High Five

 Keeping with the Birthday shirt theme this week I thought this shirt would be perfect for today's post. This shirt was made for a little girl who turned 5, as you can tell. I made this shirt for another little girl with her name in the number, but this time instead of the name in a rainbow of colors on pink I did the name in white on a blue background. I printed the name image on fabric and then cut the number 5 out of the fabric. This time I also straight stitched the number instead of zig zag so that the stitching would not be the visual focus.

I also like the idea of taking this fabric with the name Caroline printed on it and then cutting a C out of it to make a custom initial shirt. There are so many color options and I love the idea of personalized fabric on a shirt. How cool to have fabric with your name on it?! Or maybe only kids think so.

Bee-utiful First Birthday Shirt

At first glance this might not look like a first birthday shirt but I think that is great because this little girl can wear the shirt for as long as she can fit into it instead of just on her Birthday. This shirt was made for her Birthday party and the image and design was taken from her party invitation and decorations.

Her mom is a graphic designer and she created this graphic for the party and wanted to carry it through to a shirt for the party. We played with different ideas before going with this. I didn't want to embroider the name because I knew I couldn't get the font right and I loved how it looked on the image. We also decided not to have a number one on the shirt and I don't think it is needed. The image is printed on fabric and then applied to the shirt. The name was screen printed over the appliqued bee and hive with gold ink. The ink has some shimmer to it and I love the way it shines in the light, like honey!

I am pretty sure that this is about six months after the fact but I still love custom shirts like this. I love to create them and I love to help others flesh out an idea they have in their head.

What I Wore #10

Well better late than never! I don't think I have worn this skirt while posting during WIWS yet but I have worn this brown sweater with pants before. This outfit used to be my go to outfit when I went back to work after baby bee. It was great for breastfeeding, fit, and made me feel good! That is all that matters when you are still carrying around 10+ extra baby pounds. Now it is just a great go to Church outfit.

The skirt is a small wale corduroy and I know that it is white but it is more of a winter white than a bright white so I feel like I can get away with it in the winter time. I of course paired it with a nursing tank and the sweater that you have seen before.

Don't you love this shot my hubby took?  I was walking to where we were going to take the picture and then he just started snapping. I kind of like it, check out the bottom of the skirt, I love that big pleat in the back. The boots are new and I have two pairs, a black and brown pair. They are flats and look like riding boots, I tried to get a picture of the detail on the side. There is a buckle and a fake metal part at the heal. They are so comfortable that I could wear them every day! Score. Just what I was looking for.
 

Clothing Details:
Shirt: NY and Co, about four or five years ago.

Tank: Glamourmama

Skirt: Christa Taylor (modest website no longer around)
Boots: Target, on sale a few weeks ago.

Quick Takes #8

I have five min before everyone gets up from their naps and I missed last week....GO!

1. We went to the open house at the local Catholic grade school a few weeks ago to see what it was like. Yes we have a few years before Bee is ready for school but it is never too soon to start looking right?! Well because all of our schooling options are open, public, catholic, home, and co-op I just wanted to look into each one and come up with some pluses and minus before giving it over to God and letting him take over.

2. Poor Bee now has a bit of staph, first a diaper rash turned into staph and now on his mouth. Sad. This isn't too shocking since a few of my husband's family members have had this problem and now we are going to try going to a different doctor to see if there are any issues with food allergies/gut healing that can help him out. Just when I was getting good with cooking now I might have to learn a whole new way of cooking.

3.  Just an update that the sleeping with Squirrel is going so much better!!! I am so glad my friend convinced me to start sleep training him because we now get to sleep almost all night long! There might be one to two times at night when he wakes up but other than that we get to sleep at night.

4. We are traveling in a few months on an airplane, just me and the two kids. Anyone have tips for traveling on an airplane with two little ones and sharing one room? Just worried about getting the two kiddos to sleep in the same room and waking each other up. We will see...I will have an update about this sometime in July. ;)

5. I am working on taxes now, it isn't really that big of a deal but I always dread doing it every year. I finished my "business" taxes and now need to start working on our personal stuff. I hope to get it finished in the new few weeks so we can hand it off. While doing so I am watching some shows on hulu, The Office, Parks and Rec, Downton Abbey to name a few. So many shocking and fun things going on each of those shows.

6. On Valentine's Day I decided to paint my nails, finger and toes, and thought I would do something fun that I have seen all over the internet and paint some hearts too. I decided to just paint them on my thumb nails because I didn't know if I would like them. I think I would like to try it again another time but with different colors. It would be so pretty with a soft pink and white? Maybe I will try other shapes too, that would be fun. Or is it too juvenile?

