Like father like daughter

I have had this picture of Matt for awhile at my office and I've been meaning to scan it and make a copy. It is so funny how she can look just like him and times. This face is definitely a Daddy look alike face. 

water baby

Margaux's curls create a terrible sight of bed head when she wakes up in the morning. So I usually have to spray it down with water to reshape the curl. She LOVES the water bottle and will snatch it. She loves to have her face sprayed. She laughs and laughs.
Other signs she loves the water. Freak out and try to climb in the bath with all her clothes on when she hears the bath being drawn. squeals of delight when its time to wash her hands or brush her teeth. She loves to brush her teeth.
Things she does not love... Well right now Santa is at the top of that list. He came to her preschool and she told him "NO" "no-no" and "don't touch". I'm thinking we might forego the whole trip to the mall thing.

here is a video of Margaux and the spray bottle. And yes she says "Nekkid".

Christmas Crafting

Spoiler Alert if your last name is Cole and you are my friend do not look at this until Sunday.

Of course I have been crafting for some of our Christmas/baby presents and Holiday decor this year. And just like the last time I made a quilt as a gift for someone I have told my Husband if I mention making Christmas presents for people next year have me start in June or July or tell me "No". 

Here is a picture of the basic day one of a wall hanging I made for a friend. and the second is a finished product minus ribbon I added for hanging it. I saw the idea on Pinterest and then saw where another friend made one that turned out so cute. I figured my friend would really like this and it only took me two afternoons to finish. If you notice, one ball is blank. She is expecting a girl in February and that one is reserved for her.

This is an advent calendar for Margaux. Right now she is still too small so I'm using it for Christmas cards  this year. The sucker is huge. I was not expecting it to be so big. I painted clothespins covered them with ribbon, and glued them to what was left of a drawer front from where we made Margaux's changing table out of an old dresser. This had started out as a girls night project idea, but now I know that it is WAY too time consuming for a single girls night. 

Spoiler Alert if your name is Beth and you have an adorable little girl don't look at this because you are getting something similar.

These are some headbands and ear warmers for another friend that is expecting a girl. I got on a bow making frenzy one evening because I didn't think Margaux had enough color variety in her bows. Lets just say she is now stocked up!

sick little girl

Well as you can tell from the previous post, MaGoo has been sick. It started the week after Thanksgiving with a hacking cough. To the point she would throw up slime from drainage. The doctor said this was normal and one of their only ways to get rid of it. She continued to hack, not eat, not be able to sleep, and then she started running a low (99-100) fever. By Friday Mommy and Daddy had enough. So we took her to the doctor and she had apparently caught the RSV virus some where and had rattling in her chest. She has been taking the albuteral breathing treatments and an antibiotic. She is a whole new gal and doing great. I've been letting her stay home from preschool and rest up (even though she is feeling much better). She is doing so well now and we are all thankful to have a healthy happy little girl back. Unfortunately now Gimme, Momma, and Daddy are all feeling icky.

Breathe deep!

Longer post to come but this breathing treatment has been a new part of our daily routine

In addition to warm ears, I also have a warm neck

I really like scarves. Infinity scarves in particular. I just think they are so easy and instantly add so much to a simple outfit. Last year after I had Margaux and was still way to big for how long she had been out of my body I made one. Let's just say I did not bounce back quickly and I still have at least 5 lbs before I'm at my pre-pregnancy weight. Anyhow, my wardrobe left a lot to be desired and I just needed a little something to spruce it up so I made this houndstooth one.

This year I saw a leopard one that was paired with some great solid colored shirts and was inspired to make another one. I'm in love with it and wear it on a regular basis. I always feel so chic in it.

source: http://bittersweetcolours.blogspot.com/2011/10/color-of-day-green.html#more

**Please excuse the lack of make-up. It was a lazy weekend at the office.

 But I still feel put together in my jeans, Tee and scarf!

sharing the giggles

Margaux gets a little loopy at bedtime some nights. Other nights she is grumpy, but I am a big fan of the nights she is pure silly.

