I purchased some Stonehill Collection floral fabric from JoAnn’s a few months ago, I didn’t know what I was going to do with it but it was too cute to pass up.  Late last month I happened to find myself at Old Navy looking at their spring kids collection and noticed the color scheme was very similar to the print I bought.  Old Navy’s spring collection inspired me to make a shirt out of the print for my youngest.

I liked the simple understated style of Burda 9491 and decided to give it a go.  I hate burda patterns, I have always had difficulty with them.  This one was no exception.  To make the pintucks you cut a square of fabric (via a pattern piece), stitch the tucks and then lay another pattern piece out to cut the yoke pieces.  Well I did that, and my square of fabric came out a bit too small for the next pattern piece.  I cut it out anyway and figured I’d play with the width of the front piece to make it work…well when I sewed them in they fit perfect.  The mandarin collar was a bit tricky too- the piece didn’t fit quite right.

I’m happy with the way it turned out.  I managed to sew it all in a day.  I mentioned on instagram that sometimes I start projects because I have an over whelming urge to finish something.  It can be very frustrating to go through your day completing tasks (like the laundry or cleaning the kitchen) that will need to be completed again and again through out the day.  So, sometimes I ignore the chores (and the children) and work on something concrete that can be finished and stay finished!!  It helps my sanity every once in a while to do this.

Big thanks to my husband who brought home take out for the grownups and for my kids who were satisfied with bagels and strawberries!

Today my awesome husband (the man who didn’t like my hair this morning) turned 38.  My 8year old daughter made him the best card EVER:

“Happy Birthday Dad.  Happy Birthday Old Man.”

“Happy Birthday for the greatest old man who is turning 38 is also the bestist Old Man in history. So happy birthday old man. p.s. enjoy being old”

I’m making sure we keep this card long enough to return the favor on her 38th birthday!!

Happy Birthday to a great guy who avoids the limelight as if it were a contagious plague.  Love You!

Believe it or not, I started working on these in mid January.  I was so proud of myself for being so ahead of the game, that I put the *almost* finished design on the back burner for a while.  Now, here it is 2 days before the big day and I just finished the photo shoot for you!  Sheesh!

These printable valentines have a sewing theme (seemed appropriate over here, no?!) and can be made with a variety of candies.

I chose a variety of small flat (ish) candies to use as my buttons.  All candies are adhered using Corn Syrup.  It is very sticky and will hold tight, but most important- it is totally edible.  I just used a Q-tip (you could also use a paint brush) to dab some syrup to the back of the candy and stuck it to the paper.  It is a bit gooey to work with, similar to hot glue- but no burns!

A review of the candies I tried:

• Sprees- they looked good, but were bigger than the guide dots I placed on the valentine cards, so they looked a little off.
• Sweetart Heats- these looked really cute and tasted good!
• Buttons- These were by far the easiest to adhere.  I simple trimmed the paper and stuck it down with Karo, but since the candy is on paper, you could even glue it down.  I also think washi tape would be a good way to stick it down.

I suppose if your children’s school was anti-candy you could add a small sticker sheet.

Download the valentine pdf HERE and Happy Valentines Day!

If you have been following a long you know I have made both of my daughters small throw quilts (older daughters here, youngest here).  My son has recently been asking if I am going to make one for him too.  I started pinning and planning for some grand design that would suit his spatial and linear strengths.  Then he asked again a few months later if I was ever going to make a quilt for him.  I decided to just go for it.  I pulled out all of my green, yellow, brown, red and blue scraps and started cutting 4.5″ squares.

I have always loved a scrappy quilt, don’t get me wrong I do enjoy a polished well planned, color coordinated quilt too.  But a scrappy quilt just begs to be used and loved, while a nicer quilt is meant more for looking at.  I was inspired by this great quilt at Film In The Fridge.  I loved the bold colors and cross hatched quilting.

I added a  bit of sashing on my quilt to keep it from being too square, and I backed it in a soft brown flannel.  It looks great on the end of his bed and is perfect for family movie night on the couch (something we try and do every friday- have any good non-animated family movies to recommend?)  I’m really pleased with how well the quilt turned out (and best of all, so is my son!).

When I posted shots of the quilt in progress on facebook I kept getting comments asking how I found the time to sew.  I’m not going to create any grand illusions here, my 3yo became quite adept at watching My Little Pony on the Kindle and my laundry situation is just embarrassing.  This week I’ll be playing catch-up to the floors, bathrooms and laundry!

*Last Spring I took a creative writing class, over the next few months I’m going to share some of the autobiographical pieces that I wrote.*

I met Joni in the sixth grade.  I’m not even sure how we met, just that we became friends.  I liked Joni because she wasn’t like all the other girls.  She wasn’t concerned about which tube socks best matched her Units outfit; but we both still tight rolled our jeans.  Her hair was long, thick and wavy.  She didn’t wear big outfit matching bows or side pony tails in an attempt to look cool.  Joni was her own -remarkable confident for sixth grade-self.

She lived in the older (what would now be referred to as urban regentrification) neighborhood.  Her family lived in a great big old Victorian near the community mercantile (the local granola-y grocery store).  It was also a perk that she lived a block away from Phillip, our sixth grade heart throb.  We spent many afternoons accidentally walking by his house.

Joni’s parents were what I would now call crunchy.  I don’t know what her father did for a living, probably worked for the University.  I don’t even know if her mother worked outside the home. It wouldn’t surprise me if she worked for the county extension and both grew and ground her own wheat.  Joni’s family did not own a television.  They would gather in the living room and listen to the radio together.