 7. Last but not least...here are the cards my husband and I gave each other for Valentine's day. I am only sharing this because we are not animal people...at all, and look at these cards?! They both have animals on them. We both said to each other that we didn't really want to get the card with animals on it but this card sounded the best compared to all of the other ones. Seeing them side by side it looks like these were a set made by Hallmark. Looks like we are two peas in a pod...or a cat and a dog? or two dogs? :)

Well that took longer than 5 min but everyone stayed asleep!? WHAT?! Amazing.

New Fabric/New Find Friday #126

Chevron....
LOVE IT WANT TO BUY IT ALL

I know this might seem silly because chevron fabric has been popular for a while but I JUST realized my local fabric store had some in stock. I never really wanted to order some from online when I didn't need it and I haven't been fabric shopping in a while so I am just getting caught up.

Here are some of the selections I found..
Wide quilting cotton chevron shown in turquoise and yellow on the left it also comes in in pink, and grey. The two fabrics on the right side are what I would call a medium chevron. These fabrics are more of a drapery or duck cloth cotton and it comes in red and grey as shown and also yellow. The middle smaller chevron fabric only comes in black and it is also a quilting cotton.

I just love them and I might just have to go over and buy some for my stash! You might be seeing more if it here in the future.

One More Set...

 I thought that I was finished showing you embroidered handkerchiefs but I was wrong. I found these in my picture file and realized this was the one set that I forgot to add to this post. Opps! Sorry to bore you again with pictures of white cloth and colored letters but I just want to be fair to all of my little projects. They all deserve a spot on the blog,  plus sometimes I actually use my own blog to remember the projects I have done and reference them to clients.

This is still from back in the standard font days when I only had two fonts to choose from and only certain sizes and no spacing options. Now that I have new software for my machine I am excited to have a lot more options for monograms, fonts, and sizes. I need to make another sample block of embroidery fonts. Anything you want to see?

Giving Thanks for a New Baby

You might be thinking that this is way out of context for this time of year but who isn't thankful to be a big brother? Well at least before baby arrives those older kiddos are excited. Yes, I did this back in November but waited until the Mama told everyone she knew before blowing her fun surprise. That means that she finally told everyone on Facebook that she is having another one! Yippe for babies.

So this onesie was for baby #3 to wear to announce baby #4 at a family Thanksgiving weekend. She gave me the onesie and we collaborated about what the onesie should say. I think the turkey is great since it is thanksgiving and I love they saying going around the turkey. I like how it turned out for making it in two or three days before she left for her trip.

I think this shirt to take on many different variations; Lucky to be a Big Brother for St. Patrick's day, Love being a Big Brother for Valentine's day and just all year round. It could say Hoppy to be a Big Brother with a bunny for Easter....and on and on. If you need a way to announce baby #2, 3, 4 etc, I would love to work with you to create something unique.

What I Wore #9

There was too much to do this morning before we left the house for Church that I literally threw this outfit on in five minutes. I guess that is what happens every week but I didn't actually think about these pieces together until I put them on.

The piece I started with was the skirt, I got it at Target a bit ago and I was so excited to wear it today. I opened the closet and spotted this shirt and thought maybe it would go with the skirt. I put it on and checked with my husband and he said it looked fine. I wasn't sure but there was no time to change, it was still not my favorite but it works.

I still need to figure out what I am doing for Lent. I always like to give something up and do something positive for my faith life. I think setting aside prayer time for myself is what my positive thing is going to be, not sure what I am going to give up. Most of the time I give up something like chocolate or something that is hard, and I benefit by not gaining weight. I think this year I need to give up something that is an obstacle to my relationship to God and where I do not benefit in another way. I hope that makes sense, making it not about me.

Clothing Details:
Shirt: Banana Republic from a friend of mine

Tank: Glamourmama

Skirt: Target (just a few months ago)
Tights: No idea
Boots: Same from weeks ago

New Fabric/New Find Friday #125

There is something about a flannel that reminds me of childhood. Maybe it is that I had several flannel pajamas growing up that kept me warm in the cold winter. Not only did I have flannel pajamas but flannel sheets! Now that I have a husband to keep half of the bed warm, flannel sheets are not necessary, but sometimes flannel pants to bed are a must when it is really cold out.

