Green Beans

Familia

All pics taken by Rebecca Todd Photography.

Sneak Peak

We had family portraits taken yesterday morning with Becky of Rebecca Todd Photography. Thought you deserved a little sneak peek on this rainy Friday morning. Love y'all! xoxo

Solid Food!

Today was El's first introduction to solid food.

She ate some rice cereal (aka soggy cardboard).

She was less than thrilled.

Whew! Glad that's over!

Crazy Monkey

This morning Ryan and I went in together to wake Elizabeth. This is what greeted us.

Me: Did you take her Baby Legs and socks off her in the middle of the night?

Ryan: No, did you?

Me: No. Oh, ELIZABETH!

New Obsessions

So it started with Kelly Rae. I fell in love with her paintings...the charm, the whimsy, the collages, the scrumptious colors. Then it wandered over to Mati Rose...the elephants. *sigh* The elephants. I found myself creating collaged backgrounds on canvas, and playing with paints. An introduction to Etsy followed, and more artists, and photographers. A million photos later, I walked into a fabric store with mom. My heart started to beat a little faster. I don't have a clue how to sew. Nor do I own a sewing machine. I remember thinking, "What is wrong with me? Why do all these gorgeous fabrics make me feel so happy?" Mom bought some fabric to make some dresses for El, and we left.

But I couldn't stay away. I looked for reasons to buy fabric. I did some internet research and found a no-sew way to play with fabric: appliqued onesies. Thank God for Wonder Under, no? Then I snapped up some tulle and made a tutu. Then I mentioned to Ryan Craig that I might want to learn to sew after all. But we don't own a sewing machine...what to do? He said, "I bet my parents have one somewhere." They are, after all, in the dry cleaning business, and um...never throw anything away.

Sure enough, his dad says they have two. He brings one home. An old one. I'm feeling a little nervous and not all that optimistic. He opened up the case, and we both fell instantly in love. She was built in 1925 and is quite simply...gorgeous. I would post a picture now, but I haven't taken one yet, and it's dark outside, and I need some natural light so you can see her in all her glory and catch the very essence of her deliciousness. Come back tomorrow.

So, poor girl needs a little work. There's a Singer place just a hop, skip and a jump a way. The lady working there is fabulous. She vacillates between offering us a lot of money for her, and telling us to never sell her. She fixes her, and we take her home. Sunday after church we headed over to Grandma Craig's house. She's been sewing...a while. We brought in the machine, and she looked at me and said, "Are you a fast learner?" I felt nervous. Honey, she is 96 years old and will TELL you how it is. I didn't want to disappoint her. I told her yes. Then I had to confess that I didn't have a clue what a bobbin was. I think this made her nervous, too.

Every machine is different apparently, and her Singer was from the 40's. So we sat down at the same kitchen table my father-in-law grew up eating at, and we stumbled through the instruction manual together. Yes, we still have the original instruction manual. A couple of hours later (one of which was spent figuring out how to thread the dang bobbin), we had made some practice stitches, and sewed a piece of fabric on a burp cloth. She asked me if I wanted to make another one, but I had to say no. My brain was exhausted from all that new information. It was like learning a completely different language.

I haven't been able to get back to The Singer this week. I'm still a little nervous. And feel like I have NO IDEA what I'm doing. It's like we brought home a new baby. Ryan's excitedly trying to figure out what kind of table we need to get for her- an antique Singer sewing table or something a little more modern? (He is equally in love with her.) I've been cleaning out the art studio/craft room/guest bedroom today, trying to find a place for her. And I've also been feeding my new obsession with fabric. Do you know Anna Maria Horner? No? Let me introduce you:

I want to make things that look like this.

I want that quilt that's on the wall...on my body.

How I have lived without one of these pillows for so long?

I must make one.

As soon as I learn how.

I want this quilt.

I want to be the person that MAKES this quilt.

I have never in my life wanted to make a quilt.

But that machine, and these fabrics...

they've done something to me.

Do you know Amy Butler? No? Let me introduce you:

Her fabrics are so gorgeous, they kill me.

I want to paint. And collage. And sew. And quilt. And make appliqued onesies. And take gorgeous photographs. And then edit them in Photoshop to make them even more gorgeous. I want to make baby blankets and burp cloths and dresses for Elizabeth. I didn't want to do a single thing like this before the age of 29, so I feel a little perplexed. There is this overwhelming desire to be creative. The craftiest thing I did before age 29 was scrapbook. I was a band nerd in high school, and a music major in college. This whole artsy-craftsy deal is a bit new to me. But I...um...love it.

Baby's First Haircut

Miss Damaris, El's teacher at daycare AND our "nanny" one day a week, ALSO cuts hair. She was thrilled to give El her first haircut today.

We absolutely ADORE Miss Damaris. I don't know what

we'd do without her. She and Elizabeth love each other so much.

Amendment

Ryan Craig read the last blog post and would like me to "get it right" if I'm gonna talk about him on the blog.

AHEM.

Ryan does not ALWAYS snoop in people's medicine cabinets. He does, however, ALWAYS snoop in people's refrigerators.

Sites I Stalk Daily

I put up a new section of the blog- "Sites I Stalk Daily". I've heard that you can tell a lot about a person by going through their trash. Goodness gracious, it sounds like I'm calling these sites trash, which they are so NOT. I've also heard you can tell a lot about a person by going through their medicine cabinet. AHEM, RYAN CRAIG.

