Sew Spectacular!

I've always had a bad habit of starting a project, and in the middle of it, I think about another thing I want to try and the next thing you know I've got ten partially finished (sometimes I just have the supplies!) projects. I even do it when I'm in deep cleaning mode-don't know what it is!! At the moment, there are six projects I've started, in the middle of, almost finished or just have the supplies for. On the plus side, however, I DID complete SEVEN projects in two days! Let's see, I made 2 crayon rolls and 2 little coloring book holder bags for Emma and Elle for Christmas, a SUPER cute wall hanging for Emma's room, and the best ones are these great aprons that I finished today for the girls. Emma is getting her apron now, but Elle will get her's at Christmas. Oh, and remember the dress with the too small armpits? It is now more like a matching tunic and dress for Emma and Maddie. Thank you Pinterest, for all these amazing projects and furthering my inability to stick to one project at a time!

 

Her "dress" is finally finished!

 Twins again!

 

 I LOVE this! I made the entire thing myself and it was really fun to do!

 

 

 Emma's Strawberry Shortcake apron-little does Elle know, that she gets one too!!

 

Close up-I love the bow!

Lunch Bunch!

Emma goes to school at Burkhead Methodist every Tuesday and Thursday from 8:50-11:50. They offer an extra hour for the kids to eat lunch at school and then play on the playground. Emma did Lunch Bunch probably a total of four times last year when I was teaching there as well. We had staff meetings every month; and when they were on Tuesdays, she was able to stay for Lunch Bunch for free. Last year (and still some this year because I hate messes-something I'm TRYING to get over!) there were not a whole lot of foods she could eat by herself. That being the case, and me being at school with her, I never thought about leaving her for lunch because it really served no purpose. The first time she stayed, I think I packed goldfish and cheerios in a plastic bag. The second time I forgot and had to stop at Lowe's in a panic and grabbed a Lunchables and bought a small reusable wine bag(!!!) and cut it out so the food would fit inside. Needless to say, we were less than prepared for her to eat lunch away from us or not at home. Not this year though! I knew we would want her to stay a few times a month to prepare for Kindergarten, so she needed a lunch box. Nana found a really cute one for her at Hip Chicks and we got it on Saturday. Emma did not take that bag out of her sight-she immediately filled it up with toys and carted it around everywhere. We started talking about Lunch Bunch Sunday afternoon and she was super excited! This morning, we were getting ready for school and all she talked about was Lunch Bunch and holding her lunch bag. I packed her a peanut butter and jelly, goldfish and fruit snacks with a capri sun. She handed off her bag and proudly told her teachers that she was staying for Lunch Bunch! I picked her up just before 1 and she told me all about the fun she had. A teacher told me that all she ate was some of her goldfish-uh oh! Guess we will have to work on eating better at school, but that's what preschool is for-getting ready for elementary school! She will have more practice on Thursday-so fingers crossed she eats a little more. Although, she did eat half of the PB&J and fruit snacks while we were at the mall.

 Posing with her lunch bag

 The infamous bag!

 Wanted a picture with her picnic stuff too

I turn around and this is what I see-she was worn out and ready for a nap at the mall!

Thursday Night Fun

We try and get together with Papa (Roger) for dinner on Thursday evenings. I usually cook something and Papa brings the extras, goldfish for Emma and DP for me :o) This has been a gloomy, yucky week for the weather-so I thought red beans and rice would be a perfect meal. Super simple and cheap to make! All you need is about 2 cups of dried kidney beans, a pound of sliced sausage, one onion (I use the sweet ones), 2 cloves of minced garlic, a few cups of water-I add it last and eye ball it and still end up taking a little out at the end-salt and pepper, chili powder, dash of celery salt and a little garlic salt. Just throw all the ingredients in your crock pot on low and let sit all day. About thirty minutes before you are going to eat, crank the crock pot to high and scoop out about a cup and mash all the beans, sausage and onion together. This thickens the broth a little. Just fix up some white rice, add a little shredded cheese, sour cream and for a fun twist we had a little guac too! The thing I'm really bad about with seasoning things, is that I never know how much of them I use. So, more often than not, meals can taste a little different every time I make it! I guess that keeps them from ever getting old-ha! Emma had a GREAT time with Papa in her room-they were in there for at least an hour playing and "eating" Now that Katelyn will be moving back home (next week!!) and staying with Nana at first, I have a feeling we will be having quite the family get togethers on Thursday nights!

