And, they're off.......

Austin's first steps


Hannah's first day of Kindergarten

Dress for Emma's Doll

Whipped this together today using the Threads of Love pattern. I let Hannah pick out the bows. I'll mail it to Mom in time to put it on her grave for her birthday in a few weeks.

New Gown Pattern

A couple of weeks ago, this adorably little gown (along with 7 others to match) came in the mail from a lady that I have never "met" before. I emailed her a thank you, but never heard back from her.

I just love this pattern because there is no fighting with the neckline. It's a simple ribbon casing.

So, I decided to sacrifice one of the gowns. Yesterday as the kids were playing, my seamripper and I got to work. I've now traced out the pattern and written simple instructions.

If you're interested in this pattern, please email me or leave your email address in the comment section.

And another one

Just finished this set over the weekend. The striped flannel wouldn't have been my first choice, but it's the only thing I could find locally that matched the scalloped edging. My choice of fabric shops is Hobby Lobby and Walmart.....torture, pure torture!!

Next in line:

Another little set - just have the blanket and bonnet to complete

Curtains for my bathroom

A dress for Emma's doll that sits on her grave. I removed it at Christmas because it was looking so worn. I want to replace it by her birthday.

Strawberry Fig Preserves

Using figs from my grandmother's that we picked on the way back through after our beach trip a few weeks ago, we made strawberry fig preservers.

They didn't turn out just right the first go around. The did not gel up.

So, Friday night we cooked them down some more and I think WE DID IT! I tried them Saturday morning and they were yummy.

Here's the detail of what I'll do the first go around next time...

Cover 6 cups of fresh figs with 6 cups of sugar (I may use a tad less).

Place in frig over night.

Bring to a rolling boil stirring frequently so that it won't stick and burn.

In a separate pot, place your jars, flats, and rings and heat until they get nice and hot.

Cook figs until desired consistency. Judge by scooping out some of the "juice" into a bowl and place in the frig. If it sets up in a few minutes, then it's probably good.

During the last 3 or 4 mins left, add 4 small packets of strawberry jello.

Remove jars from hot bath and scoop the figs into jars. As the preserves start to cool, the lids suck down creating a tight seal.

Facing Tutorial

Instead of doing a bias binding around the neckline of my little gowns, I decided to try a facing. It was a lot easier for me and I'll keep doing this. I like it MUCH BETTER! Please forgive the photos. They aren't the best, but I hope you can get the idea.

Lay gown flat (sides are not sewn yet) with right side up.

Cut a circle out of a piece of matching fabric.

Place the circle over the opening in the neckline.

With a fabric marker, draw a circle about 1/4" beyond the neckline cutout.

Sew along the marked circle.
Cut out the neckline in the fabric that you just sewed onto the dress.

Notch so that the facing will turn easily.

Turn facing to the inside and pin in place.

Top stitch along the neckline about 1/4" in.

Overcast the raw edges of the facing.


View from the right side of gown.

Sock Knitting

Kathy posted more about the sock knitting machine here. Check it out!

Sharing the Love

I really wanted to participate in Knit-A-Little's preemie hat tree, so I decided to share the love.....since I don't have time to crochet any preemie hats myself. :-( These 20 hats are going in the mail probably tomorrow and Knit-A-Little's daughter will be taking them off to college with her to be donated to the local children's hospital. The hats are made by Dana and Emily and their names will be entered into the drawing.

Btw, if I understand correctly, you can make the hats, post a picture on your blog, and then donate them wherever you want. I just wanted to "share the love" a bit and send them to them.

On Saturday

we celebrated the 10th Anniversary of my 25th birthday. I tell ya.....it gets better each year. LOL!

We did Kathy's Blueberry Cream Cheese cake and grilled. Hannah declared the cakes as, "The best thing a kid could ever want." :-) Thanks for the recipe, Kathy. It's WONDERFUL!

Oh, the blueberries that we used were from my mom's bush that we picked up when we drove through on the way back from the beach.

