Oh geez.

He's crawling. Big time.

I feel so old.

(I hate to be lame and do a mostly-pics blog post, but I've got a TON going on this week! Our spring musical is Friday night, I have a booth at a craft fair on Saturday (my first!), and then our end-of-the-year choir party (bouncy house, obstacle course, crafts, pizza, pie-in-the-face! Woot!) is Sunday. Between now and Friday I need to finish sewing the stuff for the craft fair, monogram 10 v-neck t-shirts for my volunteer appreciation gifts and embroider 12 beach towels with names on them as a gift for my graduating 5th graders. Needless to say, I'm a little busy.)

Today I was thinking about a few things that are making me feel old,

or at least that time is passing way too quickly.

(forgive the 2 pics from my blackberry camera. it was all I had when the moment arose.)

A. See that orange hat? That's my little brother. DRIVING A CAR.

*faints*

He's 10 years younger than me, and still that somehow doesn't seem old enough to drive.

B. Noah is drinking out of a sippy cup. Are you kidding me?

C. He stands up and then WALKS AROUND his excersaucer.

D. Today he decided that if something (like a Bumbo) is in his way and he is trying to crawl to something, he will simply climb OVER it.

Oh AND he has his top two teeth now. 4 teeth total.

Oh man. I'm not ok with ANY of this.

If I somehow do end up with a free second this week, I will spend it Noah-proofing the house.

There's still time!

There's still time to stroll on over to Annabelle Lynn and enter her giveaway for an item from my etsy shop!

Want one of these?

Or maybe one of these?

...or maybe even, if you ask nicely and bat your eyelashes all sweet-like, one of these?

(ok, upon re-reading that, it was admittedly creepy. sorry about that.)

Run! It ends tomorrow!

Poppy

My grandmama found all of my great grandmother's quilt tops yesterday. She stacked up 4 big boxes, put them in my backseat and seriously had a tear in her eye- she was so happy "that someone has an interest in them".

Are you kidding me?!

My great Granny + me + sewing = LOVE

They pretty much all have this satin fabric on them which sorta crushes my dreams of having one long-arm quilted immediately (instant gratification, anyone?) but I am absolutely in love with this one:

Hello, Poppy quilt.

I would like to finish you quickly with a modern-ish backing and pretty blue binding.

Any ideas on a fabric for the back? I need major help because, as I mentioned before, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

Let me have my "I'm-a-80-year-old-woman-trapped-in-a-25-year-old's-body" moment, please.

You may have seen where I posted recently about the quilt class I'm taking starting in May. I have this bizarre facination with quilts and a ddep desire to make one -why? I don't know, maybe it's because I know it's something I will probably suck at and I like a challenge. Maybe it's because I love old people and think that it would be cool to have a reason to hang out with more of them. Who knows? I'm pretty sure it's because they're so frickin' beautiful!

I read Cluck Cluck Sew daily (she's who made the two quilts/tops above) and check out the Fresh Modern Quilts flickr group hourly (ehh.. I exaggerate a little). If you have a free 5 minutes (ha!) check out that flickr group- if not, here are a few of my faves:

I can't possibly be the only 25 year old out there who thinks this is amazing, can I?!

I have it in my head that after I take that quilting class and sew my first quilt, that I will be able to make a quilt for Noah's big boy bed in his next room. The only problem with this plan is that I SUCK at putting fabrics together. I don't see a print and immediately think "Ooh! That would totally compliment this fabric!" (which I'm pretty sure is basically a requirement for making a quilt) I have to look at what other people have put together and go with that. So that will probably become a problem in the long run quilting-wise. However, this may be my saving grace: Fresh Squeezed Fabric puts together fabrics by collection for you and sells you a bundle of fabric- and not just Amy Butler and Michael Miller (like a lot of shops do!) but of lines and designers I've never heard of! SCORE!

Ok, if you've read all of this instead of just looking at the pretty pictures then rolling out- high-five! Do you have any quilts in your house? Is there a story behind them or did you just buy one (which is what I may end up doing if this class thing doesn't work out the way I planned!)?

BTW, if you're interested at least a little in any of this, check out these two blogs: Diary of a Quilter and Oh, Fransson! . LOVE.

Lookie who's talking about ME!

Rebecca over at Annabelle Lynn is a stinkin' sweetheart. She contacted me a couple weeks ago about an etsy order and after checking out her blog and seeing that she A) is from SC as well, B) has 2 precious little guys who she dresses in jon-jons as well (see? I'm not the only one!) and C) has some of my favorite jams playing as I read through her blog - I decided I love her! Her basket ministry, Annabelle Baskets, (named after her own sweet angel baby) is amazing! She sends Annabelle baskets to "heart babies" that are filled with useful things- blankets, socks, hats, etc. How special is that?!

Also, I think that God must have given her little one Noah's helping of hair in addition to his:

HOW PRESH IS HE?!

Anyways, this week she is doing a giveaway on her blog from wee little winslow- head on over there and enter and read all about Rebecca and her family's amazing story of love, hope and a COMPLETE and total trust in the Lord that allows them to continue to praise Him through their loss. Wow- so inspiring!

coming soon to the etsy shop...

mmm... minky!

The #1 seller in my etsy shop- by FAR- is the custom camera strap. I've had MULTIPLE people ask me about making minky camera straps- how freakin' snuggly would that be around your neck?! VERY!

Check out a closer look at the inside of this thing:

I have just mailed out 2 of these babies to some very snap-happy ladies (MWAC, anyone?) to try out and let me know if there's anything that needs to be imporoved on them. If they're as comfy as suggly as I think they are, they should be in the shop in the next week or so!

If I ever have a little girl we're all in big, BIG trouble.

