Introducing to you...Thing 1 and Thing 2!

Oh I am SO excited about this post! The girls outfits were finished in time *whew*, and they both came out just the way I wanted them to! I wanted them to have something super cute AND comfortable for their party this year (no tutus). Since their Party is Dr. Seuss themed, I ordered them these two hand painted Thing 1 and 2 t-shirts off of Etsy. Now normally I would link to the seller, but I did not have a good experience with her at all (the shirts were way late AND Faith's was completely off center); however, I didn't have time to try and get a new one from her so I cut them both up and turned them into something even cuter. I used the Sienna Pattern from Lil Blue Boo that I absolutely love for Faith's dress and Lily's top. To do Lily's I just didn't include the bottom portion of the dress. Then she had those cute little striped leggings from a Carter's outfit and I added the ruffles. I can't believe that is just a little over a week they will be TWO and FIVE *tear*, goodness. My friend Jeni from Jeni Hendricks Photography did their pictures. She is amazing, I've always loved all of her work. I know that I will probably say this next time, but these are my new favorite pictures of them.

Tuesday/Thursday Starbucks Dates

As I mentioned in a previous post, Lily and Faith both go to "school" a couple of days a week now. I pick them up at about the same time; however, Faith starts at 8:15am, and Lily doesn't start until 9:00am. The 45 minute time lapse isn't enough to go home and get back in time, but it is also too long to sit in the parking lot with an *almost* two year old. Lily and I typically go have a little Starbucks coffee/muffin date on these days. We've come to know all of the regulars and employees there now, and they are all so sweet. Lily is always so good when we go too! She is quiet, sweet, and eats her muffin without throwing any of it (amazing). She loves the Zucchini Walnut, but when they are out a Pumpkin Cream Cheese will suffice.

So anyway, let me get to the crafty part of this post. The other day when we were standing in line I noticed a little reusable sleeve for a coffee cup on one of the shelves. It seemed really practical, but was not cute in any sort of way. It was gray, and that about sums it up. I knew I couldn't be the first one to think of making my own reusable sleeves (if you search on Etsy there are HUNDREDS), but I wanted to try. It was pretty quick and easy. I just cut apart the cardboard one that they give you and used it as my pattern. I would say that maybe I could use this as my first tutorial, but I think there are probably too many already. They would make really great Christmas gifts, and I can't wait to make more. Here is mine-

Isn't it cute? I have reusable travel mugs, but between them being dirty and me forgetting them...I'd say I probably use them ~5% of them time. So even though this is little, it still makes a difference, right?

Here is Lily enjoying her muffin. How do you like her bed head?

Here is a recipe for some really delicious Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins we made the other day.
Muffin Recipe

If you ever go to Target, you should really try their Archer Farms Pumpkin Pancake mix, it is awesome as well! Can you tell we like pumpkin a lot?

Well, I finished Faith's dress yesterday, and I LOVE it! I just have to figure out what to do with Lily's outfit. Wish me luck and creativity, I'm off to sew!

Big and Little Sister Shirts + Yummy Recipe Links!

I had somebody request coordinating sister shirts for a friend with a new baby coming. I've done a lot of sibling shirts, but these are by far my FAVORITE! I have to make some for Faith and Lily asap. The big project presently is finishing *ahem* starting and finishing their birthday outfits. I ordered them Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts off of Etsy and am turning one into a cute Lil Blue Boo Sienna Dress and am going to make a knit ruffled skirt to go with the other one. I wasn't planning on working on them for another week or so, but now we are doing pictures on Monday! Whew, I better get to work. First things first, let me finish this post =)

Here are the shirts I made.

Aren't they perfect? Ah, I love them. The "lil" is the Spunky font by Lynnie Pinnie. If you don't already have it, it's on sale half off right now! The "Sister" on both shirts is Itty Bitty from 8 Claws and a Paw. Remeber this is the font I was telling you about that comes in not just one, but FOUR different religions (Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran, and Baptist)...I just really think that is funny, not sure why. The "BIG" on the other shirt is a font called Vintage but I'm not sure where it is from? I use it a lot though, because there are three different sizes for the letters!

On to the next subject. After entering the blogging world last year, and finding so many different sources of inspiration for my sewing and other crafts I discovered another really neat aspect of blogs. I have really found some of the best recipes! I think that for a good month straight, all of our dinners came from Samster Mommy's Dinner 101 page. I've tried a LOT of them, and they were all wonderful. I've been trying to do at least three new dinner recipes and one new breakfast a week for the past couple of weeks. I thought I would share some of last weeks on here, and hopefully help out some other moms on here (or dads).

Monday-
California BLT's (whole wheat bread, turkey bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado)
Carrot Soup
Ingredients- 6 Carrots sliced, 1 onion chopped, 1 clove garlic, 1 tsp curry powder, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 2 cups vegetable broth, 1 1/2 cups soy milk
Directions-
1. Coat large saucepan with cooking spray and add carrots and onion. Cook for ~5 minutes or until tender, and then add garlic, curry powder, and ginger. Cook for a couple of minutes longer.
2. Add broth, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool 5 minutes.
3. Pour into a food processor or blender and puree until very smooth.
4. Return to saucepan and add the milk. Heat for ~3 minutes or until heated through.

