Oh busy day...

How does a day that had no plans end up so busy and long? Oh yes... I like projects. Do I? My track record proves a yes on that. Lola just crashed and I'm about to snuggle up with Clayton and watch some Conan.

Post some cute pics this week and a fun before and after... Scratch the fun- make that cheap.


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Etsy Addiction

It’s impossible not to get all giddy over the thousands of creative homemade and vintage lovelies on Etsy… therefore it makes for an addicting site, but I am proud to say I am not half as bad as my mother! Haha…

But I only have a minute and I saw this adorable garland from YoYo Cottage so wanted to share it!  Of course I wonder if I could make it, but her prices are darn good- so the temptation to try has immediately left my brain (for now).  She has some in all colors and I think this would be so cute for parties, baby rooms, etc… Love it.

 

Missed the cute pillow!  I love it!

“No.”

So I know I’ve been bad blogging this past month but hopefully December will be filled with lots more!

Thanksgiving was wonderful- we had such a good time and enjoy getting to have two Thanksgiving, one with each family.  We are so blessed to have great families and friends.  Since Sunday was our Thanksgiving day with the Swartz’- we got to make it to the lake this year for some R&R.  Seriously, Clay and I took the back seat whenever possible and let everyone else entertain Lola.  Haha… all and all it was such a great Thanksgiving break!  We got to see lots of Clay!  And another big thanks is we get to see lots more of Clay now with some amazing changes!  So, I was trying to figure out if God was blessing us and what have we done to deserve such a faithful and loving God.  He’s been very faithful and apparent in our marriage and family. 

Never busted out the camera during Thanksgiving except this one time outside before we left to go to Gram and Poppers…

“gobble, gobble”

Lola loves the squirrel.

      

     

I actually put up Christmas the day before Thanksgiving despite Clay being quite the scrooge over it all.  Lola loves the tree and LOVES bringing me ornaments off of it.  At first when I started decorating the tree, she kept saying “hot” and wouldn’t touch it.  So for the entire day I had to convince her it was NOT hot and she could help me… WHAT WAS I THINKING??  Laughing.  Now I have to rehang ornaments all day and have swept and vacuumed up at least 5 broken ones.  Gotta’ love having a baby in the house.  How boring life must have been before her!

This evening Clay is putting up lights on our house  (cheesin’) thanks to Lola’s surprising and very cute amusement with lights this year.   She loves seeing all the houses decorated in our neighborhood and screams “Ights! Ights!  Mor!” because she can’t get enough! 

Speaking of her jibber jabber, Aubrey is quite the talker now!  Seriously… crazy.  Plenty of sentences and clearly stated words- I told Laura not long ago when she thought Aubrey wouldn’t be talking this much that she would indeed… but now I am saying the same thing to Laura and she is reassuring me that it just happens!  Lola is talking a whole lot, but still words are hard to make out.  It’s so bazaar how fast they grow.  Everyone told me not to blink, and it’s true.  I seriously need to bust out the Flip way more often now! Lola has learned “and” and says names that go together with “and” in the middle. 

“Momma and Daddy”

“Maw-Maw and Kaw-Kaw” (Still haven’t mastered all our P’s in words)

“Ernie and Bert” (Def need to get a recording of these last two)

If I say Gram, she says Popper, because she can’t say Gram quite yet.  Although a little progress has been made and she has spit it out a couple of times. 

I bought her My First Christmas Book where it has the simple pictures and words so she could be more familiar with Christmas and it has worked.  She knows Santa and what he says, christmas tree, cookies, lights, reindeer, elf, and tons more!  I think Christmas will be lots of fun this year.  At Thanksgiving she got her TG present under the tree at the lakehouse and periodically through the day she kept going back to the tree and pointing underneath saying “more!”  So looks like she gets the “gift concept” now.

We had a great day last week where the weather was still warm so Laura and I took the girls to the park. Wished I had dressed Lola cuter and done her hair normal so the pictures looked better… but eh.  They are still the two cutest girls ever.  And doesn’t Aubrey really look 2 now!  Not much longer! 

 

Park Pictures:

Aubrey hates the swings… See!

  

And Lola just is content wondering what Aubrey’s fuss is about?  Haha- look at the grip Aubrey has on Laura’s shirt!

Today Lola liked the swings again- Yay!

Aubrey’s little cute face…

Hahahaha… she looks so intense…

Aubrey can jump off the slides!

We tried our hardest to get a cute picture of them together- not too bad.  Lola seriously is so affectionate with Aubrey.  Cracks me up!

 

Still sewing quite a bit and passed this Sesame Street material three times until I was convicted over not buying it for Lola and making her pants out of it… so without further… what’s the saying?  Oh well.  Here.

