Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We had Gramma D snap a few family pictures for us when I took pictures for my BIL's family which means we didn't get our Christmas cards done in time. Sigh. BUT, I guess that means they are New Year cards. So, to family, friends, and loved ones, wherever you are...Happy New Year!!! We love you! May you have hope and happiness in the coming year. May love and laughter fill your days.

Family Pictures

I went to visit my BIL's family this past weekend to take pictures for them...they wanted to give the photos as gifts this Christmas. For the Gramma's and Grampa mostly, but I think I'll be making some copies too! Little Miss M, the elder Little Miss M to be specific, wanted no part in it. None whatsoever. There was much coaxing, with puppets, and toys, and candy, and fun. Finally I decided to just keep snapping the pictures. Amid the myriad photos that were no goes...we found a few we could use. Here they are.

Deck the halls...fa la la la la la la la la

Superman and I decorated for the holidays the day after the day after Thanksgiving. (We couldn't do it the day after because that's my annual ALL DAY girls' day out with my sisters and mom. Smile.) We decided to make our decorations this year. We used my new Cricut, which I'm excited about, it's bigger than my old one, and cut out all kinds of stuff for the house. Nothing out-of-this-world spectacular but very cute nonetheless. Here are some ornaments for the tree. We made snowflakes, trees, candycanes, and balls. Pumpkin actually helped with these. Superman cut out a zillion little paper lights for me to make a garland. We used a silver paint pen to fill in the top of each light and strung them together. Nice. I also made gift tags. (Again, with Pumpkin's help, she loved pressing the buttons on the Cricut.) And I hung a banner (or bunting of sorts) across our big patio window that I made last year with the old Cricut.

My favorite addition this year, by far, would have to be the snowflakes that Superman cut out to hang from our ceiling. We hung them in strings to form a flowing "curtain" of snow between our kitchen and livingroom. I love them so much. And until last night they were really the only snowflakes flying around here at all.

*Just a note, I've linked up at tatertots and jello and creative little daisy

Another birthday

So, remember this cutie patootie? This is Mini. She's from here. She turned one today. Holey schmoley. One. Still throws me for a loop.


I wanted to make something really special for her, and I will, but she probably won't get it until Christmas. (And that's if I stay motivated. Oh well.) But I did get to make her SOMETHING for her party tomorrow, and I helped out my sister in the process. My sis wanted to make her a birthday outfit and the outfit she envisioned would have been oh so very cute. But alas, she grew short on time and has so much to do tonight to prepare for tomorrow, so I stepped in. This is what I came up with...in the half hour I was able to devote to sewing tonight. (It had to be quick.) I appliqued a "1" on a t-shirt and made a coordinating hair accessory for her to wear in her wild, little mane. I used the same fabric for the yo-yo on the hair clip as I did for the applique. I added some matching lace and a fabulous little yellow button, which I am almost certain will be my sister's favorite part of the whole ensemble as she is a huge fan of yellow. It had to have polka dots on it because that is the theme for her soiree. She will be the belle of her party.







Happy Birthday big girl!

My baby turned 3...

My baby isn't a baby anymore. Not even remotely. She is officially a little girl. We invited some cousins and other family members over for a Pinkalicious celebration last week. (sidenote: I still don't know whether to laugh with joy that she is doing all kinds of big girl things now like drinking from a cup, going potty, reading books all by herself, playing with daddy's ipad all by herself, getting dressed, brushing her teeth, etc., etc., or to shed tears of loss that she no longer lets me rock her to sleep, and wants to do EVERYTHING by HERSELF. Kids these days...they just grow up too fast.) Anyway, the party was fun. We let her help us decorate, pick out goodies for cousins, and set up for the party. Here are some highlights.

I cut the cupcakes out of scrapbook paper freehand and used double sided tape to stick them to the goodie bags. There were lots of fun things in those bags but might I recommend NOT distributing Flarp at any party where there are three year olds? It makes fabulous noises and is loads of fun for your three year old with lots of supervision but is SOOO hard to get out of carpet. I LOATHE it.


Here is the giant Pinkalicious cupcake that Kaia had been talking about for days. She couldn't wait to sink her teeth into it. We made it with one of those giant cupcake pans. The ones where you bake the top and bottom of the cupcake and then put it together. There is layer of pink, creamy goodness in the middle. AND, it's a strawberry cupcake. Completely Pinkalicious. There were smaller cupcakes for all the guests. (Not pink, but just as yummy.)


Other super fun highlights:




I appliqued a Pinkalicious "3" on a pink shirt for her to party in.



Sneaking cake to give to Mini. (It's like she's feeding a cute little puppy or something...Mini, you little beggar! I guess everyone likes a good Pinkalicious cupcake.)

Sessions

Finally finished family photos for a family at church. They have been so patient. I took these pics waaaaay back in August, when the whole fam was around. They really wanted to use them for their Christmas cards and I just got the disc off in the mail yesterday. Whew! Hopefully they can still use them...

Jared

These are some photos from a Senior Photo shoot from hmmmm, August? I think it was August. And then it took me a ridiculous amount of time to edit them. (I have some more of another shoot I'd like to share that I took right after Jared's but those are not quite finished yet. Sigh.) Anyway, it was a fun shoot. His parents came with and tried to coax some natural looking smiles out of him.