had a $1/1 target coupon and a $1/1 MF coupon - which means I got the spray for $0.99

I had a Target coupon if you buy a Airwick warmer refill double pack ($4.89) you got the warmer free ($2.49). I had MF for $1 off warmer and MF coupon for $1 refill. So I got the warmer free and paid $2.89 for the refill!!

They were running a good sale on Green Works cleaning products. If you bought 3 cleaning items you got the dishwashing liquid (2.59) free. I bouth the glass cleaner (2.49), all purpose cleaner (2.49) and toilet bowl cleaner (2.39) and I had $2 in MF coupons towards this. So I paid $5.37 for $9.96 worth of cleaners.

I got me a couple of free candies :-) They had single serve bags of Skittle Blenders for $0.69 and I had a MF coupon $1.50/2 of ANY Skittles blenders - so they were FREE!

They had another deal if you bought 3 of selected Always and Tampax items you got a $5 gift card. I bought a box of Always pantyliners $5.49 (had $1 MF coupon), and two boxes of Tampax tampons ($5 each) and had 2 MF coupons - each were $1/1. So I paid $12.49 and got back $5 (which I used in a second transaction) so I really got all this for $7.49!

I did have some other items that I matched MF coupons with Target coupons for good savings but these were the big highlights!

Walgreens
I also found some good savings at Walgreens! They had a sale going - they had their small pkg of Carefree pantyliners on sale for $0.99 (reg $1.49) and you got back $0.99 in RR!! (so do the math - you get them free!!) They only allowed one per transaction - but I had two transactions so I made sure I had one in each!

They also had a deal if you bought two Got2B styling products you got $5 in RR. They had them on sale for $5 each and I had a coupon for $2/1 so I paid $8 and got $5 RR (which I used on the next transaction...so I really only paid $3)

On my second transaction they were out of all the products I was going to buy to take advantage of using my RR...but I found that they had Disney Princess balls (big balls) so I grabbed one for Alyssa's birthday and used my RR to pay for it!! :-)

That was my biggest savings! I did have a little bit of price matching and coupon use at Wal-Mart! But I need to figure out how to get hold of more grocery ads for price matching so I can do better there! I also took advantage of a few savings at HEB!

And I figured out I still need to work on my organization of my coupons and shopping lists and stuff! But I think I am going to like saving all this money!!

And it is a good thing I saved money! I came home to find out our toilet broke and flooded the bathroom hall and boys room! I came home to the carpet pulled up and carpet padding drying on the porch. We had to go last night and buy new toilet and vanity and I have got company coming TODAY for Alyssa's birthday party that is TOMORROW!! Crazy!

Another Couponing Adventure

2011-04-01T10:01:00.000-05:00

Well I tried out coupons again yesterday. This time I went to Wal-Mart. My original total was $57.12, then after coupons applied it was $48.82. At first I was a bit bummed that I only saved $8.30 but the more I thought about it I realized that was about a 15% savings, which is better than nothing, right???

But I did get a few good deals though.

First off I had a coupon for $2/2 Mars Easter products. The coupon said it included the mini candy eggs, which are $1 each at Wal-Mart. So do the math - that means I got some free candy! That will always make a girl happy!! :-)

I also had a $0.40/1 off any Frigo cheese products. This was an online print off coupon that I was able to get my computer to print 2 before it stopped me. Well Wal-Mart had individual servings of Frigo string cheese for $0.33!! Do the math! $0.40 off of $0.33 means I got paid for buying string cheese! :-) (and I was surprised - there was no problem with the full amount of the coupon being applied!)

I also had a $0.50/1 coupon for any Dawn product! I was needing some dishwashing liquid for the camper and used the coupon on a $0.97 bottle! So I only paid $0.47 for dishwashing soap!

I also had a $1/2 any Peter Pan peanut butter. I got two small reduced fat containers (perfect size for the camper) for $1.88 each (which was $1.38 each after coupons).

I was happy with the fun deals that I got! I want to keep learning and figuring out how I can save even more.

I asked the hubby if I could have the money I am saving for me (for sewing stuff). I told him we would be still saving money because I would just be using what we saved on groceries. I told him it would give me incentive to really see how much we can save. Sounds like a wonderful plan to me...I don't know if he is buying it though. I will just have to keep working on him!

Well I need to get back to my family - we are out camping!!!

Coupons!

2011-03-24T21:42:00.000-05:00

Ok - so I have decided to get back into couponing! I have hooked up with some good online resources (such as www.monesavingmom.com)!!

Tonight I went to Target - I got $45.68 and only paid $20.88!! WHOO! HOO! $16.80 was from coupons and $8 was from cash that the boys had (that they bought toys with)!

Here are some of the deals that I got!

I bought a pair of Circo toddler socks - they were $1 and I had a Target web coupon for $1/1 Circo item - meaning they were FREE after the coupon!

I bought a bottle of SoftScrub Total cleaner- the price was $3.99 - I had a Target web coupon for $1 and a manufacturer's coupon for $1.50 - so I paid $1.49.

I bought Kraft Homestyle Macaroni and Cheese - the price was $2.04 - I had a Target web coupon for $0.75 and a manufacturer's coupon for $0.50 - so I paid $0.79.

I bought Colgate Total Advanced toothpaste - the price was $3.24 - I had a Target web coupon for $1 off and a manufacturer's coupon for $1.00- so I paid $1.24

I bought Flinstone's vitamins - the price was $6.49 - I had a Target web coupon for $2 off and a manufacturer's coupon for $1 off so I paid $3.49.

I also had some other items that just had one coupon attached to give some savings as well!!

Doing coupons is hard work and can be time consuming - but if you play it right you really can get some savings! I am hoping to "learn the system" and really find some savings! Wish me luck! :-)

Fun Drinking Straws

2011-03-07T08:48:00.001-06:00

Daniel's brother and his wife came out to visit on Saturday and brought the kids some fun drinking straws. They twisted and bent to make glasses for the kids to wear while drinking!

Seth would NOT try them - just didn't want any part of it! But Aaron LOVED them and had a lot of fun with them. Alyssa got the hang of it too!

Here are some super cute pictures we got of our fun!!

Have a great day! Hopefully I put a smile on your face today!

Good Morning Girls

2011-02-15T08:19:00.000-06:00

I had a hard time figuring out what blog to put this post on (maybe my problem is that I have too many blogs - LOL). I was trying to decide if it should go here or on my homeschooling blog. I finally decided to put it here and I will put a link post on the homeschooling blog!

For a few months now I have been following two blogs - Women Living Well, authored by Courtney, a wonderful blog with many tips of how to be a homemaker, a wife, and a mother. She was even featured on the Rachel Ray show. She is also co-author of Good Morning Girls. Good Morning Girls is the "hub" blog for Good Morning Girls groups! These groups are basically quiet time accountability groups. These are groups of women who check in with each other each morning to say that they had their quiet time and share anything that they learned or discovered through their study of the Word that morning. The Good Morning Girls blog hosts a bible study each semester that the groups can choose to go through together if they want. The bible study this semester is the book of James. Whosoever chooses is going through the book of James, a few verses a day, using the S.O.A.P. method. (which is write down the Scripture, then write down Observations, then write down Applications, and then write out a Prayer).

When they started announcing that the winter semester was fixing to start up I thought this would be something neat to be involved with. They have a discussion forum where ladies can go to find a group to get plugged into, or to start a group. When I went there I noticed that there were quite a few ladies that were looking for a group that mentioned that they homeschooled. I got the idea to start a Good Morning Girls facebook group for homeschool moms. So I put a post on there that I was starting that and within just a couple of days there were 30 ladies that wanted to be a part of this group!!

This group is made up of ladies from all over the United States!! And we are having a blast getting to know each other through Facebook. There are some super neat ladies in this group. We are doing the James study and I know I am learning a lot!

And this is the part that made me conflicted on what blog to share... Several in our family were recently involved in a Valentine's project for our kids!! One mom put a post on the group several weeks ago about her daughter being upset that since she was homeschooled she was not involved in any valentine's exchanges like kids in public school are. She was writing to see if we had any suggestions. Well the idea came to my mind about doing a group project for our kids. I posed the idea of our kids mailing valentine's to one another. And there were quite a few that thought this was also a good idea! Another mom even mentioned that it could be a geography lesson. You could get a map and mark where the valentine's were from!

There were 12 families that were involved in this project that spanned over 9 different states! I personally thought this project was a lot of fun! My kids LOVED getting all the valentine's in the mail! In fact it created a monster out of my 21 month old Alyssa!! She got to where everytime Daniel brought the mail in she thought it was for her! LOL!

Here are some pics from opening our valentines. (you will notice the same clothes on the kids - LOL! - we got most of these during our winter storm. Which means we got quite a bit in the same day...and then some more the next day (when we spent the day in our pjs because it was so cold outside)! And then we opened the rest yesterday at the table since we were out of town this weekend).

(I don't remember why she got upset in this pic...probably because I wouldn't let her eat her candy)

Here is our map with our heart stickers all over showing where all the valentines came from! Our first geography lesson!!! :-)

I am really excited to see what this group will come up with next!! This group is a blessing in my life!

A new post on my new blog

2011-02-10T12:14:00.000-06:00

In case you missed the post yesterday :-) I have created a new blog for my sewing posts! So from now on all sewing related posts will be posted on that blog instead of this blog. There is a form on that blog to sign up to receive posts by email. You can also follow the blog if you like to read your blog posts through a reader!

I made my first post on that blog today - a new valentine's outfit for me!! Click on this link http://loveofsewing.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-valentines-dress.html to go see that post!

Just wanted to make sure I gave you fair warning that I will no longer be posting sewing posts on this blog!!

I have a new sewing blog!

2011-02-09T18:55:00.000-06:00

I have thought about this for some time but have finally made the "plunge"! I have decided to start a sewing blog to dedicate to all my sewing posts! Everything about the new blog will be sewing related! I will have a list of sewing blogs that I follow and that is where I will put my sewing posts!

I invite all of you over to my new blog. Come in look around, become a follower, subscribe via email, and let me know what you think!! I love comments!! :-)

See you over there!

(I will still have this blog open to post family updates, stories, funnies, etc...)

I want this book!!

2011-02-07T12:10:00.000-06:00

Allfreesewing.com is offering a giveaway for this book!!! Click here for more information. I would love to win this book!! I get an extra chance at winning if I blog about it :-). Wish me luck!!!

Another Dress!!

2011-02-03T16:36:00.001-06:00

WOW! I didn't think that when I posted this post with my drawing of my new design for a dress for Alyssa that I would be writing another post that SAME DAY of the completed dress!! I can't believe that not only was this a dress that I designed - it WORKED without any redos and it came together QUICK!!! This is definitely a pattern I will be saving and doing again!!

And if any of you are interested let me know and I can post the pattern on here for you!!

So here is my dress!! It is an elastic waist skrit (with wide elastic that shows on outside). The top is a peasant style top and the skirt is a circle style skirt!

Here is Alyssa modeling it! She LOVES it!!

Linking up with the following:

A new obsession?

2011-02-03T08:07:00.000-06:00

Ok so I may be becoming obsessed! But I had so much fun designing Alyssa's Valentines Dress! I have always wanted to be able to design my own clothes but never thought I would actually ever get there! And I did (well I didn't design something for me, but I did do it for my daughter! Hopefully one day I will do it for myself!)

Anyways when I was looking through my fabrics to figure out what to do I actually had several ideas in my head and I am now starting on the second idea in my head. I spent last night with a notebook scribbling out notes!