Sorry folks... I deleted the video. it played automatically when I went to my page and it drove me crazy.

Yard sale wreath

My mother yard sales and she bought a bag of christmas decorations that I would not have looked twice at. I must have said I would take them for some reason because my dad brought them down to my house one day a few weeks ago. So I sifted through the bag and found strands of pearls that you are supposed to put on the tree. Here was my idea inspired my something I had seen on pinterest.

I had some burlap covered wreath forms left over from a previous girls night project. A little wrapping. Some hot glue. And topped off with a ribbon. Seeing that it does not scream Christmas I anticipate it will be hanging in the house for quite a while.

The ladies have warm ears!

So I found this tutorial on pinterest (My new obsession) for making ear warmers. Over Thanksgiving I had a few evenings that I could really just relax so they were on my to-do list. I made myself some out of some fleece purchased from the remnant bin at Hancocks. I bought it for just a dollar or so a remnant with Veteran's Day sales going on.  I really thought mine turned out cute and I made it in a about an hour. See look. 

But of course I thought they would be really cute on Margaux. She looks cute in everything. So… I measured one of her headbands and added some extra for seam allowance. I believe it ended up being 4 inches wide and 16 inches long. I followed the basic idea from the tutorial for adults. Then I finished it with a fabric flower made from the same fleece and sewed it on. I despise using hot glue and cut it out of the process whenever possible. Here was the result. 

Look at the face on my spokesmodel! She is totally giving the camera some attitude!

TOO CUTE! She wore it out this weekend and got tons of compliments.  

Happy Turkey Day!

We have had a  really busy past two weeks but I’m so glad that there was a holiday in there. Last week Matt and I made a trip to St. Louis for an Ag and Technical Education conference. Matt made two presentations and to his surprise he received an award from OTT (a national masters and above honor society) for most outstanding thesis work from a Master’s student. I have known about it for about a month, but Matt didn’t know. It was a real honor and really validated a lot of the work he put into his masters paper and research. He really wants to get his doctorate, but we are still weighing the pros and cons of it.

This week was yet another short week because of the wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. The weather was great!! We were able to spend some time outside and had a lot of fun. We met my parents, grandparents and great aunt and uncle for breakfast at Cracker Barrel on Thursday morning. We have done this the past few years and it has been so nice. We then followed it up with a huge lunch at Gimme and Poppa’s (Matt’s parents). Friday Matt and his father worked on the farm and I stayed in with Margaux. Saturday Matt joined some friends for a bike ride. Margaux and I met up with them for a few minutes while they enjoyed a bite at Blondie’s in downtown Clarksville. Later that day we took family photo’s and ventured out near the mall for a few stops and some dinner. Sunday we did some chores around the house and Mommy took a good long nap.

We had a really nice laidback holiday. I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving too. We have a lot to be thankful for. 

Margaux and Grammy/Gimme 

Bad week!

Thank God I don't have many weeks like the one I had last week. It started with running over my computer with my car. Yes, you heard me correctly. I ran over it with my car. I was loading packages into the car and I got distracted talking. I loaded what was the last package and forgot to put my work bag in, backed up and crush. Needless to say the Apple Macbook will not survive being run over by a Jeep Liberty. I made an emergency trip to Nashville to purchase a new computer (oh! and the one I ran over was just purchased in February of this year). I went to two different places and both said that my hard drive was damaged and the data can not be recovered in a conventional setting. I can send it off for a ga-zillion dollars and have a professional do it. Ugg! No thank you I'll just be retyping.
Matt or I had something planned EVERY night of the week after work!
I misplaced $200 I had in an envelope. The mail lady called on Wednesday and informed me I had accidentally put it in the mailbox with a stack of outgoing mail. So glad that made it back.
Matt's students had a fundraiser on Thursday night and I had hoped to go help and come home early. I got out a little after 9:00 p.m. and still had to stop by my parents, so I got home at 11:00 p.m.
And I wrapped the week up with breaking my toe with a crockpot.