The first fabric has sweet little chicks on it marching and standing on a blue background. So sweet for a little boy, or girl who likes blue. I like that this is a boyish pattern without having a truck or train. I know my boys love those but sometimes when they are really little I just want to see some cute animals and no trucks. The alphabet fabric is just my style...bold color on a white background. I love how the primary colored letters are set off by the white background. This reminds me of a wall hanging that I had as a child. It was the alphabet made out of gingham fabric in primary colors sewn to a yellow gingham background.
I think these would make the sweetest taggie blankets or a soft addition to the top of a burp cloth.

Who Loves Bacon?

Ron Swanson does! I am a big fan of Parks and Recreation and so is a friend of mine. She contacted me a few months ago and wanted to make a tee-shirt for her husband with Ron on it and the saying "all the bacon and eggs". I thought it was great and got this design together for her. She ended up not wanting to do it but I asked if it would be okay if I went ahead and used her idea. She was so nice to say yes and so I give credit to this idea to Stacy!

I had an orange onesie in stock and thought that would be a great background for the image in brown. I love it and it is for sale in my Etsy shop here. I would be happy to make a custom order with a different colored onesie and ink. I made a pink onesie with brown ink which turned out to be pretty cute, but I can't find the picture of it. *Updated to add that I found an iPad picture of the pink onesie. I hate to post images like this but it gives you an idea.*

Then I had an order for a brown onesie with white ink. It didn't turn out like I was planning.

I did not think about the fact that it would look a little strange with the dark being the background and the light being the image, it works best the other way around. So I remade it because the client did not like it and this time we used black on a green onesie. Turned out much better. I don't mind the white but I think it looks better dark ink on a lighter onesie. Here it is if you are wanting to order the brown.

I am sure not everyone will get it but for those that do...funny right?

Holiday Bibs

Let's continue on the holiday theme of the last week and talk about sets for all of the holidays of the year. I talked about these Kitchen holiday towels here, and these bibs are a spin off from those towels.

Here is how they translated to the bibs. Same shapes and mostly the same fabric (I bought new Birthday fabric) just on bibs this time instead of towels. I think these are just so cute! Perfect for a baby shower gift for baby boy or girl (I can change the birthday fabric to something more masculine). These bibs fit newborn up to two years old so they would last at least one whole calendar year and could be used again for the next baby or passed to a friend. Like to do photo shoots for each holiday with baby? Just add this bib to an outfit and off you go!

I would love to make these into a set of holiday onesies but this is hard to make before I have an order. I would have no idea what sizes to make the onesies since every baby is born at different times of the year and grows at different rates. Custom orders would be great for this!

Any holiday that I am missing that you would like to see? I think I have them all covered. I know that I have yet to include any Hanukkah items and I would of course switch that out for the Christmas one if someone asked.

These are for sale in my Etsy shop in case you are wanting to order the towels, bibs, or onesies.

What I Wore Sunday #8

Did you visit last week? If so you will notice that I am wearing the same top(s) as last week. Notice that I did fix the button on it last night so I could close the sweater properly. I just swapped the pants out for a new skirt and new boots! That counts for something right?

I would love to wear this skirt with a bright top but I don't have a pink top that is the right color. Might need to put that on the "what I need to buy" list. Doesn't the sweater look so much better with the button on? It gives it shape and some personality. I am sorry that you can't see my boots, they are new and I love them, they are riding boots from Target that I scored last week on sale. I love that they are flats (=comfort) and have a bit of interest at the heal (there is a false buckle and heal metal). They are also smaller and fit around my small calf, something that is actually hard for me to find. Often the opening at the top is open too much making it look strange when wearing tights.

Next week, my goal is color, or at least not all black.. oh wait it will be lent. Hum maybe color is too much? Nah I think it is okay for Sunday.
 

Clothing Details:
Shirt: Target

Sweater: Target

Skirt: Target (just a few months ago)
Tights: No idea
Boots: Target (last week)

Looks like this is an outfit is brought to you by Target. ;)

PS. Be sure you enter to win the apron that I am giving away, go here for more details.

Quick Takes #7

1. I can wear my favorite skirts again!! I never thought that I would fit back into some of my normal clothes, let alone the clothes that I wore before baby bee was born. I tried on some of my clothes while moving things around in my closet and the skirts that I could barely get on before I can now not only put on but zip up!! Whooo hooo I think the weight loss is due to the fact that I am in constant motion all day when before I was mostly sitting at a desk. I also don't eat fast food and at work I had a paid fast food lunch every day. Now to reverse the effects of eating lunch out every day for 9 years and start lifting weights to help strengthen my abs and back (those are still so weak from having two babies).