Tomatoes

Our tomatoes are really coming in right now and they are beautiful, hardly any splitting. Tracy was probably right about the shade helping them during the heat of the summer. Here are a few pictures using our tomatoes....

Bruschetta


Salsa

Playing


Eating

Much Better

I did a facing (I think that's the proper name) for the little gowns instead of bias tape......MUCH BETTER. In fact, I've done a 2nd one and took pictures as I worked. I'll post a little tutorial in a few days.

Answers

A few questions have been asked of me over the last few weeks. With the craziness of life, I haven't answered them here on the blog. So...here it goes:

Pattern for the little blue gown set: It is from a hard copy that I got from a Threads of Love person. It's terribly written actually. I have kind of made up my own way of doing it. However, if any of you want it I'll be glad to mail it to you.

Sock hats: It appears that she cut the cuff off the socks and with fine crochet thread (or at least something thicker than regular thread) gathered the cut edge to make the little ball on the top of the hat.

Jellyfish Sting: I'm the one that was stung. That's how I know the windex works!

Another fun week

Navarre Beach, FL is our beach destination of choice. I've been going every summer since 1982, I think. As a child, we spent nearly the entire summer down there. In the fall of 2003, we bought a condo.....just in time for the massive destruction of hurricanes Ivan and Dennis only 9 months apart. Early October is our favorite time down there. Unfortunately, with Hannah in kindergarten this year, we may not make a trip.

Despite the seaweed and jellyfish, we had a great time. Tip for jellyfish stings: WINDEX. It works amazingly.

Anyway....here are a few fun pics of our fun week.

Our Week

Because of this....


We've been doing A LOT of this!

Last Saturday, my sister and niece were in a car wreck barely escaping a head-on collision. Thankfully, my niece suffered only minor injuries that included a bumped head, black eye, and sore hips from the seatbelt. Unfortunately, though, my sister broker her femur and bruised her lungs pretty badly. She got out of the hospital on Thursday and is recovering at my mom and dad's house.

Hannah and I drove to Alabama last Sunday to get Lizzie. She's been with us all week and we will drop her off on the way to the beach tomorrow. It's been a lot of fun, minus the few fights. :-)

Slow and Steady

That's my new motto.....Slow and Steady
I finally have a little gown set completed. Two more are in the works.
The neckline gave me fits, as usual. I have something different planned for the other 2 sets.

I will probably send this to Teresa, the NILMDTS photographer. I promised it to her months ago. I'll see if she still needs it first.

Gotta run...meltdowns abound.

Good Stuff

A "green" donation

Our family has recycled for the last several years, but in the last 6-7 months we've really tried to kick our "green" living up a notch. So when these hats arrived yesterday, I flipped my lid. Plus, they are terribly cute too!

These are from Kathy's friend, Dana. Dana rescued these from heading to the landfill. They are rejects from a sock manufacturer that were in too bad of shape to even be sold as seconds. Dana took the rejected socks home, washed them in Dreft, and turned them into darling preemie hats. Thanks, Dana & Kathy!

Happy 1st Birthday Austin!

What a truly incredible year it has been! All those long, horrible months on bedrest are a distant memory. Austin has been a wonderful addition to our family, a dream come true. One year ago today, our little miracle was born weighing 6 lbs 5 oz. He had a bit of breathing problems at first and spent the night in the NICU.

At 12 days old, he had a little "episode" that we now believe was something called Sandifer's Syndrome. He refluxed up and began to choke. With Sandifer's, baby goes stiff. After a gazillion tests, nothing was found.

He was slow to gain weight at first, but once he caught on he took off. We nicknamed him "Hubba Bubba".

Although he's not walking yet, he's into EVERYTHING. And, boy oh boy, is he FAST. He has the quirky half crawl/half monkey skoot that serves him well. Baby gates are going up and cabinet locks are being installed.

