"sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart"

Here’s what we’ve been up to since our last blog! Cousin Kady visited for a week and she and Evelyn played quite a bit, which was nice. Although Evelyn tended to hit Kady and Kady spent half her time tattling on her (not hard thank goodness, but I haven’t gotten her to stop this hitting thing….mainly it’s just Jeremiah…oops! :) We did go to the pool one day which was a lot of fun for the kiddos and we set up a kiddie pool at home one day too. Evelyn loved it.

We also spent some time going to some baseball/softball games for the kiddos...Jerica, Ephraim, Abrahm, and Matteo are all playing this year and we have been to multiple games. Here's a couple pics from the twins games.

Evelyn was ready to play!

Matteo pretty much stayed in the same place the whole time.....

And Abrahm chased EVERYTHING! So funny!

Abrahm taking a swing! Nice action

Go tigers!

I took the two girls and met Monie in Columbia after the week was up and we had lunch at Chipotle (YUMMMM!) and did a little shopping. Then I went out to my friend Rori’s house (I went to her wedding last month but don’t think I’ve posted anything about it…oops again! It was a beautiful wedding and wonderful reception, ammaaazing food, and amaaaaaazzzzzing friends! I got to see a lot of people I haven’t in a long time so that was wonderful.) Anywho, I had dinner with her and her new hubby which was fun. Most of the rest of the week was spent with the fam and doing the regular stuff.

This is Rori's redneck booster seat :)

Last Saturday I did do some small photo sessions, one for Sierra and Sean and one for Jeremiah. I posted Sierra and Sean’s on my photography blog but haven’t finished Jeremiah’s yet, well posting it, the editing is done…my internet just hasn’t worked at all this week! Frustrating…..so yeah, those will be up soon. I’m going to be doing some more sessions this week as well so hopefully they go well! I’m excited for them.

Evelyn wanted to get in the trailer part of the tractor so we let her in while we were shooting pics and it totally tipped over! She was ok though... :) Here's one pic of Jeremiah though, I finally remembered to put his pics on my SD card to put online...so they'll all be up on my other blog soon.

Here's my favorite pic from one of my sessions this week...the full session is here. I'm taking her family's pics on Thursday so stay tuned for that!

This past week started off with me driving all the way to St. Louis with Sierra cuz she had to drop her car off to be shipped to Alaska and I got to follow her to drive her back :) Yay me! It was fun though, we did a little shopping and eating at yummy places (Panera being the top fav of course :).

Then the greatest event of the week was getting to see my bestest best friend ever, Sarah, on Thursday! We went to lunch, a movie, and then hung out for the rest of the day. It was wonderful! She got the cutest little hoodie for Evelyn in South Africa (she went there last semester for a study abroad term), although it was a bit too big on her but that made it all the cuter! :) It was wonderful to see her though, it’s always way too long in between the times we see each other but it’s always a great reunion!

My two most favorite people with October 8th birthdays! :)

The only thing happening this past Saturday was my eight year old niece, Jerica, got baptized so the whole fam attended that and went out to lunch afterwards. So that was a great experience except that Evelyn was a bit wild and crazy which made it a little hard to pay attention fully…she was a bit crazy all week…boy does that girl have a lot of energy!!!!

And that brings us to Sunday! Which was of course Father’s Day. We sent Mark a package last week, which he said he enjoyed immensely. Church was wonderful, Sierra gave a great talk on Father’s, and our weekly Sunday Dinner was extra yummy.

I’ve been pretty slow this week on my projects. I did a plastic bag holder thing a while ago. I’ve been wanting one for a while but haven’t found one at the store and a week after looking I found a tutorial on one of my favorite blogs so I whipped it up (it was super easy) and there you have it!

The next thing I did was a little shirt for Evelyn, which fit her just PERFECT but is super hard to get off so I’m gonna have to try again for her. I was trying to work on making my own patterns and trying out things I’ve seen elsewhere. It turned out cute but just not the right size (I have a HARD time getting sizing right… :)

Next I tried a dress, once again trying to work on modifying patterns and getting sizing right…of course this one went way off on the sizing but it still turned out cute! Just a little quirky and off a bit :) I love the skirt but had a heck of a time getting the top right….it was too big but I had already sewn it on the skirt so had to modify it without making it look funky….next time I’ll get it a little more right, or maybe I’ll just focus on skirts for a while. :)

She likes the flower :)

Oh, and here’s a pic of dress I did a while ago but it was a bit too big for Evelyn, it’s still a little big but not as bad so she wore it yesterday to the baptism, so cute a springy!