2. Speaking of eating I have been wanting to do meal planning for years! I know everyone that does it says that it is easy but I for some reason can not wrap my head around it so I decided to get a jump on it I was going to sign up for a meal planning site on-line and go from there. After looking around a bit I decided to go with Plan to Eat, a family run site that lets you put you own recipes into the site and plan the meals from there. They have a 30 day trial that I am using right now and I am still getting all of the recipes in that I normally use and gathering new ones that I want to try. I am really excited about setting up my month calendar and being able to plan ahead for what I need for the week with out having to go to the store (or send my husband) several times a week. I like that they create a shopping list for you and you can get it on your smart phone...okay yes I can make a list myself but they take that step out for me.

3.  Speaking of lists...I love lists. I love making lists, I love crossing things off my list. Mostly they are just handy these days when I am so sleep deprived that I can not remember anything!! I have a huge list that gets added to and crossed off daily. I come and make notes for these quick takes during the week because I think of great things and then when I sit down to write I can never remember. This way I have a topic set up and I just go when I have time to write.

4. Remember the boot debacle of a few weeks ago? Well I still have not gotten rid of those boots yet but found about 4 pairs that serve the purpose! I needed some flat boots that I can wear every day and some dressy boots that were not 5 years old. Got them! I am sure you will see them featured in my Sunday posts so stay tuned.

5. balloons = instant entertainment. My five month old LOVE this balloon that was his older brothers. He loves how shiny it is and it floats away when he hits it and makes great noise when it is touched or moved. It is the perfect entertainment for when mom is trying to get a blog post or two written a day late!

6. Speaking of that cute baby...he is finally able to sit on my hip! I love when they can finally hang out on your hip instead of flying off your shoulder when they want to see something. He loves it, I love it, it's a win win. My next thing to try is to see if he would like being on my back in a carrier. That might make some parts of the day more productive.

7. The van fits in the garage!! Strange I know but we have been working up to this since September and we can now get into the car without having to go out into the cold/snow/rain! LOVE IT.

 

New Fabric/New Find Friday #124

To finish the Valentine's Day themed week I have this set of holiday themed fabric for you. A few weeks ago I realized I was running out of my brown fabric with pink hearts on it that I often use for my Holiday burp cloth/onesies. I was trying to get a fabric before I might need in this coming week but I wanted to wait until the Valentine's Day fabric was on sale after the holiday. Then I realized that I have this huge box of fabric from my Mother-in-law in the back of the basement that I forgot about. Here are a few of the fabrics that I pulled out of the box.

The star fabric is perfect! It is a bit larger than the star fabric that I have now but that is fine. The flag fabric is not my favorite for the holiday but I bet it will look great when cut into a star shape and applied to a bib. The Halloween fabric is perfect, pumpkins on the fabric without being over the top. A lot of the time the pumpkin fabric has HUGE pumpkins on it and looks strange when cut into a pumpkin shape. Finally, last but not least is the Valentine's Day fabric. Not only is it pink and has hearts of different colors and sizes but it has some embroidered hearts. I love the texture that the sewn hearts gives the fabric.

It felt so good to find this in the basement since I really do not want to spend anymore money on fabric for another few months at least...maybe all year. Let's see how long I can go without buying something new. I think I can do it! If I am ever in need I can just call my MIL she has at least 10 big Rubbermaid bins full of fabrics.

Apron Giveaway

I am hosting a giveaway today on Fine Linen and Purple. GO HERE to learn how you can win a cute apron.

If you don't win you can always buy the coordinating apron for sale here. This fabric had flowers that went from large to small and I cut that in half to make two aprons. The one on Etsy is the sister to the one being given away.

Good luck!

St. Valentine's Day Craft Fail and Ideas

You already saw my post Monday about the "I love __" onesies and today I have more ideas and links for you. If I had no idea what month it was up all I had to do was look at the blogs in my reader, they are going Valentine's Day crazy. Let's call it St. Valentine's Day, that brings it back to a less commercial holiday right? ok maybe not.

Here is a shirt that I made in the fall and it was an epic fail. It does fit into the Valentine's day theme so let's talk about it! I wanted to try out the Yudu fabric glue with the flocking to see if I could create a flocked tee-shirt. I applied the glue like I was told to and then applied the flocking material. It looked great until I pulled the cover off. As you can see not only did a bit of the glue run under the design but the flocking went all over and stuck to the black shirt. Fine flocking dust everywhere.

