It's ours!!

We are homeowners!! Here are some pictures that the seller took and e-mailed to us of the "SOLD" sign in front of OUR home.




I can't wait to move in!

(I promise to post about things other than the new house soon!)

Katy...here we come!!

I am about to leave to go close on our house this morning! Oh my! How exciting! I mean, you only buy your first house once! We won't actually be able to move into the house until next week (since we are doing a lease-back...which means that we will be leasing the house back to the sellers for a week until they close on another house). So I will be sure to post pictures once we are moved in. I am planning on painting the house next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with my mom. Well, paint as much as we can while watching Evelyn at the same time! Any volunteers wanting to help?!?! =) Right now the WHOLE house is yellow. Yes, yellow. Banana peel yellow. Not bad, but it is a bit overwhelming to see EVERY SINGLE wall in the house the same color!

We are planning on moving next Saturday. We rented a U-Haul and are moving ourselves, with the help of friends. (morgan-let's hope Rob doesn't get hurt again this time!!)

So, right now I am waiting for Evelyn to get up so we can leave. I will be dropping her off at my mom's house and then meeting Michael at the title company. Oh my! =)

a costume and a dress

Saturday Michael was gone most of the day helping out a friend, so after I put Evelyn down for a nap, I began working on her Halloween costume. I finished the dress part of bumblebee costume in just an hour, and all I need now is to make some wings and antenna. I think it turned out really cute. I made a basic dress pattern by tracing out one of the dresses she already owns onto a brown paper bag, did some research online on how to gather a skirt, cut fabric, sewed on some yellow felt stripes, and viola...the beginnings of a costume. It was much easier than I thought and she looks super cute in it!

Here is the bodice pattern I cut out:

I gathered the skirt by sewing a zig zag stitch over a strand of yarn and then pulling the yarn to form the gathers after I pinned it to the bodice piece:

The bodice before I sewed on the yellow stripes:

Evelyn modeling the bodice to make sure it fit ok:

The finished dress! (still needs wings and antenna to finish it off):

Being inspired by the costume and realizing how simple it is to make a dress, I ran out to Joann's on Monday to get some more fabric to make her another dress. This one is still a bit big, but will fit her in just a few weeks. What do you think?

***oops...I forgot to mention that I got the pattern for the second dress here***

6 months

Evelyn turned 6 months old last week. Where did the time go? Everyone that already has kids always tells me how they "grow up so fast" and now I truly believe them! She is getting so big! Here are the things that she is good at now:

• eating solid foods (her favorites are butternut squash, banana, and avocado)
• spitting solid foods out of her mouth and onto mommy
• completely mastered sitting up on her own
• laughing really hard
• smiling back when people smile at her
• making grunting noises
• saying "ba-ba" over and over and over
• spitting bubbles out of her mouth
• crawling (well really scooting, but she gets to where she wants to go...and fast!)
• still taking two really good naps a day
• not taking her third nap anymore (i was pretty bummed about this one)
• getting lots of compliments at the grocery store each week
• finding her toy basket and dumping it over to get all of the toys out
• "helping" mommy fold laundry
• enjoying watching videos of herself...this may be her FAVORITE activity!
• chewing on the remote control and cell phones
• and still just being darn cute!!!

product review x2

1. Yes, I use cloth diapers, but I like to have just a few disposables around the house "just in case". The other day, while at Babies R Us, I spotted these diapers on the shelf claiming to be "chlorine-free". I never knew there was even chlorine in diapers. So, being the afraid-of-chemicals-near-my-baby mom I am, I went home to do some research. Sure enough, diapers contain chlorine which "may" be harmful to baby. (look here and here). Even if this is not true, I wonder to myself, why risk it. So at my next trip to Babies R Us, I picked up a pack of Seventh Generation diapers. First of all, they are SO much better looking than the conventional brands. Really, who wants Winnie the Pooh or Elmo on your baby's butt!? Can you tell that I am not a fan of putting characters on diapers? =) These Seventh Generation Diapers are plain beige and actually look cute on Evelyn. Well, how do they absorb? AWESOME! I put one on Evelyn last night and in the morning she was pretty dry. And the diaper didn't swell up in the front like the Pampers I have tried. So, if you are planning on using disposables, either full time or just every once in a while, I would recommend these!

2. I had been wanting to try out this bread for quite a while. I had read reviews of it online and it was recommended in a book a read last summer. So last week, while at Whole Foods I picked up a loaf of Cinnamon Raisin. The bread was frozen, since it has no preservatives in it, so I had to wait a few hours before eating it when I got home. But it was worth the wait. YUMMY! This bread was delicious! I ate two slices plain and the next day put one in the toaster with a little bit of butter. Even Michael thought it was good! Check it out next time you are at Whole Foods!

my day

First thing, this morning my mom, Evelyn, and I met Michael at the "new house" to get it inspected. I didn't stay the whole time, but Michael said that everything went well. I am sure I will get the details when he gets home tonight. Seems like everything is looking good though. Our closing date is just around the corner! AHHHH! I can't believe this is actually happening!