And my last project for the past two weeks was this cute little “name block” thing for Monie’s lil guy, HOPEFULLY she doesn’t change the name on me! I wanted something new to do that was different so I tried a little mod podging (which I don’t know if I’ve ever done before, except maybe in art class way back in the day). I thought it turned out cute.

So that’s what I’ve been up too! Evelyn is busy being Evelyn….still talking and talking and talking, still loves watching Dora and Shrek and Diego (she added Finding Nemo to her favs as well), she loves playing outside, she loves her Thomas the Train stuff, loves books, loves blocks, loves coloring…she’s so energetic and active and crazy and funny, she’s such a hoot and so fun and SO frustrating sometimes, but that’s life with kids right? :) She’s wonderful though. She’s been missing her daddy more lately though….since our internet isn’t very reliable I usually end up talking to Mark with my iphone propped up on the bathroom window cuz it gets the wireless signal the best there so whenever she walks in the bathroom she says, “daddy!” Very funny, a little odd, but cute :) Silly girl….here's some random pics of the cutie pie....

Enjoying a nice day with popsicles and bubbles!

Sometimes they get along...

and it's super cute when they do!

Snow cones!!!

Just cuteness

Oh, and here's a lightening shot I got the other night, I was messing with my new camera and trying to see what I could get with it. I only took a couple shots before I go this one and then stopped cuz there was a LOT of lightening and I didn't want to stand out there too long...but yeah, I think it's pretty cool.

So yeah…that pretty much sums it all up! Hope everybody has a great week!

Craftiness is NOT optional! :)

So my obsession with craft blogs is really getting out of hand...I"m following so many right now that I can't keep up with 'em! I spent over a couple hours today looking at blogs and catching up with them and saving projects for future use....I can't help it though! These ladies are soooo talented and have the greatest ideas and tutorials and I love trying them out! I'm pretty creative but am not so great at coming up with the ideas so I love love love all the crafty momma blogs out there. It's so great! One of my favorite favorite blogs right now is "Craftiness is not optional". She has the greatest tutorials and sew-alongs and I have a ton on file to do. A couple of my projects for today's blog are a couple of them and I plan on making more! :)

The first project I tried of hers was the Sadie Shirt. The tutorial looked so cute and I'm always wanting a cute, basic shirt for Evelyn to wear that's not super plain either. I also love making things for Evelyn and seeing her wear them. She's the cutest little model anybody could ask for! :) Anyway, this is my first attempt, which turned out pretty good except the sleeves are a smidge too skinny and won't last long. She's getting so big, I just can't believe it! I love the length though (she's so tall it's hard to find shirts sometimes that are long enough!). That's one thing I love about making things myself for her, I can make them whatever length I want! All these tutorials though have you pretty much make the pattern yourself, using clothes that fit your kid already. I'm doing pretty at it but most of the time I end up making them too big, but better too big than too small right?


This is my second attempt with the Sadie Shirt, but this time I wanted it more dress like and made it longer, although not long enough but it looks cute with leggings so all is well!



I have some fabric I want to use for another one but that might be awhile. I'm taking a short sewing break and doing some scrapbooking...finally had the urge to do a page the other night so I'm going with it! :)

But here's more projects! This one I really kinda just threw together...it's pretty messy and definitely far from perfect but since it's just a play dress I didn't really care! I've wanted to make one since we were in Cali and she wore her cousin's dress up dress so I found some cheap cheap satin-ish fabric at Wal Mart and some sheer remnants there as well and threw this together! I have a blog tutorial somewhere for a princess dress but couldn't find it so I had this dress pattern from Simplicity (I can't remember the number) and used it to cut out the pieces. It was fairly confusing though so I kinda followed the basics and put it together the way I thought it should go. Patterns are had to read!!! So it turned out a little off center in the front and pretty big on her (she wouldn't let me put it on her the day I made it so no pics of her in it yet...) but I figured bigger is better for this anyway...she can play in it longer and she might not be into playing dress up yet with no one else around doing it. So anyway.....here's a couple pics of it.