I tried to wash it to see if that would help make the dust go away on the shirt...well the dust went away on the shirt and it also went away on the image. Now there are blank patches of glue where it should be pink.

So next time I might try using a sheet of flocking, or maybe I wasn't fast enough with putting the flocking on and some of the glue dried? I might just use iron on flocked vinyl and call it quits with the glue and flocking material. Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose. This time I think I lost. Now I hope I have a girl so I can gift this shirt to them...or maybe I will apply a fabric applique over this and give it to my boys to wear.

I wanted to also remind you of some items in my shop that would be great Valentine's day presents. Let me know if you would like to place an order for something, or be sure to check out my Etsy page for more info.

Do you need to show Grandma that your kids love her? Try these onesies. I can make this say I (heart) mom, dad, grandpa, fill in the blank.

How about a shirt, onesie, bloomers, or a bib with a heart on it? I could do something like this and use rhinestones, embroider, or even screen print a name or initial. SO many options and all custom.

We all saw what happened with the flocking but I can cut this love image out of fabric, screen print it, or even use tee-shirt vinyl and apply it to a shirt for you. It have yet to do it but I could cut out the word LOVE in fabric and apply that to a shirt or onesie. Custom options are endless.

Need to make some Valentine's for your kid's class at school? What about some hearts that can be made into a Valentine's day card or sewn or glued together to make bunting. These hearts are cut from new and vintage wallpaper. I have a TON of wallpaper so we can talk about what color/patterns you want these cut from.

These are just some ideas of what I can do to help make this day special for that little special someone in your life.

I hope you liked this St. Valentine's day inspired post, I am going to show you holiday ideas from my shop every holiday this year, so stay tuned for St. Patrick's Day. If you hate these "commercially driven holidays," bare with me, it will only be about 7-14 posts this whole year.

Stay tuned...tomorrow there will be a giveaway!!

Love Is In the Air

Hallmark says that February is the month of love and I think, hey why not have at least one time of the year to tell those that we love that we are thinking of them. One of my most popular items in my Etsy shop are my "I Love Grandma" onesies. You have seen these here on the blog before but this is a new set that I did with a different fabric than the original set.

She wanted an initial onesie and a grandma onesie. I love that the two brown and blue fabrics that we choose coordinate but are not the same. The ever popular initial oneise on the left and the new version of the grandma onesie on the right.

These have also turned into custom "I love ____" onesies. Here are are few different options people have asked for...

The client asked for I love Honey and then gave me the option of picking the fabric and ink and I went with this neutral fabric that almost looks like a bee hive and the letters in a gold metallic ink. LOVE IT.

Then there was a request for I love Mookie and we went with a neon green and black fabric with neon green ink. These are great for an aunt to give to her new niece or nephew to make sure that everyone knows that the baby loves them. :)

I have also done a set that was an I love Grandpa and I love Grandma. I forgot to take pictures of those but they were cute. People use to tell loved ones that they are expecting a baby and I think that is so sweet!

What I Wore Sunday #7

I missed you guys last week! It started snowing last night and it was a surprise to me as I don't really follow the weather. Well it sort of threw my intended outfit out the window so this is what I threw together at the last minute, but it is very close to what I was going to wear.
 

Haha can you tell that my husband is taller than I am? Every picture is from this angle way that looks like we are looking down on me. Maybe I should ask him to crouch down when taking the picture. Oh and did I tell you he literally takes one good picture? He takes about ten but they are usually of me walking or turning around and are super blurry. Do you see the blur in the lower left corner? That is bee as he runs past the frame...sigh not even one picture without a blur.

Onto the clothing, I decided I was going to wear cute pants from Loft that I own and had them on until I realized that they would be dragging in the nasty slush and I didn't want them to get wet. So I changed into these pants, you can't tell but they are a black and white plaid with a bit of red in them. The top is a simple black v-neck shirt that is very comfortable and then finally my sweater that is so cute and works when you have a big belly, which I do not at the moment. There was a cute toggle button on it that popped off right before we left...hence the sweater is falling differently than normal. I did have on some boots, duck rain boots that are not cute and do not go with this outfit so I did not show those to you. If there was no snow I probably would have worn the same old black boots that I normally wear.
 

