our fun leaf project! and other pictures

We did some Cherokee left printing this week, before all the leaves fall. We got two beautiful October Glory maples this year and their leaves turned bright red, so we went out in the yard and picked up a bunch of different leaves from all the trees and plants. I found the tutorial through Ms. Anne's Film & Thread blog.

Leaves from blueberry bushes (reddish purple), magnolia bush (yellow) and lantana (green). The very bottom one is from the pin oak.
far left is the Oct Glory maple, then some more magnolia, blueberry, and a few strawberry plant leaves.
Joshua is arranging the leaves on an old tshirt scrap. Wanted a few practice sessions before I do this on real fabric to use for something other then a memento! It's trickier than it looks...


Joshua hammered all he could, then I had to do the rest. I was not prepared for how tired my arms were going to get!
Zoe took a turn too.

made some korker ribbon for hairbows. This could be addictive - they're so easy! Good thing I'm so bored and have nothing else to do.

I just had to take a picture of him loving this raw broccoli. He's been eating it all week, and so has Zoe!Joshua was very proud of his creation. He did this while I was putting Zoe to bed and when I came out he asked me to take a picture to show Daddy :)He asked me to take a picture of him. He picked this shirt out himself (it's my favorite :). What's on bottom, you ask... Lightning McQueen underpants.
Zoe started sitting in the car table... and Joshua followed suit. Right before I took this photo, they were both in there together.

And right before I took this photo, they were fighting over this little chair.

Sew and Tell Friday

This is my first time participating in Sew and Tell Friday, to which I was introduced by Leslie, who finished an adorable vintage shower curtain this week. The projects I actually finished this week were a couple gifts for a baby shower to which my neighbor is going tomorrow. (So, really, I had 2 deadlines!). And a cute card. I didn't sew it, but it's still cute. Emily, I wish I was sending it to you for Darby :( The Mac is not cooperating, operator error, I'm sure, so no picture of the card today.

I saw some kimono booties on Etsy and had some envy issues, so I googled it and found a free (yes, free) pattern here. I'm now a 'follower', of course. I will follow anyone who gives me a pattern this cute for free. If you don't need booties, she has other free patterns too.

Here's the coordinating bib I made, because what baby shower would be complete without booties and a bib?! I had this hobby lobby (gasp.) fabric left from decorating Zoe's room. Here's how I made it, which, since I don't know how to sew, is probably the most 'wrong' and inefficient way imaginable. But don't tell me that, because I don't know the difference. Anyway, trace the bib that you gravitate towards for your baby because it's the right size and doesn't choke her. Trace it onto the back of a cereal box or similar material, adding 1/4" seam. Trace that onto your fabric, and backing (I traced 1/2 and flipped the pattern to make sure my bib was symmetrical). Spray baste the front and back together, and stipple. (In retrospect, I should have used heat n bond or something to bond the front & back instead of quilting. That would probably be the right way to do it. Tell me your way...) Oh well, it's cute and will catch drool & food. Make bias tape (I used 1.75" strips), and bind. I used chenille for the backing. Mmmm, fluffy. Sew on a snap or velcro (I'm using a snap and kinda cheated because I haven't actually done that yet, so I'm not really finished... and I still have a few inches of binding left to blind stitch. Shhh.)

cold case...

Apparently, Zoe and the lady with the bad hair on Cold Case go to the same hairdresser. Not that Zoe's got bad hair, she's a baby, she can make anything look cute.

This is what she did when I asked "Joshua, would you like to go outside?"

Straight to the sandbox, of course.

Zoe got up all by herself...
She was pretty excited about it!Go, speed racer, go

Then back up to the decks... this is what the flowers are looking like lately. I cut back these marigolds because they were tall and unruly, and they started all over again. I would have cut them back sooner had I known it would rejuvinate them so well!

I'm going to take some tip cuttings from this geranium to see if I can have some ready for next spring. The big green plant is the Acuba I got from my Nonna. My great grandmother had brought it over from Ireland when they moved here. **(I should clarify that this is not THE acuba... just a cutting of it. Since it came over almost 100 years ago, it has been propagated a lot since then. My Nonna has a HUGE hedge of the stuff, and this was just one of the many she has propagated. Fortunately for me, it is hard to kill and easy to grow. I would not have wanted to be entrusted with the only specimen)** The impatiens next to it really like that spot, I may try to propagate some cutting of my impatiens too. I have some inside already.

I stole this...

