"Creativity is a drug I cannot live without." - Cecil B. DeMille

Here is my finished office/craft area! I'm so super happy it's done/excited about it! I had sooo many boxes of stuff that were just sitting there cuz I didn't have this room ready to put it all away so I was glad to get it all done and put away and glad to have a craft area, just for my crafts! It's such a pain having to bring everything out just to do one little project so this is gonna be such a nice change, just grab what I need to when I need it and I'm good to go! I love having it all organized nicely and with easy access. It's great! And this way I don't have to clutter up the kitchen table for days while I work on a project, I have this nice little area just for me :) Well, Mark uses the computer too but most of all it's for me :) 

Anyway, we built the desk last weekend. Mark had an early day Friday and Monday off completely for Easter weekend so we got the supplies and got to work! It was actually a pretty easy project, only had one or two minor issues that we worked around and wa-la! My lovely new craft desk. 

The best part of making it ourselves was that I got to choose where I wanted the shelves/height of each and make it the size I wanted. It fits great in our space yet still has a great surface area on top for projects.

So I was able to customize the shelves to fit my wonderful new fabric holder things. :) I've seen things online for you to wrap your fabric on so they are organized better but definitely did NOT want to spend the $ on them! SO I took some of the sturdiest boxes that we had (good thing we just moved! :) and had Mark cut them up into usable pieces, cut some strips of scrap paper, scored the middle, and used them to cover the raw edges of the cardboard/make them look cuter. The great thing about the cardboard too is that on the backside I just stick a pin in the fabric and stick it in the cardboard to keep it in place. Super great!

One of my fabric holders before I put fabric on 

The other side of the desk is my scrapbook side. I made the bottom shelf tall enough to fit my scrapbook paper and I got some nifty office bins from Target on sale to hold the loose ones, fit 12x12 paper perfectly! Love Target! Then my Cricut fits right on the top shelf, easy access to it, just pull it up when I need it and put it back when I don't.

Then the shelves in the front have stuff too...the right side has sewing notions/etc. and the left side has scrapbook embellishments/etc. Love it! :) Of course I couldn't fit everything on/in my desk (I still have quite a bit in our hall closet :), so I got a simple little shelf for the stuff I use a lot, labeled them to look a bit cuter/easier to find and here's that! :)

And now for one of my latest actual projects! I've been working on this before we made the desk and finished it after we were done. As you can see it's kind of a big project so it did take awhile but not too bad and it's finished now and I loooove it! I wanted some fun art to put on Evelyn's playroom wall and saw tons of stuff online that I liked so I took a little here and there and made this collage! Good thing the wall is big too cuz I liked a lot of things :) 

So as you can see it's very colorful and fun, which I wanted, but also something she can look at and learn/identify things. She's been interested in her letters lately and recognizes "T", "O", "A" 90% of the time and is getting "M" and "E" pretty good too. So I did letters, numbers, colors, cute animals, and a few quotes! I love the church type ones so I put two of those in there (green and yellow) and then found some fun Dr. Seuss ones that I liked (red, pink, and purple). Although the red quote was a bit long (Think left and think right and think low and think high.Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!) but it went with the purple one good so I went a little abstract with it. Mark think's it's a little confusing but it was partly his idea so oh well :)

A few closer up shots! I love the giraffe. So cute.

Monie wanted more of a tutorial one how I did these but I didn't take any pics during the process. If I do more I'll do those pics but for now I pretty much took the thin canvas sheets (I got packs of them at Michael's on sale), got some paint, got out my trusty Cricut and some contact paper (pretty much what I did for my family rules art work awhile back...), cut out the words/designed the layout in Cricut Design Studio, laid them out on the canvas and painted! I did have to do some touch ups afterwards but overall it worked pretty great!

And I LOVE the whale! Super cute.

And I couldn't leave a post without a pic of my little artist! The other day, while I was painting the above, she wanted to paint so I had previously found a link to sidewalk paint (pretty much just water and corn starch with a bit of food dye) and she loved it! Worked pretty good too and the dye didn't stain the sidewalk at all. So yeah! Good activity for the wee ones ;)

Easter is the demonstration of God that life is essentially spiritual and timeless. ~Charles M. Crowe

We had a kinda busy, but not really, Easter weekend this past weekend :) Mark got off early Friday and had Monday off completely so that was super nice to have him home a little extra time. We spent most of it though working on my craft table (which we finished and I LOVE but I'll post that later), but were able to do some fun stuff too.

Earlier in the week Evelyn and I did dye some Easter eggs, which she really, really enjoyed. She did pretty good with them too! She loved checking them and putting them in/out of the cups and didn't make a big mess, yay! :) Then after they were dry she got to put Mickey stickers on a few of them, which she also loved. She wanted to do more and more but one package of eggs is good enough :)

ready to go!

she's getting so big! can't believe it sometimes

sticker time! 

I just love these hands...so cute!

All done! We did try to do some of the eggs using kool aid (saw someone do it online) but they didn't turn out as well as the regular ol' dye kits did (we used both), but I tried it! Next year sticking with the egg kits. 