Funnier story from Sunday before the flood gates opened. I had a light fixture that was only halfway working in our entry room. I called my Dad and tried my best to fix it. I think I may have even been the one to install the thing. Anyhow... I wiggled wires, receptacles, bulbs and ended up with the whole thing no longer working. And Dad coming to fix it. I told him I had heard varmints up there last winter and I think they had chewed it and damaged it. He said, "oh no. That isn't whats wrong." He took the fixture down and started locating the wires that were hanging down. One wire sticking out was unaccounted for, so he tugged on it and proceeded to pull a mouse out of the hole and swing it in front of my squealing face.
Of course he gave me crap for squealing, but I couldn't tell for a minute if it was alive or dead. It was dead. Surely if it had been alive it would have put up more of a fight.

Bye-Bye October! Hello November

October was a crazy month here at our house. A lot of things have been going on. First off in Shelby news, I have started my own practice. I no longer work at the law firm that I was previously at and decided to go on my own. It was a TOUGH decision. I really contemplated on it for quite a while, seriously considering the pros and cons. And in the end, I decided to take the leap and go out on my own.
So far it has been a month and I really do enjoy the change and feel it was the right decision for me. I'm still trying to figure out what area of law is where I need to be. Being on my own, I feel that every dollar, every hour is an investment in ME! If I chose to hire someone to help with my billing (which I have done) it benefits me. Whereas if I had done that before, I would have been paying someone out of my pocket to bill (produce more money) that I would have had to pay a percentage of to the firm. It just didn't make any sense. Anyhow... it has been a really good change thus far.

Margaux is growing like a weed! She has battled allergies and runny nose problems for weeks now. She has cut quite a few new teeth and she has weathered her very first ear infection. All in all, since September she has been well for about 2 weeks. She currently has contracted yet another runny nose and sneezy spell that I'm hoping we can head off before it gets too bad.
She talks up a storm. She says just about anything she wants to now, or at least she tries. I have to be careful, because you never know when she's listening and what she will decide to repeat.
I love to hear her say her name. Its my favorite! She really pronounces the two syllables, "Maaa-Go!" It just warms my heart to death! My other favorite thing is when she starts singing her baby talk words. Ba ba ya ya laa la ya ya! It is too cute! one day she was doing that and threw in a "Baby rock"here and there. Apparently she likes "rock a bye baby". Last night and this morning she said, "Bon-ju" and tried au revoir. Matt thought she should say Bonjour.
She loves to be chased and play "Get you" she will run up to you and laugh and squeal and say "get you!" instead of Get me. She still loves the animals, the "Baa Baa's", the "Moo Cows", "Mee mee" (our cat), Bee Bee (our dog Biscuit), and "Ban-deet" (Bandit the dog). She enjoyed trick-or-treating as an owl with her friend Fee-Aa (Sophia), and loves to talk about Gammy, Nanny, and the Pa Pa's. She has a plethora of animal noises she makes when asked, she blows kisses, she says "Thank You", and she loves to be coy with folks.
We are still working on table food with her. She isn't a fan and can't seem to get that you have to chew things. She has a real issue with the texture of food and if she doesn't like it she'll gag. She loves tea and although I've never given her coke, she will look at a glass and say "coke". If it weren't for goldfish, nutri-grain bars, and chicken I think she might not eat anything by yogurt. Maybe when the rest of these teeth come in I can report she is eating more table food.

invasion:)

This is one of the reasons I love reading my cousin Holli's blog. The following is an exert from her post about Halloween (which she goes totally out for).

"I looked up at one point and the street was jammed with vehicles and the entire width of our driveway from stoop to street was crowded elbow to elbow with little candy zombies. It was a horde. Yep. A horde. There was a small roar of kid voices when you stepped outside. It was like a one night invasion of human cicadas. They were running everywhere. I see now why they are made mostly of cartilage."