Hopefully this will turn into a cute dress when I am done! :-)

Alyssa's Valentine's Dress!!

2011-02-02T11:47:00.000-06:00

I DID IT!!! I can't believe I did it!! I made my first dress without a pattern, without a tutorial to follow!!! Of course it didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked....but I am just learning and I am just glad that in the end, after many trials and errors, and much work with a seam ripper, that I successfully completed it and it is wearable - LOL!!! :-)

I just looked through several pictures of dresses online that I liked and sat at my table with several different fabrics and figured out what I wanted to do! (side note: the red polka dot material, all of the material on the bodice of the dress, and the heart material were actually cotton tea towels that were on the $1 aisle at Target!!! I had seen a post of a lady making skirts out of them and originally was going to do that but decided to use them in this dress instead!)

The dress actually looks better on Alyssa than on the hanger - so here she is modeling the dress. Unfortunately she wasn't in much of a modeling mood this morning. Oh well! (she's eating her cereal in this picture)

Here is the back of the dress. It has an elastic kind of shirr take off in the middle. I want so bad to take a stab at shirring but my wal-mart is out of the elastic thread. I have looked several times. I just haven't had a chance to make it to another store to find it. So I just used elastic for this. It worked, thankfully!

And see those pretty red sparkly shoes?? Her granny bought those for her this past weekend and she loves them!!! (Even though they are still a bit too big)

Yay! I am glad I got it done! Even though it didn't come out as good as I had envisioned...I think it still turned out pretty good!

Valentine's is almost here!

2011-01-31T08:05:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody! Just a quick note to let you all know I am still here! I didn't get much crafty stuff done last week. Alyssa battled a stomach bug all week long :-( Thankfully she is finally over it and so far everyone else has stayed well!

I have almost finished my evening dress refashion that was mentioned in this post. I can't wait to show off the results! I have had a lot of fun with it and am very pleased with how it is turning out!!

Valentine's day is just around the corner! The wheels in my head are in overdrive right now trying to figure out the perfect dress to make for Alyssa :-) Her granny gave her some super cute red sparkly shoes this weekend (which she LOVED) I just now need to make the perfect dress to go with them :-)

I don't know if you remember the dress I made her last year (with the matching skirt for me). I thought I would share pictures again :-)

Oh she has grown up so much over the past year!!

Hopefully I will be back soon with pictures of an adorable Valentine's dress for this year! :-)

Getting Ready for Las Vegas!

2011-01-25T17:17:00.000-06:00

My husband's national sales meeting for the company he works with is going to be in Las Vegas this year in a couple of months! I have been given the opportunity to meet him up there- whoo hoo!!

I thought it would be fun to make some fun outfits for my trip!! I made an outfit yesterday but couldn't get good pictures of me in it (it is SO HARD to photograph yourself - almost impossible!) So I thought I would just have to wait until I actually wore the dress and got someone else to photograph.

But - I found another way! :-) The night that I fly up there is the night of their awards banquet - meaning I would need something nice to wear. I have several after-five dresses that don't fit, and since I have started this whole refashion thing, decided that I could refashion them! :-) But in order to do that I was going to need to use my body double dress form. I have had it for quite some time but for some reason don't use it as often as I should (but probably will alot more now)

Anyways - all that to say that when I pulled it out I realized that I could use it to get pictures of my other outfit! I don't like pictures of dresses on dress forms quite as well as them on people - but you gotta do what you gotta do!

So here is my dress I made yesterday!

I got the idea from this link. The main difference is the fact that I lined it. I used a cream colored muslin, sewed the sides of the main fabric together and then the sides of the lining together. Then I put the two together, right sides facing, and sewed the bottom hem. Then flipped it and topstiched the bottom hem and then sewed the armholes and then turned down the top band like stated in the directions on the other link. By adding the lining I did not worry about having to serge any edges - I had no exposed edges. (In fact the dress is actually reversible which has got me to really thinking about some future projects!)

This dress took only about 1 1/2 hours from start (as in getting measurements and marking out a pattern) to finish!!

Also the top link didn't give full instructions, even though it was super easy to figure out. I didn't catch on though that your cord for the top was one long piece that only tied on one side. I used two pieces so that I had ties on both sides. I think I would have preferred only having a tie on one side. I will have to remember that for next time.

Anyways, I love how versatile this dress is. There are many different things you can do to it. Here are some pictures of ways I have thought of.

Add a belt! I love the slimming effect that has. (of course you have to wear the boots too - I wished they would have come out better in the pic)

Add a denim jacket to complete the cowgirl look :-) This is how I wore it to go show my hubby. His reply "well hello cowgirl" with a great big smile! He liked it!

It is also very cute with a short sleeve denim shirt (probably how I will wear it in Vegas...it will be a couple of months from now so probably too warm for the jacket)

A close up showing the dainty flower print on the fabric. I think it is very pretty with the denim!

And, to give you a peek - here is the dress I am fixing to refashion! This dress has a lot of special meaning to me. My husband bought it for me the Christmas we were dating. My Christmas present that year was the dress, jewelry and tickets to a show! (yes he was quite romantic and still can be at times today!) He picked out the dress too! I loved it and still do but it no longer fits! :-( I gained quite a bit of weight since then and even though I have lost most of it, after three kids my body is just a different shape :-(

Anyways - I have a fabulous idea in my head to refashion it! I just hope and pray that I can make it work!

Here's the dress.

(sorry - my camera got fuzzy on that picture...but I still think you get the idea - floor length midnight blue)

It will only zip up halfway :-( (and this is where the zipper stops on me when I have it on so that is a very good indication that I have my body double set to the right measurements!)

It also came with this jacket - with very tiny arms (they were even tight then)...don't know if this jacket will play a part in the refashion or not.

I will try to remember to take pics along the way of the process and will hopefully have a future post of a cute new dress!!! (keep your fingers crossed!)

Another Ruffle Shirt for Mommy!

2011-01-19T21:28:00.000-06:00

I had so much fun with my ruffle shirt yesterday that I thought to try some more! :-) (I have several shirts to refashion...I did one today). Today I decided to try my own design :-) I had in mind kind of what I wanted and just went from there, piecing it as I went. I was very pleased with the results!

I started with a long sleeved white t-shirt that fits but has stains on it. I was going to make it short sleeved but when I laid it out to see everything I noticed a hole in the shoulder seam. Oh well, I just made it a tank top instead :-)

To make the ruffles I had a white jersey knit pillowcase. I have had it forever...don't really know where it came from because I don't have any matching sheets LOL but for some reason have just held it in my drawer. I guess it was just waiting to be transformed into something fabulous!! :-)

I made strips 4 inches in width and as long as the side of the pillowcase (don't know what that measurement was, sorry). I marked lines on my shirt with my fabric chalk starting at the armpit area and then every 3 inches down. I gathered my strips and and pinned them on the lines and then sewed them on. I started at the bottom and sewed up.

Here is a picture of the middle of the process. You can see a couple of rows sewn on the bottom and if you look really really close you can see the light blue lines on the shirt.

When I finished all the rows I knew I needed to do something to finish off the top. I decided to make flowers to put across the top.

I used the instructions from this ruffle shirt post (her instruction for the corsage) and put a row of 6 flowers across the top of the top ruffle!

I was really pleased with the results.

Here I was trying to get a picture myself.

And then decided I needed help so I got my hubby to help. I told him not to worry about my head because I would cut it out...he told me that my online friends need to see my face...oh well...here it is. And look Alyssa saw a camera and had to get in the picture :-)

My Ruffled Shirt!!

2011-01-18T18:06:00.000-06:00

Ever since I found the blog Tea Rose Home about a week ago I have loved looking through posts on it! Her creations are just stunning!! And ever since I viewed this post on there on the ruffled shirt she did I was bound and determined to make one for myself!

Well I made one today! I realized that I had the perfect shirt to refashion in order to make this ruffled shirt. I have this long sleeved red t-shirt. It was a t-shrit that I had back before I lost all the weight. In fact i wore this shirt through all 3 pregnancies! So, needless to say, it is a tad bit too big (about 3 sizes too big). But for some reason I have hung on to it. It has just been sitting in my closet! I guess it was waiting for me to change it into something fabulous!! :-)

I unfortunately forgot to get before pictures and am really kicking myself for it because the shirt made quite a transformation!

I took a t-shirt that fits now and used it as a guide to figure out what I needed to do with the red shirt to make it fit. I cut off the sleeves completely and made it into a tank top.

I did all my alterations and then made sure the new tank top fit - and it did - like a glove!! YAY ME!!

I then used the sleeves that I cut off to make all my strips for the ruffles. I pretty much followed the tutorial on the other blog to the t (here is the link again) so I will let you go there and get instructions if you want to do this yourself!

Here are some pictures of the finished project. (sorry they are not the best quality - it is really hard to photograph yourself. I tried to get my 5 year old to help but that just wasn't working)

Here it is with a cardigan...how it will be worn during the cold months!

Here's the shirt by itself.

Mine and Alyssa's new skirt

2011-01-16T14:44:00.000-06:00

My poor little Alyssa was sick this week with pneumonia. This meant we spent a lot of time at home! She was very clingy most of the week and I wasn't able to get much done but towards the end of the week she was doing better and I decided to tackle a new sewing project!

I had a whole bunch of a beautiful light brown corduroy fabric that I needed to do something with. I have been doing a lot of looking online lately for sewing ideas and sewing patterns and stuff and found some to work for this corduroy!

I was really happy with the results! And I was super happy that Alyssa was doing well enough to go to church this morning so we could show off our new skirts!!

I got the idea for my skirt at this link and for Alyssa's skirt at this link. I really really liked the flowers that were on the skirt at the link for Alyssa's skirt and thought they would be fun to put on both of our skirts! (In fact that website has quite a few ideas that I want to try out!) I also made Alyssa a matching hair bow!!

Here is some pictures of the finished project.

Alyssa's finished skirt:

Mine and Alyssa's finished skirt:

Alyssa's hair bow:

Alyssa and I ready for church in our new outfits!

Seth took this picture of Alyssa and I :-) (Alyssa always has that expression when Seth has the camera LOL!!)

Alyssa modeling her new outfit!

so whatcha think?!?!?

Alyssa has new pajamas!!

2011-01-10T19:47:00.000-06:00

My poor baby girl is sick :-( But I just made her happy! I just presented her with a new pair of pajamas that I made her!! It was of course another refashion project.

You see I got a pair of pajama pants for Christmas that my husband just thought were plain hideous. (Sorry Mom) They were a pair of fuzzy fleece pajama pants that had tinkerbell all over them. I tried to wear them Sunday when it was bitterly cold (and it wasn't even to bed...just to lounge around the house) and he gave me such a hard time about them.

But Alyssa, on the other hand, loved them! She loves soft fuzzy stuff and she LOVES and ADORES tinkerbell (she calls her beebell).

So that gave me an idea - what if I could take these pants and make them into pajamas for her.

Here's a pic of the pajama pants and the sleeper that I used to make a pattern. (this is a sleeper that she is currently fitting in so I couldn't cut it for the pattern - just had to use it as a guide)

I used the sleeper as a guide and cut out all my pattern pieces and then sewed it together. I used the bottom of the pajama pants as the bottom of the sleeper (so that I didn't have to hem an edge...and I decided against trying to to put the feet portion in the sleeper).

I used the waistband of the pants as the bottom of the sleeves (once again so I didn't have to hem the sleeve edge.

Here is the finished sleeper!

