Friday Favorites and a Giveaway

My friend,  Shannon, recently posted on her blog about some of her favorite things.  She thought it would be fun to hear about favorites from others as well, so I thought I would join in! 

One of my favorite treats right now is Vanilla Joe Joe's sandwich cookies from Trader Joe's. They are so yummy with little bits of real vanilla bean.  They are the perfect non Chocolate treat!

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I have been enjoying trying new Root Beer Brands and right now my favorite is Goose Island Root Beer

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 It is made with Cane Sugar instead of Corn Syrup, so it is really smooth. 

We recently came across another brand of Root Beer that we tried, Boylan, and while I didn't love the Root Beer, they also have a Creme Soda that is awesome.  It is also made from Cane Sugar and has that smooth and creamy taste.

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Enough with food!  Tayden got some new converse sneakers for school and I am LOVING them!  I wish I had bought a pair in my size. I still might.....



Buy Me! You know you want to!

Actually Ady's are pretty awesome as well.  She has a purple pair and we put rainbow shoelaces in them.  I will add a picture of them when she gets home from school.  They look so cute with jeans or with a skirt! ♥


Buy Me Here!


I am looking for an orange pair for Kyler, but I haven't found them in his size yet. 


Now for some favortie Baby Things!  It has been so fun to "start over"  with Evy.  We are limited on storage space, so I hadn't kept a lot of baby things from when the older kids were little. So it has been like starting over.  There are so many cute and clever baby items now that didn't exist 10 years ago, or at least not that I had heard of.  It is also fun to be buying it all in pink and purple this time!


One of the best things I discovered early on is Baby Legs Newborn Legwarmers!  I expecially love these for a little winter baby.  Her little legs were so tiny that tights would not stay on and looked so baggy and ridiculous.  Baby legs are great for keeping little legs warm during diaper changes too because you don't have to take them off to get to the diaper.



I am also loving these Aden and Anais Muslin Swaddling blankets.



I wish I had discovered them when she was younger.  They are lightweight and easy to tick into the diaper bag, but they still keep her nice and warm.  She gets sweaty with thick blankets so these are perfect for her.  They are really soft too. 

This time around I am cloth diapering.  There are so many options available now and they are so easy.  I actually really like them.  They come in lots of cute colors and patterns, they are less wasteful and expensive, and you don't get diaper rash or poop outs!  Here is some of my stash.

I have tried several brands and the ones I like the best are Blueberry, Fuzzi Bunz, and Bum Genius.  They are all similar and work well.  I have also found a brand that works just as well and costs about a third as much, Alva Baby, so I have several of those as well.  At some point I may do a blog post reviewing different brands.

And now some of my favorite Websites.


I have really enjoyed using http://www.picnik.com/ for editing photos.  It is a great, free website that allows you fix blemishes and red eye, adjust the exposure and color saturation, at matting, frames, and other effects and add text to your pictures.  It is really easy to use and I love how I am able to make my photos look so much brighter.

Another site I am in love with right now is http://pinterest.com/.  If you have not checked it out yet, you should!  It is like a photo bookmarking site.  Any pictures you see on almost any website can be  "pinned" on your boards and kept for you to look at later.  It's fun to put together boards for inspiration for craft and sewing projects, party ideas, photography and decorating.  It reminds me of when my mom would cut out pictures from magazines of ideas she wanted to make and keep them in a file in the filing cabinet.  It is also a bit of a social networking site.  You can "follow" other people, if you like their ideas and keep up to date on what they have "pinned".  If you want to be my follower, you can find me by clicking on the pinterest icon at the top of my blog.


I will stop now.  If you are even still reading after all that!  I will occasionally be posting my favorite things on Fridays.  Today's favorite things is also a giveaway.  Leave a comment below telling me one of your favorite things.  If I get at least 10 entries, next Friday I will select a winner using a random number generator at http://www.random.org/.  The winner will receive a pack of Joe Joe's in the flavor of their choice.  Yumm!

Wednesday Whimsy: Does your Toilet Have Eyes?