Later, after Evelyn's nap and lunch, I went o Joann's to pick up some fabric for Evelyn's Halloween costume. I am going to attempt to make a bumblebee outfit for her. I don't have any pattern, but I have an idea in my head. If it turns out decent, I will post some pics later! While I was there I saw a really cute flower print in pinks, greens, and yellows with a coordinating circle pattern. (I would post some pics of the fabric, but I can't seem to find the camera today. darn...I guess we will have to buy a new one. =) kidding of course...although a new camera is on my wish list.) I digress. Anyway, I think I may make a cute dress for Evelyn if I can find a pattern I like.

Then, off to Target to get a birthday gift for my nephew. I called my sister-in-law on the way there to see if she had any gift ideas. Since the birthday bay was with her, she asked him what he wanted. His answer? Fruit roll-ups and candy. Easy enough! Of course I picked up a few more things for him too!!

(after typing this I realized that I really had nothing to say after all. I am considering deleting this post since I can't imagine that there are many people interested in my daily schedule. But I guess if you made it to the end of the post and are still reading, it must have kept your interest, so maybe I will post it after all!)

"Hi, My name is Evelyn and I am ADORABLE!"

Michael's Random Things

From Michael:

In the due course of time, the unthinkable has happened. Compelled by love and in direct opposition to statements made both internally to self and verbally to others, I will now compose a blog post of his own to satisfy a promise he made to his bride nearly two weeks ago now. The goal was fun and though time has eroded most of that, if the Lord wills it...Here goes.

Six random things about me:

1. I take it as a great point of pride to have won first place in the written Latin test category at the Oklahoma Junior Classical League competition in high school. I still have the trophy. Don't ask me to speak Latin because I can't. It is the closest I have ever come to some sort of sports victory.

2. In another life, I might have been a flamenco guitarist in Spain. I like playing, but have never gotten past basic chords. I still keep 2 guitars, though I doubt I'll ever have time to get really good at it. Plus, it doesn't help that flamenco is arguably the hardest style. It's the passion that moves me: the singing, the playing, the dancing, the clapping!!! I am fond of Sevillanas! Google it. It will move you! I will make it to Andalusia one day!

3. When I turned 16, my parents blessed me with a car, a Honda Prelude (standard transmission). Though a series of unfortunate events, I could not drive a stick shift when my birthday rolled around. Thus, when I turned 16, every day for a week or two, I would come home from school and practice driving around the neighborhood in my car, killing the car every time I came to a stop sign until finally I figured out how to operate the clutch. It was so embarrassing.

4. One time when I was living in Chicago for a summer, someone convinced me it would be great idea to try my hand at rollerblading. I had brought these really expensive roller blades from Tulsa where I had bought them to impress a girl I dated for a total of 2-4 weeks, depending on your reckoning. I had never learned but a friend convinced me it was easy. He took me to a rink to practice for a couple hours. I almost killed a few children by crashing into the "kiddie area," but that's another story. The next day, he decided the next logical step for such an accomplished skater was to traverse downtown Chicago on roller blades. This was the most terrifying experience of my life up to that point. I can't count how many times I fell or how many cuts and bruises I had on my body after that. I ran into several taxis and almost fell into Lake Michigan with clunky roller blades on (not safe). On the way, I ran into a Warner Brothers security guy telling me I couldn't ride across a bridge because they were filming "Batman Begins."

5. I am a roller coaster fanatic. I had posters on my wall as a kid of theme parks around the country I wanted to visit. I have a dream of making it to Cedar Point, OH. This is the mother load for roller coasters, if you didn't know. Due to my parents' choices in vacations over the years, I have a difficult time imagining a "big" vacation as anything other than a trip to an amusement park and a major league baseball game with a trip to the motel pool, of course. The motel was always half the fun, at least. I still get giddy when I walk into a hotel, even on business. It always feels like vacation.

6. Amongst all the costumes I had for Halloween over the years, one of the ones that sticks out in my mind most was when I was maybe 6 or 7 my mom made me a robot costume. It was made out of a cardboard box and aluminum foil with some flair made out of extra cardboard and a plastic lightning bolt that attached to my head that I'm sure she picked up out of the bargain bin somewhere because we didn't have much and I remember being confused even then why it went with my robot theme. But, she constructed an argument only a 6 year old would think reasonable and I had a great time.

Ok, that was indeed more fun than I expected. Love you, Karen. Spray on freshness lovers, spray on (private joke).