I can finally breathe!

These past two weeks have been super busy. I won't bore you with my agenda of every hour, but just trust me...it has been crazy! I can always tell how busy I've been when I haven't been able to call my mom and grandma. When I think, "I haven't talked to them in a while", it is time to slow down and breathe. Well, classes are over (until tomorrow!). I mean, we are starting a new block of classes, so hopefully the breathing will continue into the weekend! Today, I thought I would do some things that I want to do...so I got out all of my new sewing stuff and played all afternoon! Here are some pictures:This is a project that I started in college! I bought a book that's called "108 Ways to Transform a Tshirt"! So I started making this bag by hand sewing it! 5 years later, I finish it with my sewing machine! I am not sure if I'll ever carry it, because I don't love it...but it was all about finishing what I started! Here's the back of the bag.I love wearing these cute little hair clips! I bought my first one at Cuppies and Joe in Oklahoma City. I have been in love ever since. Recently, I found a blog that taught how to make "fabric yoyos". I jumped with excitement and made my very first hair clip! I found a cheap clip that I bought from H&M and studied it before I ripped it apart. All they did was cut a circle out of fabric, loop the clip through it and hot clue it. So I did the same to my new clip that i made!!

And...I finally finished my bib from the other day. The only thing it needed was velcro to complete it! Now it's ready to be given to my friend!

Becoming crafty!

Some of you faithful readers would know that I recently started a new hobby...CUPCAKES! I love doing this! Have you ever heard anyone say "When I do this, all of my stresses go away and I only think about this"??!! Well when I start making cupcakes, I just get in a really good mood and all my worries melt away!! Until I eat 3 cupcakes and wonder why my baby weight is not completely gone yet!! So...with all of that said...I am still going to make cupcakes, but I am starting a new hobby that does the same things minus the calories.

SEWING! My handsome husband (who took these pictures!) bought me my machine for my birthday. Here are pictures of my first project! I got the instructions off of another blog!

Here is the finish!! I was pretty proud of how it turned out!! It needs to be ironed to sit flat, but it's super cute.

My neighbor and friend has volunteered to teach me and a couple of my friends the sewing basics and work up from that! I am super excited!

I think you're right Tiffany!! I am turning into an old fashioned 19th century mom!! And that makes me excited!!!

One more month...

until Olivia is one!!! Time definitely flies when you're having fun!!Olivia at 11 months:

• She responds to simple commands like, "close the door, drink your milk, hug your baby, etc."

• She gives kisses to mommy and daddy! We'll say, "give me a kiss!" and she will open her mouth really big and head straight for our mouths. BJ turns his face so she smacks one on his cheeks!


• She will wave bye-bye to people that she knows! It's precious!


• She loves playing in the one cabinet that we don't lock in the kitchen. It has all of our tupperware. She will scoot over there and pick up a bowl, put it to her mouth, and say, "mmm!"


• She isn't walking yet or technically crawling either...but somehow she gets wherever she wants to go, whenever she wants. She does am army crawl on her belly; and when she's seated, she sort of moves like a gorilla! She happened to move herself from the kitchen, down our hallway into the bathroom where I was getting ready!


• With that being said, she discovered the hallway and that we have more than one room in our house!


• She has been using "mama" and "dada" when she is looking at us! Makes my heart melt!


• She is eating all sorts of food. We start out nursing, then baby food, and then she gets mad and wants real food! She LOVES bread and cheese. She also likes peas, rice, and pasta...and cupcakes, haha j/k! Hello carbs!


• We are starting the weaning process. We try and give her at least one sippee cup of mom's milk once a day. Depending on her mood, she decides on how that plays out!


• She is proving herself to be very smart! She is starting to recognize the difference between things such as baby food jars. When she noticed the jar was taller and more brown, she got really excited and whined for it...she LOVES lasagna, and she knew that she was about to get it! She also so a can of veggie cheetohs all across the room and pointed at them!

