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.