... because if there's one thing I love making it's a DRESS! I also love it when moms send me pics of their preshies wearing things that I've made! Check out these cuties from Easter!

Oooh, pretty!

Last night I was working on a custom order from the etsy shop and was excited to see that one of the items was listed as "contoured burp cloths. fabric: girly- I trust you." Ok!

This is officially my new favorite fabric combo.

Here's my (ground) beef with Pioneer Woman

Oh man... I just can't help but say stupid things that I think are funny. Sheesh.

So, I think we all know about Ree over at The Pioneer Woman. Some people don't like her, some people adore her- I lean towards the latter. However, she does seem to make me feel inadequate as a housewive. I can't wrangle cows, homeschool kids, cook amazing food and still be skinny and have the time to blog about it- I just can't!

Anyways, today I was making supper for our friends Kimberly and Steve (who just had a precious baby girl- Jillian! Eeeee!)- I remembered how when we had Noah, we had tons upon tons of leftovers, so I decided to make one meal and split it between Kimberly and Steve and Joe and I. I decided to go with Ree's Creamy Mashed Potatoes and Pastor Ryan's Cajun Meatloaf.

My beef with her recipes are that they absolutely DISTROY my kitchen and usually take all frickin' afternoon (although, in the end, it's always worth it).

Unfortunately, Noah woke up 45 minutes into his afternoon nap, so he did this while I cooked (for what turned out to be a total of 1.5 hours):

I made the mashed potatoes first and then set them aside and got a-chopping on the veggies for the meatloaf.

Yes, that is 6 TABLESPOONS of butter in that pan. You only live once, people.

Noah then got antsy and fussy, so I sat him in his high chair and let him eat a teething biscuit until I got the meatloaf in the oven

(which, by the way, ended up being roughly the size of a sheet cake).

... but TAMBA it was good!

Noah agreed. I've honestly never seen him go to town on anything quite like he did that meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Not one drop on the floor for poor ol' Rufio to lick up.
I guess I know what's for lunch tomorrow.

L-E-F-T-O-V-E-R-S.

(because even after splitting a sheet-cake-sized meatloaf with people, you're gonna have leftovers)

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

What do you think of the new look? It's definitely brighter!

a-quilting I will sew, a-quilting I will sew....

Lookie what I'm going to make:

I signed up for a quilting class!

If you think that's cool, let's be friends!

If you think that's lame, don't come crying to me to teach you how to quilt in 50 years when we're old and grey and then it's the "cool" thing to do.

I will be using the fabrics above (that's the sample from the quilt shop) and here's the pattern:

Don't you just love the big ol' fat ric-rac and huge flower?

I'm super stoked for this class- it's the 4 Wednesday nights in May. I can't believe that I'll make a quilt in the time span of 1 month! If I were on my own, it would take months or even years!

I'm nerdily excited to learn to quilt! I even bought a quilting foot (which isn't even neccessary for this quilt) to play with! The main reason I wanted to learn in the first place is that my great-grandmother quilted and when she died, she left multiple finished quilt tops and finished squares for other quilts, but no one in my family knows how to do anything with them! I'm very excited to learn and be able to use some of those to make quilts for my aunts and myself so that all Nezzie's hard work isn't wasted!

(Get ready for some visual changes around here. I used to think the grey was cool, but now it's just depressing! hehe)

Happy Easter!

"Sin has lost it's power, death has lost it's sting.

From the grave You've risen- victoriously!

Into marvelous light I'm running, out of darkness out of shame

by the cross You are the truth, You are the life, You are the way!"

I hope you had a GREAT day!

-theluckiest family

(please note both Joe AND Noah's closed eyes- and this was the best pic! haha)

my favorite pic of the day:

Well 5 posts in 4 days is sort of ridiculous...

... but then again, so is the amount of stuff that I've been sewing. Eh.

Remember that genius idea for a t-shirt quilt that I had back in, oh, February?

Well, the sorority shirt quilt was a little intimidating (since I literally have a shirt for every event that we had in 4 years... even narrowed down I've got 30!) so Joe suggested that I try a smaller-scale t-shirt quilt first- a little quilt for Noah using some of our shirts from college. Well, I started that one in February as well, then put it off and put it off until finally, 2 nights ago I decided to just suck it up and finish it- nothing fancy, just seeing if it's possible. Here it is:

It consists of nine 15" t-shirt backs and I used this tutorial to get me started (ironing on interfacing, cutting, etc.) but then lazily bound it with a flannel backing pillowcase-style because, really, let's be honest: the kid's gonna puke on this thing and it isn't exactly destined to be a family heirloom. I'm still in shock that it's actually a square and not incredibly wonky- and for that, I can thank a 15" quilting ruler and my 1/4" guide quilting foot.

I also just made a TON of stuff for a friend who is hosting a baby shower, but this owl was my favorite, so I want to share it despite the bad lighting (Meredith, I seriously need to figure out that white balance trick... it worked for me once and that was it!):

hold on to your hat!

'cause it's SPRINGTIME, BABY!

Which, in our house, means... (let me just say that yes, Noah does have a life jacket and yes, I did pop Joe upside the head for letting him ride in the boat without it. It will NEVER happen again.)

family crusing time...

and snacks on a boat


Also, my beautiful, gorgeous, amazing, strong wonderful friend Kimberly had her baby girl Jillian today! Kimberly and I were pregnant together, but unfortunately, she lost her first baby to miscarriage. However, her second pregnancy went amazingly smooth and Jillian was born this evening at 6:47pm -I AM SO STOKED to meet her tomorrow!
I made her this little summertime dress (tute here) ...because it isn't springtime in the south until you're wearing seersucker-
I don't care how old you are.