Despite being an only child Joni’s parents were surprisingly hands off.  When we played at Joni’s house we had the freedom to explore and wander at will.  They were a very different family from the one I grew up in.  My sister and I practically raised ourselves on a steady diet of MTV, Days of Our Lives and taking Happy Meals with us to PG-13 movies.  One New Year’s Eve one year I remember Joni’s father going outside and banging a pot while yelling “Free Nelson Mandela”.  I was too afraid to ask who that was and why he needed freeing.

I remember the first time I was invited to dinner at Joni’s house.  It was early fall and there was a chill in the air.  The leaves of the giant Maples in her neighborhood were starting to turn a beautiful shade of orange.  Her mother had prepared a homemade chili for us.  It was nothing like any chili I had ever had before. I’m sure it tasted good, if your taste buds could still taste anything after the first few bites.  After eating a few polite bites I downed my Kool-Aide and refilled it (a drink that in retrospect seems so out of place at that table).  Joni’s mother had made a warm pan of cornbread, something I normally didn’t like too much.  This time however,  I cut myself a large slice and took a big bite hoping the cornbread would neutralize the burning of my mouth.  Shortly after I took that bite my eyes began to water.  I think I even choked out a few coughs.  I gulped what was left of my Kool Aide while her mother asked if I was alright.  “I’m fine”, I sputtered as giant tears rolled down my cheeks.  I wasn’t fine, I knew it and she knew it.  But, I also knew you never criticize or refuse to eat what someone has prepared for you.  I was going to be polite if it killed me (which I started to wonder if it would!)  Her mother told me the cornbread was made with jalapeno’s and it might be hot for me if I wasn’t used to it.  I smiled through my tears and short breath and said, “It’s good, I just wasn’t expecting it”.

I don’t remember how or if I finished that meal, but I do know I never ate at Joni’s house again.

The winner of the set of Thank You Cards (according to Random Generator.org) is Shelly!!

Thanks to everyone who entered!  Keep your eyes out, I finally came up with this years free-valentine printable!!  Will hopefully have it ready in the next week or so.

**Don’t Forget You Can Still Enter The Note Card Giveaway- HERE**

Thursday night my husband came home from work to find me cradling our three-year old while she sat on a plastic Elmo toilet seat, coaxing her with all of the resources my four year college degree equipped me with to please poop!  Not only was I huddled in the bathroom chanting, “poop poop, you can do it!”, but the bed hadn’t been made, the remains of breakfast were still on the table and I had called him requesting he bring home some dinner!  He comes home every night to some amalgamation of this scenario, good man that he is.  As I pondered on that I realized, he comes home every night.  This is not something I take lightly, I feel extremely grateful for this kind of partnership.

When I finally emerged from the bathroom (with the three year old who did NOT release her bowels) I found my husband in the kitchen getting dinner ready.  He stopped to present me with a bouquet of lilies he brought home.  I just about melted.  I just marveled at this man who can come home to this crazy thing we call “family” every night.  It humbles me to know he can look past the crazy to see the beauty in me, and the children.

I was raised with some “interesting notions” about men and family life, despite my own reeducation as an adult I still marvel every single time I see a man do or say something that shows how devoted he is to his family.  Every.single.time. Whether it is my own husband, or fathers I see at the park it just moves me to see that men too find joy and happiness with their families.

To my husband- thank you for the best fifteen years of my life, I can’t wait for more!

I am so excited to offer a giveaway-it has been far to long since I have!

I’m kind of a stickler for sending Thank You notes when I’ve received a gift, I even have my kids trained to send Thank You notes.  My son asked me last week when we were going to send them out and I knew I had better get on that!

Some years we send out simple store bought cards and other years I get creative and do hand print cards or photographs of the kids enjoying the gift.  This year I really fell in love with the photo I took of my Grandmother’s mercury glass ornaments and decided it would be the perfect thank you note for Christmas gifts. I sent them to my favorite local print shop and was just tickled with the results!

So tickled that I just had to share with you!  I am going to give away 1 set of 6 cards/envelopes to one lucky reader (international readers welcome!).

I finished out 2012 with 35 books under my belt and have already finished book number one for 2013 (Laurie Notaro’s We Thought You Would Be Prettier-Hilarious!). Just leave a comment and tell me about a book that you read and really enjoyed, I need some 2013 suggestions!  I’ll select a winner on Wednesday Jan 9.  If you blog about it you can come back and leave me a second comment for another entry!

We spent Christmas in California this year.

I turned 35 with very little fan fare (which suited me just fine!)

I believe my Dad feeds all the hummingbirds in Orange County.  He has 3 feeders and all perches will be full with birds hoovering for the next spot.  I snapped these through the window.

Because it’s not a formal portrait if someone doesn’t stick their finger in their nose.

Then we came home and this little imp celebrated her third birthday!  Next week is our wedding anniversary and the week after that someone turns 8!!

That is my prayer right now; that those who suffer grief and pain can find a reason to hope again.

On Sunday the opening Hymn for our church service was Longfellow’s “I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day”.  I thought it to be the most fitting song given the recent renderings of our American community.  Longfellow wrote this poem during the Civil War while grieving the recent loss of his wife and the crippling injury of his son.  It just seems so poignant to me.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

“There is no peace on earth,” I said;

“For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on the earth, good-will to men.”

I was also really touched by this piece on finding God in this tragedy.