Taylor Tuesday

You’ve heard the saying ‘Sugar and spice and everything nice.  That’s what little girls are made of.’  Well, our little girl is made of all that and a little rough and tough and everything trouble.  Like her new ‘beauty mark’ on her forehead?  Taylor 0, plant pot 1. 

Forget taking Taylor to the park.  Just take her to Sears and let her play on the riding lawn mowers.  Taylor had so much fun playing on the lawn mowers while we were doing a little shopping the other day.  Hope your Tuesday was good and you have a great Wednesday!

Bridal Shower Items

About a month ago I helped throw a bridal shower for my future sister-in-law.  I had so much fun creating the invitations, favors, and my gift for her.  The wedding colors are a light turquoise and cantaloupe color so we tried to stick with her wedding colors for the shower.  I struggled to get the cantaloupe to work with the paper we found so I ditched it at the last minute and went with a very simple, but classic invitation.  Does anyone have a photo editing program that allows them to blur certain sections of the picture so you don’t have to use post-it notes?

  The paper used for the invitations is a 12x12 paper from Michaels that I layered on chocolate chip cardstock from SU.  I lucked out and found envelopes in the same blue color at Michaels.  I held onto the scraps from making the invitations in hopes that they might be handy later.  Low and behold I was able to use all the scraps from the invitations and favors to make enough thank you notes for the bride to give everyone who came to the shower.  Please excuse the awful lighting, but I took these pictures at night.  I used SU Baja Blue(retired) cardstock for the main body of the card.  The great thing about using the scraps is that every card was a little different and unique.  I also changed up where I put the sentiment to best compliment the leaves on the paper. 

I knew when I saw the puffy box tutorial in my Splitcoaststampers newsletter that I wanted to use it for the favors for Shelly’s shower.  The only problem was the idea of all the tracing for 30 favors.  Lucky for me, this lady did all the work and created a template you just print out.  I didn’t use glossy paper and opted to use just whisper white SU cardstock instead.  The boxes turned out just fine and everyone loved them.  I filled them with some of that crinkly paper and a small anti-bac from Bath & Body Works.  They are the perfect size to fit in these boxes! 

I’m really bummed bc I just realized that I never took a picture of the card I made for her.  It was a combination of the 'thank you’ card and the favors.  I LOVE how everything turned out for her shower!  Do you like the Sonic drink in the picture next to the favor basket?  I needed a little caffeine help with it came stuffing and tying the ribbon on these bad boys.

For Hire

Looking for someone to help you clean the house? 

She will (attempt to) sweep and mop. 

Payment taken in the form of Elmo DVD’s.

Stay(in Texas)cation

{sorry for posting over a month after the trip, but I started the blog and never got back to it, also warning that this is a LONG post}

Chris and I normally take some kind of vacation each summer.  Before Taylor we went to various beaches to watch our friends get married and have tried to keep taking a trip.  Being home with Taylor I enjoy being able to get away from home for a few days and not worry about all the little things around the house that need to be done.  Last year we ventured down to Corpus Christi, but the idea of Taylor + sand = BIG mess in my mind.  So we headed up I-35 to visit our friends in Dallas that we rarely get to see.  Can you imagine how excited I was to get 5 days in a row of Chris not working???  It was so nice to relax, eat, sleep, and listen to Taylor’s screaming.  Oh wait, did I forget to tell you we are venturing in the terrible twos a little early??  The trip was great except for those few times when Taylor tried to climb into the shower(while holding bunny & kitty) with me. 

Despite a few toddler tantrums, she was a great road tripper and adapted well to our changing schedule and new surroundings every couple of days.  We started the trip by going to watch Chris’ brother graduate from Texas State with his Masters!  Way to go Professor Jefe!!!  After words we celebrated with a wonderful lunch at Trattoria Lisnia.  The food was awesome and so was the wine! 

Then we jumped on the highway and headed north. Tay and I took a few cat naps and then entertained ourselves with some peek-a-boo. 

Our first stop was with Misty and JJ for a few days.  Those days were filled mostly with food, sleep, Snuggie time, movies, and an introduction to Farm Town on Facebook.  Taylor and I were also enjoying the start of our 5 straight days of Daddy not working.  Taylor thought Snuggie was the perfect compliment to Kitty.  Misty and JJ introduced us to the wonderful food of Zaguan and Taylor LOVED the chocolate croissant for dessert.  We decided that one pastry was not enough and stopped by Sprinkles to pick up some cupcakes for later.  If you have never tried them, they are a must have!  We saved ours for later since we were still full from lunch.  We tried the dark chocolate, chocolate marshmallow, strawberry, and black & white.  My favorite was the dark chocolate and chocolate marshmallow.  Well worth the calories too!

