hustle and bustle

Only 1 week until Christmas!! I am SO excited for Christmas morning. The DIY Barbie house is done and in hiding and the fire engine is safely tucked away. I can't wait to see my kids' faces. I think Christmas is the one day a year that I have no problems getting myself out of bed early! Someone's got to put the monkey bread in the oven and get the camera ready for those first joyful smiles!

My mom took the girls shopping for Christmas dresses (with matching accessories, of course) and they have worn them two Sundays in a row and will definitely wear them again this Sunday.

 Kelby was not into wearing a "Christmas shirt". He is so funny about this clothes. He likes elastic waistbands--he calls them his "easy peasey pants". He doesn't get sweater vests because it doesn't make sense to him to wear two shirts--he just think a sweater vest is a summer shirt. And any shirt with a hood or pockets, he insists is a jacket. He's all about easy clothes, kinda like someone else I know... ;)

 Natalie took this one. Not bad :)

 I am loving how my fridge looks with all the Christmas cards rolling in!!! Makes me smile to see so many of my loved ones right here in my kitchen.

 Granny left to go back to Mongolia today :( But, she left us with some awesome slipper/socks!

All my shopping is done and we don't have a lot of plans this week, although the pile of presents under our tree has inspired me to make room for them in our house! Whipped several rooms into shape yesterday and it felt great.

reindeer fudge

I saw this on Pinterest recently and had to make some! I love peanut butter fudge, and dressing it up like this makes it a perfect little present for the kids to give to their co op teachers, piano teacher, Awana leaders, etc... Hmm, I think I need to make another batch. Good thing it's easy ;) Here's the link to the recipe. They're a good size too, more than a one-bite treat.

 The antlers were my own addition, just a brown pipe cleaner :)

looks like Christmas

It doesn't feel like Christmas, or a Colorado Christmas, at least--we've been in the high 60's, which is pretty unheard of! But at our house it sure looks like Christmas is coming! Yesterday I had to take a day to clean up the Christmas mess that is just everywhere lately. There was no flat surface to wrap, box up or work on anything Christmasey because said Christmasey stuff was all over them! It's a fun mess, though :)

 Thanks to my talented sister, we are enjoying the Jesse Tree advent custom for the first time this year! She hand painted ALL the ornaments (did a gorgeous job, too) for her own family's Jesse tree last year and made color copies of them to give me for Christmas. We are enjoying it so much! I think it's easy to feel like we need special devotionals or Bible story books for kids for them to understand, but I have discovered over this past year that reading to them right out of the Bible is easiest and best and they understand it just fine with some extra explanation here and there. We are loving reading the Scriptures each night and putting on the right ornaments!

 Natalie drew a Nativity yesterday and hung it on the wall. So cute.  The sheep is my fave.

 She also set up these Merry Christmas blocks. It's too cute for me to want to fix it. Plus, we are missing an R. Gotta find that.

 Looooove these shots of Casey and Natalie!!

How is your Christmas prep going?? If you're stressed, just breathe in, breathe out and pick some things to let go of for this year. Especially if you have very young kids. It turns out that I can do more things as they get older that I couldn't do when they were all littler, so give yourself a break for now! Ask the Lord to make clear the task list. That's my advice :)

quick sew

My Christmas sewing is all done, even though my sewing time has been replaced by Christmas wrapping/shopping/decorating/preparation lately. So today, since we had some down time, I opted out of cleaning my upstairs and cut out a few things instead. I didn't count on having time to sew them, but after cutting, my kids were happily occupied and I got to sit down and whip up a skirt! In the middle of the day! Rare.

I'm really happy with it. I picked up this knit and this pattern at the same sale at JoAnn recently. The stars aligned and matched fabric to pattern and it turned out just how I'd pictured it.

The pattern is McCall's 6654, which has several lengths of both straight skirts and flared skirts, all for knits. I used the pieces for the flared skirt, but I narrowed them quite a bit (though it's not as straight as the straight version) out of neccessity because I didn't have enough fabric. I'm glad I did, though, because I didn't want it super A-line, but I didn't want it totally straight either, so it worked out. It's perfect! I'm wearing it to dinner with my parents tonight; we're gonna go eat Mexican and listen to the live Mariachi band. The kids love it :)

I hope the nautical stripes/maxi skirt trend sticks around at least through next Summer!

ornaments!

Every year since '08 (wow!) I have made fabric ornaments to include with Christmas gifts. It's become a well-loved tradition! The first year, I think I made 6, the next 10 and last year I made 25! Although, I had a couple leftovers, so I've decided to cap it at 20. This year I wanted to avoid the turning and stuffing part and just try something different, so after much searching and waffling, I decided on these beautiful origami butterflies!

