Allee's ruffle dress

I did it I finally finished this outfit. It is a dress for my 3 year old Sis-in-law.
Its probably not great work and may not make it through the wash but a few times BUT I did it! From start to finish I made this dress. I am so pleased. She is sick today like Lilly but as soon as she wants to try it on we will have pictures of her in it!

Lilly's 1st Birthday

It is hard to believe that what was a year ago 6 lbs 4 oz is now 19 lbs of full energy.



This week was Lilly's first Birthday and her party. I can't believe that she is already 1. A toddler! Gosh a year went by quickly.


This is the fabric Birthday Banner I made for her. It says Happy 1st Birthday and the 1 is velcro so it grow with her. The ST was supposed to be too but I was still sewing it the morning of the party so I will just have to pick it out later and make it velcro as well. It turned out really cute.

There are a lot of tutorials out there so I won't even try to do one but I did just kind of do it on my own. Others just seemed to make it harder than it was.
This is the second thing I made. Well an upclose version of it.
I made tons of those tiny fabric rosettes and glued them all together to make....
Lilly a birthday wreath. The 1 is not attached so it will find a home on her bedroom door. I love love it I want to make one just like it for every holiday and in every color scheme. i got the idea and tut from A Little Lovely. Here she is on her actual birthday with her Daddy in front of the wreath.
On her birthday my parents and brother wanted to see her so we went to lunch and she had a ball. Here she is with Grandma.
Grandma and Granddaddy. It was so fun because every time we would sing Happy Birthday she would start to sing too....though it sounded nothing like "Happy Birthday".
At her party in her Birthday outfit...just loved every bit of it.
The highchair decked out with a shot of the wreath in the back ground.
The cake for the guests. A family friend Donna made it for us and she is amazing this is her 3rd cake for me and all have been gorgeous and yummy!
Her 4th for me was Lilly's smash cake. Lilly loves Elmo and she sure loved this cake.
Lighting her musical candle and singing to her!
Digging in!
After she "kissed" Elmo many times.
Then there was swimming and Lilly is a waterbug!





Overall it was a very blessed day it was wonderful to have everyone there to share our joy at our precious gift from God turning 1.

What I have been doing with my time

Ok so one of my new kicks for right now, well I have always loved it but just got back to doing it frequently, is reading.

I am using my local library and its connection to bigger libraries to get whatever I want, I just have to be patient.

A lot of what I am getting is patterns for crochet or sewing and stuff like that. Then there are the teacher books, and I am STILL looking for a job. Two of the books I have checked out this summer though are regular reads and I loved them.

The first was Kate Gosselin's new book.

I Just Want You to Know: Letters to My Kids on Love, Faith, and Family

I was an avid watcher of Jon and Kate Plus Eight. I have many feelings on the topic but I really don't want to get into them here because its none of my business and that's my new mantra this year. Also Kate does a really good job of removing that drama from this book. There is no hate for Jon and its very faith filled. Mainly it is just excerpts from her journal and love letters to her children. It is very uplifting and also reminiscent of the show from the good old days. It also gives a behind the scenes look at things you saw in the show. I have loved her two other books and this one was no disappointment, but I would say you can't be a Kate hater and read it, you would just be too prejudice. You wouldn't believe how many mean comments I got just from having the book in my purse.


The next book I read was a short paperback thriller that 5 minutes for books had a review on. Well the review was actually on the second in the series. So I checked out the first one. Its called Bundle of Trouble (A Maternal Instincts Mystery) I loved it. It was the first thing I have read that actually described how I felt about being pregnant, having a baby and being a new mom. It was like Diana Orgain was me and I her. I would wake Clayton up at night to tell him how much this was exactly how I felt. It was a quick read and I am now onto the second one, Motherhood is Murder.

It is sitting on my nightstand just waiting on me to finish....

After I finish these I have a whole stack waiting on me...time to get reading while Lilly is napping!
Now for a cute pick of her!