EASTER

We had a great Easter this year. The Saturday before Easter we went to a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It was the best Easter egg hunt I've ever been to. There were literally thousands of eggs, the Easter bunny was there, they had bounce houses and face painting and snacks and the best part was that it was all FREE! Here are some pictures from that morning.


Jovi actually gave the Easter bunny a hug. Usually she talks a big game when it comes to costumed characters (I love Chuck E Cheese mommy! I'm going to give him a big hug.), but doesn't actually want to get near them when she sees them. I was pleasantly surprised and she still talks about giving him a hug almost a month later.

This was Corbin's first hunt and he really seemed to enjoy it.







I couldn't actually get any good pictures of Jovi during the hunt. She was moving so fast it was like trying to catch lightning. The first picture is of her lined up before the race with some neighborhood friends and the second is after the hunt when she had her face painted.

On Sunday the kids got small Easter baskets and we went to my family's house after church for a wonderful Easter dinner. It was a good Easter.

Yes, I still sew (occasionally)

Here are a few projects I've completed the last two months.



I did not make the aprons, but I embroidered them all on my embroidery machine and made the design myself using my embroidery software.


I made two of these outfits modifying this pattern. I highly recomend the pattern if you have a serger. Juan gave one to a coworker for an office baby shower and I gave another to a church friend having a little girl after a nine year break.


I made this set, using the same pattern as the previous outfit, for a friend who was having twin girls. My serger was having some serious problems by the end of it and I was doing all sorts of stuff to try and get it to work right. I finished the outfits, but barely, and took it into the sewing shop for a check up. I've had my serger for 3 and a half years now with no problems and never taking it in so I guess it was time. It turned out the needle plate was broken and had to be replaced. Fortunately that is not as expensive as it sounds and now my machine runs better than new.

I have lots of plans to make more clothes, this time for my kids, but it will probably have to wait till next month.

So much to say

It's been a month since I have had a chance to update my blog and so much has happened that I just don't know where to start. Do I start with the most exciting or do I post chronologically? I have about five separate posts to make. I think I will go chronologically, publishing one a day and I'll save the best post for the end. Then again, I might post them all at once. Keep checking back to find out :).

Garden Update and BIG news

Our garden has been growing a lot this past month. It has been fun to see all the seeds sprouting and we've already been able to havest some of the radishes (as you will see from the pictures). We've lost two pepper plants, a tomato plant and a summer squash seedling to frost, but everything else is growing well. I'm waiting till Apri 20th, the official no more frost day for our zone before I try and replant them.







Jovi likes to help water, but her favorite gardening activity so far is picking radishes. Our radishes are pretty hot so she doesent actually like to eat them, but she is always trying to talk me into picking more, telling me that they look big and ready to pick.




And now for our BIG news...we are moving. We are putting our house up for sale on Saturday and as soon as it sales we will be moving closer to Juan's current job. Right now his commute is about 1 to 1 1/2 hours each way and it will just get worse with construction starting on 114 this summer. We haven't picked a specific place to move to yet, but are leaning towards Coppell or Frisco. We've been spending a lot of our time getting the house ready to put up for sale and yet there still seems to be so much more to do. We should have the big things like paint touch ups, the carpet cleaned and the front yard landscaped by Saturday though. It will be exciting to see what happens in the next few months.

A few finished projects and a Jovi quirk

I know this is a month late, but better late than never right? Jovi is part of a neighborhood preschool and they had a Valentines day party where they were supposed to bring a valentine for each class member. The day before the party, Jovi was SO excited to make her valentines. Here is a picture of what we started with (perhaps I have too much crafting supplies?) and another picture of the finished valentines, one for each member of her class and she even made one for herself. They are all 100% Jovi originals (she did ask me to cut the hearts out). I thought they turned out pretty good myself. She even wrote her name on most of them, but would ask me to write the V because she didn't like how her V looked. Since then she has gotten over that and can write her whole name.



In our backyard garden, Jovi has her own 4 squares to grow flowers in. She helped plant lots of the other squares too and helps water all the plants regularly, it really is a family garden and has been lots of fun getting excited about the sprouts that are starting to come up. Here are some pictures of me and her planting her four squares of flowers.





Jovi is such a funny little girl. We have a lot of fun together. She makes me laugh all the time. One of the funniest quirks she has is that she thinks toilet paper makes everything better. Think Windex and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, well Jovi's cure all is toilet paper. I don't know why. If she hurts her foot, she wants to wrap it in toilet paper. If she has a tummy ache, she lays strips of toilet paper on her stomach. She once hurt her finger and went around with it wrapped in toilet paper all day. It is soooo funny to see the relief she gets from covering her hurts in toilet paper.

And finally, since I haven't shared any sewing in a long, long, time, mainly because I haven't done much, here is a XL receiving blanket and 3 bibs I made for Juan's physical therapist who just had her first baby.

Our Square Foot Garden

About two months ago I was on amazon.com ordering some books and after putting the ones I had originally wanted in my cart, I needed to find one more book to get free shipping. I decided to look for a gardening book because I knew we wanted to put in a garden this spring and because our previous years' attempts at gardening didn't yield many vegetables. The All New Square Foot Gardening book by Mel Bartholomew looked interesting with grow more in less space and no weeding being the points that sold me. So, I got it, I read it, I was impressed. I started looking for where to buy the specific things this gardening method requires and how much they would cost. The day before we planned to go our and buy everything, my neighbor and facebook friend posted pictures of HER very cool square foot garden. What?!?! She has a square foot garden?!?! Well, we went across the street and saw her garden and talked about where she got her stuff and she told us that two other people in our church and neighborhood were growing square foot gardens too. And then another friend told me she was planning on putting in a square foot garden too. Honestly it almost makes me believe in a collective unconscious, everyone coming up with the same idea at the same time that way. But anyway, here is our square foot garden, hopefully I'll get to take lots of garden pictures with green stuff throught the summer.

My Grandma Beth

My Grandma Beth died last Monday. She was a wonderful lady and will be missed by many people. Just a few of the things I will miss about her (in no particular order)are:

Grandma hugs. She always gave wonderful hugs that really made me feel loved.
Grandma Angel Biscuits, well, all grandma food. She was a WONDERFUL cook but her angel biscuits were my favorite.
Playing cards with her.
Playing dominoes with her, she taught me to play.
The way she loved my kids.
Watching her cook.
Spending Thanksgiving at her house.
Going shopping with her.

Some of my favorite memories are:

Going to a small farmers market with her and getting a bunch of purple hull peas. She taught me to shell them as we watched TV and then I watched her cook them for dinner.

My grandma took us to a pick your own bluberry farm when I was very young. Before that day I didn't like bluberries, but ever since I've liked them. How can you dislike a sweet little berry that you can pick and eat off a little bush as you try and collect them in your bucket? I remember having a bit of a sunburn afterwards, but feeling it was totally worth it.

I remember that almost every time we visited, grandma would end up taking us to the mall. It had a dollar store in it and she would let us pick out any one thing we wanted.

I remember playing lots of games of hearts and spades, she was excellent at both and we always wanted to be grandma's partner.

I remember this last Thanksgiving watching her hold Corbin as he slept in her arms.

Grandma, I will miss you!