"When life gives you scraps, make something with them."

Lately I've taken a break from scrapbooking and have been exploring some other creative outlets :) My neighbor is into sewing and showed me some cute baby booties she had made and they were just sooo cute I had to try it out! Luckily Hobby Lobby had their Simplicity Patterns for $.99 last week so I went over and grabbed some patterns then headed to Hancock Fabric who were having a fabric sale so I got some fabric, figured out how to use my sewing machine and wa-la! Here is what I've come up with so far :)

These are the most boyish ones I could come up with. It's just so much easier to do girly!

I LOVE this fabric!

These are kinda hard to see but they are like the ones below just black.

These look way cuter in person btw. :)

I absolutely LOVE these baby booties. They are so adorable and sooo easy to make! Well at least easy after you get the whole thing down and stop reversing the outside and inside the wrong way :) Took me a couple tries to get it all right but luckily they are small and quick!

The next thing I tried was this little bag that was part of another pattern group. I made the yellow one first and am using it for Evelyn's Church toy bag. It's pretty basic and simple but I added the ribbon and button and it is so cute! Then today I tried it again with some changes to make it a little more sturdy and made this one! I had this fabric lying around so I figured if I messed up then it would be ok but it turned out pretty good! Although I realized after I finished that I did the handles wrong! They were supposed to attach differently. I thought they looked funny this way but oh well. They are still cute!



So that is what I have been keeping myself busy this week! I have some other things I plan on making but will wait to later this week. Mark is leaving for a 2-3 week field exercise so I've got tons of time to sew and scrapbook! I plan on turning my table/countertop into scrapbook central and just go at it. I am soooo behind on my scrapbooking! I haven't scrapped a page for Evelyn's book or anything since April. So this outta be a fun next couple weeks minus the fact that Mark is gone :(

"There is no greater gift at Christmas than to have everything you want before you open the gifts."

Back to Christmas! I never posted any pics of Evelyn opening up her Christmas presents so here they are! We opened our presents the night before we left for Missouri. Evelyn is still young and doesn't know what's going on or what day it is so I figured it was ok! :) I was hoping for some excited reactions to some of her Dora stuff or her new rain boots but she didn't really do anything! She'd open a present, she finally has figured out how to rip wrapping paper and open a present, look at it, and then go onto the next one. I guess she was more excited to open this time than the actual gift! Kids really do like the simple things, eh? :)

Yay for wrapping paper!

Dora jammies!

So excited.....? :)

Riiiiiip! What a fun sound

She looked so freaking adorable that day!!!

I guess I can see where she gets her excitedness from! :)

There's a smile!

Look what I can do! --Stewart--

Mark and I have been looking for some hobby we can do together that doesn't involve watching movies, which is great and fun but not too productive. So last month my neighbor told me about this awesome website, ana-white.com, which is this site this lady has where she puts up full-blown, step by step tutorials on how to build things, mostly furniture and such like that. She makes it so easy to follow and do so Mark and I decided to try it out.

We found an awesome TV/cabinet that we want to make but decided to go for something a little simpler so we found a nightstand that looked simple enough and it's something we actually need. Right now we've been using those three drawer, plastic tower things from Wal Mart. We've just never gotten around to getting nightstands and I don't want those cheapo, flimsy ones you can get at Wal Mart. Anywho....so we went to Home Depot on Saturday, got all our supplies, came home and got to work!

Mark did most of the cutting (well trimming what Home Depot didn't cut), and drilling and I helped drill and sand, which is pretty fun with an actual sander :) It really was a simple thing to make and turned out pretty dang good! Works for our purposes anyway and it'll be in our room anyway so if it isn't perfect then nobody will really see it up close! So here's the finished product!

Just starting

Almost done building! :)

Done! Now on to staining...

Now it's done!

It's not perfect but good enough! We definitely learned a few things that we'll change on the next one but overall they'll be the same.

We stained it yesterday and it's just drying/airing out now. We're gonna make me a matching one but didn't have time to build both this weekend. Working around Evelyn just wouldn't go! She napped for part of the building time and then we put up a gate on the garage door so she played in the living room, watched us, and watched Dora so we were able to finish. Thank goodness for Dora sometimes! Although I am thoroughly sick of her so we're taking a break. :)

And of course here's some pics of Evelyn from the first few days of the new year!

We were getting ready for bed and she just looked so cute like this, I had to get a pic! :)

Another before bedtime pic...She found this hat and was loving it!

We went to the beach yesterday cuz it was pretty nice out and Evelyn loves watching the birds...she was watching some seagulls fly off here.