*Side note: I don't do dishes. Ever. Which is a problem when you don't have a dishwasher. Which I didn't in 2003 when I started dating Ryan. He was coming over to my apartment once and I had dirty dishes EVERYWHERE. So in a frenzy I cleaned up the apartment, and put all the dirty dishes...in my shower. While he was there, he had to use the restroom. Later that night, after he left, I realized my shower curtain had been...disturbed. Yes, he had been snooping and had peeked inside my shower and had seen ALL MY DIRTY DISHES. When we have fights conversations, I tell him, "You knew I was like this when you asked me to marry you! You saw the dirty dishes in the shower!" How perfect we are for each other. He knowingly married a woman who hides dirty dishes behind a shower curtain, and I knowingly married a man who snoops around in people's bathrooms. That's love, people.

All this to say...I think you can tell a lot about a person by checking out their web history. I go to each of these sites on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Some make me laugh out loud, some inspire me, some give me great ideas, some spark creativity, some make me a better person, some make me drool.

I thought about putting up a list of all of my friends' blogs. But it is excessive because I have such ridiculously charming, creative, and witty friends. If you click on my "about me" you can see the blogs I follow. Of course, some of them will not be listed there, because SOME of my friends are not on blogspot, so I can't officially "follow" their blogs here...AHEM, ERICA REID.

Have a lovely time snooping through my trash.

Hootie

Isn't Hootie a cutie?

E-Money

5 Steps Even a Turkey Could Follow

I’ve had several requests for instructions on how to make the appliqué turkey onesie. People, it so easy. Stupid easy. The kind of easy which will make you far less impressed with me than you are right now.

Step One: Buy some fabric. And some Wonder Under. And a blank onesie.

Step Two: Wash the fabric and onesie.

Step Three: Come up with a design you like. I did a turkey, but later this week I’m gonna try an owl. I just freehand drew a little turkey. I got some cardstock and first I drew a little turkey body. Then I drew a feather. Then I cut them out.

Step Four: Follow the instructions on the package of the Wonder Under. It’s so easy. You just take your template that you cut out of the card stock and trace it onto the smooth side of the wonder under. Just keep following the instructions from there. You need an iron.

Step Five: Now, if you’re a crafty sort of gal, you might know how to sew or hand stitch or whatever you crazy kids are calling it these days. Maybe you have a sewing machine. If so, you can knock yourself right out and go ahead and stitch up those edges with a straight stitch or a zig-zag stitch. Not that I have any idea what either of those two things are.

If, however, you are like me, you can kick back and have a glass of wine. After extensive research on the matter, I have been assured that this Wonder Under stuff is truly a wonder, and you don’t actually NEED to do any stitching around your appliqué. Apparently, regardless of whether you stitch up the edges or not, there WILL be some fraying around the edges of the appliqué after several tumbles in your washer and dryer. I cannot attest to this, because I have not yet washed E’s turkey onesie. However, every single seller of appliquéd onesies on Etsy testifies that the fraying adds to the “design”, so I’m not worried. Haha!

So get to it! You can now applique a little turkey for some little turkey to wear. If you cannot be bothered to do this, but are just dying to have one, I will be happy to make you one for the bargain basement price of $15.

Look what I made tonight!

I love those little appliqued onesies you see everywhere, but I don't have a clue how to sew. I thought that meant I couldn't make one myself. But after a little research (thank you, Google), I discovered that you really don't have to finish off the applique with any stitching if you don't want. So I made my first one tonight- for Elizabeth's first Thanksgiving:

He turned out pretty cute, no?

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. I have so many great memories of trick-or-treating in our neighborhood as a child. Like when Ryan Copeland's dad scared me to death every freaking year- one year I was so scared after I got my candy, I ran full force back to the street towards my dad, only to run smack dab into a tree in the front yard. Or the year I dressed up as a medieval lady, only to have the 20??? year old guys be like, "Dude, it's Jesus" when they answered the door. All of Openwood Plantation would come out in full force for the trick-or-treating. Fast forward to 20 something years later in our little neighborhood that we love, Westbury, and I had 11 trick-or-treaters last year. I'm still bitter.

We are members of Houston's First Baptist Church. So, we decided to check out the fall festival tonight and it was FABULOUS! So much fun! I can't wait for Elizabeth to be able to run around and participate in all the fun activities they had going on. In the meantime, however, we still had a great time! We visited with our good friends who were volunteering at the "petting zoo" station, then walked around inside visiting with other friends with small babies who couldn't do anything but look cute!

Elizabeth's Halloween experiences might end up looking very different from mine, but I hope she has great memories of fun and family and friends and candy and costumes and all-around silliness!

pretty, pretty bumblebee

Happy Halloween from The Queen Bees! Bzzzzzz!!!

I made her tutu and bumblebee wings. I made a headband for her, but it didn't work out so well, so she borrowed the headband from my costume. She was kind enough to let me borrow one of her barrettes, so I guess we're even. You can also see my continued obsession with Baby Legs, aka "the best baby product ever in the history of all baby products" (I'm sensing another blog post idea here...).

Her pacifier says "Mute Button". Typically we don't take that one to church. We usually go with the one that says "God's Child" because it seems more church appropriate, but we were feeling a little feisty tonight. This was literally about 2 minutes and 43 seconds before she fell into a comatose-like sleep.

Phoebe has been a bumblebee for Halloween every year of her life,

so her costume was the inspiration for Elizabeth's.

If that face of hers doesn't make you smile,

you're dead inside.