The blue ribbon down the middle was to cover up a mess up. I attached the zipper my favorite way where you baste the opening closed, then sew on your zipper and then rip the basting. Well, this is very fluffy fleece and seams get hidden in the fleece, even basting stitches. There were a couple of times that the seam ripper ended up ripping thread from the fleece instead of the basting thread. Therefore it created a small hole. But I attached the ribbon with a decorative stitch to look like it was meant to go there :-)

Here is my precious baby girl modeling her new pjs. You can tell by her droopy eyes that she is not feeling good, but the pjs did bring a smile to her face :-) (so you see Mom you just didn't realize at the time that you were buying another Christmas present for Alyssa!)

I Love Refashioning!

2011-01-05T22:01:00.001-06:00

I found some more pictures of another outfit that I refashioned for Alyssa on my camera and noticed that I had not uploaded them yet!

Here was the original items – two very cute shirts that became too short. The pink one had a ballooned hem at the bottom (and was originally suppose to be tunic length)

I cut off the top of the pink shirt and noticed that it fit perfectly at the bottom of the green shirt to make a new dress with a balloon hem!

Here is my cutie modeling her new cute dress!!

I am currently taking a break from Alyssa refashioning. She has a pretty good wardrobe right now :-) I have been working on baby items for my sister who is due in March :-) Unfortunately I cannot post anything about those yet because she is a reader of the blog. I will have to wait until after her shower in February! BUT I have taken pictures and can’t wait to post and brag on myself a bit :-)

I am also working on a new skirt for me! I can’t tell you the last time I made something for me! I am hoping to have it finished in time to wear to church on Sunday!

Alyssa's Christmas Dress - A Refashion Project

2010-12-20T12:04:00.000-06:00

One of my recent refashion projects for Alyssa was her Christmas dress!!

Last year my sister got her this adorable tie dress from a craft fair. Last year it was way too big - this year it quickly became too short! She only got to wear it once this Summer!! But I love the fabric and since it has a lot of red in it I thought it would be pretty for Christmas. And I had a perfect white shirt to go with it.

So here is the before - the dress and the shirt.

Here is the after! I took the ties from the dress and made them into a ribbon bow for the front of the shirt. I gathered the material from the original dress to make the skirt.

I added a pretty Christmas sweater I had to it to complet the outfit!

This weekend we went and took Christmas pictures (my hubby happens to be a pretty awesome photographer! Doesn't do it professionally but he certainly could!!) Here is one of my favorites we got of Alyssa and it is a good model of her outfit!

(and you can't see from this picture but I love the length of this dress - hits her about mid calf! You just can't hardly find dresses that long for little girls right now!)

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

2010-12-20T11:53:00.001-06:00

Don't that look YUMMY? Can't you just smell it!! I love homemade bread and have discovered that I love homemade cinnamon raisin bread too!! YUM!!

I thought I would share the recipe! I take my basic recipe I have for no-knead bread and add a few steps :-)

No-Knead Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Ingredients:

3 pkg dry yeast (about 6 3/4 tsp)

3 3/4 cups warm water (100 to 110 degrees)

10 cups all-purpose flour

6 tbsp sugar

6 tbsp stick margarine, melted

1 tbsp salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

cooking spray

6 tbsp melted butter, divided

1 cup sugar, divided

6 tbsp cinnamon, divided

raisins

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in a large bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife.

2. Add flour and next 4 ingredients to yeast mixture, stirring until well blended. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85 degrees), free from drafts, 30 minutes or until double in size. (Press two fingers into dough, if indention remains, the dough has risen enough.)

3.Divide dough roughly into 3 equal pieces. If the dough is a bit sticky you may have to add flour to it and knead a few times.

4. For each piece of dough, roll out dough into a rectangle with the short width no wider than the (long) width of your loaf pan. Melt 2 tbsp of butter and spread out over dough. Mix 1/3 cup of sugar with 2 tbsp of cinnamon and spread all over the dough. Spinkle some raisins, if desired, over the do. Then roll up the dough tightly and press seam. Place in a prepared loaf pan.

5. Repeat the process for the other two pieces of dough. Then set the three loaves in a warm place and let rice for an additional 20 to 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when tapped.

Enjoy!!!

My Alyssa was being a monkey tonight!!

2010-12-17T22:19:00.000-06:00

My little Alyssa was being a monkey tonight and she actually let me record her!! Be sure to watch to the end...it has such a sweet ending!

Enjoy!

Refashioning Clothes For Alyssa Again!

2010-12-13T14:02:00.000-06:00

I have been a refashioning fool lately!!! :-) (I guess you could say it is part of Alyssa's Christmas present!) I have made 12 new outfits for her in the past couple of weeks!! Yay! Go Me!! :-)

Here are 3 that I have made!

Project #1
Here is the original onesie and dress. (The onesie was too small in the snap area, the dress was too short)

I cut off the onesie right above the snap area. I cut off the bodice of the dress. I then sewed the skirt to the bottom of the onesie (and then did a top stitch on the onesie part after that). I LOVED how this one turned out!!

Here is Alyssa modeling her new dress!

Project #2

A long sleeved shirt that was too short and a dress that was too short

Here are the original items.

I didn't have to do anything to the shirt. I just cut off the bodice of the dress and sewed the skirt to the shirt. This shirt had a lettuced edged bottom so I sewed the skirt underneath that edge. Here is the finished result.

Here is Alyssa modeling the new dress. She really acted like she liked this dress alot! I think it was very comfortable for her!

Project #3

This probably has to be one of my favorite refashion projects I have done yet!! In the picture below is the dress that was too small and the onesie that was too small in the torso area and sleeves. I did not get the white sweater that was too short pictured in the original picture. I combined all three to make one dress!

On the onesie I cut off the sleeves and cut right above the snap area. I also cut off the cuff of the sleeves. I sewed the cuffs of the sleeves to the inside of the bottom of the sweater sleeves. I then attached the sweater to the onesie. I cut off the bodice of the dress and sewed the skirt to the bottom of the onesie. There was an embroidered pair of ballet shoes that were cut off with the bodice portion. I patched that embroidered piece to the front of the sweater! I LOVED the results of this project!! (it has a very cute 50s flair about it...to me at least.)

And here is Alyssa modeling the dress! She wore it Sunday to church! I thought she was absolutely beautiful (but I also admit I am quite partial! LOL!!)

One of the 12 projects I have done is her Christmas dress!!!! I can't wait to get pictures of her in it!! I will be sure to post pictures and the details of that project when I do!!

I love this whole refashioning thing! It is fun to think of new ways to do it - the projects are fast to put together and my husband loves the fact that it saves us money on clothes! HA!!

Need an easy homemade gift idea?

2010-12-07T11:08:00.000-06:00

Are you needing an easy homemade gift idea that your kids can do for family members? Then head over to this post on my Watson Handmade Christmas blog! http://watsonhandmadechristmas.blogspot.com/2010/12/homemade-potholders.html (my family members please restrain yourself from heading over there so you don't ruin your Christmas surprise!!)

Seth's Tic-Tac-Toe Game

2010-12-01T15:15:00.000-06:00

Seth has been loving learning how to play tic-tac-toe. I thought it would be fun to make him a tic-tac-toe game!

This was another felt project - I love working with felt - it is so easy to work with!!

I just took a black square of felt and sewed red rick rack to make the game board. I then cut out x's and o's from red and white felt.

On the back I sewed two rectangles of felt to make pockets to keep the game pieces in.

I then added snaps and rick rack handles so that you can close it up and carry it with you!

I sure hope Seth enjoys pulling this out of his stocking!

Alyssa's Bear

2010-12-01T15:12:00.000-06:00

I made a bear from one of Alyssa's baby blankets!!

The tutorial I got did not have clear instructions at all and it ended up being quite a struggle and the feet have got this curve in them that I don't think they are suppose to have but I think overall it turned out very cute! It is very soft and very snuggly - and a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be :-)

I think Alyssa is going to love it - club feet and all :-) (my hubby said it looks like the bear has club feet...oh well)

Mr Potato Heads

2010-12-01T15:08:00.000-06:00

A little while back I saw a tutorial for making a felt Mr Potato Head that I thought really cute. When our kids saw the Toy Story movies just a few weeks back and fell in love with them I thought these would be cute to make them for Christmas. When I went searching for the tutorial I found out that Hasbro asked that blog to remove the tutorial.

But I realized that I could figure out how to make these without a tutorial...it couldn't be that hard, now could it?!?

I thought the results turned out to be really cute! Don't you agree??

I was trying to make them with the pocket for all of the items attached to the back but I wasn't using my brain and didn't think to leave some give in that piece of fabric so that I would have room in the pocket to put things (so if you try this yourself then don't make your pocket peices the same size as your other body pieces. It needs to be slightly larger so there is room in the pocket)

Thankfully my mom had the idea to make a backpack to put the items in! (I actually did this project at her house on black Friday!)

Here are all of the pieces.

I hope my boys love these! I know I sure do!!

A Virtual Christmas Tour of My Home

2010-11-30T08:35:00.000-06:00

I have seen several blogs of people posting pictures of their houses all decked out for Christmas and I like to see them. It's like a virtual tour of homes. I thought I would join in on the fun as well!

We got our house all decorated last night. The boys had a blast putting ornaments on the tree! Alyssa LOVED all the pretty, shiny ornaments but at first HATED the idea of having to let go of them and put them on the tree! She was throwing some bad fits! But she eventually got the hang of things and started trying to help! :-)

The fun part will be keeping her from removing the ornaments in the next month! It might be quite an interesting month!

Now for the tour - enjoy!!

Our nativity scene (and the wreath hanging above is one the kids and I made last year)

My table!!

My centerpieces with a couple of my snowmen :-)

More snowmen - and my lighted potpourri vase)

A view of my 'wall of lighted garland'. :-)

My pretty mantle with our new stockings! I just love our new stockings this year!

Each stocking has a monogram pen! (of course mine and Alyssa have some rhinestone bling on them!)

This is probably my favorite Christmas figurine! It makes me laugh everytime I see it! We have had it for years. What is so funny (at least to me) about it is is the 5 o'clock shadow on Daddy Snowman! He didn't always have that...but the first year we had him we were burning the tealight that came with it and the smoke from the flame hit the snowman just right! We now laugh at him every year! Is he not adorable?!?!

Better watch out - Santa is watching you!!! :-)

And most of our ornaments have some special meaning associated with them! It is so neat every year to think of the memories as we are putting the ornaments on the tree! Of course since we now have kids we have such sweet sweet memories of their first Christmas!

My boys were so little here! They grow up way too fast!

This poor ornament was one of Aaron's from his first Christmas...we have never gotten a picture put into it! How sad is that!!

Aww - but we did get his picture in this one!! Look at that beautiful smile!!

And I think it is quite funny! Seth has quite a few 'Baby's First Christmas' ornaments (of course because he was the first child) but not a single one of them were ornaments to put pictures in! But this one is still one of my favorites of his!

I hope you enjoyed your tour! :-)

Basic Pie Crust Recipe

2010-11-24T09:47:00.000-06:00

I thought I would share a pie crust recipe that I found!! (Pictured above is an apple pie I baked this morning...my first attempt at a lattice crust!)

I found this recipe at econobusters.com - an AWESOME website on how to live frugally and smart!

(I have learned though through my experiences with pie crusts - IT PAYS TO HAVE A PASTRY BLENDER!! For the longest time I did not have one and always tried the two knives method (which is not easy) and my crusts never turned out quite right. I got one of the pastry blenders (realized that you can get them at Wal-Mart for about $5!!) and what a difference it made!! My two knives never got to the crumb consistancy that a pastry blender can do!! It makes a much better, MUCH better crust!

