Little Miss Independent!

My daughter, who turned 2 about a month ago, wants to do everything herself these days. I'm all for her doing what she can by herself and learning to do more, but there are certain things we still have to help her with, even when she doesn't want us to. Today I was sewing in my craft room and I heard the water on in the bathroom. I asked who was in the bathroom running the water. No answer! Next I say, "Is that you Logan?". Still, no answer! "Is that you Madeline?". No answer still! So, off to the bathroom and my daughter is standing on the stool at the bathroom sink trying to get a drink of water! She thought she was funny and just giggled over and over again! She's still not quite tall enough to reach the faucet, even with the stool, so she pulls herself up onto the counter a little so she can reach the faucet. Luckily my bathroom was still dry when I checked on her!! Oh, the joys of a 2 year old!

My little boy is turning 4!!

Tomorrow, my little boy is turning 4!! I can't believe he is going to be 4 years old. I remember being pregnant with him and the day he was born like it was yesterday! As we did with our daughter a month ago, we have procrastinated on buying his birthday presents. I asked my son what he would like for his birthday earlier today. My husband and I were IMing each other, so as my son told me what he wanted I told my husband. My son said he wanted a fire truck, police car, bug vacuum and a bible. Now, what is a bug vacuum, we aren't for sure, but according to my son it is something you get bugs in! The best I can come up with is a bug catcher, but my husband doesn't know what that is and is now at Toys R Us looking for one. I know I've seen them, so hopefully he can find them. My son also mentioned he wanted an Easter cape. My husband replies, "Easter cape???" I told him I wasn't sure, but maybe I would make him a new, larger cape, like the superman cape I made him a couple years ago. We'll see how much time I have tonight (still working on finishing up an order for a friend I have to have done by Thursday). Anyway, we aren't sure were these ideas have come from, but these are all ideas he has come up with today! Got to love the creative mind of a 4 year old!! I think he is a little excited about his birthday tomorrow because after over 2 hours he is still not taking his nap and is coming up with more things he wants for his birthday. He now wants a pirate shirt and a pirate apron. I guess I better get busy sewing!!

Ouch!

Today was a fun day of working outside! The kids played for hours in the dirt (pictures will be posted as soon as my husband sends them to me....they were really dirty) while I dug up an area in front of the front porch. I'm turning this area into a garden and it needed all the weeds and grass out. I can't say all the grass is out, but it is turned under and I pulled out a lot of the big weeds. I also found lots of large rocks, some pieces of wood, an empty water bottle and various other things left by the lovely contractors who built our house and graded our lawn! I really wish I had a tiller!!! A 6+ hour job done with a shovel would have gone much faster with the tiller and I'd hope I wouldn't be nearly as sore!! I'm REALLY looking forward to my chiropractor appointment in the morning!! Besides the sore body, I got a little too much sun on my shoulders, arms and neck the last couple days. I've put aloe on it several times hoping to prevent peeling, but I'm not counting on it!! Next step is to finish digging up the garden area in front of the garage and dig up the area I want to be the garden on the other side of the front porch. Oh, and then the beds out in the front yard. Lots and lots of work left to do, but it will get done! I spent some time this weekend, with my parents visiting, talking about and looking at different trees and shrubs for my gardens and yard. I need to figure out what I'm going to buy and get them soon. Sam's has a bunch of different kinds of trees for $12.98 each, so I think we will be buying several to plant this year. Having a new house means lots of landscaping. This year I am focusing on the front yard (grass too) and then move onto the side yards and back yards if time allows late summer or fall or it could be next year! Tomorrow I need to call around to get pricing on topsoil and mulch and set that up to be delivered!

Etsy Store

I mentioned several days ago I would start adding product to my Etsy store and finally got around to it today. The goal is to get products listed each day, although it may turn out to be every couple days. I'm hoping as I keep adding product things sell and I can make some money for a MUCH needed new laptop. When I woke up this morning my main computer was sitting with a blank screen and the fan running very fast. It took at least an hour for it to cool down and boot back up. My website is in need of a MAJOR update. I work on it periodically, but it hasn't been updated for quite some time. I never feel like I've done enough to actually send an update to the website, but I'm thinking I need to do what I can to get my new products on the website and also link it to my Etsy store.

Today in my Etsy store I uploaded one of the peasant dresses I made for a craft show that didn't sell. I also added lounge pants, a baby gift set and a burp cloth. Take a look....http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5753882.

Weekend adventure!!