Weekend Time

We were able to have a nice and relaxing weekend, with great fall weather. Friday night we caught up on some DVR (the Ringer is a GREAT new show FYI) and enjoyed a little Mexican for dinner. Saturday, Emma and I made a quick trip to the fabric store to get things to make her a dress. It turned out really well, except I made the armpits too small-whoops! Luckily, Mom said it is a pretty easy fix so I'll show pictures once it is finished. I had a bunch of Redskins fabric leftover, so I started making a burp cloth for Luke. Matt liked it too much and decided to keep it as a golf towel. I thought it would be cute to make a dress, to match Emma's skirt, for her Bitty Baby Maddie. She LOVED it when I showed her the final product. Saturday night, Matt grilled up some steaks and huge baked potatoes! Fall is all about the pumpkin-especially pumpkin beer. We were at the store, getting things for dinner and wanted to get our first pumpkin beer of the season. There was a nice little selection at Harris Teeter and we were having a tough time trying to narrow down our selection. Matt ended up getting three different types and we decided to have a little tasting at home. The three we picked were-Shipyard, Ichabod, and Blue Moon. Shipyard was the winner, hands down. It has a great pumpkin taste and a hint of cinnamon as well. Ichabod was the most expensive and the least favorite. We plan on taking a trip to Total Wine to pick up a few more variety's to try. Sundays in our house are all about football-especially since Matt now has the NFL Ticket. Of course I had to snap some family pictures of everyone decked out in our attire. I had to run to the grocery store (it is pretty small and all the ladies who work there recognize us) with Emma and Luke; and every lady working immediately said something similar to "Look at them in all their Redskins"and thought Emma was the cutest thing in her little outfit. It was so funny and they were all just eating it up!

 Twins! The dress I made for her baby, Maddie.

 Family photo

Six Months

This has been quite the week, that is for sure! Emma has been under the weather since last Friday and it is finally almost all out of her system. She woke up Tuesday sounding awful and complaining of a sore throat-no school for her! I had an appointment for Luke's six month check-up on Thursday and I was able to get it switched to Tuesday and got her an appointment as well. She had a very red throat and a slight fever still. The doctor thought she would be good by Wednesday or Thursday. She didn't make it to school Thursday, but should be able to go back Tuesday.
I can't believe that Luke is already six months old! Time has gone even faster with him than Emma. I have to say that things are completely different between having your first and having your second. I know that every time Emma even made a strange look, we called the doctor to make sure everything was fine. Now we just go with the flow and know if something's serious or not (nothing yet, thankfully!!). Luke's temperament is almost the exact same as Emma's was. He is a very happy baby and a great sleeper at night. He wakes up laughing and smiling-even if he's covered in pee (one thing that rarely happened with Emma but seems to be common in boys!). He's also having a few nap issues just like Emma did. Sometimes it is still hard to gauge exactly where his development should be since he's tracking as a four month old and I can't always remember when Emma did certain things. I do know that his arms and legs are a lot stronger than her's ever were. He pushes himself up all the time and loves having his legs locked straight. We are very blessed to have such laid back babies; even when he was given four shots he did great. He didn't start crying until the third shot and was done as soon as I picked him up. He weighed in at 13 pounds 10 ounces and is 26.5 inches long. He is still on track for a typical 6 month old-in the 1% for weight and 19% for height. There is still only a 10 pound difference between Emma and Luke (ha!) and I know it won't take long after he starts eating real food that he is passing her in weight.
I was finally able to get a couple of pictures of my sewing projects-ignore Emma's "model faces", she was not in the mood for pictures!

What a Weekend

This weekend proved that things can change in a matter of minutes (no pictures on this post-sorry!). Friday was a busy busy day for us-fabric store, story time at Barnes and Nobles, grocery store, Micheal's, Target and movies...whew! That makes me tired just thinking about it all! We loaded up around 9:30 to get to the fabric store to get the goodies I needed to make a skirt for Emma that Kari was going to help me with on Saturday. According to my online source, B&N story time started at 11:00. We arrived about 10:45 so I could get a coffee and Emma could get a snack. Emma started to get grouchy and I thought a sweet treat would cheer her up for sure. Turns out the story time was at 10! Twice in one week I goofed that up-oh well. Emma was not interested in a snack, so we headed over to the kids area to pick out a book for her and Luke. She fell in love with a My Little Pony book. We then headed out to Micheal's to get supplies for my paint job. Emma was NOT happy-she repeated over and over "I want to go home"-I really wanted to get this table finished. I figured she would calm down when I let her pick out something to paint. I ended up carrying her the whole time with her head on my shoulder. I did manage to get a great product I was looking for (more on that later) and decided that we needed to get home. I hadn't even backed out of the parking spot and she was sound asleep. She slept from 12-4 and woke up some what in a good mood. We ran to Wal-Mart to get spray paint-BAD idea! Emma was fussing the whole time, so I had to carry her. The cart would not go straight, I could not find white spray paint anywhere and then our bag broke-aaahhhh. Once we arrived home, I got her out of the car and she didn't want me to put her down and only wanted me sitting down holding her. She felt really warm so I took her temperature and low and behold, 103 fever! That would explain the wacky behavior. I knew right then, that our weekend was quickly changing. No more movie, no more projects and probably no beach for Matt. This would be our first experience with a sick baby and a healthy baby and I knew I would need help to keep Luke from getting sick. Emma spent the whole night on the couch watching movies and us trying to get her to drink a lot of fluids. She slept in our room and still had a fever on Saturday-so back to the couch she was. Yesterday, she was still warm, so she had to continue her time on the couch. I know she was feeling better, but with her being a little warm I wanted to make sure she took it easy a little longer. Despite all of this, I was able to get two super cute skirts made and started a few more projects. Hopefully by game day, I will have everything made and pictures to share!