Anyways - that is just my tidbit of advice :-). Here is the recipe - enjoy!!

The Best Pie Crust

3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 1/4 cups shortening, cold
1 egg, cold
1 Tbsp. vinegar, cold
5 Tbsp. cold water
sugar

Mix flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender or 2 knives. Add egg, vinegar and 3 tablespoons water. Mix lightly. If dough is too dry, add more water. Mix with hands. Don’t overmix. Mix just until the dough sticks together. Divide into thirds. Roll out to make 3 pie crusts. When using the crust for the top of the pie sprinkle sugar on top. Crust can be frozen in balls and then defrosted and rolled out when ready to use. Makes 3 crusts.

(oh and by the way - the pie pictured above is an apple pie. I used the sugar free apple pie filling (made with Splenda) and sprinkled some extra cinnamon and nutmeg on top of the filling to give it more of a homemade taste!)

Enjoy!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

My New Homemade Bread Recipe

2010-11-24T09:40:00.000-06:00

If you are anything like me then you love homemade bread! But if you are anything like me then you shy away from it because of the time required to make it!

I found a very easy no-knead bread recipe that makes BEAUTIFUL bread loaves that are VERY VERY tasty!! I thought I would share the recipe with you :-)

I got this recipe out of my Cooking Light cookbook!

No-Knead Bread

Prep: 20 minutes

Rise: 50 minutes

Cook: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

3 pkg dry yeast (about 6 3/4 tsp)

3 3/4 cups warm water (100 to 110 degrees)

10 cups all-purpose flour

6 tbsp sugar

6 tbsp stick margarine, melted

1 tbsp salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

cooking spray

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in a large bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife.

1. Add flour and next 4 ingredients to yeast mixture, stirring until well blended. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85 degrees), free from drafts, 30 minutes or until double in size. (Press two fingers into dough, if indention remains, the dough has risen enough.) Spoon dough evenly nito 3 (9x5-inch) loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Let rise 20 minutes or until doubled in size.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when tapped.

Enjoy!!!

Made Hiccup dolls to match our Night Furys!!!

2010-11-23T12:03:00.000-06:00

If you have seen the movie 'How To Train Your Dragon' then you know that one of the things that makes the movie so good is the relationship developed between viking-in-training Hiccup and Toothless, the Night Fury.

If you saw this post then you know that I have made a Toothless plush for my sons and my nephew. Well, my mom, sister and I decided that they needed a Hiccup to go with them.

I did some research online tutorials for dolls that I could make work (that would be easy too) and decided on this tutorial.

Here are pics of my result! I was pleased! I hope the boys love him!

This is also being posted in Watson Family Christmas

A giveaway I am DYING to win!!

2010-11-19T07:49:00.000-06:00

OMG!! I found this giveaway for a bundle of sewing patterns that I would LOVE to win. Here is the link to the giveaway!! http://livelearnlove226.blogspot.com/2010/11/christmas-giveaway_12.html#comment-form Go check it out and see if this is not right up my alley! Especially with everything I have been making for Christmas this year! I LOVE all of these patterns!! OMG! I wish I could win this! It includes a doll pattern and doll clothes pattern, purse pattern, apron pattern, other plush toy patterns...OMG! I love them all!!

Wish me luck (I guess you could enter too if you want...but you would be diminishing my chances...do you really want to do that to me?!?! - HA!!!)

And yes I am blogging because I get three extra chances if I blog about the giveaway!!

Oh please let me win!!!

Ok...I will let you get back to your day now!

My Toothless plushies!!

2010-11-18T21:55:00.000-06:00

OMG! I can't believe I finally finished this project!

My nephew's favorite movie right now is How To Train A Dragon. In fact a few weeks ago they came up and brought the movie and we watched it. I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the movie. My boys fell in love with it as well!

So when I found this tutorial to make a Toothless plushie I decided that this needed to be another Christmas present! This will be my Christmas present to my nephew and I thought to go ahead and make one for each of my boys while I was at it!

This was probably one of the most challenging sewing projects I have done yet! There were about 25 pattern pieces!! And some of the steps were difficult to figure out but I did! And I am glad I stuck with it!

I enlarged the pattern pieces by 200%!! The final doll is a dimension of 36" from tip of head to tip of tail! (I found one online for not quite this big for $250!!!)

I can't wait to see their faces on Christmas! I especially can't wait to see my nephew's reaction when he opens his!!

Here are some pics (they don't do it justice...I am not a good photographer and could not figure out the best way to get photos to show you what these are like! Yes there are flaws (it is my sewing so there are going to be flaws!) but I still think they are cute!

Oh - and I probably should state I made these with black felt! Felt is very easy to work with :-) That was a plus for this project!

Here is a full body view - like I said they measure 36" from tip of head to tip of tail. The wing span is 45"!

Here is a belly shot - sorry it is blurry!

I'm ready for something a wee bit easier! :-)

(I am also posting this is Watson Handmade Christmas)

Another Doll :-)

2010-11-09T17:38:00.001-06:00

I got another doll for Alyssa made for Christmas!!

I got this pattern from a Pioneer Crafts book I found at the library. The pattern was for a rag doll. I decided to use some of Alyssa's receiving blankets from when she was a baby to make the doll out of!

I thought it turned out really well. Every time she would walk in and see me working on it she would start yelling "baby baby" and wanting to hold it...she couldn't figure out why I wouldn't let her (she doesn't grasp the whole wait until Christmas thing - HA!) But it's good to know that she wants to hold it! It will be exciting to watch her open it on Christmas!

Here she is next to the book I used for the pattern:

This post was also posted on Watson Handmade Christmas

My Faith Box

2010-11-08T13:19:00.000-06:00

Several weeks ago I entered a blog giveaway over at Good Morning Girls for the "My Faith Box".

Here is the description of this awesome resource: "A new resource for parents to guide their child's faith journey and capture spiritual growth keepsakes. My Faith Box includes a My Faith Box and My Faith Book. Ideal to help you create an age-specific plan on each birthday and capture memories from special milestones; while giving you resources and ideas for how to be intentional in helping your child know, love and follow Jesus."

Angela decided to give one of these boxes to the total number of 153 people who entered the giveaway! You read that right - everyone who entered the giveaway received one!!!

Mine arrived in the mail on Saturday!!! I loved it so much that I am ordering 2 more so that I can have one for each child!! Not only does this notebook provide away to journal spirtual milestone, special prayers, etc for your child. It also has some AWESOME ideas to do as a family on regular occasions as well as some neat neat ideas for holidays! In fact we will be using some of them for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year! I will blog about them when we do them :-)

Also the box is a good heavy-weight box that is perfect for keeping different memorabilia for your children! I am just in love with this thing and feel so blessed that I was given one!!

Click here to order one for each of your children! I promise it will be a blessing to you!! If you are on facebook click here to check out their facebook page.

Have a great day!

The Cat In The Hat sock puppet

2010-11-06T16:21:00.000-05:00

Aaron is in love with the cat in the hat right now! I thought it would be fun to try to do a sock puppet dressed like the cat in the hat! Thankfully Aaron spent the afternoon at Granny's this afternoon and I was able to get this made for him! I can't wait to give this to him on Christmas!!

This is also posted in Watson Handmade Christmas.

My First Doll

2010-11-04T16:50:00.000-05:00

Yeah! I just finished making my first doll!!! (the first of 3 different kind I am planning on making for Alyssa for Christmas. I found the tutorial for this doll here.

I loved how her hair turned out!!

Here is what she looks like without her dress on.

Like I said, I will be making a couple more dolls for Alyssa, along with some other toys for the boys! It's going to be a fun Christmas :-)

Also posting at Watson Handmade Christmas.

My Quilt!!

2010-10-27T14:33:00.000-05:00

OMG! I can't believe I finished it!! I finished my quilt for my bed!! I am so excited.

There is a special dear friend of mine, who desires to remain anonymous in this, that was given a bunch of quilting stuff from the family of a woman she knew that passed away. Most of this stuff was quilts that were half pieced together but were never finished. My friend told me that she did not have time to finish these quilts and wanted to know if I would be interested in any of them.

When I saw the pieces for this quilt I fell in love at first sight!! It was beautiful and I quickly thought of my bed and how pretty it would be on my bed so I told her I would love to take it!! I also took a few other projects...and am thinking my sister would maybe like to do some of them herself :-) (she hasn't even heard about this until this post - HEE HEE!!) But once again, the friend of mine wishes to remain anonymous in this and I am honoring her decision in that!

But look at my quilt!!

I finished piecing it together. I added the solid blue around the edges. I found some super soft high loft batting and some pretty natural color muslin fabric for the back side. I am quite new to quilting so instead of trying to hand quilt it or even machine quilt this massive quilt I found some pretty blue and cream 1/8" satin ribbon and tie tacked it (I don't know if that is the correct term or not...sorry if it is not).

Here is a close up of one of the squares.

Now I just need to find (or make) some pretty shams and some new curtains for my room. (my current curtains are white but the bed is cream)

My husband told me last night that he would like to make a custom headboard for our bed!! I think that would be GORGEOUS!!!

I'm so excited!!! I have wanted to make bedding for my room for quite some time now. But it seems like other projects always send this one to the back burner! I am so happy to finally have new bedding for my bed!!! (even if I didn't completely make it by myself!)

Another dress to skirt pattern

2010-10-24T16:01:00.000-05:00

Here is another adorable dress that was just too small for Alyssa!

I cut off the bodice right above the waistine (so that I would not lose any of the skirt). I folded the top cut off piece down and sewed a tube and inserted elastic to make an elastic top skirt.

I also took some of the bodice top (it was knit) and cut it into strips and serged the edges with the wooly nylon thread (stretching the fabric as I serged to create the ruffle effect) and used the strips to make a flower to sew on the skirt.

Here is the finished skirt.

And here is my precious model showing off her new skirt!! She was all pretty and ready for church!

From Two short overalls to one super cute jumper!

2010-10-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

Here is another project that I have completed for Alyssa! I am really enjoying this if you couldn't tell!

Here is the before picture - a pair of overall shorts that were too short in the torso and a jumper that was too short!

I cut off the bottom of the shorts and the torso area of the jumper. I added the bottom of the jumper to the bottom of the shorts. I then replaced the straps from the short set to the straps from the jumper.

Here is the finished project! A cute new jumper!

Here is Alyssa modeling her new outfit :-)

From A Onsie to a t-shirt (and the blankets I made for the kids)

2010-10-21T13:03:00.000-05:00

The easiest refashion project yet! It literally took me longer to thread my serger for this one than it did to complete the project from start to finish!

I had this onesie that was too snug for Alyssa at the snaps due to her long torso! Now I have seen where you can add an extension to the snap area to keep it as a onesie...but I decided to do something a bit different. I decided to make it into a shirt.

I cut off the bottom of the onesie right above the leg binding.

Then I just serged the bottom of the shirt. I used wooly nylon thread and stretched the onesie as I serged to give it a ruffle effect.

That's it! Easy as can be!

Here is my little model wearing the shirt! :-) She actually cooperated for the camera this time. She even said "cheese"!!

(and she is wearing her new skirt with attached leggings)

Our New Blankets

I thought I would go ahead and add to this post the kids' new blankets! We were at Wal-Mart the other day in the fabric section and Seth and Aaron found the novelty cotton prints and started yelling "Mommy I want this! Make me something!" Of course how could a Mommy say no...especially when it would allow Mommy to sew and it was something other than a toy they were begging for!