Pretty cute, huh!? Even for Character Clothing! Haha… she really loves them which makes me happy. 

I feel like I have so many things to show you via pictures and need to take a few more so I can post about them… I will, I will, promise.

My child loves chocolate yogurt and it’s even the fat free kind.  Haha…

 

So Lola has really become much more toddler like now.  Very distinct ideas and wants.  Communicating better.  Learning to follow directions better. 

A big development- seriously hilarious is Lola is quite the Daddy’s girl and I am LOVING it… I was warned it may be sad when they start to switch over but ha!   I think it’s pretty amusing when she wants only him to give her a bath, feed her, rock her… :)  Gives ol’ momma a break!  She still is a huge momma girl- but Clay seems to have a new #1 fan.  Haha…

 

So to wrap around to the title- Lola is a broken record when it comes to the word “No.”  How babies learn this word and concept so fast beats me.  It’s never just one “no” either- it’s like five in a row.  All day long.  Kebby was trying to teach her to say “ok” which is a great idea because Lola won’t say “yes” just to spite me… but we are trying to build “okay mom” into the vocabulary.  Which now that I think about it- doesn’t seem to be a regular in my own vocab with my own mom.  Haha- poor moms.  We are paid back with tiny baby hugs around our shins, extra long baby naps, and free grandma baby sitters.   I guess you can say it’s more than worth it.  Oh goodness- Lola why are you so darn lovable?

 

Has anyone finished the Christmas shopping yet?  Pretty close, thankfully.  Has it occurred to anyone that Santa must be the richest person ever?  Ho, ho, ho…

Much love to all my readers who have been asking where I have been in the blog world… and Meme, I promise to call you really soon.  When Lola wakes up we can Skype ya!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

I’ll show pictures of our trees and lights next post!  Yaya!  Oh and I have easy, breezy Christmas ornaments you can make- great for baby trees! 

Felt Hell

So my mom makes tons of sugar cookies every holiday season and some in between and we always called it “cookie hell”… well now I am in “felt hell” for Lola and partly me since I am obsessed with the pretend felt foods… I thought it would make super girly-cute and cheap Christmas gifts for Lola- but maybe I am making them for my inner 5 year old girl self….  and it is certainly cheap unless you go felt overboard.   

Thanks to Gulf Coast Cottage on Etsy I found cheap patterns to start with… they really, really help and give you a good place to start and then with some creativity you can tweak them a little or a lot and even learn to make new things!

I originally was going to put these in her stocking, but now most may be actual gifts!

First up- Pies: Pumpkin Pie, Strawberry Pie, Cherry and Blueberry Pie, Key Lime Pie, and Apple Pie  (I bought the cake pan at Dollar Tree and it was just about perfect!)

I tweaked the Strawberry Pattern and like it way better! 

I have also made breakfast foods and the start of fruits and veggies… it’s pretty addicting and pretty portable… when Clay and I were out the other night I took the cut pieces of felt and needle and thread so I could use driving time to stitch it all up which worked out great!

 

So this little diva apparently has me forgetting that Christmas presents really aren’t that big of a deal to 20 month old.  (Clay and I took her to the Dollar Tree the other day and she fell in love with two ugly babies there and had to have them and then I wondered why I got such a cute, pricey one for Christmas when $1 babies made her really happy?)  Got to love that simplicity thing they have going for them.

   

    

  

 

P.S.  November has been a wonderful month for us and I am full of thankfulness… more to come.

Gift Idea

So as always Prudent Baby never disappoints me- seriously- if you don’t read it, you should!  You are missing out.  Majorly!

Anyways I needed a cool idea for gifts for people I love that wouldn’t set me back a fortune and Prudent Baby had just the thing at just the time.  They often have really good timing by the way.  

Homemade Body Scrub- so I decided this would be perfect!  (Sorry… ruining a few surprises for some of my friends!)  I love the idea of homemade remedies for your body! 

This can be done as thrify as one would like costing next to nothing or as expensive as one would like depending on the oil, scents, jars, sugar, etc…  And… of course for my friends this was on the super expensive side using imported rare oils and crystal jars  

But on a great thrifty note, the fabric I used was a lifesaver and from a garage sale where I got over 50 different yards of fabric for $7.  And I had to pay with a check due to no cash, and the sweet old lady brought me the rest of the pretty fabrics after the garage sale was over because she had my address and she said she would rather give it to a young enthusiast sewer rather than the trash!  Wasn’t that sweet!  Well this ticking was in shreds leftover from a project she must have used it for and I really never thought it would do many any good, but I washed it and stored it anyway because I just loved it and ta-da!