This next project was a lot of fun for me, mainly cuz I was actually making it for someone else instead of just doing it! :) I got some super cute fabric in Utah to make my friend Emma a diaper bag. She's have a baby boy at the end of the summer so I wanted to make her something! I took the Amy Butler pattern I just got (the one I made the yellow purse with) but this time I made some modifications...I didn't like how short the width was on the purse, it didn't stand by itself and there wasn't as much room inside as I woulda liked. So I made it a bit wider and now I think it might be a bit too wide! But oh well...it's a diaper bag so they are supposed to be big right? I just feel kinda bad cuz Emma is kind of a short lil' thing (short and fiesty, but I sure do love her! :) so this might be really big for her....whoops. She'll love it anyway so I'm not gonna worry too much. So here's the bag!

Along with the bag I made a matching changing pad...although this was my first time to do that and first time to use the iron on vinyl so that turned out a smidge sketchy....definitely a bit off on the whole straightness of it but it's just a changing pad and it's super cute! :) I used a bunch of scraps from the purse for it and kinda just threw it together hoping I had enough but it worked!


The next thing I did for her was make her this ADORABLE bapron, courtesy once again from "Craftiness is not optional". I absolutely love this pattern, they are cute, SUPER easy to make, and work great! They cover so much more than a bib too! I loved it so much that the next day I whipped up two for Monie although I forgot to take a pic of them....they were super cute though!

Sorry it's sideways, forgot to rotate it.

This last project also came from "Craftiness is not optional" and also came out a little bigger than I wanted so it doesn't quite fit Evelyn yet. I absolutely LOVE this fabric though...look familiar? Well I used it on one of my Amy Butler Birdie Sling bags a while back and a week or so ago I found it at a quilt shop here in MO for half the price I got it in MS so I bought what she had left and used it for this! I think it looks ADORABLE and can't wait for it to fit better. Anyway, it's called the Anna Dress and I also plan on making another one of these :) I seriously LOVE her tutorials!!!!




Oh, and just a quick fyi...I did a new photo shoot that I posted up on my photgraphy blog, http://foreversafterphotography.blogspot.com/, so head over and check it out! I'm not gonna do a repeat and post it here and won't with most of my photo shoots anymore, that's the point of the photography blog! :) Anyway, enjoy!

Wednesday was a bit of a chaotic, crazy, exciting, scary, happy, EXCITING day. :) It started out good, got better, got a little worse, and then got amazing. So here's how it went down! Sierra and I got up a bit early, left Evelyn with Grammy for the day (YAY! :), and headed off to Kansas City! Whit was in town with her husband for a conference so we picked her up and she spent the day with us.

First headed off to Independence Mall. I really needed an oil change and why not do it there and shop while we're waiting? Great idea! We dropped the car off and started shopping! We hit Old Navy first which has AMAZING deals (50% of their clearance, score!). I got some good deals for the whole fam, I love Old Navy! Anyway, after that we went to New York & Co., another favorite store of mine, and while checking out we were instructed to leave the store and head to Dillard's because there was a tornado warning. Just what you want to hear right? So we went over there and stayed under this big spot under the second floor for a looong time, didn't hear anything else that was happening so I resorted to my trusty iPhone and Annie! She told us what was going on and where the potential tornadoes were and kept us informed for the duration of the lockdown.

Hanging out in the basement!

Just how you want to spend your vacation right?

After a long while it got a little more intense and they made us go down to the downstairs bathroom/back hallways of Dillard's and we sat there for another loooong while. And then it finally cleared and we were let go but man! That was a little freaky! Luckily nothing happened in our area but unluckily not too long after our ordeal was over, a tornado hit south Sedalia (the town right next to us, about 10 miles away). It did quite a bit of damage to some residential and business areas but luckily it wasn't the main part of Sedalia and even LUCKIER there weren't any causalities and hardly any injuries, just a lot of damage. So that put a little damper on our day but the weather stayed clear after that so we stayed in KC and finished out our day.

