monthly craft challenge - monogram

To say I'm not a crafty person would be an understatement! Seriously, I can barely tie a ribbon around a present. In fact, I can barely wrap a present, which explain why the vast majority of presents I give are given in a gift bag. However, Heidi at Blue Eyed Blessing seems to be able to bring out the little bit of craftiness I possess and I'm participating in this month's challenge.

The challenge is monogram. Heidi has defined a monogram as a design composed of one or more letters, typically the initials of a name, used as an identifying mark. Hopefully what I'm entering will count. Remember, I'm a crafty newbie so don't be cruel.

A while ago, I realized that all of Melody's hairbows were just a jumbled mess, haphazardly clipped on to an old ribbon in her room. Y'all know how happy I am that we finally have enough hair to actually use a hair bow and I wanted my sparse growing collection of hair bows properly displayed. After searching Etsy (a site I have only recently discovered, by the way) for hair bow holder, I suddenly realized I could make one myself. So, off I went to Michaels. There were quite a lot of options to choose from, however, given that this is pretty much my first craft project (not counting the silly little sticker crafts I always do with my children to keep them entertained)

I decided to keep it simple and do an 'M'. After choosing my letter, I moved on to craft paint. Again I looked at all the options that lay in front of me, but my inexperience again go the best of me. I just choose pink. Here's where I got bold; yes, the ribbon I choose does in fact have a pattern on it! A little foam brush and a glue gun and I'm ready to get crafty.

Simple or not, I'm pretty happy with the result. Melody's bows are nicely displayed and I'm proud of myself for actually creating something (maybe?) worth blogging about. This is despite the fact that I did glue part of the ribbon on backwards. Thankfully it's the part that hangs and I don't think it's that noticeable.

Oh and let me just give a little shout out to whoever invented the glue gun. That, my friends, is an ingenious invention. Not only did it do an amazing job attaching the ribbon to my wooden letter, but it has proven to be durable enough to withstand the excitement of a two-year-old. My husband even used it it fix a few broken things around the house. Instead of "where's the duct tape" he's asking where the glue gun is!

I know this is small bones to many of you, but for me, making this was quite a feat! Hopefully I'm on my way to many more fun craft projects.

In fact, I was recently scouring Etsy for a ribbon board for Melody's room. Those also looked like something I might could try making myself. I even googled "ribbon memory board" and a DIY website came up with step by step instructions. However, there were a few craft supplies that I had never heard of and had no idea where to find them, so I think I might need to stick to my simple glue gun activities until I perfect my skills a bit!

Oh, and when I showed it to Melody she responded with her current catch phrase, "Oh, it's so cute!"

ww - he made a mess and he loved every minute of it!

She might be fancy...

But, if you call her Fancy Nancy...

She'll laugh and say, "Nooooo, I not Fancy Nancy! I Mel-dee-dee!"

friend makin' monday

This is my first week participating in Friend Makin' Monday over at All That is Good. Kasey has an adorable family and picked a fun topic for this week;

10 things I love about summer!

1. The heat. I know a lot of people love the AC more than the heat, but I can sit outside all day long! All I need is a gin and tonic, you know! I also love working out in the heat. Nothing feels better than coming back from a run drenched in sweat! And even if you didn't go very far, you're so hot, sweaty, and tired that you feel like you did!

2. The beach! You all know how much my family and I love the beach!!

3. The smell of sunscreen. Ahhhh, it reminds me of being at the beach!

4. All the cute clothes and fun shoes I get to wear.











5. Getting a pedicure. The shoes aren't nearly as cute if you don't have cute toes, know what I mean!?

6. Ice cream. When it's hot outside it's always OK to splurge on ice cream!

7. Time off from school. Now, it is only the beginning of summer, so I might regret writing this in a few days, but I do enjoy the flexibility we have. It's nice not to have to get up early every morning and rush to get Jack ready for school. I enjoying having my coffee on the deck while Jack and Melody fight over ride around in their Cozy Coupes and Charlie crawls around looking for dirt to eat.