OK, not really, but I got it off Craigslist and felt pretty guilty about how little I paid for it. It's got 215 different stitches and Craig challenged me to use them all... I'm about 1/2 way there just from playing with it last night! I've already stippled a coaster, just to try out the darning foot & adjust the tension. I can't wait to do a real quilt! It has lots of fun features to make sewing easier (it even threads the needle for me!!) and, Joshua's favorite feature, it's quiet! He used to shhh me when I was sewing because my other machine was too loud :( However, while we were on our way to pick it up, he asked me where we were going. I told him we were going to get a sewing machine and he said "Mommy, you already have a sewing machine, you don't need another one" Ohhhh, but I do, Little Craig, I do... Big Craig was very supportive of my purchase, even moreso when I explained that by spending $100 on this machine, I saved myself from spending more on a new one. This machine retails for $450, so I think I did pretty well. It also came with the sewing table made to go with it, instructions, all the parts, the unopened instructional DVD, and a $20 singer sewing book! I'm very grateful to the seller as well; it would have been a Looooong time before I could buy a nice machine like this otherwise. He had bought it for his wife to see if she wanted to take up sewing. Obvs it didn't work out. It looks brand new, I can't actually tell that's it's ever been used! Lucky me! I brought him a little fabric flower pin I had made to give his wife as a consolation prize :) Still felt a little guilty... Still felt a little guilty... until I saw a lady selling her husband's '07 F150 with the description "My husband is a cheating SOB, first $1000 takes it" Then, I didn't feel so badly.

Here's my Simple Abundance jelly roll waiting to be made into pillows for the bed (see how perfectly it matches the quilt?! I love it!)

Dancing Babies

Zoe was doing some squats with my Body Pump video. She's a natural!

I told you it was important...

Here's my very important rug. It was mostly just important for me to get it off my to do list. We had a pile of tshirts for rags and I felt like there were too many - and heaven forbid I throw anything out. ever. I used 3 white, 2 brown and 1 gray, cut them into 1/2" strips from the bottom up to the armpits, and put the remaining crop top back in the rag pile. I just followed this tutorial , but I decided to put a little border around mine so as to detract from its semi-trapezoidal shape, because I'm pretty horrible at crocheting, especially evenly or with the right tension. I wanted an oval, but after 3 tries at getting started I gave up and opted for a simpler shape. I've done it before for baby booties, but just couldn't git 'er done this time b/c the bulky material made it hard to tell what was what. Yes, that's my excuse. Refer to the part where I explained that I'm horrible at crochet. You heard me, I'm a quitter. Don't worry, I'm ok with it.

front (or back)

back (or front :)

Look how tiny and cute it is! It's pretty thick & cushy though. I'm using it as a bathmat in Joshua & Zoe's bathroom. Just big enough to soak up her little puddle. (p.s. that is NOT a paci. It's a teething thingy)

bonus recipe (and costume #2)

For those of you new followers, thanks for visiting. Since I doubt you're following my blog just because you love to see 15 pictures of my children, I'll throw in an added bonus! Here's a recipe for what I call 'Roper's Dip', only because I got the recipe from my friend Roper. Last time I made it, someone told me it was like their 'Texas Sin' recipe. While I'm not really a big fan of sin, I think that's a better description of the nearly-sinful goodness of this dip.

1 round french bread loaf

1/4 c butter

1 bunch green onions

12 cloves garlic

8 oz cream cheese - room temp cut into 1" cubes

1 pt. sour cream

1 jar marinated atrichoke hearts

12-16 oz grated cheddar

Sautee onions & garlic in butter. Mix sour cream and cheddar in large bowl. Add onions and garlic. Mix. Fold in chopped artichoke hearts and cream cheese. Mix. Cut off top of loaf, Hollow out, fill with dip and place top back on. Wrap in 2 layers of foil. Bake at 350 for 1.5-2 hours. Stir lightly. Serve w/ bread cubes (below) or tortilla chips.

Cut bread you hollowed out into cubes. Lay on cookie sheet, spray with pam and sprinkle with garlic salt. Toast in the oven while baking the dip (watch carefully so you don't burn them!)

Here's Joshua in costume #2, and Joshua and Zoe watching a video of Daddy reading a construction book. He sent the video when he was deployed over Christmas last year. Zoe was so excited when she saw him on the TV; she just pointed and kept saying Da! Da! Da! I had to put her in the pack n play because she was all up on the table trying to reach 'Da!' on the TV.
This is Joshua's firefighter costume. He told me that he needed a yellow jacket, a tank and a hose so that he could be a firefighter, so we found him the requested items and off he went. Oh, the sippy cup is in the backpack because he said he needed water in his tank.