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. :)