Clothing Details
Shirt: Target 

Sweater: Target

Pants: No idea from no clue how long ago
 

New Fabric/New Find Friday #123

As a follow up to last weeks Friday post I have this batch of fabric. I think these must have been purchased at the same time because I took a picture of the same fabric I talked about last week (far right) with these fabrics!! What my totally organized picture taking skills are failing me? Yup

Nevermind, I love the other two fabrics so much so let's just talk about those okay? The Easter fabric I probably got on sale right after Easter last year and it has taken me almost a year to post this (Lent and Easter are quickly approaching). I have another Easter fabric with bunnies on it but I thought this sweet chic and egg pattern was just a bit more modern and fun than my old fabric. I am excited to use this in the next few months as the holiday rolls around. The middle fabric is a yellow flannel with a small white polka dot. It is going to be put with several different fabrics to be made into lovie/taggie blankets. They are all paired up, now just to cut and sew and sell. I guess I was going with a yellow theme here and that is why I stuck that white and yellow on black flower fabric with these two. We already talked about it last week, so  nothing else to say here.

Now back to the sewing machine! Have a great weekend.

Quick Takes #6

I wish I had been on the ball last week but sometimes it just doesn't happen....here we go this week.

1. Two weekends ago I had a HUGE errand running day. Remember I told you we were working on getting babysitters? Well I started to learn more about one of them by having her go with me to do all that I needed to do one Saturday. The best thing about this was that I could leave the kids in the car with her when needing to just run into a store for a return and then run back out without having to take everyone out of their car seats. She did help me in the few stores we did go into and it was nice to have another set of hands. I really got to learn about who she is and what she likes to do while we drove around and the kids got to know her without feeling like I had just left them....forever...you know how they feel sometimes at that young age. I got so much done that I wish I could do that every week, well really I hope I can start leaving them with her or another babysitter at home while I go out and run a bunch of these errands.

2. We are a total Heins 57 family, English, French, German, Irish, and probably more that I do not know about, but we are mostly German. I am sure this is not true and is probably a grossly exaggerated stereotype but we say all of the time that our son is so German. When doing certain activities there is only one way to do them, you sit here, he plays here, we move the cars like this, then you run over there and he follows etc. Now maybe this is just something in our overall nature as human beings that we like routine and that even at that young age of 2 he is forming habits but IT CRACKS US UP! Really we think it is just the funniest thing ever. During bath time because daddy sat on the toilet onetime after washing him to let him play for a bit, now daddy has to do that EVERY BATH. Bee points to the toilet and grunts to say "ok now it is time for you to sit there while I play." haha What is even funnier is that he got that from both of us, we are such creatures of habit and like things the same way!

3. Speaking of habits a priest suggested that I read this book called "Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don't, and How to Make Any Change Stick" by Jeremy Dean. That suggestion might or might not have been given while in the confessional. Anyway, I bought the book and am only on page 9 or so but I really like it so far and am very excited about what he has to say. I will update you after I read it.

Image source:http://www.kera.org/2013/01/23/making-habits-breaking-habits/

4. After nap time while I am getting dinner ready I like to turn on the radio. Right now our default station is Christian music and normally no one really pays attention to it. There are a few songs that I really like and because they don't play them often anymore I sometime look them up on YouTube. When listening to them I usually dance....and so does Bee, mostly because I make him. :) Well now if the computer is upstairs on the table he asks for the music to dance. It is so cute to see him dance. First he would just bend his knees and bob up and down, now he stomps his foot. CUTE!

4. I told myself that I would stop shopping and I have a confession, I bought some boots, two pairs. I really wanted some new ones and I thought they would be perfect but when I got them in the mail they are just not my style/ not comfortable. I can not return them, yes I know that was stupid of me to buy them online, and now I need to find someone to buy them locally. I put adds on Craigslist and if that doesn't work I will try my local resale shops. If you are interested they are here and here.

5. A high school classmate of mine was tragically murdered last week. It is so shocking to hear of such a wonderful life taken so quickly and so brutally by someone that she once loved. We were not in the same group of friends in high school but I remember her and her wonderful smile really well.  I hope to attend some of the services this weekend and will be praying for her and her family.

6. We are better but when will the sickness end, every time I open Facebook or talk to a friend they tell me that they had the stomach flu and were throwing up or that they have a cold! I am glad that it is finally cold out and I hope that the ground and everything freezes so that these nasty bugs can die! It makes me not want to go out and if I do go out I am crazy about touching things, it is making me a crazy ocd hand washer! Wait..this just in...I might have pink eye. Boo

7. I was going to post this last week but didn't get to it so, Happy Belated Birthday to my husband! I love this picture of the two of them and am so proud to be married/mother to these great guys. :)