Good Golly Moses...

Be still my heart...how is it possible to have kids this beautiful???


Gracie on Father's Day:

Ava in an old-fashioned looking outfit that my mother-in-law bought on consignment for Gracie when she was a baby. It is devastatingly cute on Ava with those blue eyes of hers. :)

In other, home improvement-related news, this is what my husband decided to do at about 5:00 p.m. this past Saturday night. He is a bit motivated when it comes to projects such as these. As it stands now (a couple of hours after this picture was taken), they only have one more row of shingles and have to put the deck rails back on and they are done. My husband, his brother, and our neighbor/friend are all working on it in this picture...we have great friends and family who are willing to help with the manly projects! :)

We did have a metal/canvas canopy thing that we bought three or so years ago to put over the table, which we liked a lot, but for one flaw: We have gone through three of the canvas canopies in the time that we have owned the thing. The first time it ripped, we called the company up and they sent us TWO canvas tops for the cost of shipping only, both of which ripped last year in only mild wind. This year, the warranty is expired and we researched replacing the canopy with our own money, but the canvas alone is close to $100.00. We think that is a bit much for something that we KNOW is not going to last (as evidenced by the THREE prior tops that ripped). We researched a retractable awning to go over the deck, which we discovered is close to $1000.00. Whoa, baby. Then my hubby decided to price out building this roof, which is going to be less than $1000.00 and permanent and oh-so-nice looking. Our neighbors actually built a roof over their deck a couple of years ago (the blue house in the picture there, but not the same neighbor who is helping us build this roof) and the guy said that he priced it out to have it built and they quoted him $5000.00 minimum if there were no problems!! I am SO glad my husband is a handy guy, or we wouldn't be able to afford to do anything! :)

Anyway, just wanted to brag on DH (for those not in the know with internet abbreviations, that stands for Dear/Darling Husband) and show the progress of the lightning-fast addition to the house.

Random Pictures

Ava on Father's Day...need to find a good picture of Gracie to post. :)

A barrette I made for my sister's baby girl, who was born today. Her birthstone is pearl and the center stone is a real cultured pearl. The base is a mother-of-pearl medallion.

That's all for tonight. I am SO tired! :)

More Hair Barrettes

Here are some barrettes that I made for Gracie last night...the pumpkin flowers with apricot buttons are made with all Stampin' Up! supplies (except for the alligator clip, of course). :) The other embellishments were in my stash. I know that the brown/pink clips feature American Crafts ribbon and the pink felt flowers/buttons are Making Memories. The purple felt flowers were cut with my Sizzix machine and the rhinestone flowers were from Oriental Trading Co. Thanks for looking!

If you are interested in purchasing any barrettes, e-mail or post a comment and we can discuss details.

Some of the shower decor

We hosted the shower at my Grammy's house, because it is larger and has more parking than my house. I tied these balloons to the lamp post (and curled the "tails" to make it pretty):

I made this diaper wreath, which I got the idea for on 2Peas:

And I made these little onesies and flower decorations to hang from the chandelier over the food table:

Everything turned out really cute and I got a lot of compliments on the decor. Can't wait to meet my niece! :)

What I have been working on....

So, I finally hosted the baby shower for Andi (my younger sister, who is having her first baby in two weeks!!!!) She chose this bedding by Kidsline, called Pop Daisy:

I bought this scrapbook album from Target:

Found this poem on the internet:

And made the following pages for each of my niece's first 12 months:

Two new cards...

I made this card for my sister's baby shower, which is on Saturday. She chose the Pop Daisy bedding from Kidsline and it's in pinks and browns, so I thought this would be appropriate. :) I stamped the "BABY" stamp, which is actually a circle with flourishes, punched it out with a 1 1/4" circle punch and matted it with a 1 3/8" Chocolate Chip circle. Then I just used my scissors to cut the word baby out and added it to my card. The DS paper is a retired sheet from SU! The scallops are just circles that I punched out of cardstock and placed behind the panel.


I made this card today for a woman that my Mom works with. She sent some Crocs charms to Gracie because she had an MRI scan last week (which still showed no change--yeah!). I made this one out of scraps that were lying on my table and from some leftovers from the Stamp Camp. Pretty simple, as all of my cards are wont to be. :) Just a bunch of circle punches, the scallop circle punch, the "friend" rub-on, and the thank you stamp.


Thanks for looking! I would welcome any comments....feeling pretty lonely in here! :)