Next we went to JoAnn's did a small amount of damage there (joking Mark...) and by then we were STARVING so we headed downtown to an....interesting...area and ate at a famous BBQ joint called Arthur Bryants. So you always hear about Kansas city being the BBQ capital of the world and all that but I've never truly eaten real Kansas City BBQ, the only places I've been are chains like Rib Crib and Famous Dave's. So this was a fun, interesting, and Yummy experience for us. It was really really good though and I'd totally go back again...mainly just so I can try their ribs! We got pork sandwiches (they had sliced and pulled, YUM), and after we were done we saw this guy get ribs and man did they look good! SO I'm gonna have to go back :)

So even with our long delay at the mall, we still had three hours to waste before we had to head to the concert so we went out to the Legends Outlet/Mall area in Kansas City, KS and had a fun time there. I've never been but it's a cool little shopping area. We got some good deals there too, my favorite being a pair of Gap jeans for $8! They are SO comfy and amazing too. I love them. :)

The three of us all prettied up! :) Whit had a banquet to go to with Rich.

Anywho....it was finally getting time to go so we went to Whit's hotel, did a quick change and touch up and headed to the Sprint Center (which is pretty cool looking btw)! We were SO excited! It took forever to get in though and then we had to wait awhile for the opening act to start but it was all SO WORTH IT! The opening act was some guy named Elew who plays the piano in a jazzy/rock/crazy type of way but he was really good! He played a lot of popular songs and put his own twist on it. Very cool. And then he was done and then time for Josh!


We were all looking at the stage cuz his band was playing an instrumental intro and then all of a sudden the lights spotted a small stage in the middle and Josh was sitting at a piano and playing and singing. It was awesome. He is such a PHENOMENAL performer and singer and musician....it's just amazing. I absolutely love him! It was truly the most amazing concert I've been too, even the other one I saw of him! :) He's just so talented, first of all, and so funny and entertaining as well when he's not singing. He did a spot-on impression of Stewey from Family Guy which was hilarious and he's got a real quick wit about him that made him very entertaining.

The best thing about him, besides his voice, is his real connection with his fans. That's one thing about celebrities that bother's me sometimes, sometimes they just don't seem to appreciate their fans when it's their fans that make them what they are, ya know? Without fans they wouldn't be anything. And Josh just isn't like that, he's so appreciative and so nice and amazing :) I know Mark isn't going to like this post with me going on and on about Josh Groban, he already thinks I'm obsessed completely with him but oh well! I LOVE YOU more Mark so just forget about your little jealousy thing :) anywho...back to Josh :) With this concert tour he made a new stage which allowed him access to the audience and he, multiple times, went out on the floor, talking to people, shaking hands, taking pics, and it was just SO AWESOME! We were SUPREMELY jealous that we weren't one of the lucky ones but someday!!! I've already decided to make Mark promise to get me in the front rows on his next tour, if not the very FIRST row... :) I'm gonna meet him someday!!!

Anyways, I just thought it was so cool that he interacted so much with the audience. The best part of that was near the end when he went out and found a couple that were celebrating their 20th anniversary that very day, grabbed this girl that was recently engaged, and then grabbed this adorable little 8 year old that he had talked to earlier, brought them up on stage, had them sit on these blow up couches they brought out, gave them wine to drink (milk and cake for the little girl) and then sang to them all for two songs!!! How COOL is that? I was SO jealous! He also let another girl earlier on in the show come up on stage and sing with him. Sierra was SUPER jealous of that.

So ANYWAY....it was a WONDERFUL WONDERFUL WONDERFUL night. I'm SO sad that I didn't get to spend it with Mark (he had promised to take me to this concert when I couldn't go to one on his last tour but since he's out of the country I decided to go anyway :). But I'm super glad I got to spend it with Sierra. She went with me to see Josh in St. Louis (along with her mom and dad) when I was in high school so it was just fitting to go with her and she's going to be moving to Alaska this summer for three years!!! So I'm putting in a lot of Sierra hours :) Well hope you all got through that ok without getting sick of me praising Josh Groban but I can't help it! If you've ever seen him in concert or just heard him sing you would understand :) So I promise I'm done! Have a great Memorial Day Weekend! My next post should be some projects I've done recently so keep tuned! Here's some pics!

Elew

He stood like this the whole time he played! Crazy!

Part of Josh's band.

The mini stage in the middle of the floor.

He shed his coat for the encore song :)

Singing to the luckiest people ever!

Just a cool shot, I thought anyway :)

I LOVE when he plays the drums!!!