yarn wreaths

The past two years I have not decorated for fall. I did not like the house we were living in last year, and when you don't like your own house, it's hard to find motivation to decorate it. Two years ago we were in Florida; 80 degree weather and palm trees didn't allot much motivation for fall decor either. 

But now I love our house (our home, rather), the leaves are beginning to change colors and fall, and the temperatures are slowly (but surely) lowering. I pulled out my fall decor, placing some wire-y pumpkins I bought last year (clearance, baby!) on our table, dressing our television cabinet with garland, and placing an artificial pumpkin on our mantel. However, I couldn't find my wreath. Things tend to get lost in moves, so I didn't look too hard for it, figuring I would just buy another at Jo-Ann or Hobby Lobby.

A few nights ago I was on Pinterest and saw several yarn wreaths. I thought they were super cute, and made my own a couple of days ago!

I got my inspiration by this wreath, but instead of making my flowers from felt, I just used some basic cotton fabric. I used this tutorial to make the flowers (I just made the ones for the wreath larger).

What I love about this wreath (besides how pretty it is and how simple it was to put together), is that it was SUPER cheap to make! For this specific wreath, I re-purposed some yarn that was on it's way to being a hat (free), bought s styrofoam wreath from Wal-Mart for $4.50, and got 1/8 yard of three fabrics at .62 cents per color. I made my mom one too, except I bought a new skein of yarn, but even then I paid right at $10!

I also wrapped the wreath holder in burlap. I thought it looked better than shiny metal (even it it is brown).

I will definitely be making a Christmas wreath, and I wouldn't be surprised if I have one for spring, Hannah Grace's birthday, July 4th. . . the options are endless!

homemade dress love

 A couple of months ago, I wrote this post, detailing some of the projects that were in my future sewing queue. This little smock style dress was one of those projects, and I'm happy to say that I not only have one of these sweet, simple dresses sewn, but two, both in very different styles. Take a look,

Isn't that adorable? After I sewed the first dress, I knew I wanted a second, but I couldn't find the 'right' patterned fabric for what I wanted. Then I ran across the blog of the person who designed the pattern for this dress, and she suggested using one fabric for the sleeves and one fabric for the body. I loved that idea and came up with this,

These dresses are absolutely adorable on Hannah Grace. Not only are they cute and easy to sew, they can also be worn in pretty much any temperature (except, perhaps, for those awful sweltering mid-July temps). Cotton is light enough to be worn in warm weather, and once the cool air hits, I'll just pair the dresses with leggings or tights! 

15 months

In all of the visiting that has been going on, I forgot to do an update on Hannah Grace. I've actually done a really bad job of blogging about her milestones, but I am pretty good at writing them on a calendar and in her actual photo album (that I'm hoping to finish by the end of the year), so I don't feel too bad.

Hannah Grace is 15 months (almost 16 months!), weighs about 23 pounds and is about 31 inches tall. Compared to several of my friends babies her age, she's a little small, especially in height. Although, that really does not come as a surprise considering John's height (5'6'').
She has been walking for almost six months (GEEZE!) and she climbs EVERYTHING.

She still will eat pretty much anything we put in front of her, especially fresh fruit, cheese, green beans, and pasta.

She is SO observant. Maybe all babies her age are, but recently Hannah Grace has started "helping" me unload the dishwasher. While I unload plates and bowls, she will take all the utensils (one or two at a time, except for sharp knives) and put them in the utensil drawer! I still have to organize them afterwards, but I'm glad she's learning. She also knows that dirty diapers go in the diaper pail and likes to put them in there. When I'm putting her clean clothes away, she will often help me do that too (and then pull the clothes back out, so we're still working on that one).

While she jabbers non stop when she's awake, she has a very small vocabulary. She says 'dada', 'mama', 'uh oh', and her own variation of 'dog'. I tried to teach her to say 'food' earlier, and she made the 'fffff' sound. She seems to understand words better than she speaks, because when we say 'bye' or 'hi', she'll usually wave. And when I say 'bath', she goes straight to the tub and waits for me to turn the water on and put her in.

She loves shoes. This is a fairly recent development, but John and I have noticed her bringing one of us a shoe and standing there with it until we put it on her foot. One day she walked around the house half the day with just one shoe on. Silly girl.

Speaking of shoes, a size 5 fits her perfectly, but I have two size 6's for her to wear this fall/winter. Her feet grow quickly, so I prefer to just let her wear larger shoes. They have yet to mess with her ability to walk well.

She wears mostly 18 month clothing right now, but everything I'm buying for fall and winter is 24 months, with the exception of a few 2T shirts.

She now has eight teeth, enough hair for pigtales, SUPER blue eyes, and strawberry blonde hair.

She would rather be worn in the Ergo than sitting in a stroller for a prolonged amount of time.

Her bedtime is right around 8:30, and she usually sleeps until 7:15.

She likes to watch the first half hour of Sesame Street, Blues Clues, and Clifford.

She LOVES dolls and already acts like a little mommy. She kisses, pats, and carries them around the house throughout the day. It's seriously cute.

I think that's about it. She's about the greatest little thing out there.

visiting friends

Our friends Michael and Amber visited us over the weekend! They live in Middle Tennessee, so while we usually see them when we're over there, it was nice to have them in our home, where our attention wasn't divided between them and everyone else we visit when we're in town.