Library Day!

Yesterday, I thought, was story time at the library. Story time was at 10:30 and we were picking up Elle from school for a sleepover at 11:50-perfect timing! I thought it would be fun to take Emma to the library for the first time. We headed out a little after 10:15 because the library is literally 2 minutes from our house. I wanted to get there a little early so we could get settled when we got there. As we pulled up, I noticed a lack of cars in the parking lot. The library is not the biggest library, but I would've expected a little more cars in the lot. Oh well! We got Luke in the stroller and off we went. We were in the lobby and I noticed a table with fliers for different upcoming events. I decided to take a look before going in, and that's where I learned the bad news. Story time doesn't start until October 5-that would explain the lack of cars!! We were already there, so I figured we would still go in and let Emma pick out some books. Let me tell you, she made herself right at home! If you know anything about Emma, you know her obsession with shoes, and always having them on. After about 5 minutes in the library, I noticed that she had deserted her flip flops and was wandering the kids section and picking out all kinds of books. She made it to the table with a book in one hand  and her milk in the other-she was right at home. We checked out a Franklin and Curious George book and read them both as soon as we got home. I guess we will be making more trips to the library.

First Day of School!

We have been prepping Emma, for going back to school, for the last week or so. Talking about all of the fun things she was going to get to do-art projects, music, playground, snack and getting to see Elle. We were also planning on bringing Elle home with us and having lunch at Chick-Fi-La. She was getting pretty excited about it, but every now and then would say she wanted to stay home with Mommy and Baby Luke. I was a little worried about how the first day would go, when she stayed and Luke left with me. But she did really well! She was able to sleep in our room Monday night and woke up on her own a little after 8 and we got dressed and ready for some oatmeal. Since I was at her school with her last year, she would often eat and get dressed at school. When we sat down to eat, she said "I want to eat at school Mommy" Of course it was rainy and yucky out, but I was still able to get a picture before we left. She didn't put up too much of a fight when I handed her off to her teacher. Luke and I headed back home and next thing I knew it was 11:40 and time to head back to school. After getting everyone loaded up in the car, we headed off for kids meals at Chick-Fi-La and they had a great time laughing and carrying on. They played until about 3, when I knew Emma was tired. I put her down for a nap and Elle was not happy to leave when Nonnie showed up. Before we know it, Emma is going to be heading off to her first day of Kindergarden!

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day signals the end of summer and the start of lovely fall. No more heat and humidity, going to the pool, long days, staying up late, shorts and flip flops, white dresses, or outdoor cookouts. Now we can look forward to preschool, football, fall colors, my birthday!!, Halloween, lots of candy, costumes, pumpkins, warm clothes, boots, and before we know it-Christmas! The weather was pretty nice Saturday and we brought the kiddie pool out one last time.  Emma and I took a good afternoon nap while Matt watched the App game (sorry honey!) and then we enjoyed Mexican food for dinner. Sunday was another pretty decent weather day and we had a cookout with Kari and Carl that evening. I found a few new recipes to try and they all turned out really yummy! Garlic lemon pepper chicken kabobs with homemade tzatiki sauce, garlic rice pilaf, buttery baked potatoes and some chocolatey brownies for desert. Today has been a lazy, rainy day with laundry, dishes, and spending hours on my new obsession, Pintrest!

Helping fill up the pool!

Craft Time

Remember how I told you to stay tuned Friday for the cute craft Emma and Elle made? Well, here it is!

 Check out these cute, hand painted shirts.

 There name's with the year they were born (the numbers are crooked because the names turned out a little crooked and I was hoping to counteract that!)

It's hard to see on his shirt, but that is an elephant with green polka dots

The girls had SO much fun making the shirts-if you couldn't tell by the pictures, the petals are their feet, the stem is their arm and the flowers are their hands. Freezer paper stenciling is what I used for their names, birth years, and Luke's elephant. I am having a lot of fun with the stenciling and it is SUPER easy!! I know there will be many more painted shirts in our future!