Big Catch Up Post!

Well, it's been over a month since my last blog post. What have we accomplished in that time??

A Cow-Cow birthday party for a very special three year old:






A Preschool Graduation for our little graduate:







And a bit of sewing mixed in!







All in all, a great, wonderful, busy time!

Andraya's birthday party was wonderful, with family coming to visit and celebrate with us. Abby was the best big sister, as she decided that she wanted to buy Andraya a special breakfast of doughnuts, with her own money!! So on Andraya's birthday, Abby woke up very early and got Grandpa Bob out of bed (who had spent the night with us), and had him take her to get Andraya doughnuts - at 6:30 am on a Sunday morning. It was incredibly sweet! Andraya got spoiled for her birthday, and is really enjoying playing with everything. I think the cow cow party was a success!

Abby's graduation was way too cute, as a preschool graduation should be. They were all bumblebees, and sang different bumblebee songs (the embedded video is one). Abby was the announcer for the evening, and she did such a great job. A year ago, she never would have trumped up onto their "stage" and announced the songs they were going to sing to a crowd of over 70 people. She is growing up right before our eyes.

Dan is off of work now for the summer, and has been getting a LOT done around the house. The girls are home from daycare for the summer, and really enjoy helping him do everything (though sometimes I wonder about the level of help they provide).

Back to the grind

I have been working on a huge custom order, and finally completed it and mailed it out this week! So I am taking advantage of some free time to sew for my girls, and also to sew up some instock for my cart.

I decided to start easy and quick, and made them both a couple of dresses yesterday afternoon.

Abby got a mock cross dress from a very spring like print with asian lanterns and fans. I love this print, and I think the color is just perfect for spring!



Andraya found some pink camo knit on the fabric shelves, and asked for a dress with a heart. And a pocket. Okay. Hmmm...... She also needs things with pants for transitional items, because apparently when you are almost three, you think it's funny to grow about 3 inches all of the sudden, making all your pants too short, with 5 weeks left of cooler weather. :) Little stinker!

So this is what I came up with for her, with matching leggings:



That was the one still pose out of many. Most looked like this:


I also sewed up a few things in the girls sizes for my cart. I will photograph those later today, and get my Hyena Cart stocked!

It's Done!!

The swing set is done!

It takes up quite a bit of room in our decent sized backyard, but it's worth it!



Helping Abby do the monkey bars:


Abby Sliding:
Andraya's turn!
Daddy, my turn!!
Swinging - that smile makes it all worth it!

The girls are in seventh heaven, which is exactly what we were hoping for. There are enough things to do on it, I don't think they will get bored anytime soon!

Deja Vu

Dan was looking through old pictures tonight, and we were really surprised at how alike our daughters look at the same ages!!

Abby at a little over 2 years (notice her sense of fashion went back to a very young age):


Andraya at 2 years, 7 months:


Andraya at 2 years, 5 months:

And Abby on her second Birthday with Grandpa Bob:


I just could not get over it, they look so much alike! And it cracks me up that they have the exact same cheesy grin! Dan and I are also thankful that we have moved consistently over the past few years, otherwise some of these pictures would be hard to tell apart in the future! But with the backgrounds changing, we'll be able to use that as a reference to tell which kiddo it is, thank goodness!!

Snow is fun!

We got another round of snow, so the girls were out taking advantage of it:


They get so excited to see snow, and so does Whip. Stretch tends to hang out inside when it's snowy outside, he's a little tender.

Abby, Carry me!

Something we hear often in this house! Andraya demanding that Abby carry her from place to place:



How she does it, I have no idea. Draya weighs maybe 5-10 pounds less that Abby. What a strong girl! Whip is of course keeping a close watch.

More sewing for the girls

I am still working on rounding out the girls winter wardrobes, specifically Draya, who seems to feel the need to outgrow everything with a few months of cold winter left to go! :) I made her this elephant shirt awhile back, so I made her some snuggly charcoal gray sweatpants to match:

She was really happy with her elephant pants. I put a stack of elephants on the leg, and I think it turned out really cute for a nice lounging and playing outfit. I love that elephant knit, but sadly I only have a bit more left. I am tempted just to hoard it until someone has a little baby girl I can sew for, it's so cute!