*This recipe is from the WomenHeart's family cookbook, and the cookbook is wonderful!*

Tuesday-
Homeade Turkey Sloppy Joes (the term Sloppy Joe has ALWAYS reminded me of daycare, I think they are a staple at most, this was a first for our family, and everyone cleaned their plates!)
Recipe *I substituted lean ground turkey for the beef*

Wednesday-
Crockpot Chicken Enchiladas (these are delicious!)
Recipe 

Breakfast of the Week -
Asparagus Fritatta (this was SO easy, quick, and yummy!!)
Ingredients- 2 tbsp EVOO, 2 shallots finely chopped *I used red onion*, 2 ounces canadian bacon *I used turkey*, 1 lb asparagus trimmed and cut into 1" pieces, 1 clove garlic, 1 1/2 cups egg whites, 1 cup shredded cheese
Directions-
1. Preheat the broiler
2. Heat the oil in large skillet and sautee shallots, bacon, asparagus, and onion for ~10 minutes.
3. Add the garlic and salt and pepper to taste and cook for ~2 minutes.
4. Stir in the egg whites and 1/4 cup of your cheese and cook without stirring for 5 minutes.
5. Pour remaining cup of cheese on top and pop in the oven to broil for 7 minutes.


Alright, this post is long enough...I'll do the second half of the week and two delicious pumpkin baking recipes we tried next time. Everyone have a wonderful day!

Halloween, We Love You So

I think Halloween is such a fun holiday. Who doesn't like dressing up? My husband would probably laugh if he came home to find me in a Snow White gown and plastic heels like Faith and Lily; however, Halloween is a day that even Mommy can get away with dress up! That actually isn't my favorite aspect of Halloween. I just really adore all of the cute little decorations...the ghosts, pumpkins, witches, and skeletons. Every time we go into Target Faith and I spend a good 10-15 minutes in the Halloween decor section. It is just so tempting! But alas, we don't typically have the money for tons of Halloween decorations. Thank goodness I can sew now ;). I need some ideas for cute Halloween decorations I can do with my sewing or embroidery machine, any would be greatly appreciated!

To kick start Halloween, I've been working on cute little shirts and bows. Here are pictures of my sweet girls wearing theirs, and one my best friends daughters wearing theirs as well.

This cute little Spider applique and hair pretty are from Pickle Pie. Faith picked our everything for her set.

Lily's is the Mrs. Ghost applique that I got here. The ghost doesn't have that little ear looking thing, but I think it came out cute anyway. That was the only black shirt that I could find for her!

When we went to bring Kailee and Camryn their shirts, little Camryn was napping, so Faith pretended to be Camryn and model her onesie. These little girls are three weeks apart, and have been playing since they came home from the hospital almost five years ago!

Then Camryn woke up, and Andrea sent me a picture of her modeling her shirt. How precious is she?

Here are some of the bows I made!

That is all for now! I have to get some things done while both of my little sweethearts are at school!

McKenzie turns 3

This little birthday shirt I made for a sweet friend's daughter was inspired by the one I made for Faith to wear when we go to Sprinkles. I added the little ruffle on the neck again. Don't you think that ruffles make all the difference? Of course I try not to go overboard with them, but sometimes I just can't resist. The font for "Kenzie" is Itty Bitty from 8 Claws and a Paw. When I went to look it up for the link I noticed that there is an Itty Bitty Baptist/Lutheran/Catholic/Methodist to choose from...weird I know. I'm not sure what religion my font was, but they are all pretty similar, ha! Here is my favorite picture of Kenzie from her party reading a new book.

She is too precious. I also thought I would share a couple of pictures of us from the summer. I'll have to spread them out over the next 10 posts at least...but here are a few!!

My sweet girls and I at the beach.

Here is another one of us when we got to our hotel. Lily loved the goggles that they gave her at Moody Gardens, can you tell?

Here we are at the aquarium.

This is probably my most favorite picture of Lily loving on Daddy.

Here is a sweet one of Faith and Daddy, they are so silly.

I think this picture is hilarious of Faith sleeping in Lily's shoulder. Don't worry, right after she fell asleep we put a stuffed animal behind her neck.

Okay, I guess that's enough. Everyone have a great day!

1st Birthday Outfit for Addison

My house is so quiet right now! I'm still really getting used to Lily being gone two days a week as well, and as much as I miss them both, I really do enjoy being able to have my house clean and some sewing/reading/blogging/yoga-ing time to myself. This summer I took a Yoga class at the college and truly fell in love with it. It has really worked wonders for my body, and I honestly would have never thought Yoga would be what would work for me! I was diligently exercising this past Spring and just couldn't get the results I was working towards. However, this summer all I did was Yoga, in every style and wah-lah! Of course I'm still not exactly where I want to be, but I have lost ~15lb and I know some inches thanks to my practice. So anyway, if you haven't tried it, you should!