 

Continuing on our trip we made a pit stop at Nana's house for Taylor’s nap and quick visit and then headed on to Frisco for the last part of our Staycation.  Taylor took to hotel life very fast and thought she found a part time job as a bell hop.  She then discovered that she liked riding on the cart more than pushing it and decided to not be a future bell hop.  Then it was on to discover more wonderful things about a hotel room like the AC vent and how it blows your hair to make you look like a supermodel.  And how you can get Daddy to push you down the hallway on the luggage cart.

  

We spent some time with friends from college, but this Momma forgot to take any pictures.  Ooops!  I tried to take pictures when my sorority big sis came to visit, but Taylor was not in the mood.  She was in the mood later for lots of giggling and wrestling with Dada.  She’s laughing the last picture because she is tickling Chris’ feet.

Then it was time to pack up and head home.  We had lots of fun and really enjoyed our days of someone else cooking, cleaning, and making the bed.  Well, at least Momma did!  It was also nice to spend some time catching up with good friends and friends from college.  It’s still weird to sit around with friends from college while we watch our kids play(especially some of Chris’ frat brothers).  It’s also very nice that we’ve been able to stay friends with so many of them! 

Taylor Tuesday

Did you know that the stairs make a great place to lay down with ‘Mo?  I think Taylor is onto my picture taking in hopes of a great Tuesday picture and has now started to pose.  What do you think?

(just don’t look at my dirty stairs!)

Good game boys, good game

It’s officially college football season and we were finally home to partake in some traditional football watching just in time for the Texas Tech vs UT game. 

The game was in Austin this year, but decided to watch the game from the comfort of our own home. Taylor was ready to sport her new threads and cheer on her favorite team.

Taylor loved cheering along with everyone, playing with Sadie(our dog) during commercial breaks, munching on some chips and dip, and watching the boys shotgun beers each time Tech made a touchdown.

  

Too bad the beers didn’t help Tech finish with a win!  Plus we had the excitement of losing power with less than 5 minutes left in the game due to a transformer that exploded.  Both teams played great and I look forward to great games from both teams for the rest of the season.  Now back to teaching Taylor to sing the Tech fight song! 

Taylor Tuesday

I didn't realize the sign in the background when I took this picture, but had to laugh when I was looking at them this morning.  I love that Taylor will now say 'cheese' for me when I go to take pictures. 

 

Taylor Tuesday

Taylor and I spent the weekend up in Fort Worth with my Mom.  Taylor LOVES kitties and was in heaven anytime the cat was nearby. 

This picture says it perfectly how much she loved my Mom's cat.

Happy Tuesday!

Dada Hi

Chris is away taking advantage of opening weekend of dove weekend so I thought I would post something to remind him of one of the girls that misses him. The other one is the camera girl and misses him more than he knows!!!

We love you and hope you aren't giving the doves too hard of a time!

Look Mom I can sew!!!

I have a love-hate relationship with my sewing machine.  It loves to make the simplest things hard and I hate to attempt projects with it.  If you know me, then you know that I LOVE to stamp, scrapbook when I can, keep Taylor in hair bows to match her outfits, and dabble in other crafts as they come along.(I promise to attempt that rag quilt sometime this fall)  I usually attempt some kind of sewing every year around Halloween because costume shops charge you a fortune for a cheaply made outfit that I think I can recreate for much cheaper.  Then I’m normally still sewing right up until we need to wear the costumes and spent more in material and supplies than the store bought one. 

Then I kept seeing the pillowcase dresses for little girls all over blogs and Etsy.  The blogs talked about how easy it is to make them and I fell in love with a Texas Tech version on Ebay that wanted $60!!!  How hard could it be to make a dress that is basically a few straight stitches?  Maybe my sewing machine would give me a break for a little bit and just let me attempt this one.  Taylor really needs something Texas Tech to wear to the football games this fall, but I hate to spend alot on an outfit that she will grow out of in a few months.

Okay, so I talked myself into making the dress.  Found simple instructions online.  Got brave and thought I would dress it up by using two types of fabric while at the fabric store.  Bribed the sewing machine and finished up this awesome thing  in less than 1 1/2 hours.(consider that part of that time I had a little helper)

I added the black and white polka dot fabric to the bottom to give it a girly look.  This will look so cute for the upcoming Texas Tech vs UT game and then I’ll add a long sleeve white shirt as it gets colder. 

Now we’re ready for football season to start!!!

Taylor Tuesday

What do you get when you combine lots of peacocks and a very curious 16 month old????

A little girl that chases the birds all over the park and squawks back at them when they make noises! 

I wish I would’ve thought to switch to video but I was too busy chasing Tay and trying to keep her from…

almost falling in the water!