 

A few weeks ago, Dave was out of town for a few days for a business trip.  While he was gone the kids thought it would be fun to play a trick on him.  I had this fun pack of giant googly eyes, so they kids thought it would be fun to put them on the houseplants. After we finished that they wanted to add Googly Eyes to more things so they started looking around the house.  We ended up with eyes on the shower door, on shoes in Dave's closet and, my personal favorite, the Toilet.  This one just cracked me up, so we have left it up.  I know it is a bit bizarre, but everyday when I see it, it makes me laugh.

2 little dresses

A few weeks ago Ady and I were thrift store hoping and came across a really cute women's skirt, but not in my size.  It had a nice wide waistband and I thought it might make a cute dress for Ady.  We also found a similar skirt in my size, so we bought them.  Now I am not much of a seamstress.  I can only do basics, but I am learning.  When I got home and took a better look at the skirt I bought to make into a dress, I realized that it wasn't going to be as easy as I had originally thought.  The pleating on it isn't uniform so it will be more complex to take in.  I will work on that one next. The skirt I bought for me was cute, but not extremely flattering, so I decided to use it for the project instead, since it was constructed the way I needed it to be for the dress.  

I forgot to take a picture of it before I started, but this is basically what it looked like, except I have already cut off the excess fabric.  First I had Ady try it on and we held it up to were she would wear it.  The skirt had a side zipper that I wanedt to utilize for the dress, so I kept that side intact.  I pinned it on the opposite side to were it would be in order to fit around Ady's chest.  I was worried that I might not leave enough for the seam allowance, so I ended up being a little too cautious and left a bit too much room.  She will be able to grow into it this way.  With the excess fabric I made straps and then the remainder was used to make a matching dress for Evy.

It needed a little something, so I pulled out some hot pink ribbon and sewed in onto the waistband.

There are definitely flaws, but overall I am so pleased with how it turned out.  There is no way I could have made a dress as complicated as this if I had started from scratch.  I will definitely be on the lookout for similar styled skirts at the thrift store to do this again.

I was hoping that there would be enough of the whole skirt left to make an identical dress for Evy, but it was a bit too narrow.  Fortunately the skirt was full enough that there was still lots of fabric available to use though.  I ended up going with a pillowcase style dress, loosely following this tutorial at Naptime Crafts.

Its a little big right now, so it should fit her for a while.  She wasn't very cooperative with trying it on over and over as I made it, so I had to do a lot of guessing.  Also, I was mostly working on it while she was asleep!

Isn't she cute?!

Here they are together :)

The total cost of the Project:

$4 for the skirt, I had the ribbon on hand, but It was probably about $2 worth.  

I did have to buy pink thread, so that was another $2.

So about $6 for 2 sweet little dresses!  Not bad!

 

I have always had a dream of making cute matching dresses for my two sweet little girls.  ♥ 

8 Months Old

Evy is now 8 months old!  I can hardly believe it!  

She is not quite crawling yet, but she will rock on hands and knees and then scream to be picked up.  She would much rather pull up on furniture and play upright.  She is still learning the importance of hanging on to the furniture once she is up though.  She has had a few bad falls but she is getting good at sticking out her bottom so she lands a little more slowly.  

 

She will actually tolerate bathes now and enjoys splashing.

She is very vocal and loves to squeal and laugh.  She gives high 5's, waves, claps, dances and does "What's up?!" by putting her little hand way up high and waiting for you to say What's Up Evy?

She likes to play games with us.  She plays "Where's Evy?", "How Big is Evy?", Giddy Up Horsey and she loves to hang upside down and flip over.  She is a daring little thrill seeker!  

She loves attention and making people smile and she is very chatty. 

She mostly says "A Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba", but she also says "Mmm-ma", or "Wa".

She  loves to sit in the little rocking chairs on the front porch.  She loves to anything that involves being outside, really.  She wants to swing and ride in the stroller all the time!

We sure love this cute girl and we are so thrilled to have her in our family.  She is so sweet!