Last week, about this time, I came down with a cold! It knocked me out pretty quick and I still haven't fully recovered. I've had no voice for almost a week and wondering if it is going to come back!! LOL! Although I've been sick I've tried to get orders done, take care of the kids clean the house and do whatever else needs to be done daily. Over the weekend we went down to my brother's house in Louisville for his daughter's 6th birthday. It's only about 2 hours away, so a fairly easy day trip, but it knocked all of us out!! We had lots of fun, but it would have been more enjoyable if I wasn't sick!! We've been searching for a new church and have done good the last couple Sundays making it to a service, but Easter Sunday it didn't happen. I was so exhausted from our trip and felt horrible I couldn't pull myself out of bed in time to make it to church. I felt bad we didn't go, but it would not have been a fun service for me (coughing and blowing my nose, almost constantly!!) or anybody else around me!! We did, however, have a nice Easter Sunday. Once we pulled ourselves out of bed, around 10:30 (thank goodness for kids who can entertain themselves!!) we did the normal Easter things.....searching for Easter baskets the Easter bunny left and searching for Easter eggs. Then it was time to do some last minute cleaning before the in-laws arrived around 4:00. Dinner went in the over around the time they arrived and we enjoyed some Cornish hens, green beans, hot potato salad (the best potato salad made by my mother-in-law!!), rolls, yummy jello salad (also made by my mother-in-law and olives. Dinner was delicious (although my nose was clogged and I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked!!) and later we enjoyed some frozen peanut butter Oreo cookie pie (also made by my mother-in-law). I love when I get some help with the cooking and even better when I don't have to clean up. Everybody else pitched in and cleaned everything up while I sat and relaxed!! What a treat!!! Most of the weekend I didn't have to do much.....in-laws are GREAT with the kids!! Once they left Tuesday morning it was back to reality and sewing!!

What a morning!!!

As I was heading to bed last night around 1:00 a.m. (an hour later than planned, but I got caught up with sewing, as usuall!!) my husband tells me he was hoping to get up earlier enough to make a 9:00 a.m. meeting at work. My husband doesn't usually get into work until 10:00 a.m. (sometimes later), so I planned all my chiropractor appointments for 8:30 a.m. MWF. I told him my schedule last week, but he didn't listen. So, instead of getting up at 7:30 a.m. to get showered and off to my appointment I had to get up at 7:00 a.m. so I had time to get the kids ready to take with me!! I felt so bad waking the kids up before 8:00 a.m......they were both sound asleep and are both fighting colds. On top of that, my son woke up coughing a lot (to the point of almost gagging!) around 3:30 a.m. and I had to get up to take care of him and get him back to bed!! Today, I will be taking a nap!!

Busy, busy, busy!!!

It's been a few weeks since I've blogged. I've thought about it, but I've been busy. If I'm not doing something with the kids or my husband I'm sewing, cleaning or doing laundry. I should be doing one of those right now (actually should be getting dinner for the kids), but decided I would take a few minutes to blog since it has been so long. I did a couple craft/vendor shows in March. Both went ok, but the second was the best one I've done so far. I would still like to make more at the shows, but still working on finding the best things to sell. I've got lots of stuff made up and for each one I come up with new things. The first show my apron sets were my big seller. I sold out and actually lost sales because other people didn't want to place a custom order. I did, however, get one custom order for an child's apron set. I really like how it turned out and my customer loved it!!

The second show I didn't sell any apron sets, but it may be due to the set up. I didn't have as much room for my set up at the second show and all my clothes were hanging at the back of the booth and the only place I had to sit was in front of the rack. At the first show I was able to have all the clothes at the front of booth and lots of people looked through. I also bought a used a garment rack for the second show, which fell apart by the end of the show, so it went back to Walmart and I'm going to look into some racks at Meijer another vendor had at the second show, which were SO much nicer that what Walmart has available. Still need to play around with my setup!!

I now have 3 more custom orders to sew up over the next few weeks, Easter outfit for my daughter to figure out (may not get done), birthday present for my niece to figure out this week since her birthday is Saturday and then birthday presents to figure out for the end of the month/beginning of May!! I'm also going to start getting stuff posted on my Etsy site on a regular basis and hope to get some sales from that and then one of these days I'll finally get my website up to date!! Oh, and I almost forgot, still need to gather some information on more craft shows to participate in over the next few months!!

Back to work for now, but I'll be posting pictures of some of my creations over the next few weeks!