Human Cicadas! I love it! I chuckled out loud at my desk.

Happy Ha-OWL-oween!

Margaux loved this Halloween. She still didn't really know what all was going on, but she knew to chase her little friend Sophia (aka Ladybug) from the wagon to the door.

I love the face she is making at Wes!!

My owl and her daddy with the loot!

and to rhyme with loot, Margaux is such a Hoot!

On Saturday we visited with my parents and my side of the family, and on Sunday we dressed up for Matt's family. Margaux ran around with so much excitement. I can't wait till see what she does next year.

Halloween projects

So this fall I have made a few little crafty things that I'll share.

First... Margaux's owl costume.

The wings are felt with a little interfacing. I got the pattern for them from Martha Stewart. I tweaked things a bit for ease and for personality. The beanie I made out of an old tank top of mine that was in the goodwill pile at my house. The original owl costume called for goggles. Margaux would probably rip those off in a heartbeat, so they got the axe and the beanie came in. besides the beanie there was very little machine sewing, mostly I little hand stitching.

Next... My plate turned door decor.

I found this plate at Big Lots for $0.80. I cut out some vinyl with my silhouette cutter and put it on the plate. I then drilled some holes in the plate and used floral wire to wire it to a frame I spray painted green. I added some ribbon and a little gem and the project was done.

Lastly... Some little pumpkins.

When we built the deck I had some left over little squares of wood in a pile. My original idea involved christmas and making little presents to sit about. But I figured I had enough to make some pumpkins too. I painted the blocks orange. drilled a tiny hole in the top. Then I gathered and cut some twigs from the yard. I glued the twigs in the hole with some hot glue and added the ribbon. These will be sitting around my house through Thanksgiving too!

Award! Good thing there is no runner up or they would totally take it back.

Thanks to my good friend Fran and Mary, I have received my very 1st Blog Award!

It is the Liebster Blog Award!

What is this you ask?

The Liebster Blog Award is given to an up and coming blogger who have less than 200 followers.
Liebster is a German word meaning dear, sweet, kind, nice, good, beloved, lovely, kindly, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome.To keep this award going, pass the award along to 5 other new deserving bloggers who have less than 200 followers.

The rules for the Liebster Blog Award are:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love, too!

*Disclaimer!! I can't say that I'm following the rules to the fullest, but I do have some favorite blogs that I'd love to share with some folks. So I'll here's my attempt to participate.

Here are my 5 blogs:

1. Holli- Simply Absurd

Holli is my cousin and I love her dearly. She has a wonderful writing style and a unique sense of humor. She probably wants to kill me for the lack of grammar in my posts. She is blunt, straight forward, a geek, and down to earth. She had a baby not long after I had Margaux. Her baby Vivian is gorgeous and happy. Their family has traveled a road with bumps and turns. One of which was a heart condition that Vivian was born with. But this family is strong. And the family will be one more strong this spring with a new baby boy on the way!

2. Beth- Birds Eye Photography

Beth is my close friend from college. We laugh together, cry together, vent, and contemplate the challenges of motherhood and life on a weekly basis. She takes wonderful photos and shares them on her blog. She is a mother of a beautiful baby girl and an art teacher.

3. Lindsey-Happenings of the Carney Household

Lindsey and I have known each other for many years. We went to high school and played basketball together. She has a beautiful son name Hudson whom joined them from Russia. She also has a surprise blessing named Hollynn who just turned 1. Lindsey makes a living doing what she loves. She trains horses and gives riding instruction to youth.

4. Mary- Just passing thru

I met Mary and Mark when I was in college. Mary was in a sorority and so was I. Both of our husbands are in the same fraternity. Mary also has a baby around a month younger than Margaux. She loves to host and share about her family. She too is expecting another little one any day now.

