My First Guest Post!

I'm guest posting today over at My Own Road - click the button above to check my button down rehab project and tutorial!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Checking my e-mail and the mailbox has been quite fun lately. I should probably go play the lottery with the luck I've had. Over the last few weeks I've won several giveaways. It's been a fun few weeks and I thought it would be fun to share. I was one of those that "never won anything" which made it more surprising and fun. The last of my winnings came in the mail yesterday and I remembered this post sitting unfinished. I'm still busy having fun with company. :)

I'm pretty sure that this was the giveaway that got my winning streak going.Krystal @ Sassy Sanctuary hit 500 followers and had a giveaway to celebrate and I won these fun social networking themed magnets. Cute right? For now they hang out on my fridge but when I have a dedicated working space they'll be moved.

Some days later I won this custom number art from Kimmi @ Sugar and Dots when she had a random good mood giveaway on facebook. I've seen a handful of good mood giveaways from her on facebook so you may want to go 'like' her page, maybe you'll catch her in a good mood and be a lucky winner too! The numbers represent important dates for our family. The date my husband joined the Army {and our lives were forever changed}, our childrens' birthdays and our anniversary. She e-mailed me the file and I printed and framed it. Then I got a better idea and will be sharing that soon.

Then I won this beauty. I haven't really talked about cloth diapers yet have I? Well, cat's out of the bag now! My baby wears cloth diapers and I wash them and we both like it. ;) Brianna @ NiteOwl Dipes had a FFS {free for shipping} drawing and I won so I got to choose the fabric(s) for a diaper and this is it. I'm pretty sure Delilah will be wearing this pretty thing for her birthday party. And yes, I am totally serious about a specific diaper for her birthday party.

While browsing blogs at a linky party one week I entered a giveaway that Nicole @ Scrap Me Baby had at the end of a post showing a wall gallery in her craft room. A week or so later I was drooling over the tour of her craft room. It was a surprise giveaway which made it more exciting because I love surprises and isn't this clipboard cute? Almost too cute to put to use. Almost. ;) It will be well used for sure.

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During the Sew Mama Sew days of giveaway madness I entered some giveaways but couldn't get through the list, did you see the hundreds of giveaways? Holy cow, I just didn't have it in me. I didn't win any of those giveaways but the same week Crafty Girls Workshop had a giveaway on their facebook page where I won this quilting book. I have looked through it and drooled over some quilts. I have two charm packs that I bought for a steel that I can't wait to use and make a throw for our living room.

Sometime after {or before?} that I entered a giveaway at Simple Simon & Co. They had a series of guest posts with vintage fabrics and notions going on and I won the extra vintage pack they had. Aren't those some pretty fabrics? The largest is a fat quarter, next three are just shy and the two smaller ones are about 8x10. Plus the bias tape and vintage buttons. I'm still debating what to make with it but think I have it figured out. You'll see more about this soon.

And. As if all of that wasn't enough. I entered a giveaway at See Kate Sew, another favorite sewing blog I read, and won a gift certificate to Twill Tape. I had $30 worth of goodies to choose from. I ended up getting a half yard bundle of these pretty fabrics and paying the difference. She shipped so quickly and the fabrics are beautiful. I want to order some of the pretty bias tape from her too.

Just when I thought my 'luck' may have been running out I won this Independence Brilla from Evy's Tree. It's over the top with ruffles, and my husband thinks a little obnoxious, but I love it.

Whew, that's a lot of win. I'm so thankful and excited about it all that I have been thinking of hosting another giveaway here soon. I'm not sure what it would be yet but maybe I'll keep it a surprise anyway. ;)

Thanks for visiting!

Taking A {Bloggy} Break

This post would have been better written up a week ago right? Oh well, better late than never. My grandma has been visiting and we've been busy around here.

• I'm at the end of 'twenty something'
• I went to a ball with my husband {possibly our last}
• My daughter went to a dance with my husband {their first}
• We finally visited the zoo - Delilah for the first time

I'll have some to share later on about some of these things. But for now am on a bit of a break. While I'm away go check out Button Down Rehab @ My Own Road. I'm working on my own project for a guest post {my first} and I'm really excited about it. She's two days into tutorials now so go catch up and check back each day.

{10}

Ack! My baby will be 11 months next week. So I should get her 10 month pictures posted right? They've been sitting in my photobucket account waiting to be edited and I finally got around to it. Funny how quickly you can get behind on little things like this. Sadly, I haven't written down as much as I would have liked to about her growth each month. I'm not sure that I've taken fewer photos of each of my babies but I know I have kept fewer notes about what they do and when they do it. :Sigh: There's no turning back time though so I'll just have to try to do better from here out. They grow and change so quickly though. I look at my {almost} 7 year old and remember when he was the same size as my littlest, seems like I just blinked.

And now I've blinked again and we're just weeks away from Delilah turning one year old and closer than ever to her walking and from there it will just go faster. Looking at my almost 5 year old daughter reminds me of that.