Anyways I told them to pick out their favorite print. Seth chose a fireman print, Aaron chose a Disney Cars print (of course) and Alyssa chose Eeyore and Pooh (I held up several girlie ones for her to choose from...she pointed very plainly to that one.)

I got a yard of each of those fabrics and a yard of coordinating fleece. I came home and washed and machine dried the fabrics so that they would get their shrinking done and then I just simply sewed the two together (right-sides in...and then flipped and then top sewed around all edges).

They loved them! The only mistake I made was thinking Alyssa wouldn't care as much about them as the boys. I made sure I finished both boys before giving them to them so that they got them at the same time. I hadn't finished Alyssa's though...and boy was she mad that she wasn't getting her blanket yet! She sure let me know she was mad about it too! I have never made something so fast as I did her blanket :-)!!

From A Long Sleeved Dress to A Skirt with Leggings!

2010-10-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

Here is another refashion project I have done for Alyssa!

Here is the before picture (I'm sorry...I didn't realize this was a blurry picture until I got it on the computer). This is a long sleeved dress with bloomers that was too short for Alyssa.

Beforehand I made sure her legs would fit in the armholes - they did - perfectly!!

So I cut off the sleeves and cut off the skirt.

I sewed the sleeves to the leg holes of the bloomers. For the skirt I folded over the top of the skirt and I sewed it to the waistband of the bloomers (stretching the bloomer elastic as I sewed).

Here is the finished product.

Here is Alyssa wearing her new skirt!

Refashioning Old Clothes To New For Alyssa!

2010-10-20T21:46:00.000-05:00

Hey! I know it has been forever since I have been on this blog!! I have been spending all my time blogging on our homeschool blog and don't have much time to keep up both. But I have found a new hobby that doesn't exactly fit on the homeschool blog. I have already had several online friends that want me to share what I am doing and since not all my online friends are on facebook I needed somewhere where everyone can see what I am doing...which brought be back to this blog :-)

Ok - enough about that! Now to my new hobby...taking clothes that are too small for Alyssa and refashioning them to ones that fit!! I found this idea on several other sites and blogs and fell in love with the idea! I decided to give it a go myself and found out real quick how easy and how fun it is to do! It literally takes 30 minutes or less to have a whole new outfit made!

I have already made 3 new outfits. I would like to share the first with you today :-)

Here is the before picture...a cute little summer dress that became too short for Alyssa. (I will warn you up front...I am not a photographer so these might not be the best pictures)

I cut off the bodice...I actually cut a little higher than the waist on this dress (by looking at all the different dresses I have to do this with it is already clear to me you will be cutting off at different points just depending on the dress...just picture in your mind the skirt and you will figure out where to cut)

Now this dress had buttons in the back and where I cut there was still a button left on the back. I took off the button and sewed the opening shut.

I forgot to include in the first picture the pair of bloomers that I had that matched the colors. I used the waistband of the bloomers to become the waistband for my skirt...made it that much easier.

I just had to put a gathering stitch at the top of my skirt piece...gather it up to fit the bloomers, fold over the top of the fabric of the skirt and topstitch to the bloomers.

Here is a picture of the finished product.

Here is a picture showing the bloomers attached on the inside.

And here are a couple of pictures of Alyssa wearing the skirt. She does not let me get good pictures of her right now. I did the best I could. She loved the skirt though and really got sassy when she was wearing it (it was her first time to wear her new (to her) boots too!)

I loved the fact that the skirt is long on her! I thought she looked adorable! And this seriously took less than 30 minutes from start to finish!!

I can't wait to share more of these projects with you!

Goodbye to this blog - for now.

2010-08-17T08:57:00.000-05:00

Ok - it is obvious that I have not been on here in a while. Life is just so busy!!

We will be starting homeschooling Seth in kindergarten on Monday! This means that life will be even more busy! :-) I have decided that for the time being at least I am just going to give up on this blog.

But never fear- I will be keeping up with my homeschool blog! I mean homeschooling will be our life...so we might as well just keep everyone up to date with our lives through that blog.

So please head on over to my homeschool blog - http://trainingupachild.blogspot.com and keep up with us there! I promise to strive to at least make one post a week on that blog! I would love for each and every one of you to follow us on that blog.

See you over there!

Alyssa’s First Birthday

2010-04-19T09:48:00.001-05:00

I went to the blog to make this post and saw that it has been 2 months since I have made a post!! Man - life is just so busy I can't seem to find the time to blog! Sorry...

I did want to post pictures from Alyssa's first birthday party! We had so much fun!! I threw Alyssa her very first tea party! And rest assured - it will not be her last! It was just too much fun! It will be even more fun when she is old enough to really participate in it :-)

First – the party set up.

Here is a close up of the food table. We used my mother’s china and crystal platters of my mother in law. The roses are in the glass cups that are part of my mil’s punch bowl. The roses are from my rose garden!

The box that the napkins are in is a box that my grandmother made me a few years back and filled it with items of my great grandmother. I thought it made a very pretty napkin box!

Here is a picture of the food table with all the food on it. We served mini quiches, pinwheels, southwestern egg rolls, and fruit salad with fruit dip.

Here is the tea table. Instead of serving punch we put rasberry white tea in the punch bowl. We also served sweet and unsweet iced tea in cute pitchers as well.

The cake table

Alyssa’s cake!

I made “tea” cakes for everyone. The daisy ones had pineapple cream cheese icing (made with real pineapple). The tulips had fresh strawberry icing and the butterflies (and Alyssa’s cake) had buttercream icing. They were arranged on plates from my mother’s china set.

Here is the teddy bear tea party that was set up in the living room.

The little table had one of Alyssa’s baby quilts on it and my mom got her the little plastic tea set that is displayed (also displayed is the tea set she got from my mil for Christmas)

These animals were wearing some of Alyssa’s baby dresses.

This bunny was wearing one of my dresses and my jewelry…sshe went all out! :-) (and the baby stroller in front is what we got Alyssa for her birthday)

Here are some pics from the party!

Daniel couldn’t handle all the “girlie” stuff and decided she needed a 4-wheeler hay ride! It was a lot of fun!

Opening her gift – she has the funniest facial exressions!

She LOVED her cake!!! You can’t see real well in the pic below but I decorated a onesie for her to wear when eating her cake!

It was a super fun party! I still can’t believe she is one though!! Where did the time go?

Alyssa – 10 Months Old!

2010-02-18T10:30:00.001-06:00

First off I apologize for not posting like I should…it just seems that I can’t find the time…funny though, I have been sincerely asking God to guide my schedule and I am not finding the time for this…hmm..wonder if He is trying to tell me something.

I really love to blog especially because my friends and family can keep up with the happenings of our family. So I don’t want to give it up but I am seriously thinking about making it a private blog…and not have it so public.

Rest assured – any of you that want to keep up with the blog I will send an invite if I decide to do that. I will let you know.

Now on to the real reason for this post! Alyssa turned 10 months old yesterday! It is so hard to believe she is only 2 months away from her first birthday. Where did the time go??? Here are some pictures from the past couple of weeks I thought I would share.

These are from Sunday! I made her valentine’s dress (and my skirt!) She seemed to enjoy being all dressed up! She was so cute the way she acted in her dress! And I LOVED how the dress was long on her.

Oh Alyssa I just love how incredibly beautiful you are!! May you always remember and know that you are a beautiful person – created by God – a PERFECT creation!!

We had a very rare thing happen in Texas last week – SNOW!! And we didn’t just have snow – we broke all time records for our area in snow! We had 12 inches of snow!! The kids LOVED it! Alyssa was napping most of the time we were in it (probably for the best…she’s so young and won’t remember it anyways…) but we did get this great family photo! This was on the middle of the road that we live on!

Like I said before I will keep you updated with my decision for this blog. I will be sure to let you know if I go private with it so you will have a chance for an invite if you so desire!

WAlyssa – 41 Week

2010-01-31T16:19:00.001-06:00

What I Love About Alyssa – 41 Weeks

Alyssa I love the little personality you are developing and how much fun you are to be around! Everyone just adores you. We had a good week this week…even with you having a little cold :-)! You are not going to let anything get you down though!

This was a scene I walked in on this week and laughed so hard when I saw this!! You had crawled inside one of those fold up clothes hampers and Aaron was pulling you around the kitchen floor in it. You both were just a giggling too! It was so cute!

You had a fun time playing with your Daddy and brothers this week! Yall took a ride on Daddy’s belly…

and in the boys’ tonka dump truck! You just squealed with delight!

You love being on the floor playing with your toys…that is when you are not picking up other stuff off the floor and putting it in your mouth! Your Granny has given you the nickname “Hoover”.

You have definitely turned the corner on eating! You love to eat…especially when I give you something that you can feed yourself! You think you are so big just like your brothers!

Alyssa you are a hambone and I love you!

Alyssa – 40 Weeks

2010-01-25T09:15:00.001-06:00

Ok…not only am I late on this post but I was also very bad last week of not getting pictures – UGH! Hopefully I can do better this week :-)

Alyssa had her 9 month well baby check up last week. She is officially a “stick”!! Her weight was 17 lb 8 oz (38% on the charts) but her height was 29 inches (96% on the charts) – she is long and skinny! But overall it was a good check up!

Sadly though this weekend she had her very first ear infection :-( and we had our very first sick visit to the dr on Saturday. But she is a trooper and she is doing better now!

I am happy to say that I have been able to find, I mean MAKE, time in my schedule to start sewing again! I have always loved sewing but ever since Aaron has been born have had a hard time to find time to do it. Well, now that I have a girl, I am wanting to do it again! And I am already having so much fun at it!!

Here are two dresses I have already made for her!

The polka dot dress is going to be her Valentine’s dress. I made myself a skirt out of the same material :-) I can’t wait to get pictures of us together in our outfits!!

Here are two pictures I did get. These were from last Sunday. This was a dress her Granny got her for Christmas!! She looked super cute in it!!

Alyssa I love how cute you are! You are learning how to wave and really reach your arms out when you want to be held! It is so sweet. It just melts my heart!

You are super super fast at your belly crawling! You don’t seem to have a desire to crawl on your hands and knees but why would you when you can belly scoot so well!

I love how you remained so sweet, probably even got sweeter, when you were sick this week! I hated that you were sick but am so glad that is was just a minor ear infection! I pray for your health every morning. I do not like it when any of my babies are sick!

Alyssa I love you! Even though I don’t get that many pictures of you on some weeks it doesn’t mean that I haven’t spent time with you or you haven’t had a cute week…I have just been too busy enjoying you to pause to grab the camera! I don’t want to miss the moment :-)

I love you baby girl!! The past 9 months with you have been a dream!

What I Love About Alyssa – Catch Up

2010-01-14T17:12:00.001-06:00

What I love about Alyssa – 36 – 39 weeks!!

Ok – so yes, I got behind. It was just kind of hard to get everything done during the Christmas holidays!! But I am catching up now!!!

Alyssa you had a WONDERFUL first Christmas!! We had so much fun with you!

You loved Santa Clause. You would smile any time you would see one and you just grinned when we put you in Santa’s lap!

Even though you can belly crawl all over the house (and are super fast) you are still a bit wobbly when trying to sit up. Your little blue chair worked perfect for you to sit in to enjoy Christmas morning though!

I think the wrapping paper was your favorite part. You would get mad if we tried to take it from you.

You loved yuor monkey toy that you got. There are so many different things to do on that one little toy!

In fact I think you were happy with all the goodies you got for Christmas!

I think you look adorable in all your new clothes!! Your aunt Jennie got you a bunch of new clothes!! You has some you can wear now and some you will grow into in a few months!!