They arrived Friday night, and we just hung out and talked until bedtime. Saturday morning we loaded up in John's car and had breakfast Chick Fil A, where we sat outside so Hannah Grace could play. Once we finished eating, we headed to Essex, where I got a few Aveeno products (baby lotion, baby wash, and a facial moisturizer) for less than $10! We left Essex and came back to the house to drop Michael and John off, and I was able to get Hannah Grace down for a nap, so Amber and I went back out to do a little more shopping.

We went to Old Navy, and while I had considered getting myself a couple of things, I wound up a few things for Hannah Grace instead. She needs some long sleeved (preferably solid colored) shirts to wear with all those pants I made her, so I bought her two of those (one brown and one pink striped) for $5/each. I also bought her this jacket:

Isn't this adorable? And the best part is that I only paid $14! It was on sale for $20 (down from $34.50), and I had a 30% off coupon for one item. I couldn't even buy the fabric and buttons for $14 to make her a jacket (which I had considered doing), so I snagged this up! Because Hannah Grace wasn't with me, I had to debate between the 18-24 month size and a 2T. I finally decided on the 18-24 month, mostly because she can still fit into a couple of 6-12 month clothes from Old Navy. I tried it on her, and while it's a teeny bit large, that's fine because she'll be able to wear it all the way through the winter! This jacket is SO cute on her!

After Amber and I left Old Navy, we went to JoAnn, but I don't think either of us bought anything (that's a first for me, ha), and we went to Sonic to take advantage of happy hour. When we got back, Hannah Grace was STILL asleep, and we all just hung out and watched college football.

We had an early dinner at Abbay's, because John wanted to watch MTSU's game against Georgia Tech. Neither Amber or I were too interested in the game, so we (this time with Hannah Grace) went back out, this time to Target where we welcomed Fall (early) with our first Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks! With the first sip I was immediately taken back to my first couple of years of college, sitting in the old Starbucks by Stones River Mall. Remember that guys? We had some seriously great memories there.

We walked around Target for about an hour, just talking and looking at the pretty (albeit unnecessary things) Target has on its shelves. Amber bought a shirt with Mickey Mouse shirt to wear on her and Michael's nearing trip to Disney World, and I picked up some Easy Mac. Because it makes for an easy lunch for Hannah Grace, that's why.

We went to church Sunday, grabbed fried chicken (that was WAY greasy), and watched the Titans game. Sort of. I sat down at my sewing machine fully intending on quickly hemming the sleeves of Hannah Grace's shirts I bought at Old Navy, but I soon learned that something was wrong with the machine needle. It kept hitting the presser foot and consequently broke, so I replaced it. Long story short, I didn't think it was actually fixed, until I realized there was one tiny thing I wasn't doing correctly, and I eventually "fixed" it. A whole day later. Ahem.

Anyway, once again Amber and I weren't too interested in the game, Hannah Grace was asleep, and I was in desperate need of a haircut, so off we went. I basically had a bunch of it chopped off and layered. So it's short (for me), but I like it a lot. After I had my hair lopped off, we made two trips to FedEx Office (which apparently took over Kinkos) to have a pattern printed off, got back to the house, and they packed up and left! Short trip, but definitely fun.

I just realized I left out our late, Saturday night game of Mille Bornes. For those of you who like a fun non-board game, you may enjoy this one! We usually wind up playing a few games of Phase 10 when we hang out with Michael and Amber, but this was definitely a fun alternative.

Surprise!

My mom showed up at our front door, unannounced, Thursday afternoon. 

Hannah Grace and I had just returned from her 15 month check up, and she was down for a nap. I was sitting in the living room, eating Zaxby's and texting Mom, assuming she was in Murfreesboro. To make a long(ish) story short, she said she was going to Wal-Mart. A few minutes went by, and she said she would just go later. Then, 'Maybe we can go together'. At that point, I heard a knock on the door and knew she was on the other side! I was so happy to see her! 

We had a great, LONG weekend. Hannah Grace got a few new goodies, including this awesome lookout tree house. We found it at Essex at a much cheaper price, which made it that more appealing. It was super easy to assemble, and Hannah Grace loves it. I'm glad, because now she has something to play on when it's way too cold to go outside. Mom also bought me a diaper bag I've had my eye on for months. The bag retails for $64, and I found it for $15! Essex is amazing!

We also went to the mall (my first time going since we moved here almost eight months ago-- it's barely ten minutes from my house, ha!), and got a couple of winter stuff for Hannah Grace on clearance at Gymboree. We moseyed on over to Target, where Mom helped me out with my wardrobe by buying me some new jeans, an open front sweater, and a shirt to wear under it. 

Shopping isn't all we did, though! We spent quite some time completely cleaning out the garage (Hallelujah, praise Jesus!), storing stuff in the huge attic space I didn't know we had, and cleaning out my van. Between a toddler and a zillion trips back and fourth between here and Middle Tennessee, my van was a disaster. 

We also sewed! Mom made me super cute red fleece jacket, and I made two crib sheets for Hannah Grace's bed!

And we grocery shopped! And cooked! And set up a kiddie pool that may not ever get used with this cold weather coming, but hey-- we'll have it for next year! And Mom bought us a hose pipe! And she ran off a cat with a broom!

It was a great visit!