My Little Model

Last month we were at church and someone in our ward came up and asked me if I would be willing to have Jovi model for a photo shoot she was doing. I said sure. She got to model a skirt and some pants and we got to keep a couple of the photos. Jovi was so excited to be a model she couldn't seem to keep still. She kept jumping around and while she tried to listen to directions, she was really bad at holding any pose for more than a few seconds. Stephanie was really patient though and she was able to take some really great photos. Stephanie is a professional photographer and she takes awesome photos, HERE is a link to her blog. I just love the colors in her photos, they are so real and vibrant and she has a great eye. Here are my two favorite photos from the shoot.





Oh yeah, if you visit Stephanie's site she has a giveaway going on for some really cute hair accessories.

Funny story, a few days ago we were on a walk and Jovi looks up at me with this really guilty face.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, Jovi"
"Yesterday when you were putting Corbin to sleep for his nap...", she looks down and whispers really quietly, "I cut my hair."
"What?!?!", I say trying to see any difference in her hair. It looks the same it always does, super curly."
"I cut my hair mommy, I'm sorry.", she looks very sad and pitiful.
"Where did you cut your hair?" I ask still trying to see where she did this cutting.
"On the front, it kept getting in my eyes." I still can't see any difference in her hair, but I do notice that her front curls are hanging in front of her eyes.
"Jovi, you know you never cut hair."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"Next time, if hair is getting in your eyes, tell me and I'll put a clip in it."
"ok."
"Thank you for telling me though."

So what is Jovi getting for Christmas? Lots of hair clips.

I know I should have used the situation as a learning opportunity, to talk about guilt and telling me right away. There probably should have been some consequences too, but honestly I was so shocked by the whole thing I didn't think of any of that. Oh well, next time, because I'm sure there will be a next time even if it isn't with hair, I will work on the parenting thing. Jovi definitely keeps me laughing.

Pictures at JCPenney

For my mom's birthday in June she asked us to all get together and take a family photo. Well, it turned out that we couldn't all get together till right before Thanksgiving. We wanted to take the pictures outside, but the weather was not cooperating so we ended up at the JCPenney picture studio and I have to admit that I was not impressed. The kids were not in a particularly photo oriented mood and our photographer was not good at kid photos in the first place. She also kept cutting off part of our bodies and put us in front of a white background even though some of us (me) were wearing cream. Anyway, we did get a few cute photos, here are the best of the bunch.











This is my favorite picture. I'm thinking about changing my header picture to this one. What do you think, should I change it or leave the "nicer" family picture up?

Christmas Stockings

I've been meaning to make Christmas stockings for years, a lot of years, but something always seems to come up and I never get around to making them. Saturday we put up our Christmas decorations and our new stocking hooks were sitting there, empty and forlorn on our fireplace mantle. I had to fill them up. Using the free patterns I got from HERE, but not the directions. I made a stocking for everyone. None of them are perfect, but I'm really happy with how they turned out.

The easiest stocking was Jovi's, but look at how cute it turned out and Jovi loves it.


Corbin's stocking was next. There is a tree on the other side too. All the stockings are double sided.


Next was Juan's stocking. He requested I use the green fabric which he calls a "kermit pelt". I personally think it is too shaggy to be a kermit pelt, but it does make a great stocking.


Then I made my stocking. I love buttons. They took a while to sew on, but I feel it was well worth the effort. My favorite part is the flower pin on the cuff. Jovi wants me to make a few for her now.


Last, but not least I made my sister, Laura's stocking. It took me a long time to decide on the theme. I kept going back and forth between classic or space alien (she is a big scifi fan). I couldn't decide so I combined them.

Close up of the aliens


Here they all are hanging from the stocking hooks.


One Christmas project crossed off, yea!

An old friend and SNOW

Last week we got a visit from an old friend and I got to meet her son. I've known Alice since I was 3 years old and it is so cool to still be able to get together sometimes. I wish she lived closer. Her little boy actually got along fairly well with my two and we had a fun afternoon. Thanks for coming over Alice.



Two days later we woke up to SNOW, in Texas, in December. That is some crazy Texas weather for you. The kids watched thick snowflakes fall in our backyard through the windows and begged for me to let them outside. I told them that as soon as it slowed down they could go out, but by the time we got out there it was already melting. It didn't slow them down though. Jovi threw snowballs at the fence and at me. Corbin tried eating some (of course) and generally loved the messiness of it. They could only stand the cold for about 15 minutes so we went inside and had hot chocolate to warm up. It was a really fun morning.

FREE sewing/crafting patterns

I just wanted to share an opportunity to get FREE gift certificates for sewing patterns. You might have figured out by now that I am a big fan of some of the patterns on www.youcanmakethis.com . In fact, a few are some of my favorite patterns ever. They have lots of free patterns if you sign up for their newsletter, but most of the patterns cost money. During December if you go to their blog (not their storefront where you buy the patterns) they have a bunch of tutorials and if you answer a simple question showing you read/watched the tutorial you get entered for a gift certificate.