She loves sharing!! She tries to give anything to anyone!!

Just another picture that I loved!

Photoshoot: BJ and Olivia playing outside...it's upper 50's today! Beautiful!
She has never really ever experienced grass before. I don't think she likes it yet. Sad huh?! What I said is, "Olivia, did daddy do it?!" That's what we say when she cries!!

And then we say, "Mama will make it all better!"

Olivia's best friend Nora!
BJ finally gave in and let her play with his laptop! His is a piece of junk anyways! Someone in our class said, "Dude, I think my grandma has the computer!" and I say that my grandma's computer is better than that!!! It was quite funny to see her play on it. She pushed the screen all the way down and scooted across the whole thing!
Did I mention she loves to read?! This was on one of her 3 sick days that we had in the last week.

This was too...She looks sick, right?! This is a cute story: She is immitating everything now, so I picked up the phone and said "Hiiii!" (in a really high pitch), then say "bye bye". She learned very quickly and copies the whole thing...soooo cute!

Our baby is growing up! We have so much fun with her. She has taught us so much, especially that life does not revolve around us! Her birthday is in one month, so my next project is going to be planning her bday party! We are trying to decide how big to have the party (as we don't want her cranky/stressed), where to have the party, etc. But you know me, I love planning stuff and that will be so much fun for me! If you happen to want to send her a card, she LOVES the cards that play music when they open. I have recently gotten a couple of those cards, and they quickly become "hers!" She loves to open them, look at me with a smile when the music plays, and close it, and do it all over again!

Okay, I know that was tough to get through (yeah right). but there were too many cute picture that I had to post! Thanks for sticking with it!

New Camera!

We have been throwing the idea around about getting a new camera. We thought long and hard about it and decided to wait until we go overseas, because then we could have the newest version and of course the best! Well, our friend Jack ruined those plans! He found us a camera on Amazon that was "a great deal that we shouldn't pass up!" Thanks Jack. BJ looked at it, got excited, and we now have a new Canon Rebel T1i. Our reasoning behind getting it now was we could take better pictures of Olivia growing up and...we used my Scentsy money to purchase it. So thanks all who have bought Scentsy this past year...you are the reason for our awesome new camera!Olivia was excited about the camera too!Photoshoot!!She is great at sharing! She always offers whatever she has to anyone! She might "Psych" you out though and pull it back!Olivia waking up from a nap!She LOVES cheese! I guess she is a true Wisconsinite!Playing with daddy! I love my family and our new camera! Now we just need to learn how to take good pictures!

Happy Birthday to me!!!

What is it...I don't know!!!!
Oh yeahhhh! My very own sewing maching! I have been wanting one for a while now! I have been wanting to start making crafty things, and who knows...maybe even clothes!

We celebrated my birthday over a couple of days! As you know, we went to the bed and breakfast for our birthdays combined. Then, on my birthday (the 4th), BJ took me to PF Changs and this really cool movie theatre to see Unknown. I don't think we were able to breath the entire time...very intense! The movie theatre is really cool because instead of chairs, there are a bunch of loveseats! You might think "gross", but they are actually very clean! In this picture, we went to the mall in Racine, WI (45 minutes away). We didn't just go to the mall to go shopping...as we could have done this in Waukesha. No, we went there to eat at....CHICKFILA!!

Here are the guys (minus Sean) hanging out in the mall talking about how they are going to build our kids the playground that they are sitting on when we get to the tribe!!!

Here are the girls (minus Jinny) exhausted from shopping in Chidren's place, and listening to the guys talk about building playgrounds in the tribe! I had a great birthday. It was special that my friends came and ate Chickfila and had Dairy Queen cake with us. And it was really great to go on a date with BJ. We hadn't been to the movies in I don't know how long. Thanks Amy and Kelsey for watching Olivia! Stay tuned to see what my new projects are that I make with my new sewing machine!!!