Everything must go in her mouth for a sampling. Mmm....does that crunchy leaf taste good? If it wasn't for the leaf it would have been the paper.

Blogger and/or Photobucket is making me batty right now so please excuse the randomness of the pictures. Some of you may not even notice but it is making my OCDness a little twitcy.

I'm not sure why she was lifting her one foot like that, she kept doing it throughout the 'photo session'. She claps and waves and offers to share whatever goodies she has or things she finds. She crawls all over the house and pulls to standing, and has started cruising the furniture. She still enjoys going to the dog's water and food bowls trying to get a 'snack' or play in the water {read: make a big mess}.

Michael & Lydia get so excited about every little thing she does. I hear "MOM!!! LOOK...." throughout the day, though often it's something she's been doing for a month. I love how much they love her and hope that the years between her age and theirs won't make a difference in how close they are, at least not for a while. For now they do a great job including her in their play as much as they can and I think it will be more as she's more mobile and understanding of things. She definitely knows they are funny and they love her.

Two more teeth are working their way through. Her almost having 6 teeth already seems so odd to me. But the older two didn't have teeth until 10 and 11 months so we had toothless grins for quite some time. Her current favorite word is "mama" and though "dada" was first out of her mouth she says "mama" much more often, unless she's trying to get a soda can from her daddy she even calls him "mama". Melts my heart and makes me smile. She'll crawl to me, pat my leg and say "mama" ever so sweetly. Often when she has a dirty diaper {even poo diapers don't have a strong smell in cloth} or wants to nurse before nap time.

She still resembles Michael & Shawn over Lydia and myself, with darker eyes than her brother but lighter than her daddy. All of the kids had the same color hair as babies but the older two are a little darker blond now. When I was pregnant with Delilah I always pictured brown eyes and hair, so far I'm one for two...we'll see how her hair changes over the years.

Thanks for visiting!

Quick Fixes

I love a quick sewing project! I get my creative outlet without sewing all day long and have instant results. Recently I saw this tutorial at Crafterhours and had to try it out. My daughter has a handful of long sleeved shirts that survived the winter and I know won't fit next winter. Might as well get as much wear out of clothing as we can right?

This was the first shirt I fixed up. She was so excited to be able to wear it again. I could have left the ends of the sleeves unfinished since knit doesn't fray but there was a cute ruffle on the original cuff so I took it apart with my trusty seam ripper and sewed it onto the new sleeve.

This shirt was the next to get a new look. This time I left the ends unfinished. I love the gathering on the sleeve. I should have waited until I could get some blue thread but I'm impatient. I was going to have a contrasting orange thread on top but set my threads up backward so that didn't work out. She loves it so it's okay.

I have another shirt sitting on my table just waiting for some short sleeves. I might try this out with some of my shirts as well. :)

Thanks for visiting!

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A Market Skirt {finally} Finished

A couple months ago I made Lydia a market skirt but she was so excited to wear it I didn't get to the pockets and then I started on other projects and you know how that can go. The other night while the boys were out fishing and the girls were sleeping I tackled the pockets that I was a little nervous about. The tutorial was great and I shouldn't have been worried.

So now it has pockets, which was the perfect finishing touch. I used the same white cotton and eyelet that I did on the waistband and trim.

Lydia was pleased with her 'new' skirt and very impressed that the buttons worked. Yes sweety, I can sew a button. ;)

I am also entering this skirt into Skirt Week 2011, click the button below for details on how to enter yourself and check back over there for tutorials throughout the week.

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{More} Dollar Store Storage

This will be a short post as the poorly lit picture is pretty self explanatory. Last month I showed you how I store towels in my kids' bathroom and promised you more storage ideas for the baskets from the dollar store. I don't know what took me so long as I had the labels and some chalk. But that's the way things sometimes go around here.

I used to have one basket with medicine and various first aid items in it but it constantly spilled over, was hard to find things and was just plain messy. Now, you can see everything is sorted into categories which makes things easy to find and put away.

The aqua blue of the baskets doesn't really 'go' with my bathroom decor but since they sit on a shelf in the linen closet I wasn't being too choosy. If I find baskets I like better later I'll move the labels and go on with life. No biggy. I got the chalkboard vinyl labels from Groopdealz a while back and used the kids' sidewalk chalk to write on them, when I get a nice chalk marker the writing will be neater. But, again, they sit in the linen closet so I'm not worried about it.

Thanks for visiting!

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Little Girls Patchwork Skirt

This is my latest sewing project. I'm so proud of how nicely it turned out. Sewing clothing is still a fairly new venture for me so when a finished product looks how it should and fits I get excited. So does my daughter. ;)

When I first saw the tutorial at Moda Bake Shop I was intimidated but I had this pretty charm pack in Hullabaloo just asking to be made into a pretty skirt, so I dove in. Then I made this cute hair piece to clip onto a headband to match.

I'm entering this skirt into Crafterhours' Skirt Week Contest. Click the button below to check it out and enter your own skirts for some fabulous prizes!

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