Finding my Green Thumb and a "Little Black Dress"

I have to say, a lot of my "projects" here lately have been to help my sweet husband in our yard. He does about 95% of the yard work, but I do try to help where I can. I wish I had before and after pictures, because he has truly done SO much work in our yard. We've finally finished most of the back yard and I am happy to show some pictures today! We decided to start a little garden with some family favorites for the spring/summer. The girls are both so excited about it. Every morning Faith has woken up eager to go water her plants. There are so many great advantages to us doing this! It definitely teaches the girls responsibility (Faith mostly), and we can actually be sure of what is in the food we are eating...isn't that a concern of many people these days? We make a great effort to buy organics, but of course they are much more expensive. Zach and I both make how we feed our family and the amount we spend on it a priority though. I can't wait to be able to go out and pick something from our yard to eat! Here is a picture of Miss Lily admiring the garden, and a few pictures of some gorgeous roses in our backyard. The last one is of a little blackberry bush we planted, that already has some small berries! I absolutely can't wait to do our front gardens next week!

I did this little onesie and bow for a friend this week. I think it's precious. Lily had a little black onesie that was screen printed with a design like this that I had received at a shower. When I got the Embroitique newsletter with this little ruffled dress design I KNEW that it would be totally perfect for this order! Lily had fun taking pictures with me in front of the roses...Faith isn't in any of these because she fell asleep already! On the way home...at about 6:00pm...let's hope that is a good thing and not a very very bad one. She usually sleeps on through if it has reached the 6:00pm mark :/.

She's so silly. You know earlier, right after we got home, I was straightening up and getting dinner (a frozen Amy's Spinach Pizza) ready when I heard a little splash. I thought to myself, you must be hearing things and continued on...that was a mistake. A couple of minutes after, I heard a definitely splash. I walk down the hall to inspect things and find Lily, with her favorite purple tea cup, sipping toilet water in the bathroom. I know, ew ew ew...I've never caught either of my children doing something like this before, and it honestly made my stomach upset. At least the toilet was flushed, I guess. Oh the joys of motherhood.

Look what my other little sweetheart brought me home from school-

Lovely, isn't it? It made my heart smile <3

I'm Still Alive

I have been completely MIA for a week, sorry! When my husband is home, we are so busy. We've been doing all kinds of yard work, playing, and just spending really great quality time together...so I kind of slacked on blogging. I'm so excited about this PRECIOUS dress I made for Faith. I made it from the Sienna pattern at Lil Blue Boo. It was absolutely perfect timing since earth day was this week! I actually bought this shirt for myself a couple of years ago, but haven't worn it in at least a year. So I decided to convert it to a dress for Faith. It's my second time to make the pattern, and came out much better this go around. I didn't have problems with the neck puckering or anything, woohoo! She wore it to the zoo and got a TON of compliments that, of course, made me blush =). I truly love being able to say to someone, "I made it". Here are a couple of pictures of her.

I also made that skirt I'm wearing, even though you can't see it at all. We get the Express ad, and there was one almost identical to this in it. The biggest difference being the one at Express was $69.50, and I used a pair of express jeans and no more than a yard of fabric for MUCH less. I need some better pictures of it...will do that soon.

Then I made a ton of baby shower stuff for my friend Andrea's SIL. They are naming her Addison Marie.
A sweet little blanket-

A burp cloth set-

Two little onesies-

My very popular cupcake bib-

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And of course a banner-

I don't have time to go into where everything is from tonight...sorry! But I will be back tomorrow and try to fill that in, and show you some pictures of our new garden!

Girly Things and Lovely Paintings

I have been absolutely horrible about taking pictures of orders lately! I have no clue why? Maybe it's because my little models are becoming a bit more uncooperative, or maybe I'm a bit of a procrastinator and am always finishing orders at the VERY last minute and don't have time, either way I've been bad! Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of some things from the past couple of weeks. I made a little onesie with a tutu attached and some flower clips for my friend Angel. The onesie is precious. I totally wish Lily wasn't too old to just wear a onesie!

Then I  made this little tutu set for a friend of a friend. It came out precious! I made a bow and ruffled diaper cover to go with it, but this was the only picture I've gotten from her so far.

Now for a project that is COMPLETELY different from what I typically post on here. We went out for a very dear friends birthday this weekend and has a blast. We started out at this little place called Pinot and Picasso. There is an artist that teaches a step by step class. We did Van Gogh's Cafe at Night. It was rather difficult, but oh so fun. Oh, and did I mention you drink wine the entire time? And in our case, eat birthday cake! This place really was awesome, and there are so many paintings I want to go back and do!! Then we finished with a sushi dinner, mmmmmmm.

Spring Family Pictures

My lovely friend Jeni did some family pictures of us. I am blessed with wonderful friends who possess amazing talents, aren't I? We always have plenty of pictures of the girls, but have been seriously lacking a great family photo for some time now. I don't know if anyone has ever told you this before, but children of the ages one and four are not easy to take pictures with. That is actually an understatement. They are incredibly difficult to take pictures with. I made the girls adorable new outfits and was completely pumped about meeting Jeni at the park for pictures. However, about three minutes into our photo shoot Zach and I quickly discovered that it wasn't going to run smoothly.

We started out by sitting on this adorable chair and stool, which of course the girls fought over. If one was not upset about something, the other surely was. I got the bright idea to pull out the lip gloss (this typically makes our girls happy, go figure), which was actually a terrible thing to do. We got one really quick shot of glossy smiles and happy girls, and then started the whining. The lip gloss was like crack. Lily's word for anything she really really likes and can taste is "nummy". From the moment the lip gloss was put up, until the end of the session, all we heard was "Nummmmmmmmy! Nummmmmmmy! NUMMMMMMY!" You get the picture?

Despite the chaos, Jeni was able to catch some wonderful shots. Have a look-

It actually looks like Lily is posing here! She totally wasn't, but see what I mean? Jeni is GOOOOOD.

Here are all the ones of the four of us. The first one is my most favorite.

Now, isn't this just so typical...Faith being a sweetheart to Daddy, but Lily absolutely REFUSING to give him a kiss-

She did eventually change her mind-

Aren't these of Faith and Zach sweet?

Here a few of them individually-

And here is one of Lily and I-

For Faith's little halter top shirt I used a bodice pattern and just added two more layers. The rose fabric is from Hancocks. I fell TOTALLY in love with it, and bought all that was left on the bolt (a little less than a yard) so I had to be really careful on what I made for them with it. For Lily's skirt I didn't use a pattern (I really don't even see how they sell skirt patterns, it's seriously just a long rectangle) and I just rolled up some scraps for her roses.

Lastly, here are a couple of pictures of a little set I made for a friend/coworker of my mother who had a little baby girl. Her name is Emma Ladan, beautiful isn't it? I have been meaning to ship it for a while :/. Finally got it dropped off today.

The soft fabrics are from Hobby Lobby. They are one of my favorites.

Everyone have a wonderful evening!