My friend Courtney's daughter turned one this summer and had an "Oh so sweet ladybug" themed birthday party. When she asked me about doing an outfit I immediately thought of these precious Ladybug Hair Pretties by Pickle Pie. If I can find one to match something I am making I almost always do now, they add the sweetest touch to a little bow! The "1" applique is from the Spunky font over at Lynnie Pinnie. The font that Addison is embroidered with is called Andrea from 8 Claws and a Paw. I think the outfit came out adorable, and was worn but SUCH a cute baby =).

I added the little antennas per Mommy's request, and they were so cute at first! They didn't stay up really well though, or should I say one of them didn't stay up really well...it kind of ended up looking like a ladybug with a horn? Still sweet though! I'm off to finish sewing some things for one of my good friends having a baby girl in the next couple of months. Zach is picking up the little ladies from school so that I can complete the little set of onesies I'm making her.

Oh, and just because I have been showing these two dresses to everyone I know, my cousin Nicole made the most beautiful dresses for her two daughters a little while ago, and I think that everyone should take a look at them! I think I want to make some of the same patterns for Faith and Lily with Christmas fabrics!

Cupcake Fun

These two little shirts are definitely my favorite project from this summer. Now anyone that knows our little family knows that we are, for a the most part, fairly healthy eaters. I'll admit that my husband is the driving force, however, a few years of little changes have turned into healthy habits and I'm proud of the way that we try to eat. I would say that the most important thing to us is our grocery shopping. Of course when out at a restaurant  there are fewer options, and that is really where we splurge on our favorites. With that being said, when we are buying food for our home, we try our hardest to avoid lots of junk and bring home a lot of produce and hearty grains. Anytime people come to visit they always joke about how we only have whole wheat (bread, tortillas, flour, pancake mix, etc.), and there are never any sodas. Those are just a few examples. Why did I start of this post talking about shirts and ramble into our family dietary standards you ask? Well, because the girls and my MOST favorite splurge is delicious cupcake. We have a place here in Houston called Sprinkles Cupcakes, and we love their cupcakes. We all have favorites- Mine- Coconut, Faith- Red Velvet, Lily- Vanilla Milk Chocolate, and Zach- Pumpkin. Faith decided that since going to get a cupcake there is a special little date we try to have once a month or so, she and Lily probably needed shirts to do so. Of course I couldn't deny my little sweetheart a new shirt, so I got to work.

Here is what I came up with. Sprinkles is also having a Fan Photo Contest so I entered their pictures into it. I've never entered them into any contest before. I'm just not a "Vote for my baby as the prettiest" type of person. However, you win a $500.00 gift card to Sprinkles if you win, and I couldn't pass it up. Plus there is no voting, so wish us luck =)!

I should mention that the reason those two pictures look totally different is that my friend Jeni edited the one on the left for me to submit. I made the shirt from a little Garanimal tank at Walmart (I think they are like $3) and then I merged the "i <3 cupcake" in EMBIRD" and just added a little knit ruffle at the neck. I love her shirt!! I made the cupcake headband by gluing some ribbon around one of the millions of headbands at my house, and then added an adorable Cupcake Hair Pretty from Pickle Pie Designs. Her hair pretties are awesome!

I made Lily a little headband too. She still doesn't have too much hair, we can get it into two teeny little pig tails now though, with some effort. She asks for them all the time. It's so funny how proud a little girl can be of her "Pea Tails". Here are a couple of other pictures from Sprinkles.

Hope that everyone had a great weekend, and now I have to go finish laundry!

Back to School AND Blogging!

Oh my I have been gone for quite a while...I think my last post was in May? Goodness, but anyway, my girls started back to school (yes, i said girl*S*, Lily started MDO this year, yay!), and now I have some free time to blog, and more importantly...SEW! I have made some things here and there this summer, mainly to people I had promised earlier in the year. I just never really had the time to put pictures on here or write about them. So I guess over the next week I can play catch up with some different projects from the summer, and then get on to fun things like Halloween and Birthday parties that are coming up next week! Faith, Lily, Granny, and I all have birthdays the first week of October, whew! I can't wait for the girls party though, we are having a Dr. Seuss themed party this year, and I've been listing ideas for food and decorations in my head for a couple of months now! We LOVE Dr. Seuss, and this is going to be a such a fun party!

We had an amazing summer, spent a lot of time at the beach and in Austin, and really enjoyed ourselves. It is really nice to be back in a routine, though. And both girls are really enjoying school so far this year. The pre-school they go to doesn't allow backpacks, and they give all of the kids these canvas totes to carry their belongings in. However, you can decorate them anyway you want, and Faith was extremely excited to pick out fabrics for hers this year! She loves bright, contrasting colors (as you can see), and I think her bag came out perfect. She even picked out this apple applique which I think is adorable as well.

And here is Lily's bag! I got the turtle applique SO long ago, and I honestly don't remember where it's from. This is the first time I've used it though, and it stitched out very nicely.

I'm off to sew some more Halloween things, but will hopefully be back tomorrow. Zach and the girls are spending the day out of the house so I can get some things done, so I have to go take advantage of it! Have a great Saturday everybody.