More watching the birds

Mark let Evelyn pick out her skirt the other day and then went to put her boots on and this is what she decided to wear! Might not match but still looks cute! At least they match the skirt still right? :)

"The most vivid memories of Christmases past are usually not of gifts given or received...

...but of the spirit of love, the special warmth of Christmas worship, the cherished little habits of the home."

My Momma enjoys a themed party/holiday so this year's Christmas theme was Christmas Memories! On Christmas Eve we all brought Christmas memory foods (I made homemade yeast rolls and homemade honey rolls, I couldn't really think of a specific memory food but I love bread and you can't have a Christmas dinner without rolls!). Everything was exceptionally yummy, as usually.

After dinner we all shared Christmas Memories which was fun, and then did our family gift exchange. This year I had my Mom and Dad, which I was really glad cuz I had already started making my mom's gift before I found out who I had! I made her a homemade (we all did homemade type gifts this year for our exchange family) scrapbook calendar, which she loved of course! :) Then I got my dad a copy of Josh Groban's new CD, whom we both enjoy immensely and I knew he'd love it :) My brother Ben and his wife Jody had us and gave Evelyn a cute little foam album full of pictures from her first year. She LOVES looking through it and I am currently making one full of pics of her and her daddy! Then they gave us a big framed collage type picture with Erwin in the middle, very cute.

Oh! and also as part of the Christmas Memory theme, my mom asked me to put together a slideshow of Christmas photos from the past, which I did and with the help of my bro-in-law Kyle, was able to get working on the tv so we could have it running through the day, thanks again Kyle!

Cute as a button! :)

Silly Kady!

oh! we had an ugly sweater type thing for Christmas Eve, this is Monie's but unfortunately she didn't win cuz I did! :) I found this love flowey, drapey dress with seashells and stripes...so gorgeous!

Carmen and Matteo!

Jerica, Emily, and Jeremiah

Gramps telling his Christmas memory of when he and some grandkids got lost in the woods on Christmas...great story!

Dad laughin', which I think is a nice pic! It's hard to get a good one of him

Oh yeah! This was my gift to dad for his birthday and was quite the hit....this thing entertains my family for hours! :)

Grammy's deer, this time as Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus! My mom is soooo silly :)

Christmas day started out like every other Christmas day, which means fried bread!!! That is seriously the best Christmas tradition ever and one that Mark particularly enjoys from my family. He asks me to make it all year but I rarely do cuz, well one, we don't need to make a batch of fried bread for just the two of us, and two, I really shouldn't eat fried dough more than once a year! It's just too hard to stop! :)

After that we got stuff ready for Christmas Day dinner, which this year we had a Mexican themed dinner which was soooo yummy...enchiladas, tamales, homemade guacamole (made by me :), dip, rice, beans.....so good! I love our family dinners!

So when we all settled down with that, the kids did a little scavenger hunt for their Christmas goody bags and us adults did our white elephant gift exchange, which was exceptionally fun this year! Auntie Kim found a good version online to play and it was so much fun! Then to finish up the holiday we watched some of Mom and Dad's old home videos, major old school style too with the old projector and old videos that didn't even have sound. The younger kids were baffled by such a thing! So funny....

My adorable little girl! She's such a joy and so much fun!

Cousins! Well some of them, it's hard to get all of them in one spot!

See? Entertaining!

Fried bread time! She didn't quite like the un-sugared ones

Evelyn was fine with them though!

Evelyn saying sorry to Kady after hitting her

Evelyn and Jeremiah! They are so cute together!

,Another cutie! This girl is just hilarious

Cheese! Evelyn loved Abrahm's Christmas present, looks like she really is my daughter! :)

Santana and Abrahm! Matteo ran off

White elephant gift time! Mark got the granny panties but luckily traded them :)

Dad rollin' the dice for the gift exchange game. There was a time limit so of course he took his sweet time rolling, making everybody mad! :) Silly guy

It was such a wonderful holiday though! I loved being with my family and spending time with them and I got to see my best friend Sarah! Not as much as I would have liked but at least I got to spend a little time with her! And of course I got to spend lots of time with my wonderful hubby and daughter. Although Mark did also spend some quality time with my dad and the boys, going out to lunch one day, gun shopping another, and shooting another! Now of course he's itchin' to get a gun of his own! Anywho....it was a wonderful holiday and I am so grateful for my wonderful family and that we were able to come up and be with them! I love you guys! Thanks for another wonderful memorable Christmas!

I do have to include a shout out to the Bidia's in Cali, who weren't with us this Christmas and were very much missed! I love you guys!