"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." --George Bernard Shaw--

Well I figured I'd better do a post since it's been awhile and also I'm going to MO in FIVE days so I know I won't post while I'm there (maybe) but I'll have stuff to post when I'm back! So let's see...what have we been up too....there's actually not a whole lot...things have been kinda slow here lately. A lot of my projects are done or are in progress/at a stopping point cuz I need Mark to help and he's been busy lately. We did finally stain our table we bought in November, just need to finish it off/buff it and find some chairs for it....but I really love it!   Another project I had for the kitchen was to find an island for the HUGE empty space we have and I found one on craigslist for cheap and re-did it....well painted the bottom black and re-finished the top a bit...sanded it up and put butcher block on it. I really love that too, nice to have some actual prep space! I'm eventually gonna have Mark add some height to it though cuz it's a bit low but for now it works!

Well this is actually a before shot but just imagine the legs/shelves/drawer black and a finished up top :)  pretty basic little island but it works! 

Another project we finally did was build our garden box! We've started a lot of seeds in small pots and knew we were eventually gonna need a box so we got that done a couple weekends ago. Mark's so proud of it! :) He's more into it than I am. Evelyn enjoys going to check the plants with him everyday/watering them when it hasn't rained (although it's rained EVERY DAY this week!!!! getting sick of it.....).

Evelyn helping daddy plant some of our things in the new box. 

and our full garden! Our tomato plant and onions are doing the best so far, oh and two things of garlic popped up too.  we'll see how it all goes/tastes though! :) 

I did do this project one night when it was storming....I had randomly picked up a can of chalkboard spray paint to do something for Evelyn (still will since there's some left) and I saw something similar to this on Pinterest so I decided to do it! I have a fairly good sized wall space by the kitchen where I had a calendar hanging but there was a lot of space so I decided just to fill it with a big chalkboard calendar! I really love it, super cute and fun! :) Unfortunately regular chalk doesn't work very well with textured walls-super hard to read- so I found some chalkboard markers at Michaels which work GREAT! So that was a fun quick project to do.

As for Miss Evelyn...she's been keeping busy playing with her babies, coloring/painting, and forever wanting to play with her "best friend" across the street. She gets along really well with our neighbor kids and loooves Maddie especially. They play princess and dress up and it's so cute! She wants to play over there all the time though which her begging definitely gets old! Maddie is five though and goes to kindergarten half the day and Evelyn wants to go too! Gotta enroll her in some classes or something soon :) Anyway, we go to the park a lot with them (my neighbor has three kids, two girls and a boy, she's super nice and I enjoy spending time with her while the kids play, so nice to have a good neighbor!). Evelyn is still doing really well with her potty training. We've started going out without a pull-up on and she's done really well! She's also gone quite a few days without wearing them during nap time so next up is bedtime without one! She almost always wakes up with a dry pull up so I'm thinking I could probably do it now without a problem. So soon :)

Evelyn LOVES finger painting :) although she's getting messier and messier with it :)

Evelyn and her best friend, maddie! they're so funny together

cute little momma! She seriously takes her baby everywhere now...wraps it up nice and cute with her little blanket I made her, puts it in the backpack or stroller or car seat..puts it in bed...gives it a "bath"...does laundry for when it "poops" in it's blanket.... So cute and so funny!!

One project I've done for Evelyn this past week was a new Sunday dress! She's outgrown a few of hers...well they fit but are too short :)...so I've been keeping my eye out for some at the stores but then just decided to actually make one of the HUNDREDS I've saved on pinterest or blogger :) So I went through them and decided on the Junebug Dress from craftinessisnotoptional.com, my favorite place to get pattern tutorials for Evelyn! I love how cute her patterns are and they're pretty simple to do too, and most importantly, easy to understand :) Evelyn wanted a purple dress so I found one of the only purple prints I had and luckily had JUST enough to do this dress....but then I messed up on the sleeves anyway and decided to just leave them out and put the bias tape trim on it to make a slight cap type sleeve and it turned out really cute! This was my first time ever doing button holes too, which weren't as bad as I thought, even doing them without a button hole foot, so that was nice to finally learn how to do! Anywho...here's pics of the dress!

She was in a "posey" mood when I took these :)

So cute! :)

with a sneaky little streak....

and a bratty streak...

but always cute :) I adore this dress on her! Definitely making another one :)

I did make another little outfit for Evelyn today that I actually cut out/started in MS and finally finished today but didn't take any pictures and I'm not quite sure how happy with it I am. I'll have to try it on her again tomorrow and see if I want to alter it to make it better or what....kinda sad though cuz the pattern looked cute and I LOVE the fabric I used! Sad I wasted it on something I don't really like :(

Other than that one of the big things that happened this month was that Mark and I celebrate our 4th anniversary! Hard to imagine it's only been four years! We didn't really do much to celebrate since it was on a Wednesday but we made a nice dinner to celebrate and Mark sent me some beautiful flowers. :) Then the Saturday before we went on a lunch date and to see a movie. Our super nice neighbor watched Evelyn so we could go out, I couldn't even remember when the last time we had gone out so it was really nice! We didn't really do anything much as far as presents go....we've been doing a lot for around the house since we moved and getting some things we've been wanting for awhile, like our grill (I looove to grill!), so we considered those as gifts for each other instead :) Although I did get Mark this awesome clothes folder. I was gonna give it to him for Father's day but had it done already so I gave it to him. :) We both LOVE "The Big Bang Theory" and one of the characters on it uses this in every scene they show him folding laundry and Mark said he'd actually like to have on (he has a looooot of shirts to fold with his uniforms) so I got it! I added my own special something on it though and on the side you flip up at the end painted "Bazinga" which is a catch phrase from the character on the show. Pretty funny if you watch the show :)

 

mmm! Love roses! smell so good

Bazinga!!!

And last but not least, a little baby update! I had an appointment today...which I got to do the every so fun glucose test, but I passed thank goodness! I didn't with Evelyn and had to do the three hour one...ugh! No thanks! Anyway...the dr. said the baby's heartbeat is good but I'm measuring a little small to my date so I'm going in for an ultrasound next week to check the baby's measurements/weight. I'm just tall and have a long torso though so I'm chocking it up to that and so is the dr. but I guess better to double check! I've been doing pretty good though...the baby is moving a lot more now and I can tell a lot more when he shifts/changes positions him than I did with Evelyn, well that I remember anyway. :) One day I'll be fine, the next I'll have back pressure/pains....then he shifts and I feel him majorly on the right...few days later I don't feel him as much cuz he's further back...so that's interesting I guess :) not much else to tell really! I'm 27 weeks as of yesterday...only 13 to go! Which sounds like a long time but it's really not! I'm getting really excited to have a little baby around though and can't wait to meet him! Evelyn is a lot more aware now that my tummy is getting bigger. She goes around the house sticking her tummy out, making it bigger since mine is :) She was also very interested in the dr. checking my tummy cuz she remembered from the last visit that the dr. listened to the baby.  She also talks about the baby more, although she still INSISTS it's a girl... :)

sorry for the ridiculously poor quality pic but this was taken at 25 weeks :) I hate doing these pics...

 SO there you go! That's pretty much all there is to catch up on! Hopefully we'll have some more exciting things to share from our trip to MO :) So til then! Love you all!