Saturday night/Sunday late morning we got to spend some time with some of Mark's family. Ruth and her fam were in NC for spring break and made the little extra detour to come see us/meet us. Ruth and I have been following each other's blogs for awhile but this is the first time meeting each other in person so that was fun! Evelyn LOVED playing with the kids (Ruth and Chris have three kids, older than Evelyn but she didn't care...she's been so kid-deprived lately so was just happy to be playing!). Anyway, we didn't spend a whole lot of time with them but it was still super nice to meet them finally! :) Thanks again for coming by to see us, guys! (we did take a full group pic but used their camera so they have it... :)

Then Sunday night we went to our new friend's, the Vance's, for Easter dinner! They had some family and friends all meet together so it was fun to meet new people and enjoy a nice Easter dinner with others instead of just us three. There were quite a few kids there too, so Evelyn was happy. And they had an Easter egg hunt! We hadn't done one (it rained the day they had them in our area park) so I was glad she got to do this little one. She loved looking for the eggs but didn't want to put any effort into getting the harder ones, which I think mainly was because most of them were in bushes and she didn't want to put her hand in there...they were kinda pokey. :) But it was fun and she looked adorable in her little Easter dress (LOVE it btw...so super cute! And she of course just made it even cuter :) Love her in blue).

too cute!

love this girl! :)

So yeah! Pretty mild/but very enjoyable Easter weekend for us! Here's some more pics of Evelyn's adorableness :)

I took a few pics Sunday morning before she ruined something and I just LOOOVE this pic! 

She doesn't like to look at the camera anymore...guess she's done with me taking pics of her :)

so we went with twirling instead! :)

Then I tried to get some after church but she still wasn't cooperating totally :)

still looks cute though!

this is her making a "donkey" noise...soooo funny!!!!

Saturday night we went to Red Robin for dinner and Mark got the unlimited root beer floats, he was so excited....oh goodness...and so was Evelyn :)

Enjoying some quiet time on Sunday during Evelyn's nap! It was a gorgeous day out. 

She's getting really good on her bike now, she loves to ride it!

"I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.'" --President John F. Kennedy--

A week ago Evelyn and I went over to Mark's work to see Mark get "officially" promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG)! He's been an officer in the Navy now for two years, which is when they promote, and we are so proud of him! It was a quick little ceremony, pretty much just repeating the oath/swearing in type thing again, and then switching his Ensign insignia for the LTJG insignia....which is basically just changing the gold bar on his uniform and cover to a silver bar. So it was quick, like I said, but we are so excited and happy for him. He's been working hard and doing a great job and I can't say enough how proud I am of him! So here's some pictures from the event...

Repeating the oath

This is his CO btw (Commanding Officer) , we've been lucky with getting great CO's! This one is super family oriented and super nice and so is his family. 

Yay! done with the oath! 

Now time to switch it up! Since the bars are sewn on there he had to switch his blouse and cover right there and they gave me the "honor" of helping him :)

Evelyn didn't quite care about it :)

See? Just a little change- you can see the silver bar on his cover

And he's promoted! :)

My adorable little girl, she's so sweet!

And so cute! Even though her skirt isn't quite modest here :)

So there you have it! We celebrated inside with everyone with some snacks and DQ ice cream cake (I was looking forward to taking some home but it totally disappeared! :( Then they let Mark have the rest of the day off (it was 3:00 by then so not a big deal) and we went down to the beach area, had some dinner, and played at the beach with Evelyn! So overall pretty great day!

"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous" --Coco Chanel--

I know I promised a post last week but I'm still not ready for it :) Things got a little busier than I thought and pushed back and then I don't have all the pics yet so I'm just gonna do a little post on my little Evelyn! I've been making a mental list of things I want to write about her, which is a bad, bad idea for me...especially while prego...cuz I can't remember 1/4 of them now :) So I'm just gonna go through some pictures I've taken/posted on Facebook and go from there....

Well Evelyn is gonna be 2 1/2 years exactly in a couple days....in most ways I can't believe she's already that old and then in other ways I can't believe she's JUST 2 1/2....she's such a smart little thing and a lot of people think she's 3 already...which is partly due to her height, she's so tall! and partly due to her vocabulary/etc. When we moved here her nursery leader couldn't believe how many animals she knew and every one she knew the sound for (her latest is a donkey, which is hilarious to hear). I'm a little biased being her mom and all but she does have a pretty dang good vocabulary/comprehension for a 2 1/2 year old! She just catches on so quick and uses the words correctly after learning them just once. It's fun to hear her say things and realize how quickly she learned it.

Although this does pose a problem for me because I'll say something once or twice and she'll use it on me and I can't get her to stop....such as she has her moments and talks back or rudely to me, so I'll say, please don't talk to me like that or something like that, and now she goes up to either me or Mark and says "don't talk to me". She mostly does this when she specifically wants to talk to one of us and not the other but it's still super annoying and bratty! She's twisted a few other things but I can't think of any specifics right now...oh wait...so I'll be by her/holding her or something and pat her on the head/back/etc...ya know, something little, and she'll be like ow! (she's into a big "ow" thing right now and gets "owie's" from every little thing...) So I'll be like, I'm just patting you/playing with your hair...so now she'll come up to me and smack me on the arm or wrap around my leg and burrow her head or something weird, and I'll ask her to stop and she'll be like "I'm just hugging you" or "I'm just making you feel better"....but always, "I'm Just". Ugh....I've gotta watch myself close now :) It's cute but not you know?