They are giving away a bunch of these, one for every tutorial they make so there are lots of chances to win. I'll be attempting to enter them all and wanted all my sewing friends to know about it and have the chance to enter too. :)

I'm still sewing...some

I have been doing the occasional sewing project, but I haven't been posting many pictures of them. I need to do several more I even have some all cut out, but my sewing room has been a mess up until a few days ago and I never seemed to get anything done. Now the room is clean and I will hopefully be able to post pictures of several projects I will be working on for the holidays. Here are the projects I've completed over the bast two months...

Pajama pants using this pattern. It is an awsome (very fast and easy) pants pattern and she just came out with one for adults too which I plan on getting to make some Christmas presents. I'm embarrased to say that I think this is one of the only things I've sewn for Corbin since he was a baby. We were blessed with a bunch of hand me downs and he's had such a nice wardrobe that there really hasn't been any need for me to make him clothes till now. They were both happy with the pajama pants and I got these cute shots.





Here are some pumpkin throw pillows I made for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I sent the Emma one to my sister at BYU to spruce up her dorm room. The Jack o lantern one has velcro on it and on the felt pieces so the kids can make it have different faces. The pieces are kept in a pocket on the back of the pillow.





Thanks for looking :).

Halloween

The State Fair

I know that this was a long time ago, but the State Fair of Texas is something I look forward to every year. I love the fried foods, the petting zoo, the cotton candy, the live infomercials, the samples, the cars, the rides, the smells (well, most of them), the shows, the arts and crafts, the kiddie farm, all of it is so much fun. This year Juan couldn't get off work so the kids and I wend with my parents and we had a great time.

The Flu

The end of October was a crazy time for our family. We got sick with the flu and now two+ weeks later we are all almost better; I still have a lingering cough. I'm really hoping that we got all of our sick days over for the rest of the year because I'm so tired of being sick and/or having sick kids it isn't even funny. I have lots of photos to share (during the times we weren't sick) though so look for a few new posts during the next few weeks.

Camping Trip

Last weekend we went camping at Joe Pool lake with some friends. Juan took off Friday and we were the first ones there. We got to scope out all the camp sites and found two that looked really nice. Of course those were taken, but we got two others that ended up being great. By the time we were checked in the Gandys were there too. We both set up our tents and got everything situated (ours is the tent on the right).


Funny thing, Jovi and the Gandy girls were all wearing the exact same shirt and our boys were both wearing orange, totally not planned, but it made for a cute picture. It was too bad Corbin refused to sit on the branch till Juan came over.



Corbin decided to relax while Juan started to build a fire.



The kids were all facinated by the fire. Later that evening we were joined by the Bastians and Hamblins. It was a fun night. We had BBQ ckicken and campfire asparagus (yummy) made by the Hamblins. I tried roasting apples in foil in the fire. The first batch burned horribly, but the second batch was pretty tasty. The next day Juan and I made breakfast for everyone. We brought WAY too much food, but everyone seemed to enjoy it :).



After breakfast we took the kids to play on old, slightly wierd playground that our campsites kind of backed into. The proportions were kind of off, the monkey bars were two stories high and the slide was super wide and had a huge drop, but the kids had fun playing.



Then we went fishing. This was part of the camping trip that Jovi had really been looking forward to. The day before we left we went to WalMart and got her a Barbie fishing pole and she couldn't wait to try it out. I got an adult fishing pole too, just for fun.





Corbin wasn't that excited about the fishing, but he really like the bait.



Soon after fishing it started to rain so I put up my camera before it could get wet. We did get to go visit an old farmstead which was really cool even if it sprinkled on us most of the time we were there. When we got back we found our tent was leaking and more rain was on the way. Even though we had planned to stay till Sunday we packed up and went home that night. Even though it ended early we had a really fun time and I hope to go camping again soon.

Jovi's Birthday Party

Jovi had her birthday party a few weekends ago. We did it at our local park and were so happy to be blessed with a beautiful day for a park party. Juan and I wanted to do a treasure hunt for the kids so we decided to do an adventure party. The kids started out decorating hats and making telescopes. Here is a picture of Jovi decorating her hat and a group picture of kids making telescopes.



Juan made an awsome treasure map and I made backpacks with water, a compass, a magnifying glass, a pencil with blank book and pencil sharpener, a whistle and a flashlight.


I got all the kids together and showed them what was in their backpack and what it could be used for when going on an adventure.


Then I passed the kids onto Juan who helped them follow their treasure maps.




Their treasure ended up being lunch. They ate and then we got out the pinata, something Jovi deparately wanted as part of her party. She picked out a Hello Kitty one and I thought it was one of those pinatas that you pulled the ribbons on the bottom instead of hitting. Unfortunately I was mistaken, the ribbons were only decoration. Everyon had a chance hitting the pinata, even Corbin tried, but that thing was strong. We ended up tearing it open and throwing the candy at the kids. They didn't seem to mind.



After that we had presents then cake and ended with the kids playing on the playground.





I think everyone had a good time, I know Jovi did. It was a really fun day!