I had Draya try on her pants, and Abby asked, "What sort of pants will you make to match my VW shirt?" as I had made the elephant shirt and the VW shirt for her on the same day. It cracks me up that this kid is so used to having a mama that sews, she just expects things to be made up for her on request. But not wanting to disappoint, I made her a quick pair of velour yoga pants, with a VW embroidered on one leg:

She loved them! She did asked if she was allowed to wear these to school. I told her sure, they are really no different than sweatpants, and she's still in preschool, yoga pants are perfectly acceptable. Her reply: "Oh goodie. These are so soft and comfy they feel like pajamas so I will wear them when I want to be really comfy!" She is really all about comfort anyway, that's why she lives in her jammies. There may be some more yoga pants in her future so she can be comfy and warm all the time.

More presents

The good thing about visiting family for Christmas over New Years is that it gives me some extra time to get things done, and relieves a little bit of stress!

Our nieces on Dan's side are all little girls. Five little girls, all about six months apart in stair steps (although Draya is the baby, being two years younger than the next girl). They are hysterical together. But I know these girls are like mine, and don't want for anything. So for Christmas, I always try to come up with something unique. This year, I found great big huge coloring books, and made them each a personalized bag to keep them in:




To complete the set, I also made a matching crayon roll (loosely based on this tutorial). There is a pocket in each bag to keep the crayon roll neat and tidy.

I really had a lot of fun making these, and they just turned out so cute!

Next project for the weekend was to work on some clothes for my youngest, who is in between sizes, and just tall and chunky. She's sort of hard to fit (although, as I keep telling her, she would be easier to fit if she would choose to use the potty instead of being stubborn about being the baby and staying in diapers, but that's another story....). So today I made her a shirt from an overrun of mad sky chickadees, and some dark brown no wale cord pants, with a simple embroidery to match:


The pants are big, but not enourmous, and will give her some much needed growing room. I just love that chickadee print, it really makes me smile to see it on her.

Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was fantastic, with good presents, good food, and wonderful times together as a family.

The girls in their matching Christmas Nightgowns:

With me in my matching pajama pants:


For a present, I made them each a fleece vest, with a coordinating embroidered white tee (if you want to see the embroideries up close, Draya's is here, and Abby's is here)


Merry Christmas! I hope that yours was a blessed and wonderful as ours!

Bumblebees and a busy month!

I am not sure if I have mentioned this here or not, but my mother in law wrote a children's book, The Bumblebee book. It's pretty cute, and the best part of it is that she had her grandchildren (my daughter Abby and her cousin Samantha), illustrate it! It is so neat.

They had a book signing at her local Borders, and it was a lot of fun. She had stamps made for the girls that were their exact signatures, just in case they got tired of signing. But those little troopers signed every book sold that day, and stamped them too! It was pretty cute at the end, Abby was becoming quite the diva, and every signature also included a smiley face, heart and star :)

Once we found out about the book signing, I was on a mission to make the girls matching bumblebee outfits. Now, bumblebee fabric seems like something that would be readily available, but it's not! I finally found a bit on ebay, and had to squeeze two skirts out of what I had:


We also went crazy and made bumbleebee korker bows to match. It was too much fun!

And here are the girls signing books with Grandma Juli:



It really was a lot of fun. The girls were pretty worn out at the end, but they were so good, and such little troopers!

I have been plowing through orders, and have a stack to get done before Christmas (which I hope to make huge progress on this weekend). It's been busy!

Catching Up

It's been a busy few weeks around here!

Dan carved the other pumpkins, of course (the ballerina is for Abby, and the cow for Draya, naturally):

Abby opening her birthday present from us on her birthday morning (the 28th)

A new Dolly!

The girls were ballerinas for Halloween, they were so cute

And here they are enjoying their rewards of the day/evening:

Just for fun, Abby has been wanting an outfit to match her dolly. I made her a hoodie/leggings set awhile back (you can see it here), so I made her dolly one to match:

They are so cute!


And Draya, being a little nut!