My first book signing!

Do you guys know Dana from Danamadeit.com? If you don't, you should totally check her out. She has got some great tutorials and always has something crafty or yummy up her sleeve. The cute Valentine heart breakers that Ella makes each year is from her. 

Anyways, she just so happens to live close by and was doing a book signing in Austin a couple weeks ago. My friend Carrie who lives in Austin told me about it and we both decided it was a must for us to go. Plus, I feel so cool and educated saying I went to a book signing. Makes me sound like I read books or something. It was at this super cute fabric store called the Stitch Lab.

The day of the book signing, I decided it would be fun (and extremely dorky) if I showed up wearing something I made from one of Dana's patterns. I decided to go with her Summer Skirt with Deep Pockets tutorial. I dropped the kids off at school and went straight to the fabric store. I was feeling very confident and had the whole vision in my head. The skirt was made with elastic thread which was a first for me. It took me a few tries to get the hang of it, but I really liked sewing with it. Everything was going along great. I had my two pieces shirred at the top and ready to sew together. 

I tried the skirt on to see where the pockets should go and my confidence went down the drain. It was pretty bulky and not the most flattering skirt. I tried cutting some fabric off and sewing it in but it just wasn't looking good. I decided to press on with the pockets and hope for the best. It just continued to get worse. It was very hard to line the pockets up straight. By this time it was time to pick the kids up. I tried it on for my very honest 4 year old and she was very quick to say no, no, no. I wasn't giving up. I decided to take one pocket off and see what that looked like. I then ran out of time and had to go in my store bought clothes. How boring. 

Don't worry. I stuck the skirt in my purse and sure did pull it out to show Dana. She was so sweet and only talked about the positive things about it. Which would be the color. 

Turns out my fabric was too thick and Dana's book is just what I needed! Her book is Fabric's A to Z. Everything you need to know about fabrics. 

Carrie and I bought some matching fabric that night in hopes to make something wearable.

Pot Pie Til I Die

Thats what my cousin lins posted when I put a pic of the chicken pot pie that I made on instagram, and I couldnt agree more.  

I have not always been a fan of pot pie- until this one.

It changed my life.  

I did have a big helper, which could have definitely swayed my decision to love it a little bit...

And she only cut herself once.  So, I would say it was a success.

A couple of weeks ago Aves started ballet.  She has tried a lot of extra curricular activities and has not had the best level of commitment so I was really hesitant to start something new.
(when we played soccer she cried every game just sitting on the side lines until the last game and parents came up to me telling me they thought it was amazing I didnt just quit!  hahahh! I just thought she should go if she signed up...right?? I dont know.  I was new at this older kid thing.  Then, she did gymnastics and loved her life.  It just happened to be the same time she started kindergarten and as she got more and more tired after school, her love for gymnastics began to wane.  Needless to say, when she was going to die if she didnt get to start "ballerina", I was hesitant.)

When sassy longingly watched aves the whole time I asked if she wanted to do it too and she said yes.
Ok!
I went up and signed her up, payed for her and then I could tell she was getting nervous.
She would tell me that she didnt know her teachers name or anyone in her class- maybe when she was older.... I told her about all of her friends that did ballet or gymnastics and showed her videos of katelyn actually in ballet, but it didnt sway her. So, she may join when she is a little bit older.

Nana and papa came down to watch avery's first ballet and ate supper with us.
They also brought shrinky dinks and pot holder makers.  It was a blast.
We have also been having family game nights lately.

It's kind of a dream come true.
I used to play sorry with my family growin up and I just loved it.

Then we read that the tag line said "the game of sweet revenge!!!" and avery never wanted to do the "sorry" cards because she felt too bad!  hahhah! We love to teach our kids valuable lessons about how to get revenge on their siblings or their parents.
Life lessons over here.

There's also been some park playing, running and this weekend was a party weekend!  We party hopped all around texas and had the time of our lives...more on that to come!
Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Friday Links

Things have been crazy over here with school starting, homework, getting lunches together, etc.  And we started ballet. And it is adorable.  And then sassy wanted to and then backed out in a matter of minutes (even though I paid and had to unpay in that amount of short time.  Why do I jump on things so fast on things that I know probably wont work out and wait ten years for things that do matter...passport renewal anyone...) I am not the most organized person (at all), so trying to stay organized and on top of things always swings me for a loop.  And then I feel like I have to simplify because I can only keep a certain number of things in my brain...Does everyone do that?  That makes me sound small brained.  I probably am.  And if I had access to the rest of my brain I would probably only use it to store something useless like movie lines or when my shows come on.  

I am so deep.

On with more pressing matters.

Love anything with sequinned shorts and dolly parton.

Cant wait for our party weekend!! We get to celebrate the cutest babies in the world back to back and I couldnt be more excited.

I want to eat this right now. for breakfast even.

Ashley's baby girl is home!!  (Im sure she doesn't care if I call her ashley even though I don't know her and mostly just cry and feel like I know her more with every post.  It is probably so weird how I have followed every move with her little girl but I am just so in awe of her and her sweet family and SO happy for them!!  I did the same thing with my friend Cassie.  I am a stalker.  Especially if you are adopting.  It just makes me teary and overflow with excitement.)

