He Is Risen, Indeed!

I hope you all had some time to reflect and celebrate Easter with your family this Sunday. We had a fun day here making dyed eggs and chocoalte bird nests with malted eggs. The littlest kids were so excited to have some plastic eggs. I will never understand it, but they just love those things. From our sweeties to you, Happy Easter!

PS. I told you my pictures would get better. I know it's a small improvement, hang with me. I'll get the hang of this thing!

pillowcase dresses and yo-yo hairbows

Maiden doesn't have nearly enough dresses. Nope. I think that her 50 or so dresses are seriously deficient for a girl of her age. Yes, I would be remiss if I did not sew at least 10 or more a month. So, to that end I introduce the most recent projects I have attempted...pillowcase dresses with trim. Maleah made the yo-yos for the hairbows. That makes me laugh everytime I think it. yoyo. hairbow. Say it out loud. You know you want to. Ok, so here are the picks.

Surely, you do not need another tutorial to walk you through the pillowcase dress. There are so many fantastic ones out there and I really like Crafty Gemini's youtube channel tutorials for this project. Just do a search for Crafty Gemini and you should come up with scads and scads of examples. She's great! Way better than I am.
Ps. I know my picture taking skills are so terrible. I have a plan to address that. It's just going to take time. Hang with me!

!!!!!Pom Pom Trim!!!!! Eeeee!!!!

Ok, I know I can't be the only one who swoons over adorable trim. Let me show you something I fell in love with...

Yep, this little yellow pom pom trim.  I had a scrap of this fabric and some eyelet left from another project so I whipped up a little skirt. The great thing is that it matches with the little crochet shrug I made for Maiden this fall. It was a little too big then but it finally fits nicely and matches so sweetly with this skirt and her little peasant blouse.  I will post some pictures of that whole ensemble as soon as I get the time to do something other than run shuttle to baseball practice for the boys. That might be in, oh, August?

Ps. How do you like that custom baby scribble mousepad? Tres chic!

Resolution run off course

Sigh...I hope I'm not the only one who has lost momentum on their New Year's Resolution. I made a pact with myself to become more aware of my time, spending, and eating. I wan't going to say diet or budget or schedule. I know myself well enought to know that those words would deflate my enthusiasm right away. It just sounds too regimented for my style. My pact was just to carefully think ahead about what I was going to buy or eat or how i needed to spend my time the next few days. I was doing really well until about 3 weeks ago. I let myself get lazy. I am, however, making attempts to get back in gear. I have started writing a menu plan that I can pick and choose meals from a list. I have started making a few meals ahead twice a week. This saves me time in the morning and a few nights a week when we have one of those ready to heat meals.

The time thing is really what is tough for me. As a stay-at-home mom, I have a little more freedom to reschedule what I want. I have taken that opportunity a bit too often lately, making the expectations for the children more uncertain. That results in idle hands and you know what they say about that. I am trying to work back into our old schedule of 8 AM breakfast, 9 AM homeschool, noon lunch and 12:30 nap for baby and quietwork. It's tough to keep things on schedule for me in the mornings. I am not a morning person. I am cranky. And puffy. And I squint a lot. A good morning for me would start at 10:30 if I could choose, but then I miss half the day because you normal people all get up at a decent hour and do stuff and leave me behind. Humph.

What do you find helpful when you are planning your meals? your budget? your schedule? Are you a calendar person? Do you use your checkbook register? Cash envelopes? spreadsheets? what about menu planning? Do you shop the ads?  I plan to take the best of the tips I find and make a post for each to share with you in the coming weeks. So, gimme what you got! Let's band together and get back on track!

Blogging is so crazy

Am I the only one who reads their stats and is just blown away that someone in Australia or Germany or some other far away country would have any interest in what they have to say? 

I mean, no one really wants to listen to me in my own house.

 Can you blame me for being surprised that I have an audience in a foreign country?

It's very flattering. And awesome. And so surreal.

What about you? Do you check your stats?

Isn't it crazy that we  can just click a few keys and find ourselves looking into the lives of people seemingly so different and foreign? I can't believe how close I feel to some of the bloggers I follow. It's like I know them and we're buds. I see them grow their families and I get so excited for them.

 I see them show off their creativity and get inspired by them. I read about their struggles and feel compelled to pray for many of them. It's just so wild what the Internet has allowed us to do. We hear a lot about the dangers and the negative things the Internet has brought into our lives. I don't want to discount that at all, but there is this great supportive community that has sprung up, too. So, to all of my fellow bloggers and those readers and followers who may stumble across my humble blog home, I welcome you and invite you to come back often! Let's be blog buds!  

My Fabulous Birthday Present

I have a wonderful husband. Let's just get that out there first. Ok, now that we have established that fact, I want to show you what he bought me for my birthday!

I have been searching for something tall to occupy a wall in my dining room. I painted the walls red (Glidden's Red Delicious, to be exact) this fall. I had been looking at antiques and ran across this beauty. As soon as I saw her, I knew she had to be the one. Funky, bright, unconventional yet folksy and old fashioned. Ah, it was love. I texted a pic to the hubs thinking he would balk at her cartoonish paint and shabby style. Instead, he said, if you love it, I will come get it with my truck. I think those were the most romantic words I have heard him say in years. I'm not sure if you understand how much I love this weird piece of furniture. It makes me so happy to see her sitting there in my dining room. I've almost settled on a name. She's either a Daisy or a Maude.  For now, I'm putting my entertaining pieces in there like table linens, serving trays and platters. I'm pretty sure the roosters are going into storage when the curtains are completed. The whole room is going to be so cheery and fun.                                                    

Can you believe it's been 9 months since my last post? Me either! Life has changed so much for our family in those nine months, and no, I'm not pregnant. Not for the moment at least.
Our family moved to Alabama after living 12 years in our first home in Tennessee. It was a long awaited move to a bigger home for our family of 8 but it was still a little bittersweet. I thought I would catch you all up today about the move and our new home. Most of you know my husband travels in his career so I am flying solo with the kids pretty often. Wouldn't you know that when the contract came in for our home sale he was out of town and didn't come home until the night before closing! And when we purchased our new home, again, out of town and I had to juggle closing by myself with the children. Thank the Lord for our amazing realtor, Maggie, and her two teenage daughter and even her husband! They kept the children occupied while I signed papers. Whew! Our first home which we moved from was about 1100 square feet. Or new home is more than twice that size! You cannot imagine the cartwheels and whoops and hollers we experienced the first few weeks. We are also just a few miles from family now, so that has been such a blessing! I love having family cookouts and Sunday dinners after church with everyone playing and laughing and chatting. We also have met our neighbors and let me tell you...delightful! I've made a few friends. The kids have made friends. We've signed up for sports. We've found our church home. It's all coming together at last. And I did promise you some remodeling and DIY projects. I'll get to that soon. For now, enjoy these photos of our family and our journey over the last several months!

Closing Day at Last!

Moving Day

(you can tell I had just tons of help:)

Playing on the Lower Deck a.k.a. The Castle

Roses for the Sisters ;)

Halloween Huddle in the Foyer

School Projects in the Dining Room

My Thanksgiving Dining Table Arrangement

 Christmas Tree in the Living Room

Pretty Baby

School Shelves in the Den

 Our Lovely Oriental Inspired Red Half-bath