8. Road trips. I wasn't crazy about our road trips when I was younger. Probably because my brothers were always bothering me (I know my mother is rolling her eyes right now!). But, I always had fun on road trips with friends in college and then with my husband. And now I even have a good time with my kids. Not long road trips with the kids...about 6 hours is my limit (which coincidentally is how long it takes me to get to my parents' house). We definitely use the DVD player but we also like car games and car dancing! And it's one of the few times that I bend the rules and let my kids eat in the car. (Yes, I'm that much of a neat freak.)

9. I love that is stays light out so much later. The summer Jack was born, Alex and I used to sit outside almost every night (for some reason, Jack was much less fussy outside), have a beer, and talk about the people we saw driving or walking by. Good times.

10. I love that we get to eat almost every meal outside. It's just nice to be outside and I also don't have to clean up my kitchen. (There's that neat freak in me again!)

Too meet some more friends at Friend Makin' Monday check out Kasey's blog!

A picnic at the park is...

The perfect excuse to show off an new outfit!


With its cute buttons

Sweet, ruffly seersucker

and matching hair bows

Not to mention the cute little girl wearing it!

How could I not show it off!?

I have actually had this outfit for over a year, patiently waiting for Melody to grow into it. I intended on dressing her in it at the beach but forgot! We had our Sunday School family picnic this afternoon and decided it the was perfect occasion to break in a new outfit! It is red, white and blue so you'll probably see it again on the 4th of July!

2 years ago today...

My bloggy friend, Heidi at Blue Eyed Blessing tagged me to play in a little game.

What were you doing 2 years ago to this very day (or at least as close as you can get)?

Well, this is kind of a no-brainer for me and you can probably guess what I was doing especially if you read my last post!

I was celebrating Jack's 3rd birthday!

We had a pool party in our backyard and it was a blast!
Sweet little Melody was 4 months.

This picture just cracks me up (haha!). Jack showed crack the entire time, not just when he was bending over. I kept hiking his bathing suit up and it just kept slipping right back down. I finally just had to take a picture.
Opening a John Deere present. Do his friends know what he likes or what!?
Blowing out the candles on some birthday cupcakes. I thought I was pretty creative putting Swedish Fish on top of cupcakes for kind of a pool theme...then I joined the blogging world and I realized how creative some people really could be! *cough* *Heidi* *cough*!
I remember what a fun party that was. Just the right number of kids and everyone got along and had a good time. Our house went under contract that same weekend, and we moved into our current house just about a month later. Jack's 3rd birthday party was the last celebration we had in that house; the first house Alex and I bought together.

It's my job to tag a few people to play along now.

I'm tagging....

Lauren @ Snellings Stories
Amy @ In the Tiger's Den
Bren @ Life In Maggie's World
Pam @ Twenty Little Piggies
Jennifer @ JustBeeKoz

Share some memories and photos of that day two years ago and tag a few more friends to keep the ball rolling!
I can't wait to see what you all were up to!
Thank, Heidi, for tagging me. It was fun to reminisce.

psf - happy birthday Jack!

My first little baby turned five today! Five.

It seems like such a large number. It's a whole hand!

It's hard to believe that five years ago our lives changed forever when we welcomed little John Marc into the world.

I thought he would never arrive, but after an impossibly long and painful a difficult labor, our little bruised, beat up guy arrived. He weighed in at 9lbs 4oz and 21 3/4 inches long (which explains that hard labor, no?) He was born at 8:42 p.m. which is exactly 5 years before this post published.

I love this picture of him. My mother-in-law took it and named it "Buddha". It's one of the few calm, zen moments in Jack's life.

(1 day old)

We brought him home and wondered what to do with him.

(4 weeks old)

Alex celebrated his first Father's Day two weeks after Jack's birth.

(2 weeks old)

And since that fabulous day in June of 2004, our little guy has brought all kinds of smiles to our faces. There are just so many things we love about this guy.(12 months old)

His adventurous spirit that's always full of energy
(2 years old)

his talkative nature
(almost 3)

is love of funny faces
(at his 3rd birthday party)

his love of all things truck and John Deere
(at his 4th birthday party)

his extreme, contagious silliness
(5 years old)

And these traits are just the tip of the iceberg on who Jack is.

Happy, happy birthday to our sweet, precious baby who's grown into such a wonderful boy. We love you more than we could have ever imagined. You make our hearts happy.


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