Denim on denim. 

Cool music monday. 

love the painted baskets.

And happiest birthdays to my mom and brother michael.  Love you both so much and could not be more thankful for you both in my life!

More updates on ballet, sorry, labor day and chicken pot pie to come! Hope yall are in for a great weekend ahead!

Baby shower games

There are two soon to be mommies in our small group at church, so this last Sunday we threw them a little baby shower. I was put in charge of the games. I went straight to pinterest and searched baby shower games.

One soon to be mommy is having a boy and the other is having a girl. I divided our small group up with each of the mommies to be on separate teams. So there was a baby girl team and a baby boy team. I had prizes for each game but only for the expecting mom, so each team was winning for the parents to be. I made the score board out of white foam board and used my silhouette to cut out the girl/boy figures and baby bottles for points.

Name That Baby Tune was the first game that we played and it was so fun! I put together a playlist of all songs with the word Baby somewhere in the title of the song. I started with team boy and played 20 seconds of the song. They had to give me the title and could earn an extra point for the artist too. If they didn't' know, it would pass to team girl. It was pretty funny to see who knew which songs the fastest. 

My song list:

Hit Me Baby One More Time -Britney Spears

Baby -Justin Bieber

Baby, I Love Your Way -Peter Frampton

Always Be My Baby -Mariah Carey

Ice Ice Baby -Vanilla Ice

Baby Love -The Supremes

Baby, Baby -Amy Grant

Baby Mine -Alison Krauss

Baby Got Back -Sir Mix A Lot

Baby Boy -Beyonce

Baby, It's Cold Outside -Jessica Simpson

Baby's Gotten Good at Goodbye -George Strait

Sweet Sweet Baby -Michelle Featherstone

Don't Worry Baby -The Beach Boys

The girls won with the steal of Sweet Sweet Baby. 

Only one person knew that song. It's one of my all time favorites and always reminds me of Ella as a newborn. I would listen to that song over and over. Anyways, the winning mommy got a musical tv for her baby girl and the losing team got a really cool Justin Bieber mirror. It even had his signature on the back! Why in the world did Walgreens have it on clearance for 42 cents, it's like a collectors piece.

The next game was a baby word scramble. I saw this idea a lot on pinterest. I took words from a few different websites and created my own list to print off. Everyone was given 5 minutes to unscramble the words. There was only one person who got all 10 words unscrambled before time was up. The prize for this game was an egg toy. (get it, eggs go with the "scramble" game) I can sometimes go overboard with word play and a theme. 

ANSWERS

1. BASSINET

2. CRIB

3. BABY WIPES

4. PACIFIER 

5. BABY POWDER

6. EPIDURAL

7. BREASTFEEDING

8. ONESIES

9. DIAPERS 

10. BLANKETS

The last two games focused on the soon to be daddies. I set up some relay races to help them in their soon to be duties:) 

The first one was a diaper changing race. I wish I had pictures of them doing this but my phone of course told me my memory was full when I tried to open my camera. (grrrr)

I put newborn diapers on two baby dolls and filled each one with a few milk duds and raisinets.

 Team girl's daddy did a great job but put the fresh diaper on backwards so team boy took the win. The winning dad walked away with the bag of leftover diapers and the losing dad walked away with the leftover "poop". 

 

The final game was pretty funny to watch. I had two Pack and Plays folded up and each dad had to put it together and take it back down. Those things are tricky if you don't know what you are doing. After lots of coaching from both wives they finally got it figured out and team boy took the win again. Both dads won a starbucks gift card, for the long nights ahead of them.

 I can't wait to meet the two new babies! 

Best Week before School Ever

The week before everybody started school Julie and the girls came down for the weekend.  It was truly just like old times and I could not have had more fun.  I am so the sappy friend that cries when she leaves still.  Ugh.  I am such a leech.

We copied allisons incredible creative crime scenes and everyone just loved it. She is really the most creative person and just thinks of the most fun things.  I love copying everything she does.  I think Julie and I had as much fun as the kids did making them. Then we went to the zoo and the pool and talked everynight about nothing and everything.  The kids all slept together and pretty much had the time of their lives.  Now everywhere we go they ask if katelyn will be there.  Its just too much.  And then ashley and allison will call and all have playdates with julie and I just want to get in my car and join them.  What am I doing not living there??  I am so glad they all have each other and pretty much forced them all on each other.  Luckily they all love each other immediately.  I just have the best friends.

We filled the rest of the week with any fun we could find.
We went on walks (that ended in band aids), painted, colored, pooled, played with the neighbors, etc to all the fun things in summer.  Then the last weekend before school went to isla's house and slept over.
The kids just love her and love being at jennifers.  They sometimes pretend they are going to her house when they are home because they love it so much.  We drug them to the aquarium, swam in their pool and ran around together in the same car.  SO fun.
On sat night my parents invited us to the cowboy game with them and my brothers and we partied it up family style.  It was so much fun, until the end when I was scaring ben for fun and he fell down, cracked his head, and blood went everywhere.  Jeff was super dad (and super calm) and took him home where his dad and he stapled bens head back together and we called it a night.
Never a dull moment around here.
Now, hopefully we can catch up to whats happening this week...