This is the half I have done, the others are waiting for their antennae and ribbons :) I used a combination of mostly Heather Bailey fabrics and Denise Schmidt fabrics that I already had scraps of in my stash. I used this tutorial, but since I needed mine bigger I cut my rectangles 4x6" and interfaced one side. I then hand tacked the antennae (which are cut from a "bridal spray" I found at Hobby Lobby) on with clear thread. I am very happy with how they're turning out, they look so pretty!

Here is a running list of my past handmade ornaments! Enjoy :)

2012:

2011:

2010:

2009:

2008:

I already have lots of ideas for future ornaments! The choosing is the hardest part ;)

family self-portraits

We have gotten pretty used to taking our own family portraits. We like to do it here at our house, because it's where we like to be :) and because we are lucky enough to have some pretty spots right here in our own yard and because we can't seem to get it together enough to schedule a shoot around the weather, goose-eggs and holidays, ha! This year was made easier by the fact that my new camera works with the remote shutter my husband got me for Christmas a couple years ago, but that did not work with my old camera!

I am super happy with how they turned out and I ordered a bunch to include with family Christmas gifts yesterday!

 This next one is the one we ordered for gifts and cards, I love it!!

Another favorite:

Here are my self-portrait tips:

• Scope out poses that you like online or on Pinterest. Here is my "photo inspiration" board if you want to check it out. 
• If you're using a self-timer, know that you're going to need to get up and set it several times per pose--therefore, tell the kids to stay put! They usually want to see it right away and it only takes longer if everyone gets up and runs to the camera. 
• Use the kids--my 5-year-old took the above photo of Casey and I. I got the settings right and she snapped away. I took the time recently to teach her how to focus on the right things and now she does awesome. (Just always be sure the child is wearing the camera's neck strap. Just in case ;)
• Sitting poses are almost always better (I think this goes for all family portraits) because heads can be closer together and they're just more interesting. They also allow for better use of backdrops. A fence can be a cool backdrop, for example, but not if there's an ugly shed behind it, right where your heads are. Squat down, though, and all you see is fence. 
• Teach your kids to smile. Ha! That sounds funny, but my kids had a tendency to smile weird for pictures, so we practiced before we took them this time. I also sometimes tell them to just laugh and that brings out a more natural smile too. 

we've gone vinyl

With some of my birthday money, I bought a record player. It's also a cassette, CD, MP3 player and radio, but what I really wanted was the record player! I've been wanting one for years because I have a few records from my childhood that I would love for the kids to love too.  I recently bought one from a friend's garage sale, but it didn't work. So, when I saw this one in the Target ad at an awesome sale price, I got super excited. Casey scoffed. He did not see the appeal. UNTIL.... today we were at Unique Thrift because we had some time to kill was Natalie was in ballet and he happened upon the 99 cent vinyl record shelf. Annnnnd went nuts. We got a bunch of records, Christmas, classical (Casey is crazy about classical music) and kids. Even some Scott Joplin and some Raffi Christmas! Awesome old-school stuff that yes, we could probably get on iTunes, but that are so much cooler on a record player!

I'm so happy, we've been listening to them all afternoon. So far, "The SwingleBells" are my favorite (okay, I just looked that up on Amazon to link it and it's $125)! What a find. And Casey conceded and told me "good call on the record player".

Summer to Fall to Winter

I love turning my sewn Summer garments into outfits that work for Fall and Winter. The key is just to add layers. I may actually love certain pieces more when I discover I can switch them around and get more mileage out of them! Here are a few ways I've done this recently.

I made this Vogue dress last Spring. I liked it a lot when standing, but that interesting skirt yolk was not flattering at all when I sat down. Having had three babies, I do not need clothes that emphasize my lower belly, if ya know what I mean. (For the record, I do not do Spanx. In my opinion, if it's too tight to wear without suck-in-all-in undies, it's just too tight). Thus, I never wore it. UNTIL... I pulled it out and thought about what I could do to make it wearable because I really love the rayon knit and the print. I simply cut that lower yolk off and sewed the skirt back on. And loved it :) By that time, though, it was already Fall and too chilly to wear it as is. So last week, I grabbed a blue wrap cardigan I recently finished (never blogged, but it's the same pattern as this pink one I made) and layered the two.

 The following week, I grabbed a simple blue rayon sundress (also never blogged, whoops) that I made at the end of Summer. I layered it with a white sweater and tights and boots cause it was really snowy and cold on Sunday. Then, after church, I ditched the tights and put skinny jeans under it instead. I was really comfy all day.

I'm inspired to find more ways to stretch my wardrobe! I find that cardigans are invaluable for this concept, which is why I've made a few this season and just bought two yesterday at Target, because they're on sale for $15 this week, FYI! I got a gray one and a cute polka-dot green one. How do you adapt your handmade things?