Alyssa I just love your chicken legs!!! You are so different from the boys!! Both boys were so chunky and full of rolls but I don’t think there is one roll on your body!! You are super long but you are very lean as well!!

You love to make faces with your tongue!! It is so cute!

You are developing such a sweet personality!! Everyone just loves you!

Of course you still love to wrinkle that nose!

You are still enjoying the activity table on your blue chair! It will usually keep you occupied long enough for a school session with the boys! :-)

You are finally growing some hair!!! I am starting to be able to put bows in your hair…the thickest part of your hair is still towards the back of your head but I am thinking in another few weeks we will be able to snap a bow on the front part of your head :-) Hopefully in time for Easter?!?!?

You have really made progress in your eating solid foods!! You love to eat now. You are eating any baby food we give you but you are so happy when we feed you “real” food! You LOVE sweet potatoes!

You also love the baby puffs. You are doing such a good job of grasping them and getting them to your mouth!

You have even eaten a few cheerios and goldfish crackers. You do so well crunching them with your now 6 front teeth (4 on top and 2 on bottom).

You have survived what the boys have fed you as well :-) Aaron loves to feed you. We have to keep a constant watch on him! I think the favorite thing you enjoyed him giving you was a fried okra at a restaurant one night. You were so happy with that okra! In fact so happy that I just watched to see how you would handle it and you gummed it down until you were able to swallow it!

I was a bit concerned at first about your eating habits but I am no longer! You are going to be a good eater!! :-)

You are also really starting to chatter. You are saying all different consonant sounds and you have gotten real good at saying “MaMa” :-)

I love you so much “Missy” (my new nickname for you!). You are such a delight to have in our lives!!

Alyssa – 35 Weeks

2009-12-18T10:49:00.001-06:00

What I love about Alyssa – 35 Weeks

I love how much you are getting into this whole Christmas thing!! I don’t see how anyone could have a depressing Christmas with you around!

You poor baby you are cutting 4 teeth right now!! Your 2 front right teeth have cut the surface and your 2 front left teeth are right underneath the gum. But you are a trooper and I thank God for teething drops!!

You are starting to enjoy your baby food – FINALLY!! You definitely have a sweet tooth and prefer the fruit and the sweeter veggies. You love to eat baby food at dinner time…but are still not so sure about eating it at breakfast or lunch time.

You are really getting the army (belly) crawl down!! It is so much fun watching you!! You are into EVERYTHING though! We really have to keep a watchful eye on you when you are on the floor!

You have even gotten up on your hands and knees a few times but really can’t figure out how to move yet when you do get up. It won’t be long though!!

You are really starting to get some hair in too…and it is sticking straight up!! There is still not enough to put a bow in it but it won’t be long! I am dying to put a bow in your hair!!

And Daddy is trying to deny it but you have started saying “MaMa”!! I think it is the most precious sound in the world (even if you are just making noises and not intentionally saying MaMa”)

I love you my baby girl! I can’t wait to spend your first Christmas with you! You are going to be so much fun!

Alyssa – 34 Weeks

2009-12-11T13:35:00.001-06:00

What I Love About Alyssa – 34 Weeks

Oh Alyssa! I can’t believe that you are going to be 8 months old next week!! Where does the time go?!?! You are growing up way too fast!

We are having so much fun getting Christmas pictures this year. You have really learned how to ham it up for the camera!!

You love it when you are with your brothers!

You still love to wrinkle that nose up…especially the past few days when you have been teething.

You are grabbing for everything these days!! We have to be so careful and watchful of you!

You have discovered a new found talent of making spitting noises with your tongue.

You are really getting into this Christmas thing! You love to get hold of the ornaments!

I love your super sweet expressions. I love everything about you baby girl!!

Our Handmade Christmas Blog is up!

2009-12-10T15:43:00.001-06:00

Hey guys!! I have decided how to share my handmade Christmas presents with you to give you ideas for fun,easy Christmas gifts.

I have created a new blog specifically for this. The main reason is because my family, who I am making these gifts for, reads this blog and I don’t want to ruin their surprise (so family please please please do not go to this other blog until after Christmas!)

Iwante to be able to share my ideas that I have found in hopes that you will find some ideas so that you too can have a handmade Christmas!!! I really think too much emphasis is put on how much we spend at Christmas…who gets the most expensive gift. I do not think that is what Christmas should be about! Christmas is all about giving (we are celebrating the birth of our Saviour – who gave his LIFE for us). Christmas should be about creating and sharing memories! Having a handmade Christmas helps accomplish that!

Some of these gifts my children have helped me with…some of them they haven’t (mainly due to their young age). I will do my best to give clear instructions. Most of these ideas I have found from other websites and I will give credit where credit is due!

And I love comments!! So please please please let me know what you think and if you found any of these ideas useful. Please feel free to share links to these blog posts!

So if you would like to see what we are doing for our handmade Christmas please click here to go to the blog (family please please please do not click that link!)

Alyssa – 33 Weeks

2009-12-06T14:57:00.001-06:00

I am so sorry this post is late! I usually try to get this out on Fridays but it has been a crazy week. Daddy has been gone since Thursday (is on the plane back home while I type this today) so I have been doing everything I can to keep the kids busy this week!

What I love about Alyssa at 33 weeks:

I love the wonderful pictures that we got last weekend!! I still have not done the editing on them…but they really don’t need any editing!! Most of the pics on this post were from last weekend!

I love the fact that Alyssa is learning how to sit up!! Of course I have to put her in the sitting position but just this week she has learned how to balance herself and sit up for a bit (as long as she doesn’t try to arch her back…then she goes backwards!) These pictures below were taken the first day she did it!! She was so proud of herself!!

I love how much Alyssa loves her brothers and how much they love her! She wants to be with them all the time!!

Alyssa loves ALL of her grandparents!! She just smiles and coos at everybody!! (she loves being the little princess of the family!)

I know I have said this before and I will keep saying it again and again – Alyssa has truly completed our family!!

I love the personality that Alyssa is developing!! She has the sweetest little disposition (most of the time – ha!)

She is truly learning how to ham it up for the camera!

I love the fact that Alyssa is a TROOPER!! She is game for anything! We went the other night to a parade of lights! It was VERY cold last night so we opened the back of our vehicle to sit in and watch the parade. We cuddled up in blankets and she just snuggled right in.

I love my baby girl!!! I am the proudest Mommy there ever was!!

Our Day At The Park

2009-11-27T08:43:00.001-06:00

We went to the park the other day and Daddy got some AWESOME pictures of the kids!! I thought I would share some of them for you!!

Alyssa – 32 Weeks

2009-11-27T08:34:00.001-06:00

What I Love About Alyssa – 32 Weeks

I love how much you love to play! You love to roll all around the floor! You are going to be crawling any day now!

I love how well you are starting to be able to sit in restaurant high chairs. You are not as slumped over any more :-)

I love how cute you look in the coat that Mommy crocheted for you before you were born :-)

I love this adorable picture taken of you on your very first Thanksgiving!!

In keeping with the tradition we had to give you a turkey leg on your first Thanksgiving! You liked to chew on it (probably because you are teething) but you would not hold it! I had to hold it for you!

Look at this dirty look you are giving me!! I crack up every time I look at this picture!!

I like that pretty smile much better!

I love you my little angel!!

Of course – your brothers love you lots too!!

I can’t forget my boys!! I love them so very much too!! (Daddy told me I am spending too much time gushing about Alyssa…) I love my family and am very THANKFUL for all of them!! I am so blessed!

What I Love About Alyssa – 31 Weeks

2009-11-20T10:38:00.001-06:00

Alyssa – 31 Weeks

Alyssa there are so many things I love about you!!

I love how much you enjoyed yourself at the park this week! You were in the stroller most of the time while I was playing with the boys but you didn’t seem to mind. You were enjoying being out in the sunshine as much as the rest of us!!

I love how you will play so hard on the floor, rolling everywhere, and then will finally just give it up and fall asleep! And I cracked up when I took this picture…you managed to put your play mat on top of you like a blanket!

I love the relationship you and I are developing! My prayer is that we will be close and that you will feel that you can talk to me about anything!

You are still quite finicky about your eating…You will eat about 3 or 4 bites of breakfast (no matter what it is I give you). I can’t get you to eat anything at lunch…and you will eat a bit more at supper sometimes. Oh well – you are still nursing really well and I guess that is what matters right now! :-) I don’t think I’m going to have to worry about you weaning yourself from the breast before I am ready like both of your brothers did!

I love the fact that I finally got a picture of your nose wrinkle!!! You are so funny!!

This was taken right after that shot. This was your reaction to me getting so excited that I actually got a picture of your nose wrinkle!!

You love your brothers so much and you love playing on Seth’s bed while I am getting them ready for bed!!

I love how when I put the camera card in the computer to get the pictures I found quite a few pictures of you on the camera that I didn’t take…apparently Seth got hold of Mommy’s camera again! But I must say he did get some good pictures of you!!

Oh Alyssa I love watching you grow!! You melt my heart more and more every day!! You really have completed our family!! I said this with both of the boys as well…but I can’t even hardly remember life without you now!!

Alyssa – 30 Weeks

2009-11-13T09:40:00.001-06:00

What I Love About Alyssa – 30 Weeks

*First I want to apologize for not getting Alyssa’s 29 week post up last week…we were remodeling our kitchen so I didn't have time to play on the computer last week at all :-(. Even though there is work left to do I am back at it this week!! I hated missing this post!!

Alyssa I love how good you were during the kitchen remodel. For the most part as long as you were in the same room with me you were fine! You did a lot of playing in your activity chair on the table and you love playing on the new kitchen floor!

I love how you wrinkle your nose up and make grunting sounds. It is the cutest thing!! But you are a stinker! You will not let me get a picture of it!!

I love all the little faces that you love to make. I love how you purse your lips and how puff your cheeks!! And you are constantly smiling! You are the happiest little baby!

I love the fact that you love eating now – you are getting quite enthusiastic about it!! Mommy’s spoon is not fast enough now!!

You have a little bit of your Poppy in you though…you do not like green peas!! You make the most God awful faces when I try to feed them to you. You will kind of tolerate them if I mix them with baby cereal but you refuse to swallow them if I feed them to you with nothing else mixed in! It’s so funny!! My boys would eat ANYTHING I put in their mouth! It looks like you are going to be the picky one!!

You are not crawling yet but I am expecting it to happen any time now! You have figured out how to get just about anywhere you want by rolling. You are all over the living room now (usually trying to get close to your brothers).

Your little legs are constantly kicking now. I seriously think the only time they are not kicking is when you are sleeping or nursing.

You are also becoming quite a jabber box!! You love to coo and talk and you even mumble while you are nursing. You are so cute!!

You love to reach for me and it melts my heart every time!! You love to give hugs and kisses too!!

I have to constantly keep my hair up now because you love to pull it and yank and you try to grab it as much as you can. I wouldn’t have a problem with it if it didn’t hurt so bad :-)

The cutest thing though are the nights that I end up in the guest bed with you in the wee hours of the morning. After a few hours ofa sleeping with you cuddled against my back you will decide it is time to wake up and will give my hair a good yank to wake me up!

Alyssa I love you so much!!! You are my cuddle bug!!

Our New Kitchen

2009-11-11T11:38:00.001-06:00

It seems like forever since I have posted on here! Things have been so busy around our house the past few weeks!! We just finished remodeling our kitchen. It has literally taken up all of my time!! But we are finished now and getting back into our normal routine even though I still have a lot of clean up to do…I am just trying to work into our normal schedule.

I know I missed Alyssa’s weekly post last week and I will do my best to make up for it this week!!