One cute thing she says, although I'm not sure where she came up with it...is with her prayers. So loves saying the prayers at meal times but always asks for our help and ALWAYS says "Dear Heavenly Father, and Tangled"....super cute but really don't know why/where it came from :) She gets upset when we don't say it though :)

And I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but this girl is just SO particular and has to have things exactly right or has to fix it til it is....like the other day we were headed out to do errands and I was getting our bag together and zipped it up and didn't go the last extra inch and she noticed and made me zip it the rest of the way (glad she's super observant but she's so anal about things being done all the way! always has to zip or button her clothes up all the way, no matter how high the collar is....things like that). And once she learns to do something one way she's gotta always do that, hard to change her up. Such a determined little thing!!!


 I love watching her though, she might be super particular/determined but she's awful dang cute! I've been getting together some play/learning/fun activity things together for her to try and keep her busy and have found some good ones so far. One of her favorites so far is a binder filled with printables with the alphabet/numbers and I put them in sheet protectors so she can write on them with dry erase markers and then erase them. The pages have the letter/number, some sort of image for each, and then that number/letter that they can trace. I've noticed she likes to trace stuff in her coloring books so I thought she'd like this and she really does. Keeps her busy at home/in the car/at church...it's so great and cheap too! :) Here's a link to where I got them for anyone who wants to see.

Really love this project for her! 

Another one I did was paint these jumbo popsicle sticks different colors, put sticky back velcro circles on the ends (I eventually did both sides so she could do more with them) and she can put them together and build things/make shapes, etc. She knows a few shapes pretty good and makes triangles and squares with these regularly now. She doesn't play with these as much but still a fun easy project to do.

I did the hexagon :) Although she does know what it is...she has a few "games" on Mark's iphone she gets to play and one teaches shapes....I can't believe how quick/well she can navigate the iPhone though! She knows EXACTLY what to do....kids learn so quick!

Then another fun one is the pom pom magnets! I found a website (can't find the link now but easy to google) that had printables where there were circle images that you can put pom poms down for each color to make the image/fill in the image. I gave Evelyn one of my seldom used cookie sheets, stuck some circle magents (couldn't find the sticky ones but super gluing them was quick and easy) on the poms and let her go. She enjoys this activity a lot too.

Birthday cake! :) These really are a cute, simple idea

She still really enjoys just plain coloring and has been surprising me a lot lately! She's all of a sudden started drawing actual things instead of just scribbling or coloring in a picture. She's been doing really well with drawing things outside with chalk...she drew a whale one day, which I thought was pretty good, and lately has started drawing "monsters" in her notebooks. She puts eyes/nose/mouth/arms/legs and even lines/circles for hands and feet...pretty impressive I thought! I love seeing what she's come up with.

Monsters!

This one appears to be kicking another monster...not sure though, didn't ask :)

She really has quite a little imagination and is always giving me imaginary tickets for things or pretending she's someone else...She was going through a phase where she didn't want me to call her anything BUT Evelyn. I'd say come her sweetie/sweet pea/etc...ya know...and she'd be like, no, I'm Evelyn. But lately she's been pretending she's different characters...like when she's playing in her tower she's Tangled/Rapunzel and when she's talking in a squeaky voice she's Minnie and I'm supposed to call her by such...pretty cute though.

Here's another funny little thing she does....so she found this long rope Mark has while we were packing in MS and has been playing with it ever since...she'd drag it around the house while we were packing, calling it her baby and just loving it. She loves tying things up with it (and is pretty darn good! takes me awhile to undo some of them). Keeps her entertained so hey...whatever works right!? The other day though we were at Old Navy and she found some long shoe string like strap in the clearance section by itself (I think it fell off some shoe or shirt), and carried it all around the store so the lady said she could keep it. And she's been playing with that for days. She took it with us to the mailbox, dragging it behind her calling it her doggy, wadded it up and took it with her for her nap....pretty dang funny! She's definitely imaginative :) Which I'm glad...keeps her busy/entertained for little spouts of time at least. I definitely need to have more play time with other kids for her but haven't met too many people yet so it's slow going. :) Half the houses on my street are still empty and half are people who've just moved in so everyone (including me) has been busy unpacking/etc....so that's my excuse for now :)

Rope baby! :)

so funny...

Being super cute at Daddy's office! She's so adorable...

First time leaving in a headband in months! She looks so big right here! :)

Building castles at the beach....

and destroying them :)

Singing or yelling...not sure what :)

Cooking with daddy! She made him put on an apron just like her :)

Anyway....so yeah! This girl can be frustrating but I love her so much! She's so amazing and smart and wonderful :) I look forward to seeing her with the new baby so much! It's gonna be so fun/amazing/hard/wonderful/but so worth it :) Anywho...til next time! Promise I'll have Mark's promotion next :)