5. Matt-Silvey Farms

Well, I know this guy pretty well and he'd be super bummed if I didn't tap him. He will occasionally get on a kick and post and update about things on the farm. We are so busy and he works so hard so sometimes there is quite a span between posts. I appreciate all that he does for my family.

Fall Pictures of Margaux

I found this rust colored tulle in the clearance bin at Hobby Lobby right after Margaux was born and knew the color would look great on my little redhead. So last spring while making some dresses for a friends children to wear, I made Marguax a quick version as practice. About two weeks ago she let me put it on her and snap a few pictures. She is very nice to let Mommy play with her so.

They turned out precious. Even if she had chocolate on her face and she wouldn't stop pulling the top down:)

Honeysuckle Hills

The weekend of October 15th we had a weekend of parties and family fun. On Saturday two of Margaux's little friends had their first birthday parties on the same day. We had a lot of fun and Margaux played herself out. It was a beautiful day for getting together with friends.

On Sunday we went to Honeysuckle Hills farms in Springfield. The farm is owned and operated by one of Matt's students family. We met his father who runs the show. We watched the pumpkin cannon, the pig races, and meandered through the corn maze. It was a fun day, again beautiful weather and a great chance to support one of Matt's students.

Riding with Daddy

Enjoying the Corn Maze

Picking herself a wee little pumpkin

Pig Races!

Beach (take two)

A lot has been going on the past few weeks. One thing was a trip to the beach with some friends. WE HAD A BLAST. I have definitely learned a valuable lesson about babies and the beach. They either need to be too small to be very mobile or walking OR… over the age of one. Margaux was night and day from when we took her to the beach when she was 10 months old. It’s amazing how much she has developed and changed in the past 4 months. She loved the beach. She would walk out on the sand and point at the water and scream “BEEeee!” She scampered around and ran in the sand. She played with the other children. She didn’t make herself miserable with rubbing sand, sunscreen or saltwater in her eyes. She was a regular beach baby. . The biggest problem we had this time was trying to keep her from eating seashells. I had to trick her into coming into the shade for a while. Having a fair skinned little redhead I’m constantly worried she is going to burn to a crisp. It somewhat consumes me. She wears a little scuba looking swimsuit that is 50 spf. I think she is going to be doomed to these swimsuits until she is 16!

We spent all of Thursday on the beach followed by a fire S’mores and fireworks. Margaux fell asleep but woke up and watched the fireworks with me from the deck of the house we stayed in. Friday we shopped at Appalacacola and headed to the beach. Saturday started out chilly, so we took the kiddos and the men folk to the bay side. The kids played on the playground and the men played on the paddleboard. Sunday we made the long trek home with a stop in Dothan to have lunch with Monica and Jay.

It was a wonderful trip with great company. It was so needed.

*Funny Margaux story from the vacation. She is very into animal noises. Anything she can associate with a cow she does, if its big, if its round, if it has spots, etc. Matt had a hat with a bear on it and Margaux would point at it and say “Moo”. Well… Margaux walked in while Mommy was putting on this bathing suit

pointed at me and said, “Moo”. I laughed and laughed and warned Margaux that if she were a little bigger Mommy may have been offended.

Vote for Margaux!

Disclaimer: she is not running for president... Yet :) just a little modeling/casting call. Honestly... Mommy would like a discounted pair of some of the only shoes she wears well. They aren't cheap!

http://www.pediped.com/castingcallgallery.aspx

You'll have to enter the name Margaux into the search box!

Thanks in advance!

Projects (Part 2)

Chalkboard

I purchased this picture and frame at goodwill months ago for $2.99.

Spray paint and chalk board paint and now she has a very girly message board. I’m thinking about doing something smaller to hang by our front door and write welcome on it.

Earrings

Scrapbook button brads (purchased cheep cheep on clearance) and jewelry earring posts and clamps. Add Some epoxy and now I have way too many pairs of earrings.

wearing them here