Here are some pictures of our kitchen!

Alyssa – 28 Weeks

2009-10-30T11:14:00.001-05:00

What I Love About Alyssa – 28 Weeks

Alyssa it has been a CRAZY week!! Our house is a mess due to the fact that we are remodeling the kitchen. And you have cut your bottom front two teeth. So it has been sort of an off week for you but I love you and you are a trooper.

I love you more than you will ever know. I do hope and pray that that this trend you have started this week of only being happy when Mommy is holding you is due to the chaos around us and once everything settles down you will go back to being my easy going baby. :-)

I love your thumb sucking habit…I know it is a bad habit (I think we have discussed this before – ha!) but you are so cute about it. You are not super serious about it but there are times when you just love to suck it though! Nothing else will satisfy you.

I love the fact that we have finally found a food that you like – applesauce!! You have eaten it up the past two days (and it is all going in the mouth – the bib is CLEAN when we are done! Wow!)

I love how much you love your Itty Bitty Ball from Little Bits. I know I have mentioned it before but you really do love this ball!!

I love how much you are trying to crawl. You want to move around and be right with your brothers so bad!

I love you in your poodle costume that I made you for Halloween!! You look so cute and so girly! And you know you are cute in it. You make the cutest little faces in it!

I love the pictures that I got of you this morning. We did not get many pictures done this week due to the chaos in the house but this morning I decided to get you dressed up and take some pictures. I found out through a friend’s blog about Picnik – a really cool online photo editing site. Right now I am just playing with the free version….but it is becoming very tempting to pay the $24.95 yearly price for the premium service!! There are so many cool effects and it is very user friendly…I am going to try to be good and not pay that premium but it is going to be quite hard I think because I am having so much fun and they love to tease you with the premium features. (I touched up all the pictures on this post with Picnik. Makes me look like I am a good photographer huh? *I’m really not*)

Alyssa you are growing up way too fast!!! I want to cherish every moment I can with you while you are so small…because it will only be here for a moment!

Alyssa – 27 Weeks

2009-10-23T10:20:00.001-05:00

What I Love About Alyssa – 27 Weeks

Oh Alyssa! You are getting SOO big!! We had your 6 month check up yesterday and the dr said you are very tall! Your height is off the charts!! I love watching you grow, even though it is bittersweet!

I love how you are starting to reach out for me. It just melts my heart!! And when I pick you up you hug me – hard!! You are becoming so affectionate!

I love how much you are finally enjoying your baths!! Thanks to our new chair from MiMi we have been able to stick the foam insert in the sink for you to sit in and you are loving it!!

We are also able to stick the foam insert in your high chair for you to be able to sit better in there as well. Some of the readers may not know that Daddy made the high chair when I was pregnant with Seth. The only problem is that is it so rigid for little wobbly booties like yours :-) But that little foam sheet does solve the problem. And you love being able to be up at the table with the family!

I love your baby eating habits – they are so funny. One day you eat it, the next day you don’t! At least we are starting to show some interest!

I sure do love the leggings that we got from Little Bits! I think I just may have to order some more :-) (I ordered 3 pair but have only been able to get pics in 1 pair so far…it has been a weird week…hopefully I will have pictures of the other two on next week’s post!)

You LOVE your Itty Bitty Ball from Little Bits – I mean you LOVE it A LOT!!! You just don’t like the fact that it rolls away from you. You will be crawling in no time to make sure you get to your ball!!

I love how much you love your brothers! You want to play with them so bad. You love watching them run around like crazy and think it is quite comical.

Oh my! You are cutting your first two teeth this week. And bless your heart it has been quite painful. Sunday night you fussed all night. You have been doing better since then but you moan alot in your sleep. I feel so sorry for you. Teething drops will help some but they wear off pretty quick.

I wanted to get your 6 month pictures done (in all your leggings) this week but with my computer crashing I just didn’t get to it. Hopefully this next week we can get them done!

I love you so much Alyssa!!

What I Love About Alyssa - 26 Weeks

2009-10-15T21:57:00.000-05:00

Alyssa - 26 Weeks

I love how much you are enjoying your new chair that your MiMi got for you. You love being able to sit up and you love the activity tray that attaches to it.

I love you but it's official - you are a TOOT!! We were still having problems with getting you to eat. We started the week making a little bit of progress when Granny fed you some peas. You were at the table with us watching us eat and I think that helped...but you still would try to spit out as much as you could before you swallowed. Well you were doing this on Thursday night at my Mom's and I finally went "Alyssa, it's not that bad" and proceeded to take a bite of the cereal myself with you watching me. You did a complete 180 after that...to the point that you were pulling my hand to you to get the spoon in your mouth (I got the picture above). You finished her whole bowl of cereal!! You are such a toot! I guess I just had to literally show you what to do.

I love how much you loved your travel swing at MiMi's this week! You loved playing with the hanging toys and seemed very content to nap in it!!

I love how much you are enjoying playing on the floor! As long as you have your blankie and a toy you are happy and will play on the floor for the longest time!! And you are wanting to crawl SO BAD! It won't be long at all.

I love how much you enjoyed your evening naps with Poppy! Yall looked so cute and very content napping in his chair :-)

I can't wait to get back home because your leggings from Little Bits came in! I can't wait to try them on and get some adorable pictures of you in them!!! :-) Your Itty Bitty Ball from Little Bits should be there by time we get home too!! I can't wait to see it either! I hope you love it!!!

I love you Alyssa! You continue to melt my heart!!

What I Love About Alyssa - 25 Weeks

2009-10-09T10:21:00.000-05:00

What I Love Aabout Alyssa - 25 Weeks

I love your big beautiful smile!! Your whole body lights up when you smile!! You are precious.

I love how much you missed your Daddy when he was gone this week. Even though it was very hard on Mommy and made for a long night...when I think back to Tuesday night and you crying out every time you looked over at his empty chair... it just melts my heart.

I don't love how much pain you are in due to teething. I still don't feel a tooth but you are drooling like crazy, you are chewing on everything and cry when I touch your gums...you poor thing! I am praying the tooth comes in soon!! I will love that! :-)

You are cracking me up with your baby food! I cannot get you to eat it! We tried carrots this week (yes I know you are suppose to all the green veggies first but you are having such a fit I thought I would see how you did with the orange veggies that are a bit sweeter). You didn't scream like you did with the peas...but you still did not like it!! Your face still grimaced and and you put your tongue so far in the back of your mouth I thought you were going to choke on it! You didn't want to have anything to do with it!! I don't think you swallowed any of it! What am I going to do with you???

I love our snuggle times! You love to snuggle!! I don't mind it when you wake up super early in the morning because I just put you in the big bed with me and we snuggle!!

I love how, most of the time, you are very good for me when it comes time to do school with the boys! You just want to make sure you are a part of it as well. You love to be involved with what your brothers are doing!

I love how you are really starting to talk...I think you are going to be a talker. You really act like you are trying to tell us a funny story!

I love how, as I am typing this, you are on the floor and have rolled over to my feet and are sucking on my toe!! Girl - there are better things to suck on!!

I love you sunshine!!

What I Love About Alyssa - 24 Weeks

2009-10-02T14:25:00.000-05:00

What I Love About Alyssa at 24 Weeks!

Oh my gosh baby girl you are getting SO big!!! There are so many things I love about you. It is bittersweet to watch you grow. The new things you are doing are so exciting but it makes me sad to know that you are not going to stay little forever. I want to cherish every moment!

I love how different you are from your brothers, even if that means that you do not want to eat baby food! Your brothers were delighted with anything that we put in their mouth! You act like it is torture when I try to feed you baby food! Honey Pie...this is the good stuff. This is homemade baby food made by your Mommy!! Trust me, it is so much better than the stuff that comes in a jar! Maybe it isn't the taste...is it a texture thing?!?!

No worries though baby - you will grow to love to eat. I know that because you are kin to me after all! :-)

Ok - I know I know...I am suppose to deter thumb sucking...but I just can't! You are so DARN CUTE sucking your thumb!! Once again - another trait where you are so different from your brothers. They were both pacifier babies. You will take the pacifier sometimes - but your thumb is your favorite!

I love how cute you look in your fall clothes! Your cute little patns with flowers on them and the cute little shoes I got on clearance at Wal-Mart (of course I had to take out the shoe laces and replace with pink ribbon - just for you!!) I can't wait to put you in some fall dresses and leggings! Hopefully we can find some cute clothes when we go shopping with MiMi next weekend :-)

I love the relationship you and Seth are developing! In the picture above of your in your pants he so enjoyed holding you up for that picture! In this picture above he was enjoying holding your pacifier while you chewed (teething). It is fun to listen to yall giggle with each other! I have a feeling yall are going to be very close! You won't ever have to worry about anything Alyssa - your big brothers are going to protect you!!

Speaking of teething - you are starting to really chew on things. There is no tooth yet, but you are loving your teethers (especially right after they come out of the refridgerator) and you are drooling like crazy...that first tooth is sure to pop out any day now!

I love how cute you look when I put you down for your nap! Now that you can roll over you are determined to sleep on your belly...and it is so cute how you love your blankets! If I put the blankets on top of you (of course I tuck them in on the sides to avoid a SIDS risk) you sleep really well. You are doing really good about putting yourself to sleep too...you will fuss but only for a minute or two!

I love this picture of you from this week...this day you did decide that you didn't want to nap long. I put you on the blanket to play and found you like this...watching tv...you laid like this for the longest time. It was just too sweet!

When I read on the Lil' Ladybug blog this week about Carissa's little girl loving her jump-a-roo it made me realize that you were probably ready for your Johnny Jump Up. I loved your first reaction to it. You LOVED it! You twirled around in circles and chewed on the hanging toys for a good while! It just seem right that you are big enough for this yet!! But you do look cute playing in it!

To end with I will say how much I love your backside in this sleeper!! You look soo cute with little ruffles on your tush!! hee hee

I love you so much Alyssa!! I hope you always know that!

What I Love About Alyssa - 23 Weeks

2009-09-25T09:16:00.000-05:00

Alyssa - 23 Weeks

- I love your cute faces that you make!!

-I love your beautiful smiles! You smile with your entire face!

-I love how cute you looked in your first pair of blue jeans on the first day of Fall!!

-I love how cute you look in your fall clothes! It sure was fun to be able to wear them and enjoy the cooler weather this week!

-I love how you can swing yourself to sleep while we are trying to have school. You make it so easy for us!

I loved seeing how excited you were with yourself when you finally rolled over from your back to your tummy on Thursday of this week!! Now all you want to do is roll. You rolled across Granny's entire living room last night!

-I love how much your brothers love you and adore you! (this picture just MELTS my heart!)

-I love that you want to be with your brothers and are so happy when they pay attention to you!

-I love how much you are loving your butterfly on your activity gym (when you are not busy trying to roll!)

-I love watching you develop your little personality. You are so cute and so fun! Life with you is going to be such a fun adventure! I want to cherish every step of it!!

What I Love About Alyssa - 22 Weeks

2009-09-18T18:23:00.000-05:00

Once again this has not been a good week in our household. Both Daniel and I have been sick all week. My week ended with me having to have my wisdom teeth taken out yesterday.

So sad to say I once again was not able to get pictures and do this post like I really want to. I can't wait for the day when I can really do this post like I want...maybe next week will be the week!

Aylssa, At 22 weeks I love:

- how you have stayed so healthy during this horrible two weeks. You have managed to only get a small eye cold that is already cleared up!

-how easy you have been during these couple of weeks. You are such a "go with the flow" baby and it has made things so much easier.