He has an adorably funny personality. He already knows how to get your attention. Daddy has been wanting to see one of his belly tantrums and started laughing at him to try to encourage it. Now, anytime Austin wants your attention he flops on his belly and kicks his legs...all the while laughing at himself.

I love you more than the world, Austin! Happy First Birthday, Bubby!

Another Harvest

Picked these Sat night. Poor yellow squash. We're not sure what's going on with them. The plant looks wonderfully healthy, but the veggies just aren't plumping up. Any ideas anyone?

Slide Show

Check out all the BEAUTIFUL things coming in for the 3rd Annual Remembering Emma Grace Donation Drive! I've put the slide at the very bottom of the page so check it from time to time.

Turnip Greens

I have so many photos to post and will try to do them a little at a time. My computer is FINALLY back up and running. It's been a mess, though, complete with a lost key code for Microsoft Office. The laptop was purchased by Jason when I went on bedrest. He had Best Buy set it up, paid them extra, of course. Once we found all of the disks in a box labelled "pots", I took the computer back to Best Buy to have them restore it and install my software. Welllll.....when I went to pick it up, they told me there was no key code in the Office CD case.


Yesterday, I finally got around to calling Microsoft who confirmed that I did indeed have a legal retail copy of Office and would issue me a new key code for $10. No problem, here's my credit card info..... silence, dead silence.... Thanks AT&T, yet another dropped call! Interesting how I didn't have this issue with my TX number, but a few months ago once I FINALLY got around to getting a GA number, dropped calls are happening left and right....although I thought I was testing out the service by keeping the TX number before committing to another 2 year contract.



So, I grab Jason's phone and call Microsoft back....and go through the whole story again to once again confirm that I have a legal retail copy and that I need to pay them $10. Yep, got that. As I start to read out the numbers, the customer service rep says that their system is down and that they cannot process credit cards at this moment. Ha! Ha! Microsoft's system is down!! But, she'll issue me one anyway....FOR FREE. How kind of them! ;-)


Long story to say....I'm back on line and ready to talk about TURNIPS. You thought I forgot, didn't you?





A couple weeks ago, we picked 2 square feet of turnips. I don't like turnips, but Jason said they were really good. I guess we'll be doing more in the fall and try to stagger the plantings. 1 square foot was enough for a batch for Jason.

I'll take the peas (not from our garden) and cornbread, though. That's a banana pepper of ours in the peas.

Thanks Sharon!!

Sharon sent this adorable doll for Hannah. Thank you so much! She LOVES it!!

New Website

I'm so excited!! Check out the new Emmazing Grace website. My friend, Kiran, designed it and her friend programmed it. It's not perfect, but "oh so close!" Steve will switch it over to wordpress when he gets a chance (he's swamped right now I think) and give it to me. I'll fix some of the text and upload some pictures...provided that I can figure it all out. Let me know what you think!!

A Glimpse (without pictures because I'm not that brave!)

Did you see the crazy lady running for her life today? She was wearing a hotpink tank top, old maternity shorts, with her (clean, but not brushed) hair in a scrunchy.

That was me! Yep, I admit it. I took the trash out and decided that I would take my chances at battling the 100 degree temps verses returning to the cool house and ALL THE DRAMA!!

Of course, I'm joking, but the thought did cross my mind. LOL! My heavens....Mr Austin has turned into a clingy screecher! It's not a scream; it's a SCREECH. He protests EVERYTHING these days.....a diaper change, a nap, the finger swoop to retrieve whatever he's put in his mouth THIS time (which happened to be a Spongebob sticker and a piece of Easter grass), the highchair, the bottle....shall I go on? I think you have the picture.

Square Foot Garden Update

Last night we picked 2 banana peppers. We have baby squash, tomatoes, and zuchini going. Two of the tomato plants aren't in the greatest shape. As it turns out, our chimney overhang shades them more than the other two. Lettuce, Basil, and Oregon didn't make either. The dogs stepped in those boxes, so I'm not sure if that's the problem or what. I replanted last night.