new old jeans

before:after:
I found these 5T babyGap jeans at a thrift store and thought of my little neighbor who just turned 5... and that she hands all her clothes down to Zoe so I'll get them back eventually. I wear jeans with holes in them, but sometimes I don't think that's too cute on kiddos... so I wanted to cutesie them up for her. These flowers came off a thrift store vest. Don't worry, I never intended to wear the vest, just use the applique flowers. Oh, and I had to applique them on by hand. The only thing I like to do by hand is bind quilts, so this was an act of love.

Nursing Cover

Made a nursing cover for my friend Phoebe who had a little baby girl on Apr 21st. I sent her a picture of all the fabrics I had enough of to make one (28"x39" + a 28x3 strip) and she picked this fabric. The tutorial I used is here. This is my first nursing cover using this pattern. I made one 4 years ago to use with my son, but didn't use a pattern. It came out perfectly for my size but was not one size fits all so I wanted to find a different pattern. I came out wearing it and Craig said "well that's a cute little apron."

Prom Night

We had a great time visiting with Craig's parents and getting away to Nashville for the unit formal while they watched the kids. Thank you Ma & Pa!! I'm thinking we forgot to take pictures because this is all I have! Hopefully they have more on their camera!

Detour to Greece... of course I'm kidding, this is the Parthenon in Nashville. We'd never been anywhere in Nashville (other than Mellow Mushroom, Ruth's Chris, Opryland & the zoo) so we did touristy things. Thank goodness for the garmin or I would have wanted to stay in the hotel room the whole time.
Like I said, touristy.

hey look, we're both singing!

Guest Appearance

We love it when Daddy stops by for a visit while he's at work...

The other day Zoe (22 mos) was sitting in her high chair and started singing Jesus Loves Me. She sang the whole thing! In this video, she stopped short of the chorus because I had a snickers bar behind my back. Now, everytime she goes to get her Bible to read, she walks around calling it the "Bible tells me so." Joshua used to call his Bible his "Bible study" and carry it around under his arm like Daddy.

For those of you not on facebook... Joshua's latest funny statement was, on the way to time out, "I need to move to a different house, this house isn't very fun"

Latest funny convo between the two of them:

Zoe: no whining

Joshua: I'm not whining Zoe

Zoe: ok, you complaining

blogworthy

Coconut Popcorn! Read on...

I felt very clever and gourmet when I thought of this yesterday... however, like many of my culinary adventures, I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Also, ideas for most of the stuff I make or do come from other peoples' ideas, so I was pretty excited that I might have actually had a good idea all by myself!

So here it is... cold & rainy day, in the mood for homemade popcorn, saw the coconut oil in the pantry. So I said to myself "self, what's the flash point of coconut oil?" and after a brief google search it was determined that making popcorn using unrefined coconut oil over medium - medium high heat would not burn down the house (medium heat. 5-7 out of 10). I used a spoonful of coconut oil (it's solid so it was more like a scoop... a couple tbsp) and about 1/4-1/3 c popping corn. I also added a dash of sesame oil. Over medium heat, most of the kernels popped perfectly. There was a hint of coconut which was perfect because I wasn't tempted to add any salt. The kids loved it too!

hexagon quilt

I got a jelly roll for $10 at walmart and wanted to try a hexagon quilt. Here it is all basted and ready to quilt. I'm not sure how to quilt it, suggestions?

It was a fun quilt top to make. I don't love the fabrics, but I like how the dark brown and green jump out.

***since a few of you have commented, I'll mention that I got that jelly roll for $10 because I think our walmart was getting rid of their fabric section. Which is good... my trips to walmart will be shorter now :) The disadvantage to their jelly rolls is that there are only about 5 fabrics in them, and they're not great quality and definitely not cut straight. you get what you pay for, but I was just looking for something to play around with. The only thing our walmart has now are precuts (FQs, charm packs, FQ bundles, and a few other things. I didn't see any jelly rolls this last time)

Please go visit Sew & Tell Friday to see how productive everyone else has been! And see 'amylouwho's adorable baby. I think that makes her exempt from sewing anything this week...

Take me to your leader...

Joshua gave himself a tat while making Mothers' Day cards. (it's an alien)
our first strawberries and some stevia. I deadheaded about 100 strawberries and flowers today on our 1st year plants, and I only took about 1/3 of what was there. We still have our parent plants which have tons of berries on them also. planning to dry and crumble the stevia leaves. Maybe I'll be able to fill this whole bottle!We visited neighbors while we were out for a walk and they sent us home with some beautiful homegrown flowers.

Sweet William (the leaves on the right are acuba from my Nonna) in my new favorite vases
Irises on the right and roses & sweet William on the left.

Zoe making Mothers' Day cards

Zoe gets a wee bit excited about walmart. Joshua, who can pronounce walmart correctly, likes to play along.