-how you have become such the little chatter box. Your coos are so cute and you just love to tell your stories - especially funny stories to Daddy!

-how much you love your brothers and how your brothers can calm you down and make you happy.

-how much you love your blankie and your thumb! It is just too cute!!

-I love you so much!! I hope you realize just how much! I endured having my wisdom teeth taken out with only a local anesthetic and laughing gas so that I could continue to nurse you! There is no limit as to what I will do for you or my boys! A mother's love is so strong!

What I Love About Alyssa - 21 Weeks

2009-09-11T12:27:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately most of our household was sick this week (Daddy and Alyssa were the only ones that weren't!) so I didn't get pictures done this week like she wanted for this post! But I still wanted to make sure I got a post up so I grabbed a few today!!

What I love about you at 21 Weeks!

- I love the fact that you haven't gotten sick with this crud that the rest of the family has had! You are so healthy and strong!

- How laid back (for the most part) you have been this week since Mommy and the boys have been sick.

-How you always giggle at Seth when he talks...it doesn't matter what he is saying or who he is talking to, you just love him!

-How excited you get to get changed into your pajamas at night. I don't know what it is but every night you get fussy at about 8:30 until we go to change into your pajamas and you just giggle and coo the whole time I am dressing you! It is too cute!

-Your super long legs!! You are going to outgrow your swing if you are not careful!! It's so funny to see since your brothers had short legs!

-How you are really starting to grasp at your teethers and rattles and take such joy in it. (hopefully I can get pictures for next week!)

-How you are growing so attached to your pink blankie - and how Mommy is super excited that we have 2 identical ones! It will make washing them a lot easier! (once again hopefully I can get a picture of you with it next week)

-How you continue to melt all of our hearts!! We love you so much!!

If you would like to check out more posts on babies then click here!

I love my husband!!

2009-09-05T23:18:00.000-05:00

Just thought I should everyone know how much I love and adore my husband. I could never ask for a better husband! When I decided to get serious and go on a diet about a month ago he decided to dive in and do it with me. He is the reason that I am succeeding!

I love my husband!

We all need to make sure we brag on our husbands!! I don't want him to feel left out since so much of my time is devoted to my kids!

What I Love About Alyssa - 20 Weeks

2009-09-03T19:23:00.000-05:00

Ok I have been following the blog of a bloggy friend who's baby girl was born just a mere 3 days before Alyssa. Each week she does a "What I Love About You" post and it is the cutest post. I love reading it each week. I have wanted to start doing that for Alyssa but seem to run out of time. I am making myself find the time this week to start it up and am going to commit to make a post each week for my little girl! I spend so much time posting about my boys and their school activities...I need to show some focus on Alyssa.

It will also be fun to have these printed in a book for her to cherish years to come!

This first post is going to be about the first 20 weeks (to catch us up!)

I hope you enjoy these posts!

What I Love About You - The First 20 Weeks!

I LOVE:

- that you were brought into our lives! I cannot imagine life without you now.

- that you were only in the NICU for 8 days...it seemed sooo long when it was happening...but I now realize it was only a glimpse of time

- that you and I have bonded so strongly

-that you are a good, quiet baby.

- that you are adjusting to your brothers (and them to you)

- that you have already started sleeping through the night some (not always but I really can't complain)

-that you rolled over from your belly to your back at 16 weeks

- how cute you looked in the crocheted dresses I made for you (even though I failed to get good pictures of you in most of them and haven't had the time for make ones in larger sizes for you now!)

-How you love to chew on your clothes! You have gotten to where if you are in a onesie I have to put a bib on you because you get upset when you can't get your onesie to your mouth! So cute!!!

-the fact that your entire face lights up when you smile!

-How you love to smile at Mommy and Daddy

-How you love to have your brothers talk to you!

-the horrible faces you make when I try to feed you cereal. You look at me like I am sticking dirt in your mouth! It is so sad...but still so cute. I can't wait to see your faces when we try veggies!

-your sweet sweet coos you make when we are snuggling in the chair. I love our nursing and snuggling times!

-how you are taking such a liking to your pink blanket and your baby doll. You are such a snuggler!

-how cute you look sucking your thumb. It makes it so hard for me to try to get you to stop and choose the pacifier instead!

-Your chubby cheeks that just don't quit! : )

-How cute you look when you are sleeping.

-I could go on and on!! You are my sunshine!

Love,

Mommy

Cute Pics

2009-08-17T17:11:00.004-05:00

Aaron & Alyssa

It is amazing how much Alyssa looks like Aaron!! You almost can't tell them apart!!

Aaron at around 3 months old:

Alyssa at about the same age: (at least she is wearing pink!!)

Another one of Aaron at 3 months:

And Alyssa at 3 months:

Playing in the car

We got the car cleaned up and ready for Alyssa this week. We bought this car when Seth was about her age. I thought it would be fun to look at the first pics of the kids in the cars...realized I guess we never got any pics of Aaron in the car. I know he played in it! But I can't seem to find any pics...sorry Aaron.

Anyways, here is Seth:

And here is Alyssa! (they don't favor as much as Alyssa and Aaron)

Too Sweet!

I found another forgotten picture on a camera!! This was taken the night we came home from Galveston (we were at my parents house that night). I propped Alyssa up on the couch to run and do something (don't remember what) but when I came back just a couple of minutes later she was sound asleep! I guess the vacation wore her out!!

Have a great evening everyone!

VACATION!!!

2009-08-09T20:41:00.003-05:00

We just got back from a great vacation with my parents, sister and nephew! We went to Galveston and had fun at Moody Gardens, playing on the beach and then going to the Houston Aquarium!!

We discover how to survive 5 1/2 hours on the beach with a 3 month old...get a canopy!! It was super nice and provided a breezy shaded area!! We kept the kids lathered in sunscreen and everyone had a great time!

Here's the canopy!

Enjoying the sand!

A great mother/daughter pose!!

The whole family! The only one missing is my brother. He wasn't able to make the trip but he was surely missed!

My little beach girl!!

Seth looks kind of like a drowned rat!

A wiped out Aaron!! And see Alyssa in the swing? She slept almost the entire time we were out there!! I guess she thought the sound of the ocean waves was very soothing!

A great time was had by all!!

Isn't she a cutie?!?!

2009-08-03T13:11:00.003-05:00

I just had to share pics of Alyssa from yesterday! I crocheted the top she's wearing!!

She is such a cutie!!!

Stay tuned for beach pictures!! We leave Wednesday!!

Our Fun Weekend

2009-07-13T09:50:00.005-05:00

We had a fun family weekend!!! I thought I would share some pictures!

On Friday night we took the kids to the Bass Pro Shop. They enjoyed looking at all the goodies in the store.

They were a bit scared of the huge stuffed bear.

They really enjoyed looking at giant catfish!!

Alyssa had fun playing with Daddy at supper.

On Saturday we went to Granny & Papa's to play in their pool.

Also on Saturday Papa brought out the clippers and cut the boys' hair.

Here is Seth's before picture...

here he goes...bye bye hair...

and the after picture

Aaron enjoyed playing with the water hose!

Daddy & Alyssa napping on Sunday!

It was a super nice weekend!

Mommy has been in the kitchen

2009-07-10T15:30:00.002-05:00

I have been asked to share some of my recipes...so I thought I would share the two I made last night - A new one and a favorite!!

Sweet 'N Sour Meatball Simmer
This was adapted from the Kraft recipe but I made a couple of changes!!

Ingredients

16-oz. pkg. frozen prepared homestyle meatballs

1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 orange pepper
1 yellow onion

3/4 cup apricot jam

3/4 cup KRAFT CATALINA Dressing

4 Tbsp. soy sauce
3 Tbsp. ground ginger
2 Tbsp. garlic powder

Steps:

COMBINE all ingredients in large skillet; cover.

COOK on medium-high heat 10 min. or until meatballs and vegetables are heated through, stirring occasionally.

SERVE over hot cooked rice or pasta, if desired.

Next time I will add a can of pineapple chunks! This was super easy and super delicious! I will be making this again!!

Now for a favorite!! I have made this a lot!!!

Mom's Banana Bread

adapted from Cooking Light's recipe...but of course I made some changes...beware - with my changes it is not as light of a dish :-)

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 mashed ripe bananas
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream
2 large egg whites
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cooking spray

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine sugar and butter in a bowl; beat at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended. Add banana, milk, sour cream, and egg whites; beat well, and set aside.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; stir well. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, beating until blended.

Spoon batter into 4 (5 x 2 1/2-inch) miniature loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pans 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pans. Let cool completely or serve warm with butter!!

Note: To make one 9-inch loaf, spoon batter into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; bake at 350º for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Yield: 1 loaf, 20 servings (serving size: 1 slice).

Enjoy!!

A Beautiful Smile

2009-07-07T20:09:00.002-05:00

Sometimes you just have to cherish the small moments of life!! Alyssa was being so cute tonight. I thought I would get out the camera and take a few pictures. Everytime I told her to "smile at the camera" these are the smiles I got!! She just melts my heart!!!

Happy Birthday Aaron!!

2009-07-06T10:49:00.002-05:00

My baby boy turned 2 today!!! It's hard to believe!! We had a lot of fun celebrating this weekend. We had a fireworks birthday party with the family - complete with popping fireworks on Saturday night.

Here are some picture highlights of the event!

Aaron got a lot of fun presents!!

My little yankee doodle!!

His fireworks cupcakes!!

The funniest picture of all!!

Happy birthday Aaron!! Mommy loves you very much!

She's Growing Fast!

2009-06-29T11:10:00.005-05:00

It's hard to believe that she is 10 weeks old! She is growing so fast! She had her 2 month check up last week and weighed in at 12 lb 3 oz and was 23 1/4 inches long! She is in the 95%!!

She is starting to smile a lot and is laughing in her sleep! We haven't gotten her to laugh while she is awake but it is only a matter of time!

She is a very quiet baby and doesn't "talk" much. I have been trying to get her to talk to me. Well yesterday we came home from church and all wanted to take a nap. I mean everyone but Alyssa wanted to take a nap. So I decided that I would just put her on the bed with me and she could just watch me sleep :-) Well she decided to start talking to me. It was the sweetest thing and for some reason I didn't mind that it cut my nap time short :-)

Aaron will be turning 2 next Monday believe it or not!! We decided that as he gets older he is going to want to have a party with all his friends so we are going to have to do birthdays the weekend after the 4th to avoid the holiday weekend...BUT...since he is still young and is not into the friend thing quite yet we are going to take advantage of having his birthday celebration on the 4th!! He is going to have a fireworks birthday party with his family!! Mommy is going to have a busy week getting ready for that!

My Little singer! Seth loves to sing! His favorite song right now is The B-I-B-L-E. He sings it all the time. Last night on the way home from church though he started singing "Who Let The Dogs Out". I really don't know where he heard that song! He was also singing I'll Fly Away with his Daddy yesterday!

Have a great week!

She's 2 Months Old & Other Pictures

2009-06-17T15:58:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe that 2 months ago today I was in a lot of pain fixing to welcome our baby girl into the world! This pic was taken today at the library.

Other Photos
When I had my diaper bag camera out today getting the pictures off of it from the library outing I noticed some "missed" pictures on the camera.

These were taken during our trip to the movies last week!!

These were actually taken by Granny when her and PaPa took the boys to dinner a few Friday nights ago. She saw the camera in the bag and took advantage of some cute moments! I had forgotten that she told me that she took pictures until I saw them on the camera today.

The boys were enjoying an ice cream cone at Dairy Queen.